25 reasons The Phantom Menace was lame

Rating: 4/10 (4 June 1999)

1. A number of the aliens in the movie are blatantly racist. 2. Action begins too quickly at the beginning. Come on, this is the first movie! You gotta have at least a little more set up other than the words that scroll up. 3. In "A New Hope", Obi-Wan didn't know who R2-D2 was even though they had plenty of scenes together in "The Phantom Menace". R2-D2 should have been left out of this movie. Any droid could have been in his place. 4. Also, in "A New Hope", C-3PO didn't recognize Tattooine even though, according to "The Phantom Menace", it's his home planet. I doubt he'd forget that, after all, he's a protocol droid. He shouldn't have been in this movie, either. It's obvious Lucas put him in so we could see Artoo and Threepio meet. 5. Anakin built C-3PO. So let me get this straight: In "The Empire Strikes Back" we found out that Vader is Luke's father. Then, in "Return of the Jedi" we found out that Leia is Luke's sister. Now, in "The Phantom Menace" we find out that C-3PO is Luke's half-brother. What is this, sci-fi soap opera? 6. The odds that R2-D2 flew with both Anakin and Luke are ridiculous. Another reason Artoo should have been omitted from episode one. 7. Too much Jar Jar Binks. 8. Not enough Darth Maul. 9. At the beginning, the two Jedis demonstrate that they can hold their breath for a long time. A little later in the movie, when they go swimming, they pull out these handy-dandy "breathalizers" for underwater breathing. I find it hard to believe the Jedi find it necessary to carry stuff like that around with them all the time if they have the ability to hold their breath so long. 10. Boss Nass does this stupid Jackie Gleason mimicry. If he was in it as much as Jar Jar, he'd be even more annoying. 11. There's this 2-headed alien named Fode-Beed who's too "contemporary American". Kind of like the genie in "Aladdin", he just doesn't fit in because his persona is such a sign of the times. 12. In the other movies, Darth Vader appears to have an English accent (even after the helmet comes off) while in "The Phantom Menace", young Anakin is obviously a Yankee. 13. Too much use of the word "Yippee!" 14. People keep calling Anakin "Ani". I kept waiting for him to start singing "The sun'll come ooouuut tomorrow..." 15. In one scene, a battle droid uses binoculars. If it's a robot, why not just make the binoculars built-in? 16. There was no set-up before the climatic space battle. One minute, they're fighting on the planet, the next, they're fighting in space. Even "Empire" had a quick 30-second "here's what we're gonna do" before the snow speeder battle. In "Phantom" I didn't even know what they were trying to accomplish until they accomplished it. 17. The difference between people in alien costumes and computer animated aliens is too obvious. When they're combined, they both look equally fake. 18. Yoda looks too different. Why didn't they just use the same puppet? If he's 900 years old, I doubt he'd look so different between 30 years. He looks phonier, too. 19. Certain characters were too cartoony. Sure, they looked cool, but they looked more like they belonged in "A Bug's Life" rather than a live action movie. 20. The whole movie was basically one long toy/video game commercial with talented performers wasted at the mercy of special effects. 21. Anakin "accidentally" blows up the Federation ship. 22. The whole Padme/Amidalla role reversal is confusing. 23. Anakin is an immaculate conception of the Force. Oh, puh-leeze! 24. The notion that organic particles make up the Force cheapens the whole mysticism. That's a "Star Trek" move. 25. Qui-Gonn "hangs on" after being impaled through the chest by a light saber.