Episode I: The Bizarro Star Wars

Rating: 5/10 (24 August 2003)

On Seinfeld, Jerry asked Elaine if she was familiar with Bizarro Superman. She wasn't. Jerry went on to explain that Bizarro Superman was from the Bizarro world, a planet where everything is backwards compared to our world. Down is up, left is right, hello is goodbye...or bad bye, whatever. Bizarro Superman was, as you may guess, the opposite of Superman.
Welcome to Bizarro Star Wars.
Like the good space battles from ANH and ROTJ? Watch the Bizarro space battles in TPM, where no viewer has any idea at all about what's going on and victory is gained through sheer dumb luck.
Like good dialogue in the style of ANH and ESB? Well, in Bizarro dialogue, you get treated to nuggets such as "That's gotta hurt."
Like unique characters like the droids and Chewbacca? Bizarro oddball Jar Jar Binks will make you rue the day you wished for variety in the characters you watch.
I hate that this movie has the Star Wars name attached to it. Attack of the Clones was wonderful fun, but look what it followed. Independence Day is pretty good compared with The Phantom Garbage.
Most sadly of all, I'm such a Star Warshipper that TPM is in my collection anyway. May the Force be with Episode III.
Explanation of rating: Star Wars movies get an automatic five stars from me; if episodes 4-6 didn't exist, this movie gets 2 stars.