Registered: Nov 2011
Location: In a galaxy far far away!
Yeah, I can't deny that the scene in the feild on naboo was pretty horrible. The rommance scenes were horendes, worse than anything in any other star wars film, but there are other stuff in AOTC that I really like. I think the action's cool, Christiphor Lee does a good job, seeing Yoda fight was good, the scenes with Obi Wan &the clones is enjoyable, so these other things make me like it, so minus the cheesey romance, etc, it's really quite good, a lot better than Phantom.
^ It's actually the ONLY Star Wars movie that did not blow me away first time I saw it. And I actually did not need to see it again. Unlike the others.
I never really took much away from watching AOTC, it had few memorable flashpoints and 'moments' to really grab you. TPM had the podrace, the mystery of Maul, 3-way lightsaber fight (and the debut of the dual lightsaber).
ROTS kept me interested mainly in how they were going to handle the Anakin/DV transformation (for years I thought the Vader suit was a Sith initiation thing) and that kept me watching even though the hole in Grevious' background/story irked me throughout. The seduction to the dark side was okay, not necessarily the reasoning behind his willingness to tread the path but it was rushed, no doubt. The fights/confrontations were okay, didn't really have much variety there. What brought it down for me was the unreasonable extremes of emotion between Anakin and Obi-Wan with some dodgy dialogue going on and the comedic entry of DV into the PT left me speechless.
AOTC is very pretty, but to me this film is pretty obsolete... it spends a lot of time on things that can be told in a minute and isn't all that important to the story. The only thing that could have been interesting is the identity of Syfo Dyas but nothing was done with that. So why bring him up in the first place.
AOTC is only relevant for Anakin falling in love with Padme, but that was so horribly done that I'd prefer to ignore it. So in the end, how much is AOTC worth? Not a lot.
When ROTS came out it suddenly made AOTC lousy and it made TPM a bit better for me.
Yes the only thing AOTC should get real credit for is special effects. I believe every scene in that movie was completely digital.
ROTS did made AOTC look very lousy.
As for TPM many people who were not fans found the whole political plot of TPM boring, not realsing that the man appointed Supreme Chancellor was a Sith Lord.
Of course all the fans realised this, but I think your wider movie audience did not. Palpatine for the most part came across as quite innocent in that movie alone.
After watching ROTS all the political stuff would have made a lot more sense to them. Even the name Phantom Menace makes more sense now.
Registered: Nov 2011
Location: In a galaxy far far away!
I don't know. I thought straight away, he seemed like a bad guy. There was just something about him which had EVIL written all over him. When the Phantom menace finished however.. I did beleive he was quite inoccent, but just seemed evil.
I think TPM would have worked much better if they made it clear to the audience. Palpy playing both sides of his persona on Coruscant seems a lot more interesting to me that all this forced secrecy.
As you said, all the fans knew... Yet Lucas decided not to characterise him in the depth that he had available.
Yeah, that's the thing isn't it. We knew but to anyone coming to SW for the first time is going to think 'what a kind old man' and by the time of ROTS he goes into full evil mode 'Arghhh! WTF? Why's he turning SLJ into grilled Jedi?', then realisation ' Oh, he's the Emperor...'
(I still think Windu survived that btw, could have landed in a Bacta tank factory. Completely plausible ).
Completely agree, his performance as the Emperor in the PT was scary, especially the way he spoke when he was trying to turn Anakin and then when his true nature came out when confronted by the Jedi. It reminds me of Jean Marsh's portrayal of Queen Bavmorda in Willow; same viciousness but in her case nothing was hidden behind a facade.
Registered: Nov 2011
Location: In a galaxy far far away!
No, I'm sure most of them can tell he's evil. As I said, when I first watched TPM, I thought he seemed evil straight away. I did beleive he wasn't though at the end of TPM. I think it's a good idea for him to appear to be good at first anyway, then you get a nice suprise, big plot twist.