It had been since 1983 since a Star Wars film was
released and fans were beginning to get a bit antsy. The fans began getting
desperate for a new Star Wars, but frankly, weren’t desperate enough for
the franchise to turn into a pile of shit. In 1999, Lucas released a new
installment into the Star Wars franchise: Star Wars: Episode I The
Phantom Menace. After so much hype and excitement, this movie almost ruined the entire franchise for most fans.
This movie obviously takes place before our original
trilogy. It is the prequel trilogy and begins the story of the Old Republic and
the Jedi. The story begins as two Jedi, young Obi-Wan Kenobi and his master
Qui-Gon Jinn, are heading into a huge ship manned by a group called the Trade
Federation. They are going to speak to the leaders about a treaty I believe.
(The story is a little hard to follow, for me anyways.) Well the leaders do not
like this and destroy their ship after it has landed and the Jedi are on board.
The Federation sends battle droids to kill them but the Jedi, of course, are
able to escape and board a ship that is heading down to a planet called Naboo.
Naboo is under capture by the Trade Federation in order for Queen Amidala to
sign a deal with them. Once the Jedi have landed and escape for the massive
droid army, they run into probably the most hated and stupid character of the
whole Star Wars universe, Jar Jar Binks. Jar Jar is a funny talking,
irritating, annoying alien creature that Lucas decided would be a good
character to the story. One of his biggest mistakes, and this guy made several.
Jar Jar has been banished from his home of the “Gungans” but is able to be
given a ship from his people before he is escorted out. This way, him and the
Jedi are able to sneak into Naboo’s capital city. Once they into the city, they
all flee with Queen Amidala and her helpers. Trying to flee into space, huge
Trade Federation ships shoot at the ship and destroys a one of the ship’s
crucial parts in order to fly. The ship has to land down onto the planet of
Tattooine. Here the Jedi will find young Anakin Skywalker, who will be a
crucial part of the rest of the Star Wars story. The rest of the movie
contains taking Skywalker back to the Jedi temple and asking Yoda’s permission
for him to be trained. A overall sad battle between a villain named Darth Maul
leaving Qui-Gon Jinn dead and Obi-Wan in charge of training young Anakin
Skywalker. And of course, the planet of Naboo is saved from the Trade
Federation.
IMDb gives The Phantom Menace a 6.5/10 and Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 56%. I would probably give it a 6/10 which I guess is still technically passing. I do enjoy seeing a
younger, more fresh feel of Star Wars but I would have liked George
Lucas to have done a better job with the movie or even better, have him
replaced. He is almost a cancer cell for the Star Wars movies and you can see
that in this newer trilogy. The Phantom Menace could have been a great
movie, especially with the better technology which helped greatly with the CGI
and making everything look so much better. But none of that matters when you
create an awful story and introduce stupid, meaningless characters. Including
some bad acting and at times, a horrible script, you just create a
disappointing movie. Killing of what could have been an awesome villain and
only giving him about 20 minutes total of screen time also ruins the cool
factor of a movie. Saying all of this, there are still parts of this movie that
I did enjoy and I try to filter out some of the stupidity. It still feels like Star
Wars which does help so overall, I can still get some enjoyment out of
watching this movie. It does give me much hope that Disney totally scrapped all Lucas’ ideas of a new storyline in the upcoming film! Even before the new director, J. J. Abrams came on board. Hopefully The Force
Awakens will be our “New Hope!”
Thanks for reading!
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