Episode I--The Ultimate Jedi Mind-Trick

Rating: 1/10 (25 May 1999)

Episode I failed, not only to live up to the standards of the Star Wars series, but to live up to standards of basic cinematic mediocrity. The movie was bad. Period. It has NOTHING to do with "unrealistic expectations" or the fact that it was "only a prequel." The movie could so EASILY have been made better, by making some very simple decisions. Like, ummm..."Let's not have EVERY HUMAN CHARACTER speak in the most monotonous voice they can muster." Lucas didn't have to spend an extra half hour "developing" the characters--he just had to give them SOME PERSONALITY--and that has nothing to do with not having the time to "develop the characters." It's not that we didn't know enough about them--it's that they were mind-numbingly BORING AND PASSIONLESS. This could SO EASILY have been alleviated. I don't want to know everyone's life histories--I just want them to be remotely interesting. Don't tell me that visionary god George Lucas couldn't find a way, in 16 years, to do that simple thing. Every aspiring screenplay writer and film director in America is giving a collective groan at the UTTER EASE with which Episode I could have been VASTLY GREATER. I don't blame the actors at all--even Ewan McGregor wanted everybody to know, even before reviews came out, that George Lucas gave no freedom at all to the actors, and it was a directorial decision to make them speak the way they did. I won't even start with the non-boring, but unspeakably repellant, Jar-Jar Binks. And don't you dare tell me I didn't love the original trilogy. THEY had personalities.