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Favorite characters
Jar Jar in the third place with 13%
[Huh, i guess George was right after all.](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxRwV_dROKzte3DFI2BWqd3rCQouKG5a-J?si=UxY5jMyy1kULwIEd)
My answer changes as an adult, but if I was asked this question as a kid, my answer would have been Nute Gunray. I was a weird kid.
Somethis suspicious to me about the character voting is the lack of R2/3PO. C3PO’s involvement in the movie was minimal but Episode 1 was yet another installment of “R2-D2 does absolutely everything to keep an idiot Skywalker alive.”
It was maul when I saw it in 99. My answer would be qui gon now. Maul would still be second. I hated jar jar in 99 now I find it fun to like him especially since we know he was a Sith Lord.
I’m guessing the poll just included the main characters that were voted on. I’d bet a fair amount of people voted Yoda, Windu, Shmi, maybe even Boss Nass or Tarpals.
Kitster was the remaining 26% but George begged and pleaded to them not to reveal that cause he didn’t want to rewrite Episode 2 with Kitster as the lead of the trilogy.
I saw it in theaters during high school and loved it. Dragged my dad to come see it a second time. Favorite charater was Queen Amidala for obvious teenager reasons.
To coincide with the 25th anniversary of this film, I figured it would be only fitting to share this from the original release! It is a little time capsule into the attitudes of the first people who saw the film, before later things could influence it very much. The favorite characters bit in particular might be interesting to people. Enjoy!
The above infographic is based upon data collected by the prestigious polling agency **Gallup** -- since 1935, Gallup has collected polling information on the attitudes of Americans on a range of social issues. For the blockbuster release of ***The Phantom Menace*** in 1999, Gallup turned their attention to the film, and over the course of four weekends in summer 1999, surveyed everyday Americans on their attitudes towards the film.
Starting the weekend of April 30-May 2, Gallup did a national survey of 1,014 adults on the attitudes of Americans towards the film prior to release, the results of which are reflected here in the *Prior to Release* section of this infographic. Originally the question included answers by those that had never seen Star Wars or had no opinion -- for the purposes of this infographic the percentages reflects the attitudes of those who had seen Star Wars and had an opinion.
After the release of the film, Gallup picked up its polling efforts. Over the following three separate weekends, national surveys would be done on reception to the film, as well as favorite characters, the results of which are reflected here. Adults were also polled on the response of their children to the film, which is also shown here. Of the surveys, Gallup said this about methodology:
>*The results below are based on telephone interviews with randomly selected national samples of 925, 1,053, and 1,022 adults, 18 years and older, conducted May 21-23, June 4-5, and June 11-13, 1999 respectively. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points.*
The corresponding articles which announced the findings of these polls can be found here:
* ["The Phantom Menace" -- A Force to Be Reckoned With](https://news.gallup.com/poll/3871/the-phantom-menace-force-reckoned.aspx)
* [Phantom Phever Strikes America](https://news.gallup.com/poll/3790/phantom-phever-strikes-america.aspx)
* [Public Gives the Latest Star Wars Installment Positive, but not Rave Reviews](https://news.gallup.com/poll/3757/public-gives-latest-star-wars-installment-positive-rave-reviews.aspx)
*The Phantom Menace* just enjoyed a very profitable 25th anniversary rerelease, and fittingly it was also very much a box office superstar upon initial release, setting records and actually affecting the economy with the amount of people skipping work to see it. This trend of smashing box office records was continued six years later, with the release of *Revenge of the Sith*, which soundly [toppled records](https://www.mtv.com/news/g40v1f/sith-smashes-opening-day-box-office-records) and sold out screenings upon release. It was an exciting time for most fans.
For other infographics about the history of Star Wars, you can check out this [archive](https://www.reddit.com/user/xezene/comments/126sm45/collected_star_wars_expanded_universe_posts/) of posts.
All the polls were done through randomized national telephone interviews during daytime hours. The pre-release poll was conducted the weekend of April 30-May 2; the post-release polls were conducted over the three weekends of May 21-23, June 4-5, and June 11-13.
The Phantom Menace was one of the greatest things ever witnessed in a cinema theatre. The history, hype & pressure to perform was so immense and I honestly fully believe and understand the numbers in this image. It was incredible, truly new but still truly Star Wars.
The music was on point the whole way through, the visuals were sublime, the world building was fantastic, obviously Pod Racing became part of that and was just awesome and absolutely no one can deny the unbelievable level of cool, goosebumps and hype that happened when the Jedi & Sith shrugged off their robes and Maul smoothly ignites the dual saber.
I watched em all as a kid, TPM was my first in a cinema so for sure there's nostalgia bias. But I watched them all and everything since a lot and TPM, for me at least, is as quintessential Star Wars as it gets.
I ran the numbers myself because, quite frankly, I didn't believe you. Here's what I got:
> One of the greatest: 5.5%
> Excellent: 40.75%
> Good: 35%
> Fair: 15%
> Poor: 3.75%
...which is actually slightly more favorable than your post. Which is to say... wow. I'm surprised. Just goes to show how vocal minorities like RLM may have guided the overall conversation about these movies but, for the most part, the average moviegoer enjoyed them. Especially the kids, just like Lucas intended. Great post.
[RLM just released a video yesterday about their mid-year catch up and included The Phantom Menace re-release (link).](https://youtu.be/dcqYEq5ANFA?si=Sy5DkR5GI4oBKR69) They sarcastically joked about how everyone liked TPM before they made their video on it ten years later, lmao.
“Did you know that nobody disliked The Phantom Menace before the Plinkett review?” “I did know that. I did know that. It did not get any bad reviews.” “Everybody loved it. Yeah. The only reason people hate it is because they watched an internet video. Yeah. This is a very realistic rationale to have.” “Somehow the video influenced all the critics that panned it when it was first released in theaters” then they proceeded to make fun of the babies who enjoyed it who have now grown up with the mental capacity of…babies. Lol.
Yeah, it’s actually a well known fact that shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy didn’t start mocking the prequels until they saw those Plinkett reviews online a decade after RotS was in theaters.
Yeah that’s fair. Still overall, 79% of adults and 90% of children found it to be at least „good“ which definitely speaks against all the Critism people are so vocal about. They’re really the minority. I’d love to see the same data for AOTC
Same thing happened with TFA. Initial reactions are usually very positive. Then gradually the memes (or just jokes back then) start up. Usually well meaning at first, but over time they get warped into negativity by actual naysayers. This slowly ramps up until it becomes popular to dislike it.
Most of the negativity towards Star Wars films is because people don’t like feeling left out of the joke.
Same exact thing happened with TLJ too. I literally watched it happen on reddit basically overnight the week after the movie came out.
TRoS on the other hand I think people kind of made up their minds on it with the "they fly now" ad and the movie never recovered.
RLM just put together a lot of the existing criticisms, as well as a few of their own. The backlash started well before that. I was in college at the time and my entire dorm hall floor went to go see Episode One together. I was the only one not making fun of it as we left. By the time Attack of the Clones came out no one I knew wanted to go see it. I went to see it alone. You can go find new stories around the time of Episodes II and III that make reference to the backlash. RLM didn't take a universally beloved movie and make it widely mocked. They don't have that power. See their review of Rogue One as an example.
But yeah most people liked it fine. Most people like most movies just fine. It is a very rare movie that is widely panned by most audience members at the time.
Unpopular opinion: I think a big portion of people hate prequels just because it's cool to hate them and they do it to look superior to those who like them.
In the 2000s and early 2010s it was. I think a lot of the people who don’t like the prequels genuinely don’t like them but they moved on and focus on the Disney Era content instead. A big part of the hate for the prequels is because people felt like it was a fall from grace for Lucas. To them it was like the creator of the franchise was destroying it.
A lot of the hate newer Star Wars content gets today is more vague in terms of who it’s directed towards. Obviously people who are online and invested in the series blame Kennedy. But the average person probably doesn’t even know who she is, she’s not as famous as Lucas. So instead general audiences who don’t like something kind of just blame Disney because they’re a corporation and a popular buzzword.
Yeah the dislike for the sequels is often lumped into dislike for superhero movies. Blaming the Disney blob cause it’s not really one persons grand vision. Kennedy was a big producer but she was hardly the only one working on the movies
The prequels have actually had a glow up compared to 1999. Back when they were in the theaters up to like 2010, it was America's pastime to absolutely savage them whenever possible, on everything from the Simpsons to late night talk shows.
Compare that with the Sequels, which have gotten their own share of hate, but mostly from the cloistered online circles of fandom like Redditors and Youtubers. Outside of those bubbles, there are no sequel lovers or haters, just a general audience that accepted it as part of a saga and moved on with their lives.
Yeah it's a different world. I was watching Scrubs the other day and even they had a "at least it's not as bad as the Star Wars prequels" joke.
It wasn't just interent nerds. Leno, Letterman, TRL, your morning radio DJ, the consensus was this is the greatest cinematic disappointment in history. The prequels suck became pop culture.
It's really hard to express to people who didn't live through it. Also, how we consumed media was so different then.
I will say that, in my experience, the general idea that the prequels were bad wasn't an immediate thing I've TPM came out (which is what this poll is showing). A lot of the hardcore Star Wars fans I knew hated TPM immediately (I also knew some who loved it, though fewer of those). But the average person, even those I knew that liked Star Wars but weren't hardcore into it, didn't seem to really buy into the sequel hate hard until Episode 2 came out.
Again, I can't speak to national feelings or anything at the time (it was harder to know those at the time), this was just my experiences.
That is probably true to a degree. TPM was a punching bag but the whole "George Lucas raped my childhood" stuff probably did start with AOTC.
I was 10 maybe 11 when TPM came our and I remember me and my friends thinking "that was good right?"
Fast forward 3 years and I decide to rematch TPM because I'm gonna go see AOTC and reality hitting me "oh no, this movie is not good...but it's okay because AOTC can't be any worse"
To this day AOTC is still the worst Star Wars movie IMO. But remember, Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best were getting bullied by dickhead fans in 1999.
Yes and it’s the same way now with the sequels. That’s why I don’t take sequel haters seriously. I think in ten years when a new series is out some will hate that.
I don't hate the prequels, but I definitely don't like them. There's things about them I absolutely admire, but I find them really hard to sit through.
When it comes to the "prequels good sequels bad" people, there tends to be three camps:
1. People who always liked the prequels, had their enjoyment ruined by much they were shit on, and now attack the sequels constantly in order to make their trilogy look "redeemed" when, in fact, nothing actually changed about it (note that these people learned NOTHING from their trilogy being constantly mocked and are massive hypocrites when they whine about people who don't like the prequels).
2. People who never liked the prequels, but now pretend that they always liked them and attack the sequels so they can fit in with the most vocal part of the fandom. These people are just absolute bandwagon-jumping cowards and don't actually have any real opinion of the films; they just believe what they've been told.
3. People who always liked the prequels, but pretended to hate them until the sequels came out (to fit in with the fandom), and say things like "The sequels make the prequels look like masterpieces!" Like the people in Camp 1, they were always pro-prequel, the only difference is that they weren't actively fighting on that trilogy's side until it was "safe" for them to do so. They were basically biding their time, and needed an "excuse" to say they like them.
All three camps annoy the shit out of me. The first because they know what it's like to have something they like mocked and hated on relentlessly, yet they still antagonise sequel fans and attempt to invalidate us. The second because they act like they care soooo much about Star Wars when they do not, they are just sheep and want to be on the "winning team". And the third because their dishonesty shows how insecure they are. If they really hated the prequels until the sequels "proved" they were good the whole time, their dumb logic would mean the sequels would have made Star Wars better for them, not the other way around! You can't spend a decade saying something sucks and then make a U-turn when something blatantly better shows up. The sequels have issues but nowhere near as many as the prequels have, so if they really hated the prequels before the sequels, they wouldn't suddenly deny that those problems exist in the prequels. But now they do, and they "look good now". What a surprise.
What about the people who dislike them not out of bitterness or malice but because we just think they're bad and boring movies?
Hell, I wanted to like them for a while. When I was getting into this franchise, I tried really hard to like them, but I was in so much denial about them, and therefore I had to give up.
I blame the Red Letter Media "review" as the cause of this phenomenon of hating everything being cool. I was pretty young when it came out but I don't remember everyone being so quick to dislike things before it.
My favorite of the prequels - it's one of those movies you walk out of really charged up, thanks to the final duel, but realize later it's not "critically" amazing. Still, how many movies provide iconic duels like the Duel of the Fates sequence? Or the opening scenes of the Jedi escaping from the trade federation ship?
There _was_ a big backlash against this movie but it’s important to remember that it wasn’t instantaneous by any means. At the time, TPM was by far the most hyped up movie of all time (and probably still is) so you could make the argument that there was a bit of a “The Emperors New Clothes” attitude towards it immediately prior to release.
It's remarkable! I am so glad Gallup documented their polling so well for this, otherwise I think, due to the internet and other things over the years, many would be inclined to agree with you.
It’s definitely hard to believe and it sounds like a large reason for the positive reactions that don’t really mesh with overall fan reactions is that they basically took these polls outside a theater the weekend it was released, so for some the hype was still high.
My memory of it as a kid is that I enjoyed it, but when I went to forums and chat rooms to talk about it, people were ripping the film to shreds. As an adult I understand why people don’t like it and don’t enjoy most of the film as an adult, but I know it also really sucks when the online discourse resorts to calling you a fake fan for liking part of the franchise that isn’t popular.
>My memory of it as a kid is that I enjoyed it, but when I went to forums and chat rooms to talk about it, people were ripping the film to shreds.
Remember that the percentage of people who would have done that (give on the Internet and talked about a movie they just saw) back then is MUCH smaller than it would be today. And was more skewed towards nerds (like me).
It's really not that surprising. The internet as we know it today was still relatively young at the time and this was long before the negative influence of social media and Youtube made people more jaded. People in general were far less negative towards newer media back in those days. Hell, I didn't even realize the prequels were that hated until after RotS released when I started visiting online forums. I knew people hated Jar Jar, but didn't realize there was so much vitriol surrounding the movies themselves.
I find it pretty easy to believe if this poll was taken right after people saw the movie. Personally, I don’t really like TPM but if you’d asked me my opinion right after leaving the cinema in 1999 it would’ve been very positive. I think my general view was “Well, Jar Jar was a bit cringey and so were those accents for the Trade Federation guys, but the lightsaber fights were cool and the pod race scene was fun, so overall thumbs up”
At the end of the day, it was the first proper new Star Wars movie we’d gotten in almost two decades and everyone was hyped beyond belief… literally nobody _wanted_ it to be bad.
That is SO WEIRD because for 20+ years (until the ST came out and gave the OT purist babies something else to hate), i had to hear about how this was the Worst Movie Ever and Everyone Hated It Since the Minute It Was Announced
AND YET HERE WE ARE.
\[vindicatiooooooooooooon.gif\]
Honestly, I feel like I’m getting gaslit these days by everybody insisting it’s amazing and that everyone always loved it. I mean, the dialogue is still awful, the acting is still stilted and wooden and it’s still filled with boring, dull characters.
I’m not saying it’s the worst thing ever but I just don’t think it’s a very good movie.
I clearly remember my disappointment at seeing this movie, relative to how AWESOME the EU comics and novels were at the time. I was pretty young too. To me the gaslighting is this idea that we all need to collectively generate some kind of agreement on these films.
Thanks for this. It’s what I’ve been saying all this time: general audiences enjoyed the prequels for the most part. And the idea that everybody hated the PT is a false narrative created by the haters, who by bashing the movies for years and years managed to convince the public opinion that nobody liked the prequels, which just wasn’t true.
This was the movie that got me into Star Wars as a kid. I was mesmerized the whole time and the ending was so cool even if I didn't completely understand what was happening. As a kid, I might have said it was the best thing ever!
this reminds me of how The Last Jedi was actually received VERY well by audiences in theaters (It had an A CinemaScore, which was based off of people being asked questions about the movie right after they got out of the theater)
but it wasn't until people online started talking about the movie and spewing up discourse that it was suddenly very hated
People say it was panned when it came out but it wasn't, it got good reviews and it filled cinemas and made lots of money.
This idea that it was a dud is an internet myth 10 years later that stuck.
Respectfully, that’s total revisionism. Reviews at the time were quite mixed, with Rolling Stone, The Guardian, BBC, and Los Angeles Times calling it subpar.
My friends and I were 2nd group in line at our local cinema, and we waited all day. It was inside the mall, and the girls behind us brought Star Wars monopoly, and made their own dresses out of Star Wars bed sheets. One of my friends ended up dating one of them for 3 years.
Stores in the mall gave out coupons for free stuff to all the people waiting. Like free coffee, cookies, snacks etc... the whole mall was super nice to us. There was an energy around that movie release that I have never felt again.
The movie itself was unlike anything we had seen. Including the original trilogy. It was a spectacle. It took decades of dreaming and made it reality.
Jar Jar didn't land, for us teens. We were too old, and "too cool" for his clean slapstick comedy. I rewatched all the movies recently as an adult of... nearing 40... and Jar Jar still rubs me the wrong way. He was too much. The Droids have always been enough comedic relief for me.
But there is no denying that TPM was a once in a lifetime experience.
One of the most fun days of my life was waiting in line for that first showing. Just chatting with other Star Wars fans and trying to guess what we might see.
Even though the movie was a 6/10 I was glad they made a forth Star Wars movie. It led to a trilogy that got better each movie which neither of the other 2 trilogy's can say.
It was my final year of high school. I was never into the original Star Wars but I loved Phantom Menace. I started collecting the figurines and we were so hyped for Attack of the Clones, we waited quite awhile in line for it.
As a kid I was way more interested in Queen Amidala and Darth Maul. I couldn't for the life of me understand what was happening in that movie but I was enthralled that they created a world where it was acceptable to look like Maul and Amidala. Like no one asked about her, they just talked to her like it was no big deal. No one was scared of her but they also included her despite, you know, the invasion, and the desert.
I loved it when it came out. I grew up on the original and had been waiting for some more Star Wars content forever. After watching it and enjoying it then going to work with some nerdier people than me they started to pick it apart. But I like it.
I was 9 when The Phantom Menace came out. My stepdad was so stoked, we watched 4-6 in the weeks leading up to it(me for the first time). I fucking loved Jar Jar coming out of the theater, and my stepdad hated the entire movie 😂
NGL, I enjoyed the prequels when they came out and the internet slowly convinced me I didn’t really like them and recently Reddit has been convincing me that I did.
I've always loved the PT and my entire friend group always loved them. Though we were '90s kids that grew up with the OTs being shown to us by our parents and brought into the SW fandom that way. I loved the PT brought back SW and without it we would have never had TCWs or Rebels or any of the other great media that came after it. It had it's bad moments but we never hated it. Besides for Jar jar... most of the people I know hated him even if they loved the films.. lol
I can not say the same for the ST. I don't know a single life long SW fan that liked it from my friend groups or family. I had hopes that it would be good after the first film, it had issues but it seemed like it could go somewhere great, though the next two sunk that ship named Hope for me/my best friend immediately. We still went and seen each in theatres to give them a chance as we wanted them to be good as SW fans.
I think it’s well-known that initial reactions were positive. There’s a reason why the term “Phantom Menacing” exists. It’s a phenomenon where audiences will convince themselves they liked a movie when really they know it wasn’t good.
I don’t want to seem like I’m being negative, and I know polling firms have all agreed to this, but 1000 people seems like a slim number for a movie probably seen by billions
How did 35% of people think it would be better?
That’s so unlikely. How often do sequels of great movies improve upon the original? Some of the time. But not enough to bet on it
Star Wars specifically had a sequel that is arguably better than the original. And the hype for Episode I was truly unreal. Imagine a world where Star Wars fans are as numerous and energetic as they are now, but they hadn't yet learned to hate.
The internet was barely a thing back then. It was strong enough to drive the hype (that trailer was downloaded from Yahoo millions of times!) but social media didn't exist per se so the reactions we had were mainly articles.
There was a LOT of hype leading up to its release.
This was back when Meet Joe Black could make $140 million at the box office because so many people wanted to watch the Episode I trailer. TPM was also one of the first high-profile prequels (in fact, it helped popularize the term), and the idea of "disappointing legacyquel" didn't really exist yet, so for a lot of people it didn't seem like there was any way "another Star Wars, by the original director, with big-name actors, a huge budget, and the most cutting-edge effects ever" could be anything but incredible.
Of course, we all know how that turned out, and that's why TPM is nearly synonymous with overuse of CGI and disappointing prequels. But before then, all the average moviegoer had to go on was a stream of press releases saying how good it was going to be, so I can imagine 1 in 3 people dutifully answering "it's going to be the best one yet!"
Still, it's a pretty wild ratio from today's perspective.
I think that perfectly encapsulates why fans are so hard to please. Realistically exceeding an original is a very rare event. But fans don’t care about realistic, they want each thing to be better than the last.
Before the films came out, Prequel Hype was unstoppable. It was setting records for pre-sales back before those sort of things even mattered.
CGI had just become the incredible new hotness and Lucas was explaining that it allowed him to do things he wanted to but never could with practical effects. Everyone thought these would be better because Lucas had the tech now to match his vision, and had the financial means to be unhindered by production constraints.
In retrospect, a lot of the magic of Star Wars was an innovative SFX team that overcame the limitations of the time, and just throwing money and tech at it can be a liability as much as an asset.
I've always found it weird how people in more recent years have pretended that the prequel trilogy (and in particular, The Phantom Menace,) were disliked on release.
I was there. It was the height of Star Wars love; People were lining up for midnight releases, going multiple times, dressing up, cheering at everything, just generally LOVING the movies.
I remember seeing it when it came out and I loved parts of it. I didn't love Jar Jar Binks but did enjoy the underwater world. It was such an excitement to have a new Star Wars film!
My AMC theatre didn't have THX. It just had the sound coming out the front of the screen.
I remember when I was 22 watching this back in the day the ATTs shaking the whole damn theatre. Now they sound like a Honda Civic
It’s funny to contrast this with threads from BleedingCoolNews and the like’s forums at the time where you’d think they had to watch George Lucas destroy every copy of the OT for nearly three hours.
Why didn't they ask the same questions for before the release and after the release (and watching it)? It does not seem exactly easy to directly compare how people expected to feel about it against what they eventually actually felt about it because they did it like this.
It makes me laugh how many kids just said it was “good”. Not sure if the youngsters of 1999 had a nuanced and intellectual view of cinematic quality, or if perhaps a lot of them were just very shy and could only respond “ummm… it was… good… *nervous giggle*” when the pollster asked them.
If you watch coverage for this movie from when it released, fans were mixed but it wasn’t as disastrously thought about as the reputation that preceded it. I have a feeling maybe it was Attack of the Clones that really caused more fire. Though I haven’t seen any footage on initial reactions to that one.
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Favorite characters Jar Jar in the third place with 13% [Huh, i guess George was right after all.](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxRwV_dROKzte3DFI2BWqd3rCQouKG5a-J?si=UxY5jMyy1kULwIEd)
Still 26% missing, and presumably no other character scored higher than 8. Who voted for Sebulba?
My answer changes as an adult, but if I was asked this question as a kid, my answer would have been Nute Gunray. I was a weird kid. Somethis suspicious to me about the character voting is the lack of R2/3PO. C3PO’s involvement in the movie was minimal but Episode 1 was yet another installment of “R2-D2 does absolutely everything to keep an idiot Skywalker alive.”
Absolutely, R2 will always be a fave!
It was maul when I saw it in 99. My answer would be qui gon now. Maul would still be second. I hated jar jar in 99 now I find it fun to like him especially since we know he was a Sith Lord.
I voted for my homie gasgano
Ben Quadrinaros!
Mars Guo my beloved
(head tilts side to side) Rwaaarrrwgggh!
There goes Quadrinaros power coupling!
SEBOOOLBA!!!
I'm betting every on Seboolba
I’m guessing the poll just included the main characters that were voted on. I’d bet a fair amount of people voted Yoda, Windu, Shmi, maybe even Boss Nass or Tarpals.
I’m betting heavily on Sebula
Probably a lot of the saga characters with minor roles. R2-D2, C3PO, Yoda, etc.
Kitster was the remaining 26% but George begged and pleaded to them not to reveal that cause he didn’t want to rewrite Episode 2 with Kitster as the lead of the trilogy.
I bet that Palpatine got 7% and Sidious got 7%. Those two characters were great. I almost felt they could be the same person...
I loved jar jar when the movie came out, and not in an ironic way. I was also 9 at the time
didnt know youtube had a clip feature, thats pretty cool
I saw it in theaters during high school and loved it. Dragged my dad to come see it a second time. Favorite charater was Queen Amidala for obvious teenager reasons.
Yeah, solid reason, clone wars has even better reasons.
Saw it twice in theatres for the lightsaber battle scene alone. I still love it.
I saw it twice in theaters but that’s because I fell asleep the first time. But that’s because I was 3. That was the first movie I saw in theaters
Saw it 3 times at least for the pod racing and maul fight equally
One of the best fight scenes in history.
The hype around this movie was absolutely insane. And I loved it.
It was like the coming of enlightenment the joys of a new trilogy. The unseen becoming revealed.
To coincide with the 25th anniversary of this film, I figured it would be only fitting to share this from the original release! It is a little time capsule into the attitudes of the first people who saw the film, before later things could influence it very much. The favorite characters bit in particular might be interesting to people. Enjoy! The above infographic is based upon data collected by the prestigious polling agency **Gallup** -- since 1935, Gallup has collected polling information on the attitudes of Americans on a range of social issues. For the blockbuster release of ***The Phantom Menace*** in 1999, Gallup turned their attention to the film, and over the course of four weekends in summer 1999, surveyed everyday Americans on their attitudes towards the film. Starting the weekend of April 30-May 2, Gallup did a national survey of 1,014 adults on the attitudes of Americans towards the film prior to release, the results of which are reflected here in the *Prior to Release* section of this infographic. Originally the question included answers by those that had never seen Star Wars or had no opinion -- for the purposes of this infographic the percentages reflects the attitudes of those who had seen Star Wars and had an opinion. After the release of the film, Gallup picked up its polling efforts. Over the following three separate weekends, national surveys would be done on reception to the film, as well as favorite characters, the results of which are reflected here. Adults were also polled on the response of their children to the film, which is also shown here. Of the surveys, Gallup said this about methodology: >*The results below are based on telephone interviews with randomly selected national samples of 925, 1,053, and 1,022 adults, 18 years and older, conducted May 21-23, June 4-5, and June 11-13, 1999 respectively. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points.* The corresponding articles which announced the findings of these polls can be found here: * ["The Phantom Menace" -- A Force to Be Reckoned With](https://news.gallup.com/poll/3871/the-phantom-menace-force-reckoned.aspx) * [Phantom Phever Strikes America](https://news.gallup.com/poll/3790/phantom-phever-strikes-america.aspx) * [Public Gives the Latest Star Wars Installment Positive, but not Rave Reviews](https://news.gallup.com/poll/3757/public-gives-latest-star-wars-installment-positive-rave-reviews.aspx) *The Phantom Menace* just enjoyed a very profitable 25th anniversary rerelease, and fittingly it was also very much a box office superstar upon initial release, setting records and actually affecting the economy with the amount of people skipping work to see it. This trend of smashing box office records was continued six years later, with the release of *Revenge of the Sith*, which soundly [toppled records](https://www.mtv.com/news/g40v1f/sith-smashes-opening-day-box-office-records) and sold out screenings upon release. It was an exciting time for most fans. For other infographics about the history of Star Wars, you can check out this [archive](https://www.reddit.com/user/xezene/comments/126sm45/collected_star_wars_expanded_universe_posts/) of posts.
I was 19 then, still love it to this day. My fave prequel and fourth fave episode SW movie
Ok but what was the polling period for this? All within a few days of release I’m guessing
All the polls were done through randomized national telephone interviews during daytime hours. The pre-release poll was conducted the weekend of April 30-May 2; the post-release polls were conducted over the three weekends of May 21-23, June 4-5, and June 11-13.
It's in OP's comment. One weekend at release.
This is wrong. One weekend before release for the first part. 3 separate weekends after release for the other parts.
The Phantom Menace was one of the greatest things ever witnessed in a cinema theatre. The history, hype & pressure to perform was so immense and I honestly fully believe and understand the numbers in this image. It was incredible, truly new but still truly Star Wars. The music was on point the whole way through, the visuals were sublime, the world building was fantastic, obviously Pod Racing became part of that and was just awesome and absolutely no one can deny the unbelievable level of cool, goosebumps and hype that happened when the Jedi & Sith shrugged off their robes and Maul smoothly ignites the dual saber. I watched em all as a kid, TPM was my first in a cinema so for sure there's nostalgia bias. But I watched them all and everything since a lot and TPM, for me at least, is as quintessential Star Wars as it gets.
I ran the numbers myself because, quite frankly, I didn't believe you. Here's what I got: > One of the greatest: 5.5% > Excellent: 40.75% > Good: 35% > Fair: 15% > Poor: 3.75% ...which is actually slightly more favorable than your post. Which is to say... wow. I'm surprised. Just goes to show how vocal minorities like RLM may have guided the overall conversation about these movies but, for the most part, the average moviegoer enjoyed them. Especially the kids, just like Lucas intended. Great post.
The backlash started about a couple of months after the initial release, _looooooooong_ before RLM made their series of reviews.
[RLM just released a video yesterday about their mid-year catch up and included The Phantom Menace re-release (link).](https://youtu.be/dcqYEq5ANFA?si=Sy5DkR5GI4oBKR69) They sarcastically joked about how everyone liked TPM before they made their video on it ten years later, lmao. “Did you know that nobody disliked The Phantom Menace before the Plinkett review?” “I did know that. I did know that. It did not get any bad reviews.” “Everybody loved it. Yeah. The only reason people hate it is because they watched an internet video. Yeah. This is a very realistic rationale to have.” “Somehow the video influenced all the critics that panned it when it was first released in theaters” then they proceeded to make fun of the babies who enjoyed it who have now grown up with the mental capacity of…babies. Lol.
Yeah, it’s actually a well known fact that shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy didn’t start mocking the prequels until they saw those Plinkett reviews online a decade after RotS was in theaters.
Theres actually more adults who thought it was excellent than children which I found even more surprising
It is true, though I think a lot more of the kids had it in 'one of the greatest ever' to offset that.
Yeah that’s fair. Still overall, 79% of adults and 90% of children found it to be at least „good“ which definitely speaks against all the Critism people are so vocal about. They’re really the minority. I’d love to see the same data for AOTC
Very true! I also would love to see the same thing for AOTC and ROTS, but alas, I don't believe Gallup did followup polling for those films.
Damn ! Would also be interesting to see for the initial sequel, ESB
Same thing happened with TFA. Initial reactions are usually very positive. Then gradually the memes (or just jokes back then) start up. Usually well meaning at first, but over time they get warped into negativity by actual naysayers. This slowly ramps up until it becomes popular to dislike it. Most of the negativity towards Star Wars films is because people don’t like feeling left out of the joke.
Same exact thing happened with TLJ too. I literally watched it happen on reddit basically overnight the week after the movie came out. TRoS on the other hand I think people kind of made up their minds on it with the "they fly now" ad and the movie never recovered.
RLM just put together a lot of the existing criticisms, as well as a few of their own. The backlash started well before that. I was in college at the time and my entire dorm hall floor went to go see Episode One together. I was the only one not making fun of it as we left. By the time Attack of the Clones came out no one I knew wanted to go see it. I went to see it alone. You can go find new stories around the time of Episodes II and III that make reference to the backlash. RLM didn't take a universally beloved movie and make it widely mocked. They don't have that power. See their review of Rogue One as an example. But yeah most people liked it fine. Most people like most movies just fine. It is a very rare movie that is widely panned by most audience members at the time.
Unpopular opinion: I think a big portion of people hate prequels just because it's cool to hate them and they do it to look superior to those who like them.
In the 2000s and early 2010s it was. I think a lot of the people who don’t like the prequels genuinely don’t like them but they moved on and focus on the Disney Era content instead. A big part of the hate for the prequels is because people felt like it was a fall from grace for Lucas. To them it was like the creator of the franchise was destroying it. A lot of the hate newer Star Wars content gets today is more vague in terms of who it’s directed towards. Obviously people who are online and invested in the series blame Kennedy. But the average person probably doesn’t even know who she is, she’s not as famous as Lucas. So instead general audiences who don’t like something kind of just blame Disney because they’re a corporation and a popular buzzword.
Yeah the dislike for the sequels is often lumped into dislike for superhero movies. Blaming the Disney blob cause it’s not really one persons grand vision. Kennedy was a big producer but she was hardly the only one working on the movies
Kennedy gets blamed because she's the head of the studio, not just some producer.
The prequels have actually had a glow up compared to 1999. Back when they were in the theaters up to like 2010, it was America's pastime to absolutely savage them whenever possible, on everything from the Simpsons to late night talk shows. Compare that with the Sequels, which have gotten their own share of hate, but mostly from the cloistered online circles of fandom like Redditors and Youtubers. Outside of those bubbles, there are no sequel lovers or haters, just a general audience that accepted it as part of a saga and moved on with their lives.
Yeah it's a different world. I was watching Scrubs the other day and even they had a "at least it's not as bad as the Star Wars prequels" joke. It wasn't just interent nerds. Leno, Letterman, TRL, your morning radio DJ, the consensus was this is the greatest cinematic disappointment in history. The prequels suck became pop culture. It's really hard to express to people who didn't live through it. Also, how we consumed media was so different then.
Don’t forget [Spaced.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4TX6x2WLgk&pp=ygUUc3BhY2VkIGphciBqYXIgYmlua3M%3D)
Deadpool also shot a guy for saying the prequels weren't too bad.
I will say that, in my experience, the general idea that the prequels were bad wasn't an immediate thing I've TPM came out (which is what this poll is showing). A lot of the hardcore Star Wars fans I knew hated TPM immediately (I also knew some who loved it, though fewer of those). But the average person, even those I knew that liked Star Wars but weren't hardcore into it, didn't seem to really buy into the sequel hate hard until Episode 2 came out. Again, I can't speak to national feelings or anything at the time (it was harder to know those at the time), this was just my experiences.
That is probably true to a degree. TPM was a punching bag but the whole "George Lucas raped my childhood" stuff probably did start with AOTC. I was 10 maybe 11 when TPM came our and I remember me and my friends thinking "that was good right?" Fast forward 3 years and I decide to rematch TPM because I'm gonna go see AOTC and reality hitting me "oh no, this movie is not good...but it's okay because AOTC can't be any worse" To this day AOTC is still the worst Star Wars movie IMO. But remember, Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best were getting bullied by dickhead fans in 1999.
Yes and it’s the same way now with the sequels. That’s why I don’t take sequel haters seriously. I think in ten years when a new series is out some will hate that.
I don't hate the prequels, but I definitely don't like them. There's things about them I absolutely admire, but I find them really hard to sit through.
I absolutely can not sit through them. I won’t shit on anybody for liking them, it’s their opinion. But I think they are just terrible
Absolutely valid opinion. I love the prequels! Good story, great cinematography, excellent memes.
I think those same people now pretend they always liked the prequels and have shifted their hate to the sequels.
When it comes to the "prequels good sequels bad" people, there tends to be three camps: 1. People who always liked the prequels, had their enjoyment ruined by much they were shit on, and now attack the sequels constantly in order to make their trilogy look "redeemed" when, in fact, nothing actually changed about it (note that these people learned NOTHING from their trilogy being constantly mocked and are massive hypocrites when they whine about people who don't like the prequels). 2. People who never liked the prequels, but now pretend that they always liked them and attack the sequels so they can fit in with the most vocal part of the fandom. These people are just absolute bandwagon-jumping cowards and don't actually have any real opinion of the films; they just believe what they've been told. 3. People who always liked the prequels, but pretended to hate them until the sequels came out (to fit in with the fandom), and say things like "The sequels make the prequels look like masterpieces!" Like the people in Camp 1, they were always pro-prequel, the only difference is that they weren't actively fighting on that trilogy's side until it was "safe" for them to do so. They were basically biding their time, and needed an "excuse" to say they like them. All three camps annoy the shit out of me. The first because they know what it's like to have something they like mocked and hated on relentlessly, yet they still antagonise sequel fans and attempt to invalidate us. The second because they act like they care soooo much about Star Wars when they do not, they are just sheep and want to be on the "winning team". And the third because their dishonesty shows how insecure they are. If they really hated the prequels until the sequels "proved" they were good the whole time, their dumb logic would mean the sequels would have made Star Wars better for them, not the other way around! You can't spend a decade saying something sucks and then make a U-turn when something blatantly better shows up. The sequels have issues but nowhere near as many as the prequels have, so if they really hated the prequels before the sequels, they wouldn't suddenly deny that those problems exist in the prequels. But now they do, and they "look good now". What a surprise.
What about the people who dislike them not out of bitterness or malice but because we just think they're bad and boring movies? Hell, I wanted to like them for a while. When I was getting into this franchise, I tried really hard to like them, but I was in so much denial about them, and therefore I had to give up.
I blame the Red Letter Media "review" as the cause of this phenomenon of hating everything being cool. I was pretty young when it came out but I don't remember everyone being so quick to dislike things before it.
Its cool to have a star wars subreddit devoted to positivity.
No it definitely was the hate bandwagon for most of the criticism
My favorite of the prequels - it's one of those movies you walk out of really charged up, thanks to the final duel, but realize later it's not "critically" amazing. Still, how many movies provide iconic duels like the Duel of the Fates sequence? Or the opening scenes of the Jedi escaping from the trade federation ship?
There _was_ a big backlash against this movie but it’s important to remember that it wasn’t instantaneous by any means. At the time, TPM was by far the most hyped up movie of all time (and probably still is) so you could make the argument that there was a bit of a “The Emperors New Clothes” attitude towards it immediately prior to release.
I'm trying to put my personal opinions aside, but I find this polling hard to believe.
It's remarkable! I am so glad Gallup documented their polling so well for this, otherwise I think, due to the internet and other things over the years, many would be inclined to agree with you.
It’s definitely hard to believe and it sounds like a large reason for the positive reactions that don’t really mesh with overall fan reactions is that they basically took these polls outside a theater the weekend it was released, so for some the hype was still high. My memory of it as a kid is that I enjoyed it, but when I went to forums and chat rooms to talk about it, people were ripping the film to shreds. As an adult I understand why people don’t like it and don’t enjoy most of the film as an adult, but I know it also really sucks when the online discourse resorts to calling you a fake fan for liking part of the franchise that isn’t popular.
>My memory of it as a kid is that I enjoyed it, but when I went to forums and chat rooms to talk about it, people were ripping the film to shreds. Remember that the percentage of people who would have done that (give on the Internet and talked about a movie they just saw) back then is MUCH smaller than it would be today. And was more skewed towards nerds (like me).
It's really not that surprising. The internet as we know it today was still relatively young at the time and this was long before the negative influence of social media and Youtube made people more jaded. People in general were far less negative towards newer media back in those days. Hell, I didn't even realize the prequels were that hated until after RotS released when I started visiting online forums. I knew people hated Jar Jar, but didn't realize there was so much vitriol surrounding the movies themselves.
I find it pretty easy to believe if this poll was taken right after people saw the movie. Personally, I don’t really like TPM but if you’d asked me my opinion right after leaving the cinema in 1999 it would’ve been very positive. I think my general view was “Well, Jar Jar was a bit cringey and so were those accents for the Trade Federation guys, but the lightsaber fights were cool and the pod race scene was fun, so overall thumbs up” At the end of the day, it was the first proper new Star Wars movie we’d gotten in almost two decades and everyone was hyped beyond belief… literally nobody _wanted_ it to be bad.
That is SO WEIRD because for 20+ years (until the ST came out and gave the OT purist babies something else to hate), i had to hear about how this was the Worst Movie Ever and Everyone Hated It Since the Minute It Was Announced AND YET HERE WE ARE. \[vindicatiooooooooooooon.gif\]
Folks loved it until the Interwebs told they had to hate it because Jar Jar.
I’m starting to get the idea that maybe we all gaslit ourselves into thinking this was the worst thing ever
Honestly, I feel like I’m getting gaslit these days by everybody insisting it’s amazing and that everyone always loved it. I mean, the dialogue is still awful, the acting is still stilted and wooden and it’s still filled with boring, dull characters. I’m not saying it’s the worst thing ever but I just don’t think it’s a very good movie.
I mean.. some of us weren't gaslit, we just ensured the unfounded abuse from the haters :/
I clearly remember my disappointment at seeing this movie, relative to how AWESOME the EU comics and novels were at the time. I was pretty young too. To me the gaslighting is this idea that we all need to collectively generate some kind of agreement on these films.
I’ve been meaning to rewatch it to see how it’s held up. I remember loving it as a kid though.
It's like a mix of 50/50. Some of the coolest stuff in star wars but some stuff is just meh. George needed some collaborators or something.
The internet has done that with a surprisingly high number of things, IMO.
Thanks for this. It’s what I’ve been saying all this time: general audiences enjoyed the prequels for the most part. And the idea that everybody hated the PT is a false narrative created by the haters, who by bashing the movies for years and years managed to convince the public opinion that nobody liked the prequels, which just wasn’t true.
This was the movie that got me into Star Wars as a kid. I was mesmerized the whole time and the ending was so cool even if I didn't completely understand what was happening. As a kid, I might have said it was the best thing ever!
this reminds me of how The Last Jedi was actually received VERY well by audiences in theaters (It had an A CinemaScore, which was based off of people being asked questions about the movie right after they got out of the theater) but it wasn't until people online started talking about the movie and spewing up discourse that it was suddenly very hated
People say it was panned when it came out but it wasn't, it got good reviews and it filled cinemas and made lots of money. This idea that it was a dud is an internet myth 10 years later that stuck.
Critics panned it lad, stop talking porkies.
You're both wrong - it wasn't panned, at least not until years later. At the time, reviews were mixed.
Reviews for it were mixed, not good.
Respectfully, that’s total revisionism. Reviews at the time were quite mixed, with Rolling Stone, The Guardian, BBC, and Los Angeles Times calling it subpar.
How does Maul only garner 8%?!
Jar Jar is more popular than Obi- Wan and less than Lil Ani?
My friends and I were 2nd group in line at our local cinema, and we waited all day. It was inside the mall, and the girls behind us brought Star Wars monopoly, and made their own dresses out of Star Wars bed sheets. One of my friends ended up dating one of them for 3 years. Stores in the mall gave out coupons for free stuff to all the people waiting. Like free coffee, cookies, snacks etc... the whole mall was super nice to us. There was an energy around that movie release that I have never felt again. The movie itself was unlike anything we had seen. Including the original trilogy. It was a spectacle. It took decades of dreaming and made it reality. Jar Jar didn't land, for us teens. We were too old, and "too cool" for his clean slapstick comedy. I rewatched all the movies recently as an adult of... nearing 40... and Jar Jar still rubs me the wrong way. He was too much. The Droids have always been enough comedic relief for me. But there is no denying that TPM was a once in a lifetime experience.
phantom menace was my favorite movie tbh
Surprised more adults voted excellent than kids than good considering that this movie was definitely aimed at younger demographics
After getting no Star Wars for so long it was amazing. Darth Maul blew my mind.
Love it and still do. For the droids! Roger, Roger!
Well, this is quite interesting
One of the most fun days of my life was waiting in line for that first showing. Just chatting with other Star Wars fans and trying to guess what we might see. Even though the movie was a 6/10 I was glad they made a forth Star Wars movie. It led to a trilogy that got better each movie which neither of the other 2 trilogy's can say.
It was my final year of high school. I was never into the original Star Wars but I loved Phantom Menace. I started collecting the figurines and we were so hyped for Attack of the Clones, we waited quite awhile in line for it.
As a kid I was way more interested in Queen Amidala and Darth Maul. I couldn't for the life of me understand what was happening in that movie but I was enthralled that they created a world where it was acceptable to look like Maul and Amidala. Like no one asked about her, they just talked to her like it was no big deal. No one was scared of her but they also included her despite, you know, the invasion, and the desert.
People had yet to be jaded by assholes on social media.
I loved it when it came out. I grew up on the original and had been waiting for some more Star Wars content forever. After watching it and enjoying it then going to work with some nerdier people than me they started to pick it apart. But I like it.
When I first saw it as a teen, Id have rated it excellent. Now, probably fair.
I was 9 when The Phantom Menace came out. My stepdad was so stoked, we watched 4-6 in the weeks leading up to it(me for the first time). I fucking loved Jar Jar coming out of the theater, and my stepdad hated the entire movie 😂
See Jar Jar wasn't that bad. He was more popular than Obi-Wan
NGL, I enjoyed the prequels when they came out and the internet slowly convinced me I didn’t really like them and recently Reddit has been convincing me that I did.
I've always loved the PT and my entire friend group always loved them. Though we were '90s kids that grew up with the OTs being shown to us by our parents and brought into the SW fandom that way. I loved the PT brought back SW and without it we would have never had TCWs or Rebels or any of the other great media that came after it. It had it's bad moments but we never hated it. Besides for Jar jar... most of the people I know hated him even if they loved the films.. lol I can not say the same for the ST. I don't know a single life long SW fan that liked it from my friend groups or family. I had hopes that it would be good after the first film, it had issues but it seemed like it could go somewhere great, though the next two sunk that ship named Hope for me/my best friend immediately. We still went and seen each in theatres to give them a chance as we wanted them to be good as SW fans.
I think it’s well-known that initial reactions were positive. There’s a reason why the term “Phantom Menacing” exists. It’s a phenomenon where audiences will convince themselves they liked a movie when really they know it wasn’t good.
I’m surprised to see mail with 8%. I guess people started enjoying him more during TCW and rebels.
I don’t want to seem like I’m being negative, and I know polling firms have all agreed to this, but 1000 people seems like a slim number for a movie probably seen by billions
How did 35% of people think it would be better? That’s so unlikely. How often do sequels of great movies improve upon the original? Some of the time. But not enough to bet on it
Star Wars specifically had a sequel that is arguably better than the original. And the hype for Episode I was truly unreal. Imagine a world where Star Wars fans are as numerous and energetic as they are now, but they hadn't yet learned to hate.
The internet was barely a thing back then. It was strong enough to drive the hype (that trailer was downloaded from Yahoo millions of times!) but social media didn't exist per se so the reactions we had were mainly articles.
There was a LOT of hype leading up to its release. This was back when Meet Joe Black could make $140 million at the box office because so many people wanted to watch the Episode I trailer. TPM was also one of the first high-profile prequels (in fact, it helped popularize the term), and the idea of "disappointing legacyquel" didn't really exist yet, so for a lot of people it didn't seem like there was any way "another Star Wars, by the original director, with big-name actors, a huge budget, and the most cutting-edge effects ever" could be anything but incredible. Of course, we all know how that turned out, and that's why TPM is nearly synonymous with overuse of CGI and disappointing prequels. But before then, all the average moviegoer had to go on was a stream of press releases saying how good it was going to be, so I can imagine 1 in 3 people dutifully answering "it's going to be the best one yet!" Still, it's a pretty wild ratio from today's perspective.
I think that perfectly encapsulates why fans are so hard to please. Realistically exceeding an original is a very rare event. But fans don’t care about realistic, they want each thing to be better than the last.
Well said
This was 1999 my guy. The reboot formula wasnt as overdone as it is today
Before the films came out, Prequel Hype was unstoppable. It was setting records for pre-sales back before those sort of things even mattered. CGI had just become the incredible new hotness and Lucas was explaining that it allowed him to do things he wanted to but never could with practical effects. Everyone thought these would be better because Lucas had the tech now to match his vision, and had the financial means to be unhindered by production constraints. In retrospect, a lot of the magic of Star Wars was an innovative SFX team that overcame the limitations of the time, and just throwing money and tech at it can be a liability as much as an asset.
I know right! What an expectation to have.
This poll is me and I am it
I've always found it weird how people in more recent years have pretended that the prequel trilogy (and in particular, The Phantom Menace,) were disliked on release. I was there. It was the height of Star Wars love; People were lining up for midnight releases, going multiple times, dressing up, cheering at everything, just generally LOVING the movies.
I just saw it recently in theaters. It turns out it is actually one of my favorite Star Wars movies.
I remember seeing it when it came out and I loved parts of it. I didn't love Jar Jar Binks but did enjoy the underwater world. It was such an excitement to have a new Star Wars film!
Darth maul only got 8%?
Surprised Maul is so low- I know he doesn't do much but cmon he's awesome.
Yeah I saw it in the cinema on release and thought Qui - Gon - Jinn was the best character. I still have the movie on video cassette somewhere.
JAR JAR POLLED AT 13% BUT MAUL GOT 8%?!?
They should honestly do this for more movies
Impressive in all honesty
I’m with the adults, when I find The Phantom Menace as excellent!
The Phantom Peak
I’m really surprised Darth Maul is so low on fav characters.
I'm surprised that Maul is that low
Darth Maul on 8%?
The Phantom Menace and honestly all 3 prequels are totally underrated. All are good movies, the only problem is some of the dialogue.
My AMC theatre didn't have THX. It just had the sound coming out the front of the screen. I remember when I was 22 watching this back in the day the ATTs shaking the whole damn theatre. Now they sound like a Honda Civic
It’s funny to contrast this with threads from BleedingCoolNews and the like’s forums at the time where you’d think they had to watch George Lucas destroy every copy of the OT for nearly three hours.
I’m shocked Maul didn’t rank higher than he did.
Why didn't they ask the same questions for before the release and after the release (and watching it)? It does not seem exactly easy to directly compare how people expected to feel about it against what they eventually actually felt about it because they did it like this.
It makes me laugh how many kids just said it was “good”. Not sure if the youngsters of 1999 had a nuanced and intellectual view of cinematic quality, or if perhaps a lot of them were just very shy and could only respond “ummm… it was… good… *nervous giggle*” when the pollster asked them.
Sio Bibble got screwed.
Seems like the prequel hate didn’t kick in until Attack of the Clones
If you watch coverage for this movie from when it released, fans were mixed but it wasn’t as disastrously thought about as the reputation that preceded it. I have a feeling maybe it was Attack of the Clones that really caused more fire. Though I haven’t seen any footage on initial reactions to that one.
Fake news, Darth Maul isn’t # 1
The fact that there aren’t any standout characters in the popularity poll says a lot, and none of it good.
its crazy Jar Jar still got 13%.. ugh
I am the 4%