Far Superior to ROJ...

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 1999)

I went into this film with mixed information. Some people had said it was fantastic, whereas others had described it as a travesty to the other three Star Wars films. There were good points and bad points, this I will admit: however, I feel the former far outweighed the latter.
What was wrong with it?
1. Jar Jar Binks. I know this is film particularly for younger audiences, but puh-leeez. I am fifteen years old (I'm allowed to say stuff like "puh-leeez"), and to be honest, I doubt I would have laughed at some of the jokes Jar Jar made (or ended up being the butt of) when I was seven. That said, he did make me laugh. Occasionally. But seeing a malcoordinated character whose lines were often incomprehensible lost its humour value after a while.
2. Anakin. I guess his age makes this complaint rather difficult, but I did find some of his deliveries a little inauthentic. The two times he said "Yippee" at hearing some news, I cringed - does anybody /really/ do that?
And now for the GOOD stuff:
1. The fight sequence. Darth Maul vs. the two Jedi knights was outstanding. This section pulled the entire film up a couple of notches in my opinion - maybe it's something about the sound of lightsabres making contact.
2. The short shots of Naboo. These scenes were beautiful. Knowing that it was all computer-generated did not affect how authentic those distant waterfalls appeared. This actually leads on to a more general point about special effects. At no point in the film did I feel special effects were being overused, except, perhaps, for the underwater chase sequence and the battle between Jar Jar's people and the Trade Federation forces.
3. The pod race. Wow.
4. The "Intergalactic Council" (?). Not sure about the name, but the scenes on the planet where the meetings were taking place, and the actual meeting itself, was very impressive. I wonder if anyone else noticed that E.T. (he of Steven Spielberg's creation)'s race were represented (look to the bottom left hand corner when the delegates are shown reacting to the motion to replace the Chancellor).
I won't bother questioning the sanity of a director who decides to tell a story by starting half-way through, goes to the finish, waits a bit, then goes back to the start and tells the first half.