Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century?

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2000)

This latest episode of the Star Wars saga is a special effects feast. It seems that George Lucas has turned his Industrial Light & Magic division loose. What they came up with are digital effects, the like of which we have not seen before. No need to pay supporting players or extras here, they'll just create them digitally.
The special effects, to be sure, are dazzling but did they go overboard? There are so many digitally created characters that the human cast is almost lost. Take the Jar-Jar Binks character as an example of the overkill. Firstly he comes off as a cartoon-like character, as sort of cross between Daffy Duck and a duck-billed platypus, and is totally unecessary. He looks like Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century.
R2D2 and C3PO could have just as easily handled the comic relief chores as they had in the previous films. For some reason, Lucas chose to keep them in the background. We could have done without the giant horsefly character, whose name escapes me, as well. It was nice to see old friends Yoda and Jabba the Hut again but they merely put in cameo appearances. The droid army looks like an army of mechanical ants.
The Pod Race sequence seems to pay homage to the chariot race sequence in Ben-Hur. There are many similarities.
Of the human actors, and there are few, Liam Neeson stands out as the Jedi Master. It's hard to imagine Ewan McGregor as Obi-wan growing into Alec Guinness. In an effort to appeal to the younger crowd, Lucas has cast Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala and Jake Lloyd as the young Anakin Skywalker. It's a pity that actors of the calibre of Terence Stamp and Samuel L. Jackson were given so little to do.
George Lucas directs this episode and it reminds one of the first Stars Wars in both its settings and characterizations. It is hoped that he will return to the more simplistic and less creature oriented themes of the earlier films, when he makes the next episode.
As a post script, it has always interested me that both Lucas and Steven Spielberg have often looked to the old B&W serials of the 30s and 40s for inspiration. Why don't one or both of them make a new serial and see how it flies (no pun intended).