Had "The Phantom Menace" not been in the Star Wars series, I might have been able to forgive its faults. Its attachment to that excellent series of films, though, makes this film a real insult. Among the problems... Every SINGLE good thing in the film happens completely by accident. The good guys have no plan. They accidentally meet Jar-Jar...well, okay, that isn't a good thing, but we were supposed to THINK it was. They accidentally meet up with Anakin. Jar-Jar accidentally blows up the droids in the battle between Gungun and battle droid armies...might I add that having Jar-Jar do anything other than what is loosely called comic relief is a horrible idea. Heck, the big evil battleship of doom that of course wasn't just another copy of the Death Star, really...that was blown up in a MASSIVE series of accidents. I guess we're supposed to believe that the Force had a sense of humor back before the Empire, huh? Let's also analyze some other significant problems. The duel- Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul. Nice fight. Too bad it didn't make a bit of sense. Qui-Gon Jinn is a full-fledged Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan is an apprentice who is almost a full Jedi. Darth Maul is an apprentice Sith. It is extremely doubtful that an apprentice Sith with a dual-bladed SINGLE lightsaber can take a two-on-one fight with one full Jedi and another nearly full. If the Sith are /that/ much better than the Jedi, then there's no way good ol' Luke could have ever beaten Vader- which he DID do, before the emperor interfered. Also, there's the matter of Qui-Gon's death. I realize they pretty much had to have him eliminated from the story somehow, or Obi-Wan wouldn't have trained Anakin. But being stabbed in an area that is not instantly fatal, with a weapon known to cauterize wounds (and that is made for slashing, not stabbing, and therefore would be awkward as a stabbing weapon), and slumping to the ground- somehow pulling Darth Maul's LASER sword, that cuts through much harder things than human flesh, down with him? Anyone else see a problem? Besides it being a far less visually stunning death than the rest of the fight seemed to be leading up to? Obi-Wan then proceeds, of course, to beat Darth Maul single-handedly, when the two Jedi couldn't even get a near-hit on the guy together. Would it have been too hard to have Qui-Gon use the last of his strength to throw the lightsaber at Maul from behind or something cool like that, instead of having Obi-Wan get his power from anger (the dark side, by the way) and cut Maul in two with a slash twice as slow as the stuff the guy was blocking easily moments before? "The Phantom Menace" is watchable, but only that. It is certainly not a worthy prequel to the Star Wars Trilogy. I will see the next movie...but only in the hopes that Lucas will fix what went wrong in this one. And maybe take out Jar-Jar...
Only Decent, and certainly NOT a worthy addition to the series- spoilers
8 March 2001
Warning: Spoilers