Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (1 June 1999)

Even the people who are disappointed by this movie are already getting their hopes up that the next segment will be better since Episode 1 is "setting up the rest of the story". I'm not so convinced that there's much of a story to tell since we already know how it ends. The challenge that faced Lucas in bringing the prequels to the screen is to surprise us with stories and characters for which we were not prepared and at the same time bring us up to the point of Star Wars A New Hope (#4). Lucas's story here is quite simply lazy. There is no real conflict here to care about and the characters don't have enough personality to keep us interested. What makes people think the next segment will be any different? If they already know what's going to happen, then Lucas again faces the challenge of coming up with something new and surprising to offset the predictability. People defend the new film's lack of well-developed characters by saying the original trilogy's strong suit wasn't in its well-defined characters either, but I disagree. Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, R2, C3P0 and the rest are firmly embedded in fan's memories while I doubt in 17 years anyone will be talking about Qui Jon (?) and Jar Jar Binks. It was such a wasted opportunity to have the likes of Ewan McGregor and Liam Neesan and not give them some kind of discernable personality.