Why?

Rating: 4/10 (19 June 2012)

Alright, it's all too easy to just rip the ass out of a movie like this, so I'm going to go ahead and let you know up front that I'll do my best to give this a fair review and point out anything that's good. Now then, let's discuss the plot; The film opens with two Jedi being send to "mediate a trade dispute" in the Outer Rim of the Galaxy. In the process, the Trade Federation (the party that they were supposed to be meeting with), attempt to kill them, and as a result, the Jedi flee to the Planet Naboo below in time for the Trade Federation to launch an invasion of the Planet. In desperation, the Jedi unite with the Queen of Naboo, and flee the planet, bound initially for the Galactic Capital of Coruscant. In their escape attempt however, their spacecraft becomes damaged and they are forced to make an emergency landing on the remote Planet of Tatooine where they meet a young boy named Anakin Skywalker, who eventually helps them get off world and back to Coruscant. Once there, the Galactic Senate proves unable to help with the brewing crisis on Naboo from the Trade Federation Invasion and the Queen decides to return to Naboo herself to deal with the problem. The Jedi decide to return with her to get to the bottom of the situation and inform the Senate of the real motivations behind the Trade Federation invasion. In the process the Jedi become embroiled in a fierce Lightsaber duel with a supposedly extinct Sith Lord, Darth Maul. At the same time, the Queen leads the Royal Palace Guards to retake the palace and capture the leader of the Trade Federation. Also at the same time, the natives of the planet, the Gungans fight to try and eliminate the Trade Federation Army and little Anakin Skywalker leads the attack on the orbiting Trade Federation ships. In the end, one of the Jedi are killed in the fight with the Sith, the Queen retakes the palace, the Trade Federation ships are destroyed, and the Gungans triumph over the Army, and we're set up for the next one. OK, now if you're confused by that summary, then you are not alone. Never mind that that plot is incredibly complex, which wouldn't be a problem if the situations were better set up and the character motivations better explained, but it's just so convoluted.
Here's what I mean; In the film, Anakin Skywalker is supposed to be an incredibly smart kid, who builds robots and podracers, and has these superhuman qualities. Under normal circumstances, that could be really interesting and could set up a really great character arc from Episode I to Episode VI. But in this film, you just don't buy it. The child actor (Jake Lloyd) is simply horrible. The delivery of every line of duologue is clunky and goofy and just unconvincing and it sucks you even further out of the movie (if that was possible). It's pitiful, simply put. On top of that, this character who is so uninteresting and fake, (and who is supposedly only 9 years old), is a pivotal point in the plot because he miraculously wins the money that the Jedi use to repair their ship and return to Coruscant. It's like a completely incompetent person wrote the screenplay to this film.
Specifically speaking though, what's bad about this film? Well there's a lot, so let's just dive right in: The Writing (as I said) is boring. This is supposed to be a sprawling space saga and it's written in the same way as a Soap Opera and is about as interesting. It's like this movie was written by two different people. One person wrote this silly goofy script involving some stupid, lame, slap stick character called Jar Jar Binks, who is a Gungan that the Jedi run into on their way to find the Queen. He's supposed to be a point of interest for children and it just comes off as unnecessary and unfunny to adults. On the other end of the spectrum, once the Jedi arrive on Coruscant, we get introduced to this incredibly boring pseudo-political duologue. It's clearly not for children because they'll just check out and not pay attention to the film, but at the same time, it's clearly not for adults either because it's uninteresting and doesn't make much sense. So the conclusion can only be that the film has no specific audience, but that it tries (and fails) to be applicable for all ages. That can work in a film, but you have to keep the elements subdued for it to work right. If you don't it can turn out really horrible.
The acting (for what it is) is actually passable for the most part. As I said, Jake Lloyd was horrible as Anakin Skywalker, but Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman all did the best job they could have done with the material given to them. As for the Special Effects and the visuals, the Special Effects are actually pretty good, and so are the visual imagery of the film. That's why I gave it 4 stars and not 1.
The simple fact of the matter is that Writer/Director George Lucas wanted to tell the story of the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, and that's fine, and that's interesting, but he wanted to do it in a way that would make him as much money as possible, (i.e. 3 films instead of just 1). There just was not enough story for 3 solid films. Citizen Kane anyone? Overall, Episode I is a shallow, uninteresting and pathetic attempt at recapturing lightening in a bottle, (at which it failed). The only thing that this film succeeded at was reducing Star Wars to a cheaply made cash grab. Thanks George.