So, I was listening to a Phantom Menace remembrance podcast today and the show had numerous voice-mails and MP3s of fans calling/sending in their Phantom Menace memories. After listening to them, I started thinking. While everyone stated how much they remember standing in lines for tickets or the actual first screening, and how they look back on the movie with fondness and the time with sentiments, they almost always follow or precede their statements with a jab at the movie. And, this got me wondering if anyone truly feels the movie is a great Star Wars movie. But because of the popularity of prequel hate, they feel (by way of obligation or in the spirit of looking cool) they have to slam the movie at the same time. Even the podcast's host (who sounds to be a huge fan of Star Wars) went in loving the movie. (sidebar: I found it coincidental that, like myself, he saw the movie literally five times in the first day.) Yet,by the end he stated that he slowly lost his appreciation for it and he found himself bored and disenchanted with the movie as a whole. So much to the point, that he didn't watch it for a couple years afterward. I unlike the host do not nor did not share the same opinion. After five viewings, I was still very much impressed and loved the movie.
I will admit there are parts of the film I dislike. There is a character I prefer not be so animated or comical. Yet, this is Star Wars! We should appreciate it. Sorta like a wife. You take Star Wars in the best of times and in the worst of times, in sickness and in health, etc etc. Again, as Star Wars fans, in an effort of being taken seriously, is it a must to throw down some prequel hate?
Which brings me to another point as well. This movie was so hyped by the 16 years of waiting and anticipation, that regardless of the final product, I think the fan community would have still torn the movie down. Everyone had their own prequel built in their mind. Everyone had their own events mapped out and once we got the official version, it didn't match our own imagination thus it clearly was out of place. One of the most common criticisms of the movie is that it didn't feel like a Star Wars movie. I disagree with this statement. I think it feels very much like a Star Wars movie but a Star Wars movie created by a storyteller who now had a much much bigger pallet of colors to work from. If GL had made Episode I in 1986 or 1989 as some of the original rumors were back then, perhaps it would have felt more like the OT. The guilty party is that of modern film technology. There was this thing called CGI that didn't exist in 1983. The scenes were being shot digitally instead of on 35mm film stock. Scenes were being edited in a computer vs. an editing table. So in a "certain point of view" the movie felt different on a technical level but the magic of Star Wars was still present. There's a ton of woulda-coulda've suggestions when it comes to the prequels. My key "what should have been done" is GL should have made the movies as if he was in 1986. Challenged himself to film the movie like he would have in the 1980s with all those technological challenges. Then only use the CGI and digital technology only after to enhance the movie at the editing stage. But EPI was pre-visualized way too early as a big test vehicle of ILM's might.
So with all this pondering, I'm thinking Star Wars fans are simply keeping their true feelings for The Phantom Menace locked deep inside? I'm not afraid to admit when I like something. And I like Episode I! I still watch it several times a year. I still feel the magic when I sit down to watch it. It's a small window into the past--at time machine of sorts--that allows me to literally relive one of the happiest times of my life--the anticipation that was Episode I!
