Hard to believe that there was a time when Star Wars fans had to wait years upon years for another movie to come and bring the same amount of excitement and creativity that we have come to love from the original trilogy. The last movie in the original trilogy was released in 1983 and it would be 16 years until we got another movie. This new star wars movie was hyped as much as you can possibly imagine as not only a return for the franchise but also a new start in something different seeing that this would kick off what many people call the Prequel trilogy. Sadly, the new prequel movie titled The Phantom Menace was not only a huge disappointment for many fans and it has been built up by many to be the worst Star Wars movie ever. Looking back at this film years later does this film deserve all the hate it’s been given?
(Just a heads up a lot of complicated stuff happens in this movie so I may not have gotten all the details so I hope you understand) Two Jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Nesson) and young Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) escape from Naboo after a fallout with Naboo’s leaders. They eventually land on Tatooine with the aid of creatures like Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) to find parts to repair their ship. Qui-Gon manages to come across a young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) who seems to be strong with the force and may have Jedi potential. The team better watch out as imperial forces such as Darth Maul (Ray Park) have come to stop the Jedi's from getting away with important information.
So do I think this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen? absolutely not. Do I think it could have been so much better in many respects? Yes indeed. Starting with the good, it does still carry the aspects of what we enjoyed about the original trilogy with engaging lightsaber battles space-age exploration, and mostly likable characters. There are plenty of scenes that are show hints of what I just mentioned before but there are unfortunately some aspects that bring the storytelling down. The thing that makes this movie rather mediocre is the boring political exposition that is very hard to follow and too uninteresting to take part in. it seems they got the whole thing backward as Star Wars was supposed to have an interesting easy to follow story with hints of complexity, it shouldn’t be the other way around. Because of this, it makes the story feel exhausting to take part in. the other thing that seems to be rather questioning is the dialogue as it feels too campy and and premature in some cases. It’s not the worst, but the dialogue is played out too silly and nonsensical. Star Wars is usually known for taking its audience seriously so it’s a huge headscratcher to wonder why the dialogue feels elementary to me. I’m sure the filmmakers had good intentions when making this movie, but this feels like a big step backward compared to Lucasfilm's last effort.
The characters have a lot to live up to and unfortunately, they are a mixed bag in terms of how much of an impact they left on me. Qui-Gon Jinn and young Obi-Wan Kenobi are in all honesty okay. They do have their better moments but they weren't the most impactful characters in the Star Wars universe. Other characters such as Queen Amidala are very complicated to understand and it’s hard to be invested when the movie doesn’t take that much time to really get to know them. Then there are the lesser characters such as Jar Jar Binks and Young Anakin Skywalker. Jar Jar is very annoying most of the time and his premature personality does not match the style and tone of the original trilogy. He’s supposed to provide comedic relief but he’s less like C-3PO and more like a bad African American stand-up routine. Young Anakin Skywalker is played by a child actor who is obviously trying his hardest but his performance comes off as stale and unemotional. It’s not really his fault as I mainly blame the writing for making him feel this way, but actor Jake Lloyd could have tried to be a little more convincing.
Star wars were always great at giving us cinematography that brought out the best in practical visual effects. This movie tries to go a different route by incorporating CGI wherever they can to blend in with their practical sets and props. Now I’m not against CGI in movies because CGI has come a long way ever since this movie. However, this movie uses CGI technology so much that it, unfortunately, becomes obvious to the eye what is real and what’s not. Sometimes those effects can help a scene to make the environment look expansive or add spaceships where there are none. Still, it would have helped to blend in more pratical effects seeing as that’s what we come to expect from the franchise. Seeing that most of the non-human characters are CGI is pretty baffling and it feels disappointing that the filmmakers didn’t try harder to make the environment and characters feel like they exist with the real things on the screen. The practical stuff though is indeed quite good and it’s exploited through the amazing stunt work with the lightsaber battles and some of the makeup on characters like Queen Amidala and Darth Maul.
John Willams returns as the composer for this new Star Wars production and luckily his compositions are just as lively and triumphant as ever. They may not be on the same level as the original trilogy, but these compositions serve well enough to satisfy Star Wars fans of all types.
Filmmaker George Lucas was given full creative control for this movie and it honestly shows seeing that this movie should have been rewritten and observed by many people in order for this film to live up to the high expectations of the original trilogy. This is far from the worst movie I've ever seen and there were scenes such as the final battle with Darth Maul and the Pod Race and Tatooine that made sitting through this flawed movie worth it. Is this the worst movie of the Star Wars franchise? That is yet to be determined. What I do know is that this movie should have been so much better and it should have been the start of something grand when instead it was the start of something unfortunate.
(Final Grade: C-)