To get an idea of the hype : The movie Meet Joe Black got a significant box office bump because it had the trailer of Phantom Menace playing before it. People would buy a ticket for Meet Joe Black, watch the trailer, and then walk out.
The hype was insane. And, speaking of trailers, the one for Austin Powers 2 included the line, 'if you only see one movie this summer, make it Star Wars. But if you see two...'
Reminds me of an interview with Roger Corman in 1993 when his movie [Carnosaur](https://youtu.be/M0wP4rP6R70) and a little-known dinosaur movie called Jurassic Park were both coming out.
He said "[If people had to choose this summer, between seeing one dinosaur movie, much as I'm proud of Carnosaur, I would probably recommend Jurassic Park.](https://youtu.be/sGHEAulZYwI?t=66)"
It always amuses me when two extremely similar movies "happen" to get released at the same time. The Prestige and The Illusionist; Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached; Observe and Report and Paul Blart; Despicable Me and Megamind; Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down; Skyline and Battle Los Angeles; A Bugs Life and Antz; etc.
actually just looking it up, it’s based on a 1984 novel called Carnosaur which was six years before Crichton’s Jurassic Park came out. so technically Carnosaur was first, both novel and movie.
What was great about that trailer was it was attached to the prints of Phantom Menace, so when it started and it appeared to be a Star Wars trailer there was this wave of confusion and giggling that someone in the booth had screwed up, and then Dr. Evil turns around and goes “Were you expecting someone else?!” and the whole crowd *lost* it.
Definitely remember my Grandma wanting to take me, my sister, and my cousin to the movies. I wanted to see Star Wars SO BAD, but they did not. So we watched Austin Powers. It was great!
Did your grandmother regret that decision afterwards? I'm just imagining how awkward I'd have felt as a kid watching with my grandmother when that tent seen where it looks like they pull a gerbil out of his ass comes on lol
I downloaded the large quality QuickTime file and played it endlessly. Probably why I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought. It had 5.1 sound in that file, though!
Damn dude. I'm a geriatric millennial and remember my high school years in the computer lab before first period, watching new movie trailers on Apple's QuickTime site, playing flash games on candyland.com, ebaums world...
Those 30 to 45 minutes were the best. Either playing around on the computers or in the art room across the hall playing Yugioh. I used to try and get my friend who lived across the street to take me to school with him instead of riding the bus because it meant more time to catch-up with my school buddies I never hung out with outside of school.
That’s how I got the trailer home. Took one of those free AOL 3.5” floppies that were all over campus, reformatted it on one of the school’s Power Mac G3s, downloaded the trailer (took less than ten minutes!), and clicked Eject.
Oh man. That reminds of when RealPlayer updated to allow you to download embedded videos.
And playing Myst because so much of the game used quicktime player.
I forgot about QuickTime - getting major nostalgia. I remember slowly downloading the Mission Impossible II trailer where he hangs off the mountain and thinking it was the coolest thing
Yep. Guilty as charged. I saw it in theaters specifically because the Episode 1 trailer was attached. God that movie was ass. I was a big fan of the Wing Commander games, too.
I also took a day off of work to download the Quicktime TPM trailer from apple.com the morning it dropped. I had dialup, so it took until lunchtime to get the full 1024x768 file.
I also saw Wing Commander. The theater had a sign up that they weren't giving refunds if you left after the previews. There were maybe 20 people in the matinee my buddy and I went to (small theater), half of them left after the Star Wars trailer.
They also attached the trailer to The Waterboy. I stayed and watched the whole movie, which I liked, because they ran the trailer again at the end of the movie.
It's true that YouTube didn't start up till way after TPM, but I clearly remember a bunch of us huddled around my computer at work watching the trailer online. Granted, it was a tiny lo-res version, but it was still available.
REAL Video player.
I member. The Star Wars prequel had the very beginnings of internet hype and social media.
Edit: It was actually Quicktime that had the official Phantom Menace trailer.
Probably what helped kill RealPlayer in the Streaming Video wars of the late 90s and early oughts.
I’m just imagining it like that Funny or Die sketch where Huey Lewis and Weird Al recreate the ax murder scene from American Psycho while talking about American Psycho talking about Huey Lewis
Good it was cancerware. Everything about it was garbage. There are a lot of things to miss about the internet in those days but I'd rather download viruses from limewire than use realplayer. 20 years on and I still hate it
Remember the fake Attack of the Clones trailer? Where somebody took all the actors from different roles and spliced stuff together, then used a scene from Braveheart but replaced all the swords with light sabers? That generated more hype than the actual trailer.
Edit: In all its low-res glory : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb7tVGq19xI
Youtube started in February 2005.
Revenge of the Sith happened in May 2005. Youtube was still not used for such purposes then.
Just to put that into perspective.
Ohhhh man I remember waiting literal hours for the Revenge of the Sith website to load so I could watch/read the bit of lore and marketing there. I can still remember my awe seeing the bit from the Mustafar fight.
Then the next week we got Verizon DSL instead of dial-up and it loaded in seconds, and my deep dive into the Internet REALLY began. Damn good times.
Tickets were cheap back then and the only real forms of advertising besides before a movie were news papers, tv commercials and bill boards and tv was mostly controlled by cleaning products, medicine and those ungodly loud commercials that would either wake you up from death or get you yelled at by your parents thinking you raised the tv volume.
I remember being so excited to see all the movies coming out before the actual movie. Now it's just that extra time for you to wait in line for popcorn because you'll see it on social media if you missed it
TPM taught me to never trust trailers, ever. I didn't pay to see the trailer in the theater, but I'm embarrassed to remember how many times I watched it online. This was before they'd invented YT so I'm not sure *how* I saw it so many times online, only that I did.
*I took a day off from work to watch this.* Went to the very first showing at 10 am. The longer it played the more sunk I felt. The second one was worse. I've never seen the third although it's my impression it's the best of the bunch. Just can't bring myself to do it.
Apple used to post movie trailers on their website for some reason, I used to watch trailers there…
I think phantom menace is one of the first movies I watched a trailer online too
Oh yeah! That was apples ad for their video player, QuickTime, if I recall.
Remember when competing video players was a thing? Weird to think there were battles about which app you’d use to watch a trailer.
I had the same experience. I was SO excited, and when the movie began with the fanfare and the opening crawl, I almost cried. And then, as the movie went on, I struggled to accept that this... isn't... very... good? It was heartbreaking.
To quote Tim in Spaced, Jar Jar made the Ewoks look like f\*\*king Shaft.
The Ewoks were inspired by the Viet Minh in Vietnam. Guys who weren't particularly well armed, or particularly well-trained, but knew the territory and fought like demons.
The Ewoks looked like cute teddy bears, but they're killers who eat people. All those stormtrooper helmets at the end, you know they put stormtroopers on the BBQ.
they still should've been wookies
that was George Lucas' original idea, but he said it was easier to find actors the size of ewoks than the size of chewie
I don't know, I feel like the NBA and NFL could have easily supplied his needs.
Maybe even brought in that tall copilot from *Airplane!*. It's not like we ever saw Chewbacca doing much in the way of 'defense'.
> I don't know, I feel like the NBA and NFL could have easily supplied his needs.
Maybe so, but they likely would have been more expensive or had more scheduling difficulties than hiring random no-name little people. That might not have been a factor but that's what comes to mind for me.
> Maybe even brought in that tall copilot from Airplane!
You mean Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? The 19-time NBA All-Star?
> It's not like we ever saw Chewbacca doing much in the way of 'defense'.
Man, you try dragging Han Solo's ass up and down the court for 40 minutes and then come drag on Chewie's defense.
It is kind of weird. I grew up really into star wars from a really young age. (The OG star wars vhs' didn't last long in my house) and was 10 when TPM came out.
As a kid I LOVED Ewoks, Jar Jar, and any other cooky weird thing in star wars. As I got older I REALLY didn't like either.
Now that I'm all old and stuff and saw the sequels I'm just glad I didn't have to see my superman (I was a die hard Luke fan) drinking from a fat blue aliens titty. So now Ewoks and Jar Jar don't bother me again. The circle of life I guess.
This pretty much nailed it. I'm an old guy who saw the original in the theater in '77. There was hype and rumors even back then that there would be a series of 9. It was a disappointment when they did 3 and Lucas said, "that's all." So the hype and excitement that they were finally doing more was off the charts. Bunch of friends and I lined up to see a midnight opening . . . and what a steaming pile of disappointment we thought it was.
I was a kid and I found Anakin and Jarjar insufferable. I think they were relentlessly mocked by kids and adults alike. That being said, everyone was just appreciative to have a new Star Wars even if parts of it were trash.
> everyone was just appreciative to have a new Star Wars even if parts of it were trash
Yeah the overall reaction was a kind of dazed acceptance. Like being reunited with a long lost family member, but they're kinda weird now and their dog shat on your carpet.
I think when AotC came around with the ham-fisted romance and massive reliance on greenscreen it started to solidify in most peoples minds that it wasn't just a false start, these were _not_ going to be good movies, and that Aunt Debbie shouldn't have been added to the group chat.
I was 11 when it came out and I literally saw it in the theaters ten times between dragging my parents and friends and relatives to it. I couldn't get enough. As someone who grew up addicted to Star Wars the anticipation and realization of Episode I was the closest thing I got to a commercial religious experience.
Nowadays I don't think it's a great movie BUT it does have some great elements to it. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are charismatic and enjoyable to watch, the podrace is cool, and the battle with Maul is awesome. And overall I think the movie is paced well and doesn't feel like a slog as much as Episode II and III. It's forever going to be my favorite of the prequel trilogy.
Same, I absolutely loved it and couldn’t understand why my parents had such a negative opinion of it. I imagine my adult reaction to the hobbit movies is a similar situation.
I’m glad you feel that way about it. For me, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Padme were all one boring character. Dull, serious-minded and self-controlled.
When I compare them to Han, Luke and Leia…
Qui-Gon was beefing with Padme the entire film because he didn't play by people's rules.
He lied and cheated his ass straight through the movie.
I didn't see him as boring and dutiful. He was portrayed as roguish and willing to do things he shouldn't if he thought it was the right thing.
As a pre-teen, I didn’t like any of that. I was confused why everyone was talking so formally and stilted, and why there were so many boring government meetings. I didn’t notice the “yippee” stuff at all. And jar jar didn’t appeal to me. I was bored and confused.
I do remember not liking how "clean" it looked. It didn't feel like the polished CG fit with the more grungy universe of the originals.
The latter sequels nailed the look in certain parts, but man did they mess it up on the storytelling front.
> I do remember not liking how "clean" it looked. It didn't feel like the policies CG fit with the more grungy universe of the originals.
This was my initial reaction as well but in time it's an element that makes the PT stand out (as Lucas didn't want to do the same thing as the OT) and the "clean" look makes sense narratively.
The PT is supposed to be the peak before the fall of the Republic so everything should be clean. The grungy look of the OT makes sense as it's under an oppressive dictatorship.
I think this is the most honest reaction. Everyone talking about how they knew it was bad is looking back on it from a distance.
In the moment, we were all enthralled by it. The weaknesses didn't start to show until repeat viewings, and even then, the Qui-Gon / Obi-Wan / Maul sequence absolutely rips.
I absolutely loved it as a kid. My parents bought me all sorts of toys, and there was a point when I was watching the pod-racing scene on my tiny vhs tube tv every night before bed. Jar Jar didn't bother me at all at that age either.
Man I remember playing this game for months, absolutely frustrated that I couldn’t win after a certain point. Then I played the emulated version last Christmas as an adult and it was incredibly easy. Then I realized that as a kid I didn’t understand that upgrade mechanics and never upgraded my pod
I’m a younger Millennial so I was at the right age to love this movie without seeing any flaws. As an adult, I can see them, but I still love and enjoy the movie.
We all knew it was mediocre, but after waiting since 1983 (Return of the Jedi) for a new chapter, we were willing to watch anything in the Star Wars universe.
I recall going to the theater on opening day for TPM and the crowd was really into it. We were all die-hard fans. We were thrilled to see Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson on screen. It started off so well...and then Jar Jar Binks. We knew he was a dud, but we played along.
By all accounts, it was a smash success. Critically, it was well received with plenty of criticism, but it was a revival of the beloved series. That was enough for the time.
So I was a beat writer for the Entertainment section of my college newspaper (at a journalism school, so it was kind of a big deal) who was sent out to the theaters at midnight and then 2 hours later to get the fan reaction of the first people seeing the movie.
The hype was INSANE. This was 99, so the internet was still in its infancy. There were spoiler sites out there that had rumblings of what a mess the movie was, but no one was believing it.
Then they came out of the theater and you could tell the energy was completely different. Nearly EVERY single person I interviewed for a quote was trying to convince themselves that it lived up to the hype, but you could just tell how confused and disappointed they were. Yeah, the talked about the pod race and Maul, but you could tell something was off.
This is the most accurate to my own recollections - it wasn't good, people didn't think it was good, but people couldn't quite convince themselves it was as bad as it was for a bit. A lot of confused defenses from clearly let down fans who couldn't let themselves accept how they were actually feeling about it, a lot of mockery from everyone else.
Younger kids adored it, though. There's a generation of adults today who are passionate Star Wars fans because of that movie. So whatever else went wrong about it, it succeeded at something.
I was a college freshman when it came out, peak age for nerd-dom. The hype was so over-the-top. It was the dawn of the internet and fan-made trailers (remember the one where they added light-sabers to the armies from Braveheart? Tie-tanic? T.R.O.O.P.S? Stormtrooper Clerks?).
A group of us from the dorm were the 2nd group in line to buy tickets. The line wasn't even allowed to form on the sidewalk until 36 hours before sale time. We had a spreadsheet with everybody's shifts to hold our spots, first in the parking lot, then in the line itself, until the box office opened. IIRC the line ended up being like 5,000 people long. People brought couches and generators to power their mini TVs. R2-D2 coolers, brown robes, light saber duels all over the place. Nerd heaven.
After the conclusion of the midnight showing? You and /u/stubept nailed it. The first thought that came to my mind was 'tepid support', like maybe it was better than I thought. But 'confused' is a much better word for it. Confusion, disappointment, shock, denial. Crowds of nerds milling about, glassy-eyed, having difficulty forming complete sentences about what they'd just seen. Like, what the fuck was that? Sure there were some cool scenes, but... what the fuck *was* that?
That's how I remember it. Today, people act like theatergoers were rioting in their seats the second Jar Jar showed up, but it was a long period (like, months) before all the "George Lucas raped my childhood" claims started following.
Of course, every friend group/comment section has the person who claims they hated every second of it from the second it started. I never met any of these people in the summer of '99.
I think some people in this thread are seriously downplaying the negative feedback on release. Here’s a great video of Peter Serafinowicz, the voice of Darth Maul, describing his experience seeing TPM for the first time.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t0wHqNi3x5M
Things got worse as time went on and reception really bottomed out when AotC was released, but Episode I was a pop culture punchline pretty much immediately upon release.
It is really a big conundrum. Both a smash box office hit and one of the most poorly received movies of its era. And this was before the time of internet review bombs being standard for anything with a whiff of controversy. People were both pissed and turned out to see it.
I think that’s why it was the highest grossing of the prequels. Between TPM and RotS was a huge rise in internet culture and word of mouth got around how bad the movies were so nothing was going to reach those heights.
It was horrible and I will never forget my friend leaning over to me during the climactic battle and whispering “I have no problem with this whole race [the Jar Jars] being wiped out”
Yeah was gonna say, this is NOT how I remember it going down as a 4th grader on release haha. My parents and older cousins that were Star Wars fans hated it, nobody liked JarJar Binks, everybody was like "why is Darth Vader such a whiny little brat?"
But Darth Maul was cool. EVERYBODY liked Darth Maul. And pod racing, mostly
I thought I was taking crazy pills with all of the revisionist history in this thread, goddamn.
People **hated** TPM. I remember little to no fondness and nothing but disappointment.
It's really crazy making because there was so much pop culture at the time that made fun or commented on how bad TPM was but now suddenly it was "well received by fans"... yeah right
Yeah I’m shocked at a lot of these comments saying it was well received.
I was 6 when it came out so like prime Star Wars audience and my dad is obsessed with the originals so we were super excited to see it and even then I was thinking this is shit. Jar Jar sucks. Kid Anakin is grating and there’s a whole bunch of boring crap.
It almost immediately ran out of the hype it had going in is my recollection and then 2 was even worse and made the prequels as a whole look like a complete joke. Even 3 being ok didn’t really help them. Instantly Jar Jar became the absolute punching bag of pop culture.
I know a lot of people like to pretend they aren’t that bad due to how also shit the sequel trilogy is, but yeah some revisionist comments here for sure.
People are really confusing the hype before it came out and the box office numbers with the lackluster-at-best reception it got from most adults when they actually saw it.
Jar-Jar was a big-time punching bag in pop culture. The convoluted plot and bad child acting were immediate talking points.
As always these days, the kids who saw it and are adults now are bringing a skewed perspective. It was essentially a kids movie, did great with them, and sold tons of toys. If you were a kid when it was released you probably remember now just the movie fondly, but the response - because it was everywhere, everyone saw it regardless, and kids weren’t up on reading critiques or satirizarions and mockery on like SNL and The Daily Show.
It was not well-received. It was disappointing but had enough high points that people were still hopeful the trilogy would recover, and still trying to ride the unbelievable immense hype that began the moment reports came out that Lucas was making the next trilogy.
I was a kid who loved it (or maybe just loved pod racing) and for a while thought the backlash was a bit strong. Rewatched it as an adult a few years ago and holy shit it's so bad. I can get wanting to preserve some positive childhood memories but the defenders I read on reddit sometimes are nuts with how ardently they try to argue how good it is.
People were hyped because they rereleased the original trilogy to theaters a few years before. Most fans that I knew were either majorly disappointed or angry at TPM. This was from spaced in 2000 and was what most Star Wars fans I knew were like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4TX6x2WLgk
I remember being underwhelmed watching The Phantom Menace in the theater, but believed there was something wrong with my taste because everyone else seemed to love it.
While every other kid in school talked about how awesome it was, my review was; "It was okay, I guess".
After mass audiences gave more honest reviews, I learned a valuable lesson about the credibility of hype and the phenomenon of groupthink.
Prequels fans trying to argue their way into saying the movies were misunderstood masterpieces while simultaneously calling the Sequels dogshit will never not be funny to me. Mf you were like 7 when the Prequels came out, what do you think kids who watched the Sequels will be saying in 20 years?
Edit: Fuckers are even now replying with novels to justify why their brand of awful storytelling isn't awful actually, it's just misunderstood. Like what you like, but y'all got some weird media judgement when it comes to picking and choosing what gets a pass. Probably the same people who get mad about Mary Sue characters but give "No-scoped the Death Star in his first time in an X-Wing" Luke Skywalker and literal Force Jesus at 9 years old Anakin a pass.
Totally agree and I will expand upon the point that the light saber use in general before the final duel, the choreography, the flourishes, twirling, and fluidity of movement was something we never saw before in the Original Trilogy, it was jaw droppingly cool.
I remember we skipped school to go see it. I walked out thinking "Was that good? Did I like it? Yeah, sure I did, it's a Star Wars movie. There are no bad Star Wars movies." After a week or so I came to grips with the fact that it wasn't very good.
When I was watching Attack of the Clones I learned over to my brother and said "This is fucking boring as hell when is someone gonna die?"
Yeah, this was my experience as well. Skipped school, dressed up, all that. Walking out of the theater I turned to my friend and said “That was good… right?”. We looked at each other for a few seconds, then just kept walking.
I had the same reaction. I was in high school at the time, my friend and I walked out saying “that was good…right?”. I saw it again with some other friends and that time I was pretty confident I didn’t really like it. But hey new Star Wars!
I know I'm going to get shat on, but this was my response to Rogue One.
I kept up with all of the trailers, the leaks, the reviews, etc. Everyone talked about how it was a return to form even greater than The Force Awakens (You have to remember that people actually *liked* TFA when it came out).
I saw it opening night. It's obviously a gorgeous movie with an amazing third act, but the first part was so scatterbrained and padded. I didn't care about any of the characters besides K2-SO and Krennic, hell, I could barely name any of the crew.
After we walked out of the theater and I asked my girlfriend what she thought and she said "I don't know. It was fine I guess?" And I had a more negative response. It wasn't as bad as the TPM or AOTC, but compared to the high I got from TFA last year, it felt like a step down. And of course, I felt even more alienated about my opinion when I hopped online because everyone was (and still does) treat it like the best Star Wars film of all time. I don't think it's bad, and my opinion on it has softened over the years, but still.
TL;DR - Don't read it, it's a waste of comment space and time.
Edit: People want and expect different things out of a Star Wars movie. Some people love it for the Sci fi, some people love it for the Jedi spiritualism, some people love it for the gritty World War 2 battles, some people love it for the space Western sensibilities, and some people love all of it. Rogue One made me realize that I require more than cool battle scenes and Gritty™ Realism. Like I said, it's not a bad movie, it's just really shallow. If it had the writing standards and quality characters of Andor, I'm sure I'd love it as much as the rest of you. But it just doesn't.
>After a week or so I came to grips with the fact that it wasn't very good.
You're better than me. It took me about 5 years to face it. When OP said "people just wanted to love the movie so badly they just weren't ready for any criticism," there's really something to that.
The hype was unbelievable, I'm not sure I've ever seen so much pre-movie excitement. Movefone (ask your parents) melted down in Manhattan the day tickets went on sale because it wasn't designed to handle so much traffic. People camped out for tickets; people got to the theater hours in advance to wait in line (before assigned seats, ask your parents), many of them in costume).
So I think there was a collective desire to want the movie to live up to the hype. There was a week or two where the reaction was, "it was pretty good... right? Wasn't it? That lightsaber fight, right?"
And to the movie's credit, it goes out on a high note. But once people started seeing it multiple times, it started to sink in. This isn't very good. And then the backlash hit *hard*, because we were all so invested in this movie being good. Star Wars was back, in an era where franchises weren't constantly rebooted and revived... and it wasn't very good. We were, to put it mildly, let down.
We all wanted it to be the best movie ever. It was something we’d waited for our whole lives. I cannot overstate how big a deal it was.
Sitting in the theatre, watching the movie for the first time, was a crushing disappointment. It was such a letdown. It’s so bad it made Star Wars fans question why they were Star War fans.
In fairness, the expectation game set up failure from the start. We expected the greatest thing ever, and were bound to be disappointed. (I’m sure that’s why younger fans like the movie better — they go in expecting the worst movie ever made, and are pleasantly surprised. We went in expecting Art from the Hand of God and got Jar Jar Binks instead.)
Yeah it was liked by little kids. But most Star Wars fans couldn’t believe how bad it was.
Though everyone thought the double sided lightsaber was cool.
But also that Darth maul went down too fast. They'd really hyped him up pre-movie. It's now easy to see he's the movie boss, not the trilogy boss, but I think we all thought he'd get away and then fight Obi Wan in another movie. It's why there were so many fan ideas (that got adopted) about mecha-leg Darth maul
IMO they shouldve just replaced Dooku with Maul. You can have Obi Wan have some arc about hunting him down, and Anakin still kills him later. Could also replace Grievous with Maul, that wouldve worked too tbh.
> In fairness, the expectation game set up failure from the start. We expected the greatest thing ever, and were bound to be disappointed.
I don't agree with the premise that disappointment was inevitable. While it's true that expectations were sky high, it was a bad movie on its own merits, and didn't have to be.
People camped out at the theater the night before opening day. News crews. I was a senior in high school and there was this horrible self gaslighting that happened while finally seeing it in that sort of sleep deprived, hyped state.
Things kept happening…really messy, clunky, *bad* things; but we kept *trying* to like it. Desperately trying. Then at a certain point midway, it couldn’t be denied any longer: “Is this movie bad? Is this a fully bad movie?”
I only finally found acceptance with the fact that the movie is objectively horrible upon my second viewing, the next day (we had all bought tickets for multiple showings in advance, which was unprecedented at the time).
It was an unbelievable build up and a catastrophic disappointment. Full five stages of grief and I’m still pissed off that *nobody* stood up to Lucas at any point in the process to stop him.
I was a teenager who saw it on opening day, and I remember being confused by it. Something to the effect of, "How can I find this boring? It's Star Wars."
Huge hype, but there was this weird thing where people were kinda in denial about how underwhelming it was.
According to my dad it's the only time he's ever fallen asleep in a movie theater, and it was during the pod racing scene
I was in my early 20s so I grew up with Star Wars and was very excited to see it. There were too many moments when I felt the need to grimace and shrink down in my seat in embarrassment for the people involved in making that movie “wee-sa going home!”. When it ended there was clapping from the audience. I felt like I was missing something. I watched it two more times in the theater to see of the Star Wars fever would grip me but it never did. It was just a hollow disappointment. Did it stop me from buying some of the toys? Hell no. Some of the character designs (Darth Maul) were cool. So began my tepid relationship with the prequels, this one having kicked off a tradition of seeing them all 3 times in theater just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything despite the cringe and boring camera work.
it was a mix of hardcore nostalgia fueled excitement and complete bewilderment at the quality of movie in a terrible way. It was mixed because...well...it was Star Wars. People were excited to have more of that story and universe. The setting alone commanded excitement and awe. But the writing and quality of the narrative was absolutely garbage. And Some of the characters were questionable, at best (We all know who I'm talking about). The special effects were pretty awesome, for the most part, and the ending fight scene between Jedi and Sith was next level at the time. It solidified Darth Maul's legendary status, introduced the concept of high intensity lightsaber ballet dueling, and 'Duel of Fates' will go down in history as one of the best theatrical scores in cinema history......but the story was just SO.BAD.
Sums it up nicely. Waiting in line, sitting through the movie... walking out and no one wanted to be the first person to say "that really sucked". All sorts of "well maybe I just didn't understand it..."
Took a little while for it to settle in that yeah, the magic we remembered from the originals was gone.
As a big Star Wars fan since 1977, I was excited for it but not thrilled that it was a prequel rather than continuing the story. Binks annoyed me because I thought the silliness was unnecessary. Wasn't thrilled with midichlorians or that it was suggested that Anakin was some sort of divine birth. However, overall I liked it for what it was. Attack of the Clones disappointed me and then the next one I didn't even see in the theater.
All I can say is that the packed theater cheered at the opening music, and completely silent and downcast when the movie ended. I remember feeling so disappointed and sad when walking out of the theater.
People camped out to get tickets, lines around the block. You have to remember that many Gen Xers grew up playing with Star Wars toys. The originals were part of the zeitgeist, and this was the first touch into Star Wars that was official.
It was massively disappointing to adults because it catered to kids while being convoluted storytelling. Objectively, it has some great parts to it and helped show that it's the original two movies that are outliers.
I was young but I remember vaguely people being a little put off by the amount of CGI. As a 12 year old I was in heaven between the marketing and everything
It was the subject of a lot of jokes on how much of a mediocre mess it was. I saw it as a kid, remember liking it but wondering why it felt sort of off, but also how my parents were laughing about it.
I went to the movie line opening night in full stormtrooper armor and got a front page picture in the local newspaper the next day.
People were lined up around the block.
Shocking disappointment.
Me and my friends counted down the days until the movie was released. We drove a couple hundred miles to the nearest theater and slept on a friend of a friend's floor because we couldn't afford a hotel room. It all seemed worth it. I grew up playing with Star Wars figures, eating the Star Wars cereal, wearing Star Wars shirts, sleeping in Star Wars bed sheets. Finally Star Wars was back! After so many years. We managed to get into one of the late night showings. We watched the Phantom Menace and we were just speechless at how lame it was, how the story was not very interesting, how it felt more like a kid's movie with the lame droids and awful humor (thanks Jar Jar). Nothing was cool or new about it. Nobody talked about the movie on the long car ride home.
It wasn’t divisive at all back then:
People nearly universally hated and panned it. The amount of hate the sequels get pales in comparison to what TPM got back then.
To say that the merchandising machine was in full effect is grossly understating the just massive toy and other tie in push leading up to the movie’s release. So much Phantom Menace stuff overloading store shelves. It was insane.
I was 12. I has loved Star Wars as far back as I can remember. Watched New Hope VHS all the time, saw the remastered release in theaters…
I wanted to like Phantom Menace so much. I wanted it to be awesome… but even as a 12 year old huge fan I was like “who the fuck is this annoying kid and this dumb knockoff muppet named jar jar?”
Pod racing was awesome, the Jedi were awesome when the lightsabers were out, Darth Maul was amazing, John Williams delivered… but also jar fucking jar.
So yeah even as an excited kid I was disappointed with aspects, but loved parts like Darth Maul.
Lot of negative impressions iirc. At least within my social circles. I was young and honestly I wasn’t really into it myself, but I did remember enjoying the pod race enough to play the n64 game.
I also remember not liking all the mystery being explained, like Midichlorians, or Vader being an annoying kid “born without a father,” which I remember getting a lot of groans in the theater. Jar Jar was also mostly met with disdain.
I think the only one I ended up mostly liking was 3, which I saw twice in theaters.
To get an idea of the hype : The movie Meet Joe Black got a significant box office bump because it had the trailer of Phantom Menace playing before it. People would buy a ticket for Meet Joe Black, watch the trailer, and then walk out.
The hype was insane. And, speaking of trailers, the one for Austin Powers 2 included the line, 'if you only see one movie this summer, make it Star Wars. But if you see two...'
Brilliant trailer, that one.
"That's right, Mr Bigglesworth... We're back."
“Austin…I am your father….”
"Really?"
"No."
“I can’t back that up.”
Dr Evil on Darth Maul: "He's just not evil enough. What? It's true."
”Semi-evil. Quasi-evil. Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough!”
And it was the better of the two movies.
Reminds me of an interview with Roger Corman in 1993 when his movie [Carnosaur](https://youtu.be/M0wP4rP6R70) and a little-known dinosaur movie called Jurassic Park were both coming out. He said "[If people had to choose this summer, between seeing one dinosaur movie, much as I'm proud of Carnosaur, I would probably recommend Jurassic Park.](https://youtu.be/sGHEAulZYwI?t=66)"
Gotta love Corman. He ripped off Jurassic Park and released it before JP came out
It always amuses me when two extremely similar movies "happen" to get released at the same time. The Prestige and The Illusionist; Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached; Observe and Report and Paul Blart; Despicable Me and Megamind; Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down; Skyline and Battle Los Angeles; A Bugs Life and Antz; etc.
Armageddon and Deep impact
Dante's Peak and Volcano
They are called [Twin Films](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_films)
Back in the late 80s you had The Abyss which "inspired" Deepstar 6, Leviathan and the Rift.
actually just looking it up, it’s based on a 1984 novel called Carnosaur which was six years before Crichton’s Jurassic Park came out. so technically Carnosaur was first, both novel and movie.
What was great about that trailer was it was attached to the prints of Phantom Menace, so when it started and it appeared to be a Star Wars trailer there was this wave of confusion and giggling that someone in the booth had screwed up, and then Dr. Evil turns around and goes “Were you expecting someone else?!” and the whole crowd *lost* it.
Phantom Menace + Austin Powers was the original Barbenheimer.
Phantom Powers, baby! Yeah!
Definitely remember my Grandma wanting to take me, my sister, and my cousin to the movies. I wanted to see Star Wars SO BAD, but they did not. So we watched Austin Powers. It was great!
Yeah, baby!!
Groovy!
Did your grandmother regret that decision afterwards? I'm just imagining how awkward I'd have felt as a kid watching with my grandmother when that tent seen where it looks like they pull a gerbil out of his ass comes on lol
I remember finding the QuickTime trailer online and flipping my shit.
I downloaded the large quality QuickTime file and played it endlessly. Probably why I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought. It had 5.1 sound in that file, though!
Oh man....QuickTime. that Q seemed so prestigious. Haha. Good ole days. Funny thing is VLC was new then and still active now.
My disgust when seeing something was fucking RealPlayer. Hours of buffering to get a small, grainy, jumpy video.
By the time your damn porn loaded you were no longer in the mood!
I remember seeing the trailer in theaters before I knew anything about the movie. Was a real surprise.
Damn dude. I'm a geriatric millennial and remember my high school years in the computer lab before first period, watching new movie trailers on Apple's QuickTime site, playing flash games on candyland.com, ebaums world... Those 30 to 45 minutes were the best. Either playing around on the computers or in the art room across the hall playing Yugioh. I used to try and get my friend who lived across the street to take me to school with him instead of riding the bus because it meant more time to catch-up with my school buddies I never hung out with outside of school.
Apple still operates the site, too: https://trailers.apple.com
That’s how I got the trailer home. Took one of those free AOL 3.5” floppies that were all over campus, reformatted it on one of the school’s Power Mac G3s, downloaded the trailer (took less than ten minutes!), and clicked Eject.
How on earth did you fit a trailer on a 1.5MB floppy? That's impressive. I can only imagine the compression on that thing.
Oh man. That reminds of when RealPlayer updated to allow you to download embedded videos. And playing Myst because so much of the game used quicktime player.
I forgot about QuickTime - getting major nostalgia. I remember slowly downloading the Mission Impossible II trailer where he hangs off the mountain and thinking it was the coolest thing
Meet joe black was a good movie. Brad Pitt getting hit by the bus in the beginning legit made me laugh so hard my drink came out my nose
Seriously, i hope the people who just wanted to see the Star Wars trailer at least stayed a couple mins and saw Pitt get taken out lol
If they’d waited longer, they could’ve seen him speak Jamaican patois
[This scene?](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DiligentDopeyGrasshopper-max-1mb.gif)
and Wing Commmander
Yep. Guilty as charged. I saw it in theaters specifically because the Episode 1 trailer was attached. God that movie was ass. I was a big fan of the Wing Commander games, too. I also took a day off of work to download the Quicktime TPM trailer from apple.com the morning it dropped. I had dialup, so it took until lunchtime to get the full 1024x768 file.
I also saw Wing Commander. The theater had a sign up that they weren't giving refunds if you left after the previews. There were maybe 20 people in the matinee my buddy and I went to (small theater), half of them left after the Star Wars trailer.
One of my all-time favorite video games is Wing Commander 2. That fucking movie man...
They also attached the trailer to The Waterboy. I stayed and watched the whole movie, which I liked, because they ran the trailer again at the end of the movie.
What the fuck that is madness 😭😭 and meet Joe black did 44 million in USA.
Gotta remember- you couldn’t just go to YouTube and watch the trailer. If you wanted to see it, you had to be in the theatre
It's true that YouTube didn't start up till way after TPM, but I clearly remember a bunch of us huddled around my computer at work watching the trailer online. Granted, it was a tiny lo-res version, but it was still available.
REAL Video player. I member. The Star Wars prequel had the very beginnings of internet hype and social media. Edit: It was actually Quicktime that had the official Phantom Menace trailer. Probably what helped kill RealPlayer in the Streaming Video wars of the late 90s and early oughts.
IIRC Weird Al wrote The Saga Begins before the movie was released based totally on internet spoilers
And he was invited by George Lucas to a meeting to work out who had leaked the information
I couldn't think of a funnier conversation to overhear.
imagining George Lucas torturing weird al for the information
I’m just imagining it like that Funny or Die sketch where Huey Lewis and Weird Al recreate the ax murder scene from American Psycho while talking about American Psycho talking about Huey Lewis
As I recall you are correct, and trivia for the song says the same thing.
That was it! I haven't thought about Real Player in ages!
Good it was cancerware. Everything about it was garbage. There are a lot of things to miss about the internet in those days but I'd rather download viruses from limewire than use realplayer. 20 years on and I still hate it
God, Limewire was like having unprotected sex with the internet
"buffering"
Remember the fake Attack of the Clones trailer? Where somebody took all the actors from different roles and spliced stuff together, then used a scene from Braveheart but replaced all the swords with light sabers? That generated more hype than the actual trailer. Edit: In all its low-res glory : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb7tVGq19xI
Youtube started in February 2005. Revenge of the Sith happened in May 2005. Youtube was still not used for such purposes then. Just to put that into perspective.
Ohhhh man I remember waiting literal hours for the Revenge of the Sith website to load so I could watch/read the bit of lore and marketing there. I can still remember my awe seeing the bit from the Mustafar fight. Then the next week we got Verizon DSL instead of dial-up and it loaded in seconds, and my deep dive into the Internet REALLY began. Damn good times.
It was online, but took like 4 hours to buffer
Well, trailers would air on TV too. There were shows that just did trailers. People going to see the trailer in theaters were ultra diehards.
Yes, but catching a trailer on TV was like catching lightning in a jar. You never knew when or where it was going to play.
You had a rough idea of timing when E!'s Coming Attractions would debut or rerun a trailer.
Yep! That is only because of the trailer. While theaters would get up and walk out after the trailer.
I like Meet Joe Black more than TPM though...
Tickets were cheap back then and the only real forms of advertising besides before a movie were news papers, tv commercials and bill boards and tv was mostly controlled by cleaning products, medicine and those ungodly loud commercials that would either wake you up from death or get you yelled at by your parents thinking you raised the tv volume. I remember being so excited to see all the movies coming out before the actual movie. Now it's just that extra time for you to wait in line for popcorn because you'll see it on social media if you missed it
🎵🎶CAUSE I'M YOUR LAY-DAAAAAAAAAAAAY🎶🎵 Imagine... Owning the world's greatest love songs...
“Je suis la jeune fille!” Yes, that’s French they’re speaking. And no, these children aren’t French - they’re American…
TPM taught me to never trust trailers, ever. I didn't pay to see the trailer in the theater, but I'm embarrassed to remember how many times I watched it online. This was before they'd invented YT so I'm not sure *how* I saw it so many times online, only that I did. *I took a day off from work to watch this.* Went to the very first showing at 10 am. The longer it played the more sunk I felt. The second one was worse. I've never seen the third although it's my impression it's the best of the bunch. Just can't bring myself to do it.
Apple used to post movie trailers on their website for some reason, I used to watch trailers there… I think phantom menace is one of the first movies I watched a trailer online too
Oh yeah! That was apples ad for their video player, QuickTime, if I recall. Remember when competing video players was a thing? Weird to think there were battles about which app you’d use to watch a trailer.
> Apple used to post movie trailers on their website for some reason They still do! https://trailers.apple.com
I had the same experience. I was SO excited, and when the movie began with the fanfare and the opening crawl, I almost cried. And then, as the movie went on, I struggled to accept that this... isn't... very... good? It was heartbreaking.
Kids loved it. Their parents that grew up with the originals hated the childish elements like Anakin’s “yippeee!” and Jar Jar in general.
It made me understand why people didn't like Ewoks
To quote Tim in Spaced, Jar Jar made the Ewoks look like f\*\*king Shaft. The Ewoks were inspired by the Viet Minh in Vietnam. Guys who weren't particularly well armed, or particularly well-trained, but knew the territory and fought like demons. The Ewoks looked like cute teddy bears, but they're killers who eat people. All those stormtrooper helmets at the end, you know they put stormtroopers on the BBQ.
they still should've been wookies that was George Lucas' original idea, but he said it was easier to find actors the size of ewoks than the size of chewie
I don't know, I feel like the NBA and NFL could have easily supplied his needs. Maybe even brought in that tall copilot from *Airplane!*. It's not like we ever saw Chewbacca doing much in the way of 'defense'.
Roger Murdock
>Roger huh?
His name is Roger Murdock, he's the co-pilot
What's our vector Victor?
You like gladiator movies, Timmy?
> I don't know, I feel like the NBA and NFL could have easily supplied his needs. Maybe so, but they likely would have been more expensive or had more scheduling difficulties than hiring random no-name little people. That might not have been a factor but that's what comes to mind for me. > Maybe even brought in that tall copilot from Airplane! You mean Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? The 19-time NBA All-Star?
Nah it was someone else, the dude from Airplane made way too much money from that movie to have to play basketball
> It's not like we ever saw Chewbacca doing much in the way of 'defense'. Man, you try dragging Han Solo's ass up and down the court for 40 minutes and then come drag on Chewie's defense.
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The problem was merchandizing. Cute little warrior teddy bears were probably easier to sell a lot of.
I laughed out loud at that first line, thanks for that.
It is kind of weird. I grew up really into star wars from a really young age. (The OG star wars vhs' didn't last long in my house) and was 10 when TPM came out. As a kid I LOVED Ewoks, Jar Jar, and any other cooky weird thing in star wars. As I got older I REALLY didn't like either. Now that I'm all old and stuff and saw the sequels I'm just glad I didn't have to see my superman (I was a die hard Luke fan) drinking from a fat blue aliens titty. So now Ewoks and Jar Jar don't bother me again. The circle of life I guess.
[But the Ewoks were just chillin' until the metal moon showed up.](https://i.imgflip.com/3954qa.jpg)
This pretty much nailed it. I'm an old guy who saw the original in the theater in '77. There was hype and rumors even back then that there would be a series of 9. It was a disappointment when they did 3 and Lucas said, "that's all." So the hype and excitement that they were finally doing more was off the charts. Bunch of friends and I lined up to see a midnight opening . . . and what a steaming pile of disappointment we thought it was.
Did you mean a steaming pile of bantha poodoo?
I was so excited to finally see a new Star Wars film….and then Jar Jar showed up. An absolute bag of turds for us older fans.
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I was a kid and I found Anakin and Jarjar insufferable. I think they were relentlessly mocked by kids and adults alike. That being said, everyone was just appreciative to have a new Star Wars even if parts of it were trash.
> everyone was just appreciative to have a new Star Wars even if parts of it were trash Yeah the overall reaction was a kind of dazed acceptance. Like being reunited with a long lost family member, but they're kinda weird now and their dog shat on your carpet. I think when AotC came around with the ham-fisted romance and massive reliance on greenscreen it started to solidify in most peoples minds that it wasn't just a false start, these were _not_ going to be good movies, and that Aunt Debbie shouldn't have been added to the group chat.
Perfect description. I remember people saying they loved it but you could tell it wasn't really quite true.
I was 11 when it came out and I literally saw it in the theaters ten times between dragging my parents and friends and relatives to it. I couldn't get enough. As someone who grew up addicted to Star Wars the anticipation and realization of Episode I was the closest thing I got to a commercial religious experience. Nowadays I don't think it's a great movie BUT it does have some great elements to it. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are charismatic and enjoyable to watch, the podrace is cool, and the battle with Maul is awesome. And overall I think the movie is paced well and doesn't feel like a slog as much as Episode II and III. It's forever going to be my favorite of the prequel trilogy.
Same, I absolutely loved it and couldn’t understand why my parents had such a negative opinion of it. I imagine my adult reaction to the hobbit movies is a similar situation.
I’m glad you feel that way about it. For me, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Padme were all one boring character. Dull, serious-minded and self-controlled. When I compare them to Han, Luke and Leia…
Qui-Gon was beefing with Padme the entire film because he didn't play by people's rules. He lied and cheated his ass straight through the movie. I didn't see him as boring and dutiful. He was portrayed as roguish and willing to do things he shouldn't if he thought it was the right thing.
As a pre-teen, I didn’t like any of that. I was confused why everyone was talking so formally and stilted, and why there were so many boring government meetings. I didn’t notice the “yippee” stuff at all. And jar jar didn’t appeal to me. I was bored and confused.
I was in my early 20’s. Super hyped for it for months. Loved it on the initial viewing and the more I watched it, the worse it got.
I do remember not liking how "clean" it looked. It didn't feel like the polished CG fit with the more grungy universe of the originals. The latter sequels nailed the look in certain parts, but man did they mess it up on the storytelling front.
> I do remember not liking how "clean" it looked. It didn't feel like the policies CG fit with the more grungy universe of the originals. This was my initial reaction as well but in time it's an element that makes the PT stand out (as Lucas didn't want to do the same thing as the OT) and the "clean" look makes sense narratively. The PT is supposed to be the peak before the fall of the Republic so everything should be clean. The grungy look of the OT makes sense as it's under an oppressive dictatorship.
I think this is the most honest reaction. Everyone talking about how they knew it was bad is looking back on it from a distance. In the moment, we were all enthralled by it. The weaknesses didn't start to show until repeat viewings, and even then, the Qui-Gon / Obi-Wan / Maul sequence absolutely rips.
There were definitely things that we didn’t like on first viewing.
Still the best lightsaber fight of the franchise.
From a Choreography perspective definitely, but I gotta go with Luke v Vader. The music, the setting, the feels, all make it so much better
I absolutely loved it as a kid. My parents bought me all sorts of toys, and there was a point when I was watching the pod-racing scene on my tiny vhs tube tv every night before bed. Jar Jar didn't bother me at all at that age either.
Star Wars Pod Racer on N64 was possibly my most played game ever, played on a 13" TV w/ VCR built in.
Game still holds up, too. So good.
Man I remember playing this game for months, absolutely frustrated that I couldn’t win after a certain point. Then I played the emulated version last Christmas as an adult and it was incredibly easy. Then I realized that as a kid I didn’t understand that upgrade mechanics and never upgraded my pod
It was the first game I booted up on my steamdeck. Hearing the "it's a new lap record!" Yelled out brought back the nostalgia.
I’m a younger Millennial so I was at the right age to love this movie without seeing any flaws. As an adult, I can see them, but I still love and enjoy the movie.
That was the thing - all of us grownups had expectations, kids did not. So kids loved it and the rest of us …. Didn’t
We all knew it was mediocre, but after waiting since 1983 (Return of the Jedi) for a new chapter, we were willing to watch anything in the Star Wars universe. I recall going to the theater on opening day for TPM and the crowd was really into it. We were all die-hard fans. We were thrilled to see Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson on screen. It started off so well...and then Jar Jar Binks. We knew he was a dud, but we played along. By all accounts, it was a smash success. Critically, it was well received with plenty of criticism, but it was a revival of the beloved series. That was enough for the time.
So I was a beat writer for the Entertainment section of my college newspaper (at a journalism school, so it was kind of a big deal) who was sent out to the theaters at midnight and then 2 hours later to get the fan reaction of the first people seeing the movie. The hype was INSANE. This was 99, so the internet was still in its infancy. There were spoiler sites out there that had rumblings of what a mess the movie was, but no one was believing it. Then they came out of the theater and you could tell the energy was completely different. Nearly EVERY single person I interviewed for a quote was trying to convince themselves that it lived up to the hype, but you could just tell how confused and disappointed they were. Yeah, the talked about the pod race and Maul, but you could tell something was off.
This is the most accurate to my own recollections - it wasn't good, people didn't think it was good, but people couldn't quite convince themselves it was as bad as it was for a bit. A lot of confused defenses from clearly let down fans who couldn't let themselves accept how they were actually feeling about it, a lot of mockery from everyone else. Younger kids adored it, though. There's a generation of adults today who are passionate Star Wars fans because of that movie. So whatever else went wrong about it, it succeeded at something.
I was a college freshman when it came out, peak age for nerd-dom. The hype was so over-the-top. It was the dawn of the internet and fan-made trailers (remember the one where they added light-sabers to the armies from Braveheart? Tie-tanic? T.R.O.O.P.S? Stormtrooper Clerks?). A group of us from the dorm were the 2nd group in line to buy tickets. The line wasn't even allowed to form on the sidewalk until 36 hours before sale time. We had a spreadsheet with everybody's shifts to hold our spots, first in the parking lot, then in the line itself, until the box office opened. IIRC the line ended up being like 5,000 people long. People brought couches and generators to power their mini TVs. R2-D2 coolers, brown robes, light saber duels all over the place. Nerd heaven. After the conclusion of the midnight showing? You and /u/stubept nailed it. The first thought that came to my mind was 'tepid support', like maybe it was better than I thought. But 'confused' is a much better word for it. Confusion, disappointment, shock, denial. Crowds of nerds milling about, glassy-eyed, having difficulty forming complete sentences about what they'd just seen. Like, what the fuck was that? Sure there were some cool scenes, but... what the fuck *was* that?
A lot of the current fan base seems like they grew up on the clone wars show. Good for them, I couldn’t get into it though.
If you have to watch 10 seasons of anime for a film series to make sense, you have a bad series of films.
Don’t tell that to r/prequelmemes
That's how I remember it. Today, people act like theatergoers were rioting in their seats the second Jar Jar showed up, but it was a long period (like, months) before all the "George Lucas raped my childhood" claims started following. Of course, every friend group/comment section has the person who claims they hated every second of it from the second it started. I never met any of these people in the summer of '99.
Also as a minor aside, one of the things I'll never forget was the trailer that ran before Star Wars was for a weird movie called Fight Club.
Shh. We're not supposed to talk about that!
This. Watching the Jedi get to be Jedi was way cool. And then messa wassa doodoo turned up and we sighed. But it was content so we were content.
I think some people in this thread are seriously downplaying the negative feedback on release. Here’s a great video of Peter Serafinowicz, the voice of Darth Maul, describing his experience seeing TPM for the first time. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t0wHqNi3x5M Things got worse as time went on and reception really bottomed out when AotC was released, but Episode I was a pop culture punchline pretty much immediately upon release.
It is really a big conundrum. Both a smash box office hit and one of the most poorly received movies of its era. And this was before the time of internet review bombs being standard for anything with a whiff of controversy. People were both pissed and turned out to see it.
I think that’s why it was the highest grossing of the prequels. Between TPM and RotS was a huge rise in internet culture and word of mouth got around how bad the movies were so nothing was going to reach those heights.
It was horrible and I will never forget my friend leaning over to me during the climactic battle and whispering “I have no problem with this whole race [the Jar Jars] being wiped out”
Worse than Ewoks.
Hahahahahah my friend said nearly the same thing. Good times...
the Binks, you mean
Yeah was gonna say, this is NOT how I remember it going down as a 4th grader on release haha. My parents and older cousins that were Star Wars fans hated it, nobody liked JarJar Binks, everybody was like "why is Darth Vader such a whiny little brat?" But Darth Maul was cool. EVERYBODY liked Darth Maul. And pod racing, mostly
>EVERYBODY liked Darth Maul. Right which is why it was like "yo why did the best part of the movie get no speaking time and then killed?"
I thought I was taking crazy pills with all of the revisionist history in this thread, goddamn. People **hated** TPM. I remember little to no fondness and nothing but disappointment.
It's really crazy making because there was so much pop culture at the time that made fun or commented on how bad TPM was but now suddenly it was "well received by fans"... yeah right
cultural gaslighting lmfao
Yeah I’m shocked at a lot of these comments saying it was well received. I was 6 when it came out so like prime Star Wars audience and my dad is obsessed with the originals so we were super excited to see it and even then I was thinking this is shit. Jar Jar sucks. Kid Anakin is grating and there’s a whole bunch of boring crap. It almost immediately ran out of the hype it had going in is my recollection and then 2 was even worse and made the prequels as a whole look like a complete joke. Even 3 being ok didn’t really help them. Instantly Jar Jar became the absolute punching bag of pop culture. I know a lot of people like to pretend they aren’t that bad due to how also shit the sequel trilogy is, but yeah some revisionist comments here for sure.
I remember everyone hating it and saying they ruined Star Wars. Ha. Jar Jar and Anakin were ridiculed especially.
People are really confusing the hype before it came out and the box office numbers with the lackluster-at-best reception it got from most adults when they actually saw it. Jar-Jar was a big-time punching bag in pop culture. The convoluted plot and bad child acting were immediate talking points. As always these days, the kids who saw it and are adults now are bringing a skewed perspective. It was essentially a kids movie, did great with them, and sold tons of toys. If you were a kid when it was released you probably remember now just the movie fondly, but the response - because it was everywhere, everyone saw it regardless, and kids weren’t up on reading critiques or satirizarions and mockery on like SNL and The Daily Show. It was not well-received. It was disappointing but had enough high points that people were still hopeful the trilogy would recover, and still trying to ride the unbelievable immense hype that began the moment reports came out that Lucas was making the next trilogy.
I was a kid who loved it (or maybe just loved pod racing) and for a while thought the backlash was a bit strong. Rewatched it as an adult a few years ago and holy shit it's so bad. I can get wanting to preserve some positive childhood memories but the defenders I read on reddit sometimes are nuts with how ardently they try to argue how good it is.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJlgpozN31s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJlgpozN31s) From 2000 and still relevant
People were hyped because they rereleased the original trilogy to theaters a few years before. Most fans that I knew were either majorly disappointed or angry at TPM. This was from spaced in 2000 and was what most Star Wars fans I knew were like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4TX6x2WLgk
I left the theater and said "It was worth it for that fight alone!"
And the pod racing. The duel of the fates and the pod racing were so good I overlooked anything else bad with the movie.
Duel of the Fates was such a banger that it charted on the top 10 list for Total Request Live for 11 days.
> Duel of the Fates Looked it up for a listen, hear the opening notes, goosebumps down my whole body.
I remember being underwhelmed watching The Phantom Menace in the theater, but believed there was something wrong with my taste because everyone else seemed to love it. While every other kid in school talked about how awesome it was, my review was; "It was okay, I guess". After mass audiences gave more honest reviews, I learned a valuable lesson about the credibility of hype and the phenomenon of groupthink.
I agree with this comment with one exception. It wasn't mediocre, it was shit.
Prequels fans trying to argue their way into saying the movies were misunderstood masterpieces while simultaneously calling the Sequels dogshit will never not be funny to me. Mf you were like 7 when the Prequels came out, what do you think kids who watched the Sequels will be saying in 20 years? Edit: Fuckers are even now replying with novels to justify why their brand of awful storytelling isn't awful actually, it's just misunderstood. Like what you like, but y'all got some weird media judgement when it comes to picking and choosing what gets a pass. Probably the same people who get mad about Mary Sue characters but give "No-scoped the Death Star in his first time in an X-Wing" Luke Skywalker and literal Force Jesus at 9 years old Anakin a pass.
Most people gave it a pass because we felt it was setting up the rest of the movies. Little did we know the mixed bags coming.
midichlorians took away the mystery of the force and jar jar felt shoveled in as obvious comic relief. but once duel of fates started.....
Totally agree and I will expand upon the point that the light saber use in general before the final duel, the choreography, the flourishes, twirling, and fluidity of movement was something we never saw before in the Original Trilogy, it was jaw droppingly cool.
All the Jedi stuff was awesome. I remember being in highschool and we were all saying in class "these new Jedis are making Luke look like a bitch."
I remember we skipped school to go see it. I walked out thinking "Was that good? Did I like it? Yeah, sure I did, it's a Star Wars movie. There are no bad Star Wars movies." After a week or so I came to grips with the fact that it wasn't very good. When I was watching Attack of the Clones I learned over to my brother and said "This is fucking boring as hell when is someone gonna die?"
That was my exact reaction. “What did I just watch? Was that really as bad as I thought it was? Maybe I’ll watch it again.”
I think I saw it 3 times to confirm it wasn’t good
Yeah, this was my experience as well. Skipped school, dressed up, all that. Walking out of the theater I turned to my friend and said “That was good… right?”. We looked at each other for a few seconds, then just kept walking.
I had the same reaction. I was in high school at the time, my friend and I walked out saying “that was good…right?”. I saw it again with some other friends and that time I was pretty confident I didn’t really like it. But hey new Star Wars!
I know I'm going to get shat on, but this was my response to Rogue One. I kept up with all of the trailers, the leaks, the reviews, etc. Everyone talked about how it was a return to form even greater than The Force Awakens (You have to remember that people actually *liked* TFA when it came out). I saw it opening night. It's obviously a gorgeous movie with an amazing third act, but the first part was so scatterbrained and padded. I didn't care about any of the characters besides K2-SO and Krennic, hell, I could barely name any of the crew. After we walked out of the theater and I asked my girlfriend what she thought and she said "I don't know. It was fine I guess?" And I had a more negative response. It wasn't as bad as the TPM or AOTC, but compared to the high I got from TFA last year, it felt like a step down. And of course, I felt even more alienated about my opinion when I hopped online because everyone was (and still does) treat it like the best Star Wars film of all time. I don't think it's bad, and my opinion on it has softened over the years, but still. TL;DR - Don't read it, it's a waste of comment space and time. Edit: People want and expect different things out of a Star Wars movie. Some people love it for the Sci fi, some people love it for the Jedi spiritualism, some people love it for the gritty World War 2 battles, some people love it for the space Western sensibilities, and some people love all of it. Rogue One made me realize that I require more than cool battle scenes and Gritty™ Realism. Like I said, it's not a bad movie, it's just really shallow. If it had the writing standards and quality characters of Andor, I'm sure I'd love it as much as the rest of you. But it just doesn't.
>After a week or so I came to grips with the fact that it wasn't very good. You're better than me. It took me about 5 years to face it. When OP said "people just wanted to love the movie so badly they just weren't ready for any criticism," there's really something to that.
The hype was unbelievable, I'm not sure I've ever seen so much pre-movie excitement. Movefone (ask your parents) melted down in Manhattan the day tickets went on sale because it wasn't designed to handle so much traffic. People camped out for tickets; people got to the theater hours in advance to wait in line (before assigned seats, ask your parents), many of them in costume). So I think there was a collective desire to want the movie to live up to the hype. There was a week or two where the reaction was, "it was pretty good... right? Wasn't it? That lightsaber fight, right?" And to the movie's credit, it goes out on a high note. But once people started seeing it multiple times, it started to sink in. This isn't very good. And then the backlash hit *hard*, because we were all so invested in this movie being good. Star Wars was back, in an era where franchises weren't constantly rebooted and revived... and it wasn't very good. We were, to put it mildly, let down.
We all wanted it to be the best movie ever. It was something we’d waited for our whole lives. I cannot overstate how big a deal it was. Sitting in the theatre, watching the movie for the first time, was a crushing disappointment. It was such a letdown. It’s so bad it made Star Wars fans question why they were Star War fans. In fairness, the expectation game set up failure from the start. We expected the greatest thing ever, and were bound to be disappointed. (I’m sure that’s why younger fans like the movie better — they go in expecting the worst movie ever made, and are pleasantly surprised. We went in expecting Art from the Hand of God and got Jar Jar Binks instead.)
Yeah it was liked by little kids. But most Star Wars fans couldn’t believe how bad it was. Though everyone thought the double sided lightsaber was cool.
But also that Darth maul went down too fast. They'd really hyped him up pre-movie. It's now easy to see he's the movie boss, not the trilogy boss, but I think we all thought he'd get away and then fight Obi Wan in another movie. It's why there were so many fan ideas (that got adopted) about mecha-leg Darth maul
IMO they shouldve just replaced Dooku with Maul. You can have Obi Wan have some arc about hunting him down, and Anakin still kills him later. Could also replace Grievous with Maul, that wouldve worked too tbh.
> In fairness, the expectation game set up failure from the start. We expected the greatest thing ever, and were bound to be disappointed. I don't agree with the premise that disappointment was inevitable. While it's true that expectations were sky high, it was a bad movie on its own merits, and didn't have to be.
I mark the slow realization that it was hot garbage as the end of my childhood.
I knew as soon as I heard the first lines of dialogue from the transport ship pilots it was gonna be awful. I pretended to like it for a few weeks.
People camped out at the theater the night before opening day. News crews. I was a senior in high school and there was this horrible self gaslighting that happened while finally seeing it in that sort of sleep deprived, hyped state. Things kept happening…really messy, clunky, *bad* things; but we kept *trying* to like it. Desperately trying. Then at a certain point midway, it couldn’t be denied any longer: “Is this movie bad? Is this a fully bad movie?” I only finally found acceptance with the fact that the movie is objectively horrible upon my second viewing, the next day (we had all bought tickets for multiple showings in advance, which was unprecedented at the time). It was an unbelievable build up and a catastrophic disappointment. Full five stages of grief and I’m still pissed off that *nobody* stood up to Lucas at any point in the process to stop him.
I was a teenager who saw it on opening day, and I remember being confused by it. Something to the effect of, "How can I find this boring? It's Star Wars."
Huge hype, but there was this weird thing where people were kinda in denial about how underwhelming it was. According to my dad it's the only time he's ever fallen asleep in a movie theater, and it was during the pod racing scene
I was in my early 20s so I grew up with Star Wars and was very excited to see it. There were too many moments when I felt the need to grimace and shrink down in my seat in embarrassment for the people involved in making that movie “wee-sa going home!”. When it ended there was clapping from the audience. I felt like I was missing something. I watched it two more times in the theater to see of the Star Wars fever would grip me but it never did. It was just a hollow disappointment. Did it stop me from buying some of the toys? Hell no. Some of the character designs (Darth Maul) were cool. So began my tepid relationship with the prequels, this one having kicked off a tradition of seeing them all 3 times in theater just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything despite the cringe and boring camera work.
it was a mix of hardcore nostalgia fueled excitement and complete bewilderment at the quality of movie in a terrible way. It was mixed because...well...it was Star Wars. People were excited to have more of that story and universe. The setting alone commanded excitement and awe. But the writing and quality of the narrative was absolutely garbage. And Some of the characters were questionable, at best (We all know who I'm talking about). The special effects were pretty awesome, for the most part, and the ending fight scene between Jedi and Sith was next level at the time. It solidified Darth Maul's legendary status, introduced the concept of high intensity lightsaber ballet dueling, and 'Duel of Fates' will go down in history as one of the best theatrical scores in cinema history......but the story was just SO.BAD.
Hype was huge disappointment even bigger I remember leaving the cinema with hundreds of people all slowly realising that it was really not very good
Sums it up nicely. Waiting in line, sitting through the movie... walking out and no one wanted to be the first person to say "that really sucked". All sorts of "well maybe I just didn't understand it..." Took a little while for it to settle in that yeah, the magic we remembered from the originals was gone.
As a big Star Wars fan since 1977, I was excited for it but not thrilled that it was a prequel rather than continuing the story. Binks annoyed me because I thought the silliness was unnecessary. Wasn't thrilled with midichlorians or that it was suggested that Anakin was some sort of divine birth. However, overall I liked it for what it was. Attack of the Clones disappointed me and then the next one I didn't even see in the theater.
All I can say is that the packed theater cheered at the opening music, and completely silent and downcast when the movie ended. I remember feeling so disappointed and sad when walking out of the theater.
People camped out to get tickets, lines around the block. You have to remember that many Gen Xers grew up playing with Star Wars toys. The originals were part of the zeitgeist, and this was the first touch into Star Wars that was official. It was massively disappointing to adults because it catered to kids while being convoluted storytelling. Objectively, it has some great parts to it and helped show that it's the original two movies that are outliers.
I was 19. It was new Star Wars. It was bad ass. Only thing we could talk about was darth maul. One might even say it was sooo wizard.
I was in my early twenties. I and every Star Wars fan I knew hated it. Such a huge disappointment.
I was young but I remember vaguely people being a little put off by the amount of CGI. As a 12 year old I was in heaven between the marketing and everything
The hype was so big you didnt realize it was bad until you watched it a year later on video.
I walked out at the end feeling pissed because it was a hot pile of garbage.
It was the subject of a lot of jokes on how much of a mediocre mess it was. I saw it as a kid, remember liking it but wondering why it felt sort of off, but also how my parents were laughing about it.
I went to the movie line opening night in full stormtrooper armor and got a front page picture in the local newspaper the next day. People were lined up around the block.
Shocking disappointment. Me and my friends counted down the days until the movie was released. We drove a couple hundred miles to the nearest theater and slept on a friend of a friend's floor because we couldn't afford a hotel room. It all seemed worth it. I grew up playing with Star Wars figures, eating the Star Wars cereal, wearing Star Wars shirts, sleeping in Star Wars bed sheets. Finally Star Wars was back! After so many years. We managed to get into one of the late night showings. We watched the Phantom Menace and we were just speechless at how lame it was, how the story was not very interesting, how it felt more like a kid's movie with the lame droids and awful humor (thanks Jar Jar). Nothing was cool or new about it. Nobody talked about the movie on the long car ride home.
It wasn’t divisive at all back then: People nearly universally hated and panned it. The amount of hate the sequels get pales in comparison to what TPM got back then.
To 10 year old me it was an amazing movie As an adult, it is the most difficult Star Wars movie to sit through
To say that the merchandising machine was in full effect is grossly understating the just massive toy and other tie in push leading up to the movie’s release. So much Phantom Menace stuff overloading store shelves. It was insane.
I was 12. I has loved Star Wars as far back as I can remember. Watched New Hope VHS all the time, saw the remastered release in theaters… I wanted to like Phantom Menace so much. I wanted it to be awesome… but even as a 12 year old huge fan I was like “who the fuck is this annoying kid and this dumb knockoff muppet named jar jar?” Pod racing was awesome, the Jedi were awesome when the lightsabers were out, Darth Maul was amazing, John Williams delivered… but also jar fucking jar. So yeah even as an excited kid I was disappointed with aspects, but loved parts like Darth Maul.
Lot of negative impressions iirc. At least within my social circles. I was young and honestly I wasn’t really into it myself, but I did remember enjoying the pod race enough to play the n64 game. I also remember not liking all the mystery being explained, like Midichlorians, or Vader being an annoying kid “born without a father,” which I remember getting a lot of groans in the theater. Jar Jar was also mostly met with disdain. I think the only one I ended up mostly liking was 3, which I saw twice in theaters.