Why George? Why?

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2000)

The months following up to this film people were really excited because the much admired Star Wars series was back including me. However when I saw this movie Ewan MacGregor said a line that ringed true throughout the whole movie "I have a bad feeling about this". Well he was right this poorly made film was nowhere near the quality of Episodes 4-6. What made those films great was the physiological connection we had to the characters. We (at least most of us) knew that Chewbacca was really a man wearing a monkey suit, but at least he was real.
Instead we have a character like Jar Jar who offends everybody and instead of Storm troopers we get pathetic robots that seem to be lightsabre practice for the Jedi's instead of real enemies. This film stunk of over excessiveness and commercialism, obviously targeted at the 6-13 age group it neglected the age group that made the originals popular. The story did not have any fresh ideas and the acting was so-so. Liam Neeson was alright in his role, but Macgregor seemed bored, Natalie Portman I thought was dressed too bizare to pay any attention to her acting and Jake Lloyd had too many annoying habits like "whooppee". I think the stereotyping was overblown, how can you have any sympathy for Jar-Jar if he is so damn annoying.The battle scene between the gungans and those stupid robots was incredibly lame. The light saber duel was the only worthwhile part of the movie, but what about Darth Maul, who supposedly is the evil guy but has less screen time than an extra.
Lucas should have taken a lesson from a movie which came out a couple of months before The Phantom Menace, the Matrix. Not only did the Matrix have an intruguing story but it did not saturate the movie with special effects, it only used them to complement the story. Sorry but Mr. Lucas sold out which is a complete 180 from his earlier directing days.