a reference to bad film making

Rating: Null/10 (8 December 2004)

"A long time ago in a galaxy far far away"...
...succintly verbalizes where the mindset of George Lucas must have resided whilst producing this mess. How else could one possibly explain the atrocious scriptwriting and direction?
In fact, I predict that in the future this movie will be exploited in film academies as a reference to bad film making, such is the quantity and severity of its errors.
Most importantly, while the previous Star Wars installments managed to strike a balance in their plot to appeal to both adults and children "The phantom menace" falls flat on its face. Children will struggle to follow the irksome political threads of the story while adults will furthermore be put off by the employment of childish slapstick and humor.
Then there are the characters...or better the lack of such. The wooden acting, the robotic dialogs, all these contribute to the fact that the viewer ultimately cannot sympathize with the characters and hence never really feels engaged in the weak plot. And then there is that angle faced "Dennis the menace" Anakin. His entrance into the story marks the precise point at which the movie becomes a bit of a farce. Especially his supposed abilities in building complex machinery such as A.I. enabled robots is an absurd idea. His fatherless conception represents an overly bold and senseless reference to Christian religion which will make some people laugh out loud, others feel rather uncomfortable.
What remains are some spectacular CGI battle scenes (some of which are a little cartoonish) some nicely choreographed laser sword fighting and the soundtrack by the rarely disappointing John Williams.
However, all in all a real turkey, and not just because of all the hype!