Bring me the head of George Lucas!

Rating: Null/10 (12 April 2002)

I was dragged along, not entirely against my will I will admit, to see this when it was first released. I thought then that it was one of the worst "major" motion pictures I'd ever seen. When the movie was shown on TV a few days ago I thought I'd give it another look to see how I felt about it after all the hype had died down. Well I only lasted three quarters through it the second time, and I despised it even more. 'The Phantom Menace' is a truly awful movie on every level, with a terrible script, pedestrian direction, clumsy editing, and hopelessly variable acting from the cast. Neeson and McGregor look embarrassed at having to spout the inane dialogue, Natalie Portman is beautiful but once again let down by the script, Jake Lloyd, all I can say is how on earth did he get cast? And the less said about the Stepin Fetchit alien Jar Jar Binks, arguably the most irritating "character" in movie history, the better!
Now look, I saw the original 'Star Wars' on its first release, and as a pre-teen I thought it was wonderful fun. But as the years went by and I caught up with the history of science fiction (movies and books) I began to realize the enormous damage George Lucas has had on the genre. The first half of the 70s saw an unparalleled fertile period in written SF, with original, intelligent and challenging works from writers like Ballard, Dick, Silverberg, Delany, Russ, Aldiss, Watson, Disch, Le Guin and many others. Then Lucas comes along and drags SF, at least in the general public's minds, all the way back to the wizz-bang space opera days of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, and adds a healthy dose of sword and sorcery. I don't think SF has ever completely recovered from that. 'The Phantom Menace' was an opportunity for Lucas to salvage the backward moves of the first three movies, but instead it's more of the same dumb sci fi action and low brow New Age drivel, but this time even LESS well done. Thanks a lot George, science fiction fans the world over owe you a big pat on the back!