The year jumps forwards to 1999. 22 years after the first movie was released. The words of a new Star Wars movie makes fourty-year-old fanboys wet their pants in surprise. People flock to the cinemas once more. And what they get... sucks.
The Phantom Menace is not super-bad, but it is certainly not Star Wars as the fans know it. In fact, none of these crappy prequels deserve to be called Star Wars, but we'll get to that. Let's get on with the movie, shall we?
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Erk, where do I start? The Phantom Menace is the first of three sequels, and it foreshadows the bad movies to come with its' name, like something wrong creeping at the back of your head, but you just can't wrap your head around what. Now, everyone and their mother's dog has seen or heard of this movie, so there's not much to be said that most people do not already know.
I will talk about something that most seem to miss, however. The fact that this movie only has two characters. BEFORE you start naming all your favorite jedi, and "that badass red dude with the spikes on his face for the lols", I will explain what I mean. There are plenty of actors in this movie. Even more CGI people walking around. None of them have a personality. There are only two people in the entire movie whom exhibit some form of real characteristic, and that I can willingly say; "That there is a person. Or might be, with some strained thought and disbelief."
Whom these characters are, we'll get back to. First of all, let's look at the super-epic intro crawl! This is what we've been waiting over 15 years for!
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away....
Yes please!
EPISODE I
The Phantom Menace
Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic.
Awesome! Turmoil is what we want!
The Taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.
Erh. Okay? Is this the turmoil? This seems more a.. day to day occurence? No? Okay, I'll let you go on!
Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy trade federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo.
Wait, what? How do you resolve a taxation dispute with battleships, in a REPUBLIC? And what strategic value does Naboo hold? Hm? Is the tax especially high here? Low? Non-existant? WHY ARE THEY SENDING IN BATTLESHIPS OVER TAXES. Surely it cannot be that bad!
While the Congress endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretely dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, to settle the conflict...
What? Really? The supposed Trade Federation brings a HOSTILE embargo on this poor planet, and they can't come to a decision in the slightest? Is this Federation that powerful? Are -they- part of the Republic? If they are, why is the Congress allowing this brutal move that could possibly lead to genocide by.. economy? And sending two jedi? The movie -does- have Ambassadors. Why doesn't he send those? Better yet, send an ambassador PROTECTED by Jedi! But alright. We have a blockade of greedy traders. We have Jedi. All these questions will be answered in the movie anyway. ...Right?
No. No they will not. If anything, you will get more questions as you go. Such as; "Am I supposed to root for these idiots?" and "Did I pay for this? Do they give refunds?".
Enough of that! The movie takes us to this super-hardy blockade, wherein we meet the first character in the movie; Qui-Gon Jinn played by Liam Neeson. A somewhat aged, wise Jedi. This would be fine if he was just that. But Qui-Gon Jinn is also reckless, a great trait to put on a wise master Jedi. To pair that off, he has no real respect for the Council he works for and believes in, making him the best rolemodel ever. Qui-Gon is accompanied by his whiny, annoying, snarky, and skeptical padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi. What?
You heard me. They made the lovable Master Jedi who schools and watches over Luke into a snarky, down-to-earth sidekick to whine and provide amusing commentary to the zany situations they fall into. Oh god. It is even worse that THIS IS HIS ONLY PURPOSE. Kenobi will not say -anything- that is not either ;
- Obvious.
- Sarcastic.
- Whiny.
- Otherwise Negative.
- Attempted Joke.
He does not have a personality. This becomes painfully apparent when you watch the movies all in one go, and notice that in the second and third Kenobi is suddenly supposed to emulate emotion, something he does so-so.
So, they wait in this small room for the Trade Federation to join them. Here we get immense displays of wisdom from our Jedi Master and his apprentice. They think something is wrong! Oh no! Better be on your guard, guys! Oh, look, a robot serving them drinks, how nice. So you suspect something is terribly wrong, and it might be a trap, but you heedlessly drink whatever is offered. Nice going, Jedi Master Jinn.
They don't even have time to get out of the room before it's time for his next super-wisdom. Oh no! They locked the door and are now flooding the room with poisonous gas! Let's use our lightsabers to smelt through the small door and cut through the possible enemies on the other side! No wait, if I had self-preservation, I might do that. No, let's just hold our breaths until they open the doors instead. It's not like they might have scanners or anything.
Right, anyway. They escape, because the super duper army of evil droids couldn't kill anything even if it offered to kill itself for them. We get a glance at our villain, Darth Sidious. All the fans know this is the Emperor, and you get this tingle of evil in your stomache. You know this is badass. Too bad they milk it dry, and show extensive scenes of him ALL THE TIME. There is not an ounce of mystery again. It might as well be called "Palpatine's Plotting" or.. "Rise of the Empire" and feature him as the protagonist. Noone would know the difference, really.
So, they escaped, anyway, and hitched a ride to this pathetic peace-planet named Naboo. Naboo is inhabited by two main races. Idiot Humans, and Idiot Aliens called 'Gungans'. Thankfully, the Gungans are a little smarter than the humans, but they make up for it by only being in the movie for comedic value.
So we meet Character #2. His name is Jar-Jar Binks. Yes. I know everyone hates this character, and say he ruins the movie. In fact, so many people complained about this guy that George Lucas was coerced into making him mostly absent in the other two. Funny that. Anyway, suck it up. Jar-Jar Binks is a character, and a fine one. He -is- only here to be made fun of, but he has his own set of morals, a distinct personality that makes him interact with his surroundings accordingly, and a really annoying accent so you know he's not human. If you couldn't tell from his strange appearance. It is really sad that they milk him for comical purposes, because A) It does not work, and B) They could have removed him entirely and made a better movie with real characters by putting the focus elsewhere.
So anyway, Mr Binks notes that he is banned from his own home because he's a tosser, but decides to lead the very nice Jedi men there anyway. So the Jedi break out their breathing apparatuses and follow into the watery depths where he lives. Sure would've been nice if they could've used those breathing apparatuses before in the poison clouds instead of holding their breath, but The Plot had not equipped them with such gear yet. They go to the city of Comic Relief and get some help to go to the humans who are on the other side of the planet. Apparently the best way is -through the planet's core-. BY SUBMARINE. Yeah, I won't comment on that.
So they jump into this submarine, and I think it's safe to say that they could've cut this entire trip from the movie, and noone would care. Mainly because NOONE ACTS. The two Jedi sit there with listless expressions as giant fish try to eat them time and time again. Sigh. So yeah. After a quick fix of a power outage that magically does not remove the forcefield protecting the glassless windows, the heroes evade danger and pop in for a bit of a chat with the local humans and their emotionless queen. Amidala or whatnot, who's major purpose in these movies is to get attacked, get flirted at by six-year-olds and sacrifice her handmaidens.
They take Amidala's ship (with Amidala in it) to Tatooine, because pointless shoutbacks to the original movies are cool. Apparently their ship was damaged or whatever, so they want to get some part to fix it. Oh, shit, they don't take Republic credits on this planet. Suddenly we're broke. Qui-Gon displays his wisdom and good nature again by trying to force the vendor to accept his money anyway, despite repeated failure. They meet Anakin Skywalker who I dare say is a small devil child. Noone, I repeat, noone, is THAT nice.
The kid is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. When he's not busy propagating peace through holding hands and having no personality of his own, he runs around calling people angel, or singlehandedly building complex racing machines and robots. This is not a little child. This is a monster created by the Plot. Turns out he IS created by the Plot, quite literally, since he apparently has no father. I won't talk about Midi-chlorians. Just know I hate it too.
So yeah. Long waste of time. Instead of having the boy who builds advanced machines out of scrap look at their ship, or just have him steal the part, or sell something of lesser value to buy the part, or take on a week's work to earn money to get the part, Qui-Gon the wise suggests they bet on a six-year-old in a lethal race that he's never won, in a machine built out of scrap, with their ship as collateral. Great plan, idiot. Anyway, Anakin wins, and they leave. Without his mother. Never in the movie, or between movies, do the jedi ever decide to you know, go back and get her. Nooo. No, they leave her there so grown up Anakin can be a twat later on.
They bring Amidala to the homeworld of the Republic for a bit of a chat, and then they go back to Naboo. Nothing interesting happens at all. Now it's time for war. The Comic Relief Gungans will fight a large droid army for no real reason really far away from the human city, and the humans will try for an infiltration into the captured capitol, which is incidentially the only human city on Naboo. Cue 'hilarious' hijinks and srs space/landbattles. Darth Timefiller appears to fight and die, killing the 'wise' Master Jinn in the process. Naboo is liberated. They hold up some weird glowing orb that we do not know what it is, and all is well for about ten years until the next movie.
So, why is this movie crap? First of all, they ruin it by giving us -too many- shoutbacks. Everyone is in this movie. I'm surprised we didn't get someone calling himself "Jett Solo" for the randomness of it. Something I might touch on in the future also, is the fact that Kenobi WAS TRAINED BY YODA AND NOT THIS RECKLESS MORON. BOTH YODA AND HE SAY SO IN THE ORIGINAL MOVIES. Did you not watch your movies, Mr Lucas?
Anyway. This movie is mediocre and pretty boring. The intrigue and dramatic space opera we loved so much has been replaced by pretty effects and cardboard characters. It's not as bad as many say, but it's not good.
SRM Score: 53% (55% for the movie, -2% for lack of ninja.)
If you're a fan, watch it. But for god's sake, put some music on or read a newspaper while you do.
