The pod race

I just think it went on for far too long a running time. The 'gee-whiz' factor of the visuals wore off long before the scene ended.

Loved it then, love it now. Especially the cameo by the Sand People.

I really like the pod race, but I think the choice of using the engine sounds as a soundtrack was a mistake. I think they had a neat idea that just didn't work in execution. What the Pod Race needed was a rip-roaring speed score from John Williams, and one scene with Anakin using the Force in some way to repair the Pod, and less of the announcer.

What they do have is golden, it just could have been improved on.

It sure is long, and the announcer(s) sure are unforgivably stupid, but I remember the first time I saw it in the theater, I was mesmerized. Second or third viewing, I got a kick out of quickly glancing around the audience to see everyone else mesmerized, completely silent, in rapt awe.

Does get boring after a too many viewings, like anything. But oddly, I find the even longer version on the DVD more entertaining because we get more of Anakin showing off his mechanical aptitude/piloting skill.

I'm a pod race fan (the audio is fantastic, second only to the sonic bombs from AOTC), one of my favorite parts of the movie, but I like the whole thing for the most part, and AOTC, so my opinion can't be held in very high regard.

Helix, stop reading my mind, dammnit.

Oh, sorry. I'll put the mental dampeners back on, sir.

I'm with Fett and Helix. They could have cut all the Ben Quadinaros nonsense and most of one lap and it would have been perfect.

Extra credit, though, for inspiring one of the best racing games (and the best SW game) for the N64.

The only problem I have with it is the emotionally disconnected expressions of Portman, Neeson and company whilst the race is in progress.

Aside from that (and perhaps the commentator[s]), it works okay for me.

With more scored music, and less if not no alien announcer the pod race would be perfect. The sound is awesome. I'm not crazy about the sound of Sebulba's pod though. It kind of just chugs along like a tug boat.

Story wise the scene is important because it establishes Anakin as a great pilot. which we won't see again till ep. 3. I guess he does some fancy flying in the Coruscant chase scene from AOTC, but nothing jaw dropping. Considering what OB1 told Luke about his Dad's piloting skills that's pretty important.

I actually like the additions put in for the DVD -- it's one of the few times we actually see what all this "best starpilot in the galaxy" stuff was all about as we see Anakin handling the various mishaps he encounters.

And I still say this should have been the END of the movie -- move the Qui-Gonn/Obi-Wan/Maul duel to Tatooine and have it happen at the same time as the pod race, so you have Anakin racing for his freedom while the Jedi fight to keep the Sith from taking him. Would have given it much more purpose and been loads better than the "wing and prayer" ending we have now.

One of my all time favorite racing games, I don't think it was very well liked by the masses though. One of the bowling alleys in town has the sit down arcade version that you control like one would assume a real pod race car thingy would control.

Call me jaded, but no, I found it boring. Stuff flying around at great speed is old news.

Yeah, that cabinet was awesome. I tried to recreate that using the "two N64 controllers" control scheme but it wasn't quite the same.

Yup, that racing game was pretty sweet, but I had to upgrade my N64 copy to the much smoother Dreamcast version. I enjoyed that game more than I should have. The PS2 sequel was pretty tight too, but it didn't work the same magic on me that the original version did. I still play both from time to time.

As far as the movie podrace, I really dig it, and I love the Sebulba pod and it's sounds, but to each his own. Never really even noticed the lack of music until it kind of kicks in at the end.

Oh yeah... the announcer can burn... that would be nice.

I don't understand why Anakin had to race for his freedom anyway. If slavery's illegal, why didn't Qui-Gon just arrest or kill Watto? Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice, not gamblers.

I love the pod race, but for me the only really great Star Wars moments are the action sequences. They always work really well.

The N64 game blew. you could win each race in one try because the competition were so awful and always half a lap behind - yet one crash near the end and sebulba overtakes you...
Looked pretty though, for the time.

And i too really like all the extended and deleted stuff.

Now i guess the narrative and thematic points of the race were to show that anakin was a great pilot and had a strong, perhaps unique, affinity for the force, but this didn't really come over all that clearly in the film.

the real way to enjoy the race is by thinking of star wars as a bizarre hyper-wacky take on all those old movie and serial staples. this is a chariot race taken to wacky sci-fantasy levels - just as lightsabers are just swords but all sci-fi'd up and Yoda's fight in AOTC with him squaring off against dooku, whipping his cloak back, is like those old gunfighter or samurai duels but heightened to an almost hallucinatory level.

Unfortunately, Lucas also wants his films, especially the prequels, to have all that mythical underpinnings and to be taken seriously. He wants his cake and to eat it.
'this bit's serious, oh but this bit is just a bit of fun, no i'm serious again, nope i just put this bit in because i like cars. Oh, serious again!'
maybe the OT captured that balance well. the prequels do not, leaving the fanboys to flounder around trying to work out how to watch them, and everyone else to just dsmiss them as bullshit.

the pod race, if we are to take the prequels seriously, is dull and pointless.

you don't mess with a well placed skin bomb.

It's a fun scene. I really like looking at the design of the pods and their various racers.

What I hate the most are the phony reactions by Padme and crew. The race stuff is pretty fun.

I don't understand why Anakin had to race for his freedom anyway. If slavery's illegal, why didn't Qui-Gon just arrest or kill Watto? Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice, not gamblers.

Slavery was not illegal on Tatooine, and they were trying to stay unnoticed by the Hutts.

Don't they blow the slaves up or something if they're taken off the planet? Some sensor thing in their bodies?

Also, does everyone already know that the voice of the announcer was Greg Proops? Because if you didn't hate the announcer already, the fact that Greg Proops was in a Star Wars movie should make you hate him now.

Bottom line: There wasn't a second I felt Anakin wouldn't win, and Lucas didn't throw anything at the race to make me feel different. Granted, he's got the thingabob that's falling off the hoobajuba, but compared to the end chase in Toy Story 2 - where the conclusion is inevitable, but Pixar keeps throwing stuff at the main characters to complicate their victory- it stinks. Or even compared to the basketball sequence in Escape from LA, which is absurd enough that it's amusing. Anakin enters the race. He's behind, then he pulls ahead and wins. The end.

I've always enjoyed the pod scene.

My only complaint was that I wish instead of using that magnetic tool to pull the disconnected tube thingy back towards him, he had instead reached out to it and used the force to pull it back in...whether he was expecting it to happen or not...it still would have been a cool little moment.

Pardon my bluntness but: if you're demanding logical behavior in Space Opera (Star Wars or not) you need your head examining.

It's big dumb fun, and it should be viewed as such.

I was watching this scene just the other night. I think it's a cool little set piece. Lots of different aliens and machinery, the sand people are cool and so is the actual track.

Technically it's well executed, it just lacks purpose to the actual story. Sebulba is introduced to be a temporary villian and then dissappears again.

It's also predictable. We know Anakin needs to win the race to get the ship parts. We race for a bit and then he does. It would have been better if something happened and Qui-Gon needed to be involved, or as someone else mentioned, the sith got involved.

Proops made the pod race. Period.

r even compared to the basketball sequence in Escape from LA, which is absurd enough that it's amusing.

I liked that sequence in Escape From L.A., and the whole movie actually. You see, it's making fun of those kind of sequences.

Point taken; I shall hide under the stairs until the bombs stop falling.

<grin>

Ben, exactly

Then they should have put them in a different film.

Why? It seemed to me that the whole movie was a satire.

A film should have its own internal logic. If Anakin is a slave in a galaxy where slavery's illegal, and Jedi are basically galactic police officers, they should split Watto from neck to nuts with their lightsabers. Who's going to blow Anakin and his mother up if their owner's dead? Besides, if Anakin can build fucking C3PO, I think he could more than likely put together a device that'll track down an explosive embedded in his skin.

My favourite part of the whole thing, I like action scenes with no music until something climatic is about to happen and then the music kicks in leading to the resolution. Good stuff.

He built Threepio from spare parts. That doesn't qualify him for keyhole surgery.

Plus... Tatooine isn't in Republic jurisdiction. You're asking a Jedi to murder someone. That isn't what they do.

<fx: Shakes head and walks away>

Look, if the Jedi had managed to smuggle Anakin off the planet without having to resort to the Podrace, we never would've been subjected to that creature farting in Jar Jar's face. I think we can all agree the film would've been better as a result.

It's obviously either no longer inside him or deactivated since he was freed.

I'm nuts for not thinking the pod race is exciting. I told you why. What's fantastic? That it's a well realized CGI fest? At no point does the sequence become visceral, which is what all great chase scenes do. From a storytelling standpoint that Anakin will win is both a nobrainer in terms of the film itself, and in terms of the franchse, so there needs to be a suspension of the obvious. How much more exciting would it have been had Anakin lost, and then they had to dig their way out? For the sequence to be exciting, Lucas needed to screw the bolts into the race, malke it a bit nastier, throw more stuff at the kid, more obstacles. As it is there's one, that somone knocked one of his parts loose. Not good enough.

I can also say I'm not a nascar fan, so there's that.

I think the Pod Race would have been better if the build up had not been so obviously lifted whole from the Chariot Race in "Ben Hur". All it did was invite invidious comparasions..which I say I have to agree with.
Sorry, but the Chariot Race in Ben Hur is so much better.

So you're not going to take my points on? Fair enough. I do enjoy LA more as whole than TPM, and the Basketbal sequence also has the benefit of being shorter. Both are equally pointless, but at least with the LA version it's quick and intentionally ridiculous.

The pod race from TPM exemplifies exactly what sucks about Lucas' direction. The action is well shot and edited, in a stylistically classic kinda way. Everything else (character, dramatic tension that exists outside of the action, plot, acting) sucks, and drags the sequence down a fair amount.

I think the DVD edit of the Podrace is better than the Theatrical. It actually addresses the visceral complaint that Andre's bringing up, as most of the complications thrown at Anakin, a-la Toy Story 2, are thrown at him in that restored 2nd lap on the DVD. there's some problems with it, but overall, I find it a pretty satisfying bit of filmed entertainment.

I also believe that the reason they chopped out the 2nd lap in the first place was because it does end up playing like it's own self contained mini movie. The Pod Race doesn't work as well in the movie as it does it's own set piece.

The idea that Escape from LA is a satiric comment on action movies is very new to me though. I very seriously doubt that was Carpenter's intention, however, especially looking at his output just previous, and his output following that movie. Unless every other crappy action movie he's made since was ALSO a satiric comment on action movies.