Review of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) by Thomas M — 02 Mar 2018

Look, I know this movie has flaws. I don't care. I waited for this movie for years. I devoured any information I could find out. I wanted the second trilogy that Lucas had promised. I knew it wasn't perfect, and at 19, I knew it couldn't be perfect.

It was fun! It was so much fun because I wasn't stupid enough to whine about the minutia and just watch the damn movie and that badass podracing scene. Oh, dear, the lightsaber battles are unemotional dances, and they are delightful, fast-paced kung-fu exhibitions.

You get the same from Chinese action films. You don't complain about those! Jar Jar Binks? Yeah, there was too much of him, but I didn't dislike him. There could have been less of him, but he wasn't a completely incompatible character.

Bad CGI? It was all relatively new, and it was the best at the time. Please, find me a movie from 1999 with better CGI. Somehow, it's supposed to hold up to the 2010s? This can't be the hill you're choosing to die on.

Star Wars has never been made for art critics. It's made for people who want to switch their brains off and just have a blast, and if you can unpucker your asses long enough to stop whining problems that in the final order of things are entirely cosmetic (and I do understand that some can't) you might just actually enjoy it.