Mr Plinkett's 'Phantom Menace' Review.

Lucas will have his revenge

 

--- Double Post Merged, May 23, 2016, Original Post Date: May 23, 2016 ---

Quite boring review to be honest, should do something about this though.

 

Its pretty hilarious.

The ROTS one might be better though. (The AOTC one is just depressing because that movie is consensus the worst of the 7 thus far)

 

I love the Plinkett reviews for putting into words problems I had with the Prequels. I knew I didn't like the films, but he was the first person to verbalize them. I do think, however, that too many people think "super critical review is a good review," and now any plot hole or problem with a film now brings howls of "Worst movie evah!!!" from the internet.

 

Legendary analisys. I presonally think its the greatest film review ever made. It should be shown to everyone who wants to become a filmmaker, especially the part when he talks about the bad characterisation/plot structure.

 

Fair or not, this guy makes me laugh!

 

Not a big fan of the Red Letter Media.

 

Wow this guy sure speaks his mind.

 

Didn't he say the prequels were nothing like the OT?

 

Sith Rises

I don't hate the Clones, but Sith and Menace are better. I like Menace because of Darth Maul.

 

Oh, there was a thread for this too... okay the reviews are basically a load of nonsense and I have difficulties to grasp how they could reach such an acclaim.

Which of its sloppy analysis and nonsense claims in particular did such a great job of really explaining what people had trouble putting into words?

It's a funny movie riff, but holds no value in terms of being arguments for anything, or being good film critique.

Where does he talk about plot structure? All he talks about is logical problems with strategy or whatever, hardly ever about narrative structure.

His comments on "characterization" consist of a series of disorganized, self-contradictory claims.

 

Yes it does. You just have to listen carefully. Its a very well structured review which shows you how to dissect a movie from plot till edting, cinematography and characterisation.

His comments on characterisation is a well thought method of observing the quality of a character's writing.

 

I'm very familiar with it.

"Structure" isn't the same thing as validity of arguments, but its "structure" after Part 1 is basically just a chronological riff on the movie (quite often tangential aspects rather than central ones).

Well okay 1st review certainly got nothing about editing or cinematography - that'd be the 3rd one, but it doesn't really go into any detail with the "editing".

The comments about characterization, in any of the 3 reviews, are all sloppy and invalid - I've checked

Well, one thing he doesn't observe that well is the actual movie.

 

I usually treat all the 3 Plinkett reviews as one, though now I see this thread is only about the TPM review.
He explains that the editing is so boring like it was done by a robot, and talks about the falling lightsaber shots.
Although there isnt much to be explained about the editing of the prequels. All 3 were cut very boringly with barely any artistic value.

First the characters, then the story while dissecting the visuals and the production about what could've possibly gone wrong. I agree though that his TPM review should've also touched way more topics. I think he didnt want to make the already hour+ review even longer.

Its always a pretty vague thing to claim something without an argument.
But even if you disagree with his criticism about the characters, the method is still very good. I use it on every movie I watch.

I never claimed such thing. Although most of his aruguments are ,,valid" (also the expression ,,vaild" might not be the best when talking about subjective observations and/or subjective conclusions).

 

Claims, not explains.
Uses some interviews about an early ANH cut (with a special effect failure sand speeder shot in it) and descriptions, but never analyzes the actual movie.

Might even be true, but he doesn't.

That's got nothing to do with "editing", though - also he doesn't really argue what's wrong with that, let alone if there are problems with the execution (i.e. actual editing).

There is a lot to be explained, if you're making a 3h review in which you claim it's one of the most important aspects of everything

While the "characters" section contained shoddy analysis and murky values, it at least was a proper section about "characters", and, of course, also story structure centered around characters.

The "story" section, however, didn't contain what it announced - a (shoddy) analysis of the opening scene and how it lacked visual symbolism / relied on "political dialogue", then the claim that this was an example of how the movies were about "shoving ****e onto the screen" even though there wasn't one trace of "dense visuals" in that opening scene, and contrasting that with the "classical archetypes" of the OT which, again, had nothing to do with either dense visuals or what he said about the opening scenes.

This isn't even just sloppy - it doesn't hold together AT ALL.

Then there's an (also rather aimless) section about the TF and what should've been explained about them, and from there on it's just a chronological riff on the movie - usually revolving around tangential issues or "plot holes".

Well, if you leave out important things in favor of irrelevant nonsense, I guess the natural consequence of that is that you can't then end the review with a "see? bad movie QED", or "it's not about the nitpicking, but the major issues I've barely discussed" - and, also, that the review ends up being a riff than a proper review.

The "101 sections" is not that bad, even though it forgets to discuss:
-protagonist archetypes that don't fall into the "schlub saves the day" (such as the wandering antihero etc.)
-ensemble casts in movies that AREN'T Lynch, Tarantino etc
... and is unclear (i.e. murky) about how acceptable those are or not (though they are).

The actual observations of this movie and how the 101 is applied to it, however, is unbelievably sloppy.

But that's boring like

 

He also used an interview with Ben Burtt, the editor of the PT about the editorial style of the movies. He dissected the ending of TPM aswell, where he criticised the editing (while also using the words of Ben Burtt himself during the rugh cut screening) claiming that the ,,ending muliplication effect" prevents the ending arc from having focus or any build up in particular.

Btw now that I think about it it wasnt really the editing which sucked (while it was also very boring/toness/sterile/artificial), but much rather the direction. As the reviews perfectly pointed out, when there isnt an action scene Lucas insists on almost every transition being an establishing shot (wide helicopter shot of the CGI scenery), and then cutting closer for the dialogues. And the dialogues are usually told by 2 (or 3) characters either sitting and talking, or walking, slowing down and talking, or walking sitting down and talking. All this while using generic above-shoulder close ups towards A and B camera.
And every scene ends with a ,,wipe-effect". Makes me feel like the movie was made in powerpoint.
And the fact that most characters talk in an inhumanly disinteressed blank face dosent help either...

The reviews perfectly compared this to the OT, where they used more creative/less formulatic ways to convey exposition/information (like Vader's chamber).

Its indeed subjective what is boring and what isnt. For what I think the OT and TFA had a pretty similar fast pacing, which prevented the movies from becoming boring (though of course it wasnt only because of the fast pacing). ANH won the oscar (among other things) for best editing for its revolutionary fast paced editorial style. Especially in the 70s it was really something rare. Even in the 80s.
While the prequels were generic and formulatic. Even some of the action scenes were pretty boring imo, as the colorful completely fake enviroment sucks out all excitement from the action itself.

First of all putting in adjuncts like ,,sloppy" or ,,murky" dosent help your argument at all. If you claim something is sloppy than explain why you think it is. Otherwise its just a vague term.

Second, it does hold well together. There isnt something like a ,,formula of how to analyse a story". He went on scene to scene dissecting the plot while talking about many other aspects, such as tone, visuals, production of the movie etc. When he was talking about the dense frame he didnt mean it to the opening scene at all. Right there he was merely pointing out how the brilliant opening of ANH managed to deliver a large amount of exposition without a single line of dialogue or how brilliantly did it set an exciting tone. While the opening of TPM started off by an unimpressive and boring way which already in the first minutes sucked out every excitement/human emotion out the movie.

It seems you misunderstood the review. When he was talking about the dense frame he didnt mean it on the opening of TPM at all. He only pointed out that the opening scenes are both great examples of the OVERALL STYLES (not the opening) of both films. While TPM opened in a completely boring, inhuman way with characters talking about exposition in a disinteressted way just to "impress" you later by mindless action scenes, ANH opened with the exciting but rather minimalistic visual shots to tell you an homage story of the classic Flash Gordon serials about an epic quest of discovery.
This is how many of my professors were lecturing in college aswell. Sometimes when they were talking about a topic and gained inspiration/remembered something etc, they switched to a side topic for short then returned to the initial topic.
This is also RLM's style. While dissecting the plot from scene to scene he touches other side topics related to that certain scene. Sometimes the relation isnt that tight, but the topics are always very important.

Lucas's idea of shoving as much sht into every frame as possible to impress you with the colorful, crisp images, instead of character developement or the story was one of the reasons why the movies failed. For instance in the ending duel of TPM, 3 characters were fighting in the most over the top place as possible covered by William's brilliant music while performing a flawless coreography. Cool I guess until you hit puberty, but around then you realise how inhuman and uninvolving the whole situation is. 3 characters you know barely anything about fighting about something you dont care, while performing an obviously fake coreography. Same with the space battle against the trade fedaration ship etc.

Barely anthing he talked about was irrelevant, of course unless you talk about the comedy. He covered everything which mattered in the 3 reviews.

He did not discuss those topics because they are irrelevant. As the review pointed out very wisely, you should stick to the known formulas unless you are a great director, which Lucas clearly isnt. Otherwise you get a movie like TPM where in the end the audience dosent care about any/nor get to know any of the characters.

 

I'm not sure if you were being facetious or not - what I meant was worshipping "subjective" all the time is boring.

I mean, if you go into some movie debate while saying "in my opinion", "I realize it's subjective" or other such stuff all the goddamn, it gets a bit tedious doesn't it?

He said nothing about "build up", which there obviously actually is.

He also didn't talk about the editing in that sequence, as such - the idea to intercut the tonally contrasting battle parts is a matter of general design, not editing.

The initial thesis of that segment, that the multitude of concurrent plot lines didn't work, was also dropped - in favor of stating the obvious, that the tonal contrast was stupid.

"Fast pacing" and "generic formulaic" isn't a valid contrast AT ALL.

Wat? Okay, which for instance?

They ARE relevant, because those ARE among the "known formulas".
And TPM sticks to the formula as well.

Had he said "a protagonist is often a regular schlub who's down on his luck, but sometimes it's a successful yuppie, and sometimes a king for whom all is going great", people would've watched that and been like "wait a second... isn't that kind of what Amidala is like?".
Had he said "and sometimes it's a wandering knight, or a cop / special agent who gets an assignment and then finds out there's more to it or gets attached to the endangers witness etc.", people would've been like "wait a minute... that's Quigon isn't it? yeah, he starts out on an assignment, that's how it goes!".

Had he said "often there's one central character, but at other times there's a few more - a team, or different protagonists leading their own side of the story", people would've been like "ah!".


The movie is simply a combination of several "classical" formulas, there's nothing about it that calls for a "if you're not a genius like Tarantino, don't go avantgarde" - that was just pointless sophistry which replaced this actually very necessary expansion of his breakdown of classic story structures.

Well that's what I meant by it ^^

"Hold together" means being coherent, and there's nothing coherent about "look at how this boring opening is about a landing and then talking about politics - this is an example of the generality:", to "no archetypes" to "dense frame".

Not about opening scene? He says "this is an example of", I guess he then gets sidetracked.

He says it's filled with "boring political dialogue", even though every single line in the sequence is primarily dramatic and serves to build tension and establish characters - and most of them aren't even political.

While they're here to "discuss the trade dispute", everything about the dialogue and tone conveys danger and wrongness.


His (and your) analysis is the epitome of what they call "tone deaf" - you don't take pieces of dialogue that are there to serve excitement/emotion, then call them "boring political" and get a "QED it sucks out all excitement and emotion"; the argument doesn't hold up even 1%.

Well as I said - it went from "this is an example of the generality", and then said generality had nothing to do with the example.

It probably wasn't talking about the opening anymore, but that's veering off and being incoherent, forgetting what your original point was a mere minute ago - i.e. "doesn't hold together".

And the "overall style" then being described as shoving stuff onto the screen

How is expressing vague worry and concern about something being off:
-boring
-inhuman
-exposition?

What about "tell them we're landing at once" sounds disinterested?

Later Quigon expresses some bravado and nonchalance about succeeding at their mission which, again, has nothing to do with "bored", "disinterested", or "exposition".

But these ones are "minimalistic" as well, since they don't contain dense detail - remember?
Also, the only thing that's different about TPM's is the lack of visual symbolism - not so much "excitement", which is more determined by dynamic camera movement, pace, editing etc.

If he's gonna bring up the "big archetypes" of ANH, he ought to compare them to those in TPM - archetypes vs. shoving density onto the screen is not a valid juxtapposition in any way, shape, or form.

Well, obviously there are skillfull ways of going on tangents and returning, and crude/incoherent ways - this is the latter.

Shoving "sht" into every frame =/= colorful crisp images.

One description refers to lots of objects in a frame - from the tone of it, in a disorganized, unaesthetical fashion.
Colorful crisp images refers to, well, colors, contrast etc., says nothing positive about the aesthetics beyond good image quality - but also nothing negative, so the two things aren't remotely the same.

Of course, the composition is actually highly aesthetical for most of the time, and "disorganized dense mess" is an exception - in the review, the ground battle from TPM and the arena shootout from AOTC are shown as examples, which stand out in the 3 movies as the (probably sole) "dense unaesthetical mess" ones... to a high degree, at least.

So... the sensible version of that sentence being "the director includes impressive visuals to impress you with visuals"... wow.

That's an interesting claim... how do the visuals exist "instead" of character development or story?
That's something that requires an argument.

Let's see:

And way after that, unless you're lame.

Even though they fight with ferocity, and passionate face expressions, and it comes off as a mythical clash of good and evil, it's "inhuman"? That's nonsense.

The villain is a mystery guy, not knowing a lot about him is kind of the point - however, this isn't about "knowing stuff", it's about making a proper impression as a charismatic, mysterious thread/presence, which he does.

Obiwan's underused, but made himself noticeable in various ways (particularly the inhuman sarcastic quips).
And Quigon's had one character moment after another, having been the lead character for 2 hours.


So... the main, sufficiently fleshed out hero, with his previously underused sidekick apprentice, fight an enigmatic villain who's appeared to threaten them - suddenly sounds normal doesn't it.

Lol what kind of critical description is that? "You don't care"? This is just fluff.

The truth is, they don't quite make it clear what they're fighting about - it's framed as an "epic fight" where they're trying to rise to the challenge or something, as if Maul had established himself as a primary threat and had to be eliminated; but the actual context in the story is that they were fighting for Padme until he got in the way, AND that they were sent back to find out about the Sith through him.
So, they neither show signs of wanting to get back to the battle (by killing him quickly), nor trying to somehow learn from him about anything.

There's nothing "obviously fake" about it, other than being a fancy fast-paced MA choreography - all of which "look fake", if you wanna go down that route.