Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 1 of 7)

RedLetterMedia2 HN recommenders · 2010–2022
11.5M views · commentary · evergreen · Uploaded 2012-04-10

The first of seven parts of RedLetterMedia's long review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It argues that the film's central flaw is its characters and the lack of audience connection.

HN commenters recommend it as sharp film criticism and a lesson in filmmaking, and cite it when arguing the prequels failed on basics.

Watch on YouTube

5 comments from Hacker News

@ericb2010 · in “Saving Star Wars: The Special Edition Restoration Process”

I am utterly confused by the turn of events. The first trilogy convinced me Lucas was amazingly talented. The dialog was good, but funny. The characters were characters . I feel like the criticisms here are pretty valid: [VIDEO] I'm at a loss as to why what he produced in his 50's would be so much worse. Shouldn't Lucas be the old wizened sage--the Obi Wan of films by now? What happened?

CriticalView on HN
@KevinMS2013 · in “Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer”

> That movie did almost everything its makers were trying to accomplish. No, its widely regarded as a disaster of a movie. See this review, which I believe Ebert said that he enjoyed watching. [VIDEO]

CriticalView on HN
@everyone2015 · in “How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business”

The Phantom menace failed to achieve many basic elements of film. This 7 part review will explain it [VIDEO] or just watch this bit here. Which highlights the soap opera style blocking.. goto 1:20:40 [LINK]

CriticalView on HN
@smnscu2016 · in “How George Lucas Lost His Integrity…and Why It’s So Important”

In case you haven't watched Mr Plinkett's Star Wars reviews, they're the best in the business, and go down hard on George Lucas. [VIDEO]

Strongly recommendsView on HN
@raspo2022 · in “Dick the Birthday Boy: The Legacy Continues [video]”

For people who are confused by this, Red Letter Media is a youtube channel that does movie reviews. I have been following them for over ten years and thanks to them I have learned a lot about movies, actors, directors and movie making in general. They have a very particular sense of humor, very dark and full of sarcasm; they like to troll their own audience and don’t care about what youtube wants. They respect my intelligence and never asked me to like and subscribe (unless it’s a joke) and for that, I like them even more. Some video recommendations: - Phantom Menace review - what they are most famous for ( [VIDEO] ) - Jack and Jill - my personal favorite ( [LINK] ) - Bruce Willis fake movie factory - more recent ( [LINK] ) - Scientist Man Explains Terminator: Genisys ( [LINK] ) - Prometheus ( [LINK] )

Strongly recommendsView on HN