00:00Hello, my fellow Rebels. It's been 26 years since George Lucas brought us episode one,
00:05The Phantom Menace. There is a lot of debate on whether it's good and whether it's bad.
00:10And we're going to stop this debate right now. And we're going to focus on just the bad things.
00:16I'm CJ, this is WhatCulture, and these are the eight worst things in The Phantom Menace.
00:21The first reason, bad CGI. Okay, George, we get it. You are excited about this new technology,
00:27green screens, computer graphics. But why did you get so hyper fixated on it?
00:34Yes, we need CGI for the space scenes and they make the Millennium Falcon look really cool.
00:41And some of the aliens, you can't just do practical. But come on, did we need so much CGI?
00:47Look at Jurassic Park. That came out in 1993, six years before The Phantom Menace.
00:54And even now, no one is complaining about how good the T-Rex and the Velociraptors look.
01:01Scott, even look at Yoda back in the Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Nobody's complaining about him.
01:08Why did we need so much CGI? Why does he keep adding more and more to it?
01:14George, just stop. We don't need any more. Go practical. Practical works so much better.
01:22He even replaced a practical Yoda in the final scenes. Practical Yoda was so much better than this
01:30CGI mess that you were giving us. I understand CGI can be a great thing. Getting background droids in
01:37the distance. But the planets looked fake. The aliens looked faker. And it really pulled the
01:44audience away from making Star Wars look believable. Practical effects work so well in the original
01:51films. Why did he move away from what everybody loved? Reason number two, the dialogue. Look,
01:58we don't expect Star Wars to be winning any Oscars for its writing. But the dialogue in The Phantom
02:04Menace was absolutely atrocious. And I don't think it's the actor's fault. When you've got acting
02:10greats like Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman who have proven time and time again their
02:17ability to act, it can only come down to one thing. George Lucas's script. It was badly written.
02:25Like some example, the Gunray's response of, no need to report that to him until we have something to
02:30report. Why so many reports? We need to report the report and make sure that's reported to Darth
02:37Sidious. I mean, yeah, it's not exactly well for out or even the most iconic line. Now this is pod
02:45racing. Oh, are you an angel? Like this child is meant to be a genius who can build a droid
02:52from
02:53scraps. It just the whole dialogue was flat. It was wooden and it did not help the case.
03:00For people enjoying The Phantom Menace. Reason number three, the story. When we go to see a
03:06Star Wars film, we want something fun, a good story, good guys, battling bad guys with some really fun
03:12set pieces and action. Instead, George Lucas thought, hey, let's try and be political and spend most of
03:20the film talking politics and trade federations. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to
03:26include an important message in the film. He did a great in the first three films and this whole made
03:31up situation where this dictator with a large empire was being left unchecked. It was having huge
03:37implications on the rest of us and they think they can do whatever they want and not face any
03:43consequences. In this made up situation, nothing to do with real life. Anyway, back to the point.
03:49We didn't need this message so much in our faces. It can be implied with good storytelling, which was
03:57severely lacking in The Phantom Menace. Worst part is The Phantom Menace has pretty much zero impact on
04:04the rest of the eight films in the Skywalker saga. Most people don't even watch it when they do a
04:10rerun
04:10and you're not any worse for it. The Phantom Menace failed in storytelling. Reason number four,
04:18Qui-Gon was killed too soon. Qui-Gon was Qui-Gon too soon in the prequel trilogy. Yeah, there's your
04:26one bad joke. No more. No more. Seriously though, we finally get an interesting character in The Phantom
04:32Menace and they kill him off. He was great. He didn't listen to the Jedi Council or any type of
04:38authority. He was headstrong. He was doing what he thought was best and he had great knowledge of
04:45the Force. God, he was even the first Jedi to become a Force ghost, which no one had done before.
04:51And yet Lucas kills him off right at the end of the film. Sorry, spoilers. It would have been more
04:57impactful to learn more about his past, why he was the way he was and why he didn't listen to
05:03the Jedi
05:03Council. And who he would have been with Anakin. How amazing would it have been in episode two,
05:10right at the very end, if Anakin betrayed Qui-Gon and finally kind of made his steps to the dark
05:16side.
05:17But killing those younglings was also pretty cool. Reason number five, midichlorians. For some reason,
05:24George Lucas decided, hey, I want to ruin one of the coolest things about Star Wars,
05:29Star Wars, the Force, by giving it scientific reasons. We know Star Wars is a science fiction
05:35film, but it doesn't mean we always need science to explain things. The mystery of the Force was
05:41what made it cool. Why are some people more attuned to it? What is this cosmic connection to everybody
05:47in the universe? It made it really cool and interesting. I would have been happy not knowing
05:52what the Force was and just thinking if it is some sort of magic. If the Force always comes down
05:58to
05:58science, why didn't Darth Sidious just clone a bunch of people with high midichlorians and have a Sith
06:03army rather than a bunch of Jango Fetts as clone troopers? Especially when we found out they're using
06:09a Gillette's women's leg shaver to check for midichlorians. It kind of takes away from the magic
06:16of the Force. I did not subscribe to this type of explanation. But you should subscribe to this
06:23channel. But don't do it for me. Do it for him.
06:30Bad baby!
06:31Number 6. Jar Jar Binks
06:33Okay, we all know he's going to be on the list. But just to be clear, no hate should go
06:39to the
06:39lovely Ahmed Best who played Jar Jar. The guy came in to do a job. He was told by the
06:45director what to do
06:46and left being told he'd done a good job because they didn't make him re-film stuff. That's not on
06:54the actor. That is down to the director. And guess who the director was again? It was George Lucas.
07:02The problem was George Lucas wanting to cater to young kids and add some not needed humour to the
07:08Star Wars universe. Come on. It's no secret that Star Wars makes a lot of money from its toys and
07:15merchandise. And it feels like Jar Jar was added as a way to sell a fun character to young kids.
07:22He was added as a plot device to cause problems, which can easily get fixed. And even though he's
07:27an idiot, somehow he was leading an army. What was going on in George Lucas's head? We won't even get
07:36started on the accent choice for Jar Jar and the way that he speaks. If I hear the word
07:42usage one more time, I'm going to go crazy. It's been haunting me for two decades.
07:49Reason number seven, the droid. Robots are cool. We all love a cool looking robot in films. Look at
07:57Wally from Disney. Johnny Five, one of the original and best. Optimus Prime from the Transformers. And of
08:05course, R2-D2, BB-8 and BD-1 from Jedi Survivor. Even the droidekas were pretty cool and badass at
08:16the
08:16start of the Phantom Menace. So much so that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had to run away. But the
08:23battle droids
08:24were just annoying. Again, George Lucas was probably trying to add humour to the film and sell more
08:32merchandise. But they were pointless. They could barely aim at anything. They could barely move
08:38and don't seem to have any sort of intelligence. So why would anybody want to use them in battle
08:46if they can't be self-reliant? They had a ship controlling them. So the people obviously in the
08:52ship are giving them commands. So who's telling them what to do? I mean, they did look cool whenever
08:59they got hit with a lightsaber. But other than that, what did the droids actually bring to the
09:05film? Now, before we get to our final reason, don't forget to hit that like button and share your most
09:12hated feature of the Phantom Menace. Final reason, Darth Maul. Now, to be clear, the reason is not that
09:19Darth Maul was in it. The reason is that Darth Maul was hardly even in it. The climactic battle at
09:26the
09:26end of the Phantom Menace is still one of the greatest battles in cinema. When Jewel of Fates hits,
09:32I still get chills. But the character of Darth Maul was wasted just like Qui-Gon. He could have
09:39really developed his character over the prequel trilogy and given us a strong antagonist to link
09:45the three prequels, giving our character someone to fear and hate. But Darth Maul only got three lines
09:52of dialogue in the movie. But he did get two epic battle scenes. But we could have got so much
09:58more
09:58out of the character. He was all over the marketing, all over the trailers, but fell flat in the final
10:06film. Thankfully, his character was developed in the animated series and even teased at the end of a
10:12solo story. But even that went nowhere. But the idea of Maul will forever be wasted in the Phantom Menace,
10:20when it could have been so much more across all of the films.
10:25So that brings us to the end of this list. But it is not the end of this video series
10:30because
10:30we're going to talk about the things we love about the Phantom Menace very soon. Don't forget to hit
10:36like, hit that subscribe button and check back for more videos. And let us know in the comments
10:42what bits you hated about the Phantom Menace. But for now, may the Force be with you.
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