I wish I was twelve again

Rating: 6/10 (20 May 1999)

I was fortunate enough to have heard enough bad feedback before seeing this film (24 hours after release) that my expectations were not misled by the multi-million dollar yearlong hype. Fortunate enough to be prepared for the very PG production that had the comic relief gags and sidekicks that pad your typical Disney animated full-feature musical adventure. Don't get me wrong...I enjoyed this movie very much, however, my grins of being entertained were often interrupted by grimaces of pain (a fart-joke scene, R2-D2's introduction to the audience as a 'droid worthy of a commendation' and just about every single scene with 'Ja Ja' or whatever--the amphibious rastafarian sidekick whose screen-time triples that of Obi-Wan-Kenobi). There are few slow moments in this film--important to the twelve-year-olds who become restless during those boring snags called necessary plot development. Thankfully, most of the story has been revealed to us through the original trilogy, so Lucas was able to pull off barreling through this Episode I...never looking back. Although the computer animated characters and locations were probably the best I have ever seen...they still had that way about them that say "this is computer animated." I have been attempting to figure out why these are identifiable in any film that utilizes the technology and I think this film helped me out--the motions of computer animated characters are simply exaggerated. Almost as if too much work has been put into high-lighting their movements rather than allowing them to subtly blend in with the live-action players. Editing in this film also the commendation that R2-D2 received...very choppy at times almost as if it was shot in 45mm and re-formatted to fit your 35mm screen. Although it seems I have been overly critical of this film, I really truly enjoyed it...the pod race was an amazing achievement, the fights between our two Jedi heroes and Darth Maul (I want more Darth Maul--he's like Boba Fett, the most popular and least used character) make Luke and Darth Vader's fights seem like two kids hitting each other with sticks, and John Williams untraditional score hits a homerun. All this and I normally dislike movies that are generally directed toward General Audiences. One last thing: Even though everybody should go into this film almost entirely dismissing the trilogy...it is still difficult to not miss the rogue starship pilot and his Wookie.