Worst sci fi since Plan 9 from Outer Space

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2002)

Let me just start off by saying, SHAME ON YOU GEORGE LUCAS! How could you take such a wonderful franchise, the STAR WARS saga, and create such a horrific atrocity? How dare you violate your fans like this?
EPISODE 1 is by far the most vile and retarded science fiction movie I have ever seen. This movie proved a very strange theory for us all, and that is, that there is no limit to how much money and technology you can expend on a single movie and yet create an end product that is worse than even the lowest budget attempts. EPISODE 1 assaulted every sense of taste and decency that an average person would have.
The plot of the movie is paper thin and yet over-written. It basically revolves around this SITH lord who using the Trade Federation to exploit some people who live on a peaceful planet. Some Jedis come along to negotiate peace and the Sith takes the opportunity to try to assasinate them. Along the way they encounter what must be the most ludicrous and annoying character in cinematic history, Jar Jar Binks, who is a poorly done computer generated monstrosity that attempts to provide comic reliefe for the movie. His jokes are not funny and most of his lines, including his accent, are racially offensive. He clearly speaks with a Jamaican accent and refers to the two WHITE Jedis as "his massa." He is not the only character in this pile of garbage to be racially offensive, the evil "fish people" of the trade federation deliver their ametuerish lines in an Asian accent. Anyway, the two Jedis come across an INCREDIBLY annoying little boy named Anakin and blah, blah, blah, blah. Are you bored reading my review yet? You should thank me! This is actually better than the movie!

The movie is so poorly written it defies description. It is on par with your average television Soap Opera. The lines are banal at best, offensive at their worst, and generally just boring. The special effects are supposed to be top-of-the-line, ground-breaking, but they are actually just cartoonish. The over-all look of the movie is what I would call "Anime gone bad."
Let me point out one aspect of the film that actually bothered me more than any of the other attrocities. The action-oriented conflict of the movie revolves around one loan bad guy named Darth Maul who is chasing down the Jedis, Obi-Wan and Qui Gon. He chases them through part of the movie and this sets up the big final fight scene, the show down between them, climaxing in an over-the-top light sabre duel to the death. One quick criticism: When did the Jedis start learning Kung Fu? I guess the Jedi counsel must have gotten a copy of THE MATRIX at some point. The light sabre fights in the first three movies were much more exciting. The problem with the light sabre duel in Episode 1, however, is not so much in the choreography, but the premise of the fight itself. Why is Darth Maul so emphatically chasing the Jedis? Simply because his master told him to. That is a major lack in character motivation. Why does he attack them both at the same time? This OBVIOUSLY puts him at a disadvantage. And this is the real problem. The end fight is Qui Gon and Obi Wan teaming up against Darth Maul. This makes Darth Maul the UNDERDOG in the movie! And audiences always root for the underdog! So this totally deflates the excitement right from the start. Not to mention, its pretty stupid of Darth Maul to do this, and it is also not very sinister. If he was really on "the dark side" of the force, would he not wait and attack his prey when they are at a real disadvantage? Wouldn't that at least be smarter? And it would make the audience hate him more. Instead, the audience is not given any such motive on which to base their dislike for Darth Maul. But hey, he wears black, so I guess he must be evil! That is LAME! An audience needs character development in order to really get in to the movie. Darth Maul is not developed AT ALL! His story amounts to a scene where his master tells him to go kill the Jedis, and then he attacks the Jedis who escape, and then finally he fights them at the end, and that's it. This was VERY POORLY DONE!
What I believe happened is, George Lucas simply got too big for his own good. He had too much power and not enough motivation to try harder. When he first made STAR WARS A NEW HOPE, he was really a struggling film maker. He was FORCED to re-work his script, time and time again, making it better and better. Experimenting with what works and does not work. The pressure was on to prove himself. But these days, what does he have to prove? He is litterally the wealthiest man in Hollywood. Why waste his time STRIVING for perfection? What difference did it make to him what the end product of the film amounted to? It made no difference. And in fact, the film totally sucked, and yet made a ton of money world wide. Why? Simply because he exploited the devoted fans like myself. This go around, we are the ones who suffered for Lucas' mistakes, not him. And now, he has gone on to make the next installment, EPISODE 2, which no doubt be just as bad if not WORSE than EPISODE 1. I would not normally think that a movie could actually be BELOW the low point that EPISODE 1 sank to, but George shocked me and taught me a lesson: if there is a new low point, he will find it. And so it seems, EPISODE 2 will in fact exceed 1 in SUCK-i-tude. Its almost as if he is trying to make the movie worse, he isn't even bothering to shoot it on FILM! And after viewing the trailer for the new movie, it is OBVIOUS that it was shot on Hi Def Video. Which, by the way, make no mistake, LOOKS LIKE VIDEO! Again, this is substandard to the tradition set forth by the earlier Star Wars films.
Shame on you George Lucas! You should have backed off from this project like you did with Empire Strikes Back. Irvin Kershner should have been brought in to bail out the new Star Wars projects. And on that note, is it any real surprize that Empire was the BEST of all the Star Wars movies? Hmmm, could it have anything to do with the fact that George Lucas had almost nothing to do with that film? George, you need to take note: NO ONE liked HOWARD THE DUCK. Therefore, that kind of film making is a TOTAL WASTE! Jar Jar Binks would not even appeal to a small child, and he did nothing but insult the intelligence of the rest of the audience.
Also, the chariot race in Episode 1 was really a low point of the movie. For one thing, it was TOTALLY ripped off from an ANIME movie, so it was not even original. And isn't it strange that the "Pod Racer" video game was released WAY before the movie? Clearly, that entire scene was put in the movie as nothing more than a marketing ploy so that George Lucas could get even welthier from the sales of that stupid video game. I would be willing to forgive such a blatant selling out if that scene had actually been worth watching, but as it turned out, it was just as boring as the rest of the movie!
And finally, a note to other Star Wars fans: If you are defending EPISODE 1, you are KIDDING YOURSELF. We ALL know that movie SUCKED really bad. Now, I say this to you, DO NOT GO SEE ANY MORE STAR WARS MOVIES! The Star Wars fans should REFUSE to go see EPISODE 2. I am not going to see it, and I won't even rent it. This is the ONLY way to send a clear message to George Lucas that we will not just sit back and take his crappy attempts.

Avoid Episode 1 at ALL COSTS!!! I am voting this movie a 1, which means AWFUL on the IMDB. I wish I could vote in the NEGATIVE INTEGERS!