Response to RedLetterMedia's TPM Review (108 Page PDF)

[Justice]

Oh, for the love of Christ...

While subjective criticisms are obviously irrefutable, wasn't the entire point that he was justifying his opinion with points or something like this? Seriously, this is really, really fucking lame here. We've gone from "Look, he's making a point!" to "Well, not everything should be taken seriously. But he's still making a point!" to "It's all subjective opinion! You can't criticize that!" How the hell can you make a coherent argument when you are constantly falling back like the damned Iraqi Army circa 1991? Stop moving the goalposts here; you constantly said that he was trying to support an overall argument that "This movie sucks!", not just say "This movie sucks!" and make completely random jokes.

Be fucking consistent, please. It's hard to pin your argument to the ground when you keep running away with the goalposts in-hand. Yes, context matters, but it doesn't completely negate someone from having piss-poor points. Yes, it's comedic; that doesn't mean that it's not a review, that he's not presenting an opinion, and that these points are meant to support an opinion. All of those make it fair game. This is very, very basic stuff.

Really, let me sum up your whole argument here and now:

"You can't criticize him because he's not reviewing the movie. He's making bad and easily refuted points because he's joking and trying to show how stupid and ridiculous those ideas are in the first place. Thus, he is showing that no matter how bad Phantom Menace is, it could always be worse."

That's basically it. You've retreated from every point you've made because we've basically shown how fucking poorly a point they are. Now we have reached the mark where you desperately cling to a single, already proven false point by your own words and the creator's words himself (That this is a review and he's pointing out what he thinks is wrong) because you have nothing else to use other than Ad Hominem attacks to try and make yourself feel better. Sad part is? You registered on this board to specifically defending this thing, and you have about (if not more) posts in this thread than I have on the entire fucking board. For fuck's sake, who is crusading here and who isn't?

[seanrobertson]

Yeah, circular logic. Except for the fact that Stoklasa HIMSELF has stated in interviews he's doing this reviews in a light mood. But yeah, I tend to forgot how we nerds tend to make incredible fuss for things.

It's still begging the question, you dizzy fuck The man's mood does not mean what you say it does.

Why?

It's painfully simple. Jim, Justice and I have all explained this to you.

When he's not taking the piss about cat-fucking, his ex-wife or bones in the basement, the vast remainder of the review consists of Stoklasa citing reasons, with [often dubious] proof, of why he thinks the movie sucks.

And guess what? It's THOSE REASONED ARGUMENTS THAT JIM CRITICIZED!

To demonstrate that, I cited over a tenth of Jim's review -- you know, in the post you totally glossed over. Not ONCE was Jim guilty of what you say. On a case by case basis, I demonstrated that Jim overlooked the jokes, wholly subjective comments and goofy Plinkett shit to focus on the man's claims.

And i said you'r not supposed to take jokes LITERALLY. But you guys seem confused about that. For you "Literal" = "Serious", I guess. In this case the "oh so funny" joke made by Raynor of Qui-Gonn asking you to get a dictionary comes fitting.

More strawmandering. I gave you plenty of chances to demonstrate what you're going on about. 13 pages of examples. I would've gone for 25+, but I suspected you would ignore my argument and continue with the broken record tactics.

Y'know, just like you did a few hours ago in posted this "gem"

Yet AGAIN, I post this interview:

By which you yet again miss the point.

You say Jim's document is off-base for X, Y and Z ...

... so, rather than quote from that document and say, "This is what I'm talking about. Right here, Stoklasa's purely joking, but Jim treats that joke like RLM's trying to make a 'serious' point," you simply repeat the same bullshit:
hurfdurf Stoklasa's review is just being teh funny because he says so.

Pathetic. Maybe you got that science degree from clown college.

And AGAIN I quote what Stoklasa himself has said

Yeah ... a close look at it.

I just happened to not like the 3 prequels and I’m explaining why in a fun and different way; in terms of traditional movie reviews -it’s as simple as that. I don’t hate people that like the prequels; you can like whatever you want. I’m also doing my reviews in the character of a crotchety old man. I think people calling my reviews anti-Star Wars “propaganda” is taking it a bit too far. I have no greater goal other than to just get my opinion out there. So far though, just one person I can think of posted that he would punch me in the gut if he ever met me, but other than that nothing major as far as Star Wars fan rage goes. I think most people are pretty rational and understand the Plinkett reviews for what they are, even people that liked the films.

Apparently you missed the "explaining why" part. He explains WHY he doesn't like the movies, sure enough. Game, set, match. You lose.

But since you don't understand the significance of that, I'll continue. I don't want you to go to bed confused. That you probably wet it is pitiful enough.

Now, does he go about it in a "fun and different way"? Yes. And I know he claims he has no greater goal that to "get [his] opinion [that the prequels stink] out there." (That's actually untrue; he's using the reviews as a vehicle to PROMOTE HIMSELF, but I'll leave that alone for now.)

NONE OF THAT means Jim, Justice, I or anyone else is misguided to show how his "explanations" aren't the "good points" you think them to be. If I used a humorous Youtube vehicle to explain why I think James Cameron movies suck ass but my explanations are frequently error-prone or misleading, I'd sure as hell expect people would point out the flaws therein -- especially IF MANY OTHERS REGARD MY VIDEO AS AMAZINGLY INSIGHTFUL.

But I can't imagine why people would come after what I said? After all, my review would be told from the guise of a pervert, just like Harry S. Plinkett! I'd make lots of dark jokes and approach the project in a light-hearted manner! I would just want people to know why I think Cameron's flicks are garbage! I wouldn't put together hour-long videos to promote my own budding film company. No, sir!

The nerve of those people, if they were to hammer me for making a weak case against Cameron movies!

That’s kind of the one misconception is that I take a ton of time meticulously researching everything, reading things on the film, cross checking facts, etc. That’s not really the case and, in fact, I avoid reading or watching any prior reviews on the movie altogether. I just like watching the film myself and using that as the only basis for what I, as an audience member, am expected to understand. That and to make sure my ideas are my own and that something that someone else noticed doesn’t seep into my brain. I’ve also never read a Star Wars book or even played a Star Wars video game.

Good for him Apart from KOTOR 1, TIE Fighter and the Rogue Squadron games, he's probably better off for steering clear of them. And while I don't particularly regret reading Death Star or Dark Lord, neither rocked my world.

Now, since you're offering this like it's some knockout blow, go ahead and show where Jim ever criticizes Mike for not "researching everything," "reading things on the film" or not screwing around with books or videogames.

Oh, you can't or won't do that, though, will you?

You ain't got shit. Nothing in that text supports what you've said about Jim's piece.

Yeah. YOU guys are the ones who just keep repeating over and over again: "Bring evidence he's not being serious, literal or whatever". I've brought over and OVER again this interview, in which Stoklasa says:

- He's just giving opinions.
- He's making comedy
- He's not taking this thing too seriously.

Congratulations: Your reading comprehension skills rival a senile bat's.

He didn't say he's just "giving opinions" in the sense you mean, dumbass. You crow about context, then completely remove it when it runs contrary to your claims. More on "opinions" momentarily.

Yeah. I've noticed that the "board rules" are invoked only when you're a fan of the PT.

I wonder: what would you say if you couldn't make wild assumptions, twist others' words and/or resort to false dichotomies?

Yeah ... either I like the PT, or I'd never, ever say anything bad about Stoklasa's review. That's brilliant, slick

The truth is, I'm not a fan of the PT. I don't dislike Sith but I find Clones ponderously slow and I detest Menace. And point-of-fact, I actually got a kick out of Stoklasa's reviews.

Just the same, I didn't think he made very many "good points." I just thought it was funny that someone would assume the old fart, murderous Plinkett persona for, of all things, an in-depth review of a kid's movie.

Subjective opinions ARE irrefutable. If a guy comes and say: "I think The Godfather is a lousy movie", you can't refute that, because it's a subjective opinion. We can argue why he thinks that, but you can't say: "That's not TRUEE!!" because that's also your opinion.

I didn't say subjective opinion, you dishonest prick, I said OPINION.

Opinions NEED NOT BE ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE, fly by the seat of your pants, ass-man or tit-man judgments!

As philosophy instructor, Dr. Sandry LaFave, elucidates, you're making a common mistake:

... People tend to say furthermore that "subjective" and "objective" are logical opposites in the strongest sense: they are negations or contradictories of each other. This means that if X is subjective, it can't be objective, and if X is objective it can't be subjective. In other words, people mistakenly think everything has to be EITHER subjective OR objective. This leads to startling consequences. You have a headache. You feel it, and nobody else does, so you say it's "subjective" (private). But look at the other notions that go with "subjective": if it’s subjective, it’s just your opinion. But opinions have no standing — so why should the doctor believe you when you say you have a headache? The doctor doesn't feel your headache; it's just your opinion — and you might find yourself agreeing that you can't be "objective" about your headache. And since your headache isn't objective, it isn't really REAL at all! The headache is "really" just in your mind. (This is the philosophy behind Christian Science.)

Now of course you could apply this very same reasoning to your experience of the Eiffel Tower. There you are in Paris, looking at the Eiffel Tower, and you think, "Gee, no one else is having this precise experience of the Eiffel Tower, so this experience of mine is just as subjective as my headache!" (And that wouldn't be wrong, of course, in a way; it's true that no one else has your precise experience of the Eiffel Tower either.)

But if all you really know is that you had a subjective experience of seeing the Eiffel Tower, and that’s all anyone ever has, why say the Eiffel Tower — or anything — exists objectively, independently of observers? But we do (at least most of us do).

The idea that an opinion cannot coincide with something largely rooted in fact and measurable is idiotic. Imagine if someone said, "IMO, parents should beat their children as a primary means of punishment. Spare the rod, spoil the child!"

Literally tons of research finds that kids who are routinely beaten routinely grow up to be maladjusted; that is, among other things, more violent, more given to crime and alcohol abuse, etc.

Would you suggest we ignore these decades' worth of consistent research data and say, "Well, the guy said it's just his opinion, so he CAN'T BE WRONG."

Bullfuckingshit he can't be wrong. The research spells that out for us.

I can cite examples of similar "opinions" all day. Health-conscious people are foolish to smoke. The same crowd would be foolish to abuse alcohol. Women should have the right to vote.

Ergo, opinions CAN be very much right or wrong. For that reason alone, do us all a favor and superglue your fingers together before mindlessly parroting "it's just RLM's opinion" again.

You can say: "I have a different opinion, for blah blah", and that's it.

And it's Stoklasa's "for blah blah" that Jim and many of us criticize -- NOT his distaste for Menace. But coming from the fellow who thinks things intellectual and harsh language can't co-exist, this remains unsurprising.

Yes, I'm an adult, and I have a Science Degree.

Maybe you inhaled too many funny fumes in the lab, then, because your arguments, inattention to detail and reasoning skills are consistent with a grade schooler.

This is not science, this is just a review of a review of a movie "made for kids": in these grounds, it's all opinions and subjective statements, some better explained than others, but nothing more.

Dead wrong, Bifurcation Man. See above vis-à-vis "opinions."

Whatever, dude. I'm just saying: "If you guys want to make an intelligent critique of something, first understand the context: in this case is comedy, so it's not a good idea to take everything literal".

And I'm "just saying" you've been a total moron in this thread because a comedic context doesn't shield Stoklasa's reasoning from counter-criticism. Further, no one is "taking everything literal." You've had countless chances to demonstrate where any of us did that, and as noted, you couldn't be bothered to refer back to Jim's document or respond to the examples I cited

That's it. Now, i'm bored to have to repeat the same things again and again, and bringing the same evidence again, just to face angry and trolling responses such as these saying: "Your're lyiiiiiiing, you're dishonest", etc. Whatever, dudes: keep on your crusade against Stoklasa's dishonest reviews, and good luck.

Are you joking or not "being literal" here? (I'm being sarcastic. Incidentally, I hope you know the difference between that and irony. Many idiots like you think the terms are synonymous.)

If anyone's trolling here, it's been you from the start:

*you joined up specifically to stick up for Stoklasa
*your debate M.O. in general
*and the fact that you're turning tail after trying to leave us with a final, oh-so-devastating bon mot

Adios, pendejo.

[AdmBone2Pick]

I did my level best to read this whole thing.

The part where Raynor tries to make Qui-Gon into the protagonist is just sad...

RAYNOR: Here's a secret: Qui-Gon is the main character and big hero of this movie, which spends most of its time following him.

You're right. That is a secret!

Does Raynor have any better reason for calling Q-G the hero other than that he has the most screentime? He basically concedes that the movie does not focus on Padme ("just a supporting character") Anakin ("he wasn't handled as well as he could have been") or Obi-Wan ("very underused"). It seems that he arrives at Qui-Gon by process of elimination: none of the other characters were prominent enough, so the protagonist must be Qui-Gon!

Raynor then gives us a list of character attributes for Q-G. For example: he calls him compassionate for taking in Jar-Jar. He calls him trusting for allowing Anakin to race. And he calls him wise for accepting Obi-Wan's apology.

Q-G isn't compassionate, trusting or wise. At least, those aren't his defining character attributes. The underlying commonality in all these situations is Q-G's passivity as a character. Q-G does not seem to have strong motivations, passions or goals. This is why people call him calm or stoic. He does a lot of talking and advising, and comparatively little doing. He is a mentor figure, like ANH Obi-Wan. His death scene is a clear parallel to the death of Obi-Wan (the mentor dies while the student is forced to helplessly watch).

A mentor is a supporting character by definition. Who is Q-G a mentor to? Well, no one really, because neither Obi-Wan nor Anakin can qualify as the protagonist hero of the film. The movie clearly INTENDS for Anakin to be the protagonist, because his is the character that participates in the most action scenes, and grows the most during the film (from slave to padawan). However because Lucas made Anakin a preteen, he can only get involved in the action of the movie through extraordinarily contrived situations. And because the script focuses on the relationship between Q-G and Anakin, Obi-Wan becomes a third wheel. Obi-Wan receives almost no characterization in TPM, and would practically be a cipher of a character to anyone who didn't know the original trilogy. ultimately, the original version of TPM where Obi-Wan, not Qui-Gon, found and trained Anakin would have worked better. RLM is right when he says “If you ask me, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been combined into one character, called Obi-Wan Kenobi." As it exists on screen, TPM is an awkward mess, with neither of the three male leads qualifying as a hero or protagonist.


These are the kinds of big-picture criticisms that RLM lobs at the prequels. Raynor doesn't have an answer. Later on RLM makes two other big-picture criticisms. First RLM says that the OT lightsaber fights are about the internal emotional state of the characters, while the PT duels lack any emotional dimension. Raynor lets this point slide. Secondly RLM says that the ending of the film is an emotional mess that whiplashes around with no clear tone. Again the "rebuttal" does not rebut this.

Raynor seems to think it's much more important to address the plot-hole parts of RLM's review. Two points for Raynor to consider:

1. If you fix plot holes by constantly pretending that the characters mean something other than what they say (as you do with the Boss Nass dialogue on pages 49-51) then you fail. It's the same with characterization: if the audience doesn't pick up on what you say Q-G's character is, then the movie has characterization issues even if you are exactly right about what Lucas intended. See, the movie exists as its own thing, independent from the intentions of the people that created it, and it succeeds or fails on its own.

2. Many many people have made hay of the plot holes in the Star Wars movies. RLM's video reviews became hugely popular because he made big-picture criticisms that people hadn't thought of. In particular he showed that these were the REAL problems with the prequels, and not Jar-Jar, or R2D2's rockets, etc (the TPM review spends less than 5 minutes total on Jar-Jar, whereas your average internet whiner will list Jar Jar as reason #1 that TPM sucked). He follows this up with other big-picture criticisms in his AOTC and ROTS reviews. Raynor doesn't seem to have a convincing answer to what RLM said in the TPM review so I doubt he would have an answer to, for example, the way the ROTS review criticizes the lifeless blocking and editing of the prequels.



So ultimately, I think the rebuttal fails as a rebuttal.

[seanrobertson]

You shock me, AdmBone2Pick. Unlike the vast majority of first-time posters in this thread, you didn't start off with self-contradictory claims that Stoklasa's thoughts are insightful yet wholly subjective, and you didn't simply regurgitate things that have been said since mid January. No: you offer a thoughtful counterargument, and you actually -- gulp -- cite text from Jim's PDF!

Refreshing

I'm at the tail end of my lunch break, so my time's increasingly limited. I promise a more thorough response is forthcoming. But in the time I do have, I wanted to address this point:

A mentor is a supporting character by definition. Who is Q-G a mentor to? Well, no one really, because neither Obi-Wan nor Anakin can qualify as the protagonist hero of the film.

For the most part, you're right. Mentors are often supporting characters. When I hear the word, I think of Yoda, Gandalf, Mr. Miyagi, Xian Chao from "Kickboxer," Gordon Gecko, Palpatine and Mickey Goldmill and Apollo Creed, all of whom fit that mold.

But there are exceptions. One immediately hit me when I considered the Rocky series in general. Awful as Rocky 5 is, main character Balboa mentors a protege (Tommy Morrison's character). Then there's Morgan Freeman's Crazy Joe Principal Clark in "Lean on Me," Robin Williams' inspirational teacher in "Dead Poets" and Al Pacino's coach in "Any Given Sunday."

And who can forget Batman and Robin?

Irrespective of the fact Alonzo had a twisted teacher-pupil relationship with Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), I'm tempted to argue that he was still the lead in "Training Day." One could also say Washington's character in "The Book of Eli" was both protagonist and mentor since Kunis' character picked up his mantle at the end.

That does not torpedo your greater argument, of course, but I simply don't buy the notion that Qui-Gon can't be the main character on that basis. Even if I'm wrong about "Training" or misrepresent "Eli," too many other examples show the contrary can be true.

You might be right that he's the protagonist by a kind of process of elimination, but I'm officially out of time now More to come.

[Justice]

Eh, I can't accept a "mentor" being just a supporting character. While you can certainly say that there is an "archetypal" mentor, I think that it's better to use that as a way of defining a relationship rather than whether they are a main character or a supporting character. Sean mentions Batman and Robin; what about every other superhero sidekick? They are obviously mentoring them, despite being the main character. Qui-Gon is obviously Obi-Wan's mentor, but that doesn't dictate that he's automatically out of the spotlight; it simply defines his relationship with Obi-Wan. What about Million-Dollar Baby or Gran Torino? Clint Eastwood mentors those kids in some ways, despite being the main character. Nice to see new and certainly better-thought criticisms, but I'd say you are off-base in the arbitrary assumption of "Mentor=Supporting Character", rather than a relationship trait.

[Elfdart]

I did my level best to read this whole thing.

The part where Raynor tries to make Qui-Gon into the protagonist is just sad...

RAYNOR: Here's a secret: Qui-Gon is the main character and big hero of this movie, which spends most of its time following him.

You're right. That is a secret!

Does Raynor have any better reason for calling Q-G the hero other than that he has the most screentime?

Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that Liam Neeson got top billing, which is usually reserved for the actor in the main role.

Raynor then gives us a list of character attributes for Q-G. For example: he calls him compassionate for taking in Jar-Jar. He calls him trusting for allowing Anakin to race. And he calls him wise for accepting Obi-Wan's apology.

And Raynor is right.

Q-G isn't compassionate, trusting or wise. At least, those aren't his defining character attributes.

Make up your mind: which is it?

The underlying commonality in all these situations is Q-G's passivity as a character. Q-G does not seem to have strong motivations, passions or goals. This is why people call him calm or stoic. He does a lot of talking and advising, and comparatively little doing. He is a mentor figure, like ANH Obi-Wan. His death scene is a clear parallel to the death of Obi-Wan (the mentor dies while the student is forced to helplessly watch).

Qui-Gon Jinn represents the ideal of what a Jedi Knight should be. He lacks the character flaws that the other Jedi from Anakin to Dooku to Obi-Wan to Yoda to Mace Windu suffer from. If the other Jedi had been more like him the Galaxy Far Far Away wouldn't have been so horribly fucked up.

A mentor is a supporting character by definition.

Bullshit.

Who is Q-G a mentor to? Well, no one really, because neither Obi-Wan nor Anakin can qualify as the protagonist hero of the film. The movie clearly INTENDS for Anakin to be the protagonist, because his is the character that participates in the most action scenes, and grows the most during the film (from slave to padawan). However because Lucas made Anakin a preteen, he can only get involved in the action of the movie through extraordinarily contrived situations. And because the script focuses on the relationship between Q-G and Anakin, Obi-Wan becomes a third wheel. Obi-Wan receives almost no characterization in TPM, and would practically be a cipher of a character to anyone who didn't know the original trilogy. ultimately, the original version of TPM where Obi-Wan, not Qui-Gon, found and trained Anakin would have worked better. RLM is right when he says “If you ask me, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been combined into one character, called Obi-Wan Kenobi." As it exists on screen, TPM is an awkward mess, with neither of the three male leads qualifying as a hero or protagonist.

As I pointed out above, Qui-Gon Jinn (or someone like him) is necessary to contrast with the more orthodox Jedi Knights -a group that includes Obi-Wan Kenobi. If Kenobi isn't such a stick in the mud, and is in fact open-minded like Jinn, there's not a whole lot for Anakin to rebel against, now is there?

These are the kinds of big-picture criticisms that RLM lobs at the prequels. Raynor doesn't have an answer. Later on RLM makes two other big-picture criticisms.

And he's wrong on all of them.

First RLM says that the OT lightsaber fights are about the internal emotional state of the characters, while the PT duels lack any emotional dimension.

What "internal emotional state" were Kenobi and Vader in when they crossed swords on the Death Star? What state was Vader in when he was beating the shit out of Luke on Bespin? What state was he in when Luke beat him at Endor? Luke's state of mind is at first thinking he can take on Vader and being wrong, then not wanting to fight his own father, then defeating him. In other words, respectively it's the same state of mind Anakin was in when he fought Dooku the first time and got his arm cut off, and Kenobi's mindset when he fights Anakin and defeats him. If you had watched the movies rather than Red Letter Moron's "reviews" you would know this.

Raynor lets this point slide. Secondly RLM says that the ending of the film is an emotional mess that whiplashes around with no clear tone. Again the "rebuttal" does not rebut this.

The movie, at least for anyone familiar with the OT (which is to say almost everyone who paid to watch TPM when it came out), is supposed to have an ambiguous ending. Darth Maul is dead, the Trade Federation is defeated, Naboo is free, Anakin gets to be a Jedi...

On the other hand, Palpatine is now head of state, there's still a Sith Lord out there to stir up trouble, the Jedi are insular and close-minded, Qui-Gonn is dead, and Anakin is going to be a Jedi...

Were you expecting a 100% happy ending with everything resolved? Or a 100% downer ending with everything going to hell?

Raynor seems to think it's much more important to address the plot-hole parts of RLM's review. Two points for Raynor to consider:

1. If you fix plot holes by constantly pretending that the characters mean something other than what they say (as you do with the Boss Nass dialogue on pages 49-51) then you fail. It's the same with characterization: if the audience doesn't pick up on what you say Q-G's character is, then the movie has characterization issues even if you are exactly right about what Lucas intended. See, the movie exists as its own thing, independent from the intentions of the people that created it, and it succeeds or fails on its own.

Bullshit. A character speaks from what he or she knows (or thinks he knows), his own point of view and his own motives. Boss Nass is a small-minded local hack politician, like Boss Daley or Boss Tweed. Yet no one would take an ignorant comment by Boss Daley in Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 and say it's an example of piss-poor writing unless they were mind-numbingly stupid.

2. Many many people have made hay of the plot holes in the what they call plot holes, but which are actually nothing of the kind in Star Wars movies.

You stand corrected.

RLM's video reviews became hugely popular because he made big-picture criticisms that people hadn't thought of.

Unless they haven't posted in any web forum for the last 12 years. Seriously: aside from porn and video games, bitching about the prequels is probably the most common feature of the internet.

In particular he showed that these were the REAL problems with the prequels,

No, he showed that there were REAL problems with internet retards who lack the cognitive ability necessary to understand a movie aimed at 8 to 12-year-old boys.

and not Jar-Jar, or R2D2's rockets, etc (the TPM review spends less than 5 minutes total on Jar-Jar, whereas your average internet whiner will list Jar Jar as reason #1 that TPM sucked). He follows this up with other big-picture criticisms in his AOTC and ROTS reviews. Raynor doesn't seem to have a convincing answer to what RLM said in the TPM review so I doubt he would have an answer to, for example, the way the ROTS review criticizes the lifeless blocking and editing of the prequels.

Heathcliff should have stuck to Jar Jar-bashing because his other "points" are Full Retard. The whole business of claiming that footage of Lucas and his editors and other crew shows that deep down they know the movie sucked is one of the most idiotic things you'll ever see on YouTube. It makes fuckwits like VenomFangX look like intellectuals. The notion that showing two or more parallel story threads in a movie is a bad idea is equally moronic -especially since George Lucas' first successful movie had FOUR of them.

So ultimately, I think the rebuttal fails as a rebuttal.

You would.

[Elfdart]

This is the part of Heathcliff's interview that should put this argument to rest:

As far as the George Lucas raped my childhood angle, I agree that paints the people that don’t like the prequels into the same kind of category as those that blindly love the movies without question. That was sort of my goal with this review series was not just to shout about how terrible Jar Jar Binks was, but also to really deconstruct the nuts and bolts of the movies. A lot of details are missed and blurred out by the spectacle of it all and if you stop and ask questions the movies really fall apart, even more so than other bad Hollywood films in my opinion.

So he IS trying to make points about the movies that aren't just the "vanilla is better than strawberry" kind. He's also making factual claims that turn out to be horseshit, like the one about the prequels being a "massive failure". The guy is a dishonest wanker, plain and simple.

[AdmBone2Pick]

I'm glad my post got approved. Obviously there is disagreement here but I will try to make my points with facts and evidence. and without swearing.

Let's go back to the issue of Qui-Gon as mooted protagonist. So far the arguments in favor are that he has the most screentime, the most lines, and top billing. Well Mr. Neeson is a commercially successful, Oscar-nominated actor - who else was going to be at the top of the poster, Jake Lloyd?

If these are the arguments in favor then Qui Gon has quite weak qualifications to be the hero. Screentime, lines, and billing: these are all talking about the film. But the protagonist is a role that functions within the story, not the film per se. The film is an artistic vehicle for portraying the story.

Here is how Plinkett qualifies a protagonist in a fantasy/action movie: "a character [the audience can] connect with" ... "maybe a normal person like them to guide them through the story" ... "eventually confronted with some kind of obstacle or struggle" ... "the drama in the film is the result of us rooting for them against opposition" ... "the protagonists will find themselves in the lowest point where it seems that all is lost" ... "but eventually they'll pull through and conquer whatever force opposes them" ... "it's satisfying when our hero gets ahead from where they started off at: they make like a change. This is called an arc."

See those are story functions. As opposed to "the protagonist is the male lead."

Qui-Gon is in the film a lot. But what does he do in the story? Not much. He does considerably less than Gandalf does in LOTR, for instance. Qui-Gon isn't in an urgent struggle with anybody. He's sort of struggling with Darth Maul and with the Trade Federation, right? But we don't see him go toe to toe with either of them, except the duel at the very end of the movie. Also the fact that Qui-Gon DIES AND IS AVENGED is a pretty big clue that he ain't the hero! Qui-Gon doesn't have an arc and he doesn't "pull through"; he is a flat character. Obi-Wan is the one who grows (from being a Padawan to defeating Maul). Anakin also has an arc across the film; he is the character that most closely fits the definition of protagonist. However for obvious reasons, Raynor doesn't want to take on the burden of characterizing either Obi-Wan or Anakin as the hero of the film.

Now I'm not saying that Plinkett's definition of protagonist is the ONLY way to tell a hero's story. For example in "quest" type films, the hero and the villain may operate in two separate worlds. A great example is The Fifth Element where Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman are never on screen together. In LOTR (the books, at least) Sauron only catches glimpses of Frodo. And indeed in A New Hope, you could argue that Luke only goes toe to toe with Vader at the very end. But the movie still builds up Luke's struggle in other ways: stormtroopers kill Owen and Beru; Vader blows up Alderaan; Luke sees Vader slay Obi-Wan; the Empire sends the Death Star to the Rebel base; and Vader kills a bunch of X-wing pilots. The movie makes sure the audience knows what the stakes are! Luke is a hero and Vader is a villain. Is Darth Maul a villain? Does Maul EVER do anything villainous, other than attack Qui-Gon while wearing eeeeeevil looking face paint? The same goes for General Grievous - does Grievous EVER do anything evil, other than talk in a sort of eeeeeeeevil accent?

This goes to the heart of Plinkett's point. When you have weakly characterized "heroes" who do nothing, and weakly characterized "villains" who have less menace than a Bond badguy, the audience has no one to root for. Plinkett's overall #1 point has always been that the prequels failed, as films, at the "story design" stage. The unmemorable characters, bad dialogue, awkward pacing, and flat directing flow out of a problematically conceived story. I read all 108 pages and I honestly do not think that Plinkett's point made an impression on Raynor.What set Plinkett apart from a million and one "I hate Jar-Jar and Jake Lloyd can't act" rants was that he delivered an in depth analysis and critique of TPM as a piece of film-art. To me it seems like Raynor saw Plinkett as a list of Ye Same Olde Plothole Nitpicks and promptly went into geek outrage mode ("Everyone knows he didn't MEAN the planet's REAL core!!!!!!!!!!").

When the 108 page rebuttal gets to Plinkett's big set pieces, all Raynor has to say most of the time is "fair point." It's a nonrebuttal.

To try and make this more constructive I will come up with a list of what I see as Plinkett's "big points," so that Raynor, or anyone who wants to champion him, can have a chance at addressing them.

[Havok]

I'm glad my post got approved. Obviously there is disagreement here but I will try to make my points with facts and evidence. and without swearing.

Not fucking swearing is for thin skinned pussies that can't dissect an actual fucking argument because some is being mean to them whaaaaaaa.

Let's go back to the issue of Qui-Gon as mooted protagonist. So far the arguments in favor are that he has the most screentime, the most lines, and top billing. Well Mr. Neeson is a commercially successful, Oscar-nominated actor - who else was going to be at the top of the poster, Jake Lloyd?

You were saying?

If these are the arguments in favor then Qui Gon has quite weak qualifications to be the hero. Screentime, lines, and billing: these are all talking about the film. But the protagonist is a role that functions within the story, not the film per se. The film is an artistic vehicle for portraying the story.

Here is how Plinkett qualifies a protagonist in a fantasy/action movie: "a character [the audience can] connect with" ... "maybe a normal person like them to guide them through the story" ... "eventually confronted with some kind of obstacle or struggle" ... "the drama in the film is the result of us rooting for them against opposition" ... "the protagonists will find themselves in the lowest point where it seems that all is lost" ... "but eventually they'll pull through and conquer whatever force opposes them" ... "it's satisfying when our hero gets ahead from where they started off at: they make like a change. This is called an arc."

See those are story functions. As opposed to "the protagonist is the male lead."

Well here is how the rest of the world defines 'protagonist'...

pro·tag·o·nist
noun \prō-ˈta-gə-nist\
Definition of PROTAGONIST
1
a : the principal character in a literary work (as a drama or story) b : a leading actor, character, or participant in a literary work or real event

Qui-Gon is in the film a lot. But what does he do in the story? Not much. He does considerably less than Gandalf does in LOTR, for instance. Qui-Gon isn't in an urgent struggle with anybody. He's sort of struggling with Darth Maul and with the Trade Federation, right? But we don't see him go toe to toe with either of them, except the duel at the very end of the movie.

Guess you missed the part where they fight in the desert of Tattooine outside of Mos Espa. Ha ha silly facts! And I like how you classify Gandalf's struggle, "urgent" (a race to destroy the one ring before Sauron enslaves middle earth) and yet classify Qui-Gon's struggle as "sort of" (a race to destroy/discover the Sith before they plunge an entire GALAXY into darkness). I mean, fuck, if you can't see the parallels between the Sith and Sauron (The greatest evil the world/galaxy has ever seen who is returning to conquer, destroy and enslave the world/galaxy after being gone and thought dead/extinct for over a thousand years) then you are about as dumb as you make yourself seem.

Also the fact that Qui-Gon DIES AND IS AVENGED is a pretty big clue that he ain't the hero! Qui-Gon doesn't have an arc and he doesn't "pull through"; he is a flat character. Obi-Wan is the one who grows (from being a Padawan to defeating Maul). Anakin also has an arc across the film; he is the character that most closely fits the definition of protagonist. However for obvious reasons, Raynor doesn't want to take on the burden of characterizing either Obi-Wan or Anakin as the hero of the film.

I suppose, if you subscribe to this dumbass made up, specially tailored, definition of protagonist. Even then, Qui-Gon dies in the last 5 minutes of the movie. And he actually dies after he is avenged, but who's keeping track of facts right? Non of this shows that Qui-Gon is not the hero of The Phantom Menace.

Now I'm not saying that Plinkett's definition of protagonist is the ONLY way to tell a hero's story. For example in "quest" type films, the hero and the villain may operate in two separate worlds. A great example is The Fifth Element where Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman are never on screen together. In LOTR (the books, at least) Sauron only catches glimpses of Frodo. And indeed in A New Hope, you could argue that Luke only goes toe to toe with Vader at the very end. But the movie still builds up Luke's struggle in other ways: stormtroopers kill Owen and Beru; Vader blows up Alderaan; Luke sees Vader slay Obi-Wan; the Empire sends the Death Star to the Rebel base; and Vader kills a bunch of X-wing pilots. The movie makes sure the audience knows what the stakes are! Luke is a hero and Vader is a villain. Is Darth Maul a villain? Does Maul EVER do anything villainous, other than attack Qui-Gon while wearing eeeeeevil looking face paint? The same goes for General Grievous - does Grievous EVER do anything evil, other than talk in a sort of eeeeeeeevil accent?

Holy shit really? How many films with Nazis are there where they show Hitler doing anything 'evil'? I mean, all the guy did was talk talk talk, he wasn't so bad. Don't be this much of a douche.

And wait... Maul attacking Qui-Gon is somehow not an indication that he is the bad guy how? Because you say so? Villains in John Wayne films don't blow up planets and shoot down planes... HOW DO WE KNOW THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS?!?!? Oh right, because they attack the HERO. Are you fucking kidding me with this drivel???

This goes to the heart of Plinkett's point. When you have weakly characterized "heroes" who do nothing, and weakly characterized "villains" who have less menace than a Bond badguy, the audience has no one to root for. Plinkett's overall #1 point has always been that the prequels failed, as films, at the "story design" stage. The unmemorable characters, bad dialogue, awkward pacing, and flat directing flow out of a problematically conceived story. I read all 108 pages and I honestly do not think that Plinkett's point made an impression on Raynor.What set Plinkett apart from a million and one "I hate Jar-Jar and Jake Lloyd can't act" rants was that he delivered an in depth analysis and critique of TPM as a piece of film-art. To me it seems like Raynor saw Plinkett as a list of Ye Same Olde Plothole Nitpicks and promptly went into geek outrage mode ("Everyone knows he didn't MEAN the planet's REAL core!!!!!!!!!!").

And yet here we are, 13 years later and TPM is still one of the highest grossing films of all time. Not one person that claims TPM 'was a failure' has provided any proof of this? I mean this whole paragraph is filled with complete subjective bullshit. Prove the audience has no one to root for. I was at multiple showings where the audience stood up and cheered when Obi-Wan sliced Maul in two. I was at multiple showings when the audience collectively gasped in shock when Maul ran Qui-Gon through. These are things that actually happened and show quite factually that, YES the audience DID have some one to root for.

And for fucks goddamn sake. The story in The Phantom Menace is the same fucking story as in A New Hope. Hero/es stumble across Princess/Queen in trouble. Young man/boy learns about the Force. Goes to help Queen/Princess. Destroys the Big space station/ship. One bad guy gets killed, one gets away. Gets a fucking parade/medal. People need to stop fucking acting like Star Wars was some great masterpiece of fucking story writing. Fuck it had already been done a million fucking times.

This dumb fuck's whole review quite honestly boils down to him being a fucking butthurt child who didn't get his expectations met. He can (and does) dress it up with all the bullshit he wants, but that is what it is. He just happens to be one of the MOST butthurt out there. Squeaky fucking wheel gets the fucking grease.

[Srelex]

Why is all this stuff about the protagonist such a big deal anyway? Has the concept of an ensemble cast not occurred to anyone? Even if Stoklasa's points in that regard are valid, it's not like it's some colossal torpedoing of the movie--hell, Lucas's own American Graffiti doesn't really have one protagonist either, but nobody rats on it for that.

[Elfdart]

Why is all this stuff about the protagonist such a big deal anyway? Has the concept of an ensemble cast not occurred to anyone? Even if Stoklasa's points in that regard are valid, it's not like it's some colossal torpedoing of the movie--hell, Lucas's own American Graffiti doesn't really have one protagonist either, but nobody rats on it for that.

I have pointed this out repeatedly -back when people on this board other than Red Letter Moron's fanwhores were still saying how great he was.

[AdmBone2Pick]

Not fucking swearing is for thin skinned pussies that can't dissect an actual fucking argument because some is being mean to them whaaaaaaa.

No, swearing is for people who don't have good insights to contribute but want to sound like a badass on the Internet.

Guess you missed the part where they fight in the desert of Tattooine outside of Mos Espa.

Do you really want to get into that part? I thought you were trying to defend The Phantom Menace. That sequence is one of the weirdest and most abrupt in the whole film. All of a sudden, with no preamble, there's a lightsaber fight! The absence of Darth Maul's character development is palpable in this scene.

And I like how you classify Gandalf's struggle, "urgent" (a race to destroy the one ring before Sauron enslaves middle earth) and yet classify Qui-Gon's struggle as "sort of" (a race to destroy/discover the Sith before they plunge an entire GALAXY into darkness). I mean, fuck, if you can't see the parallels between the Sith and Sauron (The greatest evil the world/galaxy has ever seen who is returning to conquer, destroy and enslave the world/galaxy after being gone and thought dead/extinct for over a thousand years) then you are about as dumb as you make yourself seem.

Tolkien does a pretty good job of bringing out the urgency of the quest even though the protagonists never "meet" Sauron. He uses Saruman, orcs, the corruption of Denethor and Gollum, and the Ring itself, to show how Sauron is evil and what the consequences would be if Frodo fails.

The audience needs a reason to identify the villain AS a villain. Star Wars made sure we understood that the Empire and Vader were evil, by showing them doing evil, murderous things.

Darth Maul doesn't do a single villainous thing. He doesn't even do the stereotypic B-movie villain thing and like kick a puppy or something. He is a complete non entity. He's just a guy who shows up a few times in the movie and attacks the Jedi with a double lightsaber.

How many films with Nazis are there where they show Hitler doing anything 'evil'?

OK take Raiders of the Lost Ark. We never see Hitler, but the movie still makes it clear that the Nazis are evil. They are trying to steal a weapon that will let them conquer the world. We meet Toht and see that he is a crazy sadist. The Nazis trash Marion's place. They shoot innocent people in Cairo and kidnap Marion. They try to poison Indy. They mistreat the dig workers. There's a big shirtless Nazi who enjoys getting into fistfights. Finally the Nazis try to bury Indy and Marion alive.

I'd say Spielberg and Lucas managed to stuff the movie with examples of Nazis doing evil stuff. So even if you are watching this movie on Pluto and don't know squat about Nazis, the movie shows you that Hitler's team are the villains.

SHOW not TELL.

The Phantom Menace TELLS us that the villains are "villains." Do the supposed villains do anything evil? Well I guess you could say they invade Naboo? But we never see the consequences of this, like casualties, or prison camps or whatever. We hardly see any civilian Nabooites at all, so there isn't any human interest in the fact that their planet got conquered.

Weak characterization = crappy movie.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Welcome to the thread AdmBone2Pick. I like you already. I see you met Mutt and Jeff.

Not fucking swearing is for thin skinned pussies that can't dissect an actual fucking argument because some is being mean to them whaaaaaaa.

Bullshit.

Elegant as always, guys. Although I will agree that sometimes there's only one way to say "eat a bag of dicks", but I appreciate that Bone2Pick didn't jump out the gates calling everyone assholes.

Why is all this stuff about the protagonist such a big deal anyway? Has the concept of an ensemble cast not occurred to anyone? Even if Stoklasa's points in that regard are valid, it's not like it's some colossal torpedoing of the movie--hell, Lucas's own American Graffiti doesn't really have one protagonist either, but nobody rats on it for that.

I think the main reason most people aren't disscussing this possibilty is because it wasn't Jim's rebuttal. Jim claims that Qui-Gon is the protagonist so that's what AdmBone2Pick is critiquing. If you want to argue how it’s an ensemble cast not meant to have a protagonist that’s great, I'd like to hear more.

Producer's job has nothing to do with the creative side of making a movie

Really? Do Jerry Bruckheimer and David O. Selznick know this? Those guys use directors like paint brushes.

Boss Nass is a small-minded local hack politician, like Boss Daley or Boss Tweed. Yet no one would take an ignorant comment by Boss Daley in Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 and say it's an example of piss-poor writing unless they were mind-numbingly stupid.

Was there a part in the Chicago 8 when Daley said they had to go through Grant Park, but didn’t actually mean Grant Park, he meant a scary place Chicagians don’t like to go? If Boss Nass had just said they have to go through the “Death Gates” I doubt anyone would actually think this was a real place with a Gate and whatnot. But when he says the “Planet Core” there aren’t a whole lot of other meanings. And if he is that dumb where did he pick up the term “Planet Core”? Why would he ever use it? It has a very specific meaning to the audience and you’re pulling at straws trying to defend it by shrugging it off as “Well, that character is dumb so words don’t mean things they would normally mean.”

SHOW not TELL.

The Phantom Menace TELLS us that the villains are "villains." Do the supposed villains do anything evil? Well I guess you could say they invade Naboo? But we never see the consequences of this, like casualties, or prison camps or whatever. We hardly see any civilian Nabooites at all, so there isn't any human interest in the fact that their planet got conquered.

Well said. It’s the same point RLM was making by comparing the opening shots of ANH and TPM.

[Darth Tedious]

If you want to argue how it’s an ensemble cast not meant to have a protagonist that’s great, I'd like to hear more.

Personally, I feel that through the course of the PT, Obi-Wan serves as the main protagonist (though I agree that he was underused in TPM- another symptom of the PT being made as a trilogy, and not stand-alone films). The parallel between Qui-Gon's death and his own is fairly obvious.
But more importantly, by viewing Obi-Wan as the hero of the PT, they tie in to the OT better, with him passing the torch to Luke in ANH. I tend to think that viewing the prequels this way is probably one of the reasons I didn't mind them so much.

[Elfdart]

Producer's job has nothing to do with the creative side of making a movie

Really? Do Jerry Bruckheimer and David O. Selznick know this? Those guys use directors like paint brushes.

Since you went to the trouble of selectively quoting what I wrote here, I think I should post the full quote so everyone in this threat can see what a dishonest shitstain you really are:

If you really do "work in commercial art" (whatever that means), then you would know that a producer's job has nothing to do with the creative side of making a movie (unless the producer is also the writer, director or in some other role), but the execution of the movie.

Was David O. Selznick just the producer of his movies? No, he was the owner and chief executive of his own production company and made all final decisions about his movies. Ditto for Bruckheimer. The fact that you left out the rest of my quote and deliberately did so in a way to make it appear that I meant something different proves that you're a worthless trolling palm-fucker.

Boss Nass is a small-minded local hack politician, like Boss Daley or Boss Tweed. Yet no one would take an ignorant comment by Boss Daley in Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 and say it's an example of piss-poor writing unless they were mind-numbingly stupid.

Was there a part in the Chicago 8 when Daley said they had to go through Grant Park, but didn’t actually mean Grant Park, he meant a scary place Chicagians don’t like to go? If Boss Nass had just said they have to go through the “Death Gates” I doubt anyone would actually think this was a real place with a Gate and whatnot. But when he says the “Planet Core” there aren’t a whole lot of other meanings. And if he is that dumb where did he pick up the term “Planet Core”? Why would he ever use it? It has a very specific meaning to the audience and you’re pulling at straws trying to defend it by shrugging it off as “Well, that character is dumb so words don’t mean things they would normally mean.”

Have you ever seen Apollo 13? They keep referring to the Johnson Space Center which -GASP!- is not the center of space. In TPM, Coruscant is referred to as the central system of the Republic when it's one of many systems in the center of the Republic. Does that make Qui-Gon stupid because he didn't specify that it's the seat of government and not literally the center of the Republic? Or are you being a full retard for taking Boss Nass literally when he says they have to go through the Planet Core?

SHOW not TELL.

The Phantom Menace TELLS us that the villains are "villains." Do the supposed villains do anything evil? Well I guess you could say they invade Naboo? But we never see the consequences of this, like casualties, or prison camps or whatever. We hardly see any civilian Nabooites at all, so there isn't any human interest in the fact that their planet got conquered.

That owes more to trying to keep the movie PG. The MPAA is light years more anal retentive about violence bad language and sex than they used to be. For example, Star Wars had some pretty gruesome scenes but got a PG, as did Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, which also featured a shot of Jane Seymour's bare ass. These days that would have gotten TPM at least a PG-13.

As far as villains are concerned, it's almost a fair point. But then, what exactly do the bad guys do in Lord of the Rings that is so bad? They scare a dog, stab a hobbit and run over an old man. They killed one of the heroes, but that was in open combat -nothing dastardly there. The filmmakers gave the audience credit for being intelligent enough to know that if the bad guys prevailed, large numbers of innocent people would be slaughtered. The difference is, the bad guys in LOTR are defeated before they can take over the world while the villains in Star Wars succeed and really do murder gazillions of people. It's not that important whether you actually see the fiendish acts, as long as you're capable of thinking your way out of a wet paper bag.

[Terralthra]

Guess you missed the part where they fight in the desert of Tattooine outside of Mos Espa.

Do you really want to get into that part? I thought you were trying to defend The Phantom Menace. That sequence is one of the weirdest and most abrupt in the whole film. All of a sudden, with no preamble, there's a lightsaber fight! The absence of Darth Maul's character development is palpable in this scene.

No preamble? Are you sure you've seen the movie? The confrontation between Qui-Gon and Darth Maul is set up with numerous shots throughout the entire Tatooine sequence.

Darth Maul doesn't do a single villainous thing. He doesn't even do the stereotypic B-movie villain thing and like kick a puppy or something. He is a complete non entity. He's just a guy who shows up a few times in the movie and attacks the Jedi with a double lightsaber.

Attacking the heroes with no warning or provocation isn't villainous?

[Darth Tedious]

Darth Maul doesn't do a single villainous thing. He doesn't even do the stereotypic B-movie villain thing and like kick a puppy or something. He is a complete non entity. He's just a guy who shows up a few times in the movie and attacks the Jedi with a double lightsaber.

Apparently assasins, random henchmen and ninja assailents in hundreds of other movies aren't villains either...

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Darth Maul doesn't do a single villainous thing. He doesn't even do the stereotypic B-movie villain thing and like kick a puppy or something. He is a complete non entity. He's just a guy who shows up a few times in the movie and attacks the Jedi with a double lightsaber.

Apparently assasins, random henchmen and ninja assailents in hundreds of other movies aren't villains either...

I think the fact that Darth Maul has all the character development of a random henchman is the problem. He has literally none. His sole purpose in the film is to look menacing and fight the Jedi. No depth. He somehow manages to be even less interesting than Boba Fett, too, who somehow became a fan favorite in spite of the fact he has almost no screentime and never did anything especially awesome in the Original Trilogy. A named antagonist like Darth Maul, especially when he's supposed to be the major antagonist to the Jedi, should have some goddamn personality. He should at least have more than, what... two lines of dialogue? But no, he spies on the Jedi, sits around, attacks them out of nowhere, faffs about some more, and then shows up on Naboo and attacks them again.

I mean, the fight scene with him on Naboo is great, but he's just not really interesting as a villain, at all. Maul being boring as fuck has always been one of my major complaints about TPM.

[Knife]

Boring as fuck? He's a dynamic villain who jumps about and ass rapes two trained Jedi, only to be bested at the end by heroic actions of Obi Wan. He is a force of nature, all anger and evil, showing the audience what a true Sith really is, in contrast to the two true Jedi you've been following around for the first hour of the show. Remember, in the OT you follow and old cripple and a half trained boy. In TPM, Lucas is showing you what true examples of the two orders can do.

And really, what's this silliness anyways; Vader stomps around the ANH for the first hour with some pretty hockey lines and two bad ass scenes of violence, choking one person while he dangled from his evil fist and chocking another from across the room with his bad ass villain powers. Maul's actions in TPM are not that far off from Vader's in ANH.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Except for how Vader had dialogue and was intimidating and Maul just lurked around not saying or doing anything for most of the movie. He serves well as an opponent for the Jedi to fight, but he has no personality outside of that. Unless "sadistic silent type" was meant to be his personality, and if that's the case they should have given him more opportunity to actually show that personality. The fact that the fights with him in them are cool to watch does not make him an interesting character, because he has almost no character.

I'm not saying Maul wasn't cool, or that he wasn't a convincing villain, like the RLM fans are. I'm just saying he's a boring character. It could have been fixed just by him having a few more lines of dialogue and some more screentime.

[Darth Tedious]

A named antagonist like Darth Maul, especially when he's supposed to be the major antagonist to the Jedi, should have some goddamn personality.

Major antagonist? What about Darth Sidious? Y'know, Palpatine?
Since when was Darth Maul the main antagonist?

His role is that of an assasin/henchman/ninja assailant.

However, you nailed his personality anyway. If you read into his background and characterisation in the EU, it all amounts to... exactly what we saw in the movie. Silent, sadistic type. Apparently you picked up on that. I fail to see what the problem was there.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Major antagonist? What about Darth Sidious? Y'know, Palpatine?
Since when was Darth Maul the main antagonist?

Darth Maul is the Jedi's primary antagonist in TPM. They never confront Palpatine directly, and he does all his work in the shadows, as a puppet master. Darth Maul isn't the primary antagonist of the story as a whole, but he's the Jedi's most direct and up-front enemy of the movie, disregarding the Trade Federation, who can't be taken seriously as a threat anyway. And he's a boring character. I'm not sure what you're not grasping. Darth Vader was an interesting character. He had some personality, you got to see his personality, you got to see him doing things. Palpatine has character. A lot of character. Even Dooku had quite a bit of character, screen time and dialogue. Maul got nigh on nothing. That does not make for an interesting character.

I realise that they did expand upon his past in EU books, but that doesn't help much in the movie. Maul is like Darth Bandon from KoTOR. He's supposed to be a Sith Lord. He does the whole Sith Lord thing of having a name starting with "Darth", a red lightsaber and dressing in black... but he has no goddamn character. He shows up, fights people, and eventually dies. He's not quite as bad as Bandon, mind you, who might well qualify as the most disappointing half-assed Sith Lord ever.

[Darth Tedious]

I agree that he had next-to-nothing as far a character goes. My point about his background in the EU was that he really is a pretty one-note guy. Slient, sadistic, as you said. And that's about it.

Again, it comes down to perspective. If you view Maul as the main antagonist, there could be a big problem. I view Palpy as the main antagonist, so I don't find there to be a problem. I find it quite irrelevant that the heroes don't fight him directly in TPM. Did the heores fight Sauron directly in FotR?

The root of the issue here seems to be people criticising the movie for not conforming to a strict enough format. It's fine to dislike a movie, but saying it was a bad movie because it didn't follow your preferred formula reeks of closed-mindedness.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

My whole point basically is that it's a case of wasted potential. More screentime and perhaps more dialogue for Maul would have given him more presence, made him a more interesting character, and made him in general a more memorable and interesting villain. While I do dislike most of the prequel trilogy, I wouldn't claim that they're objectively bad films. They just do a lot of things I personally don't like, or have parts I think could have been improved upon.

[Knife]

The root of the issue here seems to be people criticising the movie for not conforming to a strict enough format. It's fine to dislike a movie, but saying it was a bad movie because it didn't follow your preferred formula reeks of closed-mindedness.

I agree. It seems that people are getting upset that the PT isn't a direct comparison to the OT. Though, you can make a lot, and I mean a lot, of direct comparisons from PT to OT not every character and situation, or even theme, translates perfectly. Maul is a Bond villain's henchmen that you really don't have in the OT, I guess you could loosely translate him to Fett in purpose for the plot but...

The OT, while I think is superior, if pretty formulaic in all three volumes, while the PT tries different things, even if it tries to pay homage to the formula. While Palpatine's role stays the same in the PT as it did in ESB and RotJ, it doesn't mean that Obi Wan's role or Qui Jon, or even Anakin's role should stay the same as Luke Skywalkers even if you can make occasional comparisons between the two.

I think that's why some people are having butt hurt with it, Anakin's journey isn't the same as Luke's, even if you can make periodic comparisons to choices the two made and the different outcomes. Hell, the main theme of the OT is Luke shrugging off the expectations of his father and mentors and becoming more than they wanted him to be/thought him to be. That alone indicates their separate journeys should be different along with their characterizations.