The beginning of a legacy, but the lameness remains

Rating: Null/10 (29 May 2003)

"The Phantom Menace" (a truly awful title) is supposedly the beginning of the Star Wars universe. No offense to all you lovers of it out there, but it royally bombs in my mind. The commericalist attitude from "Return of the Jedi" returns, from KFC and Pepsi to any other junk you can think of. Talk about an advertising overload. The production design in this is terrible. Rather than the supposed functionability of the original series, everything looks like a computer-generated forgery and even the costumes are outlandishly stupid. My moral, give Lucas a 10 million dollar budget again and see what he can come up with instead of an epillepsy-inducing lightshow.
Even the plot suffers from patheticism. I've encountered fourth graders that have written better short stories. With the death of Leigh Brackett and the uninvolvement of Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas has no one with the writing load--and it shows. Go back to Episodes 4 and 5 for the good stuff.
Overall, a waste of your time because there's nothing new. 2.5 out of 5 stars