The road to Obi-Wan Kenobi on D+ begins!
I’ve always loved this movie. Always. The degree of that has varied or waned over time, but in recent years I’ve discovered entirely new ways to appreciate this gem. It also helps I was the perfect target audience and all the toys, video games and merchandising solidify it in my memory. Also, Qui-Gon Jinn and young Kenobi!!
First off, as the last Star Wars film shot primarily on 35mm (but the first to use digital in some scenes), it’s gorgeous. Holds up wonderfully in 4K. MANY of the effects haven’t aged a day. Some have, but wonderfully.
It tells a new, understandably divisive but important story that lays the groundwork for the trilogy with MASTERFUL world-building, incredibly directed action, consistent editing and a sense of wonder throughout. Lucas doing his thing. Podracing and Duel of the Fates, as well as Darth Maul in general are iconic. Expectations got in the way of people enjoying this. The originality is mind-blowing, and I eat it up. So let’s address the major complaints and their validity.
– I like the political intrigue.
– Jake Lloyd’s performance is endearing. End of story. Perhaps he should have been aged up a bit, and had Hayden Christensen from the start – but that’s neither here nor there. But it could’ve helped AOTC.
– Portman is incredibly wooden here. No way around that. Many of them are. Others are dynamic. It’s really inconsistent and the average to weak dialogue doesn’t help.
– The screenplay didn’t win any awards and it shouldn’t, but the dialogue is fine, straightforward if on the nose. That’s Lucas, more on that in the next film. There’s nothing egregious.
– The pacing has sloggish portions to it at times, but it’s not as glaring as I remember. There’s a fair amount of action scenes, sometimes there are just huge gaps between them. This isn’t a criticism but I can see how it’s a struggle for some.
– The biggest issue is I have is a shortage of emotional storytelling, present all throughout the OT. There’s glimpses of it, such as Qui-Gon’s warmth, Anakin’s goodbye to his mother, and of course the gut punch of Qui-Gon’s death, and his funeral. These are interspersed, which doesn’t make it absent but we don’t really know the inner feelings of most of these characters, how they feel, etc. really other than Anakin at a few points. There’s supposed to be a sense of urgency on Naboo but we are only told of the suffering, not shown it.
– There is a lot of cross cutting between 3 (actually four) major battles. The palace raid is cool, duel of the fates is a masterpiece, and I’m honestly ok with the space battle, even if I wish they’d dialed back all of the accidents and made Anakin’s skill more intentional. Still, It lightens the heaviness of what’s going on for the “fun” part. But the Gungan battle is way too slapstick and that’s where the tonal imbalance comes into full view, the effect being all of it loses focused tension. Jar Jar doing all that by accident may be humorous, but really it’s indulgent. Same with Anakin in places. Two of the four battles are really played for comic relief and it’s just a constant back and forth. For whatever reason I can forgive the intent of Anakin’s more so than Jar Jars. And it would’ve been easily fixable!
– The story is complex and was always tough for me to follow as a child, but I was never confused. You can thank Jar Jar for that, he’s the child’s viewpoint character (source on that below)
– Jar Jar is overused, and should’ve been dialed back and toned down across the board. But he’s actually funny at times, and can be endearing. Kids love him for a reason.
All in all, with obvious flaws, it’s overly hated on and such a fun SW movie.
4 out of 5 stars
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