Ladies and Gentlemen, I have decided to revisit one of the greatest film series' of all time, but I have decided to revisit it chronologically in terms of story, so you can expect reviews of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith soon but not today. Anyway, Star Wars wasn't anything that was just going to go away and stay in history. It made George Lucas a shitload of money and this is when he started to milk it for all it was worth. So he released three prequels to go along with the original trilogy, and this one is the first of those prequels. Is Phantom Menace an insult to the entire original trilogy? Absolutely. But is it terrible on its own as a film? No. Even though it has definite problems (we'll get to those later), The Phantom Menace is still a decently entertaining movie.
The Phantom Menace is about Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, who escape the ship of a droid army that plans on attacking the peaceful sovereignty of Naboo, lead by Queen Amidala. They, along with a gunga named Jar Jar Binks travel to Naboo and take the Queen on their ship for her safety. The ship promptly gets stranded on Tatooine, where they meet the young slave boy Anakin Skywalker. This seems to not be a coincidence, so Qui-Gon frees the boy and takes him on the ship so the boy can be trained as a Jedi. They later have to battle Darth Maul and the droid army in easily the most epic part of the movie.
The story gets pretty lost in the battle scenes and the visuals, and is easily the worst part of the movie. The movie is rather poorly paced and a little overlong, but the battle sequences are fun and are the one good thing from the original trilogy brought into the new trilogy. The battle sequences, however good they are, also take away from the character development, and the critics were totally right with their consensus. Plot and character development were lost in this movie, but there is plenty of eye candy to behold. All in all, this movie wasn't terrible in terms of story, but it did get entirely lost and was written terribly, alongside with the characterization.
The performances, however, were actually okay. I heard that Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon was terrible in this movie, but I don't think that he was that bad. Ewan MacGregor was okay as Obi-Wan, but neither of them give the performances of their careers by far. Natalie Portman also did okay in her two roles, but where the acting really is problematic is Jake Lloyd as young Anakin. The kid cannot act, and he single-handedly makes Anakin Skywalker an annoying little brat. Seriously, every time he opened his mouth I just wanted to sock him right in the mouth. However, the rest of the acting (outside Jake Lloyd, who doesn't appear to have a career anymore) was just okay.
The other place where the problems lie in terms of character is that annoying, stupid, universally hated amongst the star wars community thing by the name of Jar Jar Binks. Yes, I hate Jar Jar as much as the rest of you. He's annoying, he's stupid, he's actually quite racist, and his speech is pretty much unintelligible. Thank god they at least didn't get Chris Tucker to voice him. However, anything else that can be said about Jar Jar has already been said and would involve terrible profanity, so we shall move on.
The visual effects are impressive, but the sets are more impressive than the creatures. The creatures vary from decent-looking to ugly clay puppets. I would have to say that the creatures from the original films were more well-done, which is strange because one would think the newer, more advanced effects would be better right? The sets are very well-done and are pretty much on the level with the paintings in the original films. The battle sequences are wonderful too and the score still kicks ass, as is Star Wars standards. However, that's pretty much all that can be said for the film.
This is an incredible insult to the greatness of the original trilogy, but when one judges it as its own film, then it isn't that bad. I hear that it is arguably the worst of the series, so I hope the next two will be better. It has a muddled plot and no character development, as well as laughable dialogue. However, it has decent performances, hit-and-miss visuals, and entertaining battle sequences. I would recommend it if you want to watch the series for completion's sakes. Otherwise, its worth a rental, but watch the rest of the series first.
P.S. Duel of the Fates is awesome
