Silly George

Rating: 3/10 (15 April 2010)

When George Lucas was making his Star Wars film in 1976, he had two objectives. 1. Tell a story 2. Make 775 million dollars. Nobody expected the second one to come true, but it did. Star Wars broke industry records and to this day is one of the highest grossing films of all time. When George Lucas was making his 4th Star Wars film in 1998, he had two objectives. 1. Make 924 million dollars. 2. Tell a story. Notice the difference?
Somewhere along the line, George Lucas got has priorities reversed. Star Wars episode 1: The Phantom Menace should have been made with the same mindset as Star Wars episode 4: A New Hope. Unfortunately, Lucas has forgotten his roots as a filmmaker and is now a businessman. Episode 1 shoved as much childish crap into each frame so that the marketing division could appeal to the "dumb kid demographic". In doing so Lucas has forgotten some basic points about his OWN FRANCHISE.
1. No villain. There is Darth Maul, I guess. He says one line, it was so clichéd I forgot it immediately. There's also the hooded dude who appears as a hologram, he's obviously SPOILER WARNING and he doesn't really do anything either. Also you don't know what the bad guys want. How would blockading Naboo really achieve anything? There are other, easier ways SPOILER WARNING could get what he/she/it wants. It's like Lucas wrote all these cool scenes about invasion and realized it had nothing to do with anything, so he tied it all up with something about the Sith's evil plan five minutes before shooting was about to start. On another note, if the main opposition is a bunch of useless robots that the characters can squash like insects, there's no tension. Throughout the whole film, all you do is question the actions of the characters, pointing out all the things they could have done to make the movie 20 minutes long.
2. Childish crap. People complain about Jar-Jar Binks and rightfully so. I think that Lucas had began to slip in Return when he added the Ewoks. Maybe his 14 year break was an attempt to quell the merchandising beast within, it is my belief that this strategy failed miserably. There are kids everywhere in this film and the droids act like clowns with laser guns.
3. Stupid Plot: I've already mentioned the stupid plot and I'm gonna mention it again. Stupid god damned plot. All of the characters act like they are being mind controlled by the racist federation characters. While people are directing their ire towards Jar-Jar, the real stereotypes are the slimy space slugs who practically regurgitate every negative Asian slur thinkable.
4.Intergalactic space politics: ZZZZZZZZ...If this film is trying so hard to appeal to kids, why do they insert space politics? How does it improve the film to have endless scenes of aliens talking policy? I don't understand! This problem gets worse in the later films. So essentially you have Jar-Jar Binks and Ewoks on one end and on the other you have people getting their limbs amputated, genocide, child murder and people being roasted alive in screaming limbless agony.
The good things: 1. Liam Neeson: This is probably the only reason I gave this film anything other than 1 star, he is truly the best character of the prequel trilogy and even with the terrible script he still exudes charisma.
2.Amazing visuals: All things considered, the film is very good looking, I know this is probably to appeal to kids but if I had to give Lucas a grade based only on style: 10/10. Add in everything else: 3/10