Pretty good film, bad Star Wars film

Rating: Null/10 (15 December 2001)

Ok, let me start by saying I have so far only see PM once, in the cinema, though I do intend to see it again very soon.
I'm not the biggest of Star Wars fans, but the first 3 have always been amongst by top 10 films of all time, just for the sheer scale of the adventure that they take us on. The combination of action, adventure, drama and comedy has always appealed to me, which is why I also love the Indiana Jones films. I first saw the films as a kid, so the supposed 'cute' bits of Return of the Jedi never put me off (e.g. Wicket,Ewoks,Yoda) and probably never will. I enjoyed them as part of the overall story.

Now, Phantom. Obviously, as for every other person who watched the first 3, I had fairly high expectations for this. The trailer was incredible, very tense, and summed up the feeling that everyone was having i.e. here's where it all started ('every journey has a beginning etc.etc.'). But upon watching the first half-hour of the film, I quickly realised there wasn't even the slightest possibility that this could match up in my mind with the originals. The magic was completely gone. Let's forego the complex plot, Jar Jar Binks, inconsistencies with the originals (although where the heck did midichloreans come from? bring back the good old 'mystical' Force!!!), etc. These were things I hated on my first viewing, and I'm willing to accept that they might improve with re-watching. However some things were just so annoying that they can't improve:
Darth Maul - great-looking, but very little screen time and more importantly, a terrible villain. Compare him to Darth Vader - radiating menace, power, almost regal. Darth Maul was a sad imitation, attempting to use his garish looks to compensate, but it doesn't work. While I liked the final lightsabre scene, Darth Maul was sadly underdeveloped as a baddy.
Anakin - pod-racing was fun if obviously just a plug for a computer game. But destroying the space station?! He basically presses a few buttons at random and hey presto! he's up in the air, flying into the droid's ship, and somehow blowing everything up without knowing the first thing about how to do it! Ok, so he's a hot pod-racer, something tells me there's a difference between a pod-racer and a spaceship, especially in a battle situation.
C3PO and R2D2 - I agree with other reviewers, it was unnecessary and annoying to have these characters in the story at such an early stage. Alright so C3PO does mention in A New Hope that he was in the Clone wars, but wouldn't he have remembered if he was built by Luke's dad?! And bringing R2D2 in with a cameo walk-in (roll-in?) was awful. And then the queen giving him a special thank-you?! In the first 3 films, the droids get very little recognition from the other characters (e.g. Han,Leia), except when they specifically help out/need help. They shouldn't be treated as if they are main characters themselves.
FX - ok, so they're CGI, so what? Nowadays, everything is CGI. We're not looking for smooth, life-like fx anymore, we're looking for fx that help create an atmosphere, a fantasy world, not ones that look cool and have lots of background movement. The fx/graphics are supposed to give backbone to the dialogue and action, not just be something to look at while we're listening to the dialogues/watching the action.
The flip side is, of course, that this is still a very watchable film, with some enjoyable characters and scenes, some good music (although IMHO John Williams' incredible scores for the originals have been somewhat diluted - the thematic structure of his music seems to have been almost completely lost), and some plot.
All in all, very average.