Nah, it's because Jar Jar was supposed to be a huge comedic appeal to the movie (much like C-3P0 and R2 were for A New Hope) and if they fucked it up it would be a large detractor for the movie which ended up actually happening. The Jar-Jar sith lord fan theory is well constructed but at the end of the day, that's all it is - a fan theory.
Marty Keaton Honestly Marty, I just rewatched Episode 1 and I have to say even if it's not perfect, it's still the best out of the prequel trilogy. My mind has been conditioned by the internet to remember it as shitty, but it really wasn't that bad. Ep 2 is a terrible movie, though
They should release a despecialised edition of Episode 1 where you see the original Jar Jar costume and there's just some black guy in a gungan costume following them around and nobody asks why he's wearing the costume.
+videogamenostalgia Lmao, ain't that the truth, my thoughts exactly when I saw the table scene at 7:24! This random ass dude just chilling around with an unexplained Gungan mask on top his head and nobody gives a shit, it's hilarious. Hell, I'd *pay* to see that version. Cause it would actually be the first time Phantom Menace could be considered amusing.
Maybe because the star wars fanbase is so shitty it does everything to destroy the life of real people. Natalie Portman is a good actress and everyone attacking her in her acting class propaganda is a star wars fan.
George Lucas, having total control, standing there surrounded by yes men who will never shoot down his ideas regardless of how awful they are. That's what went wrong
Elitist OT fanboys Whined, moaned, and complained About all. Despite George's best efforts, To use practical effects, Shoot on location In places like Tunisia and Italy, puppets built, animatronics were used, CGI was only used where necessary, The fanboys still bitched. "CGI!", They cried. "George Lucas raped my childhood!" Whiny kids. George decided that was it: He would do the rest CGI
643eddie He was referring to the editing of the rough draft. Watch the documentary "The Beginning". It's what RLM takes footage out of context from to make jokes.
+blueshirt06 The Binks Awakens. That conspiracy theory is more creative than Lucas has been in a long time though. It'd be giving him too much credit to actually think it's likely or real, lol.
"Just like War and Peace. It's gonna be great" "It's gonna be great" "It's gonna be great" "Yeah, it's gonna be great" Man, the real life dialogues in this documentary would work so well as lines in some comedy about yes-men and brown-noses...
One thing I loved about the “behind the scenes” of the prequels, is that it felt like you were actually there; through all the cringe, all the production headaches and disagreements. Look at the behind the scenes of the new SW movies. It all likes polished and everyone seems dandy.
It’s really astonishing how you people seem incapable of saying anything else other than just reciting, almost verbatim, shit you heard Mike Stoklasa say. Really embarrassing stuff
@@ericfelds6291 Who? I don't need anyone to tell me that the sequels were not great. But Finn was my favorite character, especially since John Boyega is an actual star wars fan.
Yes, and then his friends critiqued it and helped him make a better film that didn't go too far. That screen test wasn't the final product, you know. That's the whole point of a screen test; then all his crew got together - with them critiquing him - to improve the film. Because contrary to your conspiracy theory, he wasn't surrounded by yes men.
Me too. But that’s because I thought it was horrible juvenile filler. We all knew Anakin was going to win the race, and the whole thing was a complete downtime and boring distraction from the main plot.
I actually find that hard to believe, like 90% of the people who saw it said they loved it. It wasn't until a few weeks after that people started to see the true nature of the movie.
Here's what went wrong: Not a single person in this entire video ever says no. He was surrounded by yes men. People who are too scared to tell him what works and what doesn't.
Exactly. I hate how people blame Lucas for making episode 1 a dissapointment,when in fact it is mostly the guys working with him who are at fault. If you don't challenge anyone, you're not gonna make anything work.
Yup, nailed it. Hes the big boss legend cutting the checks, but before this he only directed the first star wars when he was a nobody and it was a collaborative effort, as was the 2 sequels. Here he had full control and you realize hes great at all the techy stuff like special effects, but he is not a good writer or a very good storyteller, or a good actor director. Im certain JJ Abrams will do far better. He is much more concerned with good writing and stories. Star Wars is in much better hands now.
Darth Destroyer I doubt anyone who values having a job or a career in film is going to tell Lucas his almighty vision sucks. He surrounded himself with people who would agree with him. He was well aware of the criticism of people when he changed the original films (Han shot first! I mean, come on! It changes the whole development arc of the character changing that initial introduction to Han) yet he stubbornly refused to release the original movies as they were supposed to be. He didn't listen to feed back then, why on earth would he listen during the making of these ones?
That's one of the first things I notice too, everyone is in awe of Lucas and the result is the Emperor has no clothes. The result was a stunningly bad movie.
@@faisalmemon285 Jake was way too over inflective. "MOST BEAUTIFUL CREATURES" made me cringe. Kids don't talk like that. The blonde kid acted the best in my opinion
@@Slazors I disagree...in art you take chances risks and they can pay off big like with mark hamill who was pretty bad in a new hope at times but they stuck with him and it worked out or they can flat out fail like tommy wiseau who won't change....in the end this well known franchise of films made a lot of money as did this film in particular until disney bought it was the highest grossing by far star wars movie and you can claim even now the most grossing thing if you include merchandise ever even now for its time it was insane so in the end who they chose for a young anakin in this one movie was not the end of the world eve if it was a mistake which it wasn't since he got better...why choose someone mechanical that can say the line but brings nothing to the character or screen they just are robotic when you can have a real kid with emotions who can turn a line into something else by his performance not whats written necessarily just by his tone....the issue was jake was still young he hadn't really acted before..those other kids has more comfort on camera but he was the best choice...no one would remember the other 2 kids...trust me...sometimes a little bad can be memorable and bring in kid fans who enjoy something different...a lot of characters act boring or robotic on purpose so to have a kid with different ranges of his emotions is a good thing....you believe him as the character hes not a background kid like the other 2 who seem so confident not stiff..that stiffness is unique and he could work on...the other 2 were what they were no improvement was possible and they were as flat as a board
@@razkable Kids don't talk like that, period. You can write a book about how you interpret it differently but that's just your flawed viewpoint. Children talk pretty flat when speaking casually.
There’s an interesting story about the making of “The Incredibles”, where the producer, John Walker, had to talk the director, Brad Bird, out of an original ending that would have had Syndrome killed by Mr. Incredible. These two argued with each other forever about it. At one point, Walker said “I’m just trying to get us past the finish line” to which Bird responded with “I’m trying to get us past the finish line in first place”. They probably didn’t enjoy working together, but their combative relationship was just what the movie needed.
The unfiltered boldness of this documentary -- even after 15 years -- still stuns me. I wish we had more Star Wars docs like this one, that are less promotional glitz, and more pure honesty in the filmmaking process.
I guess that's the key bad omen because they all seem quite professional, self-aware, Lucas included. No one's passionate, however, and no one's saying "Jeez, we gotta do better than this." I think of the saying: "Unhappy sets make the best movies."
Paul WT And Ready Player One. The final battle in that movie is very similar to the one in TPM. Not saying he’s a terrible director but there’s reason to believe he probably really enjoyed TPM lol.
Feel so bad for the kid that played Anakin. Toxic fans and bullies really hurt him. Now that I’m a dad of a 6 year old son (who loves Episode 1), I can’t imagine that pressure on a child.
And the fact that his life is destroyed now is even more tragic just because some little kids were jealous and some fans weren’t happy they didn’t get exactly what they wanted
If I was Jake I'd say, "They paid me millions of dollars to ruin Star Wars, what's your problem?" If I had his money, I wouldn't care because that was George's fault.
I see a man who loves his characters and is passionate on what he wants but is surrounded by yes men and there should have been boundaries & restraint in certain areas.
You totally hit the nail on the head. It's sad, when you see the earliest ideas for the prequels (to be darker and more violent then the original stories). However, we ended up with Jar Jar Binks.
The movies get darker as they go along, culminating in revenge of the Sith, the darkest SW movie of all. Which is the point of the Trilogy. It's not a "Hero's Journey," it's an "Epic Tragedy." Episode 1 is meant to show the galaxy in a state of innocence, not knowing war. If the people working for Lucas here are "Yes men," then that's always been the case. The Prequels were made by the same Lucasfilm veterans that made the Original Trilogy, Indiana Jones Trilogy, Young Indiana Jones, Special Editions, etc.
Lucas is a creative storyteller, that’s his greatest talent. I just don’t think his directing is great. We all have different strengths in different areas. I also respect that he has a sense of humor about himself, how he talks about his main direction: “faster more intense” and even acted outraged with Seth Green in a skit where he is outraged someone disagrees with him.
Well, he directed 3 iconic, cult classics within the space of few years, that were completely different from one another. THX-1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars. And so far, the most highly praised SW film, at the time each was released, was Episode 4-A New Hope, the one he directed. Not including the recent films, the 2nd most highly praised SW film was Episode 3- Revenge of the Sith, also directed by him.
@stirange Not its not, its an average movie with cringe moments and epic ones. Its far from a masterpiece and far from garbage, still a fun one for those who are fan of SW and like the lore of the movies.
Its not the question of which kid was better, it wasn't supposed to have kid characters in the first place. It was supposed to have focused on Anakin and Obi Wan as young Jedi knights and follow them through their swashbuckling adventures across the Galaxy. It should have started in medias res, with them as two Jedi heroes kicking butt, and seeing their friendship deteriorate (say, over a woman) as they approached the climax. And the whole Jedi order was misconceived as a sort of boring diplomats and monks. They should have been more mysterious and subtle, not the mainstream organization as they were portrayed in the end. And the whole trilogy should have played out in the periphery, on the frontier of the galaxy, as though it was a Western, away from "Coruscant", and the Senate and the like.
"follow them through their swashbuckling adventures..." Obi Wan in Ep IV talked about Anakin like they had massive history together. Instead, we got a bunch of "hey, remember that time we..." and had to wait until a freakin cartoon to get a taste of what that backstory was supposed to be.
miljenko1 tbeller80 Well said both of you. A couple of run ins to the centre of galactic "civilization" would have been necessary to set the stage for what the old republic in all its splendour was, just to give some added context to the OT movies, but by far it definitely should not have had Coruscant as a main setting. As to the nature of the Jedi, I personally think that they shouldn't have had one centralized temple or anything like that, but rather be spread out across the Galaxy being in touch with all the far reaching corners of life, maybe only even meeting all of each other in the face of the galaxy wide war.
tbeller80 Yes, its really daft how the prequels waste an entire movie (the TPM) on an insignificant childhood of one of the protagonists, whereas the later installments simply list their adventures in the cheapest kind of expository dialogues: shouldn't the portrayals of these adventure have been the very essence of the prequels? Whereas, apart from those hints, all we can see and feel is that they share nothing but annoyance and resentment for each other. Therefore, when they actually become openly hostile towards one another, there's no real shock. Remember how subtly such transitions had been portrayed in the OT, with Vader smothering off his lieutenants throughout the entire ESB only to spare the last one as he rediscovers his humane side through an encounter with his son? That kind of show-don't-tell subtleties of the OT were superseded by hack verbosity in the prequels.
My son wanted to watch AofC a few days ago and almost immediately Obi and Anakin were arguing with each other. Anakin was allowed to be so insubordinate all I could think was "prophet or no, this kid has to go. The Jedi deserve to get slaughtered by him." The one thing Lucas did right in the prequels was the rise of the Emperor. Except for showing the Jedi to be grossly incompetent it was an inventive plot line. TPM should have been the introduction of the Emperor plotline with everything older Obi Wan described about his and Anakin's friendship and adventures ending with Anakin's troubles. It would have made Anakin's mental state in the second movie a lot more believable.
tbeller80 "it was an inventive plot line." Except that it is almost a carbon copy of the historical rise of the Roman Emperor Augustus (with some influences from Hitler's subversion of Germany). It was definitely the single element that felt the most real though (probably because of the afore mentioned cases).
I swear to God, the people filming this behind the scenes saw the writing on the wall and wanted all the footage they could get. This is cringe comedy gold. Iconic.
I remember seeing the Phantom Menace the day it was released. It was so bad, so disappointing, so soul crushing for someone who saw and loved the original Star Wars films, when I was a a young kid, back in 70s and 80s, that I couldn't go to sleep later that night. I just kept going over, in my head, why the film was so terrible, and I kept asking myself how or why did George Lucas think that the Phantom Menace was in any way a good film, nevermind a good Star Wars film, remotely suitable for release. This video explains a lot as to what went wrong.
It's so hard to think that as an adult man with responsibilities, you lost sleep over the fact someone made a movie you didn't like. Speaks volumes for the Star Wars fandom.
why were people so skepical to stand up against lucas? many of them look and sound unconfortable with his ideas. just mumbling back "yeas" and shit faced smiles
+JamesPlaysGames95 A mix of reasons. Partially, it was fear of getting fired. Also, considering how many people were doubtful at A New Hope, they probably were thinking that it would likely work once it was on screen. They were wrong.
+JamesPlaysGames95 They are mostly special effects people, they don't know what a good story would be anyway. Lucas had to guide the ship and if I was in that room, I would certainly think he would know what to do..
I don't know that they thought he knew what he was doing. They weren't morons. Lucas is incredibly famous for making a trilogy of movies where the cast, crew, and studio told him no all the time. "Can Chewbacca be a lizard?" No, George, no he can't. By the time of Phantom Menace Lucas was just such a huge force in the industry that no one could stop him from ruining his movies (or pretending that he is a poet and an auteur).
@@darrenspraggs795 The technology is "not there" yet and will probably never be. CGI is a tool that should be used alongside the old tools like in Jurassic Park or Titanic not be the only tool.
Way the hell back in the 1990s I subscribed to _Star Wars Insider_ magazine. I remember reading the issue which divulged a few details about the upcoming _Episode I_ Notably the publication stated that we would first be introduced to Annakin Skywalker when he is just a little boy and that he starts out as A Slave. I remember thinking to myself how brilliant that was. It seemed to make sense, Luke was just a frustrated farm boy, but his dad would come from a much harsher environment. Visions of a soot-faced Annakin Skywalker, chipping away in some inhospitable, cramped mine with some sort of lazer-pick axe flashed in my head; or perhaps he would be slaving on some sort of train tracks, laying rail for a Star-Wars esque railroad. That was a perfect way to get the audience emotionally invested in this kid. He's a survivor, a salty dog even as a grade schooler...Instead we got Jake Lloyd, sitting around polishing a few props, and he's even allowed to go home before dark.
+samuraigeorge71 exactly, film 101. if you are making serials, the stories must align. if he had done that then Anakin would have been in his late 20's at the start. Lucas was the king of blowing it. Like having Luke and Liea make out in ESB then they are brother and sister in Jedi. Obiwan can't remember c3po and artoo but runs around the prequals with them. dumb
+samuraigeorge71 The back story was still vague enough so that Episode 1 could have featured Anakin as an actual slave. Owen could have been a slave as well. There was the breadth of an entire universe to work with. For Episode 1, George Lucas failed to create so much as a single character for the audience to identify with; the only exception _possibly_ being OB1, but what we know and like about him is all based solely on the cannon from 4, 5, and 6.
+Bojo Mojo Blue astro-droids like R2 were probably very common. And Obi-Wan does not claim he doesn't remember a droid like R2, he states (and truthfully at that), that he does not seem to remember ever "owning" a droid, as R2 was claiming he was the property of Obi-wan Kenobi
“Let’s do that again. Aaaaand-action!” “I don’t like sand. It gets everywhere.” “Cut! Cut. That’s a good line. Rick, remember that line.” “Yes, master.”
It pisses me off how in any behind the scenes footage of the prequels how Lucas just sounds so completely disinterested and unenthusiastic about working on them. It's like he's going through the motions.
What? That’s how George Lucas always sounds However if you pay attention to his action you’d notice he went above and beyond in effort compared to most directors, stop with your bs
Steve Picray The second one was hands down better than Lloyd, but the first one I could see him turning into Darth Vader later on. If you`re going to show him as a kid, at least let him have a more serious and mature attitude. That could be one of the reasons he turns to the dark side, knowing he is more intelligent than his peers, and now discovering he´s also more powerful, seeking revenge for the years he and his mother were slaves.
Skeptical Chris, yeah it's quite sad. If the film was great, he'd have been a legend amongst his peers. Instead... Well, there are videos of him describing what a shitty time he had afterwards.
Whiny OT-fanboy man-children ruined Jake's life. Being in this film was a fun exciting time for him and he worked hard to bring his role to life. People ought to be ashamed of themselves for throwing 17 years of temper tantrums about a movie they didn't like as much as the first three that they saw when they were kids.
Tom Miller Instead, Lucas made the story he wanted to tell which was made for people of all ages - just like the OT. He threw in humor and camp into every film.
"The most difficult part is to not go too far. Just go strange enough. The biggest trap people fall into with these kinds of movies is they go too far." Immediately cuts to the actor playing jar jar with with a silicone head on walking around like fucking goofy. Priceless.
Oswaldo Cortes, I agree. It would have been way more believable if he was post puberty. Or at least at the end of it. It's weird for an 8 year old to later on have the hots for Padme, she would have felt almost like an aunt.
Anakin was nine and Padme was fourteen. That's hardly an age difference. A fourth-grader finding an eighth-grader attractive makes perfect sense. Ten years later, he's nineteen and she's twenty-four. Still seem weird?
JoelJoel321 You find it unbelievable that a fourth-grader would find a twelfth-grader attractive? I'm pretty sure every boy alive in the 90's had a crush on Amy Jo Johnson and Britney Spears.
I agree. The second kid seemed like he had a darkness hidden in him. Almost like a soon to be “emo kid” which would have fit the origin of Darth Vader a lot better than the exaggerated giddy charisma that Jake showed In his audition tape. It’s almost like George simply forgot what the prequels was supposed to lead up to.
orphanedhanyou clearly you would have been one of the yes men in this video 😂 the second kid was the one. The point of this video is to show all of the missteps they took.
Everyone on the set is a fucking yes man. Lucas is spouting nonsense and nobody is actually checking or saying no to ANYTHING he says. This is so absurd.
they really should make an OFFICE Style comedy just like this about a director making a prequel and just screwing everything up surrounded by yes men and people in silly costumes who know he is nuts, with his agent and P.R guy on the phone to eveyone saying it is wonderful
I think most of the problems with episode one was the writing and direction. To say it's all Jake Lloyd is tough for a kid. But that other kid would not have saved the film. I mean if you make Sam Jackson and Liam Neeson seem like crappy actors... You fucked up the writing.
+NYRangersfan63 He did okay for a child actor; I think the main problem is that having a Star Wars film carried by a child actor is a terrible idea. We didn't need to see Anakin as a child; the details about his mother's death and his slaughtering of the sand people should've all been revealed through cleverly-written expository dialog. He should've already been the rebellious brooding asshole we see in Episode 3, making his rise even more unlikely (Yoda calls Anakin "too old" to train in Episode 1 - imagine if he was already 18, and what kind of consequences would arise from someone so emotive being trained to use the force?). The end of Episode 2 could've shown him switching sides, and Episode 3 could've been all about the rise of the Empire with some actual screen time for Darth Vader.
I think that was the point...they made this as a joke...they don't mean more than half the dialogue in this behind the scenes..its a gag like the office
+Zach Couch I think maybe he was too good. Certain child actors deliver their lines like adults which makes things weird because... they're delivering their lines like someone whos ten years their senior. So maybe he was acting too seriously for George. Either way it wouldn't make a difference since the script is a disaster
He is remembered as one of the coolest jedi in the star wars universe, don't feel bad, his acting was awesome, he made a really cool mentor to also another awesome jedi: Obi wan Kenobi.
Also, why the heck are they looking for 7 year old actors for this part. If they would have found an actor the same age as Natalie Portman for Ep. 1, they could use the same actor for all the movies.
It's too bad nobody ever asked that question or could ask that question. Given how the second movie was going to be him being so much younger made it weird.
Batman Anakin in the story is supposed to be about 9/10, and Padme/Queen Amidala is supposed to be 14. There's a lot that happens to a kid in those four years, but after 10 years that age gap (that would have once seemed absurd) becomes negligible.
God. It is like watching a grisly murder right in front of you. They had a badass little Anakin Skywalker - futureVader kid right there in front of them and they went with Cabbage Patch Kids Face instead... You just can't look away no matter how awful it gets... To be fair though I respect Lucas a lot as a filmmaker and his struggle was real as an artist here. It is tough when you are surrounded by yesmen to find that artist's fire that you once had. Some great works of art just can't be repeated I guess.
What went wrong? Almost everything went wrong. Don't want to parrot Plinkett to death but seriously almost every part of these movies was a poorly thought out mess. No second opinions, no touch ups, nothing. Just them using first drafts only to stumble out of the gate
I honestly believe when George was explaining the movie to others, it sounded good on paper. I dont think anyone realized how it would've looked if it were in film, obviously the movie that got released was what we got. This movie was full of YES men, what made the Original Star Wars trilogy great was it was a group effort, everyone added something to the movie, unlike the Prequels, where George was the only one taking charge.
I saw this more than 10 years ago. I always loved the prequels and Jar Jar Binks. You can tell the enthusiasm and dedication of George and his crew, how commitment they are with the story and how to make it. It's great. George is a genius, a great man.
you would think Spielberg would have been the voice of reason and said "George, Jar jar is just a terrible idea, how bout just focus on the main story?"
Spielberg has no authority over Lucas, he woulnd't listen to anyone after 1984 when he was divorced from Marcia, who was the real driving force behind Star Wars. Make of that what you will!
you would think but then why would the crystal skull have a fridge being nuked with indy inside it and surviving he had his chance then to intervene but he stuffed it up
Nah Spielberg is a great director it is true but he's also a movie fan himself. He was just excited to see a new Star Wars movie and his friend Lucas had made excellent movies in the past and wrote many of Spielberg's successful movies with Indiana Jones. Lucas was more the writer and story-driven guy between the two of them in practice. Spielberg never wrote his own stuff. The problem is that Spielberg showing up on set for a day to see what his friend was up to was about as much artistic feedback Lucas received from his entire crew - none at all! No one is offering any constructive criticism or saying something doesn't work and those same people who are being paid good money for their artistic input gave as much as Spielberg did seeing what his good friend was up to on his day off... I feel for Lucas to tell you the truth. One man can't make a great film. Unless you are Gareth Edwards I guess :)
***** Before he made Star Wars he actually listen to her and his friends who told him what was fucking awful and what kinda worked. Try reading some of the earlier drafts of Star Wars, most of it is pretty clunky and weird. Even then the orginal Star Wars was saved by the editing.
The sins of "The Phantom Menace" playing out right before our eyes. And I don't think there has been any more frightening words uttered in the history of cinema than - "Jar Jar is the key to all this ".
I cringe so much that Anakin is a child when he meets Padme, it's so weird and it's annoys the shit out of me that he impregnates her. WHY did he make him that young!
It's gonna be great That's gonna be great It's gonna be great That's gonna be gret It's gonna be great That's gonna be great It's gonna be great That's gonna be great It's gonna be great That's gonna be great It's gonna be great That's gonna be great It's gonna be great That's gonna be great It's gonna be great That's gonna be great It's gonna be great That's gonna be great
From the three boys (the third being Jake Lloyd) who were auditioning for Anakin Skywalker, although I didn't like the idea of having Anakin be a kid (they should have started him out as a teenager), I liked the second one. He delivered his lines a lot better.
+Loveisintheair85xxx Yeah, there's a good video by Belated Media called "What if Star Wars Episode 1 was Good" which has their own re-written version of The Phantom Menace, which includes Anakin Skywalker as a teenager. And overall, it makes more sense to make him a teenager early on, as it also connects to Episode 4 with Luke who had his calling for adventure in his teens.
+Daniella Dahoui What this told me is that Jake Lloyd was the worst possible choice... and that George Lucas is clearly a kid in an adult's body. A nerdy kid with bad taste.
Matt Kindig how is it unfair and out of context? I actually thought it could have been harsher on him, I've seen more damming behind the scenes stuff than this that could have been included. GL made bad decision after bad decision and even when something was going ok he swooped in and ruined it with his bullshit IMO
Matt Kindig The only assassination in this video is the murdering of the Star Wars franchise by none other than George Lucas and his loyal pack of yes men. Go out and do some research. Look into the behind the scenes for the original trilogy, and look at how vastly it differs from the making the of prequels. Go and read some of the horror stories in the accounts of people who have suffered working under this man. The reason the original movies came out to be the masterpieces they're revered as today was because there was people there to stop Lucas, and tell him, no, that idea is terrible. Just to put it into perspective, in the original screenwriting for A New Hope according to Lucas, Luke was supposed to be a 65 year old man with a robot head, Han Solo was an anthropomorphic frog, and C3PO was a shady, car salesman-type character. That should say enough. He may have created Star Wars, but if it weren't for the people around him who shaped it into what it is today, it would have just been a shitty sci fi flop in the 70s.
He was mainly referring to the SFX that would make him “work”, as for the rest of the alien characters. But yes, Jar Jar served no other purpose - which is bad.
The making of the prequels are very telling and far more entertaining and dramatic than the actual movies. The Crew should have won Oscars for their acting performances around George.
Even adult actors struggled with dialog. It must have been so hard for a 10-year-old kid on a movie set where no one is challenging the director. Laurence Olivier would have struggled to make anything out of lines like "Yippee!" and "Spinning is a good trick".
The greatest video of all time is George and the producers reaction to seeing the film for the first time. Funny how they are all talking about how it's gonna be great to realizing they're fucked... well, not fucked, I mean George goes on to get $4 billion.
Basically it boils down to people being flabbergasted that the people Lucas hired to help him make the prequels were largely in sync with him creatively (you know, as you might expect) and didn't constantly trash talk him while being filmed for behind-the-scenes footage. There's no real evidence that Lucas was surrounded by "yes men" to a greater extent than is usually the case. There's this whole mythology about how Lucas was constantly being challenged and put in his place by others during the making of the original trilogy, but if you do a little actual research you find very little evidence of that either, besides some claims made by disgruntled ex-producer Gary Kurtz who was fired halfway through Empire for incompetence and spent the next several decades constructing a self-aggrandizing narrative which recast himself as the hero of Star Wars.
Jake probably had the best read of all of the actors, even if he messed up the line. He actually had some inflection in his voice whereas the other two were kinda bland. Jake gets a bad rep. He did what George wanted and even the best actors struggle with bad dialogue/shitty direction. Great actors like Sam Jackson and Liam Neeson gave wooden performances in these movies. Also I like when Spielberg came to set. Cool to see him supporting his best friend.
The other kid that looked more like Mark Hamil just did a way better job from the word go and with enough studying and direction could had brought a incredible performance as a child actor. Jake definitely had a tone to his voice that lit up the scene more but it must have been a huge pain to constantly stop scenes because the child can't even remember the lines. Like in the audition Jake is just riffing into directions too far from the script, that's chaos for a directors especially one like Geoege who is also thinking about how they are going to pull off all that CGI in 1999. Should George had directed? No of course not in hindsight as he lacks confidence but at the same time the casting director really blew it here.
He really didn’t. It comes off “hammy”, overacted, and fake-enthusiastic in the way you see high school play actors. It was easily worst of the three we saw.
That's the problem. They say in the full documentary he looked like a little Luke, not Luke's dad as a kid. It was too close, plus they liked Jakes performed because it was innocent and genuine. Go talk to a 9 year old for a little while, they are goofy and say things that sounds odd to adults but are full of imagination and wonder.
I loved the prequels, I think many of the fans who disliked the films were far too hateful towards George Lucas and the actors involved. Lucas made the films the way he wanted to make them, people think because they're fans of the originals that they're owed something.
I grew up with Star Wars - I was born in 1972. Seeing A New Hope in the theater (Century 22 in San Jose, CA), is literally my earliest memory. I was hooked - lunch boxes, t-shirts, bed sheets, curtains, underwear, trading cards, (and of course those amazing toys) - I begged my parents for all of it. For years, I lived in anticipation of the sequels. It literally defined my childhood, and my love for those three films has continued well into adulthood. That being said, the prequels were not that bad. They had expectations that could NEVER be lived up to, ever. Yes, Jar Jar is the Menace the title refers to, but the rest of it is... decent. Nobody will ever, ever capture the magic of the first three films, and that's ok. I hope that Star Wars lives on for generations to come, and I was privileged to be around when it started.
rainbowsalads I hope so, because the franchise really needs some greatness. I was never a big Luke fan - always a Han Solo kid at heart - and I can't wait to see him back in the cockpit of the Falcon!
I feel bad for Ahmed Best. He seems like such a good, down-to-earth, chill guy. It's not his fault that he got stuck playing one of the suckiest characters in all of Star Wars history. I mean, for a lot of these people, this was their big break. The only actors who really survived these movies were the ones who had been doing tons of stuff before this. Even Natalie Portman barely scraped by.
George Lucas: The most difficult part is to not go too far. The biggest trap people fall into in these kinds of movies is they go too far Also George Lucas when watching the film: I may have gone too far in a few places
'Jar Jar is the key to all this'
The idea behind that quote is that Jar Jar was supposed to be Darth Plagueis but since Jar Jar was such a PR disaster, Lucas scrapped that idea
Nah, it's because Jar Jar was supposed to be a huge comedic appeal to the movie (much like C-3P0 and R2 were for A New Hope) and if they fucked it up it would be a large detractor for the movie which ended up actually happening. The Jar-Jar sith lord fan theory is well constructed but at the end of the day, that's all it is - a fan theory.
i think you are wrong about that.
Rythmbot they could just of used R2 and 3PO for comedic relief as they were in the film and they new they were successful in the previous movies
I laughed too fucking hard
This is an interesting episode of The Office
Oh my god HAHAHAHHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHA
Nicholas NRG huh?
Rawrrr if you watched the office, you'd get the reference
Haha such a good comment
George : "Its like poetry"
Everyone in the room :"Hmh"
Everyone is impressed.
"The biggest trap people fall into is they go to far"
*cut to shot of jar jar suit*
The dudes who built the tower of Babel would agree...
You do realise this is an edit of the original documentary right?
@@willreimer5442 you didn't understood the comment
He didn't make the film for you, he made it for kids. Cope harder.
"it's gonna be great"
"it's gonna be great"
"it's gonna be great"
"it's gonna be great"
The more you repeat that sentence, the more it sounds like a Donald Trump-quote.
Haha good catch
What's wrong with the movie?
Marty Keaton Honestly Marty, I just rewatched Episode 1 and I have to say even if it's not perfect, it's still the best out of the prequel trilogy. My mind has been conditioned by the internet to remember it as shitty, but it really wasn't that bad. Ep 2 is a terrible movie, though
lindgrenland I think they're both good.
They should release a despecialised edition of Episode 1 where you see the original Jar Jar costume and there's just some black guy in a gungan costume following them around and nobody asks why he's wearing the costume.
+videogamenostalgia
Lmao, ain't that the truth, my thoughts exactly when I saw the table scene at 7:24! This random ass dude just chilling around with an unexplained Gungan mask on top his head and nobody gives a shit, it's hilarious.
Hell, I'd *pay* to see that version. Cause it would actually be the first time Phantom Menace could be considered amusing.
+videogamenostalgia It'd make more sense than jar jar
hahahah yes they should have.
+videogamenostalgia The whole movie would be a fucking green screen lol
This made me laugh so hard!
I feel bad for the guy who played Jar Jar.. He thought about killing himself after this came out.
Brandon Smith doesn’t change the fact that people bullied him into almost commuting suicide
@@619able It wasn't all just the bullying. People hating the movie and saying it ruined their childhood took it's toll on him as well.
Lurn Well stfu
I thought about killing myself DURING it. It's like poetry. It rhymes.
Maybe because the star wars fanbase is so shitty it does everything to destroy the life of real people. Natalie Portman is a good actress and everyone attacking her in her acting class propaganda is a star wars fan.
"That's the biggest trap that people fall into with these movies, is that they go too far..."
*Cut to guy putting on Jar Jar suit*
Cuts to blindwave
Wolf6120
Cut to George saying he may have gone too far lmao
George Lucas, having total control, standing there surrounded by yes men who
will never shoot down his ideas regardless of how awful they are. That's
what went wrong
*****
Hahahaha! Thanks for that. Made my day
Elitist OT fanboys
Whined, moaned, and complained
About all.
Despite George's best efforts,
To use practical effects,
Shoot on location
In places like Tunisia and Italy,
puppets built,
animatronics were used,
CGI was only used where necessary,
The fanboys still bitched.
"CGI!", They cried.
"George Lucas raped my childhood!"
Whiny kids.
George decided that was it:
He would do the rest
CGI
Tom Miller
Don't ever compare George Lucas to the Trumpenfeuhrer.
"I may have gone too far in a few places" that sentence alone confirms that George himself implied that Episode I was crap!
643eddie
He was referring to the editing of the rough draft. Watch the documentary "The Beginning". It's what RLM takes footage out of context from to make jokes.
You heard him people, "Jar Jar is the key to all this "
+blueshirt06 ALL HAIL DARTH DARTH BINKS!
+blueshirt06 The Binks Awakens. That conspiracy theory is more creative than Lucas has been in a long time though. It'd be giving him too much credit to actually think it's likely or real, lol.
Very true
+blueshirt06 Jar Jar was originally supposed to be a sith lord, secretly in control of everything.
+John Balboa erm no...its just a fan theory.
"Just like War and Peace. It's gonna be great"
"It's gonna be great"
"It's gonna be great"
"Yeah, it's gonna be great"
Man, the real life dialogues in this documentary would work so well as lines in some comedy about yes-men and brown-noses...
Except, Spielberg is a way more successful filmmaker than Lucas.
Did you just call Spielberg a yes man brown nose lol
Yeah I don't think Steve Spielberg was brown nosing his friend and colleague lol...He's a billionaire too you know
And it was great
The visitor101, You forgot the (!) at the end of that.
One thing I loved about the “behind the scenes” of the prequels, is that it felt like you were actually there; through all the cringe, all the production headaches and disagreements. Look at the behind the scenes of the new SW movies. It all likes polished and everyone seems dandy.
What about the Last Jedi documentary?
Except the new movies turn out even worse haha
except that was bunch of disney edited bs 😂
It’s really astonishing how you people seem incapable of saying anything else other than just reciting, almost verbatim, shit you heard Mike Stoklasa say. Really embarrassing stuff
@@ericfelds6291 Who? I don't need anyone to tell me that the sequels were not great. But Finn was my favorite character, especially since John Boyega is an actual star wars fan.
Somewhere kid#2 is like, "Whew, close one."
+Dan Williams Right, as he wipes the greasy sweat from his brow as he flips another burger.
+Resale Living exactly
+Resale Living He could be a successful lawyer, who says he's working in a burger joint?
+Resale Living As opposed to Jake Lloyd, who's currently working as a millionaire gigolo for super models.
+Resale Living In comparison to Jake Lloyd, who just got arrested? Gotcha.
"The biggest trap that people fall into with these movies, is that they go too far"
"I may have gone too far in a few places."
ErroneousNickname not in the script where he didint go any places at all...
ErroneousNickname HILARIOUS
@@NavasGonzalo Script was great.
@@user-xx6vy9ri8p yeah, I wrote that comment 5 years ago. Now I think differently
Yes, and then his friends critiqued it and helped him make a better film that didn't go too far. That screen test wasn't the final product, you know. That's the whole point of a screen test; then all his crew got together - with them critiquing him - to improve the film. Because contrary to your conspiracy theory, he wasn't surrounded by yes men.
When Anakin said, "are you an angel," I laughed out loud. I forgot how silly this movie was.
I did want to go home after the pod race
Why? It's one of the most amazing scenes in all SW movies!
Me too. But that’s because I thought it was horrible juvenile filler. We all knew Anakin was going to win the race, and the whole thing was a complete downtime and boring distraction from the main plot.
I actually did leave after the pod race. Would've been better if were 20 years younger at the time.
I actually find that hard to believe, like 90% of the people who saw it said they loved it.
It wasn't until a few weeks after that people started to see the true nature of the movie.
@@8mmkyle865 Source?
"jar jar is the key to all this"
yes if they get jar jar cgi down right the rest will be cake. context .
In a way, he was right
yep its true
Yep, he helped to create the Palpatines empire.
Lol
Here's what went wrong: Not a single person in this entire video ever says no. He was surrounded by yes men. People who are too scared to tell him what works and what doesn't.
Exactly. I hate how people blame Lucas for making episode 1 a dissapointment,when in fact it is mostly the guys working with him who are at fault. If you don't challenge anyone, you're not gonna make anything work.
Yup, nailed it. Hes the big boss legend cutting the checks, but before this he only directed the first star wars when he was a nobody and it was a collaborative effort, as was the 2 sequels. Here he had full control and you realize hes great at all the techy stuff like special effects, but he is not a good writer or a very good storyteller, or a good actor director. Im certain JJ Abrams will do far better. He is much more concerned with good writing and stories. Star Wars is in much better hands now.
darth destroyer
Darth Destroyer
I doubt anyone who values having a job or a career in film is going to tell Lucas his almighty vision sucks. He surrounded himself with people who would agree with him.
He was well aware of the criticism of people when he changed the original films (Han shot first! I mean, come on! It changes the whole development arc of the character changing that initial introduction to Han) yet he stubbornly refused to release the original movies as they were supposed to be.
He didn't listen to feed back then, why on earth would he listen during the making of these ones?
That's one of the first things I notice too, everyone is in awe of Lucas and the result is the Emperor has no clothes. The result was a stunningly bad movie.
Casting crew: "We've narrowed it down to 3 possible Anakins. Kid #3 keeps f**king up his lines, so..."
George: "heS THe oNe, HiRe hIM"
The other two kids were more mechanical.
@@faisalmemon285 Jake was way too over inflective. "MOST BEAUTIFUL CREATURES" made me cringe. Kids don't talk like that. The blonde kid acted the best in my opinion
@@Slazors I disagree...in art you take chances risks and they can pay off big like with mark hamill who was pretty bad in a new hope at times but they stuck with him and it worked out or they can flat out fail like tommy wiseau who won't change....in the end this well known franchise of films made a lot of money as did this film in particular until disney bought it was the highest grossing by far star wars movie and you can claim even now the most grossing thing if you include merchandise ever even now for its time it was insane so in the end who they chose for a young anakin in this one movie was not the end of the world eve if it was a mistake which it wasn't since he got better...why choose someone mechanical that can say the line but brings nothing to the character or screen they just are robotic when you can have a real kid with emotions who can turn a line into something else by his performance not whats written necessarily just by his tone....the issue was jake was still young he hadn't really acted before..those other kids has more comfort on camera but he was the best choice...no one would remember the other 2 kids...trust me...sometimes a little bad can be memorable and bring in kid fans who enjoy something different...a lot of characters act boring or robotic on purpose so to have a kid with different ranges of his emotions is a good thing....you believe him as the character hes not a background kid like the other 2 who seem so confident not stiff..that stiffness is unique and he could work on...the other 2 were what they were no improvement was possible and they were as flat as a board
@@razkable Kids don't talk like that, period. You can write a book about how you interpret it differently but that's just your flawed viewpoint. Children talk pretty flat when speaking casually.
Jake did fine in my opinion
There’s an interesting story about the making of “The Incredibles”, where the producer, John Walker, had to talk the director, Brad Bird, out of an original ending that would have had Syndrome killed by Mr. Incredible. These two argued with each other forever about it. At one point, Walker said “I’m just trying to get us past the finish line” to which Bird responded with “I’m trying to get us past the finish line in first place”. They probably didn’t enjoy working together, but their combative relationship was just what the movie needed.
So did Brad Bird killed Mr. Incredible or not?
He kinda kills him in the actual ending though...
Even Spielberg kissed Lucas's ass here.
The unfiltered boldness of this documentary -- even after 15 years -- still stuns me. I wish we had more Star Wars docs like this one, that are less promotional glitz, and more pure honesty in the filmmaking process.
“Are we sure that this isn't a terrible mistake?” - famous last words
Remember kids: Never be afraid of failing. Jake Lloyd failed miserably during his audition, but still got the part.
And then had a happy life. The End.
Oh...wait.
Yes, but now he's an alcoholic thug.
It was hilarious seeing Lucas' explanation of why he liked his audition.
Eric Elemen move production faster and body language 😁Why have 5 takes and get a good performance than 1 shitty take and finish faster.
thegooseman90 for real man, he even made "faster more energy" one of his direction go tos during the production of the 1977 film.
The nervous look on the faces of his crew speaks volumes.
Those people were basically on a ship with a drunk captain in charge, of course they were nervous.
Those poor bastards knew it was going to be a mess.
YES MEN
Where did you see that? They are serious and involved.
@@user-xx6vy9ri8p They look miserable as fuck and has no energy. George is literally sucking the life out of everyone on the set.
The thing that stands out for me in this video is all the "yes men" he surrounded himself with.
I guess that's the key bad omen because they all seem quite professional, self-aware, Lucas included. No one's passionate, however, and no one's saying "Jeez, we gotta do better than this." I think of the saying: "Unhappy sets make the best movies."
I think you are right and I like your concept (or term) "yes man"..
He got rid of anyone who questioned him long ago.
5:00. Spielberg is probably thinking "what in the hell....."
Paul WT And Ready Player One. The final battle in that movie is very similar to the one in TPM.
Not saying he’s a terrible director but there’s reason to believe he probably really enjoyed TPM lol.
He's made quite a few clunkers himself so probably not.
Feel so bad for the kid that played Anakin. Toxic fans and bullies really hurt him. Now that I’m a dad of a 6 year old son (who loves Episode 1), I can’t imagine that pressure on a child.
And the fact that his life is destroyed now is even more tragic just because some little kids were jealous and some fans weren’t happy they didn’t get exactly what they wanted
If I was Jake I'd say, "They paid me millions of dollars to ruin Star Wars, what's your problem?" If I had his money, I wouldn't care because that was George's fault.
'I was feeling so good about my ability to do this, and then I screwed it up.'
I see a man who loves his characters and is passionate on what he wants but is surrounded by yes men and there should have been boundaries & restraint in certain areas.
You totally hit the nail on the head. It's sad, when you see the earliest ideas for the prequels (to be darker and more violent then the original stories). However, we ended up with Jar Jar Binks.
The movies get darker as they go along, culminating in revenge of the Sith, the darkest SW movie of all.
Which is the point of the Trilogy. It's not a "Hero's Journey," it's an "Epic Tragedy." Episode 1 is meant to show the galaxy in a state of innocence, not knowing war.
If the people working for Lucas here are "Yes men," then that's always been the case. The Prequels were made by the same Lucasfilm veterans that made the Original Trilogy, Indiana Jones Trilogy, Young Indiana Jones, Special Editions, etc.
I'd say that Empire is darker than Revenge of the Sith.
Lucas is a creative storyteller, that’s his greatest talent. I just don’t think his directing is great. We all have different strengths in different areas. I also respect that he has a sense of humor about himself, how he talks about his main direction: “faster more intense” and even acted outraged with Seth Green in a skit where he is outraged someone disagrees with him.
Well, he directed 3 iconic, cult classics within the space of few years, that were completely different from one another.
THX-1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars. And so far, the most highly praised SW film, at the time each was released, was Episode 4-A New Hope, the one he directed. Not including the recent films, the 2nd most highly praised SW film was Episode 3- Revenge of the Sith, also directed by him.
Spielberg was who Lucas wanted to direct the movie and Spielberg talked him into directing it himself.
Imagine what could have been.
Fuck you speilberg
Yeah, because he believed in George. And it turned out great.
@@Hazztech no
@stirange Not its not, its an average movie with cringe moments and epic ones. Its far from a masterpiece and far from garbage, still a fun one for those who are fan of SW and like the lore of the movies.
poor Natalie Portman, auditioning with her future "love interest"
@dolofonos As opposed to the rest of America 😂😂😂
They were friends and she dated Hayden later.
Its not the question of which kid was better, it wasn't supposed to have kid characters in the first place. It was supposed to have focused on Anakin and Obi Wan as young Jedi knights and follow them through their swashbuckling adventures across the Galaxy. It should have started in medias res, with them as two Jedi heroes kicking butt, and seeing their friendship deteriorate (say, over a woman) as they approached the climax. And the whole Jedi order was misconceived as a sort of boring diplomats and monks. They should have been more mysterious and subtle, not the mainstream organization as they were portrayed in the end. And the whole trilogy should have played out in the periphery, on the frontier of the galaxy, as though it was a Western, away from "Coruscant", and the Senate and the like.
"follow them through their swashbuckling adventures..." Obi Wan in Ep IV talked about Anakin like they had massive history together. Instead, we got a bunch of "hey, remember that time we..." and had to wait until a freakin cartoon to get a taste of what that backstory was supposed to be.
miljenko1 tbeller80 Well said both of you. A couple of run ins to the centre of galactic "civilization" would have been necessary to set the stage for what the old republic in all its splendour was, just to give some added context to the OT movies, but by far it definitely should not have had Coruscant as a main setting.
As to the nature of the Jedi, I personally think that they shouldn't have had one centralized temple or anything like that, but rather be spread out across the Galaxy being in touch with all the far reaching corners of life, maybe only even meeting all of each other in the face of the galaxy wide war.
tbeller80
Yes, its really daft how the prequels waste an entire movie (the TPM) on an insignificant childhood of one of the protagonists, whereas the later installments simply list their adventures in the cheapest kind of expository dialogues: shouldn't the portrayals of these adventure have been the very essence of the prequels? Whereas, apart from those hints, all we can see and feel is that they share nothing but annoyance and resentment for each other. Therefore, when they actually become openly hostile towards one another, there's no real shock. Remember how subtly such transitions had been portrayed in the OT, with Vader smothering off his lieutenants throughout the entire ESB only to spare the last one as he rediscovers his humane side through an encounter with his son? That kind of show-don't-tell subtleties of the OT were superseded by hack verbosity in the prequels.
My son wanted to watch AofC a few days ago and almost immediately Obi and Anakin were arguing with each other. Anakin was allowed to be so insubordinate all I could think was "prophet or no, this kid has to go. The Jedi deserve to get slaughtered by him."
The one thing Lucas did right in the prequels was the rise of the Emperor. Except for showing the Jedi to be grossly incompetent it was an inventive plot line.
TPM should have been the introduction of the Emperor plotline with everything older Obi Wan described about his and Anakin's friendship and adventures ending with Anakin's troubles. It would have made Anakin's mental state in the second movie a lot more believable.
tbeller80 "it was an inventive plot line."
Except that it is almost a carbon copy of the historical rise of the Roman Emperor Augustus (with some influences from Hitler's subversion of Germany).
It was definitely the single element that felt the most real though (probably because of the afore mentioned cases).
It's gonna be great.
its gonna be great
It's gonna be great
goongas
It's gonna be GREAT.
Famous last words
I swear to God, the people filming this behind the scenes saw the writing on the wall and wanted all the footage they could get. This is cringe comedy gold. Iconic.
The prequels are good, the sequels are what sucks.
I remember seeing the Phantom Menace the day it was released. It was so bad, so disappointing, so soul crushing for someone who saw and loved the original Star Wars films, when I was a a young kid, back in 70s and 80s, that I couldn't go to sleep later that night. I just kept going over, in my head, why the film was so terrible, and I kept asking myself how or why did George Lucas think that the Phantom Menace was in any way a good film, nevermind a good Star Wars film, remotely suitable for release. This video explains a lot as to what went wrong.
Ahh there you are. An old fart trying to enjoy a movie that kids enjoyed.
It's so hard to think that as an adult man with responsibilities, you lost sleep over the fact someone made a movie you didn't like. Speaks volumes for the Star Wars fandom.
why were people so skepical to stand up against lucas? many of them look and sound unconfortable with his ideas. just mumbling back "yeas" and shit faced smiles
Because they were scared the would get fired
+JamesPlaysGames95 A mix of reasons. Partially, it was fear of getting fired. Also, considering how many people were doubtful at A New Hope, they probably were thinking that it would likely work once it was on screen. They were wrong.
+JamesPlaysGames95 They are mostly special effects people, they don't know what a good story would be anyway. Lucas had to guide the ship and if I was in that room, I would certainly think he would know what to do..
Because they probably thought he knew what he was doing since you know, he created arguably the most successful cinematic franchise in history
I don't know that they thought he knew what he was doing. They weren't morons. Lucas is incredibly famous for making a trilogy of movies where the cast, crew, and studio told him no all the time. "Can Chewbacca be a lizard?" No, George, no he can't.
By the time of Phantom Menace Lucas was just such a huge force in the industry that no one could stop him from ruining his movies (or pretending that he is a poet and an auteur).
It was a failure because his crew didn't have the balls to say 'No.'
They didn't know how to trick George into thinking their ideas were his.
@@earthhound haha, you are on point!
Lucas created an environment and work culture where he wouldn't tolerate dissent. His fault
No Gary Kurtz, alas.
A failure? That word has become relative these days.
Jeez. Even Speilberg turned into a bloody Yes Man in the end. Nothing could've saved this train wreck. It was destined.
That locomotive drive through Star Wars and changed it forever, even more so than The Last Jedi!
1:06 You had me at “Jar jar is the key to all this”
George Lucas - I'll colour in the CGI stuff in purple
Colours the whole board Purple
it was yellow. dont blame you for being confused when he used just as much yellow as purple
@@darrenspraggs795 The technology is "not there" yet and will probably never be. CGI is a tool that should be used alongside the old tools like in Jurassic Park or Titanic not be the only tool.
Way the hell back in the 1990s I subscribed to _Star Wars Insider_ magazine. I remember reading the issue which divulged a few details about the upcoming _Episode I_ Notably the publication stated that we would first be introduced to Annakin Skywalker when he is just a little boy and that he starts out as A Slave. I remember thinking to myself how brilliant that was. It seemed to make sense, Luke was just a frustrated farm boy, but his dad would come from a much harsher environment. Visions of a soot-faced Annakin Skywalker, chipping away in some inhospitable, cramped mine with some sort of lazer-pick axe flashed in my head; or perhaps he would be slaving on some sort of train tracks, laying rail for a Star-Wars esque railroad. That was a perfect way to get the audience emotionally invested in this kid. He's a survivor, a salty dog even as a grade schooler...Instead we got Jake Lloyd, sitting around polishing a few props, and he's even allowed to go home before dark.
+samuraigeorge71 exactly, film 101. if you are making serials, the stories must align. if he had done that then Anakin would have been in his late 20's at the start. Lucas was the king of blowing it. Like having Luke and Liea make out in ESB then they are brother and sister in Jedi.
Obiwan can't remember c3po and artoo but runs around the prequals with them. dumb
+samuraigeorge71 The back story was still vague enough so that Episode 1 could have featured Anakin as an actual slave. Owen could have been a slave as well. There was the breadth of an entire universe to work with. For Episode 1, George Lucas failed to create so much as a single character for the audience to identify with; the only exception _possibly_ being OB1, but what we know and like about him is all based solely on the cannon from 4, 5, and 6.
+Bojo Mojo Blue astro-droids like R2 were probably very common. And Obi-Wan does not claim he doesn't remember a droid like R2, he states (and truthfully at that), that he does not seem to remember ever "owning" a droid, as R2 was claiming he was the property of Obi-wan Kenobi
There are like 90 c3po's in the first 2 minutes of star wars. And you see more in empire.. "Echuda!" "how rude"
Dude, you probably put more thought into this post of yours than Lucas did in all three prequel scripts.
“Let’s do that again. Aaaaand-action!”
“I don’t like sand. It gets everywhere.”
“Cut! Cut. That’s a good line. Rick, remember that line.”
“Yes, master.”
It pisses me off how in any behind the scenes footage of the prequels how Lucas just sounds so completely disinterested and unenthusiastic about working on them. It's like he's going through the motions.
He sounds Like he's really out of it. Aloof and despondent. He doesn't care.
What? That’s how George Lucas always sounds However if you pay attention to his action you’d notice he went above and beyond in effort compared to most directors, stop with your bs
So Jake Lloyd was the only kid who couldn't get the line right, so they went with him??
He was trying and sounded fine.
Steve Picray The second one was hands down better than Lloyd, but the first one I could see him turning into Darth Vader later on. If you`re going to show him as a kid, at least let him have a more serious and mature attitude. That could be one of the reasons he turns to the dark side, knowing he is more intelligent than his peers, and now discovering he´s also more powerful, seeking revenge for the years he and his mother were slaves.
He was trying, but he did not sound "fine." He really sounded awful and he was the absolute worst pick.
Steve Picray dude Jakes acting is what made Aniiie so great and his fall so sad
Poor Jake was doing the best he could with the direction he had, and it ruined him the poor kid.
you're actually seeing real footage of the moments where Jake Lloyd's life would be forever doomed
Skeptical Chris
I know! this movie ruined his life bith personal and acting career (I don't think he's acted since)
Just another kid - signing away childhood, youth and early adulthood. Behold the awful price of pod-racing.
Skeptical Chris, yeah it's quite sad. If the film was great, he'd have been a legend amongst his peers. Instead... Well, there are videos of him describing what a shitty time he had afterwards.
Whiny OT-fanboy man-children ruined Jake's life. Being in this film was a fun exciting time for him and he worked hard to bring his role to life. People ought to be ashamed of themselves for throwing 17 years of temper tantrums about a movie they didn't like as much as the first three that they saw when they were kids.
Tom Miller
Instead, Lucas made the story he wanted to tell which was made for people of all ages - just like the OT. He threw in humor and camp into every film.
You can feel all the awkwardness, especially during Anakin's audition. The long
uncomfortable silences and the gloomy faces.
Kind of sad that no one feels comfortable in that situation..
I think it feels like that when you audition for something
@@eduardopazhurtado3882 Yeah, it is. It gets weird at the start, but after a while, the tension goes away. And, people (actors) open up more.
"The most difficult part is to not go too far. Just go strange enough. The biggest trap people fall into with these kinds of movies is they go too far."
Immediately cuts to the actor playing jar jar with with a silicone head on walking around like fucking goofy. Priceless.
By your logic: Look at Andy Serkis climnig on his stomach crawling on his stomach in motion capture suit like a worm. Priceless.
at least he can acknowledge it
“I might have gone a bit too far in a few parts.”
It's like he was high during the entire production process.
probably would have been better if that was the case.
If he was high I think he would have made a better movie because being high makes you creative
True, there are some Cannabis Sativa strains that have the characteristic of giving the user creativity and inspiration.
The director of fantastic 4 2015 would go direct high lol no wonder the movie failed
anakin should have been 15 or 17 in phantom menace
i think more like 12-13 so the whole hormones from puberty would make a bit more sense and a bit less creepy later on in ep 2
Oswaldo Cortes, I agree. It would have been way more believable if he was post puberty. Or at least at the end of it. It's weird for an 8 year old to later on have the hots for Padme, she would have felt almost like an aunt.
Anakin was nine and Padme was fourteen. That's hardly an age difference. A fourth-grader finding an eighth-grader attractive makes perfect sense. Ten years later, he's nineteen and she's twenty-four. Still seem weird?
Hans, I guess if she had looked 14 in the movie then it might have been more believable, but she was like 18 or something.
JoelJoel321
You find it unbelievable that a fourth-grader would find a twelfth-grader attractive? I'm pretty sure every boy alive in the 90's had a crush on Amy Jo Johnson and Britney Spears.
The second kid was the one!
Ugh no. It felt so 'acted'. Jake felt genuine. Little kids really say things like that. They really believe it. That innocent was perfect.
The second kid even looked like Vader with his mask off
I agree. The second kid seemed like he had a darkness hidden in him. Almost like a soon to be “emo kid” which would have fit the origin of Darth Vader a lot better than the exaggerated giddy charisma that Jake showed In his audition tape. It’s almost like George simply forgot what the prequels was supposed to lead up to.
orphanedhanyou clearly you would have been one of the yes men in this video 😂 the second kid was the one. The point of this video is to show all of the missteps they took.
@@xxcampheroxx I think he/she was being sarcastic, a la George Lucas rambling about how Jake Lloyd captured innocence.
"It's gonna be great."
"It's gonna be great."
"It's gonna be great."
"It's gonna be great."
Admiral ackbar : "It's a trap !".
Everyone on the set is a fucking yes man. Lucas is spouting nonsense and nobody is actually checking or saying no to ANYTHING he says. This is so absurd.
they really should make an OFFICE Style comedy just like this about a director making a prequel and just screwing everything up surrounded by yes men and people in silly costumes who know he is nuts, with his agent and P.R guy on the phone to eveyone saying it is wonderful
+Kujakuseki01 To be fair they probably didn't want to get fired
its just like my office.
Evidence he fired any critics?
I think most of the problems with episode one was the writing and direction. To say it's all Jake Lloyd is tough for a kid. But that other kid would not have saved the film. I mean if you make Sam Jackson and Liam Neeson seem like crappy actors... You fucked up the writing.
I thought Jake did awesome in the prequels...
NYRangersfan63 I don't think he did awful, but it wasn't great or even good, and that second kid would have been better.
+NYRangersfan63 He did okay for a child actor; I think the main problem is that having a Star Wars film carried by a child actor is a terrible idea. We didn't need to see Anakin as a child; the details about his mother's death and his slaughtering of the sand people should've all been revealed through cleverly-written expository dialog. He should've already been the rebellious brooding asshole we see in Episode 3, making his rise even more unlikely (Yoda calls Anakin "too old" to train in Episode 1 - imagine if he was already 18, and what kind of consequences would arise from someone so emotive being trained to use the force?). The end of Episode 2 could've shown him switching sides, and Episode 3 could've been all about the rise of the Empire with some actual screen time for Darth Vader.
Jake wasn't the problem. George was the problem.
Spot on
"Wow this sucks"
-What everyone in the room is constantly thinking
I literally feel like I’m watching some sort of SNL parody of the making of the phantom menace 😂
I think that was the point...they made this as a joke...they don't mean more than half the dialogue in this behind the scenes..its a gag like the office
How do you NOT pick the second kid? He was amazing.
+Zach Couch I think maybe he was too good. Certain child actors deliver their lines like adults which makes things weird because... they're delivering their lines like someone whos ten years their senior. So maybe he was acting too seriously for George. Either way it wouldn't make a difference since the script is a disaster
+Cat
I disagree. He was literally the only kid of the three who delivered his lines like a human being.
This did not compute with Jorge.
SupplySide Jesus Lloyd wasnt the right pick either but he also acts less stoic than the only few seconds I have to judge that other kid
Its Darth Vader he is stoic.
Cat it was have been a disaster agreed. They would have made any kid say YIPEY~
I actually feel really sorry for Liam Neeson. He was so excited to be in this movie.
He is remembered as one of the coolest jedi in the star wars universe, don't feel bad, his acting was awesome, he made a really cool mentor to also another awesome jedi: Obi wan Kenobi.
I always wondered how much of an 'accident' his breaking his leg and not being in the other films was...
Didn't he agree to be in the movie without reading a single line from the script?
He even voiced Qui Gon again in the Clone Wars, so I guess he still liked Episode 1.
@@Eyeofthetiger69 Apparently he regrets being in TPM.
Lucas is like that one awkward art student that never looks and sounds happy and never second guesses his own bad creative decisions.
That’s exactly what it is
I can somewhat relate to that.
Yes holy shit are u right
"Jarjar is the key to all of this"
Someone build a time machine NOW
Also, why the heck are they looking for 7 year old actors for this part. If they would have found an actor the same age as Natalie Portman for Ep. 1, they could use the same actor for all the movies.
It's too bad nobody ever asked that question or could ask that question. Given how the second movie was going to be him being so much younger made it weird.
Batman Anakin in the story is supposed to be about 9/10, and Padme/Queen Amidala is supposed to be 14. There's a lot that happens to a kid in those four years, but after 10 years that age gap (that would have once seemed absurd) becomes negligible.
imbecilik
So they got a 7 year old to play the part of a 9/10 year old and got a 18/20 year old to play a 14 year old?
Oda Swifteye Welcome to the world cinema, where people pretend to be people they are not.
God. It is like watching a grisly murder right in front of you. They had a badass little Anakin Skywalker - futureVader kid right there in front of them and they went with Cabbage Patch Kids Face instead... You just can't look away no matter how awful it gets... To be fair though I respect Lucas a lot as a filmmaker and his struggle was real as an artist here. It is tough when you are surrounded by yesmen to find that artist's fire that you once had. Some great works of art just can't be repeated I guess.
Episode 1 is perfect the way it is. I liked Jar jar as a child and this film took me into star wars
All those lucky little boys who DIDN'T get that role.
What went wrong? Almost everything went wrong. Don't want to parrot Plinkett to death but seriously almost every part of these movies was a poorly thought out mess.
No second opinions, no touch ups, nothing. Just them using first drafts only to stumble out of the gate
What went wrong? Not enough JAR JAR!!
Jar Jar Binks youssa no funny
general grievous Mesa hilarious!
He tried to write poetry, instead ended up violently puking everywhere.
MrZurata I'm really surprised Lucas didn't seek out other directors/writers after EP1
I can't believe they filmed the entire thing with Jar Jar and didn't realize it was a terrible idea
A bunch of people did, but they couldn't question George. I feel sorry for each one of them.
Someone questioned him, and he just ingnored it. Evidence that they "couldn't question", please.
Maybe because it wasn't?
@@user-xx6vy9ri8p but it was
@@minnemon110 Why?
I honestly believe when George was explaining the movie to others, it sounded good on paper. I dont think anyone realized how it would've looked if it were in film, obviously the movie that got released was what we got. This movie was full of YES men, what made the Original Star Wars trilogy great was it was a group effort, everyone added something to the movie, unlike the Prequels, where George was the only one taking charge.
The art director, Doug Chiang, seems to be a huge brown-noser.
I saw this more than 10 years ago. I always loved the prequels and Jar Jar Binks. You can tell the enthusiasm and dedication of George and his crew, how commitment they are with the story and how to make it. It's great. George is a genius, a great man.
The problem with the prequels are the yes mens like you are.
@@Zodroo_Tint People like you are why star wars was sold to disney.
you would think Spielberg would have been the voice of reason and said "George, Jar jar is just a terrible idea, how bout just focus on the main story?"
Spielberg has no authority over Lucas, he woulnd't listen to anyone after 1984 when he was divorced from Marcia, who was the real driving force behind Star Wars. Make of that what you will!
Liz Jones Last I know it was George Lucas directing his movies, not his wife
you would think but then why would the crystal skull have a fridge being nuked with indy inside it and surviving he had his chance then to intervene but he stuffed it up
Nah Spielberg is a great director it is true but he's also a movie fan himself. He was just excited to see a new Star Wars movie and his friend Lucas had made excellent movies in the past and wrote many of Spielberg's successful movies with Indiana Jones. Lucas was more the writer and story-driven guy between the two of them in practice. Spielberg never wrote his own stuff. The problem is that Spielberg showing up on set for a day to see what his friend was up to was about as much artistic feedback Lucas received from his entire crew - none at all! No one is offering any constructive criticism or saying something doesn't work and those same people who are being paid good money for their artistic input gave as much as Spielberg did seeing what his good friend was up to on his day off... I feel for Lucas to tell you the truth. One man can't make a great film. Unless you are Gareth Edwards I guess :)
*****
Before he made Star Wars he actually listen to her and his friends who told him what was fucking awful and what kinda worked. Try reading some of the earlier drafts of Star Wars, most of it is pretty clunky and weird. Even then the orginal Star Wars was saved by the editing.
The sins of "The Phantom Menace" playing out right before our eyes. And I don't think there has been any more frightening words uttered in the history of cinema than - "Jar Jar is the key to all this ".
I cringe so much that Anakin is a child when he meets Padme, it's so weird and it's annoys the shit out of me that he impregnates her. WHY did he make him that young!
To show that no one is born evil and that he started off as a genuinely good guy before he fell to the dark side.
@@theunknowncommenter725 Right, it's why Jake Lloyd was cast. The other kid was good but he already looked evil.
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be gret
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
It's gonna be great
That's gonna be great
Narrator: It wasn't great
From the three boys (the third being Jake Lloyd) who were auditioning for Anakin Skywalker, although I didn't like the idea of having Anakin be a kid (they should have started him out as a teenager), I liked the second one. He delivered his lines a lot better.
+Daniella Dahoui Agreed.
+Loveisintheair85xxx Yeah, there's a good video by Belated Media called "What if Star Wars Episode 1 was Good" which has their own re-written version of The Phantom Menace, which includes Anakin Skywalker as a teenager. And overall, it makes more sense to make him a teenager early on, as it also connects to Episode 4 with Luke who had his calling for adventure in his teens.
+Daniella Dahoui Yes, Anakin is supposed to be highly competent, not confused.
George Lucas REALLY liked Jingle All The Way. I can't imagine why.
+Daniella Dahoui What this told me is that Jake Lloyd was the worst possible choice... and that George Lucas is clearly a kid in an adult's body. A nerdy kid with bad taste.
Jar Jar is the key to all of this ! did I just hear that correctly haha ha ha
jar jar even got into senate, and everyont got WTF'ed by it
Don't ever disrespect death jar jar sidious
Jar Jar is the most powerful Sith Lord in the universe, he literally controls all events.
Jar Jar is snoke
Maybe Darth Jar Jar was the original plan after all.
7:44 That's your Darth Vader there, yes, of all the characters in the galaxy, that's your Darth Vader.
4:08 imagine that thing driving down the highway
"They live on the moons of Lego I think"
+Gnome Child iego
Ha, I was thinking the same thing.
'JAR JAR IS THE KEY TO ALL OF THIS' hahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha
I severely LOL'ed at that too.
That was funny in hind-sight. But this whole video is just an unfair, out-of-context assassination, perfectly illustrated by the JarJar comment.
Matt Kindig how is it unfair and out of context? I actually thought it could have been harsher on him, I've seen more damming behind the scenes stuff than this that could have been included. GL made bad decision after bad decision and even when something was going ok he swooped in and ruined it with his bullshit IMO
Our movie is in the hands of a CGI rabbit, what could possibly go wrong?
Matt Kindig The only assassination in this video is the murdering of the Star Wars franchise by none other than George Lucas and his loyal pack of yes men. Go out and do some research. Look into the behind the scenes for the original trilogy, and look at how vastly it differs from the making the of prequels. Go and read some of the horror stories in the accounts of people who have suffered working under this man. The reason the original movies came out to be the masterpieces they're revered as today was because there was people there to stop Lucas, and tell him, no, that idea is terrible.
Just to put it into perspective, in the original screenwriting for A New Hope according to Lucas, Luke was supposed to be a 65 year old man with a robot head, Han Solo was an anthropomorphic frog, and C3PO was a shady, car salesman-type character. That should say enough. He may have created Star Wars, but if it weren't for the people around him who shaped it into what it is today, it would have just been a shitty sci fi flop in the 70s.
I really do feel bad for George, there's something tragic about him :/
“Jar Jar is the key to all this”...
Annnd...that’s all folks.
He was mainly referring to the SFX that would make him “work”, as for the rest of the alien characters. But yes, Jar Jar served no other purpose - which is bad.
The making of the prequels are very telling and far more entertaining and dramatic than the actual movies. The Crew should have won Oscars for their acting performances around George.
James Carmichael Nah, they weren't even trying to hide their disgust. Look at their faces again.
They were like scared or horrified by being involved in it.
6:33 Ewan described the movie in a few seconds
[Boy]: "Are you an angel?"
It was at this moment Portman knew she fucked up.
“I’m gonna fly to New York, and then show Natalie the script. It’s kind of hard to get an actress to sign on for three movies..”
Poor Jake
I Know right.
Whiny OT-fanboys ruined his life.
+slonekettering25 Does your mother know you've been blazing it up with Johnny Hopkins and Brennan Huff every day?
slonekettering25 in minute 7:45 i feel so sorry for him, he seems legitimaly frustrated...
Even adult actors struggled with dialog. It must have been so hard for a 10-year-old kid on a movie set where no one is challenging the director. Laurence Olivier would have struggled to make anything out of lines like "Yippee!" and "Spinning is a good trick".
The greatest video of all time is George and the producers reaction to seeing the film for the first time. Funny how they are all talking about how it's gonna be great to realizing they're fucked... well, not fucked, I mean George goes on to get $4 billion.
Basically it boils down to people being flabbergasted that the people Lucas hired to help him make the prequels were largely in sync with him creatively (you know, as you might expect) and didn't constantly trash talk him while being filmed for behind-the-scenes footage. There's no real evidence that Lucas was surrounded by "yes men" to a greater extent than is usually the case.
There's this whole mythology about how Lucas was constantly being challenged and put in his place by others during the making of the original trilogy, but if you do a little actual research you find very little evidence of that either, besides some claims made by disgruntled ex-producer Gary Kurtz who was fired halfway through Empire for incompetence and spent the next several decades constructing a self-aggrandizing narrative which recast himself as the hero of Star Wars.
Jake probably had the best read of all of the actors, even if he messed up the line. He actually had some inflection in his voice whereas the other two were kinda bland.
Jake gets a bad rep. He did what George wanted and even the best actors struggle with bad dialogue/shitty direction. Great actors like Sam Jackson and Liam Neeson gave wooden performances in these movies.
Also I like when Spielberg came to set. Cool to see him supporting his best friend.
The other kid that looked more like Mark Hamil just did a way better job from the word go and with enough studying and direction could had brought a incredible performance as a child actor. Jake definitely had a tone to his voice that lit up the scene more but it must have been a huge pain to constantly stop scenes because the child can't even remember the lines. Like in the audition Jake is just riffing into directions too far from the script, that's chaos for a directors especially one like Geoege who is also thinking about how they are going to pull off all that CGI in 1999. Should George had directed? No of course not in hindsight as he lacks confidence but at the same time the casting director really blew it here.
Should have just had it be Hayden Christansen from the start.... the 7 year old kid was an unrealistic, unfunny bummer the whole movie
He really didn’t. It comes off “hammy”, overacted, and fake-enthusiastic in the way you see high school play actors. It was easily worst of the three we saw.
This shows just how crazy Lucas had gotten...that blond kid looked JUST like Mark Hamill but Lucas just couldn't see it
That's the problem. They say in the full documentary he looked like a little Luke, not Luke's dad as a kid. It was too close, plus they liked Jakes performed because it was innocent and genuine. Go talk to a 9 year old for a little while, they are goofy and say things that sounds odd to adults but are full of imagination and wonder.
I bet the other two kids who didn't get the Anakin part had a huge sigh of relief, looking back now.
The middle kid was better. He portrayed more confidence and seriousness in my opinion.
the middle kid even looks like luke skywalker a little
The second kid also looked like Darth Vader without his helmet in Episode VI. Why the hell wasn't HE cast as Anakin?!
“I may have gone too far in a few places”
Second boy auditioned for anakin should have got the part
I can't decide which is worse; the Phantom Menace as a whole or Darth Vader's prolonged "NOOOOO!" in Episode Three.
The Phantom Menace is worse, I can justify Darth Vader's prolonged "NOOO" in Ep3.
Attack of the Clones was even worse
Kid #2 gave a better performance than everyone in the Phantom Menace combined.
+AltoCat1 nope. Liam was great, ewan was great, Ian was great, guy who was Darth Maul was great even though he had 2 lines, yeah
+Zhake not as good as Leon Nelson .
+BeeSeeBee I love Leon Nelson! He is far and away a better actor than Liam Neeson and an all round great guy.
Ewan McGregor is amazing, fuck off.
Kid 2 dodged a bullet.
I like to think he went on to become a successful environmental attorney who now protects bird sanctuaries
I loved the prequels, I think many of the fans who disliked the films were far too hateful towards George Lucas and the actors involved.
Lucas made the films the way he wanted to make them, people think because they're fans of the originals that they're owed something.
And here were are.....after The Rise Of Skywalker many people want him back
It wouldn't make a difference, the prequels are terrible
You can't make Star Wars without George Lucas, that is a FACT.
Best Line: "Jarjar is a key to all this"
Doomed from the start.
Do you even know what he meant by that?
Hermos do tell
I grew up with Star Wars - I was born in 1972. Seeing A New Hope in the theater (Century 22 in San Jose, CA), is literally my earliest memory. I was hooked - lunch boxes, t-shirts, bed sheets, curtains, underwear, trading cards, (and of course those amazing toys) - I begged my parents for all of it. For years, I lived in anticipation of the sequels. It literally defined my childhood, and my love for those three films has continued well into adulthood. That being said, the prequels were not that bad. They had expectations that could NEVER be lived up to, ever. Yes, Jar Jar is the Menace the title refers to, but the rest of it is... decent. Nobody will ever, ever capture the magic of the first three films, and that's ok. I hope that Star Wars lives on for generations to come, and I was privileged to be around when it started.
Do you think the next star wars will be great? original cast : )
rainbowsalads I hope so, because the franchise really needs some greatness. I was never a big Luke fan - always a Han Solo kid at heart - and I can't wait to see him back in the cockpit of the Falcon!
I feel bad for Ahmed Best. He seems like such a good, down-to-earth, chill guy. It's not his fault that he got stuck playing one of the suckiest characters in all of Star Wars history.
I mean, for a lot of these people, this was their big break. The only actors who really survived these movies were the ones who had been doing tons of stuff before this. Even Natalie Portman barely scraped by.
George Lucas: The most difficult part is to not go too far. The biggest trap people fall into in these kinds of movies is they go too far
Also George Lucas when watching the film: I may have gone too far in a few places