After last seeing it a decade ago, I watched it again...

Rating: 5/10 (31 December 2015)

I received the complete sage on Blu-Ray for Christmas. My wife has never seen the prequels, so we sat down and watched Episode I.
Honestly, it was every bit as dreadful as I recalled. But having my wife there gave it fresh perspective. The CGI was largely overdone. To the point where the battles and landscape look worse than a Pixar movie. And no offense to Pixar, because they look good.
All child actors are horrendous. Anakin was abysmal. The overuse of the word "Yippee" boggles my mind. At some point someone had to review the film and conclude Anakin was horrible. I suspect no one had the guts to tell Lucas.
Jar Jar... Well, we know about him and how detrimental he was.
The two headed announcer alien complete with NASCAR commentator voice sums up everything wrong with this movie. Lucas created a CGI bonanza geared towards kids of the late 1990s. He should have stuck with what he did in the originals. A gritty universe lacking chrome and shiny clean object.
The story line was just plain boring. Trade federations, occupations. Dull. Dull. Dull. No whimsy of the originals.
That being said, there are some good things. Liam Neeson and Ewen Macgregor are excellent. The Darth Maul character played by Ray Park was awesome. However, Darth Maul is sadly underused. Ian MacDiarmid as Sidious/Chancellor Palpatine is as good as ever.
Sadly, the good doesn't nearly outweigh the bad and I am left wishing these were never made. Perhaps Disney can make new prequels and relegate these to non-canon.