#I still love and appreciate the mind boggling amount of creativity and imagination that oozes from every frame of these movies

[jonathanrogersartist]

Last night's impromptu rewatch of The Phantom Menace was... really interesting.

This film is, strangely enough, a lot like Rogue One, in that it has such a clunky beginning and middle, but by the end it finally finds steam enough for a visually impressive big blowout climax. And I always forget how disarming the first twenty minutes or so is, with the style of dialogue and performances, and you have to just force yourself to adjust to the wavelength.

This movie's most crippling problems, for me, is that it has this very sandpaper-dry tone for most of the runtime, and it's pacing is so geriatric outside of the podrace and the final battle. This movie desperately needed more action to liven it up, or at least more comedy that's not Jar Jar's kid-friendly antics.

That said.... I really have softened on Jar Jar over the years, and yes, that's in big part because of my sympathy for Ahmed Best, and because I am aware now of how much passion and work he put into the role.

If anything, poor Jake Lloyd is harder for me to watch than Jar Jar. Because at least a wacky alien with its own style of speech can have easier suspension of disbelief for me, than a kid actor who's just not really cutting it in the natural-delivery department. DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT HIS FAULT. THIS IS NOT A HATE-POST FOR JAKE. HE WAS ONLY A CHILD DOING HIS BEST.

The bigger takeaway on this watch, and I ALWAYS fall into this trap, is being reminded of how Lucas is blessed/cursed with a fertile imagination and a firm grasp of mythic storytelling, BUT is so tone-deaf with the actual writing of those ideas. The result is that, when I think about them from a distance, I think the prequels are a work of brilliant storytelling, and I convince myself their flaws are wildly exaggerated... only to be reminded how cringey they are in execution when I actually sit down and rewatch them.

Like, I GET why fans wholesale rejected this at the time, and why all following media has been scrambling to retcon or reinterpret the things people didn't like about them to this day.

I'll return to Attack of the Clones tonight. Let's see how that goes...