George Lucas, what are you doing?

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 1999)

The Phantom Menace was a good movie. Okay, better than good. It kept the adrenaline going, and was full of eye-candy.
But it was also the new Star Wars film.
In this respect, it's not a _great_ movie. This film may only be a set-up for the next two, but it could still have used a little, I don't know, plot development? And what about character development? Little to speak of. Qui-gon dies a little too quickly, although the parallel to Obi-wan's death is a nice touch. We don't get a very good picture of Obi-wan yet, either, and Lucas barely scratches the surface of Darth Maul. My only hope is that somehow, he's not dead yet. Seems to me he was a good window into the arcane nature of the Sith. Oh well.
A few other problems: the plot is predictable, Anakin's feats a little too unbelievable, Jar-jar is terribly annoying, the C3PO-R2D2 connection is unnecessary and implausible, the honor and tradition of the Jedi seems to be an afterthought, and, oh yeah, what's the deal with the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION? One of the funniest moments in those 2 hours and 11 minutes for me was when my friend, with the most serious look on his face, says to me "So he's Jesus?"
One more thing: Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu??? I can just see Episode 2... "DL-44. When you absolutely, positively have to kill every Sith Lord in the room... accept no substitutes."
Not quite the epic I was hoping for. At least in Birmingham we didn't have to camp for tickets.