If you have never seen Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) you may not be aware of a wonderful way to enjoy even very bad movies. Thing is, the running commentary even works for good movies. For instance, I thoroughly enjoyed Independence Day but I still had fun mocking the Macintosh-to-Alienware virus upload. The cable-TV engineer had all of a few days’ exposure to alien technology, and he was drunk part of that time. Was there a firewire port in the UFO? Don’t they have Norton AntiVirus for Aliens or something?
Anyway this has been taken to a whole new level with the most amazing movie review I have ever seen: this 70-minute narrative critique of Star Wars, The Phantom Menace. I must confess I was not able to finish watching the movie itself, lest it destroy forever any good memories of the three excellent films from my salad days. But this review is practically a mini-course in movie production. It was done by some guy in Milwaukee and, as one of the commenters said; “If only George Lucas had put this much thought into the actual movie.” It’s also very funny, if you like dark and sometimes juvenile humor. (The critic takes on the persona of a completely twisted serial murderer doing a movie review. But I liked Sweeney Todd so don’t say you weren’t warned)
There’s a section in the review where he asks people to describe characters from the original Star Wars movies, and characters from TPM, without saying what they looked like; it’s hilarious. He goes hunting for a protagonist, for a story, for any motivation at all in the movie. He explains why the best-choreographed swordfights can wind up having no emotional impact, and much more.
So if you’re the kind of geek who would enjoy watching a lengthy deconstruction of the worst movie ever made – and yes I think TPM is a candidate for that dubious honor – then I can only recommend you get the popcorn* and sit back to enjoy this review. All seven 10-minute sections are on the page linked above.
- (I can’t actually eat popcorn anymore, but you know, movies, popcorn… aww forget it)
- h/t to Les for spotting this gem
Firewire? Heck, how did he know how the aliens’ operating system(s) or other software could be subverted? Thanks to Windows, most folks seem to think it only takes a couple of minutes to come up with a new attack, but even good OSs on this planet take some study and persistence to break into. Somehow, I don’t think they could have even cataloged all the software in the time they had.
I thought ID4 was hilarious.
I find I cannot watch the Mystery Science Theater stuff.
Why anyone would watch Indepencence Day without suspending belief is beyond me…
IT’S A FRIKKIN MOVIE!!!
BTW, I didn’t really care for the movie. It was a bit better on second viewing, but not much.
The TV series was much better. I’ll have to Google for TV episodes online.
The star wars review was good… just damn good. And the thing is, his ideas in the review made more sense than the star wars movie. The ideas about the final battle would of made for a better ending. The idea about Jinn’s character would of made more sense too.
When he initially asked who the main character was I paused the review and thought about it. At first I wanted to say “Obi”, then I said no it was Jinn. But it makes no sense that it would be Jinn with the end scene.
Thus explaining my confusion with the movie and further adding to my loathing of Lucas.