How much hype was there for The Phantom Menace and what was the aftermath following release?
How much hype was there for The Phantom Menace and what was the aftermath following release?
How much hype was there for The Phantom Menace and what was the aftermath following release?
Biggest hype ever maybe? I saw the first showing and afterwards there were multiple groups of people aggressively arguing about jar jar binx. I stayed and watched the argument in the parking lot.
Pretty much these two. Phantom Menace was in the media constantly since it was the first new Star Wars movie in over a decade. It was always in commercials, magazines, early internet articles, AOL even made a chatroom dedicated to it.
this would have been so fricking funny, there weren't very many good forums online (they existed but were so slow) and you had to be at your computer to use them so it had to be full-on grown men getting out of the house to scream "JAR-JAR IS A FRICKING Black person" at each other in real life. we need to go back.
You sound like you were in diapers at the most around that time.
It was the movie event of the decade. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing aggressive marketing for it. Toy stores had lines out the front for merch runs.
And then the movie came out. Kids loved it, because kids love anything with high action and big explosions, but everyone else started asking what went wrong. Jarjar was bad. The Gungans were bad. Anakin was bad. Natalie Portman was bad. They kill off one of two good actors in the first movie. They kill off one of the greatest and most hyped-up villains in the first movie. I remember distinctly hearing someone say "at least the music was good" on the way out. The movie was a disaster. We look back on it fondly now, but it's mainly nostalgia and a desire to find good in what was universally panned 30 years ago.
Qui-Gon was the perfect master for Anakin. In the movie, you see how fatherly he is towards him which is exactly what the 9 year old Anakin needed, a proper father figure. Him dying was the point because had he lived, Anakin would’ve never turned to the dark side. It adds to the tragedy.
>We look back on it fondly now
I don’t, I have said the same of the music though, and I don’t blame anyone involved other than George on how shit it is. The actors didn’t stand a chance with his writing and directing. It would be like expecting a surgeon to perform heart surgery with one arm tied behind their back, and someone else cupping their hands over the surgeons eyes as they sing loudly to further distract the doctor.
>I remember distinctly hearing someone say "at least the music was good"
The main thing i remember hearing from people was "at least the pod race was good" but other than that you're pretty spot on
>"at least the music was good"
why do they always do this cope
It was honestly bigger than TFA hype. The amount of tie ins for this movie were all over the place. Pretty much everyone knew it was a steaming pile of shit a week after its release other than kids who laughed at Jar Jar or the poop jokes
>It was honestly bigger than TFA hype.
It really kind of was, wasn't it? While I was more personally hyped to see Han, Luke & Leia again, they were mostly absent from a majority of the marketing, and they didn't even get toys until like the 3rd or 4th wave, oddly enough.
Huge. I was there to witness it. There were dipshits lining up around the block weeks in advance. Merchandise was at a fever pitch. Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC (which are all Yum Brands restaurants) had a collectible game, and to win you had to have game pieces from all three of the restaurants. Then everyone went to see the movie and walked out quietly, looking at each other, nervously saying, "W-wow. T-that was greaaaaat, guuuuuuys..."
Fans fricking hated it. Maybe not as much as they hated Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, but they hated it. That's where the "George Lucas raped my childhood" references started appearing. South Park did an episode making fun of Jar Jar a few weeks after it premiered. Kids enjoyed it though, but reactions were NOT positive at the time except to the pod race and the Jedi battle.
Fans hated it because they couldn’t understand that the kid’s movie appealed to kids. That and it wasn’t exactly like the OT. Fanboys tend to hate things that are different from what they’re familiar with, whether or not the actual thing is good or bad.
>kids movie appealed to kids
The original SW appealed more to kids since they could actually understand the fricking plot and dialogue.
The PT’s meant to evoke the melodramatic style of old school Hollywood. Too many fans lacked media literacy and didn’t understand what Lucas is doing. For those who are familiar with telenovelas and anime, they should be able to understand it better since those also tend to have a melodramatic style to them.
>it was actually genius you just had to be a brown moron to understand it
ok.
White people watch anime too, dude.
>old school Hollywood
>Brown people
Pick one, homosexual.
>media literacy
Which youtuber did you watch to get your opinion from?
I never thought of the original Star Wars as a kids movie as such, though. It was a special effects showcase that happened to appeal to kids and adults. That was the thing about Phantom Menace, the special effects being showcased still hold up.
Look at pictures of the lines outside the theaters for SW in 1977 and almost everyone is an adult.
>Fans hated it because they couldn’t understand that the kid’s movie appealed to kids.
Oh boy, another moron take. We had SO much history before 1999 of children's films also appealing to adults as well. Poor writing is poor writing, such as the Jedi can run SUPER FAST to escape the gas but suddenly disappears when the script calls for separating them during the Darth Maul Duel. Plot contrivances suck regardless of who a movie is "made" for you dumb windowlicker.
the problem with continuing something with an established fanbase is that kidding it down doesn't appeal to the people who liked it. TPM choosing to continue the more child-friendly tone that Jedi set didn't really work because its trying to establish a more complex moral plot, with heavy political themes so it doesn't hit as well for introducing a new generation, and those themes could have worked sans the kiddie town to the massive amount of established fans.
its kind of like batman finding more success as it becomes more adult, because it manages to age with fans (to some extent)
Not saying star wars needs to be more dark and brooding, but it fell on the wrong side of the fence for childishness.
Phantom Menace was more light-hearted than the rest of the PT by design. It’s supposed to signify happier times before shit hits the fan.
just because something is by design doesn't mean its going to resonate. you still had a war break out with a clown character doing a bunch of silly things taking away the drama from the whole ordeal, and tense moments being undercut with silliness
Because comic relief. These movies are for kids too.
>A kid's movie
Oh, boy - this take again!
Yes, the PT is definitely meant for kids - hence all the politics, boring speeches, awkward romance, and the main character committing a massacre after finding his mother gang-raped to death by Space Arabs.
EVERYTHING kids love!!!
Kid me kept wondering why the good guys didn't go back to free all the slaves on the backwards planet once they knew it was happening there. Or at least go back to save the kid's mom. One of them was a damn princess of an interplanetary kingdom, she could have sold one of her trinkets and just bought the mom if she didn't want to bother with the political side of outlawing it or staging a slave rebellion.
I recalls fans tolerating it but still claiming the OT was better. There was no outright hatred and disappointment until AOTC. That one people really hated and had no problem voicing how much they hated it.
Raaaawwr
>little anakin literally sees someone fricking die
>goes on without a care
He lived in a lawless hellhole. That shit’s normal for him.
I don't remember it getting panned at all from my experience. Jar Jar Binx was insanely divisive. Jar Jar Binx got panned. Natalie Portman's performance was very off putting but there was the context if her being an android or whatever. And there was a context to Jar Jar Binx too. I remember it being received very fondly and the Hine video releases were huge. Both vhs and then about a year or two later dvd. I'd say it was maybe the very last huge vhs release ever.
I was born in 1990, when the Phantom Menace came out I hadn't seen any star wars movie yet, it wasn't really on my radar. I think revenge of the sith was the first one i saw (2005), not in theaters though
Why even make a post like this that is so completely useless in every way
>Why even make a post like this that is so completely useless in every way
You don't appreciate the posters who chime in to inform you that they don't have any information to add?
I actually have no strong thoughts or opinions on it so I have nothing to say. Thank you
Is that you
I remember people downloading the extremely low resolution movie trailer in Quicktime format for like 6 hours over dialup. Then people made Pulp Fiction mashups with Samuel L. Jackson's character Jules and Mace Windu.
it was the most hyped movie every made
huge hype. Star Wars was back after 15+ years, George Lucas was in total control and everyone thought it was going to be great. People paid tickets for Wing Commander because it had the Phantom Menace trailer then would walk out before the movie. Phantom Menace came out and for a couple of weeks people were still excited. It really wasn't until that initial excitement waned that people realized the movie sucked.
Explain why it sucked.
The long awaited return of Star Wars, revealing the story of Anakin Skywalker, starring Liam Neeson and a fricking badass looking dude with not one but two lightsabers. You get an annoying kid saving the day, an overlong gokart race, and Poochie the Gungan. TPM is better with repeat views but I can imagine an OT fan being disappointed that he got more Ewoks than Empire Strikes Back
It’s a fine movie when you tone down Jar Jar’s antics and bring up the pacing a bit. This fanedit does exactly that.
https://ifdb.fanedit.org/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-by-catferoze/
>A lighter edit of The Phantom Menace than most, removing only the worst of Jar Jar's antics and Ani's acting and trimming the podrace a bit.
I don't need a fan edit to enjoy the prequels because I don't have an emotional attachment to the OT, but I can understand OT fans in 1999 leaving the theater confused and underwhelmed, it's not really clear what TPM is setting up for the rest of the trilogy until you see all of them
>Explain why it sucked.
terrible plot, terrible characters
You gonna expand on that?
The hype at the time made it impossible to judge the film with any balance. I didn't fully appreciate how confused the pacing was, and how moronic some of the characters were, until Episode III, when he finally showed why he made the prequels in the first place.
>t. opening night watcher
Idiots don't realize the hype was only there bc George added some awful CGI to the original trilogy and rereleased them several years before the prequel trilogy, creating a new generation of "super fans" who were told what to fill the empty void inside with even though they weren't even born yet when the original trilogy came out. These lemmings built up the massive astroturfed hype that allowed ppl to pretend the prequel trilogy wasn't some massive cowpie long enough to fleece everyone with cross promotional advertising. Your all lemmings and I hate you.
>Idiots don't realize
Another blathering moron post. I miss when this board had a collective IQ above room temperature. Go back.
Seethe more, babies, you know it's you I was talking about
it's not making you any whiter, poopjeesh
>Your all lemmings
Ah yes - another High IQ megagenius who doesn't understand the rudiments of language.
hilarious when shitskin indians pretend to be people
It was hyped a lot, but the prequels released alongside other huge movies. I imagine the OT was a much bigger phenomenon because there was nothing else like it
>and what was the aftermath following release?
MASSIVE clearance sales on unwanted SW merchandise. People can argue and b***h and gnash their teeth and claim TPM was so beloved and accepted, but it wasn't, and, while it was over-produced to begin with, after the film came out the sales took a massive nose dive meaning people were no longer buying.
People of all ages enjoy the OT, it works on so many levels. The PT has higher regard with the people who were children at the time and see it through nostalgia goggles. The OT was a phenomena in it's own time as well as today. The 10th Anniversary of TPM was celebrated with a special line of new figures that no retailer wanted so Wal Mart took it, it bombed so hard it almost killed SW at retail and it killed the "vintage" packaged line for a few years
So many mouth breathing morons want to argue about their feelings and opinions, but where the money gets spent speaks VOLUMES about true acceptance.
The merch sold like hot cakes, dude. Why are you being disingenuous?
>Why are you being disingenuous?
Why are you? Are you denying the massive clearance sales? It sold "like hot cakes" BEFORE the premiere, and went to clearance after everyone saw the fricking film. How did you fail this bad at reading comprehension?
>where the money gets spent speaks VOLUMES about true acceptance
It made more than any single OT movie
you don't really treat these trilogies as one movie though. and the monetary gain doesn't end with the box office for a franchise. home releases, re-releases, and all of that has to factor in, as well as licensing and games, and of course merchandising. i don't think its possible to really quantify, but the follow ups for the PT are the lowest performing, and that has something to do with TPM
I'm talking about the merchandising you brain dead zoomer. And adjusting for inflation, the OT wins. God damn you're moronic.
Lol so you're a wannabe accountant
got it
Is there an actual resource for merchandise sales? All I can find is the guinness record which we know star wars already holds
>so you're a wannabe accountant
also
>HALP I need sources for muh bullshit!
Holy fricking kek! You're way out of your league here son.
You cited nothing in your first response to OP yet you're crying when someone controverts what you're arguing?
Your entire point relies on merchandise sales rather than whether the movies were actually good or not
>checked
I cited my own witness testimony because I was there and I've been following the scene for decades, and didn't ask for backup like that homosexual did. It's a shame you argumentative shits are so dimwitted. There was an old Q&A with Hasbro where they stated OT outsells PT by a huge margin on GalacticHunter, you can go search for it, I'm not going to hold your fricking baby hand.
>I'm telling the truth just believe me
LMFAOOOOO
you're in way over your head, little kid
>Is there an actual resource for merchandise sales?
i doubt it. i don't think anyone cared as to which movies toys came from, its just under a starwars umbrella
The hype was comparable to MJ releasing a new album or Rockstar coming out with a new Grand Theft Auto which only happened every 5 or 6 years
It wasn't even the biggest movie launch, The Exorcist was bigger than the Prequels
I remember eating cereal with Star Wars themes.
Getting magazines that talked about star wars.
I would read them over and over and look at the few pics all the time...
Good times lads...
I'm 45 so I don't think most of these homosexuals remember it but the original batman was hyped years before it was released. The were selling t-shirts and every magazine had random blurbs about I jack Nicholson being the joker. This was like 2 years before it came out. Idk if it was because it was the first movie marketed that way but the hype for an unknown batman movie felt way bigger then pre established star wars.
What's your fricking point you thread-derailing dipshit? No, the hype for TPM was much larger than 1989 Batmania. I was there for both. Batmania was huge, but TPM was another level
from what I remember Batman 89 was a much bigger event than TPM. Billboards and tshirts with just but the Batman logo and nothing else, bookstores and magazine stands selling Batman comics in front of the store, Bob Kane all over TV taking all the credit for creating the character, etc. TPM was huge but not on that level
>How much hype was there for The Phantom Menace
Too fricking much.
>and what was the aftermath following release?
A small handful of early people bold enough to say it was shit; for most people it was 6 months of confusion and soul-bargaining before they agreed it was shit. Small children and those with the minds of small children loved the hell out of it.
Nothing but lies in this thread - Everyone swore black and blue that this was a masterpiece for about a decade after it came out.
Remember when Last Jedi came out and everyone raved about it?
It was like that, but much more so
Look at Ebert's review.
He describes it as a "visionary breakthrough" - if anything he liked it less than many other critics.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-1999
...Everyone pretending that people were disappointed is the single most amazing example of collective history rewriting I've personally witnessed.
>Everyone swore black and blue that this was a masterpiece for about a decade after it came out.
You're the fricking liar. The old newsgroups are archived, you can go look for yourself. It was noted at the time for being a piece of shit, and it remains a piece of shit. Roger fricking Ebert did NOT speak on behalf of all fandom you cherry-picking homosexual.
Kindly link me to these imaginary 1999 forums where everyone hated The Phantom Menace on opening night.
homosexual
>Kindly link me
Not your personal army, homosexual. You're so goddamn lazy.
Pretty fricking overwhelmingly positive for the first few months
https://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/3624
You're citing Harry Fricking Knowles, a certified moron, and people commenting on his early review before they themselves saw it? Holy. Fricking. moron.
>Everyone thought it was a piece of shit
NARRATOR: They did not.
Go watch the documentary on the TPM dvd/blu ray where you see how deflated the audience is at the end. The one where George admits he went "too far" in some parts. Try that instead of cherry picking and using highly edited newscasts that don't air the disappointed fans. You fricking brain dead NPC.
No amount of Plinkettposting is going to make it a reality. Movie was divisive. Anyone saying it was loved or hated either way is either in denial or wasn't conscious for the release. I'm leaning toward the latter for you.
>Plinkettposting
Ohhhhh, I see, you're really moronic. Thanks for confirming. We're done here.
I accept your concession. LARPing isn't a substitute for living through a given time.
>I accept your concession.
I thought that was you! You're that fricking troll who goes around so many fricking threads, picking fights, acting like the moron you are, then "hurrr I accept your concession". What's your fricking problem anyway? Are you bedbound and disabled and unable to get any normal human contact, that's why you troll incessantly? Fricking top kek. You're lower than any creature ever shown on The Jerry Springer Show. What a homosexual! hahaha!
Why does no one look like this homosexual anymore?
Visors and bleached hair fell out of style, the latter especially for men.
Shit bait
ebert has a lot of bizarre opinions that go against what general consensus is. he liked kiddie shit more than most critics. he was a good writer in his reviews and you could tell if you would like something based on how he made a review, which is why he was great, but look through his reviews of movies we now think are classics, there's a lot of odd stuff in them.
>for about a decade after it came out
Much of the immediate discourse around Revenge of the Sith in 2005 was about whether it redeemed the overall prequel trilogy or not, because pretty much everyone was mixed to negative on the previous two movies. That was only 6 years later
You're a liar. I was there and Ebert's 3.5/4 review was the most generous review among all critics.
Funny thing is that Ebert did an interview with Lucas gushing and praising the man just a week before rhe movie and his own review came out.
Go go bed george
>the hype
When was the last time a movie had colectible Pepsi cans?
Madam Web?
I remember everyone being really excited for the first few weeks but even in middle school everyone thought it was shit.
Would do ungodly things in order to visit Taco Bell as a 7 year old in 1999 again
>EVERYONE said THIS after it came out
none of you have proven this in either position except the ebert guy who obvs only proves what Ebert said, not everyone in the whole world
It got plenty of other negative reviews back then.
>cherry picking the negative reviews when the percentage is at 52%
that means that roughly half thought it was good and half thought it was bad
try again cucky
Critics have always been total snobs. What matters is how it resonated with the audience.
I remember my 7th grade teacher told us she was going to see it when it premiered and then she came back the next day and said it was shit. She was into the old movies. Remember all the gay toys and merch shit, especially cans for some reason. Think it was Mountain Dew and shit with characters on it. Honestly I feel like Titanic was hyped up WAY more than this.
Meaning she hated it because it wasn’t like the OT. Same type of people advocated for something like TFA.
People only watched it for Darth Maul
Hype has been accurately portrayed in this thread but people are mischaracterizing the reception. The movie was confusing because the idea of a not great Star Wars movie was confounding. I mean Jedi had the Ewoks and shit that people groaned about but this movie was the first time people had entire sequences and characters in a Star Wars movie that they disliked. But that's not to say the movies were panned or reviled as some in this thread claim. It was divisive. Pod Race and Duel of the Fates were praised as some of the greatest action ever put on screen at the time. The critiques about the dialogue weren't really what they are today and most people just blamed Jake Lloyd. Jar Jar was probably the debated focal point but even then it was that he was just the Ewoks dialed up. On the whole if I attempt to sum up main sentiments about the movie: positively it was a huge leap in post-production technology, really set the standard for modern movie (and vidya) action sequences, and Duel of the Fates was everyone's favorite scene in the entire series for the rest of 98; negatively, Jar Jar and Anakin were grating and most of all people were confused about where it was going. The OT had a very clear narrative and the movies made sense where they picked up with the heroes and their reasoning for doing things. PM drops us on a planet we've never heard of to see the start of a war with a faction we never heard of and the overarching question of "how the frick does this relate to Darth Vader and the Empire" doesn't get touched until halfway in when Anakin is finally introduced which raises more questions. We see now how it all ties in hindsight but back then everyone was confused more than overly disappointed.
People ITT are projecting Plinkett talking points onto the past rather than actually trying to mentally revisit the time. Or they're LARPing zoomers.
Not sure if this is bait but I'll go. You are right because for me I was in the college age bracket st the time and people that age are probably the most disconnected from the larger culture. So I don't remember how the rest of the world perceived it. What I do remember is me and my friends walking out and being like wtf and hating I'm we still hate it and there's nothing worse then this revisionist crap that it's not a bad movie. Fun fact. American psycho was a piece of shit and still is. Then zoom zooms memed it into a masterpiece.
Your opinion should be disregarded completely if you’re going to unironically use the phrase “zoom zoom”.
I made no comment on whether the movie was good or bad. I said the reception was largely split at the time and back then it wasn't as hyperbolic as it is today where everything is either the greatest piece of media ever or irredeemable shit. Yes, of course, some people hated it but that wasn't what was largely discussed then, online discussion boards or in the media. Most people were confused about what the frick a trade dispute had to do with Darth Vader and they liked Darth Maul spinning his saber.
>the first time people had entire sequences and characters in a Star Wars movie that they disliked
Slight quibble - the Special Editions. There was an undercurrent of potential unease as I recall (of course your friend groups may vary) BUT overall - yes. It was NEW FRICKING STAR WARS!
And then we watched it.
I will give it this, though. I did like the way the Jedi walked around like they owned the place, you could see why the Force wanted 'balance', just not how the Order expected...
Yeah fair point. Jedi Rock was universally disliked but special editions then didn't have the reputation they do now. A lot of the changes, and where the little preroll BTS for the special edition VHS put focus, was in removing or retouching old effects: removing vaseline smears under the landspeeder, removing green screen borders from the snowspeeder, etc. so while Jedi Rock was trash it didn't really frame people's expectations IMO. Then again my friend group of the corners of TheForce.net I hung out on weren't really hardline Han Shot Firsters so maybe if you were you woulda gone into TPM more cynical.
It was the best time to be a Star Wars fan, truly. I genuinely lament that people didn't get to experience TheForce.net's heyday. Everything nowadays is just so cynically consumerist.
My dad said it was "fricking gay" and took down the couple star wars figurines he had in his study at the time
It’s mostly just loser Gen Xers b***hing that it’s different from the OT or that it wasn’t what they expected. Plenty lacked media literacy and therefore, didn’t at all understand what George was going for. So they shat on him for not making the movies that they wanted to see.
yes I saw the Phantom Menace opening day at the age of 13. how could you tell?
>not sipping from this
I remember I wanted a toy of the red Sith guy because he was cool, or a lightsaber. Instead me and my brother each got one of these lollipops and then a tiny dual lightsaber filled with candy. Somehow both of them tasted like ass to the point where I distinctly remember wondering what the frick was wrong with it because I'd never encountered candy that I didn't want to finish.
>you guys just don't get George Lucas, he's brilliant!
this but unironically
?si=S6ImYOsN2U-gFPue
Insane hype
Immeasurable disappointment
The thing I remember is that the special effects were jarring even for the time. It's easy to look back at early adopters of CGI today and see how much worse they looked, but it was just as off putting in 1999 when I saw it in the theatre. I remember seeing the big windows xp ass battlefield and thinking 'holy shit, is this actually star wars'
If anything, these movies turned Anakin into a fan favourite, casting an attractive actor helped a lot with that too. Some people, especially women
who have a crush on Anakin, cannot still believe that he's Darth Vader, many of them think they are two different characters. Makes you think if they watched the movies or just the edits they found on tiktok.
Ruined for me, I liked Vader before it turned into a pretty boy with anger and mommy issues.
You didn't understand the character.
do you think incest would be something natural in this family, after the twins do you think it'd be possible to have a parent and child attraction?
You could not fathom the hype there was.
The aftermath ? Neckbeards bullied and harassed a little kid, fricking up his life.
So I'd say, fans deserve that SW is shit now.
Biggest hype ever for any film.
Unimaginable hype, unbelievable disappointment with the end result
Making this thread every day will not change history.
What did people think the prequels were going to be like before they came out?
Weird Al wrote this based on internet spoilers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcjgJSqSRU
image if the original trilogy was made in the 90's.
there ya go
My godfather explained it to me:
In A New Hope and the movies, Obi Wan said Anakin was the best starpilot in the galaxy and a cunning warrior. Anakin was seduced by the dark side because it was seduced his appeal for power and gain.
So in headcanon for a lot of 70's and 80's kids who grew up with the trilogy envisioned that Obi Wan and Anakin were kinda like a sci-fi version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Starsky & Hutch; a badass duo where Obi Wan was the obvious uptight by-the-books elder while Anakin was the swashbuckling badass.
So young Anakin was supposed to be somebody like Dallas from The Outsiders; the young wienery rebel without a cause who was headstrong and fought on an "idealistic crusade" in the Clone Wars as a Jedi knight. Then he got tempted by the Dark Side because it was a cheat code to attain power quickly and turned on Obi Wan and the Jedi because he wanted it all.
I sorta get why Lucas wanted Anakin to be depicted as a tragic figure who did things out of love and despair but his execution was shit. The 2003 Clone Wars cartoon did a better job in fleshing out Anakin's fall from grace in its foreshadowing.
Alot of words to say you are gay
Anakin is just another Hollywood Lucifer story
1991 baby here. Phantom Menace had so much hype. After 16 years, Star Wars finally getting a prequel about Obi Wan's and Darth Vader's past as well as what the Clone Wars were about. My godfather (who saw the original movies as a grade schooler/junior higher) took me to go see it and I honestly had a blast despite hating Jar Jar.
A lot of people hated the political mucking about the vote of no confidence and the Gungans as well as not a fan of Jake Lloyd. I was a little kid so I cared more about Qui Gon being an absolute boss, Obi Wan being his uptight underling, Senator Palpatine being a scheming bastard (even I was rooting for him), how hot Natalie Portman and Amidala's double Keira Knightley were (fell in love with Keira ever since), Darth Maul's dual lightsaber, and how extensive the Old Republic felt in world design and Coruscant's visuals.
Quads wasted on this pretentious homosexual
You're assuredly not using pretentious right.
It was hyped to shit and I remember thinking at some point this shit is bad
And sunk down in my chair and kind of looked around with a subtle smirk
I know Attack of the Clones gets a lot of flak, but I enjoyed it the most out of the prequels. From those lines in the original trilogy, it seemed like the clones were what Obi Wan and Anakin were the fighting against when it was actually the Jedi co-opting a slave army of bio-engineered soldiers, thus losing their moral prerogative that they once held in esteem.
Basically, fans expected a simpler story, whereas Lucas wanted to make it more complex.
I agree with some of the fan expectations because the originals weren't deep lore about politics. it was a story about good vs evil though I really liked Peter Cushing as Tarkin and that meeting with the Imperial officers (everyone was played by British actors). If you took away the science fantasy aspect, you'd think it was a conference planning on crushing the American rebels of the 13 colonies, Ireland, India, or some other part of the British Empire. That's why Brits are excellent as playing cold-blooded calculators because they've had centuries of doing divide and conquer in their colonial possessions.
I appreciate some of what Lucas did in the prequels. Not all but the twist in the end of AOTC where the Jedi decide to employ the clone army was when I knew that the Jedi lost their way. They were meant to be peacekeepers but now they were in control of a massive army of obedient slave soldiers. Not to mention the inference that they had no qualms taking children away from their homes and families to become warrior monks for a moronic order that's all about no emotional attachments.
I was just a kid but even I could understand that the hero the PT had been following really is DARTH VADER. I remember in 05’ literally jizzing my 11 year old pants when the third movie came out.
I saw it opening day and there was a line out the door around the building. The hype was huge and everyone I knew loved it. I didn't really start hearing this meme shit about the prequels being terrible until RLM.
prequel hate was everywhere, even the simpsons dedicated an episode to it, years before rlm existed.
No one cares what zombie Simpsons was doing.
You lived in a bubble. See:
Nah. People didn't hate it. Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen and Jar Jar got a bunch of shit, but generally everything else was well liked.
>my experience was universal, just ignore all the instances of people hating it!!!
Frick off bubble boy.
Each movie was packed when it came out. If anyone was living in a bubble it was you and the other 40 morons that sperged out because it contradicted the OT.
The hype before the movie was massive. There was a huge travelling "Star Wars" exhibition to promote it. They had all the props from the films, Darth Vader was there (not Prowse, of course, just some guy in the costume). They even had a Naboo Starfighter, I remember they gave away little models of TPM characters with little biographies of them inside.
People were mixed on it and thought it was weird and kinda bad but they didn't really want to admit it. Attack of the Clones was really when people realized the movies were shit.
People calling into the local radiostations to talk about it and ask "what's with the chlorophyl bullshit?"
>The frick did I do?
I have never seen hype for a movie like this ever again. not the same degree. It was just guaranteed by everyone to be the biggest thing ever.
Even the Austin Powers 2 trailer admitted you should go see Star Wars.
Sometimes I think about the people who panic-bought one of every kind of toy released for the movie before the movie even came out, thinking they were going to become millionaires from future collectors.
It was the last movie I remember that truly felt like an event.
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The hype was unreal. Never surpassed. If only we knew.
Is anyone here old enough to remember when there was a fan theory that Obi-Wan was a clone because his name sounded like a serial number, OB1-Ken-OB?
I was 13 when TPM premiered and I remember liking it on first AND second viewing, but the more I thought about the more I realized it wasn't really all that good. Even if it was a 9/10 movie it couldn't have lived up to the hype.
I remember the theory that pic related was Boba Fett. Kind of wish it was, knowing what I know.
Hitting us with a Samus Aran twist for Boba Fett could have been cool.
I remember sitting in the theatre and thinking "Wait, this isn't very good. I thought Star Wars was supposed to be good"
>what was the aftermath
I realized I sat through a kid movie.
I'm just glad everyone now admits the prequels were always good. The prequels were well received on release, it wasn't until RLM and Reddit spread the "prequels are bad" meme. Disney doubled down on this narrative before the sequels were released. Everyone seeing that shitshow suddenly began to remember how great the prequels actually were. Still it was scary to see how easily history was rewritten for a while and how quickly the narrative can be manipulated.
I was 9 when it came out. And I remember all the forced product shit everywhere. My father loved the original 3 movies and watched them with us over and over again. I enjoyed the shit out of those movies.
But even at the age of 9. when I saw this movie in theaters. I looked around and saw everyone was enjoying it. But I didn't. It was the first time I ever thought to my self "My god. I hate this. Am I allowed to? Seems I'm the only one. I thought this was gonna be something like those other movies."
I don’t get it, is the shadow a penis?