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Which film was worse...The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones?

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Revenge of Sith > Attack of Clones > Phantom Menace
= Force Awakens

Clones had epic Yoda fight though and great music. Decent plot point too with Clones. Oh and Mace Windu and Bobba Fett. Even emo Anakin was alright.

But then again Phantom Menace last fight vs Darth Maul is one of best in series.
 
Clones by a mile.

I thought that PM was a pretty decent movie. Only thing that really pissed me off was young Anakin (horrible actor) and Jar Jar.
 

Erevador

Member
Unpopular opinion it seems, since people so hate the romance plot in AOTC, but I have always thought The Phantom Menace was massively worse. It simply has no reason to exist.

Attack of the Clones does actually have a plot and a central character arc, whether it is well executed or not. The film has identifiable characters, an actual villain, and relationships that develop.

The Phantom Menace has a couple fun sequences, a lot of messy sequences, no protagonist, no relationships, and absolutely no reason to exist at all.
 

takriel

Member
That's because Padme was a freak.

FAw0iMP.gif
would have been a better movie. padme would finally make sense
 

120v

Member
i feel like TPM was strictly for the kiddos. so i kind of give it a pass in a lot of areas

AotC's problems were with pacing and editing. a lot of stuff was fine in theory... private dick obi-wan, a jedi falling for a girl he's supposed to protect, anakin's budding "evil". it just wasn't pulled off particularly well. i went back and watched it recently, it wasn't so much a "bad movie" as much it was a slog to sit through
 

mcz117chief

Member
The only problem I have with Phantom Menace is Jar Jar, apart from that it is a fun movie. Attack of the Clones has a plethora of problems but the scenes on Kamino are great.
 

GSG Flash

Nobody ruins my family vacation but me...and maybe the boy!
If I take off my nostalgia glasses, the acting in TPM is actually unbearable. Atleast AOTC has some redeemable acting.

That said, the romance subplot in AOTC is just the worst thing in all seven movies.

Atleast TPM has some cool things like pod racing and the final battle with Duel of the Fates.
 
Clones. Even as a child, I just thoroughly didn't care for it. It's just straight up boring and almost unwatchable. TPM at least has Qui-Gon, Maul, and a classic John Williams score.
 
Remember when "Clone Wars" was namedropped in Episode IV for the first time and you imaged the craziest things? Lucas found a way to find the least interesting story for Clone Wars possible.
 

Empty

Member
attack of the clones by miles. it's genuinely one of the worst american studio films ever made. phantom menace is just average-mediocre, there's plenty of watchable stuff like the podrace and the final saber battle, it just gets the bulk of hate because it was the first over the wall.
 
Clones. Even as a child, I just thoroughly didn't care for it. It's just straight up boring and almost unwatchable. TPM at least has Qui-Gon, Maul, and a classic John Williams score.

Indeed. As a child, Darth Maul, Qui-gon, and Podracing deluded me into thinking TPM was a good movie.

AotC, on the other hand, I knew was garbage the very first time I saw it.
 

Indelible

Member
Attack of the Clones is a much worse film, I have never been able to watch the entire movie because it is so boring.
 
The Phantom Menace is actually the best of the prequels. Despite awful kid Anakin and Jar Jar, it at least had a comprehensible plot.
 

linkboy

Member
Attack of the Clones is so bad I actually felt bad for the cameras being forced to record it.

Such a god awful film.

Phantom Menace isn't great either, but it has some redeeming qualities (Pod Racing, Darth Maul, Dual of the Fates).

Clones has nothing redeeming about it at all.
 

Raxus

Member
Attack of the Clones by far.

It is incomprehensible garbage at this point and it doesn't have Darth Maul or Liam to pad put the awful parts.
 

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
I don't know why anyone is mentioning Qui-Gon as a positive for TPM. He could have been cool as written but was portrayed as just a stiff dickhead. There was supposed to be a contrast between the uptight Council and the kindly maverick but that never came across on screen. "I didn't actually come here to free slaves". He actually says that in the movie.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
One thing I thought about when I saw the beginning of VII recently, the scene where Rey is scavenging through the old ship and you learn all about her with absolutely no dialogue, which is just good filmmaking. I thought to myself that if George shot that script, he would've been nervous that there was no exposition explaining who she is or what she does or that she's poor, and that she should have a alien buddy to awkwardly exposit all of this with her.
 

Sulik2

Member
Menace has more good scenes, Pod racing, the trade ship and Maul. But Jar Jar is so bad he drags the entire movie down. Aotc doesn't have much good going outside of the kamino plot and the arena and the love plot is awful. But nothing as bad as Jar Jar.
 

Meowster

Member
Attack of the Clones.

The Phantom Menace may have pandered quite a bit for children but at least children enjoy the movie and, despite it all, still has a Star Wars charm to it. It wasn't the return to form by many means but it at least did catch the eye of many. It was also the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater before at four so I could be a little biased. But I could watch Menace any day of the week still.. it's a chore for me to get through Clones.
 
TPM actually had some enjoyable parts. AotC is one of the most boring thing ever (Obi-Wan's scenes can't even save it. I recently watched the bluray collection with my fiancee to catch up before we watched episode 7 and Episode 2 had us falling asleep.
 
Attack of the Clones. The Phantom Menace might be bland and have very questionable characters, but Attack of the Clones is just a bad story from start to finish done in the most boring way possible.
 

Erevador

Member
One thing I thought about when I saw the beginning of VII recently, the scene where Rey is scavenging through the old ship and you learn all about her with absolutely no dialogue, which is just good filmmaking. I thought to myself that if George shot that script, he would've been nervous that there was no exposition explaining who she is or what she does or that she's poor, and that she should have a alien buddy to awkwardly exposit all of this with her.
That scene reminds me of George's best work on the original films. I think of the way he so quickly tapped into the characterization of 3PO and R2 with minimal dialogue. I mean, it really is a strange thing to have your film (especially in 1977) start out completely focused on two mechanical beings, and yet they seem so startlingly alive. Watching them bicker and ultimately go their seperate ways in the desert, the loneliness of the these small droids against the vastness of the sand dunes... just great filmmaking.

Too bad he wasn't able to tap into that sensibility and simplicity for the prequels.
 
Attack of the Clones. Phantom Menace, for how bad it is, doesn't try to be 'deep' or 'complicated' (and by that I mean the stuff that's deep and complicated to an 8th grader). It doesn't have scenes like "I KILLED THEM". Or that scene in which Anakin is courting Padme and is all like 'Yeah, a totalitarian dictatorship sounds great'.

Related
 
Remember when "Clone Wars" was namedropped in Episode IV for the first time and you imaged the craziest things? Lucas found a way to find the least interesting story for Clone Wars possible.

to be honest the lead up to the actual Clone Wars kind of sucks, but when it starts its actually not bad. I wish they gave more details on Dooku and his motivations of why he thinks the Jedi and Senate are corrupt. If they showed him questioning why the council isn't searching for the true murderer of his former apprentice Qui Gon, it could've bridged both movies.

I liked the battle scenes as a whole it made it feel like "Star WARS." Emphasis on the wars part, with millions of troops fighting across the galaxy on different planets and systems rather than just a small band of rebels and the big Empire.


I always thought when I was a kid and I saw this movie, it had the "War" I wanted in a sci-fi flick, maybe that's just my opinion.

By the way the Clone Wars TV Show and Ep. 3 had good scenes of the clone wars.

So I guess Ep. 2 may be bad as a whole but it set up a great period/ arc in the series in my opinion.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
That scene reminds me of George's best work on the original films. I think of the way he so quickly tapped into the characterization of 3PO and R2 with minimal dialogue. I mean, it really is a strange thing to have your film (especially in 1977) start out completely focused on two mechanical beings, and yet they seem so startlingly alive. Watching them bicker and ultimately go their seperate ways in the desert, the loneliness of the these small droids against the vastness of the sand dunes... just great filmmaking.

Too bad he wasn't able to tap into that sensibility and simplicity for the prequels.
If you've ever seen the original drafts of the first SW, you can really see the problems of the prequels in them. There's lots of tedious politics and exposition, and it's not very focused or polished. The characters seem very vague. I absolutely believe that George had a TON of help turning those original ideas into a tight, explosive film. One place he obviously got saved was in the editing room, they did what is probably the finest editing job of our time on a very uncertain pile of film.

So, basically the first films are collaborative, and the sequels are what we get when he works completely on his own. Kind of like that first draft.
 

rpg_fan

Member
Two buckets of shit, one with an extra scoop on it. Doesn't really matter much, they're both still shit.

How did the charming boy turn evil? Oh yeah, teenagers.
 

Forkball

Member
People saying "TPM wasn't that bad" need to go back and watch TPM. Actually, don't. I would say TPM is easily the worst of the three. AotC actually has some semblance of conflict and character progression. Emphasis on semblance. RotS is the best of the prequel trilogy almost by default.
 

phanphare

Banned
clones was worse but I didn't actually have any hope that it would be good after phantom menace

the phantom menace might be slightly better, objectively speaking, but it was also probably the single most disappointing movie of all time

I choose the phantom menace
 

Sephzilla

Member
Phantom Menace has the pod race and the best lightsaber duel in the prequels. Attack of the Clones has the worst lightsaber fights, horrible love story shit, and ruins the mystique of the Jedi.

Clones is easily worse.
 
JarJar is so bad he kind of makes this an easy win. Add in toddler Anakin with "Yippie!" and "I'll try spinning - that's a nice trick!" and it's even easier.

Attack of the Clones is such a batshit title for a movie I just have to love it. The title pretty much sums up how I feel about it.

Phantom Menace has a character literally stepping in shit, also summing up how I feel about it.
 

KingBroly

Banned
I mean they basically had to re-do the rest of prequel trilogy because TPM was so bad. That 10 year time skip wasn't for shits and giggles. It was because they fucked up HARD.
 
phantom menace is prolly the only prequel film i can tolerate now.

its always been Attack of the Clones. TPM is like a 5/10...AotC is like a 3/10, straight up. TPM has a lot of great spectacle, a nice filmic look, a few decent ideas properly executed. It just has, uh, ZERO narrative clarity and a cast of non-characters to bring its story to life.

AotC is...bad. Very bad.
Yup.
 
I'll be the guy who says he likes all the Star Wars movies, but if I had to choose, I'd watch Attack of the Clones over Phantom Menace. The only part I didn't like in AOTC was the romance subplot and that can be easily skipped, everything else I love.

Phantom Menace has Jar Jar, Shmi, kid Anakin, Padme's decoy, and the Trade Federation guys throughout the movie and I find all of them to be various levels of annoying. So despite Qui-Gon, Maul, and Duel of the Fates, I'd watch Clones again.
 
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