"I have a bad feeling about this"

Rating: 6/10 (7 April 2016)

One of the most hysterically apt moments in Edgar Wright's brilliant Spaced goes as such: Simon's Pegg's character grimly utters "I've been working through some stuff." Cut to Pegg, silhouetted by a flickering fire, into which he's just thrown all of his Star Wars memorabilia, with mournful John Williams playing in the background. "The Phantom Menace was a year ago!" exclaims Pegg's roommate. "Eighteen months!" he croaks. "And it still hurts." This, ladies and gentlemen, Sith and Padawan, is how most people remember George Lucas' ill-advised return to a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and his succumbing to the careless indulgences of the Dark Side.
Okay - but, to be fair, Lucas has been unapologetic about gearing his new trilogy firmly towards a new audience of younglings, rather than those old enough who crossed the galaxy with Luke, Han, and Leia in their own starry-eyed youth. Fine. Okay. Which, naturally, explains why Episode I charts the rise of the fearsome Empire we've already seen ravage the galaxy through federation disputes about trade embargoes and senatorial hearings. Not that you can fault Lucas for supplanting his sci-fi with sociopolitical subtext, but his writing - wooden, but endearingly so in '77 - has only eroded through the years, and simply isn't up to the challenge. So, the ongoing scenes of half-baked political murmurings too boring for kids and adults alike are counterbalanced with an inexcusable deluge of unbearable slapstick and excruciating racist alien stereotypes (mesa not sawwy, Jar Jar) that would have felt agonizingly antiquated during the first round of Star Wars. Yikes.
The upside? The Phantom Menace is still Star Wars, and even lazy, undercooked Star Wars, sometimes infuriatingly so, is still shamefully watchable, caveats and all. Lucas' pacing and story may be shoddy, stumbling from thinly strung together plot points with none of the breathlessly efficient urgency of A New Hope, but he's cunning about knowing how to poke the nostalgia buttons when needed. There's an insuppressible glee that comes from getting to say hello again to the most familiar of faces - Yoda, R2-D2, C-3PO, Jabba the Hutt, or hearing the phrase "Obi-Wan Kenobi, meet Anakin Skywalker" - no matter how forced their inclusions. Episode I also benefits from Lucas' attention to world-building, with many visual panoramas dazzling here before his love affair with CGI led to the cluttered visual noise of Episodes II and III. It's also fun as a creature feature caper, and the underwater world of the Gungans and subsequent aquatic behemoth chase are still stellar entertainment, as is the infamous pod racing sequence (even though, yes, it's stupidly motivated, and too drawn out, caveat caveat). And yes, neutering the mystical, open-to-interpretation spirituality of the Force with the buzzkill of midi-chlorians is, in the words of (sigh) Jar Jar Binks, "How wude!" - but even this isn't as theologically lugubrious (a word I had to seek out to properly do justice to this odious instance) as Anakin's 'immaculate Force conception'. Yeah. Forgot about that garbage, didn't ya.
But let's face it: you'd sit through hours of childhood-bastardizing muck if the reward was lightsabers. And they. Are still. SO COOL. In fact, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan effortlessly deflecting blaster shots back to the shooters is so awesome that even Lucas can't get enough of it, pitting the Jedi against swathes of useless, irritating droids, and incepting the consequence-and-largely-thrill-free 'CGI blob' fights that would grow to increasingly infect the next decade of blockbuster cinema like a sickness. But come on - Dual of the Fates? Indisputably one of the best sword fights of any kind in movie history, right down to the interlude of Qui-Gon meditating behind a force field wall midway through. But if there's one single 'Chosen One' to rescue Episode I from purgatory, it's John Williams. Unscathed by the creative compromises surrounding him, and abetted by the phenomenal whirrs and bleeps of Ben Burtt's unmatched sound design, Williams delivers 300%, crafting some of his best musical movie magic here. If the film feels at all like Star Wars, you have Williams to thank, not Lucas.
That said, we are given two of the franchise's most abiding characters here in Qui- Gon Jin (Liam Neeson's twinkly-eyed gravitas is a perfect fit for the franchise) and Darth Maul (the stunningly agile, sinister Ray Park). So, naturally, Lucas kills them both off, to make more room for Jake Lloyd, one of the most detestably monotone, whiny child actors of all time who is supplanted by one of the most detestably monotone, whiny adult actors of all time in II and III. Thankfully, Ewan McGregor gives his most charismatic Alec Guinness impression, battling gamely with Lucas' atrocious dialogue and tendency to bench Obi-Wan for long stretches of film, and Natalie Portman's Amidala is delightfully plucky here (and don't forget to play 'spot the Keira Knightley when they're in makeup!), before being wasted in an embarrassing, mopey Twilight subplot in the following two. Ian McDiarmid lurks and sleazes delightfully as the least secret Sith lord ever, and Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu and Frank Oz's Yoda are both classy fun, despite having little to do but curmudgeonly fret over all the paths to the Dark Side (hint: there's many, and they contradict).
Yes, even decades away from fans wanting to toss Lucas into a Sarlacc pit, The Phantom Menace is still largely a clumsy, offensive misfire, with just enough glimmers of Star Wars magic to help it squeak by as passable. But there's always a bigger fish. And facing up to the surly, grotesquely melodramatic, CGI-drenched II and III? Well, what was that bit about fear, anger, hate, and suffering again?
-5.5/10