Loved It!

Rating: 9/10 (22 May 1999)

As a long-time Star Wars fanatic, I was mesmerized by the story line. The action was exciting and the special effects were dazzling. So far I've heard a lot of criticism regarding lack of character development, but I disagree.
Most of all, I liked the Jedi Knights, and the light saber duels were awesome. They were like "Galactic Ninja's" and the duels were much more intense than any in the original trilogy. Darth Maul was great, I wish we could have seen more of him. But for what little we saw, he seemed much more "dark, evil, deadly and fearsome" than Darth Vader ever hoped to be. Hypothetically speaking, if Darth Vader ever had to spar with Darth Maul, I doubt Vader would last very long. Then again, we are as of yet to see Vader in his "prime".
And though I find the dark Jedi's to be fascinating, I still favor the good ones. My favorite scene in this movie is when Obi Wan took it to Darth Maul at the end. Just as my favorite scene in Return of the Jedi is when Luke finally whips Vader. It's always nice to see good triumph over evil.
The only thing I didn't like about this movie is the general silliness and goofiness of some of the alien creatures. As I've heard so many others say, some of the movie almost seems cartoonish and slapstick. I highly concur. The Jar Jar character was absolutely annoying. From the moment he showed up, I was hoping he would go away. Unfortunately, he never did. I had the same complaint about Return of the Jedi. The "puppet-looking" goofy characters seem so out of place in this kind of movie, and they are without a doubt overused and abused in this movie.
Still, I forgive Lucas for doing so. That's just his style and I've come to accept it. Everything else was phenomenal. I've seen the movie twice already in the first week. Also, it was interesting to see the ET characters that briefly appeared in the scene of the Galactic Senate.