Most of the rip-off's are better than the origin.

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 1999)

There are many Sci-Fi movies I have seen in recently. Knowing that the Phantom Menace was coming up, I was always saying "This is a good warm-up for the new Star Wars!" I remember saying that when I saw Starship Troopers, The Fifth Element, and The Matrix. Now that I have seen The Phantom Menace, I now really have an appreciation for the earlier films. Even though I didn't enjoy The Fifth Element that much when I first saw it, all 3 of those films are far superior to the new Star Wars. In fact, The Matrix is more like a Star Wars movie than Phantom Menace! Morpheus was far cooler than Qui Gon Jin or Yoda. Neo was far cooler than Anakin :) Their powers in their computer generated world far surpassed the non-aggressive force power of the Jedi. Agent Smith was far cooler than Darth Maul (and he actually talked!) And lastly, Neo and Agent Smith's battle scene at the end blew Obi-Wan and Mauls fight scene out of the water. The only saving grace of TPM was the Pod race. Why didn't lucas just make a spin-off movie about Pod racing that could preface the new trilogy? Then Anakin could already be free and we could get on to business. In short, others have taken the Star Wars theme and updated it for a new generation of children. Lucas left Star Wars right where it was, in the 80's. I give it a 5 out of 10 because the Pod Racing and Ewan Mcgregor.