As a loyal fan of Star Wars, I of course think "The Phantom Menace" is the worst one. And as loyal fan I could't give it anything less than 4 stars. Even "How I Met Your Mother" has a gag about this when Marshall proves his friends will agree with everything he says.
I could go on and on about what is wrong with this movie and some of it's redeeming qualities, but that can be found all over the net. I instead want to focus on the aspect of the re-release being in 3D. I took a focus group of 2 of my sons and thier buddy.
The 3D effects were more mild than I was expecting. I was expecting a Pod Racer to blow up and parts fly into my face or a lightsaber to singe my nose hairs. Instead the 3D was more subtle. Instead of pulling the foreground closer, the background seems to get pushed back. I actually perfered this, it seemed less like a gimick and more like a picture enhancement.
Edit: A Featurette explaining this tactic found after original posting.
One thing that caused me to get distracted was the images still were blurred at times if they moved too fast. I don't quite know if I perfer 3D to normal HD, but it was certianly worth seeing.
The boys loved the movie! Watching them crack up at Jar Jar Binks helped me realize that Star Wars is a kids movie. Even though I have grown up and my standards have changed I can't expect Star Wars to always change with me.
If you like Star Wars you will not want to miss the experience to see it in theatres, especially if you have kids. There is no scheduled date for the release of subsequent episodes so if you don't have kids yet, consider it an investment to motivate LucasFilm to release future episodes.
Content:
Like I said above Star Wars is meant for kids. As far as content goes; the worst word said is "poodoo." It is not overly violent and there really is no adult content. This movie is safe for all ages and you wouldn't bat an eye at seeing your Stake President there in the row behing you.
I have to completely disagree that Star Wars was originally meant for kids. Take a look at the aliens in the Mosley Cantina and tell me that with a straight face. Last I checked, flying limbs in a bar with a smuggler was not child friendly.
ReplyDeleteI WOULD agree that Star Wars has progressively BECOME for children. But then.. that of course is part of the world's complaint with Star Wars. What once was a very 'comic book' styled dark and realistic universe has been polished away.
I do agree that it has been watered down a bit. But before there was Jar Jar Binks, there was C-3PO. Before there was "Little Ani," there was Ewoks. Before there were Pit Droids, there were Jawas.
ReplyDeletePlus cutting someone's arm off is might not be for the kiddos today, but when we were young it was still pretty common. Indiana Jones was rated PG and it had faces melting off.