Planet Hype and the Nostalgateers

Rating: 4/10 (10 June 2003)

Aged 13 I made a terrible discovery. Not only had I been wrong about the age of consent in the UK but my Father wasn't the man I thought he was. My mother sat me down and told me that Dad wasn't the perfect patriarch I'd envisioned in my youth. In fact he was an adulterous alcoholic with dangerous artistic pretensions. Yes, my Father wasn't so much John Steed, more Olly Reed, his worse moment being a live restaurant urination in front of 300 stunned diners at the Greenwich Steakhouse. Its hard to explain the disappointment I felt at that point but at least I thought after this it would be hard to feel too letdown again by anything.
Not so.
Flash forward to June 1999, New York City. Yours truly is treated to a revisionist revival of Star Wars in which any hope, new or otherwise, that the years may have paved the way for writer/director Geroge Lucas to craft a mature, pared down, excitement laden prequel to films which many people know better than themselves, is dashed with horrific cruelty. Never go back, my old man had said and for once he'd been right.
The Phantom Menace attempts to fill in the back story to the classic trilogy but arguably starts too early in the story. Forgetting completely that the young audience of the original are now slightly more demanding adults, Lucas aims low and hits every time, his target audience preschoolers and under 12's. Attempting to manufacture what happened accidentally via positive communal experience is a dangerous game to play and Lucas doesn't foul so much as get sent off mid-way through the match having butchered all the other players. Jake Lloyd is awful as the young Anakin and conspicuously gives no clues as to motives for future wrongdoing. This of course would make him less heroic to viewers of similar ages thus effecting those all important toy sales. Jar Jar Binks, with a personality as deep as the pixels that create him is an offensively unfunny racial stereotype - a ridiculous and cynical creation. Ewan McGregor as Kenobi manages to demystify the old Jedi Master completely by giving a performance so lifeless he could be a computer generated effect himself and Yoda is realised by sub-standard puppetry that gives him all the authority of an action figure. The simple good versus evil, old serial heroics of the original film are lost here as Lucas tries to tell a more complicated story but forgets to make it interesting. Lucas' pompous script mixes undergraduate politics with some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film. Take your pick from "Wizard!", "Get this stunted slime out of my presence" or if that isn't quite bad enough for you, what about "Ooooh, sticky goo!". Lawerence Kasdan was only a phone call away George.
Finally Lucas's return to directing prompted by developments in computer technology serves as the film's conceptual oveur. Not bothered by characterisation or coherent storytelling, skills that made the original film so enduring, this prequel under uses its best characters, overuses it worse and clothes them in wall to wall digitisation, making a hyperrealist construction that fails to engage emotionally on any level. Ultimately, like this review, its just f**king boring and thats the worst charge you could level at a series as iconic as this one. The 'Cus has dismissed any criticism of this the Phantom Menace by pointing out that it's merely the first act in a 6 act series. Fine, but surely they taught Lucas at film school that the first act is supposed to hook the audience. Whoever heard of a first act that DISSUADED an audience from watching the rest. Whichever way you look at it it's poor film-making. Computers are wonderful but they can't compensate for poor storytelling and dull characters. Sorry George.