I’m a little baffled by the level of wishes for my bodily harm since I’ve been writing these rebuttals. It crossed a line yesterday when one commenter wished someone would come to my house and punch me in the face, and then punch my eight year old son in the face for being named Anakin.
It’s amazing, really. I would, however, like to apologize for calling prequel bashers the “tea baggers” of the Star Wars fan community. It was insulting, and I will from here on out refrain from name calling. Thank you “lazypadawan” for calling me out on that.
Having said that, I’d like to say one more thing before we get into the rebuttal for Part 4. People keep telling me that these movies are terrible and devoid of entertainment, but that is really a matter of opinion. I’m not saying you guys have to like them, and to be honest, I’m writing these articles for the people like me who do enjoy them and feel really beat up on by a very loud, vocal, and uncouth minority of people who dislike the prequels with a vengeance unseen in modern cinema. What I am saying though, is that you have to admit that there are people out there who derive entertainment and enjoyment from them and that they’re not idiots. Sometimes I think people who like the Matrix are idiots, but I’m wrong. There’s just something about those movies I don’t understand and get. I think they’re terrible and stupid (well, I only ever bothered watching the first one, but since it was so bad I didn’t continue on to the rest), but I wouldn’t ever try to ruin someone else’s enjoyment of them. I guess what I’m saying is that if you guys who hate the prequels want to be taken seriously and actually debate the merits of my arguments versus Mr. Plinkett’s, you really need to tone down your rhetoric and ratchet down the hate. And as we all know, hate is the path to the dark side.
Click the links to read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of my rebuttal. To watch the original review,” target=”_blank”> click here.
And so, we move on to:
Part 4
Part Four of Red Letter Media’s attack on The Phantom Menace opens with a rehash of problems presented earlier about the invasion of Naboo. And like I said in Part 2, the invasion makes complete sense using the internal logic of the story. I’ve been told that that’s the wrong thing to do, but how can you judge a film by discarding it’s consistent internal logic? That would be like judging it for what it’s not, when instead we should look to its merits. But the invasion makes sense to the Trade Federation, whose strings are being pulled by Sidious. Like I said before, my theory of why they need the treaty signed is so that Palpatine can go to the senate, plead his sob story, and install himself as Chancellor. The plan worked out differently and he was able to have Amidala do it for him, but his intention was to have her sign a treaty by force and then have her killed, since there’s nothing more mobilizing to a body politic than dead children.
And for those who say, “You’re just making this crap up,” you need to understand that when you watch movies, all of the information doesn’t have to be spoon fed to you for there to be a subtext, or story that needs to be read between the lines. Sometimes it backfires (like Michael Mann’s Miami Vice) and sometimes it works really well, like it does here. It also works really well in hundreds of other movies by guys like Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa, PT Anderson, and on and on and on. American Graffiti is another good example of a film where the story was tenuous on the surface, but as you watch the film and examined the subtext, it really pops.
Then the reviewer has a problem with the fact that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon don’t actually know that the Trade Federation is going to attack the Naboo and subsequently take down the Gungans. From a story-telling standpoint, it would have been awful boring watching them race around on the ship to find more conclusive evidence of the pending invasion (other than the invasion army). It would be like a bad episode of Scooby Doo or something. For the sake of expediency in the story telling, we can assume that they know and move on. As far as the internal logic of the story goes, it’s reasonable for the Jedi to assume that the invasion is happening because when they left the army it was on a forced march toward cities to invade. And who knows what they discovered or overheard on the landing ships? The point is, this argument is a trap. As boring as the reviewer claims this moment in the film is, it would have been twice as boring for the Jedi to run around and collect that conclusive evidence before moving on with the story.
The next point of contention is the fact that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon have to travel to the other side of the world to reach the capital city of Naboo. “Why didn’t the droids land outside the one city or in the city to capture it?” The simple answer is that they did. It’s ridiculous to assume that of this entire planet there are only two cities. And since there are hundreds of invasion craft, it’s completely reasonable to assume that the ships Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon stowed away on were on their way to conquer other cities on the planet. They asked Jar Jar to lead them to the nearest city, which was Otoh Gunga. They asked the leaders there the quickest way to the leadership of the Naboo, which was on the other side of the planet. Again, following the internal logic of the film (which is all we should be basing our critiques on), this is a perfectly reasonable and exciting chain of events.
On the next point, I’m actually going to concede a little bit. The Trade Federation probably shouldn’t have sent 8 battle droids to guard Amidala on her way to the processing camp. They knew the Jedi were missing. They should have sent them with 8 destroyer droids, which had routed the Jedi before. But having said that, I still think processing Amidala into a camp sounds way more menacing than the reviewer. It invokes visions of the holocaust and Auschwitz to me. I’m sorry he didn’t bring enough imagination to the table to think about that. Especially since later in the film we see that message from Sio Bibble, warning them that there is a lot of suffering going on. (I would have liked to see some of that suffering, but this IS a kids movie and I think it would have been over the top.)
In the next part of the video, the reviewer seems to argue semantics about Captain Panaka’s choice of words for running the blockade, which I have to admit, made me laugh for the first time watching these. But to say this scene is garbage because of the techno-babble mechanics of the blockade and the ship is to say the exact same thing about Luke losing Artoo in A New Hope during the trench run. I mean, Artoo wasn’t exactly doing a whole lot to help Luke out there, except offer moral support and boosting his thrusters. In fact, this scene of Artoo saving the day against this blockade in Phantom Menace actually strengthens that weakness during the Battle of Yavin. But then the reviewer takes issue with the fact that the Queen, a 14 year old monarch who hasn’t seen the galaxy would deign this droid with her thanks. I mean, she spends the rest of the movie making decisions with the wide-eyed naivety of a child (going into Mos Espa with Qui-Gon, her plan to take her planet back, etc.) but this time it’s just too much to understand? This just seems awful nitpicky, more than any of the other more substantive points he’s brought up in his videos. And is it so unbelievable that as part of her cover, to keep it secret from the Jedi (and moreso the audience) that Padme is really the Queen that she would be sent to clean the droid? Not at all. Again, this seems way too nitpicky for him to waste his time with.
By this time, it really feels like he’s running out of steam on part 4.
The video wraps up with Mr. Plinkett calling Qui-Gon a drunk for heading to Mos Espa with Artoo, Jar Jar, and Padme. Since Qui-Gon and Padme are the main characters in this portion of the saga, it would have made little sense for them to stay on the ship. And like Qui-Gon says later in the film, “Nothing happens by accident.” Because Qui-Gon brought Jar Jar and Padme, they were able to get to know each other and more about each others cultures in order to bring them together in the end. And without bringing Padme, Anakin probably wouldn’t have stuck around to talk to her. And without Jar Jar, Anakin couldn’t have broken up that fight with Sebulba, and he would never have invited them to take refuge at his house and there would be no Star Wars saga. It’s like Back to the Future: if Obi-Wan went to get the part, Anakin and Padme never would have met, and that means Luke and Leia wouldn’t have existed.
And since I pay attention to the story and the internal logic of it, I am rewarded with it making sense. The force (who because of the midi-chlorians dismissed it as no longer mystical) were guiding Qui-Gon to the vergance in the force that was Anakin Skywalker. I’m alarmed at how much of what is actually in the film has been discarded from the memories of the prequel bashers, because all of the problems they seem to have with the film are fixed by simply watching it with a suspension of disbelief and a keen attention to detail.
Make sure you come back for Part 5 of the Phantom Menace review soon. Love it or hate it, it’s coming.