STAR WARS EPISODE I in 3D gave Chris a splitting headache!

So yesterday evening, my lifelong best friend Chad and I met up in Durham to do something we had never done before. For all the things we've done together, we had yet to see a Star Wars movie together in the theater.

Okay, we've done that now. I'm thankful that we got to fix that. But that's the only good thing that came out of last night's screening of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D(?!?).

Yeah, a Star Wars movie in 3D. I know, it looks good on paper, buuuuut...

Now I have to be honest: there are some parts of the movie that look far better in 3D than they deserve to be. The podrace sequence, f'rinstance. But I'm inclined to believe that's only because it's already moving so fast that your eyeballs are being vicariously assaulted before your gray matter gets time to register the sensation. Unfortunately a movie consumed with things like boardroom meetings and bureaucratic theatrics makes the 3D a tedious thing to sit through. That's when the 3D works at all.

Because there are loads of times during Star Wars Episode I's 3D edition that the 3D isn't there to begin with! Trust me folks, I took off my 3D specs a number of times during the second half or so of the movie and, I couldn't tell ANY difference at all between the 3D conversion and the 2D original that I have seen about 9 times already on the big screen. And then there is what was likely the most significant reason why my visual cortex felt burnt afterward: the schizoid use of 2D and 3D elements simultaneously. I saw plenty of that during the Coruscant scenes in particular before giving up and letting myself just watch the darn thing.

The Phantom Menace in 3D adds nothing particularly enjoyable to the experience of watching a Star Wars movie in theaters... and that's something that I've never had happen to be before, in over thirty years of going to see Star Wars flicks at a cinema. Taking a movie shot in standard 2D and converting it into 3D has proven time and time again to be an expensive and glorious mess. I had hoped, sincerely hoped, that Star Wars Episode I would be the breakthrough movie that put an end to the never-ending parade of 3D post-production disaster. Heck, we've known this was coming for years before Avatar ever came out. In Industrial Light and Magic did I trust.

But no, I cannot recommend Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D. Neither can I see myself going to any of the other Star Wars movies set to be released in 3D, one a year for the next five years.

Now if George Lucas wants to produce a new Star Wars film trilogy, and actually shoot them in true honest-to-goodness stereo camera setup THREE DIMENSIONS, I'll gladly see those in the theaters a dozen times over. But turning 2D into 3D?

Who'da thunk that I'd leave a Star Wars movie... any Star Wars movie... cringing about having watched a steaming pile of bantha poodoo.

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STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE was released 10 years ago today

So very long we waited for it. And now looking back, it seems like only yesterday...

It was ten years ago today that Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened, the first Star Wars movie since 1983.

I saw it twice on opening day... and both times before 6 a.m.! The week before its release date I camped out overnight at the West End Cinema in Burlington, North Carolina (following a great evening of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Elon) so that I could get tickets the next day for me and a bunch my friends at the midnight premiere. And then a few days later The Good Morning Show on WFMY was asking some Star Wars trivia questions and asking people to call in with the answers. I didn't even know it was a contest at the time. The question was "What Star Wars planet has mile-high skyscrapers?" and bleary-eyed that I was just waking up, I knew it was Coruscant. So I phoned in and turned out I had just won two tickets for a 3:10 a.m. showing on opening day.

Long story short: about thirty of us saw the first showing of Star Wars Episode I at 12:01 a.m., and then I hightailed it to Elon, picked up good friend Clark and we sped off to Greensboro for his first time watching the movie, my second. A reporter from WFMY was there and he asked if we could stick around to be interviewed live for The Good Morning Show, so we did that for two segments and then headed back home.

Looking back on it, I've mixed feelings for The Phantom Menace. No doubt a lot of us now think that the movie could have been better. That our enthusiasm for it stemmed primarily from the fact that we had been starved of a new Star Wars movie for so long. But I also think that whatever shortcomings Star Wars Episode I had, were more than made up for by the subsequent two prequels. As its own film, it's not half bad, but not really half good either. Taken as the initial chapter of the Skywalker family saga that arcs throughout all six Star Wars movies however, it works pretty well.

But, that's neither here nor there. The reason for this post is to celebrate that day, ten years ago, when the fans' prayers were answered and we finally got a new Star Wars film. So Happy Birthday The Phantom Menace! :-)

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