Vader, you're such a nerd.  

travo said:

Entertainment Tonight actually played the trailer one day before theaters.

I taped it on VHS and played it a million times. I have the recording of all three movies trailers. TPM first trailer was theaters first. The second trailer I think was on ET.

And yes I am supreme  

Dvader said:

Aspro you don't really have a comparison yet to why TPM feels so weird cause you haven't seen most the OT. When that's what you grow up with and then you see the tone of TPM it's so damn weird. But that's the prequels for you, weird, not really well made movies BUT if you get into the story and enjoy the action moments it's still a fun trilogy on its own. I'm not saying the OT is some dramatic pillar of movie making but it handled the line between silly and believable so well, outside of ROTJ with Ewoks, that's when we started to get hints of what's to come from Lucas.

Oh no for me it's not weird at all because I personally have no context for it.  I was relaying the stories of other Star Wars fans I had listened to who had to come to terms with their cognitive dissonace about wanting to love something so much bu then reconciling that with the reality they saw in front of them.

Hey no spoilers please.

travo said:

It premiered on ET the Thursday before. I was stuck in my dorm and got to watch it.

No, the preview theater event was that Tuesday or Wednesday before the weekend. It was one day and it was announced on the Star Wars blog which theaters would have it.

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-wars-how-the-phantom-menace-teaser-trailer-became-a-cinematic-event/?amp

I went to the theater to see and the following days when ever it premiered on ET I recorded it on VHS.

Okay, I finished Episode 2. It was okay, mostly the whole romance story and the hand-to-hand combat attack at the end is how I'll remember it.  Mostly though I'll remember it as a romance-heavy story.

So the first one introduced the characters, this second one you can see them turning the story wheel pretty heavily. But that's usual for the second act in a 3 act play.

The distractions of the odd stereotypes were toned down in this one.

Overall pretty much the same enjoyment level as the first, again a 6.5 out of 10.

Okay, Episode 3 was great from start to finish. On a five star scale I'd give it 4/5. They minimized the wipe edits, gave Jar Jar about 4 seconds of screen time.

You really could feel them bending the story arc a but too tight.  They should have started that more in episode two and it would have improved 2 and made 3 feel less like a sprint to the finish line.

Yep, loved it, wanted to watch episode 4 right away.  Now I am worried how the transition will be back to the 70's movie...  I'm not optimistic.

Episode 4.

It was good overall.  My main issue with it is that Lord Vader at the end of Episode 3 is this lithe figure, a powerful and evil force and that in Episode 4 he's this somewhat unimpressive flacid guy in an ill-fitting suit.  The head "nazi" guy was calling the shots while Lord Vader just stood in the background.

This scene epitomized it for me:

The bureaucrats were there figuring out what to do and Lord Vader just stands there like a store mannequin. So coming from seeing his whole character development arc over the first three movies the way he was portrayed in Episode IV was inconsistent.

I came up with my own headcanon to justify it. Basically Lord Vader is in his early 40's, he's lived a lavish life and put on weight.  He's refused to get a new suit because this was the lucky one he got when he became Darth Vader, even though it doesn't fit anymore. He's in charge of Death Star Enterprises, but it's not really "his thing" so he's hired these military industrial-types to handle operations.  He defers to them because they know how it all works and he has not really ever been into tech, and figures if the thing turns out to be a white elephant he can blame the engineers and use that as a pivot as to why this tech shit is the wrong direction for the sith and that they need to return back to using the force more.

The only other criticism I had of it was that the indoor scenes all seemed hokey and school playish. The lighting was off as well, it had that Clockwork Orange look (70's pinewood studio pastiche).

By contrast, the outdoor scenes were realistic and in no way distracting. The physical effects and spacecraft design was incredibly well done. The cast was great, I could not fault them, though Obi Wan's character was surprisingly light on gravitas. I liked the actor in the first three better.

The ending has a college movie party-type feel to it, which was weird.

Yeah so overall, a 3 out of 5 stars. A very solid start.

A lot of this is accurate, which is why it's become my favourite of the original series over the decades. It has a very 70s "indie" feel to it, with no overall polish whatsoever.

Episode 5 is the best of the saga and it's not really close. Enjoy that ending.