The most enjoyable of the disastrous prequel trilogy

Rating: 6/10 (7 January 2013)

Out of the three prequel movies, Star Wars: Episode 1 has taken the most heat over the years from Star Wars fans, and is widely perceived as being the worst of them. I disagree pretty heavily with this sentiment though. I believe that Episode I was perceived that way because, at the time of its release, the expectations were much higher. It is, actually, a decent movie, because it retains more elements of the Star Wars formula than the two movies that followed it. It has some strong points which made it somewhat popular when it came out, and it has, by far, the best action scenes of the prequel trilogy.
Let's get one thing out of the way right off the bat. There is absolutely no defending the Jar Jar Binks character. None. He is probably the worst character in the history of film, and a product of the grossest miscalculation ever made in the medium. He is a terrible annoyance, and every single scene where he has dialog is a failure. Jar Jar is one of the many examples in this trilogy of how Lucas desperately needed some devil's advocates to impose some restraint, instead of toadies who refused to question his godawful decisions. Sadder though, Jar Jar is also an example of something that could have gone right in the film. Star Wars: Episode I is a story about two completely different races of beings finding common ground to fight a common foe. Jar Jar, at some level, should have been an important story link. Instead, he is the product of George Lucas's obsession with slapstick humor that nobody above the age of four could possibly enjoy.
This is an important point that I am trying to make. Lucas is almost universally criticized by Star Wars fans as being a sell-out with this trilogy. Every bad decision is chalked up to a desire to sell toys. However, when I listen to the commentary on the DVDs, I get a sense that this is not the case. I get the impression that George Lucas wanted to tell a great story with some consistent themes. The problem is that Lucas seems to have the mentality of a five year old when it comes to telling those stories. A couple of these themes are: 1. Symbiosis – beings in nature working together for a common good 2. A technologically inferior army defeating a technologically superior foe The concept of the Gungans and the Naboo banding together to fight the droid army fits both of those themes. It could have worked, but Lucas bungled it by making Jar Jar a retarded version of Bugs Bunny who talks like a slave.
Let's talk about what does work in this film. The best part about it is that it has a few terrific action scenes. The action scenes in the Phantom Menace are vastly superior to the action scenes in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith for two reasons:
1. The move along the story. There is a clear purpose and objective to each one of them. The other two movies of the trilogy had pointless, boring chases and battle scenes that could have been removed from the story without losing anything of value.
2. Choreography. Like the scenes in the original trilogy, the action can be followed by the viewer. It isn't a blur of meaningless CGI where you can't tell how many good guys or bad guys there are, where everyone is, and who is winning. The lightsaber fight at the end is spectacular. I love the pod racing scene, despite the conventional wisdom that it was a scene manufactured to sell video games. Even the large scale CGI battle between the Gungans and the droid army is watchable.
The Phantom Menace has never gotten its due credit for being a great action movie. For that matter, the original Star Wars trilogy has never gotten enough recognition in that department either. So much commentary gets devoted to the characters and stories of Star Wars that people forget how cool and exciting they were. The Phantom Menace doesn't match up in terms of storytelling or characters, but it does match up when it comes to action.
If you aren't convinced, then watch the lightsaber fight at the end of The Phantom Menace, and compare it to any scene with a lightsaber in Episode II or III. Casting a martial arts expert as Darth Maul was a wise choice. If you ask me, the prequels would have been better with more martial arts-inspired lightsaber fights. The duels in Episodes II and III suck. The scenes with lightsabers in those movies are poorly choreographed garbage between guys who look like kids playing with glow sticks.
Another part of this movie that works is the two Jedi, Obi-wan Kenobi and Qui-gon Jin. They are the pillars that keep the story from collapsing into a pile of infantile garbage. They have good chemistry, and the master-student relationship is much better realized in this movie than in the latter two movies. Liam Nesson brings a great presence to the role of Jedi Master – a role that he is now typecast in because of his success in this movie. Ewan McGregor brings some presence as a young Obi-wan too, although he is badly underused in this movie.
Does the Phantom Menace have some pretty big flaws? Yes. Do these problems make Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace a bad movie? Absolutely not, unless you are looking for that to happen. Jar Jar isn't in every scene, and the action is really good. If you are young and watching this whole series for the first time, or if you watched it once a long time ago and your memory of it is a little faded, then give this movie another chance.