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Star Wars Episode I is the best of the Prequels


MKnight82

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Seriously though, Star Wars Episode I has long been hated on but I think its the best of the 3 prequel films.  Here's my reasons:

 

1. It has the best actor of any of the prequel movies.

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- Star Wars is not really known for its high end acting, and George Lucas' dialogue in movies is notoriously bad at times.  But Episode I has a guy who's been nominated for an Academy Award in Liam Neeson.  Qui-Gon Jinn doesn't give him a lot of range to work with, but he's the first look we get at the old school Jedi before their fall, and Neeson does a really good job with the mentor/wise Jedi roll IMO.  When he dies (are spoilers on 20 year old movies a thing?) you actually feel it, and there aren't many meaningful deaths in the Star Wars universe.  

 

2.  It doesn't have Hayden Christensen in it.  

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- On the other spectrum from Neeson we have Christensen, who is a major problem with Episodes II & III.  The picture shown is his "bad guy" face.  Really?  The dude is awful.  The forced love story in Episode II was cringeworthy, and his performance in Episode III when he turns to the dark side is just god awful.  People's biggest complain about Jake Lloyd (the kid who plays Anakin in E1) is usually that he's annoying.  Well guess what, kids are annoying!  Anakin's rise and fall was the central storyline of the prequels and Christensen butchers the whole thing.  

 

3. It has the best Villain of any of the prequels

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- Darth Maul hardly speaks but he's the specter that follows our heroes throughout the movie.  Besides his awesome look and sweet double lightsaber, he's played by an actor (Ray Park) that can perform more advanced choreographed fighting sequences than anyone that has appeared in any other Star Wars movie (of any era).  The villain in 2 is Count Dooku, while portrayed by the excellent Christopher Lee, is pretty boring as a character.  Then in 3 we have the emperor finally show himself, and the terrible transformation of Anakin.  Episode I has BY FAR the best villain of the prequels IMO.

 

4. It has the best lightsaber battle of any of the prequels

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- I expect to get some pushback on this one, but I don't think I'm wrong here.  Ray Park is the best actor to wield a lightsaber in any of the Star Wars movies, and the big lightsaber battles we see in the later movies are lacking IMO.  Episode II has a big battle with tons of Jedi, but they're fighting CGI robots, who cares.  Then there's the CGI cluster * on Mustafar, that has us believe Anakin and Obi-wan are fighting on floating droids in the middle of a river of lava.  That over the top nonsense lost me real fast.  Episode I has a grounded, well choreographed battle with real consequences (the death of Qui-Gon).  

 

5. It has less CGI than Episodes II & III

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- Lucas pioneered computer generated effects, but then took it way too far.  Episodes II & III are so computer generated that the realism is lost at times.  Its hard to make you feel encompassed in a world when everything looks so fake.  Episode I definitely has its fair share of CGI, the entire Gungan vs. droid battle is CGI, but the film as a whole has better use of traditional special effects.

 

Things I acknowledge Episode I does not do well:

- Jar Jar Binks - this is the main reason everyone craps on Episode I, but he's only on the screen for a total of 17:45 min.  He's annoying, I get it, I agree, he doesn't ruin the whole movie for me though.

- The space battles are lacking - there's really only one major space battle, and that's a silly subplot of Anakin flying into space and taking out a Trade Federation ship on his own.  But Episode 2 fails here as well IMO, with Episode 3 being the only one to dedicate a lot of screen time to space battles.  

- The pod racing drags on too long - its a cool idea in theory, it even gave us a cool N64 video game, but it drags on too long.  

- Midichlorians - George Lucas has basically admitted this was a mistake, just ignore it like the rest of the movies do.  

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I honestly think it's worse than Attack of the Clones. Because literally the entire movie aside from maybe 10 minutes means absolutely nothing to the thematic and narrative structure that the prequels are trying to say. It's completely extraneous and no information you get from this movie matters at all other than "Qui Gon existed" and "The girl is creepy as **** for falling in love with a child".

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9 minutes ago, Thelonebillsfan said:

I honestly think it's worse than Attack of the Clones. Because literally the entire movie aside from maybe 10 minutes means absolutely nothing to the thematic and narrative structure that the prequels are trying to say. It's completely extraneous and no information you get from this movie matters at all other than "Qui Gon existed" and "The girl is creepy as **** for falling in love with a child".

Ya but they butchered the thematic and narrative structure of the prequels.  So honestly I think this is a strength of Episode I.  

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1 minute ago, MKnight82 said:

Explain.

Bigger stakes. Seeing the fruition of Palpatine’s brilliant plan unfold.  Anakin vs Obi Wan.

Better performances overall. Liam Neeson was great but Ian McDiarmid had an Oscar nom worthy performance as Palpatine. 

The best lightsaber/fight sequence was on Mustafar.  Ray Park was awesome as Darth Maul but look at the difference in fight choreography results from McGregor from Ep I to III.  In Phantom Menace, he looks like a kid running around his backyard with a stick having fun.  In Ep III, he has taken the choreography to the next level.  Watch the special features where they talk about the competitive nature of training between Ewan and Hayden.  They spent months training and it showed. 

Hayden Christensen is still unfairly hated on.  The problem is not him or his performance; it’s that fans didn’t like who Anakin was.  Lucas’ wooden dialogue didn’t help (why he didn’t bring Kasdan back perplexes me to this day).  The Jedi council treated him like crap from jump and it only pushed him to be the rebellious diva he was.  

John Williams crushed it in every movie but the scene where Padme is looking at the Jedi Temple on fire and there’s no dialogue or sound FX. There’s only the score.  And it’s one of the best moments in all of Star Wars. 

The opening sequence of the battle above Coruscant was fantastic and ILM put the entire CGI industry in check.  Not winning the Oscar for Visual FX is still one of the most egregious errors in Academy history.  

I don’t hate the prequels the way most do bcuz I appreciate the groundwork that was laid out for Palpatine’s plan to take over the Republic and create the Empire and it’s own army.  It was brilliant.  But I do agree about the prequels’ crutch of using CGI and the lack of physical sets.  Thankfully, JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson used both to fantastic results.  

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6 minutes ago, thrILL! said:

Bigger stakes. Seeing the fruition of Palpatine’s brilliant plan unfold.  Anakin vs Obi Wan.

Palpatine's plan begins in Episode I.  Anakin vs. Obi Wan was terribly done IMO.  Its one of the reasons I dislike Episode III so much.  

7 minutes ago, thrILL! said:

Better performances overall. Liam Neeson was great but Ian McDiarmid had an Oscar nom worthy performance as Palpatine.

Ian McDiarmid is in Episode I too.  

7 minutes ago, thrILL! said:

The best lightsaber/fight sequence was on Mustafar.  Ray Park was awesome as Darth Maul but look at the difference in fight choreography results from McGregor from Ep I to III.  In Phantom Menace, he looks like a kid running around his backyard with a stick having fun.  In Ep III, he has taken the choreography to the next level.  Watch the special features where they talk about the competitive nature of training between Ewan and Hayden.  They spent months training and it showed. 

I knew the LB battle would get pushback, I just like E1's better.  First you've got the 2 on 1 aspect which is cool.  Also I think visually, the blue on blue LB battle in E3 is not as cool.  Anakin should have switched to red by then.  

9 minutes ago, thrILL! said:

Hayden Christensen is still unfairly hated on.

Oh dear god no.  He ruins both movies for me.  

10 minutes ago, thrILL! said:

John Williams crushed it in every movie but the scene where Padme is looking at the Jedi Temple on fire and there’s no dialogue or sound FX. There’s only the score.  And it’s one of the best moments in all of Star Wars. 

Williams scored E1 too, so hard to say any had a better score.  

10 minutes ago, thrILL! said:

The opening sequence of the battle above Coruscant was fantastic and ILM put the entire CGI industry in check.  Not winning the Oscar for Visual FX is still one of the most egregious errors in Academy history.  

I listed the lack of a good space battle as a weakness of E1.  However, I think the opening scene of Quin Gon and Obi Wan taking on the Trade Federation on their ship was a pretty cool opening scene too.  

 

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Palpatine is barely in Ep 1.  You can’t even compare that performance to Ep 3.  

Yes of course John Williams did Ep 1.  I mentioned he did all of them.  Yet you missed the point.  I mentioned the power of the moment not him competing with himself. 

I gave you context for both of these (and more) and you skipped right by that to point out the obvious.  

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5 minutes ago, thrILL! said:

I gave you context for both of these (and more) and you skipped right by that to point out the obvious.  

Not sure how I skipped over your post, I was just pointing out that a lot of the things you were pumping up about E2 and 3 are also in 1.  

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