Review of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) by Kal X. A — 27 Feb 2016

Perhaps it is because of my self-entitled attitude which comes with being a millennial that makes me feel as through I've been wounded more than Qui-Gon Jinn at this very moment. I just sat through Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace for the first time in close to two years and I find myself shocked and chagrinned to discover that so many of the things I used to love as a young child about this film are hopelessly derivative and cliche.

Phantom Menace was the first Star Wars film I ever saw in spring of 2001. I was just getting into movies at the time and the only real reason I saw it first was because it was on one night and one of my parents taped it (oh god, yes, 90s nostalgia!) for me to watch the next day as it's airing time impeded with my 8:00 bedtime. I watched the film the next day and thought it was the finest thing I had ever lain my young eyes on but now the last burnt vestige of withheld sympathy has finally gone up in flames and I honestly feel like the protagonist in a Smiths song minus Manchester or a specific failed relationship.

The tragedy here begins and ends with how aimlessly the film's important scenes are executed. Where George struck gold in A New Hope, Phantom is a film with hit and miss acting, several characters whose necessary presences further corrode said acting, and a storyline which jumps the fence in terms of speed (slow trade talk, oh wait here's a podrace sequence!, midi chlorian rant, oh wait holy toledo it's Darth Maul!), etc. etc. and I can't help but feel betrayed by a film I put my trust in. Where the Original Trilogy had exciting storylines and whose overall ethos redefined science fiction, Phantom kicks off the Prequel trilogy like a slow-witted, self-important university frat-dweller who has no idea how hard their previous generation worked to be successful. It features a cast of actors who for some parts are wonderfully talented people, but whose performances here are watered-down and harpooned by the dialogue and the inability of the film's creative masterminds to let them do their job properly. And here I rest my point; the film stars well-established actors like Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Liam Neeson, and even more British and Scottish theatre-trained actors like Terence Stamp as ineffective Chancellor Valorum and of course Ian McDiarmid as the Palpatine we all love and hate. All strong proponents which could easily bolster the film's potential and truly make the first chronological star wars film (as of 2016) amazing and they can't because the lack of lively and meaningful dialogue suffocates them right in their tracks.

But the truly optimistic fans (god bless their hearts for theirs are stronger and more loving than mine) will argue that Phantom Menace indeed has a few strong points; namely the Pod Race sequence and the juiced-up lightsaber duels which help begin to paint a picture of what the Jedi Order were like before their Downfall. To both of these points, I will partially agree and partially disagree; the Pod Race was indeed exciting - for the first lap after which the entire novelty wore off as the Anakin v Sebulba rivalry took it's sweet time resolving itself. As for the lightsaber duels, I will admit that the Duel of the Fates was the first real lightsaber duels I saw (it was 2001, guys) where I didn't feel as if the Jedi were just slacking off or just horribly trained. However, Qui-Gon's performance in said duels are bordering on plot holes in my view; he's a Jedi Master who trained Obi-Wan Kenobi and neutralized his first apprentice after he turned to the Dark Side and yet he's that winded after a 45-second duel with Darth Maul... Are you kidding me!?? Is this some sort of inside easter egg joke that I just never got or was this genuinely part of the story?

And then we get to the part of this entire charade which irritates me the most. The purposely dated-looking filter in the entire movie. It's the one thing that grinds my gears worse than Jar Jar Binks because it's there the entire film, giving it such a dated look when the whole thing took place a measly thirty-two years before A New Hope. It further sucks the life and energy out of the film and dilutes it into a bleak two hours further depriving the film of the Star Wars feeling which ebbed, emanated and flowed through the original three films so spectacularly. This isn't even really a Star Wars film, it's more like a behind-the-scenes look on the Republic, it's Senate and all the pretentious clods who occupy it. At least Attack of the Clones and Revenge Of The Sith both have more exciting storylines and allow the few decent actors a little more room to do their own thing as they are meant to. None of that can be the case for Phantom though, this is the film where Star Wars crashed and burned worse than that one fighter that was shot down before even getting into space in the Battle of Naboo scene.

It's that big of a let down.