Just Make Your Trailer George!

Rating: 1/10 (3 August 2015)

15 years later this is still the most disappointing film on my list. I gave it 1 star, but my review focuses on what Lucas (almost) did right.
In my mind there are four franchises that transcend all the others: James Bond, Indiana Jones, Star Trek, and Star Wars.
Of these, Star Wars is the most difficult one to work with. It has numerous interconnected characters and story lines, and specific rules and events to work around. This is in stark contrast to Indiana Jones, Star Trek, and James Bond which are a series of independent stories. Few side characters are carried forward, and the overall objectives and enemies are every changing. Occasionally even the actors are replaced and nobody seems to mind. Even if you mess up the formula in these franchises and make a bad film, the fans forgive you and move on to the next one.
Star Wars doesn't offer that kind of flexibility. It was also the first of the franchises to attempt a prequel, which compounded the problem. From the very beginning (Episode Four) backs stories were referenced. There was clearly a collection of exciting events that had taken place which viewers wanted to know more about. Lucas even teased us with it, making the eventual reveal of the truth all the more effective.
But when it came to the prequels, Lucas took an existing problem and made it worse. With the viewers already knowing the eventual outcome, and existing characters involved, Lucas extended his obligations to include nearly the entire cast and plot lines from the original trilogy. Even characters like Chewy, C3PO, R2D2, and Boba Fett, were needlessly included.
Lucas mistakes in the prequels were many, but his excessive plot commitments to the old trilogy, made them uncorrectable going forward. He boxed himself into a corner with a story line that was both predictable and over-complicated for the next two films.
Personally, I never really liked the decision to anchor everything around Darth Vader. He'd already made too many modifications to that character as it was. Many great movies are anchored around mysterious villains. But that mystery gives the villain their power. Vader was at his most powerful in the opening scene of New Hope. We didn't know who he was, what he was, or what he wanted, but he scared the crap out of us. He clearly could not be messed with, and had powers that we had only begun to imagine. He was the Empire's bogey man. By the final scene of Jedi, Vader was a vulnerable and human character. He'd been robbed of all his emotional power, but it didn't really matter because the story was complete.
With the prequels, Lucas is trying to turn back time on that entire transformation. He wants to make Anakin lovable and endearing, and then freighting again. Even if such a re-transformation were possible, it was executed so poorly the audience was laughing by the end. Vader is a winy lunatic now, neither loved nor feared. It was a mistake and I don't think any writer could have corrected it.
But giving Lucas the benefit of the doubt in crafting the prequels as The Anakin Trilogy...let's look at the four things he (almost) did right.
1. The forbidden/doomed love aspect was very compelling...but it was absent from this first film. The fact that Padme was older than Anakin, and had no real connection to him from the start, made it all the more awkward when it was forced down our throats over the next two films. If anything, we leave the first film with Padme engaging in a motherly relationship with Anakin. How were supposed to come back from that? Lifeless dialogue and creepy moments aside, Lucas could have successfully rode this storyline to Anakin's downfall, but only he does so from the start.
2. Darth Maul was fantastic...but dead. Sure it was a recycled character, but it worked. Darth Maul was the Darth Vader of this film. He was a mysterious and sinister villain that the audience actually connected with. In fact he was probably the most memorable new character from the prequels. The problem was he is killed off, and that connection dies with him. Things were setup for a powerful revenge subplot between Obi-Won and Maul which could have carried the next two films. It also presented Anakin with a future vision of himself, a chance to witness how powerful the dark side really was, but this avenue is never explored. Bottom line, Maul's death set in motion a perpetual cycle of villains to be introduced over the next films, with lesser effect.
3. The Young Obi-Won. Obi-Won Kenobi was a very stoic character in the original trilogy, but he always carried this smirk which seemed to say, "son, if you only knew..." The splash of color on Obi-Won's character and past was probably the biggest thing fans craved from the original trilogy. Lucas flirted with this, but never really went with it. Obi-Won is just a supporting character engaged in a variety of minor side-plots. He loses some friends, kills a few bad guys, but in the end we don't know much more about him than we did before.
4. Give Us The Evil Empire! The trailer was great because it completely packed with sinister looking characters, epic space battles, screams of tragedy...exactly what we always thought rise of the empire must have looked like. What Lucas actually delivered was a fake empire, a fake death star, and tragic death of one guy we just met. The rise of the empire should have been so much more. The fact that it all amounted to a few legislative votes, trade disputes, and military projects was the most uninspired approach Lucas could have come up with. And he still took three films to do it.