Listen to the Money Talk

Rating: 1/10 (24 November 2007)

I honestly have no idea how many times I have watched the original Star Wars trilogy over the past 25 years. Those three movies shall always hold most of the wonder and innocence of my childhood.
The second trilogy.... It seems that for love of money, and the need to get his name back in the game, the man who shaped my expectancy of all movies sci-fi decided to reopen the collective Childhood Memories book of an entire generation...and dump a huge, steaming, double-handful of feces on the pages.
The Phantom Menace was poorly conceived, poorly executed, and poorly presented. The special effects were sub-par when compared to CGI capabilities of the time...except for the hated Jar Jar Binks who was excellently animated and blended...perhaps that character took up 80% of the time and budget for all effects contained in the feature.
Others have stated that us fans of the original trilogy are simply afraid of the new things presented in the pre-trilogy. For me, at least, this is not so. The fundamentals of The Phantom Menace were pretty much what I expected. Technology that seemed advanced from what we saw in the original trilogy was valid, as much would have been lost in the years after the rise of the Empire. Anakin as a child was valid in my mind...though everything about this part of the movie seemed rushed and forced just so it would culminate in the pod race scene. R2 and 3PO had their place...though this, too, seemed rushed and the presentation of C-3PO as Anakin's creation seems like the writer was really reaching to make a connection.
The Darth Maul battle was exemplary and flawlessly executed...but it was completely unable to salvage the movie. I could go one...but it would degenerate into a rant. Suffice it to say that it is my carefully considered opinion that this movie was made solely for marketing purposes and merely rode the Star Wars name to garner viewers.