bored

Yes, if you assume simple answers then yes, the film "works". But it makes the film as a whole feel shallow and lazy if it doesn't explain hardly anything that's going on. Yes, you can assume everything I pointed out, but you can do that for something like the Transformers films. Sure we never learn Megatron's backstory and motivations besides a basic "I want power", but you can assume with a few slight context clues here and there. Doesn't make him a well written villain. This comes back to my main issue with the prequels. They want to have their cake and eat it too. I'm not saying something like the camps should have been Auschwitz-like, but showing them as prisons to demonstrate Naboo's subjugation would have added tangible stakes, and the fact that the prequels are both goofy, childlike, family fun, while also supposed to be a more complex, semi-political Star Trek like film doesn't work. The force is both magic that you can make up whatever you want about, and a definite, measurable, sci-fi concept. Those are contradictory. As far as I know, Gandalf's magic is not also a complex physics system.

Yeah, I guess I do remember that mentioned in one line of dialogue. Would've been nice if they'd shown the camps and how horrible they were.

Me too.

You argued that I believed that. But besides that, my problems still remain. Yes, I literally know why things are happening, but again, there's no real depth, discussion, and further reasoning for it. Yes, trade routes are taxed, but why is that enough for them to invade Naboo in particular? It's not the Republic capital, so why not do this on Coruscant? Is Naboo rich in resources? Idk, but I guess the weird laser/plasma room in the Maul fight is supposed to imply this. If it is rich in resources, why is the blockade a problem? Most of the actual political intrigue is sidelined because Lucas seems to want to have it both ways. Is the Republic corrupt? We're told that but never really shown it. Chancellor Volorum seemed fairly reasonable, merely wanting to assess the threat before acting on it. If anything Amidala was the unreasonable and corrupt one, bidding for removal immediately in favor of her senator rather than bring the Jedi in as witnesses (who the Chancellor sent btw), allow the committee to see what was happening, show the recordings from her ship of her advisor begging for her to bow down to the Federation, or argue her point better. All we ever get of the Republic's supposed corruption is someone will argue for an extreme move (Amidala in TPM and Jar Jar in AOTC), and everyone agrees with it besides the separatists who are also never specified for their reasons for leaving. No real discussion is ever really had on what is really going on. In terms of the Trade Federation, yes, invading a planet is not good, but that is not enough of a credible threat for the audience to care, because for all we know, they're holding the planet but doing nothing bad to the people, considering the message begging for Amidala to come back was implied to be set up by the Trade Federation, we don't even know if her people are being subjugated or tortured or killed. In contrast, the threat for every other Star Wars film, even the sequels, is very clear. This subjectively prevents many audiences from being engaged or caring because they don't know what they're supposed to be afraid of. Add to that the unclear reasons as to why they'd go as far to blockade and invade a planet over taxes, and you get a very muddled threat overall. On a subjective level, the acting doesn't help, because Shmi seems bored, and obviously many child actors are fairly poor, unless you're an incredibly talented director which even Lucas himself has admitted to not being. Even the writing feels fairly generic, almost like a Disney original movie rather than a supposed space opera. It's all very surface level, like much of TPM. The Sith have the same problem. Yes, they're working with the invaders, but what are they? I know what they are because of The Old Republic games, but that's my problem. The movie gives nothing besides they're evil Jedi. Are they all ex-Jedi? Does the dark side automatically make them evil? Do they have their own philosophy? What do they want revenge for? These are not nitpicks, these are the main villains' main motivations. We need to know these things. Again, there's implications that the dark side automatically causes evil and the name itself is obvious, but if the prequels are supposed to be building on Star Wars, you would think this issue would be far more explored. That's the problem, it's still in the movie. "You're with him! You brought him here to kill me!" It's just that now all of the setup for that is gone, so now it comes out of nowhere besides "Obi-Wan's been here hasn't he?" That's my entire issue with Anakin's fall. All of the setup of Palpatine, Anakin's motivation to preserve Padme, and his want of power goes out the window in favor of "Dark side makes you insane and evil because Yoda said it forever dominates your destiny." It's so simplistic. That's what bothers me about the prequels overall. Lucas said that the Clone Wars were barely a part of Anakin's fall. That's so much less interesting to me. The terrifying part of the Vader reveal is that this man who we were told was a good friend, was turned into this machine like monster, and as far as we knew at the time, was warped by war, being slowly chipped away at who he was until he became more machine than man, twisted and evil. Maybe he initially drew on the dark side to win the war, and it corrupted his mind over time, or he needed the dark side to survive his injuries of war, or even both. That's what would have really made Anakin a sympathetic and depth-filled character in my eyes.

I knew this would come. The old cop-out. "It's too smart for you. You just want action. You hate exposition." This could not be further from the truth. My favorite Star Wars story by far, is Knights of the Old Republic 2. And I hate the action gameplay of the game. But I love the story, the exposition, the characters, the acting, the music, the atmosphere, and above all, the philosophy and the gorgeous dialogue. And that game is at least 15 times the length of The Phantom Menace. If anyone's got time for exposition when it comes to Star Wars, it's me. My problems with the TPM, is it doesn't delve into any of what you speak of. It doesn't set up the state of the galaxy. It's called the Republic but it seems to function more like the UN. I don't know what the Trade Federation want besides something about taxation that is never specified in favor of action. I don't know what threat the Trade Federation pose because we never see or hear of them doing anything truly horrific. Yes they unlawfully invade, and they say Naboo's people are dying, but we don't know why or how, besides some vague notion of a blockade maybe causing starvation, or maybe the droids are murdering citizens. It doesn't set up the Sith/Jedi conflict. Palpatine and Maul talk about wanting revenge but we are never told what the revenge is for. We don't even know if the revenge is history related or personal for Palpatine and Maul. We don't even know what the Sith are besides an assumption that they're the Jedi but bad! Oh and they were extinct for whatever reason. It doesn't lead directly into the clone wars, end of the Republic (whatever the Republic actually is) and the Jedi. It takes 10 years of set up and events off-screen that set up all of that. It's as much a philosophical thesis as Batman v. Superman is. Ideas are hinted at but never explored.

I would say one of my biggest issues with the prequels is how disconnected each of them feel. There is a disconnect between A New Hope and Empire, but there's still a strong connection in that our characters are more or less the same people as they were from the last film (their introduction), and A New Hope sets up Luke's hatred for Vader in Empire, his connection to Obi-Wan, and how he already knows of the force and the Jedi. Whereas you don't need TPM as Maul is barely (if ever) mentioned again, Qui-Gon is only alluded to in the latter two, and even then Yoda was originally written as Obi-Wan's only master anyway, and Anakin (and even Obi-Wan to a certain extent) is a completely different person by the second movie so his introduction was worthless. All it showed that sets up the second film is Anakin's connection with his mother which isn't even that convincing in my eyes anyway in TPM. Plus everyone's kind of introduced in the second film anyway. Even the third film has the same problem. It has a bit more connection to the previous with the same villain (dying immediately), and Anakin being more similar than from 1 to 2, but considering how the context from the second film makes the third film worse, the movie works better overall as its own thing, separated from the other two.

I think cutting out TPM movie would have made the series more efficient.

Nothing Star Wars can excite me knowing that there will never be another Knights of the Old Republic 2. No Disney Star Wars property will ever touch the darkness, nuance, horror, depth and originality that that game provided, and certainly not from the director of Indiana Jones 5: Depression of the Lost Youth. At best it can only... echo it, if you will.

That's a shame, I figured that's what it was but still was hoping for it to be Williams. Either way it was at least nice to hear it before the films abandon the old themes almost entirely.

This will always be one of my favorites. Don't know if it's written entirely by Williams or just the second half but the tension in the first half building to the very last time we ever hear the Harry/family theme until the 8th movie is incredibly satisfying:

But the mouse didn't make those so they don't exist! (Other than to be butchered)

Had to chip in. Might be too late, but I really want to support this. Hopefully it gets more eyes on it soon, because this is truly amazing work. Young deserves to be known as one of the greats.

Thank you! Still busy with university for the most part, so I might not make another one for a bit, but I'd like to do a few more for fun at some point.

My first one is an alternate take on the beginning of "A Flaw in the Plan" since I couldn't resist integrating the "House Cup" cue with your themes. There's a new variation of "Ron and Hermione" mixed in with it, as well as a Chamber of Secrets style ending to the "Wondrous World" reprise. I decided to leave a little bit of silence until the Deathly Hallows are discussed to allow a little bit of breathing space to let everything sink in. Hope you guys enjoy it! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ISQmcPgscOm-FOVfZKa8751upC-S797E/view?usp=sharing

Yeah! Since it has your themes contained in them, I was just going to post them here since I don't want people on YouTube to think I made them myself.

Had this idea recently, would you guys be alright if I made some alternate tracks based on this project? I have a few ideas I want to try out while still keeping your thematic material.

It just makes me appreciate how beautiful the film is shot with the contrast of the glow of the elves, the greys of the dwarves, and the darkness of the men, eventually leading to the orange fires of Mount Doom. Whereas that intro is very repetitive visually.

Unpopular opinion: I never liked Where No One Goes either. It just doesn't fit the style of the rest of the music at all besides the vague Icelandic/Nordic connection. The electronic vocals and drums make me cringe every single time without fail, and I really wish that whole sequence was just a new version of "Test Drive" in E Major the whole time instead. At least in "Test Drive" the guitar's way in the background and blends well with the other instruments.

New Berk / The Village Hymn is the highlight of the score, if for no other reason than for the choral versions played in "Once There Were Dragons".

HTTYD 3 is mine. The choral writing, and overall more symphonic style really makes it feel like a fully matured series through the score alone.

You can really hear his technique in action in his music of layering 4 piano tracks that act as the different parts of the orchestra. The scores are just so layered and have incredible attention to detail.

Absolutely, and I still love the whole score, but if someone's not into bombastic music in general, those would be the highlights with the least of that.

The second movie had the same problem for me. I couldn't hear a damn bit of the score in the movie itself at least half the time. The third one at least has a few more moments where there's not too much going on sound-wise so the music can shine more. Definitely, but there's plenty of gems in the first one as well! Absolutely a lot of hectic, bombastic/relentless action, but plenty of lovely quieter moments as well, such as "Romantic Flight", "Forbidden Friendship", "This is Berk's" intro, "Where's Hiccup?", "Coming Back Around", and "The Vikings Have Their Tea". Not to mention the sheer thematic depth even in the first film.

Such a beautiful theme. I love that it's an evolution of the original berk theme as shown in "Stronger Together" by playing them both at the same time.

I personally always enjoy when an orchestra is pushed to its limits. Overwhelming action is definitely my favorite, as long as it's actual crafted chaos with every part of the orchestra being represented, and not just say... loud, overworked strings, brass, and percussion with ugly, loud synths. *cough*