The Phantom Menace

[nenya_kanadka]

Just rewatched Star Wars: The Phantom Menace for the first time since 1999. Strangely, Qui-Gon's hair was about six inches shorter than I remember it being. Also it was nice watching it with subtitles and actually hearing most of the dialogue.

(We saw the fan-cut that took out the line about midichlorians. Nothing of value was lost.)

Comments

[muccamukk]

I enjoyed that immensely. Looking forward to the next one, actually.

[nenya_kanadka]

Yes, I must now find the discussion you are in elseweb about it. :D Definitely looking forward to the next one. Partly for Obi-Wan's beard, but not entirely.

[seascribble]

What is the line about midichlorians?

[muccamukk]

I'm really looking forward to see how Nenya summarises eighteen years of wank on this topic.

[nenya_kanadka]

Well, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there was the Force. It was treated by everybody from Yoda and Darth Vader (who ought to know) to Han Solo (who knew nothing but rumours he didn't believe in) as basically magic. An energy that surrounds us and binds all living things together, and some people are more sensitive to it than others, and if you get good at sensing and manipulating it you can, like, do telekenesis and telepathy and use a lightsaber without lopping your own arm off.

So basically magic. Or a ripoff from the zen Buddhists. Something like that.

Twenty years later, we get the first prequel movie, which was set back in the day when Darth Vader was a nine-year-old ragamuffin. When he meets his first Jedi master (Liam Neeson), said Jedi picks up that young Anakin has a really strong Force vibe. Okay, fine, so far so good. But then--

To check that Anakin is indeed strong with the Force, Liam Neeson...does a blood test.

?!??!

Apparently, over those twenty years of figuring out the backstory, George Lucas had decided to replace vague handwavy magic with vague handwavy technobabble. Midichlorians, you see, are tiny bacteria that live inside people and are intelligent. If you have a lot of them you can sense the Force and do Force things. Or they are the Force? Or they emit the Force like an, er, force-field? All we know is, wee Anakin has lots of them, so he is super-strong Force-wise, and Liam Neeson brings him back to the Jedi temple to train him (and in the next couple movies Anakin grows up into Hayden Christensen, turns evil, and becomes Darth Vader).

So there was a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of fans around the world said "What the fuck?" Not only was it a sudden shift in genre from space!magic to space!biology, it was stupid space!biology. And we have for the most part elected to ignore it. However, it is technically still canon. Alas.

[muccamukk]

I do think it's important to include that the Mediwhatsits quite probably impregnated bb Darth's mom, and that he's constantly referred to as The Choosen One, which concept has never been mentioned before.

So not only did we go from vague Space!magic to bad Space!biology, but they made Darth Vader Jesus.

[nenya_kanadka]

Oh, right, I knew I was missing something there. He's sort of space!anti-Jesus because he turns out to be evil, and debate rages over exactly how turning into Darth Vader and killing all the Jedi "brings balance to the Force" as the "chosen one" was supposed to do. But yes, the fact remains that they piled on a whole bunch of unnecessary bullshit in more than one direction. IDEK man.

Liam Neeson was still hot though.

[muccamukk]

I feel like it was, on the whole, a very different story than people were expecting. Like, Obi-Wan's whole speech about how he met Anakin technically marries up to the prequels, but the spirit gets trounced on pretty heavily.

Especially since it doesn't really make sense for Obi-Wan to be training him? He just graduated! If Anakin is space Jesus in potentia, then why isn't Mace or Yoda training him? It's just such a wackaloona story. Granted, it's one I enjoy, but the near universal wait, what? in response to it isn't surprising.

[seascribble]

*squints*

[seascribble]

Ah. That is indeed dumb. I don't really go here (I've seen all the movies, but don't really remember them, except the newest one, which I appreciate for giving the internet a very fun fandom), but I have learned from osmosis that George Lucas is Not To Be Trusted.