The pace is set.

Rating: 9/10 (26 April 2006)

Just under 7 years has now passed since Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace was released.
In a sense of nostalgia, I think this movie will always have a warm place in my heart. You can indulge in the flaws, faults and inconsistencies that were created by this film in contradiction to the Original Trilogy (That then subsequently needed be remedied through the stories of the 2 to follow). That's all good and well, but by the same token, you need also to appreciate the movie culture and the stress of besting the (arguably) best film ever made. I know that George Lucas never expected to outdo the original, but by the same token, the only way it could be conceived that he would deliver a film anything like the originals would be to chop up bits and pieces of the originals and splice it all together.
Since that was never going to happen, we must be content with this film.
And I feel it's a brilliant delivery, despite the common need expressed by many fans to tear it down.
OK, maybe Jar-jar should have been a much less annoying character who wouldn't be detrimental to our mental health and have the speech capacity of at least a 15 year old, and not a 4 year old. But this movie's not about him. It just has him.
Let's focus on Obiwan Kennoby and Qui-Gonn Jinn. By this point as a Star Wars fan - or even casual bystander - everybody knew who Kennoby was. Luke's mentor. Yoda's apprentice. But wait, in this, Qui Gonn is his mentor. OK, some consider this an inaccuracy, but again: Obiwan's Point Of View is different to ours.
There was a brilliance to the connection between these two that I feel every time I watch this movie. A bond like an uncle showing his nephew how to fish. He's keen to show and the nephew's keen to learn, but they occasionally have their falling outs. The mentor-learner relationship here is by far, one of the best and most lifelike in any film, executed perfectly by Liam Neeson and Ewan Macgregor. I promise you that you'll enjoy this movie on a much deeper level next time you watch it if you focus on the interpersonal interactions between these two, especially when on Coruscant.