I liked the Phantom Menace, though not as much as the first three.

Rating: Null/10 (8 July 1999)

Now don't get me wrong- I LOVED the new Star Wars. I've seen it four times- so far. However it did not live up to the first three, this to me is obvious. Here is a list of positives and negatives. I'll start with negatives so that I can end this with positive things.
Negative
*The second line of the movie: 'Yes sir. With all due respect . . .". The pilot seemed so out of place. When I saw the movie my stomach clenched at that point. The pilots seemed like rejects out of Star Trek, not Star WARS heros.
*The beginning started too fast, there was no lead up to the first battle.
*I'll approach THIS issue with caution. Jar-Jar Binks. hmmm. He was . . . OK. I didn't LIKE him but I didn't hate him either. What really annoyed me was when he was given the spotlight for more than a few seconds. He was great as a backup character with lines like "We ain't got no Mulah". But anytime he tried to spark a conversation it usually turned to disaster. (also I hated it when he stuck his tongue out. What was THAT about??
*Boss Nass doing his slobber thingy. I don't know why he had to do that. He was an AWESOME character otherwise.
That was IT. Now for positive stuff.
*Once they reached Tatooine the movie stabalized and got great.
*the Pod Race- excellent.
*the music throughout the movie.
*Jar-Jar; an excellent computer-generated character! I liked the motion, I like the voice. I just didn't like how he had nothing important to say.
*I was really impresed with the conversation between Jar-Jar and Queen Amidala. "yousa thinkin' Yousa people gonna DIE?" It was the most humanistic aspect of the whole movie. Ironic that it was brought through Jar-Jar, a non-human. It was also the only part of the movie where I truly LIKED Jar-Jar. THe book presented Jar-Jar as a good character, he was sad when nobody like him. In the movie he was presented as an emotionless creature who's only character trait was that he was clumsy.
*Watto- awesome. He was very cool. I liked every aspect of him. I think he should have hated to lose Anakin for more than money reasons, though. I think he should have been a little - fond of the boy, and miss him in a more fatherly sense as well. *The lightsaber duel. Masterfully put together. Absolutely cool. Worth seeing the movie just for the last 15 min.
All in all, I give STAR WARS Episode One: The Phantom Menace a B+ rating. 8.5 out of 10. OF course I cut it a little slack because I wanted it to be good ( :P)