The Pod Race is Boring

A thread to pick apart The Phantom Menace is so fresh and topical. I look forward to your essay about why the Ewoks ruined the hardcore spirit of the original trilogy.

Though yes, The Phantom Menace IS boring.

This thread is boring. It is dull because there's no coherent sort of reason to its existence. Various other prequel threads are ignored when convenient, usually just showing up when some starts a thread to emphasize that, yes, they didn't like the prequels. Not to mention that there's essentially no new ground to cover since there's only one possibly outcome to these threads when they start.

Here's some new ground, I love the movie. Ditto to Dickson, stop flogging this dead horse and bury it already. This is alsmost as lame as all those sheepeople who said they loved it when it came out and then did a full on Bill Clinton reversal and said they hated it when it became cool to do so.

Enough. already.

Don't you hate it when the girlfriend/wife brings up ancient history for no other reason than to bitch about it? Zzzzz.

Same thing here.

Besides, it's not like there aren't about 100 other prequel threads this could have gone into.

We were discussing it in the Superman Returns thread, so it's not out of nowhere.

The podrace was boring, but at the time I thought it was the greatest. Like I said in the other thread, though, I was a whopping 12 years old when it came out.

But I still maintain that the saber duel bests any in the original trilogy, in terms of pure excitement (obviously it doesn't have any of the emotion of Empire's climax) and the double-bladed lightsaber is still pretty sweet.

It's a fun sequence. Better than anything out of the Euro-trash cyber shit Matrix.

That's your fondness of the double sabre talking.You should just stick with blasters young padawan.

No no. The podrace in the original theatrical version is great. Now the podrace on the Phantom Menace DVD (with its extra scenes, characters, and assorted chrome bullshit) is bad. He ruined the pace of a perfect sequence by padding it with cutesy aliens and exposition. Don't judge the scene by the DVD. Pop in your widescreen Phantom Menace VHS (Yea I know you have it just like I do) and watch it proper.

Exactly.

No it was serious...I just imagined myself saying it in the comic book guys voice.

The changes were jarring for me. The starting line-up is part of it yes but there was a good portion thrown into the race itself. Sure we are only talking 2-3 minutes of extra footage. But when you are talking about a ten minute sequence it can really alter the pacing a lot. It worked perfectly in the theaters. I wish to Kitty Kitaen that some editor would have the balls to tell George his additions suck though.

I almost think you shouldn't be allowed to whine if you know who the hell Mars Guo is. I sure as hell didn't, and I like this movie.

Listen, you rotton ageist, if you don't saying such silly things, I'm going to stick harpoons and tow cables through your fucking legs.

Of course I have a fondness for the double saber. That's why I said I it was pretty sweet.

The pod race sucks, but the Tusken Raider cameos were pretty cool. But it's not like it's any huge drop down in quality from the rest of the movie.

What about Teemto Pangales?

That's Mr. Rotten Ageist to you, my young virgin friend. But I'd be much closer to Jabba in size than an Imperial AT-AT.

Dickson and Zod getting on Werbal's ass for being redundant and boring. Funniest thing ever?

While I think Werbal Kint's intention was good (I was a part of the mini-discussion in the SUPERMAN RETURNS thread), ultimately this type of discussion isn't going to lead to much productivity at this point in time. The supporters and detractors of the prequel trilogy, and THE PHANTOM MENACE in particular, have had their lines drawn for years now, and that's not going to change anytime soon.

But I feel I have to add something of value here about this film. Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn is one of my fave characters in all of the Star Wars universe. He's reserved, dignified, and has enough wit and endearment to keep the film afloat when the more child-like antics pop up. When I think of the Jedi of the Old Republic, Qui-Gon's image is a respectable representation of what I thought they should be as a group of rule-bound dignitaries.

And I don't care what anyone else says: George Lucas' eye is one for the history books. THE PHANTOM MENACE is filled with some stunning images, and I don't only mean that in an SFX-kinda way. The way much of the film is framed and shot is brilliant. I could watch the film without any dialogue and still get the gist of what's going on.

How about Slide Paramita or Ebe Endocott?

Agree completely and he's the main reason I like the film. Also, Dartn Maul is pretty much the only major villain in the series that hasn't been ruined by a tragic backstory. I'm sure the TV show will take care of that at some point though.

Did you have the podracer game for N64 too? That was actually pretty good, it had some real interesting tracks.

Palpatine had a tragic backstory?

"pretty much"

Oh, thank Christ I wasn't the only one who remembered those two from the game.

And yeah, except for the crap framerate, that game was loads of fun.

The framerate is great on the Dreamcast version.

The Phantom Menace is still the best of the prequels.

Not as far as I know. I thought it was cool until I got tired of trying to make it do something.

I love that game.

The DC version also had load times out the ass.

Arcade one with the actual pod was great, though.

Holy shit I forgot about that. So awesome.

See? Episode I definitely was a good thing.

Bah, the trilogy arcade game owns any pod racing nonsense.

You speak madness.

Same goes for the overrated Trilogy game.

At Sith's very worst, it has stretches of dullness in its first half. At TPM's very worst, it makes Jesus bleed.

It's the most George Lucas-esque of the prequels. It's spirit is more similar to that of STAR WARS than the other two prequels. REVENGE OF THE SITH is still a better film, though.

Werbal gets the square.

Is that square filled with a chocolate center? If so, it's mine.

I agree with this completely. The problem with the prequels is when the actors have to recite Lucas's trite dialogue. Each line reading rings false and the movies suffer for it.

The pod racers sound like F1 race cars. It's the best thing about The Phantom Menace. The worst thing is Jar Jar, and he's in the whole movie. Sith is the best, simply because it finally gets on with the blasted story.