just randomly started reading this a while ago and now I'm up way later than I planned to be https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-oral-history

it's pretty interesting for me to revisit this film and read about it in this context because George Lucas is 100% right about it. I thought this was pretty much the greatest film of all time when I saw it in 7th grade.

then, by the time I was in high school, it started to be known that it Sucks. In my 20s I was introduced to the RLM videos and loved them. I think everyone hit a point where they accepted some kind of consensus that it's Bad.

RLM made an incredibly compelling case to me that George Lucas is a stupid asshole who mailed it in on these films. And reading this really hammered home how outrageously unfair and stupid of a concept that is.

I spent a long time operating under the assumption and understanding that these films are worthless and terrible. If you watch them, you've gotta be doing it ironically or something.

I am thankful that I've completely revisited them last year. Chatting with some great people on here really helped me open my mind up to them again, namely @DurgeDiggler @hotgirltragic and @Kello_Ren

I heard a quote from George Lucas somewhere in the past few years about the PT being about "what happened," and that stuck with me. As obvious and dumb as is it sounds- what if everything that happened in them was actually just the story as it was intended to be?

Maybe GL didn't fuck the whole thing up and was actually just unapologetically telling the story he wanted to, and it didn't have to emulate the original films at all. And, while this also sounds obvious and dumb, you can have a great time revisiting them with that understanding

Anyway, I think there's a lot of very good stuff in The Phantom Menace, and now being in my 30s and realizing that internet outrage nerd culture is just always frothing at the mouth about things that are generally pretty dumb, I'm very glad I returned with an open mind

The Last Jedi specifically drove me to all of this, so I also have to send an endless amount of appreciation to Rian Johnson for making the film that made me more of a fan than any had before, which also unlocked this revisiting of the PT.

And, ironically, the completely insane hatred thrown at that one made me revisit some of the same dumb shit rained on the PT for a decade. And my own participation in it, years ago.

Really glad I'm here though and have found the new appreciation for these films and am looking forward to starting the winter quarantine marathon with The Phantom Menace tomorrow. George Lucas is visionary and, thankfully in my case, he was right that I'd figure it out over time

Anyway, check out that article because it's a really fascinating read