Empty Darkness of Menace

Rating: 1/10 (22 May 1999)

Thank God this was not the first produced picture in the series or the legend would have never existed. Is Menace a bad picture? No. Is it boring? Mostly not. But is it in a different league from other good science fiction movies? No.
Menace has several serious problems: -We know too much about the future, we know who makes it alive to episodes IV,V, VI. When we see Jedis fight we know who is going to make it. Pretty anticlimactic.
-Visually the movie does little more than recreate some of the Jetssons cartons, earth wilderness and Middle East scenarios. What happened with Lucas imagination? Before he had the excuse of the limitation of special effects, now, what's his excuse?
-Did anyone saw any androids do any real damage. They are the most incompetent force imaginable. Why would anyone, much less an advance civilization use them for anything?
-No Dark Side. Apparently, the origin of the darkside is just some creatures with Jedi capabilities decide to become overambitious and take over. So the darkside has nothing to do with the evil side of the universe, it has all to do with a little gang or Mafia that wants control (all we have to fear is just corruption, pretty pathetic antagonist). The magic, the wonderment, the sensation of weakness when confronted with the dark-side that we experienced before is revealed as unfounded, evil will not take over, it's just smart criminals. Lame.
-It's pretty clear the ultimate intent of the movie: The destruction of the idea of evil. It embraces the Buddhist notion that evil doesn't exist. Only ignorance. People who do bad things (evil) do them out of ignorance, nothing more. If they knew, if they were enlightened they would not be evil. It denies our choice for evil. Of course this idea plays beautifully with liberal Hollywood. Too bad Lucas has resigned the opportunity to explore the largely unknown notion of evil for such a plebeian explanation. And the legend of Star Wars dies.