Let down

Rating: 6/10 (19 May 1999)

I expected it to not match to hype but I had no idea it would be this disappointing. For any other movie it would have been acceptable but this is Star Wars. First of all the thing was like watching a cartoon. The original Star Wars effects were much better, even with the primitive technology. Lucas has begun to rely too heavily on computers and digital magic and lost sight of the fact that maybe a guy in a costume would have been better. In the original trilogy when you saw a ship or a storm trooper it seemed somehow more real, not like this computer animated garbage that was thrown on the screen for the "Phantom Menace." But more importantly is the lack of any strong characters. Before you had a whole cast of interesting and full characters, now we are only left with computer enhanced cardboard cutouts. Before there was Han, the Princess, C3P0 ect. now we just have a Darth Vader look alike that has maybe 5 lines in the whole picture. Also gone is the clever and well thought out dialogue. In "Episode I" the closest they get to being clever is stealing lines from the original "Star Wars." And I won't even start with those amphibion people who were not only annoying but you couldn't understand a word they said. All in all it was simply eye candy, which may have been enough in any other film, but this is Star Wars.