It's good, but not great.

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 1999)

SW1 has some incredibly awesome technology that viewers beg to know how certain scenes were filmed, e.g., the "hall" of the Interplanetary Congress with its floating platforms. And brief glimpses of cities and landscapes exist which you wish you could still-frame in order to lavish your attention upon them. Regardless, the sum total of the film falls far short of the wit, bravado and mystery of Episodes IV, V, and VI. It took me awhile to "get into" the movie because of the new characters, but also the Gunga (a donkey head on a human body) really irritated me. What an embarrassingly stupid sidekick in comparison to Chewbacca! Most bothersome of all however was the lack of mystery. Before we wondered if Luke and Leia were brother and sister. Was Vader their father? Or Hans, or who's? Was Obi-wan, Vader's brother? Etc., etc. There's none of these questions to care about in SW1 and the movie suffers terribly because of it.