Whysa you hate Jar-Jar Binks?
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Hey, I take offense at that. I was 9 when The Phantom Menace came out. That means that I was 7 when the special editions came out. Imagine being seven years old and seeing the original trilogy for the first time in a state of the art circa 1997 theater. You want to talk about a life changing film, A New Hope was it -- not to mention The Empire Strikes Back and, especially to my seven year old mind, The Return of the Jedi.thiosk said:
Once the tapes came out, I watched and re-watched them probably literally 100 times between '97 and '99, and read plenty of the books in the meantime. In addition to this, The Phantom Menace had a huge hype machine behind it. Not only was there constant hype throughout the traditional media, but it was also one of the earliest examples of the internet hype machine. The expectations were so high, especially for the kids who had been just old enough to see the original trilogy with fresh eyes in 1997, that anything less than the second coming would have been a huge letdown. And you know what? I was seriously disappointed by the prequel. Oh, I saw it in theaters, and watched the tape plenty of times when it came out -- but I hated Jar Jar, and just couldn't help feeling let down by the new film. The prequels were a generation crossing disappointment.
As for the OP, you pretty much have to put yourself into the mindset I just described to understand the disappointment and the sense of betrayal that came with those movies. I actually re-watched The Phantom Menace about a year back, and objectively it was nowhere near as bad as I remembered it, but compared to the greatness of the original trilogy, it was a kick in the balls, big time. Jar Jar is really just an easy example of what was wrong with the movie, but he is a good one.
I only wish you could have seen the original cuts, before the 'special editions'.Owyn_Merrilin said:
What bothers me more than anything is that it is now essentially impossible to get those original cuts. Lucas never released the originals on VHS, the very first release for home theater (apart from occasionally being shown on HBO when cable TV was brand fucking new) was the version with all the absolutely unnecessary CGI stuffed into the screen.
Makes me feel very sad and very old.
Making Anakin so young and the addition of Jar-Jar Binks were both very poor decisions made in an attempt to market Star Wars to children. If you cut out the childishness of Phantom Menace it could have been a legitimately good movie.
Jar Jar was too silly for an otherwise serious movie. He just didn't fit well at all in my opinion. But, then again I felt the same way about the kid who played as Anakin. But to be honest, the only thing I liked about that movie was Liam Neeson and the final lightsaber fight.
Actually they did release the original cuts. There were releases in several formats throughout the 80's, as well as a re-release with a remixed Dolby Stereo track in 1993, which was itself reissued in 1995. This was actually the home version I rented a few times before the special edition tapes were released. If you're interested, the current DVD sets have a bonus disc with laserdisc rips of the '93 version -- with the original pre "Episode IV" title scrawl edited back in. That was the only visual change until '97, and aside from C3P0's line about shutting down the reactor on the Death Star tractor beam -- which was added in for the re-release shortly before the release of The Empire Strikes Back -- the audio changes between '77 and '93 were mostly improvements in dynamic range, so it shouldn't be too different from what you remember. I'd love to see it, because I was too young at the time I watched the original original trilogy to really remember it -- I watched it a few times, but my memories of it are buried under the Special Editions.xvbones said:
