Rewatching The Phantom Menace
Oct. 2nd, 2006 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAll the while I was awaiting the DVD release of the "Vintage Editions" of Star Wars, I was thinking beyond it, contemplating using it as the warmup to watching all the Star Wars movies once again in "episodic" order. Perhaps part of this was a reaction to ambiguous thoughts of certain people gloating about at last having the "real" versions of the "real" Star Wars movies, but it wasn't all of it. Starting a six-weekend cycle (which matches how much longer I'll be taking care of some of my parents' cats while they're away on a long cruise), I watched The Phantom Menace.
I do have to admit there was one ambiguity about the experience, though. Before I started watching it, I was willing to still hold at least a little sympathy for those offended by the movie, to think "if only there had been a little less comedy relief"... but afterwards, I was starting to think "So what's their problem?" Maybe the feeling will slide back with time, or I'll start worrying about how Darth Maul tracked the escapees to Tatooine, but I've already decided that those who try to make ugly jokes about "A Star Wars movie about a trade dispute?" must have shut down their brains in the space of the first paragraph of the opening crawl only.
Still, I spent my own period in the wilderness. My reaction to seeing the movie myself for the first time may have been positive in an uncomplicated way, but I'm not sure it was profound. The negative opinions that piled up around the release as people scrambled to find new crimes against humanity to accuse the movie of finally got to me, and I became too worried to watch it (or the other Star Wars movies, or just about all of the many, many films proclaimed to wipe the floor with it) for fear that I would suddenly crack and join the crowd. Finding other people who still made the effort to be positive about the Star Wars movies was a cooling draught. So was nerving myself to return to The Phantom Menace at last, seeing it almost for the first time all over again.
Since then, the saga has come together for me, and I'm very willing to see The Phantom Menace as the introduction to it. When I started watching the Vintage Editions, I was able (for a while, anyway) to drop back to the old certainties of a princess and a villian and two undistinguished droids who have their own chance to become great, but when watching TPM this time, I busied myself again at the start with trying to see the two Jedi as if for the first time, pondering just what it meant as they talked about "sensing" things and mentioned the "Force,", then seeing them cut their way through everything their panicked opponents could throw in their paths. I've wondered if Qui-Gon using the Jedi mind trick on Boss Nass is the sort of subtle thing you only notice after your first viewing, but that particular power seems quite well-established after he tries to use it on Watto.
Perhaps, though, I was a little too good at clearing my mind of memories... when seeing the Jedi Council, I could see them as an ivory-tower circle not quite interested in news of uncertain new developments. It would be easy for a lot of people, aware of what they'd already seen, to think of their dismissive caution towards Anakin as entirely and absolutely right, but for the moment I was ready to see his future as just uncertain. Yoda himself, in fact, seemed just another Council member, and I did wonder who might have clung to previous memories of him to be offended by that... but in a very abstract way, asking myself "do Yoda's experiences temper him into a wiser and more effective teacher?" (Of course, perhaps right now I'm also wondering if that subtly dismissive reaction to him might change a little if there's ever a Special Edition made of TPM that replaces his puppet with something more consistent with his later appearance.) I once got aggravated at someone who made a big deal of Anakin asking "What will happen to me?" during Qui-Gon's funeral, apparently implying this meant he was self-centred... but during the funeral, Yoda and Mace Windu seem intent on discussing the return of the Sith. What does this say about them?
In contemplating this, I perhaps also spent a lot of time focusing on Qui-Gon's role. People have questioned his talking about the "Living Force" and his not actually saying "Dark Side" and even his using a green lightsabre, but perhaps some ambiguities about him spring in the end from his having noticed Anakin and his deciding to make him a Jedi. This time around, though, I seem to finally be internalising what I first wondered about George Lucas making a reasonable deal of, that the action is more significant than the dialogue in a Star Wars movie. Qui-Gon goes to considerable lengths to get what he needs from Watto (even if this is after the Jedi mind trick won't work on him); I can't shake the thought that if he really was "beyond good and evil," he'd just threaten him. Too, his response to Darth Maul's challenges isn't "you need the Dark Side to complement the rest of the Force," but immediate and forceful.
In any case, the saga has begun. After grappling with matte effects more than I had expected to with the Vintage Editions, it was refreshing to drink in TPM's 1999-vintage seamless visuals... but it was easy enough for me to reject the wails of "just special effects!" and focus on the characters as well. The feeling that I just liked them, as hard as that was to bear when Jar Jar Binks was being insulted on a daily basis, may have been the thread I clung to in those long dark days to still hold on to the movie. Beyond that, though, it's on to Attack of the Clones.
I do have to admit there was one ambiguity about the experience, though. Before I started watching it, I was willing to still hold at least a little sympathy for those offended by the movie, to think "if only there had been a little less comedy relief"... but afterwards, I was starting to think "So what's their problem?" Maybe the feeling will slide back with time, or I'll start worrying about how Darth Maul tracked the escapees to Tatooine, but I've already decided that those who try to make ugly jokes about "A Star Wars movie about a trade dispute?" must have shut down their brains in the space of the first paragraph of the opening crawl only.
Still, I spent my own period in the wilderness. My reaction to seeing the movie myself for the first time may have been positive in an uncomplicated way, but I'm not sure it was profound. The negative opinions that piled up around the release as people scrambled to find new crimes against humanity to accuse the movie of finally got to me, and I became too worried to watch it (or the other Star Wars movies, or just about all of the many, many films proclaimed to wipe the floor with it) for fear that I would suddenly crack and join the crowd. Finding other people who still made the effort to be positive about the Star Wars movies was a cooling draught. So was nerving myself to return to The Phantom Menace at last, seeing it almost for the first time all over again.
Since then, the saga has come together for me, and I'm very willing to see The Phantom Menace as the introduction to it. When I started watching the Vintage Editions, I was able (for a while, anyway) to drop back to the old certainties of a princess and a villian and two undistinguished droids who have their own chance to become great, but when watching TPM this time, I busied myself again at the start with trying to see the two Jedi as if for the first time, pondering just what it meant as they talked about "sensing" things and mentioned the "Force,", then seeing them cut their way through everything their panicked opponents could throw in their paths. I've wondered if Qui-Gon using the Jedi mind trick on Boss Nass is the sort of subtle thing you only notice after your first viewing, but that particular power seems quite well-established after he tries to use it on Watto.
Perhaps, though, I was a little too good at clearing my mind of memories... when seeing the Jedi Council, I could see them as an ivory-tower circle not quite interested in news of uncertain new developments. It would be easy for a lot of people, aware of what they'd already seen, to think of their dismissive caution towards Anakin as entirely and absolutely right, but for the moment I was ready to see his future as just uncertain. Yoda himself, in fact, seemed just another Council member, and I did wonder who might have clung to previous memories of him to be offended by that... but in a very abstract way, asking myself "do Yoda's experiences temper him into a wiser and more effective teacher?" (Of course, perhaps right now I'm also wondering if that subtly dismissive reaction to him might change a little if there's ever a Special Edition made of TPM that replaces his puppet with something more consistent with his later appearance.) I once got aggravated at someone who made a big deal of Anakin asking "What will happen to me?" during Qui-Gon's funeral, apparently implying this meant he was self-centred... but during the funeral, Yoda and Mace Windu seem intent on discussing the return of the Sith. What does this say about them?
In contemplating this, I perhaps also spent a lot of time focusing on Qui-Gon's role. People have questioned his talking about the "Living Force" and his not actually saying "Dark Side" and even his using a green lightsabre, but perhaps some ambiguities about him spring in the end from his having noticed Anakin and his deciding to make him a Jedi. This time around, though, I seem to finally be internalising what I first wondered about George Lucas making a reasonable deal of, that the action is more significant than the dialogue in a Star Wars movie. Qui-Gon goes to considerable lengths to get what he needs from Watto (even if this is after the Jedi mind trick won't work on him); I can't shake the thought that if he really was "beyond good and evil," he'd just threaten him. Too, his response to Darth Maul's challenges isn't "you need the Dark Side to complement the rest of the Force," but immediate and forceful.
In any case, the saga has begun. After grappling with matte effects more than I had expected to with the Vintage Editions, it was refreshing to drink in TPM's 1999-vintage seamless visuals... but it was easy enough for me to reject the wails of "just special effects!" and focus on the characters as well. The feeling that I just liked them, as hard as that was to bear when Jar Jar Binks was being insulted on a daily basis, may have been the thread I clung to in those long dark days to still hold on to the movie. Beyond that, though, it's on to Attack of the Clones.