Better Luck Next Time, Lucas

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 1999)

The audience Lucas aimed this movie toward has no idea what they are supposed to be watching. All they see is the unfortunate character Jar-Jar tripping over and falling off of anything Lucas can digitally create. I found this movie dragging at points and cannot understand how both critics and audiences can applaud the all-too-predictable pod race scene. Jake Lloyd was given too much dialogue for a boy who can't act and Ewan McGregor was tied down by an emotionless script that left him as nothing but a walking lightsaber. Veteran actor Liam Neeson is the only shining star in this galaxy far, far away. He alone provides the hero we like to see in a movie. The villain of the story was the underachieving Darth Maul. Lucas ought to be ashamed of himself for putting America's new "Guy you love to hate" in as many scenes as there were "poop" jokes. Maul's cross-armed, "tough guy" stance and "I'm so angry" make-up is almost silly. Using such a blindingly visual character the way he did, it's obvious Lucas failed to concede that we will never be as terrified as we were of the dark sound of James Earl Jones. I won't go into the already popular racism debate but I leave with a humble plea to anyone Lucas asks opinions of when they read his next script: "It's okay to tell him that it sucks."