wtf??

Rating: 3/10 (21 September 2015)

You have to put it all in context for this movie; the original Star Wars trilogy was one of the biggest kids marketing successes of Hollywood history, if not the biggest, depending on how myopic you are regarding science fiction fandom. Obviously, in case you didn't know, numerous characters, settings and concepts were lifted from Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy, and there are similarities to Akira Kurasawa's films also, but basically the original series looked and felt 100% original due to the concept art of Ralph McQuarrie. People will disagree with that statement, but seriously, if you look at his concept designs and scene paintings, they contain pretty much all the key scenes that were so memorable in the original series.
The public probably didn't really want or expect another trilogy, but when it was announced that it was in production, everyone was, like, "Hell yeah, I'll buy a ticket", by which I mean pretty much half the planet. The problem was that Ralph McQuarrie didn't want to come back to do the design work, and the late nineties CGI efforts looks airless, over-complicated and fake.
Well hang on, the movie looks good in promo stills (that said, so do frames from Michael Bay's Transformers pictures), but the actual cast telling the story in Star Wars Episode I is pure vanilla. Where the original series launched the career of Harrison Ford into the big time, this movie pretty much killed Liam Neeson's career for a decade or more. This is an actual quote on the craft of acting from the Guardian newspaper two weeks before the films opening
QUOTE
"Honest to God, I don't want to do it any more."
Neeson appears as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars, Episode 1: the Phantom Menace, which opens in the US in a fortnight. He blamed the industry generally for his decision. 'Film is a director's medium; it has nothing to do with actors,'
'We are basically puppets, walking around, hitting marks, saying lines. Producers make all the money, and you get the sense that they hate actors.' UNQUOTE
Also, Ewen McGregor said the movie pretty much sucked but later withdrew his statement, probably for financial reasons.
The film sold HEAPS of tickets, but no-one can actually relate the plot back afterward; essentially a princess is in the middle of a trade embargo and is secretly moving supplies to the green planet of Naboo to arm locals for an incursion against the galactic empire, but the story is hard to follow and typically the set design engulfs the acting on screen. Natalie Portman's acting is completely flat, and others talk in pseudo-heroic British theater accents to sound "chivalrous", rather than using the natural expression of their voices. Part of the problem also stems from excessive scenes with characters interacting with CGI characters, CGI props and CGI backdrops.
The main problem is the lack of ace McQuarrie designs from the original, while there's a lot of spaceships and robots on display, they all seem flimsy, insectile or horribly overstated. There's a great pod racer sequence featuring Darth Vader as an 8 year old (or something?? How come C3P0 and R2D2 know who Skywalker's real father is? Isn't this the worst plot hole in a major film ever? Possibly). Um, yeah - there's an ace pod racer sequence with lots of great angles and CGI machinery design, but as usual its so slick and airless that once you get over the initial buzz of seeing a slick chase sequence, there's little reason to go back and re-watch it, because the characters don't really sink in and as I mentioned, the plot outline is a mystery due to poor writing and exposition.
A lot of people hated on Jar-Jar Binks, a racist stereotype of an incompetent Jamaican/tribal character that provides unfunny pratfalls and talks in gibberish. Star Wars was always something of a white anglo-Saxon fantasy, but there had never been so many unflattering Asian stereotypes, nor Jamaican stereotypes in earlier episodes of "Star Wars". Essentially Lucas fell for the trap of making the stupid, incompetent character a foreigner, and numerous bad guys foreigners, while the heroes are cod-Brits.
After he'd killed Star Wars, Lucas left the series. I can't say honestly that he can direct, much less write a great movie anymore. (Howard the Duck??). He was a very bright star in seventies cinema, a progressive decade filled with great films, now just a rich old fool. If you're wondering, he was obsessed with sci-fi comics and car engines as a kid, which may have influenced the original Star Wars aesthetic, but just to kick his audience in the teeth for caring, he wrote the Episode I script himself and it's sheer pulp toilet paper. With these kinds of movies, if kids aren't responding positively you've definitely missed the mark.