Great to see Lucas back but what happened to the story

Rating: 6/10 (25 June 1999)

The special effects were great but the story and characters were lacking. I love the Star Wars trilogy but I think Lucas missed on this one. He was so busy trying to amaze us with the special effects that he forgot that the most important part of a movie is still the story line and characters. The fight scene between Darth Maul, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi was amazing but did anyone really care who died? Now think back when Han Solo was frozen in carbonite or when Luke and Vader were fighting only to find out it was a father and son fighting. In the New Hope we found ourselves really liking the characters because they were interesting, more developed, and had interesting dialogue. In the Phantom Menace it seemed Lucas just assumed we would like the characters. Also Darth Vader was way more scaring then Darth Maul, of course that might have to do with the fact I was eight when I first saw Vader but hey who else had his own scary music and choked a person with his mind. Too cool.