Monster Movie of the Week: Species (1995)

SPECIES (1996)

Director: Roger Donaldson

Genre: Alien-on-the-loose/Body Horror/Sci-Fi/Exploitation

THE MOVIE:

Ah, Species. You should have been made in the ‘70’s. Can you imagine the trailer? I can.

CUE GRINDHOUSE MUSIC over SEXY STRIPPERS.

RASPY-VOICED ANNOUNCER

Meet SIL. She’s HOT. She’s FUNKY. She’s READY TO GET IT ON. She’s an extra-terrestrial vixen who’s on Earth for ONLY ONE REASON: to propagate her SPECIES.

Or something like that. Species tries really hard not to be the shlocky, gynophobic exploitation movie that it is at its core. It wants to be a smart and classy sci-fi thriller that makes some ironic commentary about singles life in the 1990’s. It even has a monster designed by H. R. Giger who designed Ridley Scott’s Alien. It has a cast of fine and distinguished actors like Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Forrest Whittaker and Michael Madsen. But, sadly, a bad script and poor direction doom it to mediocrity. It’s not a terrible movie (that would be Species 2, which is deliciously, mind-bogglingly bad) but not exactly a good movie either.

Ah, the proud MGM logo. And some space titties.

The idea behind Species is that an extra-terrestrial entity sends us instructions via SETI on how to make an alien/human hybrid (For Some Reason), apparently they were too busy to invade in person and want us to do all the shlep work. Okay. So we create this creature but then change our mind and decide to gas this little alien/girl (a young Michelle Williams) to death because she has some “rapid eye movement.” Only she escapes and grows up quickly and decides she wants to mate with various douchebags that she meets in LA.

So the government puts together a crack team to track her down and destroy her. There’s Fitch, the scientist who helped create her. Okay, he should go but he has a lot of explaining to do. There’s Press Lennox (on loan from the Institute of Fake Names,) an assassin for various shady government agencies. Good. He’ll come in handy. There’s Laura, a molecular biologist. She’ll be good because she can do all the CSI-type stuff. There’s Arden, a Cross Cultural Anthropologist. Um, I guess he can come. He can help with the driving. And then there’s Dan, an empath. Dan “feels things.” Dan walks into a murder scene where Sil has killed someone and says stuff like “She wasn’t happy.” Dan makes Diana Troi seem useful. Poor Forrest Whittaker. A note to all screenwriters: if you get to the point in your script where you need to include an empath just stop right there.

The cast of Species, watching Species 2.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

In her alien form, Sil looks like a perfect cross between Giger’s Alien and a tranny prostitute.

"Heeeaaayyy! You in the space shuttle! You wanna have some fun?"

In fact, Sil looks so much like an Alien that one could say that Species is a de facto Alien prequel. She’s certainly a better Alien/human hybrid than that silly looking monster at the end of Alien Resurrection.

MONSTERS FEATURED:

Sil and her baby. As well as an alien tentacle blob.

DVD AVAILABILITY:

Widely available either individually or in a three pack with its sequels.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

There are some nicely shot dream sequences in which Sil mates with another of her species. These scenes are weird and erotic but strange because the actual mechanics are not clear.

SEQUELS:

Species 2 Species 3 Species Quattro

SEE ALSO:

Alien 1979, Alien Resurrection 1997

THE TRAILER

Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: The Fly (1986)

THE FLY (1986)
Director: David Cronenberg
Genre: Body horror/love story

Two things have always bothered me about the “Beauty and the Beast” story:

1) Usually the Beast is redeemed at the end and turns into some sort of handsome prince as though to reward Beauty for being able to love a monster. You can almost imagine Beauty wiping her brow at the end and thinking to herself “Whew! That was close!”

I always thought that the Beast should remain a beast otherwise the whole theme of the story is compromised.

2) As monsters go, the Beast is not usually that terrible to look at. Usually, he is depicted as some sort of leonine or ursine creature. He a beast, yes, but at least he’s a mammal, right? I think most people could fall in love with a sentient mammalian creature under the right circumstances. I always wanted to see a “Beauty and the Beast” story in which the Beast was some sort of horrible disgusting creature. Then Beauty’s love for the beast would mean something.

THE MOVIE:

This brings me to David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, which is not only the ultimate work in the Body Horror subgenre but the most fully realized version of the “Beauty and the Beast” story ever put to film. The movie is famous for its extensive and Oscar-winning make-up, its gore, its good performances, and its overall quality given the subject matter. The Fly is one of the rare genre movies that is so good that it would win a flood of awards if not for the fact that it was a genre movie. If Jeff Goldblum hadn’t been covered in rubber and slime throughout most of the movie, he probably would have won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

This is gross and disturbing and he hasn't even gone through yet.

The Fly is the story of Seth Brundle, a scientist who has invented a set of pods that disintegrate matter, send it through space and restore it to its original form. He meets and falls in love with a journalist named Veronica (Geena Davis) and offers her the opportunity to cover the development of his teleportation pods. While the pods are able to send inanimate objects through space with no problem any living material sent through is horribly scrambled, as in the case of a baboon that is sent through with horrific results. Brundle makes a breakthrough and decides to try the pods out on himself, but unknown to him a fly enters the pod with him and his teleportation device becomes a gene splicer combining his DNA with that of a housefly and for the remainder of the film Brundle goes through a painful and disgusting transformation with his humanity literally sloughing off.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

Brundle goes through about four or five different stages in this movie, all but the last two are accomplished through prosthetic make-up. His transformation is slow and painful and many have speculated that this movie is a metaphor for the effects of AIDS and other degenerative diseases on the human body. Cronenberg has denied this and has stated that the film is a metaphor for the degeneration of aging, which I find hard to believe. The movie is clearly about disease and if you think about when the movie was made, how can it not be a metaphor for AIDS?

Brundle’s ultimate forms are realized through animatronics and are true fly/human hybrids. Having seen some of the concept art on the DVD I actually wish they had gone with some of the more fantastic designs they had available, but part of the movie’s impact is from its adherence to emotional and visual realism.

This scene put me off donuts for a while.

MONSTERS FEATURED:

The Fly features Brundlefly, a pissed off inside-out baboon and Monkey-Cat in the deleted scenes on the anniversary DVD.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

The heartbreaking end of the movie...and Brundlefly demonstrating how a fly eats donuts. I'm not going to forget that any time soon.

DVD AVAILABILITY:

An anniversary edition of this movie was released on DVD in 2006 which features extensive extras including a full-length documentary and deleted scenes, such as the infamous Monkey-Cat scene, which is disturbing in theory but kind of silly to watch. But in any case, it is a very good DVD set.

The movie has also been made available on Blu-Ray, but I don't know exactly what's on it and somehow, I don't know if I really want that extra layer of picture quality in this particular case. The movie is hard enough to watch as it is.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where the District 9 auditions are?"

SEQUELS:

The Fly II (1989)

So there was one sequel and now there is talk of a remake. But here is the twist: rumor has it that the remake will be directed by...David Cronenberg. Can we all have a collective "Whaaaaaaa?"

TRAILER:


SEE ALSO:

The Fly II, Alien 3 (1992), The Host (2006)

Monster Movie of the Week: King Kong (1976)

It takes a set of Kong-sized nuts to bill your remake as "the most exciting original motion picture event of all time!"

King Kong (1976)

Director: John Guillermin

Genre: Monster on the loose

THE MOVIE

Blockbuster fever struck American movie goers in the mid seventies. After the runaway success of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in the summer of 1975, movie studios began clamoring for the next big event movie. What better event movie than a remake of a story that is synonymous with the word “big?”

The 1976 remake of King Kong is interesting to watch if only to see how it is different and similar from the other two major versions of the story. The ’76 Kong differs greatly from both the ’33 and ’05 movies. This version of the story is the least spectacular and the most sexually charged. This is also the least regarded of the Kong movies and is often thought of as a turkey or a bomb although it was actually a big hit upon its release but not in the ballpark of Jaws which is certainly what it was hyped for.

The movie follows the basic storyline of the original, although in this version the film crew is replaced by an oil expedition (remember this was during the first Energy Crisis) headed by a Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin,) a Nixonian paranoiac who has staked his reputation on finding oil beneath Skull Island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) stows away on the boat. In this version, he is a primatologist who has heard stories of giant apes on Skull Island.

Once at sea, the crew finds Dwan (Jessica Lange) floating in a lifeboat. Dwan switched the middle two letters of her name so that it would be more memorable. Dwan is an actress who was aboard a luxury liner that exploded For Some Reason. Dwan is, as a friend of mine once succinctly put, "Actress-Crazy." This is very special combination of insecure, flightly, neurotic, self-absorbed and plain ole' nuts that only a working actress can really pull off (for a great example of Actress-Crazy see Terry Garr in Tootsie). Jessica Lange plays Dwan like she’s constantly horny or high (sometimes she combines them to mix it up.) Sometime between this movie and her appearance in (yes) Tootsie she became a very good actress but her performance in King Kong is total camp.

The other main departure from the classic story is that that this Skull Island is not inhabited by all of the dinosaurs and strange creatures that we have come to expect. It is inhabited by Kong and a large rubber snake and a bunch of Africans (despite the fact that it is in the South Pacific). So, some of the fun of the original and Peter Jackson version are lost here.

When they get to New York the story pretty much matches the other versions, only here Kong climbs the then newly-constructed World Trade Center Towers instead of the Empire State Building, as he does in the other versions. I always find World Trade Center scenes a little distracting in movies filmed before 9/11. Unfortunately, most movies filmed in New York from the 70’s through the 90’s feature the buildings prominently. King Kong features some gratuitous WTC action.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

This Kong is not realized with stop motion as the original was but with a mix of suitmation and animatronics and the final result looks strangely Fonzie-esque. While the animatronic masks are capable of a large range of movement and expression, the effect is usually just creepy, especially when Kong leers at Jessica Lange’s character constantly. Or the scene where he blows repeated on a wet Dwan, which is just wrong. Wrong and disturbing.

This has to be the perviest Kong yet. The sexual subtext of the original is here brought closer to the fore (“He tried to rape you!” says Charles Grodin’s character) and it loans the movie a lurid and unpleasant quality. The Peter Jackson version is smart enough to diffuse the sexual aspect all together and build a genuine connection between Anne and Kong. This one is not.

Squish.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

This is the only version of the story to depict Kong’s actual trip to New York. I've always wondered what that trip must have been like. I like the scenes where he is locked up in the bowels of an oil tanker pounding the hell out of it.

SEQUELS

King Kong Lives 1986

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available in a bare-bones DVD.

SEE ALSO

King Kong 1933 King Kong Escapes 1967 King Kong 2005

TRIVIA

This movie represents a slightly larger version of Kong than is usually depicted in the American movies. Here, he is described as being about 50 feet tall whereas normally he is about 25-30 feet tall.

The Japanese Kong is on a much larger scale allowing him to tangle with the likes of Godzilla.

Ex Games: My Lifelong Quest For The Perfect Star Wars Game

It was 1983. My downstairs neighbor had an Atari 2600 and I experienced my first Star Wars console video game: The Empire Strikes Back, which was based solely on The Battle of Hoth sequence from the movie of the same name. You got to control a little five pixel Snowspeeder in which you had to shoot a small flashing spot on the back of an ATAT until (47 shots later) it exploded. And then you got to do that again until you got bored. Hey, it was better than that E.T. game.

How we rolled in the '80's.

The video game market crashed shortly after that. And Star Wars didn't make another home video game appearance until the Nintendo Entertainment System. I missed it on the NES but in the early '90's, I got into Super Star Wars and it's sequels on the Super Nintendo. These games were a much more fully realized Star Wars experience. Like many SNES games, the Super Star Wars games had incredible stereo sound. Who can forget the first time hearing the opening Star Wars theme blaring out at your from a frakkin' video game.


The games were fun, although fiendishly difficult. And being video games, they stray from the plots of the movies to make them more action-packed. Who knew a giant lava monster lived inside the Jawa Sandcrawler?

From Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

In the mid 1990's Star Wars was gearing up for a major comeback with the re-release of the movies and the eventual start of the new trilogy. All of that began, however, with a major multimedia project called Shadows of the Empire, an interquel that took place between Empire and Return of the Jedi. While there was no Shadows of the Empire movie, there were action figures, a sound track, comics, a novel and a video game on Nintendo's snazzy new console, the Nintendo 64. Shadows promised the most immersive Star Wars video game experience to date, and it was the full reason I bought a Nintendo 64 console. And it was the first 3D video game that did not make me want to puke.

First Level of Shadow of the Empire.

Shadows of the Empire was primarily a 3rd person shooter that allowed you to run around and play in several famous Star Wars environments, such as Hoth's Echo Base. Dash Rendar? Is that your boy? No? Okay

You even had run ins with several infamous characters such as Boba Fett and IG-88, as well as Luke, Leia and Lando. The game also ,featured aerial and space battles that paved the way for games like the Rogue Squadron series and ultimately, the Battlefront games. In the late 90's and 2000's, Star Wars video games diversified into every imaginable genre: first-person shooters, role playing games, racing games, real time strategy games. There was even this thing:




But one thing was sorely missing: Jedi.

As much fun as it was to shoot Stormtroopers and fly around in ships and endlessly replay the Battle of Hoth in different games, the Holy Grail of the Star Wars gaming is to play as a Jedi. With the release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace and its emphasis on the Jedi characters, more and more games tried to serve up an authentic Jedi experience. But most of these weren't very good. Jedi Power Battles for the Playstation was a fun adaptation of The Phantom Manace but it was very much a throwback to the side scrolling arcade-style games of the '80's.

Jedi Power Battles. Fun two-person co-op.

Star Wars: Obi Wan for the Xbox was a noble effort and let you swing your lightsaber around and use some force powers but ultimately was not a very good game. The really goofy Ewan MacGregor impression did not help either. See video below.



The Dark Forces I and Jedi Knight games evolved from the PC and made their way toe the Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube in 2001 in the form of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, arguably one of the greatest Star Wars games ever released. It has a great story, and gameplay that lets you use a whole suite of force powers as well as your trusty lightsaber. There is very little in this world that is more fun than force-pushing Stormtroopers off a ledge. It was followed by Jedi Academy which had a less satisfying single player game but robust multiplayer that allowed customization and play on Xbox Live.

Kyle Katarn in Jedi Outcast. I was happy to be able to play a character named Kyle in a game.

The ultimate Star Wars video game experience was released last year in the form of The Force Unleashed, which featured an amazing original Star Wars story set between the trilogies, fantastic graphics and fun gameplay. The protagonist, Starkiller, uses wildly over-the-top force powers in secret service to his master, Darth Vader.




The game is set to be rereleased on November 3rd, with bonus content such as a few continuity defying missions set in a Vader-less Star Wars and Empire timeframe.

Starkiller, fryin some suckas up in The Force Unleashed.

Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: Jurassic Park (1993)

JURASSIC PARK (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Genre: Science Fiction/Adventure/Survival

THE MOVIE:

Where would monster movies be without Jurassic Park? Although, not strictly speaking, a “monster movie” (Spielberg was very conscious of making his dinosaurs animals and not movie monsters,) Jurassic Park helped usher in a new era of creature features and for the first time applied CGI to the task of creating photorealistic creatures. Over the next few years when this technology became cheaper and easier to use it helped usher in a whole wave of CGI-aided monster movies such as Anaconda (1997), The Relic (1997), Mimic (1997), Deep Rising (1998), Deep Blue Sea (1999,) Eight-Legged Freaks (2002) and a whole slew of others. Jurassic Park took a B-movie premise and gave it a respectful presentation, with an A-List director.


Jurassic Park is a distilled version of the late Michael Crichton’s blockbuster novel (and one of my favorite books) about an island theme park featuring dinosaurs cloned from amber-preserved DNA. This clever premise skirts actual science just enough to sound plausible. With the unprecedented realism of its visual effects, Jurassic Park has the feel of credible speculative fiction. Although, how cool would it have been if Spielberg had chosen to realize it as a faux documentary, the genre closest to what the book purports to be? If this movie ever gets remade (and there is good reason to do it) this is the route that they should go. The movie also launched Crichton-mania in the mid to late 1990's with (among others) adaptions of Congo, Sphere, and Disclosure rushing into production in Jurassic Park's wake as well as the Crichton-developed TV series E.R..

The movie removes some of the Crichton’s interesting subplots (such as the dinosaurs escaping the island,) features less dinos and waters down the novel’s commentary about science and responsibility but the main story is essentially the same. A small group of scientists are recruited to evaluate the island theme park prior to its public unveiling when a combination of a tropical storm and industrial espionage take out the park’s security systems causing the dinosaurs to escape their enclosures and overrun the island. The heroes must then do everything they can to escape the island.

Jurassic Park was a pop cultural phenomenon when it was released. It was a movie whose sheer size and visuals had to been seen (not to mention heard) in a theater to be done justice. Even people who don’t normally go in for big summer special effects movies wanted to get a glimpse of Spielberg’s dinosaurs. One could actually make the ironic argument that the CGI technology used to bring the dinosaurs to life for the movie was a bit like Hammond’s technology to bring his dinosaurs to life in the story. It was a bit of a circus atmosphere: pay your $6 at the door and get a glimpse of the most realistic dinosaurs you’ll ever see. I vividly remember going to see it with a couple of high school buddies. June 11, 1993. Regardless, until Titanic was released, Jurassic Park enjoyed a four-year reign as the all-time box office champ.


THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

The effects have held up nicely over the decades and feature a seamless blend between CGI, animatronics, and even some suitmation. At some points (such as the raptor kitchen chase) the three techniques are so deftly blended together that it is next to impossible to tell where one ends and the next begins.

The filmmakers were pushing technology to its limits when they made this movie so some of the more demanding sequences from the book were probably cut from the movie (such as the T-rex river chase) for technical and financial reasons and scenes like the annoying car-in-the-tree sequence were probably added as “filler.” Of course, they more than made up for this in the two sequels which featured an orgy of dinosaurs.

The sound design must also be given credit. As amazing as the visual effects were, the sound effects and vocalizations created for the dinosaurs are equally impressive. Who can ever forget the earsplitting roar of the T-Rex? The same is true for the more avian and unnerving raptor calls and screeches. Not to mention the distinctive Dilophosaur hiss. I don’t think hissing has ever been done better. Not even by my cat.

MONSTERS FEATURED:

Tyrannosaurus Rex
Dilophosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Tricerotops (lying down only)
Velociraptors – Introduced the word velociraptor into common speech.
Parasaur
Gallimimus


MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

There are many amazing sequences in this movie but my personal favorite is a quick shot right after Grant and all land on the island. After you see the first Brachiosaurs there is a beautiful long shot of a herd of dinosaurs bathing in the lake in the golden sunlight. They should make a poster of this:


HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY:

Widely available on DVD and in a Bluray combo pack with its first two sequels. Back in the waning days of the VCR, Jurassic Park was the movie with which you showed off your home theater system.



SEQUELS:
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Jurassic Park III (2001), and Jurassic World (2015).

MINORITY REPORT:

First casualty: A black Costa Rican worker gets munched on by a caged raptor.

The only black character of consequence is a pre-Pulp Fiction Samuel L. Jackson, who makes a novice minority-character-in-a-horror-movie mistake: He leaves the group to turn the lights on. No! If you are black and in a monster movie, you never leave a group of white people!

Minority Survival Threshold: 26%

Annoying-Ass Kid Survival Threshold: 100%

SEE ALSO:


King Kong (2005)

READ ALSO:

Check out The Science of Jurassic Park by Rob Desalle and David Lindley. And also Crichton's novel.

Not that I condone reading.


THE TRAILER:




TRIVIA:

Actual velociraptors were only the size of a turkey. They would still mess you up.

Interestingly, around the time of the movie's release a related species was discovered that closely resembled the velociraptors in the movie.

Believe it or not, the kids were actually much more annoying in the book.

Monster Movie of the Week: Mothra (1961)

Warning: Staring at Japanese movie posters for extended periods may induce a seizure.

MOTHRA (1961)

Director: Ichiro Honda

Genre: Daikaiju eiga

THE MOVIE

Mothra ushered in a short-lived Golden Age of 1960’s kaiju filmmaking in which the norm became high production values and colorful visuals before the genre sank into camp and kiddie nonsense . Mothra is the best of the three non-Godzilla kaiju movies produced by Toho in the wake of Godzilla Raids Again and also introduced us to one of Toho’s most iconic and popular monsters. Mothra has been featured in more Toho movies than any other monster save the big guy himself and is even popular enough to have starred in her own trilogy of kids films in the 1990’s. Her popularity (particularly with the ladies) has caused her to be plugged into numerous Godzilla movies in which she was not originally slated to appear. She’s one of the few female Japanese giant monsters and one of the only ones that is consistently benevolent and she’s the only kaiju with a catchy theme song sung by a pair of mini-twins.

Mothra's story borrows heavily from King Kong and deals with a joint expedition between Japan and a fictitious country (that strongly resembles the U.S.) to the mysterious Infant Island that is home to a tribe of natives and also the site of atomic testing. Once on the island, one of the Japanese expedition members is saved by a pair of tiny singing twins. The twins are stolen from the island by an unscrupulous member of the foreign party and put in a musical revue a la Kong's Broadway show. My question is: how the hell are you supposed to see them from the audience? I don’t think a stage show is quite the right venue for six inch singing twins. And how did they get them to rehearse elaborate musical numbers?

Anyhoo, the twins launch into their chart-topper “Mo-su-ra” and a giant silkworm hatches from a pastel colored egg and swims towards Tokyo, impervious to all weapons. The larva climbs up Tokyo Tower and breaks it in half before spinning a silken cocoon. What hatches is perhaps the most improbable of a giant monster designs: a big pretty butterfly. Perhaps the Japanese Defense Force would have fared better against her if they had built a giant net. So, Mo-su-ra follows the twins to New Kirk City (NKC!) and eventually reclaims her twins (does she swallow them? I’m not clear on where they “boarded”) after blowing stuff around with her wings.

Why even have a Tokyo Tower?

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

It takes a real man to be a Mothra fan. Her femininity, her colorful appearance, her harmonizing sidekicks all elicit a derisive reaction from kaiju mandom. I mean, a guy can get away with wearing a Godzilla t-shirt, no problem but if you walk around with a Mothra shirt you better watch your back. If you are not entirely comfortable with your masculinity, the idea of a giant ass-kicking psychedelic butterfly nature goddess may be somewhat disturbing for you. Although the somewhat fecal appearance of the larva will be good for a chuckle from the guys.

The effects in Mothra are surprisingly good for the time and are certainly better than any of Toho’s prior kaiju movies. I am very surprised and happy to say that there is very little Rodanitis present in the flying sequences. Mothra’s wings move in a very realistic and even elegant way. The wirework and other mechanisms are for the most part well-concealed. I can only speculate that more of the budget was devoted to the flying sequences since there were only two creatures to design for this one.

MONSTERS PRESENT

Mothra in both her larval and adult form.

DVD AVAILABILITY

This one’s a little hard to get. I managed to buy a copy of the Japanese version from ultramanstuff.com. There’s not much else on the disc and the video is not excellent but at least it’s the Japanese version. As with the other disc I bought from them it took a long time and a couple of check up emails before I got my disc but I got it. I don’t know what changes or cuts were made to the American version.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The larva’s attack on Tokyo Tower.

SEQUELS

Some say the world will end in fire others...by giant stuffed animals.

Mothra is featured in quite a few of the Godzilla movies but as far as I know the only true sequel is Godzilla X Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) which directly refers to the original Mothra movie and even features one of the actors reprising his Mothra role some forty years later, which is kind of cool.

SEE ALSO

Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964) Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) Rebirth of Mothra I-III (1996) Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

Politics and the Prequels: Episode I

It’s hard to believe that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released a decade ago and that the Prequel Trilogy concluded back in 2005. I have found a lot to enjoy in these movies despite their problems and often find myself defending them from “Star Wars Fundamentalists” who grew up on the original trilogy and who look at the more recent movies and see nothing but their flaws. George Lucas is a master storyteller-but only in the macro sense. When it comes to the broad strokes, the story told in the Prequel Trilogy is amazingly good and satisfying and far better than that of the Original Trilogy. If you were to tell someone the story of Anakin Skywalker and his tragic fall, and the way Palpatine slowly maneuvers and takes control of the Republic, it sounds like they would be much better movies than they actually are. It is when it comes to the specifics of story telling on film, such as writing dialogue and directing actors, Lucas often falls spectacularly flat.

Let's face it: the prequels are well-bashed. You can go anywhere and find out what doesn't work in these movies. Let's look at take a look at the thematic strengths of this trilogy and their achievements in storytelling and as political commentary.

When The Phantom Menace came out back in 1999 audiences were struck by how different this film was from the Original Trilogy from the 70's and 80's. Instead of military bases and hidden fortresses, these films are set in the heart of galactic society, in the halls of power. Much of the trilogy takes place on the capital world, Coruscant. Buried in the Prequel Trilogy is a more complex story with mature overtones that weren't found in the original movies. Story wise, the new movies are striking because of their political content. Whereas the original movies featured a simplistic tale of rebellion against an evil empire, these new films tell the story of how a democracy falls. There is an implicit political allegory here and Lucas has said many times that they story told in the prequels is one which he came up with during the Nixon years.

The Phantom Menace opens with a crawl that describes how the small planet of Naboo is being embargoed by a group called the Trade Federation, which we learn is some sort of commercial entity that is opposed to the stringent regulations imposed upon it by the Senate. Apparently, recent legislation in the Galactic Senate has caused the taxation of trade routes to come under dispute. So the first antagonists that we meet are a big corporation. The Trade Federation is headed by an alien called Nute Gunray, which is a play on the names of former conservative congressman Nute Gingrich and Ronald Reagan (who adopted "Star Wars" as the name for his space-based missile defense plan in the '80s, so fair is fair). We later learn that this organization has its own representation in the Galactic Senate. Think about that for a moment. Imagine Exxon or Microsoft sending senators to Washington.

It is important to note that these Trade Federation characters are not "evil" in the comic book sense of the word. They are a type easily recognizable to most people who follow the news: They are greedy CEOs. They are working with a shadowy figure called Darth Siddious, whom they only see via hologram. This is the titular Phantom Menace. Siddious is actually "evil." Here we have an evil man manipulating the greedy to achieve his own ends. He is a Sith, part of an ancient order opposed to the Jedi and thought to be extinct for a thousand years. He is also Palpatine, a Senator in the Galactic Senate. He has likely engineered the dispute that brought the blockade to his home planet, Naboo. Therefore the most evil man in the universe is also...a politician.

Constantly the government of the Galaxy is referred to as "corrupt," "squabbling," and "bureaucrats." These are phrases many would use to describe our own political representatives. The way the political system works in the Star Wars universe, one almost wants it to be wiped away and replaced with something else. This sets up very well some of the actions the characters take in later movies.


The Jedi themselves also have their internal politics which intersect with those of the Galaxy at large. The order is governed by a stuffy Council of Masters, who run the Jedi from a giant temple that looms over the capital. The Jedi seem to have assignments that are political in nature. At the movie's opening Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to Naboo on the Chancellor's orders to secretly negotiate the trade blockade.


When he is confronted with slavery on the underdeveloped desert world Tatooine, Qui-Gon states simply "we didn't come here to free slaves." This, from the most compassionate Jedi in the film. As we get to know them more, the Jedi seem strangely callous, even mean. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan practically bully poor Jar Jar into helping them on Naboo. Obi-Wan refers to other characters as "pathetic life-forms." These are not the kind-hearted zen warriors we were expecting. It seems that arrogance is a big part of the Jedi character, even for these more sympathetic Jedi.



With the exception of Qui Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi are all cool and inert. When Qui-Gon warns them that the Sith have returned, they all but roll their eyes at him. When he tells them that he has located young Anakin Skywalker, the prophesied "Chosen One" who "will bring balance to the force," they do not believe him and stubbornly refuse to have the boy trained. Qui-Gon, it seems, is a maverick and frequently at odds with the Jedi Council. He even threatens to train Anakin without the council's permission. Obi-Wan laments that Qui-Gon would be on the council himself if he would obey them but Jinn seems uninterested in this political wing of the Order.

The Jedi are presented as a complacent group that is resistant to change. One has to wonder if they had been more engaged with the world around them, they could have avoided the events that would occur in the following two movies. This is the mark of good tragedy, that you can pinpoint exact moments where choices made change the outcome of the story. As heroes the Jedi are ambivalent characters. They are not really likable. The Jedi Council in The Phantom Menace comes across as bureaucrats with light sabers. Are they even really "good?” Does bringing balance to the force mean that they as an entity must be eliminated?

In the Senate, the Naboo blockade has created a sympathy vote for Palpatine and he becomes the new Chancellor of the Republic. The first step of his plan to assume total power over the Republic and destroy the Jedi has been taken. By the end of the film, the wisest and most human of the Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn, has been killed and Anakin is grudgingly turned over to Obi-Wan for training by a crusty Yoda, one of the de facto rulers of the Jedi Order.

One has to wonder how events would have worked out if Qui-Gon had survived his encounter with Darth Maul. With his more flexible attitude and his wisdom, would he have trained Anakin better than the uptight Obi-Wan and avoided the tragic events of the next two movies? Perhaps the greatest victory of the Sith is that they were able to eliminate the only Jedi who was not arrogant and complacent.