As I sat in the huge theater awaiting the movie that I had been awaiting so long to see, seen so many trailers before just about every other movie released this year. The previews before this movie seemed ten times more boring than they usually were, then like a thunderous cloud on the horizon the opening scroll began to fly up screen and the traditional Star Wars theme began to play, my mind was racing a mile a minuet awaitingthe action and special affects that I saw on the previews, and also being a huge Star Wars fan anyway, I was even more eager to hear what a wonderful story line George Lucas had come up with this time, little did I know that in comparison to the original Star Wars trilogy this movie was truly bantha fodder.
the biggest flaws in this movie in my eyes are 1) the fast pase in witch it flows doesn’t alloy for people seeing this and having itthere first Star wars experience to catch most of the humor and important background information. The opening scene with Obi-wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jin talking in the Federation Space Ships meeting room is a perfect example of that. Obi-Wan make a remark about “having a bad feeling” and if you have never seen a Star Wars movie before this is nothing but a bunch of cheep acting to create a sense of fear and uncertainty thatyou already knew you were going to have pushed on you in a few moments when the two heroes are gassed and shot at by battle droids. This point is also clear in the choice of Ian Macdermid as Senator Palpatine, and also as the sinister Darth Sidious. IF you have never seen the Emperor from Return of the Jedi wearing his long black cloaks and talking in almost perfect English how could you piece together the clues left behind pinning the 2)Most of the major action and massive special effects were already viewed in either the movie trailers viewed in theaters everywhere or on the previews seen on TV I was at a loss when I already knew what the outcome of every major scene in the movie would be.
The underwater beasts of the great oceans of Adda Gunga where in extremelylife like, but it lost affect when I had already seen them four time already. Possibly thegreatest part of this movie, the fighting scenes between Darth Maul(Ray Park) and the JediGui-Gon jin and Obi wan Kenobi (Liam Neison and Ewan McGregor), was shown almostin its entirety during the movie previews! This movie was however not all that bad to a die hard Star Wars fan like myself. Igot lost in the plot twists and foreshadowing that only a true die hard fan would trulyunderstand. The fast pace of this movie does not allow you to get bored, and it did notbog me down with lots of back information about the other movies, but instead it seemedto be like an independent film at the beginning of what could be a great series of movies tocome. That one fact is in my eyes what saved this movie, George Lucas did a great job atmaking a movie that must in a sense “ set the stage” for the other great Star Wars moviesafter the fact that they have already had astronomical sucess almost a decade beforeepisode one was even a dream in Lucas’ mind.
When looking from an over all view I would give Star Wars: episode 1-ThePhantom Menace- a B+, but looking from a true fan’s perspective I give it a definite solidA. I guess it all get down to if you haven’t seen this movie yet, even after all the mediahype and merchandise sales preceding its release then I recommend you do, you will notbe sorry, and who knows for all you people out there who have the opinion “ Star warssucks” this movie may change your minds.Bibliography:
