It's Only the Beginning...

Rating: Null/10 (11 October 1999)

I've heard a lot of people complain about this movie in many ways and most of them in my opinion need to remember one very important thing about going to see a movie, especially one in a series of movies: DO NOT GO TO THE MOVIE WITH A SET OF PREJUDICES/EXPECTATIONS!! You will almost always be disappointed since the chance of the movie actually going exactly how you expected it to go are close to nothing. That is the biggest problem with this movie. People go expecting to see Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, etc... and are disappointed when they get to see full-fledge Jedi Knights as the main characters, something we really only got to see a glimpse of in A New Hope with Obi-Wan in his advanced years. So, these Jedi's aren't like Han & Luke, being more calm and sometimes not as easy to relate to as a result.
Also very important to remember is the fact that we are at the beginning here. We are going to watch how the Evil Empire developed out of the Republic, so of course we don't start out with the Evil Empire. This is a completely different time and set-up than the other Star Wars movies and should be treated as such.
I tried real hard to go into this movie without any pre-determined biases. I didn't read anything about the movie's plot and tried to keep my mind free of guessing the plot, although this was hard. I must admit that when I first watched this movie I left slightly disappointed, but then the more I thought about it and the more I saw it, the more I liked it. Of course the best part of the whole movie was the light saber duel which far out-classed anything we had seen beforehand in the other Star Wars movies. It took me watching the movie several times to just fully grasp the whole duel!
The special effects were great, as always, in fact this was the best computer animation I've ever seen. On that topic, a lot of people also complained about Jar-Jar. I didn't have that much of a problem with him, treating him what he was. Also, people had problems with the cultural accents several characters had. I don't feel this is in any way putting down any cultures, but trying to emphasize that these different races are like our different races.
There were a few things I disliked about the movie. These included the talking of meta-chlorians -- seeming to be an attempt at a scientific explanation of the force. I also thought that with the technology shown in this movie, the Star Wars: A New Hope seems very off in the fact that it's technology is so far behind this movie when it's supposed to be before it. This is why I thought Lucas should have changed a few of the 70's technology in his remake of A New Hope to fit with the technology in all of the other movies. Also, I didn't care for the "virgin birth" idea for Anakin, who we all know is going to become Darth Vader.
Although in general the acting was adequate, there is no doubt that Liam Neeson was the best actor of the bunch. Ewan McGregor did a pretty good job though and was very convincing as a young Obi-Wan (a big job with who's shoes he had to fill!) There were scenes where the actor playing Anakin could have done a little better job, but he is just a kid. Also, I wish they would have kept a few of the small scenes they cut (that are in the book) that would have helped fill in a few gaps.
I loved this movie and have always loved Star Wars. The worst part of the movie was the end, because it asked/left more questions than it answered! I will hate waiting the 2-3 years before the next one! Definitely go see this, and preferably in the theater with surround sound!