Oh YES!!! Worth the hype, but now we must wait

Rating: 9/10 (22 May 1999)

I was lucky enough to get in to Phantom Menace twice on opening day and a third time, with more visits sure to come. I would consider Phantom Menace as the second best of the Star Wars films so far, behind Star Wars (my humble opinion). Some of the things the movie did right.
1. The now-classic scrolling introduction and John Williams' classic them... this film would not be Star Wars without these two crucial elements
2. Effectively spun four different action sequences at the same time and managed to not make my eyeballs dance.
3. Some very excellent continuity can be found in the dialogue (one example is the reference to the binary star system Tatooine is located in)
4. It reintroduced as many of the familiar characters as possible.
The new characters, though not developed nearly as well as we would have liked (and two of them die near the end, but I'm not saying who!), add a lot of color to the movie. I especially liked Jar Jar Binks.
The special effects are about as close to perfection as you could possibly want. Look, however, for one scene during the pod race, when Jar Jar is played by a "dude wearing a hat". Apparently they missed that one. :) There is a fight sequence between Jar Jar's people and the droids that is ENTIRELY COMPUTER GENERATED!
Two Jedi masters have displaced Obi Wan Kaneobi as the greatest users of the Jedi Arts. These are Darth Maul (first) and Qui Gon Jinn (second). Liam Neeson impressed me greatly. I believe his acting performance may have been the best, and his fighting skills were fantastic. The man who plays Darth Maul in this movie is a world-class second level black belt and he conducts some of the most amazing moves I have ever seen in any movie of any genre.
The film is worth the price of admission just for the light saber sequences. Each one in this film is a work of art. Beautifully choreographes. Even the light sabers appear cooler than ever!
This film covered more story than epsiodes 4-6 did on average, yet it was very easy to follow. The main reasons for going back to see it again are for the effects and the fight scenes. The story is already beginning to weave itself into something resembling where we started in A New Hope. The plot twists begun here is going to make a long three years.
George Lucas used every resource at his disposal to resurrect his imagined world. And the world he has created in Phantom Menace is huge, and absolutely breathtaking.
The film only loses something for the lack of character development. Had we known more about the characters in this film, we might have felt a greater attachment to them. This is especially true in the case of the two characters who die. The survivers will of course have the chance to be built upon in the next two movies. The next three years will be a long wait. I voted it a nine. Near perfection, but more character development would have been preferable.