Review of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) by Yorkman — 02 Jan 2016

TPM is George Lucas' imagination gone into CGI overdrive. With every single whim unquestioned we get the first part of the original Six episodes of Star Wars delivered to us 16 years after RotJ, and what did we get...?

We got a bloated, borderline nonsensical tale of how a Jedi Master, his apprentice, a 14 year old Queen and some obnoxious, CGI abomination of a sentient, bidepal creature end up accidentally finding the one who will bring balance to the Force. The one being a 9 year old kid who has absolutely no charisma.

Political machinations fly left and right as the villain of the piece (who we all know is the dastardly political leader of the planet on which the Queen is the ruler) begins to move his pieces on Lucas' chessboard, culminating in a three-way battle between some fighter craft in space, a CGI robot army vs a CGI bipedal creature army, and the two Jedi squaring off against a nasty Sith Lord.

At the time of the film's release it was praised by audiences (check out the video clips of people coming out of the cinema in 1999!!!), and even most contemporary critics were blown away. It was only in retrospect, relatively quickly afterwards it has to be said, that people began to actually think about the film and what it was about, and the hate and anger lead many to the Dark Side of the Force!!

As a popcorn movie, it's fine. As a piece of pop-culture, it's referenced as the point where George Lucas stopped being revered as the creator of one of cinemas most enduring masterpieces. As the start of a new 'prequel' trilogy, it's piss-poor.

Unfortunately, however bad this film was/is...... Worse was to come.