Review of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) by Metanar — 20 May 2012

Far from being a successor to the original trilogy, 'The Phantom Menace' (what were they thinking?) is boring, nonsensical and would, in fact, have been better if they had just gone all out with it being a child's cartoon so there was no implication that adults who enjoyed the original films were meant to enjoy this trash. It's clear this is meant to appeal to kids; you've got Jar Jar providing unfunny slapstick, an annoying brat who has no idea what's going on and somehow magically figures out how to pilot a ship in the end to save the day and simple one dimensional characters that any adult would recognise as cardboard cut outs of people. I don't think there's a single likeable character in this film. Obi-wan is whiny and does nothing for the whole film, Qui-Gon is just a flat boring character, Padme is similarly devoid of character, Jar Jar is a cartoon character and Anakin is just an annoying kid. The sure-fire best way to ruin the character of the fearsome Darth Vader was to make a new film that showed him to be a stupid kid who says "BOOM- they blow you UP!".

The plot doesn't make any damn sense, the characters are just awful and after watching this I'm left feeling like I just banged my head against a wall for half an hour because I feel about 50 IQ points dumber.