Nothing succeeds like excess

Rating: 5/10 (6 May 2001)

Well, was it worth the wait? It took 16 years between the release of Episode 6 in the Stars Wars series, "Return of the Jedi", and this film, the long-awaited first episode. After viewing this film, one wonders what George Lucas was doing all that time.
If this film is anything to go by, he spent much of the intervening decade and a half counting his money, overseeing the numerous video-game and other spinoffs and scratching various parts of his anatomy. He certainly didn't spend too much time doing serious work on this film.
Don't get me wrong, visually this is a stunning piece of cinema. The half-baked job Lucas did on re-releasing the original three films with visual effects updates was a clue. Special effects technology has made enormous progress since the first films, and boy, does it show. Huge spaceships, myriads of computer-animated creatures, massive explosions, fast-moving laser gun battles, a high speed pod race, it goes on and on.
And on and on. Style has replaced substance in the Star Wars universe. The plot is tissue-thin, just enough to string together sequence after sequence of visual effects extravagance. A good example is the pod racer sequence, but it's of little relevance to the story and the set-up stretches credibility - what, the queen escaped the planet with no hard currency whatever? No Royal jewel-chest? Oh, please. The result is an overlong souped-up chariot race sequence, from which the only thing we learn is that the young Anakin Skywalker is a genius, but we already knew that because he's building C3PO in his bedroom.
George Lucas should have left his further exposition of The Force alone too. Apparently, The Force within an organism is controlled by mitochondria (well, Lucas did rename them slightly, but it's obviously what he's talking about). Alec Guinness told us everything we needed to know in Ep. 4 - "The Force is in all living things ... it surrounds us and penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together" or words to that effect. But no, now it's dressed up in some pseudo-scientific technobabble. To make matters even worse, Anakin Skywalker is alleged to be the product of a virgin birth (Spoiler, okay, but really!), or maybe sired by some rogue mitochondria in a Tattooine back alley. Too much information, George.