Add another 131 minutes to the collective Star Wars Saga

Rating: Null/10 (20 May 1999)

I waited 16 years for the film. I waited days hours and minutes for tickets and then over twelve hours for optimum seats. I saw the film at 12:01am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7:30pm and 10:30pm all on May 19th 1999. Am I crazy? Probably. Was it worth it all? Absolutely.
They say that this is the beginning but it really isn't. Just like Episode IV, The Phantom Menace begins with the heroes involved in carrying out a mission. The bad are under way and we are simply peeking in on events already in progress. There is no beginning. This is another chapter out of that galaxy I have longed for all of my life.
With over 6,000 articles, countless television spots and interviews and lines that went on for miles, it was hard to go in with no expectations. I feel that this may have caused many to be apprehensive about accepting what was on the screen. I simply went to see the film that George Lucas dreamed up. The film that was, in his opinion, the closest he's come to putting what he has in his mind on the big screen.
If that's close but not quite all the way there, boy am I looking forward to the day when someone invents a device to record our imaginations and put them on the screen. This film rocks on so many levels. It is pure adrenaline.
The first time through was really a form of nostalgia for all of the die hard fans who know all of the ins and outs of the first three films. The foreshadowing was subtle and works very well. I was reminded of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's conversation from Star Wars (1977) when Beru says, speaking of Luke, "He has too much of his father in him." Owen responds, "That's what I'm afraid of." We didn't know what that meant back then.
This time around there are similar references but we all know something that the characters don't know. It makes watching their journey an uneasy task. Especially watching Obi-wan and Anakin meet for the first time but pondering the events of the last time they will meet. How did they get there? We will find out and each step on the way will be tragic but perfect. Told only the way the real Jedi Master (Lucas) can tell it.
The worlds are incredible and the new creatures are a joy. We can certainly look forward to a new brand of film-making.Those who say that the special effects were not up to expectations simply don't know what they were looking at. I believed that I could walk and run and simply exist in every location of the film. The backgrounds were seamless even though I went in with the knowledge that the sets were only around 6 feet high and the rest was laid in with computer graphics.
I do wish that Annakin had been devoid of the cheeky childish mannerisms especially during the final space battle. That should've been our view into a calculating determined warrior, not a "gosh golly gee, ooops fest". The podrace looked more like someone who was to become who Vader was. And, Jar Jar must die.
I will see this movie several more times (6 times in 1 day was not enough). Thw 19th was truly a holiday for me and quite unusual. I will see The Phantom Menace as I would any other film. I simply don't see any upcoming films that will compare so I'll be seeing it in the theaters until it's not there any more. Because, in my book, while the Phantom Menace is playing, there are no other movies playing.
I'm also hoping that after 2 & 3 are done, Lucas will see fit to not only give us 7, 8 & 9 but perhaps take us a little further back in time and make Star Wars:Prologue