As soon as the Trade Federation heavies started speaking he leaned over to me and said, "This is *so* offensive." Then when Jar Jar Binks opens his yap, he said, "Dude, this is *so* racist."

I said, "It has only just begun."

In this second time around I noticed details I missed at first viewing, like the ET's in the Senate chamber, just after Queen Amidala calls for the no-confidence vote.

Later, I asked myself: This is all about Trade Fed troops on Naboo, yes? Which the Fed denies.

Where are the Jedi witnesses? As the guardians of peace and justice throughout the galaxy, I would think that the personal statements of two Jedi Knights might carry some weight. But they're not there. What gives? Even if the Fed and their allies still bog-down the proceedings in argument, the mere presence of Jedi with the Queen should count for something, yes?

Also, I've got to wonder how the Queen's ship escapes Naboo without shields, all those blockade guns shooting so close to her ship that they pick off three of the four R2 units. {my brother's responce to the contrived scene of the Queen asking about R2's number involved a certain hand gesture in a wanking motion. This is a droid: you people buy and sell them, and you want to give it a medal?}

After the movie, my brother asked: "If Annakin Skywalker loses his Mom, would that make him Little Orphan Ani?"

Star Trek: Insurrection is the movie you want to attack for racism. You've got the Federation, whose "multi-culturalism" is especially prominent in this film (notice the "duck-blind" crew or that of the Enterprise). And then there's the Bak'u, whose welfare is apparently more important than the entire Federation population's. Notice their racial makeup (according to modern-day standards). The movie's message: 600 white people are more important than the multi-racial Federation. So there. :P

The Trade Federation ships were trying to disable the Queen's ship, not destroy it. They were knocking off the droids to keep the hyperdrive from being repaired.

Now, on to my "second viewing" story. My friend, his wife, and his younger cousin and I went to see it. (We were taking the cousin, actually, who's visiting from Japan.) Anyway, annoying tear in the screen aside, I have to say this movie is aging rather oddly for me. The parts that I liked the first time around I found much better the second. That's mostly the lightsaber duels, some of the Tattooine stuff, and Coruscant. It was almost worth it just to learn how to pronounce that damned name.

However, the parts I disliked the first time began to wear extremely thin the second. Basically, all of the attempts at humor. So where is Episode I's ultimate place in the Star Wars pantheon? Well...it's better than the holiday special. And there aren't any muppets.

Uhh... Frank, I highly doubt that's the message behind Insurrection. All it was going to do was expand life-spans rather insignificants for all those people, so what does that have to do with the lives of 600 white people being more important than the lives of all the multi-racial Federation (which is only so multi-racially portrayed in those two hours, I may point out )? The Ba'ku would have welcomed any peaceful people who wanted to live there, most likely. It's not like we're talking genocide at all. That's a rather ridiculous claim...

Anyway, I'm sorry that I fail to see how The Phantom Menace is so racist... unless you're referring to the way they speak, but you try coming up with a new way for aliens to speak (without subtitles, of course)!

Elim: From what I understand, the technobabble particles at the Ba'ku planet would have had significant medical benefits for nearly everyone in the Federation or elsewhere. It's their planet, so the Ba'ku can keep them there if they really want to, but because Picard supports this it comes across as "the Ba'ku are better than everyone else, and that's the way it is."

The Ba'ku are entitled to their planet, but if they can't defend it, it's their problem. Picard is from the Federation, yet defends the Ba'ku. The implication here is that the Ba'ku are more important than the Federation.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
"Seriously though, I love Earth. It's where I keep all my stuff." - Simon Sizer

Elim, what you mention is actually part of the problem. Last time around, Lucas created his fair share of alien tounges. (Jawa, Wookie, longnosed spyguy, Hutt, Breen...) Often we didn't even see subtitles. You had to figure things out from context.

This time, we saw maybe one new language. (Perhaps even less, assuming that people were speaking Huttese, which seems a fair assumption on a planet controled by them.) Does Lucas think we're no longer smart enough to figure things out unless he draws us a diagram?