STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE

Meesa gonna try and make this quick.

It’s not mystery that a lot of people don’t like The Phantom Menace. Why would you? It’s full of bad acting and now badly aged special effects. Unfortunately, it’s still Star Wars.

The biggest problem with The Phantom Menace, among many, many others, is the plot. The original trilogy showed us something fantastic. Star ships shooting at star ships. Giant space stations blowing up planets. And one of the greatest reveals ever put into a film. But more on that in a few days. What did The Phantom Menace show us? Politics. Bloody politics. Because apparently that’s what audiences want to see. The entire film is basically a bunch of Right-wingers arguing with a bunch of Left-wingers, with some remnants of Star Wars speckled here and there. But enough on the dreadful plot. Let’s move on.

The second, and more obvious problem, goes by the name of Jar Jar Binks. I don’t know why he was put into the film, but if it was for comic relief, it REALLY didn’t work. Oh, and there was the horrific acting of Jake Lloyd, aka young Anakin Skywalker.

But there are glimmers of hope in the film. Those few and far between moments where the Star Wars-y goodness shines through. While the set up to Pod Race takes forever, the race itself is actually really fun to watch, even if you’re just trying to spot all the references to the original trilogy in the crowd.

It was also nice to see what the once great Jedi Order actually looked like, even if only about four of them actually speak. The performances by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor stand out as well, playing Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi, respectively. Whilst McGregor’s performance peaked in the third movie, Neeson’s gets it right straight from the start, which is a shame, seeing as…well…Y’know.

But the best thing about the film, by far, is the final duel. Two Jedi Knights going head to head with a Sith Lord, who has a double bladed Lightsaber. Wait, what?! As if the fight itself wasn’t enough, which it really is, John Williams fantastic score in the background really makes it awesome. The only down side to the fight, is that is saw the end of Darth Maul, until he was brought back in The Clone Wars TV show. But it’s not really the same.

Overall, The Phantom Menace, whilst having good points, spends way too much time on the bad points. At least three quarters of the film is skippable, meaning you can make it to the end and only watch about forty five minutes of the whole movie. Its only redeeming feature really is the final duel, which is still hellishly fun to watch.

6/10

If you want to see what the Phantom Menace could have been, I highly recommend you watch Belated Media’s version here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgICnbC2-_Y