Jeff's Star Wars Episode One Reactions

May 25, 1999, 1:27am

I race home after having just seen Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
for the second time.  I race downstairs to type up a journal entry
describing my reaction last week to seeing it the first time, and my
new thoughts having now seen it twice.  I am eager, but I still have
the music coursing through my veins.. So I run upstairs, grab my
CD-player/alarm clock, run back downstairs with it, put in the soundtrack,
and play song 2 on repeat (Duel of the Fates).  I sit to type, ready to
pour thoughts onto the "page".  Then, like Qui Gon Jinn when he gets stopped 
by the red forcefield when chasing Darth Mull, I see my machine has frozen
and I have to reset it.  Calmly I sit, with all of the rage in my heart
wanting to type, wanting to speak, wanting to record, wanting to remember.

I wait forever.  The login prompt arrives.  I RACE through, and grab the
first xterm I can, and feverishly start typing what you're reading now.

I'd normally say something like "words can't describe how I felt about the
movie", but that's so wrong - I've described it so many times recently,
that I clearly can - I just want to say them to myself.. that is, the
"myself" in the future that's reading this.

I'm going to type this out of order.  The first thing I type will be my
reactions to seeing it the second time.  Then I'll describe what I
thought after the first time.  You'll read them in order, because I'll
insert the second stuff in here right, but just know I'm writing it
backwards.

On I go..

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Warning to anyone reading this:  HUGE spoilers for Episode One here..
If you haven't seen it, stop reading.  In fact, what are you doing reading
this in the first place?)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

======================================
= Reactions after the first showing: =
======================================

(Again, I'm typing this after all of the stuff below under "second
showing", so I'm pretty tired now)

Ok.  I saw Episode One on opening night (of course), May 19th, 1999
with 10 other people - Kevin, Caroline, Cheryl, Carl, Erin, David, Sharon,
Ted, Cappa, and Sal.  We saw the 7pm show then went to Chili's afterwards
for dinner (they were in the middle of renevations, so we sat in the back
in the dark talking about the movie for at least an hour or two).

First thoughts: awesome.  I loved it.  I hated the Jar Jar stuff, but was
glad it dropped off quickly (and that the whole movie didn't center around
it).

If someone told me when I was a kid that R2D2 was once owned by Darth Vader,
and that C3P0 was BUILT by Darth Vader, I would freak.  TOO cool.  Loved
how they met, loved everything about it.

LOVED the first scene we see R2D2 in - fixing the outside of the ship.  WAY
cool.. They were able to do something new with the character that didn't
ruin the essence of it.. in fact, that's what R2 was built to do!  I also
now appreciate all the gizmos he has (when 5 and 6 came out, I always thought
of R2's "gadgets" as being added for the benefit of us kids on the audience..
The hand that he gripped Yoda's flashlight with - the shocking thing that
he used to shock that Ewok with - that buzzsaw that he cut them down with..
But now we see that those are all NECESSARY parts for him!  He does repairs
on the outside of the ship!  Too cool.

Of course thoughts now start like "whoa.. ObiWan is there when R2D2 is
introduced to the Queen as the one that saved her.. yet he doesn't
recognize R2 in 4..  Nor does he remember ever owning a droid.."
Then again, he doesn't own R2.  And maybe R2 units are so common that it's
like seeing a Honda - you don't think that it might be YOURS.. it's just
another Honda.  Still.

Then there's the whole thing about R2 now being special to the royal family -
he just saved the queen.  He seems to stick around with them the rest of the
movie.  Is that why R2 was with Leia eventually?  Because he's kept close to
the royal family out of respect?

And C3P0 being born/made on Tattoine.. Back up, but didn't 3P0 say
"What a dessolate place this is" about Tattoine?  That's his HOME!
He didn't act like he'd ever been there.  And he certainly didn't say
to Luke "Skywalker?  Wow, what a coincidence, I was CREATED by a SkyWalker..".

(Interesting though that C3P0 never meets ObiWan in this movie..  Maybe he
never does?)

Anyway this all makes us think that at the very least C3P0's memory gets
erased sometime in 2 or 3 (if not R2's also).  Dave pointed out that droids
memories get erased as a matter of course (remember what Uncle Owen said?
"Take those droids to Anchorhead to get their memories erased. Their ours now."

(It might be OK to leave R2's memory alone - he seems to be more secrative
anyway).

Ok, next thoughts.  It was GREAT that we got to see light sabers used for
something other than usual sword fights (when Qui Gon Jinn tried tearing
through the door.. OH MAN was that cool.  How many times have we all
wondered if you could do something like that?)..  Then, those rolling-things
(droids that rolled up then stopped with legs) actually SCARED me..

It was cool that when those rolling things arrived and they both realized they
couldn't beat them, they ran away WICKED fast - like a blur, then the camera
went around the corner and they were WAY the hell down the hall.  Cool that
they can do stuff like that, and like the jumps they do later in the movie.
It makes sense.  If Vader can lift objects and throw them around the room,
they should all be able to project themselves up in the air.  Plus, we saw
Luke do a bit of this in Empire (just before he almost got frozen in
carbonite himself).

I loved that a mere two Jedi made it out of that station on their own, and
down to the planet.  Awesome.

Apparently Lucas said (before Episode One came out) something like
"Oh you haven't even SEEN Jedi yet.. Those were just kids practicing..
THESE are JEDI..".  He couldn't have been more right.

(I also liked the silver female 3P0 droid)

The whole Jar Jar Brinks thing was really annoying, but again I was glad it
dropped off pretty quick.  When I first saw them go inside the air-bubble
I thought of The Abyss.  I was glad to see them leave but sorry to see them
take Jar Jar.

Going through the planet core (this first time I saw it) made me a little
uneasy because I was wondering where the movie was going.  I remember
thinking "umm, this is STAR wars..".. I was just worried that the whole
movie would be like this Jar-Jar scene.  Luckily it wasn't.

The first big fish was awesome - it reminded me of a huge Sea Raven.

Wow they picked a great girl to play the Queen.. The girl from The
Professional (I wonder how long I'll still call her that from now on..
that's like "the guy from American Graffiti" I suppose).

As soon as Anakin and Padme started talking, I figured out that it had
to be the two of them.

Oh yeah - I'd successfully sheltered myself from news about the movie enough
so that at the beginning I didn't even know which was ObiWan until they
started speaking..

I remember back in 4 (I'd watched 4,5,6 the previous weekend w/Kev.. well,
4&5, then watched 6 myself the next night) that ObiWan said that when he
met Anakin, he was already a very skilled pilot.  I always thought that meant
he met Vader when Vader was like 20 or so.  Heh.  For that reason I almost
thought they wouldn't even meet in this movie (because I knew Anakin was
played by the kid).. Then in the first or second sentence Anakin tells
Padme that he's a pilot.  Wow.  They kept building up to the race - I knew
there was a race because I knew a Nintendo 64 game was going to be a racing
game, but I had no idea what kind of racing.  Holy shit.
(The mother is insane for letting him do that race, no matter what).

Very funny seeing C3P0 meet R2.

The Senate was huge - I'm glad they did justice to it - I've been talking
about it since Episode 4 (I still can't believe how casually they throw in
that the Emperor has dissolved the senate).

I knew something was bad about Senator Palpatine, but I never made the
connection between him and Darth Sidius.  It was weird because when Darth
Sidius came on, all I could see was like 5 pixels of his face (on a hologram
no less) and I instantly recognized him as the same actor as they used for
the Emperor in Episode 6, and I said to myself "good, they're using the
same actor.. much less makeup - looks much younger. very well done".
So I KNEW the Emperor (well, not the Emperor yet) was in the movie already.
And even then, I remember seeing the Senator and thinking "this guy is
growing in evil - maybe he'll end up becoming the Emperor" (totally forgetting
that I'd already seen the Emperor/Lord Sidius).  Dave & Sharon told me later
in Chili's, then it all started to make sense (hit me like a mack truck).

Every time Samuel L. Jackson said anything, I was expecting "Motherfucker"
to come out of his mouth next.  I didn't make this joke though - this was
a sacred moment (the whole movie) - no jokes.

I loved everything Yoda said.

I loved that we see at least a bit of what makes Anakin so susceptible to
the dark side - he was just torn away from his mother and he's afraid.
There's a start..

When I saw Empire and Yoda said "Nope.. Too old.. YES!  Too old.  Too old
for the training.. UmmHmm.." to Luke, I thought "well how young do you have
to be?"..  Apparently VERY young.  Jesus..

I'm still 50/50 on this whole metachlorine thing.. When I heard it, I was
thinking "Why am I not hating this?  I would think that I would hate this.."
I think a lot of it is because I'm an atheist and would always analyze a
situation.. If I had the ability to use the force and someone else absolutely
didn't no matter what they tried, I'd be very curious to have our DNA compared,
cells examined, blood checked, etc.  And THEY had ridiculously advanced
technology.. ..so they'd probably do that too.  It still doesn't explain
why Yoda didn't talk about it to Luke (or ObiWan), but I don't mind it too
much.  They NEEDED a plot device that would let them identify Anakin as
having a huge potential, even though he hadn't been trained.

When I heard the mother say that he had no father, I didn't quite buy it.
The look on her face looked like a lie, or like she was hiding something.

I didn't like how cruelly Anakin left C3P0.. (actually this bugged me less
than him leaving his mother, which I just realized now).  It was just way
too abrupt and cheerful.  Then again, this is Darth Vader we're talking
about here.

The city-planet was really cool.

The battle with Darth Mull, Qui Gon Jinn, and ObiWan was fucking incredible.
That double-sided light saber was the perfect touch.  Watching the two of
them attack him was too much fun.  I still (STILL) have the music going
through my head.

I was a bit surprised (though I shouldn't have been) that Qui Gon Jinn
and Darth Mull didn't survive past Episode One.

I can't wait for the next episodes......

I'm sure there's more, but I can't remember and I'm tired.

---

Ok, now on to the stuff that I'm actually typing first:  my reactions
after seeing it the second time:

=======================================
= Reactions after the second showing: =
=======================================

First of all, this was the first time I've ever seen a movie alone
in the theater.  Well worth it.  This may have cured me of that stupid
superstition.

Loved it even more.  I realized that I can now see this movie at least
twenty times without getting sick of it..

This was the second time I've seen it - the FIRST time that I saw it after
knowing that Darth Sidious was Senator Palpatine.  One observation I made
at the end of the movie is that even in this relatively happy movie, it's
already rather dark if you know what to look for.. even in the final
scene where everyone's happy, the underwater king holds up the sphere of
"peace", and all is well, but Senator Palpatine is right there the whole
time, smiling happily.  What a shadow..

First words spoken by ObiWan in the entire series of movies:
I've got a bad feeling about this.

Jar Jar said "How rude!" at least 3-4 times.  I still think that's where
3P0 gets the phrase from (even though he only uses it once that I remember,
in cloud city, about the other droid).

Interesting hint to Palpatine being the Sidious, if you didn't catch the
actor:  they show Sidious on the City planet, then later show Palpatine
on that planet as well.  (Sidious at night, Palpatine during the sunny day)

When Qui Gon Jinn asks the "queen" to leave with him, she looks kind of
uncertain, and turns and looks at Padme for advice.  "We are all brave"
was what Padme said to the Queen - a hint that her decision was to "go".

I saw the ET characters.  No one even told me where - I was happy to have
seen them on my own.

Clarification of a misconception of mine:  the "things" that indicate a
strong ability in the force (metachlorines?) are actually living symbiant
creatures (I'd heard this the first time but forgot it).  They "tell"
Jedi's what the will of the force is.  When Qui Gon Jinn addressed the
councel(sp?), he told them he believed that it was possible that Anakin was
conceived BY the metachlorines themselves.  Interesting, and still more
believable than divine intervention.

I've determined that my least favorite part of the movie (though I don't
INTENSELY dislike it) is the time between when Qui Gon Jinn first arrive
on the planet and meet Jar Jar, to the time that they make it through the
planet core and come out on the other side.  I love everything before that
time period, and everything after.

Something else that finally dawned on me.  Darth Sidious is FROM the Nabu
homeworld, so that means he deliberately made a deal to have his own world
attacked so he could manipulate the queen into getting him elected.  I
realized he was manipulating her, but it had slipped by me that he had to
order an attack on his own people to do it.  Wow.

The Sand People (tusken raiders) are NOT an "official" part of the pod-race,
but they're not much of a surprise.  The announcers say "hey, it looks like
we have a few Tusken Raiders on the <somethingorother>" during the race.

I disliked Jar Jar a bit less this time.  Only a bit.

When R2D2 is being introduced to the Queen, both Qui Gon Jinn AND ObiWan
are there, and are both paying attention.  (again, ObiWan doesn't recognize
R2D2 in episode 4, nor does he remember ever owning a droid.  Then again,
they're probably pretty common..  still, I dunno.....)

I remembered that during the first movie I'd thought that the Battle Droids
sounded a bit like Sylon Raiders (??  Battlestar Galactica)

Todd/Tom? was right, they did the "big fish eats the little fish" thing twice
in a row.  It wasn't that bad though.

I caught this time that they got down to the planet in the attack ships.
Also right before that I saw them fall out of the ventilation duct into
the main hanger in that far-away shot.

MAN I love to watch real Jedi's use those sabers.

Yes, the kid is a bad actor.

Ok, yes, there's clearly a FEMALE Hutt.. I knew there was another one,
but I wasn't sure before.. I can clearly see now though that it's
emale.. (in the back to the left).
 
I always thought it was Jaba the Hutt.  The credits say Javva the Hutt. (?)

I told someone there was a "translator" as part of
the "transmitter" that was implanted in all of the slaves.  I was
hearing things - they only talk about a transmitter to keep slaves from 
escaping.

It was interesting hearing how they switched from soundtrack-track to
soundtrack-track when scenes changed..  When switching back and forth
between the Darth Mull fight and the Jar-Jar/battle-droids fights,
the music changed each time.

I saw really clearly this time when Qui Gon Jinn and ObiWan ran REALLY
fast down the hall at the beginning when the two rolling things came
by.  I also realized why I was so afraid of those - they both have force
fields, and they were firing so fast that Qui Gon Jinn and ObiWan were
swinging their light sabers like crazy to try to deflect them all.

I also saw Qui Gon Jinn jump really high during his FIRST battle with
Darth Mull and make it onto the ship.

Once you know that Senator Palpatine is Darth Sidious, it's PAINFULLY
obvious..  Especially at the funeral (like someone told me) when
Yoda/SamuelLJackson talk about there only being two, and which was
destroyed - they zoom right in on Senator Palpatine's face.

ObiWan does this kick-ass defensive manuver when fighting Darth Mull..
Darth Mull goes to hit ObiWan on his front side and ObiWan holds his saber
facing up.. Then Darth Mull uses the other side to attack his back, and
ObiWan swings his saber over the top of his head so it's pointing down
behind his back, blocking Darth Mull's attack.  Toooo cool.

The Pod race was amazing to watch (even a second time).  The more I play
the Nintendo 64 game though, the more impressed I am with the game's
speed.  I DID notice in the movie that Sebula(sp?)'s pod makes this
uneven wub-wub sound as it goes by - pretty cool.

Dolby Digital blows.

On the planet when the queen reveals herself and exposes her "decoy",
I think they used a different actress for the "decoy" queen.

The Viceroy(?) says at one point "This is getting worse.  Now there are
two of them!  We should never have entered into this bargain."..
Sounds familiar, eh?  (Lando & Vader)

Jar Jar is TALL.

ObiWan REALLY tried to make it through all of those red forcefields before
they went back on again.

Qui Gon Jinn looks AWESOME after he's been just calmly meditating and the
red forcefield goes back up.

Again, noticed that apparently Qui Gon Jinn's not "special" enough to
vanish when killed, like ObiWan (eventually) or Yoda.

When I watched ObiWan shake hands with Anakin for the first time (this
time), I thought "This kid kills ObiWan..."

The Chancellor that dispatched Qui Gon Jinn and ObiWan at the beginning
of the movie (Zod from Superman II) is the one that the Emperor cleverly
gets kicked out of office.

C3P0's got something spinning inside his head.

I still love the scene where Padme just finished receiving a transmission,
looks over and sees Anakin huddled in the corner, asks him something (is
he ok maybe? I forget), and he answers "I'm cold"..  I bet you could do a
2-second cut of that answer (without anything after it.. cut REAL quick)
and make a good (misleading) preview clip out of it.. (I imagine the Dark
Side is cold?).

An interesting thought:  if the metachlorines(sp) are actually guiding
people along the "force's destiny", then they were doing so heavily through
Obiwan - he's the one that picked Tatooine to land on - Qui Gon Jinn just
agreed.  After all, that's where they encounter the "chosen one", and Qui Gon
Jinn is convinced it's not a random chance - it's no accident.  I wonder how
much more powerful than Qui Gon Jinn Obiwan will turn out to be.. (again,
he's at least "special" enough that he disappears.)

Oh man I can't stress enough how awesome this music is.

I appreciated Darth Mull a bit more this time around.

I still find it disconcerting that C3P0 isn't even appreciated by his
creator.. (Anakin leaves in a heartbeat.. at least he turned on C3P0 to
tell him, but then BLAM, he was out of there in a flash).  Poor 3P0.
It's bad enough that no one else appreciates him, but not even his creator?

There is one Jedi on the councel with a REAAAALLLY long thin neck.  Not the
guy with the tall head, but rather a long long neck and a tiny round head -
almost like the creatures from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I heard a wookie at the senate chamber (but I think I noticed this the first
time through too).

Senator Palpatine was the hologram talking to the Queen and her group
when the communications were shut off.  Makes you wonder if he was
talking with them so they'd realize immediately that their communication
was cut off, so they'd go to the senate to beg for help.

Lastly, I'm now thinking more about that little pendant thing that Anakin
made for Padme.. I'm wondering how early in Episode 2 we'll see it.

That's it.