Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Real-Time Thoughts On The Phantom Menace After Far Too Many Edibles

  • AHHH!
  • Punchy brass!
  • My teevee set was too voluminous; excuse my fright.
  • Christ, I don’t wanna do this.
  • No one asked for this.
  • Literally none of you.
  • I threw it out there, and no one caught it.
  • And I don’t wanna, not particularly.
  • No one is enjoying this.
  • A perfect synecdoche for 2019.
  • Anyway, I have not seen these films in a decade.
  • I saw all three opening weekend in the theaters, with repeat attendance for the first two.
  • Starting to see a problem.
  • The first bit in Star Wars was an exciting pew-pew battle.
  • The first bit in The Phrantic Mormon is two guys in robes talking about politics, and also some aliens in robes.
  • No, wait.
  • Something blew up.
  • And now the Space Rabbis are slicing and dicing with their magic swords.
  • “More lightsaber” being the preferred answer to all life’s little problems at Skywalker Ranch is one of the Prequels’ weaknesses.
  • There are so many weaknesses.
  • But the over-reliance on lightsabers is a glaring one.
  • Yes, fans like them.
  • They’re shiny.
  • Fans like shiny things.
  • And they make the noise.
  • Oh, do the fans love the noise.
  • But the weapons were used sparingly (enough) in the Only Trilogy.
  • SW: Obi-Wan’s hut, briefly on the Falcon, and the duel with Vader.
  • ESB: on Hoth, and then on Dagobah, and then Cloud City, okay fine this one had lightsabers coming out of its ass.
  • ROTJ: Escaping from Jabba, escaping from the Stormtroopers, fighting Vader, okay this one, too.
  • I will modify my point to “the weapons were used tastefully (enough) in the OT.”
  • One-on-one fights.
  • Slow, clumsy, goofy-ass one-on-one fights.
  • And lightsabers were just swords.
  • Hence the name.
  • Sabers.
  • Prequels changed all that.
  • Now lightsabers could have multiple blades, just like men’s razors.
  • Or lightsaber nunchucks or shit like that.
  • Fuck!
  • Jar Jar!
  • Woooooooooow.
  • He is…
  • He is not quite as photorealistic as George Lucas had hoped, is he?
  • It’s slightly better than Roger Rabbit, but not really.
  • Jar Jar has brought Taken and My Boyfriend to the underwater city where he’s from, as he’s a member of a race of amphibious fish-monsters?
  • This is Naboo.
  • Everybody’s on Naboo, which is a planet that looks like a Robert Kincaid painting, except for where the fish-monsters live, which looks like a Roger Dean painting, and the Space Rabbis and Space Scrappy have to get to other side of the planet, so they…take a submarine through the planet’s core?
  • That’s not how planets work.
  • That’s not how cores work.
  • Who wrote this shit?
  • Oh.
  • Never has a man more benefited from an idea than George Lucas has from Auteur Theory.
  • (George Lucas also benefited from being a rather canny businessman.)
  • But Star Wars and the two that followed were group efforts.
  • The original film was apparently unwatchable before a massive re-cut by Brian DePalma and George’s wife, Marcia.
  • And, of course, Empire and Jedi were written and directed by others.
  • Why are these robots even bothering to hassle the Space Rabbis?
  • They get sliced through tin foil.
  • Ah, shit, it’s Artoo.
  • Taken, My Boyfriend, and Space Steppin Fetchit are now on a ship; they’re trying to get off of Naboo, but the Buttfaced aliens have blockaded the planet.
  • And their pilot’s strategy is to “fly straight at ’em.”
  • This works.
  • Star Wars is so fucking dumb.
  • Oh heeeeeeey Darth Paul.
  • I know his name is Darth Maul, but he doesn’t Maul anyone.
  • Goes out like a bitch.
  • Darth Paul is the Boba Fett of the Prequels.
  • Natalie Portman is a queen of some sort?
  • But she’s in hiding?
  • I dunno.
  • None of this ever made sense to me.
  • So she’s pretending to be her own handmaiden, but she’s also Keira Knightley.
  • And now they’re on Tatooine.
  • The cartoon rabbit just stepped in doody.
  • When I was a kid, I spent hours in front of the mirror practicing how to smile like Han Solo.
  • And now the cartoon rabbit has stepped in doody.
  • And anti-Semitism.

  • Look at that hateful bullshit.
  • I don’t mind those other aliens who are clearly Chinese stereotypes.
  • The Chinese should get a sense of humor.
  • But that’s not okay.
  • Jar Jar is not getting any realer-looking in the harsh desert sunlight.
  • Looked shitty in the dappled shade of the Naboo forest, and worse now.
  • They are in real sets, though.
  • I seem to remember the backgrounds becoming increasingly digital as the Prequels went on.
  • Ugh, Threepio just met Artoo.
  • Do you remember that–apparently–Baby Darth Vader built C3P0?
  • Baby Darth is nowhere near as cute as Baby Yoda.
  • Also a worse actor.
  • NOT THE KID’S FAULT.
  • Still: he was no Jodi Foster.
  • Our Star Warriors have met Baby Darth, who is a slave on Tatooine, and also Jesus and also he built Threepio, and there are various complications so as to lead us into an action-oriented set piece.
  • I am convinced that Taken is heavily sedated.
  • Xanax, maybe.
  • Bantha!
  • YAAAAAAAAAY, BANTHA!
  • I saw the thing from the other thing!
  • YAAAAAAAAY!
  • From what I can gather, Taken and My Boyfriend’s ship is broken, and they need to win some sort of race to get the money to fix it.
  • Which sharpish types will identify as the plot to most, if not all, of Elvis’ films.
  • DARTH VADER IS NOT SPACE JESUS.
  • Remember how Peter Cushing scolded him when he was arguing with the other guy during the meeting on the Death Star?
  • “Hey! Darth! Put it back in your pants!”
  • He’s just a Scary Robotface-man.
  • But this is what happens when George Lucas is given complete control.
  • Within the past ten minutes, we’ve learned that:
    • Baby Darth was conceived immaculately.
    • He built C3P0.
    • There is a blood test for the Force.
  • All of these ideas would be discarded after the first installment of the Prequels and never mentioned again.
  • Lord, I’m bored.
  • Step it the fuck up, people.
  • Why isn’t Taken shooting Slavs?
  • Usually in his movies, Taken shoots Slavs.
  • But now he’s talking to a poorly-drawn anti-Semitic cartoon.
  • I am not joking, Enthusiasts: Meyer Wolfsheim was a less overtly Jew-hating caricature than Watto.
  • Nothing I can say about the Prequels will be as insightful–or as funny–as the Plinkett Reviews from Red Letter Media.
  • Go watch ’em.

  • Why is a six-year-old allowed to pod-race with grown-ups, most of whom are aliens?
  • Shit, here’s Jabba.
  • He continues his tradition of never, ever, ever looking real since that one time they actually made him.
  • Anyway, the Laffalympics are going on.
  • It’s all cock?
  • Used to be a team of guys in tee-shirts built a model.
  • Then you ran a camera by it.
  • Looked like it was moving.
  • There was a weight to the models.
  • Now?
  • It’s all cock.
  • Saw this opening night at Mann’s Chinese Theater, which is a sweet Nerd Cred card to play.
  • I lived right behind the storied auditorium on North Orange Drive; for a week before the film’s May 1999 release, the line went by my window.
  • Here, look:

  • The black line is the line.
  • One afternoon, two fat guys dressed as Jedis got into a fistfight.
  • They windmilled their arms at one another.
  • The Force was with no one that day.
  • I did not wait in line; my buddy Phil had scored us tickets for opening night.
  • He worked for David Zucker, back when he was not a crazy right-wing person, and so he called in favors.
  • Or maybe he just got lucky.
  • The Chinese is a Golden Age thousand-seater; there’s velvet everywhere, and the carpeting speaks four languages.
  • Swanky establishment.
  • We’re sitting middle, center.
  • No better seats.
  • Crowd went nuts, I must admit.
  • No revisionism here: the audience at the Chinese Theatre did not turn on the film as it was shown.
  • Cheers and laughs and rousing receptivity.
  • And huge whoops any time something Star Warsy came on screen.
  • Artoo?
  • YAAAAAAAAS!
  • Threepio?
  • OMIGOD!
  • And leaving the venerable movie palace that evening, I would’ve give you a positive response.
  • The experience clouded my judgment.
  • Went back on Wednesday.
  • Hell, it was within walking distance.
  • Wasn’t like I had a job.
  • This showing was not packed.
  • The usual handful of the unemployable, disreputable, and furtive that populate any weekday movie.
  • Lights went down.
  • Could this be the same movie I just saw five nights before?
  • I remembered laughing and cheering, but it was just…boring.
  • Mind-meltingly, ball-shavingly boring.
  • I took two smoke breaks.
  • Considered not going back in the second time.
  • Every other occasion a movie forced me to take two cigarette breaks, I didn’t go back in the second time.
  • But, you know: Star Wars.
  • So I went back in.
  • The matte-ing is so cheap.
  • The characters all look like Colorforms.
  • Like they’ve been affixed to the screen rather than actually being in it.
  • Okay, so not Baby Darth is in front of the Space Rabbi council, and Yoda is like. “Let me ride them, someone must.”
  • And everyone’s like, “Master Yoda, stop riding people.”
  • “LOVE IT, I DO.”
  • And then he leapt onto the guy with the giant horse penis head.
  • The guy bucked and whirled, but he couldn’t get Yoda off.
  • He can grab strong with those little claws of his.
  • This kid was not up for this acting challenge.
  • That’s all I’ll say.
  • NOT HIS FAULT.
  • But he’s awful.
  • Just like in the Matrix Sequels, there is a guy in this film who I keep wanting to think is Joe Morton, but is definitely not Joe Morton.
  • I might be kinda racist
  • Except racist people think black people all look alike, and I think all black people look like Joe Morton.
  • So I am not racist.
  • Whew.
  • Glad we settled that.
  • Among his near-infinite other crimes, George Lucas gave My Boyfriend the single worst haircut of his career.
  • Look at this bullshit:

  • That haircut put in his six with the Coast Guard and now works as a union electrician in Ocean City, Maryland.
  • Now they’re setting up for a big fight or something.
  • The computer graphics are gonna run at the other computer graphics.
  • In a big field.
  • The Marvel Cinematic Universe stole a lot from the Prequels.
  • They’re talking about stuff.
  • Real, real close to shutting this off.
  • I hate it, and life, and I don’t know why I did this.
  • If you enjoyed this, then there’s something wrong with you.
  • And I have fried chicken from Publix.
  • I could watch something else.
  • Literally anything else.
  • I could watch paint learn.
  • Y’know how people say watching paint dry is boring?
  • Imagine how long it takes paint to pick up concepts.
  • Very boring.
  • They are pew-pewing at each other now, and Baby Darth has stolen a spaceship that he knows how to fly because he is a magic child.
  • Buncha assholes fighting in space.
  • Buncha assholes fighting on a field.
  • Buncha assholes fighting with lightsabers.
  • Darth Paul has arrived.
  • Face all looking like a burst sausage casing.
  • Looking like a dog’s dick got caught in a door.
  • That man nasty.
  • He has a double-bladed lightsaber.
  • One blade comes out one way.
  • ZZWHOMP.
  • And then another blade comes out the other way.
  • ZZWHAMP
  • It is very dramatic.
  • Damn my man-shorts, there 20 minutes left.
  • Taken gets poleaxed, and then My Boyfriend cuts Darth Paul in half.
  • I know how it ends.
  • Just get there so I can eat my chicken.
  • Every decision was wrong.
    • The plot.
    • The script.
    • The over-reliance on effects.
    • Jar Jar.
    • Focus on world-building and politics instead of fun adventures.
    • Lack of Tobacco the Space Monkey.
  • Taken and Darth Paul are dueling in a room with a giant open shaft in the middle of it.
  • No guard-rails, nothing.
  • And this is during the reign of the Republic, mind you.
  • I expect that kind of disregard for safety from the Empire, but the Republic were supposed to be the good guys.
  • Space OSHA should be called.
  • Papa Bear’s balls, the kid is now winning the space battle through luck and pluck.
  • I am working on a buddy-cop script entitled Luck & Pluck.
  • One’s got nothing but bad luck, and the other is a sentient pair of tweezers.
  • They do not get along at first!
  • Okay, Darth Paul just died at the road to Dantooine, and I’m gonna pretend the movie’s over.
  • My fried chicken says that the movie’s over.

6 Comments

  1. Luther Von Baconson

    Star Wars, edibles & fried chicken? That’s a lot of stimuli. Drink water, man

  2. Cube

    Publix in hollywood? Sure about that?

  3. JES

    I felt like this one was so dull and so bad that the next two really did nothing else but try to dig out of the hole this one dug. They failed.

    That said, can’t wait for Thoughts on the NOoooOoOooooOooOooooooOoooOooOo!!!!!a

    • Thoughts On The Dead

      I’m sorry I was dull and bad and…ooooohhhhh, the movie was dull and bad. I’ll take my head out of the oven.

      • JES

        You’re never dull, and when you are bad, it is always the GOOD bad.

  4. Merkin

    Star Wars: “A set of giant baubles manipulated by infant mind.”
    —John Simon

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