The prequels...well, the Phantom Menace seems to be a poor ripoff of ANH. It's like someone went over ANH, took the basic points, then decided to make it more civillized. There's no urgency, not much action. Overall, the movie seems have a lot in common with the corridors of the Trade Federation starships - lifeless and empty.
Everything is very proper, there's no real raw emotion or real choices for the characters to work with. Hell, the line that might've given a sense of urgency - "People are dying!" is dismissed with "It's a trick!". This
could've been capitlized on, with a little work, by making it a bigger part of the plot. Thus we, the audience, sympathize more with the main characters and get more involved in the movie.
To summarize: TPM doesn't seem fun or tense or emotional, just a bunch of blocked scenes with occassional lines.
Episode 2 takes a step in the right direction. Though when you see the changes since Episode 1 (everything but characters' names), it makes you wonder if Lucas didn't want to get away from TPM himself. Then you learn, oh, it's supposed to be a parallel from ANH and ESB...then you wonder why Lucas is copying from himself.
rant rant rant....
(Edited for time and space
)
Anyway, supposedly Lucas says we're supposed to hate the new Star Wars movie b/c it's so dark. Sounds like a ploy to lower expectations to me. On the other hand, maybe if Lucas writes something he expects us to hate, we'll get a masterpiece.
