The Phantom Menace Re-Release May 2024

[Joek3rr]

Been going through the internet archive for some or TPM Nosberries....

anyone remember winamp?

Winamp Skin: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Winamp Skin: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

archive.org

or these fancy win98 desktop themes?

Star Wars - Phantom Menace : themeworld : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Windows 95/98/ME/XP theme Read Me file:Phantom Menace Theme This is my second attempt at a theme. I find that if you unzip it to your theme directory then...

archive.org

Late 90s early 2000s were awesome. (Okay I'm probably biased.)

 

[greenmachines]

It does crack me up that the prescriptive advice given to “cure Jar Jar” is to either cut most of this scenes or find a way to, more or less, shut him up (dub his voice with some incomprehensible alien “gibberish”).

It always comes back to "how can a logical storyline, about a hidden civilization, progress by having jarjar act as not only its ruinous traitor, revealing its location, but also be a recognized authority figure/liason with access to audience with the king, and yet not use any of the loveable uncle living in the basement at grandma's house slapstick?"

 

[JediMichael]

It would actually be interesting, and just for fun, to cut some of Jar Jar's more goofy scenes, and dub him with a very deep and serious tone that speaks proper English.
Being so clumsy myself, that didn't really bother me, but I can see how a lot of it would be too much for people.
Now the whole tongue grabbing scene was to confirm to Anakin, and remind him, that Qui-gon is a Jedi, which further leads to the talk of Anakin also having fast reflexes, and brings up the whole pod race thing. That would be one I would keep, having a reason.
The other stuff was for silly cheap laughs, that didn't work out so well.

I might take a scene and see about a fun little dub, to see how it works.

 

[AnubisGuard]

I don’t know if it was just my theater or what but this was shown at incredibly low resolution. So many shots looked mushy, like worse than dvd. The shot where the Trade Federation tanks come over the hill and you see those little creatures in the top right, they are just blobs. The digital projector was also having issues because there would be random multicolored squares in the bottom of the screen every minute or so. Anyone else experience this?

I noticed it with some shots at my showing -- there was one of the podrace crowd that looked like old school 240p youtube compression. It was shocking. And the stars during the pan down from the opening crawl flickered and strobed. Really, the entire move looked just on the right side of acceptable, as if it was a couple dozen pixels away from mush. I swear they were just streaming a 1080p file.

It is a strong movie. I really enjoyed Quigon and Obiwan's interaction and differences. And Yoda was beautiful! He looked almost as good as a cyberman sculpt! I have no problem with midichlorians. Even for kids who had seen it on tv, their eyes were glued to pod-racing and lightsaber fights! When they stop eating popcorn, you know they are diggin' it!

Shockingly, yeah, it kinda is. It is stilted and Jar Jar and Anakin both suck, but once you stop viewing it as "the first prequel" and just "some more Star Wars" -- there's a lot to like. The imagination is unparalleled, for one thing. Every set piece could probably support its own movie, and Lucas just blows through them like he's throwing ideas away. The politics and maneuvering and backstabbing are surprisingly engaging once they get rolling.

Disney did TPM a favor, not even because their product is bad, but because by releasing so much of it they've freed people to see the prequels as just some more Star Wars, and on that level TPM is definitely in the upper half of Star Wars stuff.

Its worst sin is that Anakin sucks so hard, both in writing and acting, that it fails as the first installment in his story. Given how the movie was marketed and intended at the time, of course people hated it.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

 

[JediMichael]

It of course goes back on George for Jake not delivering all his lines so great, or the writing being a bit sloppy.
I thought he did pretty good in Jingle all the Way.
Watching the making of, they said they scouted through thousands of kids to find Anakin. They have 3 kids, one being Jake. Between the 3, I do think Jake sounded the best, just in the final film, things came off sloppy. But, it was the same for Hayden as well. Odd lines that are said weird. Maybe that does make it feel like the same character...lol....just not Vader's type speech though.

 

[greenmachines]

It of course goes back on George for Jake not delivering all his lines so great, or the writing being a bit sloppy.
I thought he did pretty good in Jingle all the Way.
Watching the making of, they said they scouted through thousands of kids to find Anakin. They have 3 kids, one being Jake. Between the 3, I do think Jake sounded the best, just in the final film, things came off sloppy. But, it was the same for Hayden as well. Odd lines that are said weird. Maybe that does make it feel like the same character...lol....just not Vader's type speech though.

I have taught many classrooms of young kids and Anakin doesn't sound any different than any other boy that age. They all sound like they are trying to sound cool or funny but failing at it. It would be creepy if a boy that age sounded unlike a complete dork. Imagine "Goonies" if everyone wasn't actually Goony.

 

[Treadwell]

Captain Tarpals saves the Gungans overall for me. I like him a lot.

Jar Jar could be saved from being a ridiculous character simply by showing some growth in him during the Naboo battle. Don't promote him before the battle. Have Tarpals wounded and Jar Jar has to step up by default.... and does a decent job. Not bumbling around with energy balls. Tag with a brief scene later with a more sober and matured Jar Jar, perhaps being complimented by Tarpals as he dies.

 

[JediMichael]

Recording it with a deep voice....and realizing, hey, its bassically Boss Nass.
Lol.

 

[JediMichael]

I have taught many classrooms of young kids and Anakin doesn't sound any different than any other boy that age. They all sound like they are trying to sound cool or funny but failing at it. It would be creepy if a boy that age sounded unlike a complete dork. Imagine "Goonies" if everyone wasn't actually Goony.

True, I think that, knowing hes suppose to be Vader later on, it probably at least needed a balance to help sell it a little more.
Keep him a kid and all, but not to overly goofy sounding. I think it wasn't that bad. Guess like we're all saying, just some little tweaks here and there to help fix it up better.

 

[AnubisGuard]

I have taught many classrooms of young kids and Anakin doesn't sound any different than any other boy that age. They all sound like they are trying to sound cool or funny but failing at it. It would be creepy if a boy that age sounded unlike a complete dork. Imagine "Goonies" if everyone wasn't actually Goony.

Anakin 100% should have been older in TPM. IIRC, one of the early drafts put him at about 12 or so, which would have been a lot better from both a writing and acting perspective.

 

[JediMichael]

Anakin 100% should have been older in TPM. IIRC, one of the early drafts put him at about 12 or so, which would have been a lot better from both a writing and acting perspective.

Thats true as well. Having him that much younger than her did make it feel a little odd.
Makes you wonder....what kid, I guess around 1996 to 97, at around 12 to 13, would have been a good choice?

 

[JediMichael]

I was also wondering about this one line here from this scene.


****INT SUB COCKPIT - UNDERWATER

JAR JAR: Where wesa goin.

QUI-GON: Don't worry, the Force will guide us...

JAR JAR: Ooooh, maxibig..."da Force"...Well, dat smells stinkowiff.

An alarm sounds on the control panel.*****


The line, "Ooooh, maxibig..."da Force"...Well, dat smells stinkowiff."

Looked on google of the script, and thats was written, which still doesn't really help understand what Jar Jar is even saying.
I've thought maybe hes saying he doesn't believe in the force, or they bid the force from be used, or something.
That like the one line thats stumped me the most.
Anyone else know anything about that one?

 

[AnubisGuard]

I've thought maybe hes saying he doesn't believe in the force, or they bid the force from be used, or something.
That like the one line thats stumped me the most.
Anyone else know anything about that one?

I think he's just pooh-poohing Qui-Gon relying on the force. Like, imagine you're in a car with no GPS or maps, driving somewhere none of you are familiar with. And when you ask how the driver plans to navigate, he says "don't worry, God will guide my hands."

"Okay, God, sure."

(Or, if you buy into the Darth Jar Jar theory, him disparaging the Force is part of his cover.)

 

[JediMichael]

I think he's just pooh-poohing Qui-Gon relying on the force. Like, imagine you're in a car with no GPS or maps, driving somewhere none of you are familiar with. And when you ask how the driver plans to navigate, he says "don't worry, God will guide my hands."

"Okay, God, sure."

(Or, if you buy into the Darth Jar Jar theory, him disparaging the Force is part of his cover.)

I was thinking it could be something like that as well, its just the most oddly delivered line thats the hardest to really understand. So it loses anything it was meant to be saying.
Thanks George.....lol.

 

[Kylash]

I noticed it with some shots at my showing -- there was one of the podrace crowd that looked like old school 240p youtube compression. It was shocking. And the stars during the pan down from the opening crawl flickered and strobed. Really, the entire move looked just on the right side of acceptable, as if it was a couple dozen pixels away from mush. I swear they were just streaming a 1080p file.

I do wonder if there just isnt a version of this film that looks great projected in digital HD. it was shot on film, but a lot of the digital effects were a bit mushy even then. For instance this shot really stood out to me in the theater, the creatures in the top right that run away literally just looked like blurry blobs in the theater.

But then i pull up this HD version of the scene...and theyre still just blurry blobs.

 

[AnubisGuard]

I do wonder if there just isnt a version of this film that looks great projected in digital HD. it was shot on film, but a lot of the digital effects were a bit mushy even then. For instance this shot really stood out to me in the theater, the creatures in the top right that run away literally just looked like blurry blobs in the theater.

But then i pull up this HD version of the scene...and theyre still just blurry blobs.

View attachment 1821152

My recollection of seeing it back in the day was that it looked fantastic. Of course, that's just memory. I used to think 480i cathode ray television looks great too.

 

[janglesworthy]

Late 90s early 2000s were awesome. (Okay I'm probably biased.)

They were awesome, there was diversity in all the big fx movies and all the games were creating new genre's. Now all we get is a marvel film, then a dc films.

Blade series, star wars prequels, spider man series, lord of the rings, pirates of the Caribbean, harry potter, the matrix, pixar, I think that's it.


laser disc deleted scenes from japanese release

Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace Original Scenes : 20th Century Fox : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The following scenes are taken from the Japanese LaserDisc and were changed on the 2001 DVD release of the movie.

archive.org

 

[JediMichael]

It would be interesting to get a hold of a properly stored 35mm print from 1999 and watch it on a good theater projector to truly compare.
But I'm guessing only Lucasfilm would have such a thing.
Makes me want to check the DVD and also Bluray to compare as well.

 

[janglesworthy]

People forget how much of TPM was practical fx enhanced with cg elements....

Episode I Miniatures : Practical Prequels Project : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Practical miniatures & models made for Star Wars Episode 1.

archive.org