it ain't THAT bad

Rating: 6/10 (29 May 2005)

Ah, the summer of 1999. Who could ever forget the hype of Episode I. I was and still am a fan of the original trilogy, so i was excited to hear that new star wars movies were going to be made. I personally liked the film when i first saw it. But when i saw it again after the next 2 prequels, i thought that this was by far the worst of all the star wars movies. But i don't think its THAT bad.
Ill start with the good. The special effects are eye candy as usual, George Lucas is a master at that. The Pod Race on tatooine was better than the big battle near the end (the one with the ships in space attacking the control ship, the gungan battle with the droids, etc) I thought. The Lightsaber duel was great, and far better than the saber duels in the first trilogy The film also has a decent storyline to it, because now you see how young Anakin is discovered, and what Obi Wan was like when he was younger.
Now the Bad. The acting is very stiff. I know George Lucas does not rely on acting that much, but the acting was somewhat pathetic (except for a few people). A lot of the diologue sounds like it is being read off a teleprompter, and it drags a bit. Second, there was no need for a new kind of comic relief in this film. Jar Jar Binks is only funny to those under 10 years old. But he makes this film much too childish for a lot of older people to see it. It was a nice try for George Lucas, but the comic relief is C3PO's job, not some animated character.
The reason why it was a big disappointment was because some critics are mindless. They couldn't appreciate the film for what it really was: the beginning back story for one of the biggest movies ever made, Star Wars. I am going to use this quote i heard from a TV show. "Star Wars is Like Pizza, even if it's bad, its still Pizza..."