Review of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) by Monsterluke — 24 Dec 2013

There is Star wars, and then there's the Phantom menace. At first glance, this film has good visual effects especially for it's time good music and a lot of star wars fun. However then you begin to realise once you take away the lightsabers, the film has very little in common with the original series. That being said, I still believe this film brought an entirely new and pretty awesome universe to Star wars which it expanded, and that's what I like about this film. I love the clones, what can I say.

On the other hand, I do have to say the delivery of this not so bad story can be better, the acting is not great, but compared to Jar Jar, everyone else looks Oscar worthy. And then you have the politics....the one good thing that about star wars was that there was no bureaucrat BS, no matter where you go now however there's politics everywhere. If they removed it then this film would be 100x better!

George Lucas turned his sci-fi master piece into a visually appearing chick flick really, lacking in the areas of good performance but boosting up his Space battles and Lightsaber duels. I mean he couldn't have made it any less obvious that palpatine was the Emperor, Padme was the queen, and Anakin was an I just hated that kid so much, I get the idea that he was not suppose to seem like evil but he was just so annoying and wooden. I almost hated him more than Jar Jar, but its far to say I might not hate Jar Jar compared to most people.

Above all else though, I did like how they brought up the return of the evil sith. The possibility of more than 1 dark lord and that fact the Jedi order will be the only ones to bring balance to the force once more. All in all, I admire for what George Lucas did to try and expand the Star Wars universe, I just wish he could have heard the music. It does leave me wanting more, I really want to know how this war will turn out and it leaves me wanting to see the others.