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Movie recommendations
Movies recommended by Tarantino
"The three movies I'd bring with me on a desert island"
Blow Out by Brian De Palma
Rio Bravo with John Wayne
Taxi Driver
Movies recommended by the guys at RedLetterMedia (especially Jay) that I'm interested in watching
This doesn't have all of his movie recommendations / references, but it has a bunch of them.
A Ghost Story - Their unanimous favorite movie of 2017.
Gerald's Game
A Killing of a Sacred Deer
American Movie - 94% (from the trailer I think I'm gonna love this one)
Star Trek Beyond
hidden by the duffer brothers
under the skin - jay - "one of my favorite films of the past few years"
brothers grimsby
neon demon
the nice guy
the greasy strangler
the conjuring 1/2
peewee's great adventure and the new peewee movie
Gone Girl
Night of the Living Dead
The Mist
Tremors "a perfect movie"
Silent Deadly Night 2 "The funniest movie ever made"
Trick or Treat "Perfect Halloween movie"
Krampus
Logan
Get Out
bride of frankenstein (weird) 100%
arrival 94%
birdman 91%
under the skin 85%
enemy 75%
interstellar 71%
sicario 94%
Maniac 49%
Saving Mr. Banks (Mary Poppins was real?) 78%
Tangerine 97%
You're Next 75%
The Comedy 45%
Carrie (original)
Her
Looper
Dredd
The Descendants 89%
Antichrist (lars) 50%
pink flamingoes (weird) 80%
Bad Grandpa
rogue one
the force awaken
mad max fury road
ex machina
world's greatest dad - "one of the funniest movies of the past 10 years"
call me lucky - "one of the most gripping and heart-wrenching movies I've seen in a long time"
welcome to me - "i liked it a lot"
black mass - mike - "good"
the overnight - mike "I really liked it"
--Horror--
lake mungo - one of the most creepy / unsettling movie jay's seen in years
The House of the Devil 86%
The Innkeepers 79%
Blue Ruin (violent / unpleasant)
Green Room (violent / unpleasant)
--Not easily available
thx1138
Cabin in the Woods 92% - 3/5
it was certainly different, a really cool concept. I don't really enjoy seeing that kind of violence, though. There's a single 10 seconds towards the end of the movie where it's explained what's been going on.
The movie seems to revel in violating the expectations / norms / cliches that these kinds of movies tend to have.
escape from new york 4/5
I really wonder if 9/11 was in part inspired by the opening sequence to Escape from New York. It literally shows exactly the same thing happening: a suicidal rebel hijacks a plane and deliberately crashes it into a NYC skyscraper in lower manhattan.
The Thing 4/5
The Hateful Eight 4/5
Grand Budapest Hotel 5/5
skyfall 4/5
American Graffiti 5/5
terminator 1 4/5
Drive 3/5
Cowboys and Aliens 4/5
easy rider
Glory
Westworld (1973) 3/5
Wolf of Wall St. 5/5
the blackcoat's daughter (horror) 3/5
the witch 5/5
nightcrawler 95% 5/5
American Hustle 93% - Stopped watching after ~15-20 minutes, it was too boring / stupid.
Movies I've enjoyed
Hellzapoppin'
What I like about it:
Very fast-paced, a gag-a-second.
There's a kind of joy in the performances that I don't seem to see in modern movies. The performers are generally upbeat / energetic / exaggerated.
I like the songs. Modern movies don't really include song-and-dance numbers (Austin Powers is the one that pops to mind of having done something like that somewhat recently).
It plays with the format. It has the characters talking to the audience, talking to the projectionist, talking to their separate on-screen selves while watching their own movie, etc.
The Godfather
Interestingly, both Citizen Kane and The Godfather seem to be about how a person transforms from being "normal" to being a very successful but also ruthless leader.
Film Critics
Red Letter Media
Summaries of their critiques
Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace
My thoughts while watching / summarizing this
The underlying concept for the prequels itself seems like a kind of fan service: Darth Vader is a cool character and the audience wants to know more about him, so give it to 'em, regardless of whether it actually makes a good "hero's journey" adventure movie. It seems like it would make a better Godfather-type movie, which would cater more to adults than kids.
I'm reminded of the Jurassic Park sequel-analysis video I saw: the appeal of the original film is largely the awe of seeing something you've never seen before. So once the first movie has done and the audience has seen the new thing, it's very difficult to recapture that magic in a sequel. In Star Wars' case the sequels benefited a lot from the bond the audience had formed with the characters in the first movie.
It seems that Lucas started out with certain constraints which made it more difficult to create a good story.
He wanted to include R2, C-3PO, young Anakin, young Obi-Wan, Luke / Leia's mother, and Palpatine.
Having young Anakin and young Obi-Wan significantly restricted Lucas' options for casting two of the main characters of the story, as the characters had to look a certain way.
He then didn't have a process to verify that the script was great before expensive production work began.
Mike doesn't mention this, but the entire film is very fully-lit. You don't have the same kind of shadows and darkness that you see in the original trilogy. It would be interesting to have some kind of graph of the luminosity of the screen throughout the film for both the original trilogy and the prequels.
It would be interesting to apply the same level of scrutiny to the original trilogy that Mike does here. I'm aware of at least some things in the original trilogy that people find as questionable as some of the things Mike pointed out here: Ewoks, the discrepancy in Luke's abilities between the end of ESB and RotJ.
Summary of the types of criticisms made
The motivation
Lucas seems motivated to explain things that are best left unexplained.
Ex: Saying the Force is microorganisms.
Lucas seems motivated to pander to young children.
Lucas seems motivated to pander to fans' desire to see their favorite characters and do fan service.
Lucas seems motivated to increase the spectacle without regard to its effect on the story.
Fans want to see the familiar (lightsaber duels), but also want to see something they've never seen before, so Lucas concludes that he should just make more-fantastic lightsaber duels.
The script
The intended audience
The story / script isn't likely to appeal to any audience: the language in and plot of the film often gets extremely formal / complicated, which will be boring for a young audience, but the story is so flexible about what the characters think is a good idea that it won't appeal to a thinking audience either.
The characters - Mike says this is the #1 problem with the movie.
There is no one for the audience relate to and feel tension on behalf of.
No character goes through the 'hero's journey'.
We don't spend more time with one character in particular to get to know them better.
The 'main characters' don't show much / any emotion.
They don't show emotion about wanting something in the same way Luke / Han / Leia all wanted something in the original film.
The 'main characters' don't have very distinct personalities (distinct emotions and thought patterns).
Many of the main characters use very formal language.
Amidala, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan.
There is no clear villain with a clear motivation.
The enemy forces (battle droids) are totally ineffective, removing any tension from scenes featuring them.
Key plot factors are left unseen.
The crisis on Naboo caused by the blockade is never shown.
It isn't explained why the Neimoidians are taking such a huge risk on behalf of Palpatine when it isn't clear what leverage Palpatine has over them.
The story and the way it's told - Mike says this is the #2 problem with the movie.
The story is too complicated.
The ending has four separate threads going on at once, with several of the threads showing conflicting emotional situations (comedy vs. sadness).
The different parts of the story are intertwined in such a way that it's not possible to cut significant chunks of the film.
Characters from the original trilogy end up together in TPM in bafflingly-unlikely ways.
This is clearly done for fan service.
R2 and C-3PO are both in the film.
Deus ex machina
There's a child-sized helmet and goggles in the ship Anakin flies.
Characters frequently do not behave in believable ways.
This unbelievable behavior is often clearly in service of setting up some set-piece fight / battle or keeping some important-to-the-audience character on the screen.
Characters frequently make bafflingly sub-optimal decisions.
Characters will suddenly know things that we have no reason to believe they should know.
Ex: Knowing that the Jedi went up the ventilation shaft.
Characters will unrealistically pay special attention to characters the audience cares about from the original trilogy, like R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Ex: Amidala thanking R2.
Misc Notes
This is by far the most common criticism in terms of the amount of time dedicated to it.
See Part 2, #3 for a bunch of examples.
The script isn't concise / doesn't take full advantage of visual storytelling / tells rather than shows.
The opening to ANH uses the size of the rebel ship and the Star Destroyer to get across the state of things in the universe, while TPM uses a lot of dialogue.
The script sometimes doesn't show a pay-off for a main character's action.
When escaping Naboo R2 fixes the shield generator but the shields aren't shown protecting the ship against further hits.
The script has small inconsistencies / head-scratchers which show a lack of care.
The opening crawl mentions "two Jedi Knights" despite Obi-Wan not yet being a Jedi Knight.
The Jedi willingly drink tea that's given to them right before they're gassed.
The Queen orders a servant to clean R2, but it later turns out that that was a servant ordering the Queen to clean R2, which seems out-of-character.
The casting
Jake Lloyd was a bad casting decision.
Natalie Portman was a bad casting decision.
The cinematography
There are shots at boring flat angles.
The effects / sets / choreography
Using blue-screen for everything makes things look too clean. There's a lack of grit.
Using blue-screen makes it harder for the actors to react realistically (emotionally?) to what they're supposed to be seeing.
The frame is often packed with too many effects, too many things to distract viewers from the story.
The spectacle of the choreography of the lightsaber duels dominates instead of the interactions between the characters.
The process
Lucas doesn't have enough people around him who are willing to challenge him.
The script didn't go through enough drafts to fix the problems it had.
Everyone involved assumed they couldn't mess it up.
Part 1
Intro
0:53 - Nothing in TPM makes any sense at all. It comes off like a script written by an 8-year-old. It's like Lucas finished the script in one draft and the team went with it without anyone telling him that it made no sense at all, or that it was a stupid, incoherent mess.
1:11 - At this point no one is going to question George or tell him what to do; he controls every aspect of the movie, and probably got rid of the people who question him creatively a long time ago.
1:35 - He suspects everyone thought a Star Wars prequel would be an instant hit, regardless of what the plot was; that it would be so easy to make a good movie that they didn't need to worry about screwing up.
1:52 - #1 - The characters
1:57 - The biggest and most-glaring problem with TPM is the characters.
2:15 - In most movies the audience needs a character to connect with, typically referred to as the protagonist. Especially when the movie is full of weird aliens, the audience needs someone like them to guide them through the story. This doesn't apply to every movie, but it works best in the sci-fi, superhero, action, and fantasy genres.
3:00 - The protagonist is usually an everyday kind of person, and often someone who's down on their luck, in a bad place in their lives, or just somewhere where things don't always go perfectly for them.
3:32 - Eventually they'll be confronted with some kind of obstacle or struggle that they have to deal with.
3:43 - If we like them, we hope they succeed. The drama in the film is a result of us rooting for them against their opposition.
3:59 - Eventually the protagonist will find themselves at some lowest point where it seems all is lost.
4:06 - But eventually they'll pull through and conquer whatever force opposes them. It's satisfying when our hero gets ahead of where they started off. They make a change. This is called an "arc". Often too they'll get the girl in the end as icing on the cake.
4:32 - I don't think all movies need to use the same kind of structure, but it works well in certain kinds of movies. Unless you're a truly great / experienced director (NW: presumably "someone who knows they're straying from the formula and knows why and knows it will work for what they're trying to achieve"), you shouldn't stray far from this formula, especially if you're making a movie intended to be seen by children.
5:14 - The original Star Wars film followed this formula.
5:28 - So: Who is the main character in TPM?
It's not the Jedi, because they're boring (i.e. not relatable) and were on a boring mission they didn't care about (i.e. no real struggle).
It wasn't Queen Amidala.
You might think it was Anakin, but the audience doesn't meet him until 45 minutes into the movie, and then the things that happen around him are mostly out of his control or understanding. If the protagonist has no understanding of what's at stake, there's no real tension / drama.
So the conclusion is: there isn't a main character.
Before the movie came out I was excited about Ewan McGregor as young Obi Wan, as I thought he'd be perfect as a lead for the movie, but he wasn't the lead, really. He sat on the ship and complained a lot.
6:41 - "So you may like the characters, you know, if you're stupid."
6:47 - I posed a simple challenge to some people: describe the following Star Wars character without saying what they look like, what kind of costume they wore, or what their profession or role in the movie was. Describe this character to your friends like they've never seen Star Wars.
He does Han Solo, then Qui-Gon Jinn, then C-3PO, then Queen Amidala.
(NW: Amazingly, the people he asks are Rich, Jay, Jack, and the redhead who showed up on one episode of Half in the Bag.)
Part 2
0:00 - #2 - The story.
0:02 - The second biggest problem with TPM is the story and the way it was told.
0:07 - It's almost mind-boggling how complex it is.
0:10 - From the very start I could tell something was really wrong, just from how it started.
It starts with a boring sequence where a pilot asks for permission to land on a space station. Two cloaked figures walk into a room, shot from a camera at a completely flat angle, they sit down in a conference room, drink tea, and wait to talk about a trade dispute. He found himself utterly bored by the time the action started.
Compare that to the opening of the original Star Wars. Shakespeare once said, "brevity is the soul of wit"; this means, "Don't waste my time". In ANH's opening we get all the info we need to know via visual storytelling: the small ship is the rebels, the big ship is the Empire. We get a sense of how powerful the Empire is. The low angle implies dominance. The length of the Star Destroyer implies the long reach of the Empire (NW: this seems like a stretch to me). That opening shot is so genius that he has a feeling Lucas had nothing to do with it.
The opening is a small example of the overall styles of both films. The original trilogy was an homage to the classic adventure serials of the 1930s: good vs. evil, the hero on a journey, the adventurous rogue, the damsel in distress, the wise old sage, and an epic quest of discovery. The new movies are about shoving as much crap into each shot as possible.
2:25 - This idea of packing the frame with as many things as possible is part of what he hates about the Special Editions, because you'll be into what's happening in the story, and they keep shoving more shit on the screen to distract you.
2:41 - Doesn't Lucas realize that cluttering the frame up with shit is not what makes Star Wars good?
3:02 - There is no clear villain in TPM. This is a bad idea, because this movie is intended to be understood by children. Have a bad guy whose motivation is clear.
3:35 - The prequels should be very similar in style to the originals, "because I don't like things that are different".
3:41 - #3 - Death and Space Taxes
3:44 - When you find yourself thinking "Huh?" when you find characters acting illogically in a movie, that's not a good sign.
4:04 - At the end of the movie Yoda makes Obi-Wan a Jedi Knight, even though in the opening crawl it talks about "two Jedi Knights".
4:22 - The Jedis are on the space station in the opening to "settle a dispute over the taxation of trade routes". But why would Jedi be used for this?
4:41 - The Trade Federation have formed a blockade around Naboo to stop them from getting space supplies, which instantly causes some kind of crisis that we never see.
4:54 - Why would an organization called the "Trade Federation" want to blockade trade?
5:23 - If the Trade Federation were merchants, then why do they seem to have armies of robots?
5:49 - The point is, I'm still not sure what the blockade was there to do. And don't tell me it was explained more in the novelization; what matters is the movies.
7:43 - He understands that Senator Palpatine was using the trade dispute to advance himself, but the conflict from the blockade and the subsequent invasion is the entire movie: understanding the role of the Trade Federation in all this is important: what the blockade was about, who was getting taxed, what kind of supplies were so crucial to Naboo? I would have accepted the idea of a mystery villain if the basics were at least clear.
8:25 - When Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan show up on the trade ship, the assistant robot tells the head people on the ship that she thinks they're Jedi without any rationale given to the audience, even though lots of characters in Star Wars wear robes.
8:52 - The head people then tell Palpatine that the two visitors are Jedi, without having actually confirmed this.
Part 3
#3 cont'd (Death and Space Taxes)
0:00 - This is what he thinks is supposed to have happened: Palpatine wanted to create a crisis on Naboo so that Queen Amidala would propose a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum. This would lead to Palpatine getting elected in his place. So how does killing the Jedi and creating a communications black-out on the planet allow word to get back to the Senate that there's a crisis?
0:29 - At the end of the movie Amidala goes back to Naboo to solve the crisis herself, because the Senate didn't believe her or the two Jedi they had sent to resolve the dispute that the invasion was real. That doesn't make sense.
0:58 - What would have made sense in the opening, from Palpatine's perspective, is if Palpatine told the head guys on the ship to tell the Jedi that there would be no negotiations, that they intend to invade the planet next, and that the Jedi should go back to Coruscant to inform the Senate. That would have actually advanced Palpatine's plan.
1:17 - Palpatine says he wanted Amidala to sign some treaty to make the invasion legal, but if she'd been a coward and actually signed the treaty, the crisis would have been averted and there would've been no need for a vote of no confidence, and Palpatine would not become the head of the Senate.
1:40 - To kill the Jedi they blow up the Jedi's ship and start pumping in an easily-visible white gas into the room, making the Jedi alert to the danger. Also, moments earlier the Jedi willingly drank tea that was given to them while discussing that everything felt fishy to them.
2:40 - How does Qui-Gon know what kind of gas it is before he smells it? (NW: How do you know he hadn't smelled it? Ah, he later grants that possibility.)
3:14 - The Jedi don't immediately try to cut their way out of the room and instead just hold their breath, as if they know the battle droids are going to quickly open the door to the room.
3:30 - Then the dumbest line in the movie is said: "They must be dead by now. Destroy what's left of them." Why not just leave the doors closed for like four hours?
4:17 - They could have just told the Jedi to leave, that they didn't want to negotiate, and then blown up the ship with the laser cannons that the movie establishes that the blockade ships have.
4:24 - Also, killing two Jedi ambassadors would've been a pretty heinous crime in the eyes of the Galactic Senate. Yes, you could say they never arrived, but now you've got the wreckage of their ship in your docking bay.
4:52 - #4 - Who's Doing What? Where? Why?
Why are the Neimoidians taking orders from the mystery hologram? What did he promise them?
Darth Sidious can't really promise them political favors once he's elected because it would give away who he is. (NW: Is it clear that they don't know who he is? I assumed they did know.)
6:01 - #5 - I Can't Put Enough Quotation Marks Around The Word "Story" So I Won't Try
6:06 - An assistant to the Neimoidians tells them the Jedi had gone up the ventilation shaft, but it isn't clear how the assistant knows that.
6:28 - Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan end up in the hanger bay; why don't they just start fighting all the battle droids, steal a ship, and head back to Coruscant? Later in the movie they get through the blockade with a single ship, so it's a viable option. Instead Qui-Gon says they're going to go down with the invasion force to warn the Naboo, but wouldn't that mean that they would get to the Naboo no sooner than the invasion force does? And what will the Naboo do even if they're warned? They don't have a real army.
7:30 - For no specified reason Qui-Gon decides that they will stow away on separate ships.
Problems with this decision:
You double the chances of getting caught.
You have no one to help you if you get caught and get into a fight.
You increase the probability of getting separated by hundreds, if not thousands, of miles by not knowing where the other craft is going to land on the planet.
8:18 - They then decide to follow a cartoon rabbit underwater (NW: without justification? I'll need to rewatch the film.). What was Qui-Gon's plan from the beginning? Did he plan to find an underwater ship that would allow him to go through the planet's core? Or did he plan to move along the surface?
8:46 - This is the first point they should have ditched Jar-Jar. This is also the point when the movie starts to officially fall apart. This is the moment when the Star Wars saga is now damaged totally beyond repair. The lapses in common sense begin to compound on the movie and now it is broken.
Part 4
0:00 - #6 - Invasion! Of Boring...
0:04 - A character says "A communications disruption can mean only one thing: invasion." Mike implies that that's an unrealistically-pessimistic interpretation: "It can also mean that you didn't pay your phone bill."
0:14 - (Minor) The Naboo are a peaceful people with no army, but the old adviser seems to be an expert on the process of planetary invasion.
0:25 - What is the purpose of this invasion? It's almost like after Lucas wrote the invasion scenes he didn't know what to do next, so he thought he'd have Amidala have to sign a treaty to make the invasion legal.
Forcing someone to sign a treaty contradicts the idea of a signature on a treaty. Why not just forge the signature? (NW: This seems like a weaker point. Forcing people to sign treaties is actually something that has happened a lot through history.)
0:45 - Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are in the underwater city.
0:50 - Qui-Gon is talking about warning the Naboo that they're about to be attacked, when he doesn't actually know if that is what is going to happen.
1:01 - Obi-Wan also jumps to conclusions, saying that the droid army will also take control of the Gungans.
1:11 - The only thing that the Jedis know at this point is that they were sent to settle a dispute.
1:37 - Obi-Wan says the Gungans and Naboo form a "symbiant circle, what happens to one of you will affect the other". But that doesn't seem clear at all; the Gungans are a totally-isolated city under the water on the other side of the planet from the Naboo.
2:23 - The fact that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are on the other side of the planet raises the question: Why did the droid army land on the other side of the planet if they weren't expecting any opposition? Why not land right outside, or even inside, the Naboo capital?
2:41 - Like idiots, Qui-Gon surfaces their ship right inside an occupied city in broad daylight, and Qui-Gon looks around without any attempt at concealing himself.
2:52 - In the city, Amadala has been captured, but instead of forcing her to sign the treaty immediately, or keeping her locked up in the big capital building under heavy guard, they send her to be "processed" in "Camp 4", with only 8 battle droids to protect them, when they just discussed that there were two Jedi missing, and when they know that the battle droids are incapable of stopping those Jedi.
3:50 - (Sarcastically) It really adds a lot of tension in a movie when the main enemy forces are totally ineffective.
He shows a clip of the black bodyguard saying "There're too many of them", and Qui-Gon responding "It won't be a problem".
He also shows a clip of Lucas saying about the battle droids, "Yeah, Jedi cut 'em down like they're butter, and they really are pretty useless."
4:08 - #7 - Escape!! From the Planet of Boring
4:12 - So they free the Naboo air force and then they get in a silver spaceship to get through the blockade. The point of a blockade is to stop ships from getting through, so (as far as we know, not having information to the contrary) Qui-Gon could have very easily gotten everyone killed.
4:46 - How does the ship's shield generator get hit if the shields are up?
4:57 - The black guard says, "If we can't get the shield generator fixed we'll be sitting ducks". (NW: Mike doesn't say the obvious, which is that 'sitting duck' generally refers to speed, whereas 'shield generators' clearly don't affect speed. But that's a bit nitpicky, as it's clear what the line was meant to imply: without the shield generator they'd be extremely vulnerable to enemy fire.) This implies that with a shield generator they will be able to get through the blockade, which implies that any ship with a shield generator could get through the blockade. (NW: This seems like a stretch on Mike's part.) It seems more plausible that a blockade would be able to destroy any ship, with or without shields, if the blockade focused their fire on that ship.
5:53 - After R2 fixes the shield they don't get hit again, so fixing the shield did nothing at all.
6:11 - After they show no emotion at all about droids being picked off one by one, they inexplicably send R2 up to the Queen to get a pat on the head. She thanks the piece of equipment like it's a person. Nobody thanked the ship, which did a lot more to help them escape.
6:34 - In the original trilogy, normal people didn't think of droids as people. Even Luke responds with sarcasm when being introduced to R2-D2. Would a Queen really thank a droid?
6:53 - (Regarding his 'Amidala thanks R2' point:) Whatever, this is a film for babies. (He then cuts to a scene between Palpatine and Amidala, where the language is extremely dry and formal.)
7:06 - We learn later that the person dressed as the Queen is actually a decoy, and that Amidala is dressed as one of the servants. So when the "Queen" orders a "servant" to clean the droid, she's really a servant ordering the Queen to clean the droid. Did Amidala coordinate with her servant ahead of time to do this? Wouldn't Amidala want to stay in her 'throne room' to stay up-to-date on things?
8:08 - #8 - I'm Gonna Slit My Wrists
8:14 - At this point, I still don't know who the main character is and why I should care about any of this.
Around this point in the original Star Wars movie, we've been with Luke almost the whole time, getting to know him. We see his plight, we learn his hopes and dreams, we feel his frustration, and then his sadness. The slow build-up added depth and emotion and anticipation for the story to expand.
In TPM I don't care about any of the characters by this point, and we have to constantly question every decision made by Qui-Gon.
9:02 - Almost every single line of dialogue makes no sense.
9:04 - Qui-Gon says "We don't want to attract attention", but then takes Jar-Jar Binks into the city with him, and Jar-Jar proceeds to attract attention.
9:17 - Qui-Gon says he took R2 into the city because it has the specs of the type of part he needs, but Watto seems to know what Qui-Gon is talking about, and Qui-Gon has a hand-held hologram that seems to show "it" (NW: Mike says "it", implying the part, but the hologram just shows the ship as a whole.) R2 is never used for that purpose and does nothing at all.
9:34 - The two most effective, clear-minded, logical guys stay on the ship and wait while the clumsy idiot, the slow-moving droid, a vulnerable, attractive young woman, and a "drunk" (Qui-Gon) go wandering around the dangerous city.
Part 5
0:00 - #9 - If I Get a Brain Aneurysm as the Result of This Review Can I Hold the Filmmakers Responsible?
0:14 - The character of Qui-Gon is totally baffling to him and he doesn't know why Qui-Gon is in the movie. Obi-Wan should have been on his own. Obi-Wan should have been eager and adventurous, the guy who found Anakin, formed a bond with him, and really wanted to train him when Yoda told him "No". Instead Obi-Wan acts annoyed with Anakin the entire movie and only wants to train him at the end because Qui-Gon said to. If they had to have Qui-Gon, they should've just had him on the ship, saying very little, and just being very wise. Then when Qui-Gon dies Obi-Wan is left to go on without an older, wiser voice of reason, thus setting the stage for a poorly-trained Anakin.
1:12 - For no reason, Obi-Wan is the one who does not want to defy the council. He's not a risk-taker, and he complains all the time.
1:24 - The "older", "wiser" Jedi is the opposite of what he should be.
#1 - He has very questionable moral values. He repeatedly uses his Jedi mind tricks to his advantage. He uses it to get the underwater ship (which they end up trashing), to scam Watto out of his ship parts, or to fix a legitimate bet to his advantage.
#2 - He's incredibly stupid.
He could have used his Jedi mind-trick to trade his worthless currency at some other dealer for the currency Watto would take.
He could have traded their silver ship for a less-fancy but functional ship, or he could have hired a transport.
Instead of using the most common-sense approach, Qui-Gon concocts a convoluted bet with Watto so that we could get to the pod race.
While explaining this scheme, Qui-Gon lies to Watto about having a pod available for Anakin to use.
5:30 - #10 - Anakin Skywalker
5:35 - Jake Lloyd couldn't act. It's a kiss of death for your movie.
5:50 - The movie says that Anakin and his mother have bombs in their brains that will go off if they try to escape. It's possibly the worst plot device ever shoved into a movie for convenience.
6:00 - What did Anakin's mother do for Watto? It's never established.
6:12 - He shows a bad prop: one of those plastic hand-lacrosse things turned upside-down is painted grey and hung from the ceiling in a scene with Anakin, C-3PO and Amidala.
6:17 - The idea that Anakin built C-3PO is wrong for so many reasons.
Anakin says he built C-3PO to help his mom, but in the original Star Wars it's very clearly established that C-3PO is just an interpreter, basically like a diplomat, and is useless for anything else. His arms don't even bend.
If Anakin really has a knack for building things, why would he build the exact kind of droid that is mass produced somewhere? Wouldn't you build some kind of unique robot from your own imagination?