Better than I thought....

Rating: 7/10 (4 July 1999)

I'm not a big Star Wars fan (though I did see the first 3 films), so I wasn't in a rush to see this one. But it was much better than I thought. With over 1000 user comments, everything's probably been said already. So here are my comments, fast and furious:

Natalie Portman is luminous in this film. Resembling a young Julia Roberts, I couldn't take my eyes off of her. A star is born.

What's up with the girl wearing braces in the scene with the kids and Ani Skywalker before the pod race? They have orthodontia in their universe?!?!

The pod race was definitely the highlight for me.

Jar Jar Binks was annoying but I did like his battle scene antics. Very amusing. Hated his speech-- I couldn't understand half of what he said. This is probably intentional so as to get more second- and third-time viewers. ;) Since I knew he was computer generated, I found myself distracted whenever he appeared-- trying to see if I could tell the difference between him and the real people. Mostly I couldn't. But Liam and the kid once look sort of in the wrong direction when Jar Jar speaks.

The plot of the movie was hard to follow (but then, I even have trouble with James Bond movies). At the beginning, with the taxation without representation thing, I was like, "What is this, the American Revolution?" I could tell the good guys from the bad guys, but that's about all I could figure out. Again, this is probably intentional so as to get more second- and third-time viewers. ;)

Another "mistake" (probably also in the other Star Wars movies)-- they call their star(s) "the sun". That's an "earth" thing. There is no reason to assume that every solar system refers to their star as "the sun". They should have another name for it (too picky?).

Who tought Yoda how to speak English? Stevie Nicks? (listen to her song "Long Time To Go" and you'll know what I'm talking about). ;)

Overall rating: 7 out of 10. Worth seeing.