Starting in my next blog post, we're going to break down Star Wars: The Phantom Menace scene by scene.
My contention for years has been that Phantom Menace could have been a REALLY good movie. We're going to go through the script and try to correct its errors.
General comments on the Phantom Menace not necessarily specific to a given scene should be made on this thread.
Here is the website we'll use to access the script:
http://www.supershadow.com/star_wars/episode_1/the_phantom_menace/script.html
You've been wanting to rewrite this movie for years, right? Here's your chance.
Where do we bitch about casting?
ReplyDeleteProlly here.
ReplyDeleteRight then. What purpose is served by having awful, awful child actors? Nobody else is the age they're supposed to be. Put a young-looking 12-13 year old in and call it a day. I'm not going to harp on this, bc the kid's been beaten up for years over it and it's not his fault. But he was awful. Note that Portman is 17 and playing a 14 year old, so let's not pretend there's some sort of principle at stake.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure we needed SLJ, either, but he doesn't show up for a while so I'll sit on that one.
I'd take that a step further. Forgetting casting an older actor: Write an older character. If Luke can begin training to be a Jedi at 18, so can his dad. Put Padme at 22. Suddenly it's not so creepy thinking they're going to hook up in three years.
ReplyDeleteAnd it doesn't hurt the story at all. Certainly having Padme elected to represent her whole planet at the age of 14 is beyond hard to swallow.
I'll come back to this once Anakin is introduced in the scene by scenes.
Agreed. But then, you and I have had this conversation. But then but then, when has that ever stopped us?
ReplyDeleteI can even see wanting him to be a child as opposed to an 18 year old. Fine. Make him 12.
And then there's "ruling her whole planet". Who's Earth's ruler, again?
I have always pictured Padme as a symbolic ruler. The old "weak governor" type. As I recall it was a short term thing - isn't there another ruler by the 2nd movie and she gets promoted to senator?
ReplyDeleteSorry - I don't know the SLJ reference above - can you clue me in?
Finally, a 10 year old Anakin is impossible. He simply does not have time to have done everything he has done in this movie - damnit the boy is supposedly a slave!!!
Samuel L Jackson.
ReplyDeleteRemember when we started this and in my very first substantive post I said I wasn't going to harp on how bad the child actors were/are? Oops.
Padme is indeed a senator by the second movie.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Jar Jar is a senator in the third movie, so I'm not sure that's really a promotion.
What they really need is more creative titles than "queen." I mean, she's not really a queen. Just use a different word. Suzerain. Viceroy (with some figurehead Roy floating around somewhere). Prime Minister. Fuhrer.