What Was George Lucas Thinking?

Rating: Null/10 (25 April 2000)

After watching this on video, I found the film even more disappointing than I did when I left the theater. Sure, it's great to use SFX to show how much technology has improved, but aren't story and character development equally important to a film's ability to entertain? In the end, I just wasn't entertained as much as I'd hoped I'd be. Most of the computer-generated characters are grating, though Watto and Sebulba at least had some semblance of personality (yet still they're no Yoda.) Jar-Jar and his fellow computer-generated residents of Naboo were even more disgraceful on video. That pod race was good, but no Ben-Hur chariot race (and not even as dramatic as the bicycle race in Breaking Away.) The final battle between the Gungans and the droids was just boring. Would've enjoyed more scenes with the humans (Darth Maul, Palpatine, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu, Queen Amidala, and even Shmi Skywalker who should've been more interesting), though Jake Lloyd didn't quite make me envision Darth Vader, or even a future Jedi Knight. It ain't great when all I can take from this film is the clever light-saber duel (can't recall any other great movie duels where the characters get to pause and then stalk each other while separated by an invisible barrier, but that added to the impact of the scene for me), the all-too quick appearance by ET in the Senate chamber (a cameo that I missed when I saw it in the theater), and the desire to have seen more development of the human characters than we got. I enjoyed most of the first trilogy, but this one didn't quite measure up to those standards.