The sheer amount of world-building is remarkable: in one film we are introduced to the whole power structure of the galaxy before The Empire: a Republic, a Senate, a Jedi Council, Coruscant, Naboo and the Gungan city, and we are reintroduced to lawless Outer Rim planets like Tatooine.
STAR WARS EPISODE 1 RACISM MOVIE
In fact, from editing to dialogue to plotting, some of the nuts-and-bolts film-making on show is, frankly, baffling.īut there is – there is! – a great movie lurking beneath all this. There’s also an uncanny weightlessness to much of the CGI. Throughout the film, scenes seem to linger for a few awkward seconds after they should, or cease abruptly without any purpose for their existence having been established. He’s merely one of an entire ensemble of characters without a single definable personality trait between them. Likewise, the odd “yippee!” aside, Anakin isn’t half as irritating when seen at a cool remove of 22 years after the fact. So it’s no great challenge to ignore him. Jar Jar is the main culprit, but on reflection, he’s little more than an occasional annoyance. It would be impossible to stage a defence of the film without at least addressing its faults, which are certainly legion. “I had people come to me and say, ‘You destroyed my childhood.’”) All of a sudden, The Phantom Menace was loathed. In the early days of the internet, both actors were unprepared for the now sadly commonplace levels of abuse the toxic side of fandom can discharge. Special hatred was reserved for Jar Jar, played by Ahmed Best, and for young Anakin Skywalker (the then nine-year-old Jake Lloyd). (George Lucas strenuously denied any racial stereotyping, making these elements of the film, at best, bewildering oversights.)
Questions were asked of the relevance of the CGI aliens’ accents, from the Caribbean patois of Jar Jar and the south-east Asian timbre of the Trade Federation Neimoidians to the slave-owner Watto, who was accused of being equally offensive to both Arabs and Jews. The wow-factor of the CGI rubbed away, revealing the creaky bones of the film beneath. In the months following the movie’s release, opinion shifted.
0 kommentar(er)
