Lucas did okay...just

Rating: 4/10 (16 November 2009)

This was the first Star Wars film I'd ever seen, I saw it aged 5 at the cinema. At the time of course, I thought it was amazing and couldn't wait for a sequel to come out. But when I asked several years later, it turned out that their had already been other Star Wars movies, which I promptly watched and enjoyed. Then I compared Episode 1 to the originals and realised that the originals were leaps and bounds ahead of the new Star Wars. In fact, I soon realised that Episode 1 had a lot of flaws and I just forgot about it completely.
Recently however, I re-watched the movie again on TV and whilst the flaws were apparent I realised that this Star Wars actually had some things going for it. The flaws of this movie have been addressed on over a million occasions so I'll focus on the positive points mostly.
Here are some points I want to bring up, some negative some positive.
1) The acting. Some of the actors do try very hard to give a good performance, i.e Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor. Both of whom are very good actors and try their best with the scripts they have been given. However, even though the Star Wars prequels have gained notoriety for their truly awful and cringe-worthy dialogue. The Phantom Menace is probably the least cringey movie in terms of dialogue out of the prequels. There are no moments where you start shouting 'Noooooo' at the screen, except for two particular characters which I'm just about to get to.
2) Anakin Skywalker. A number of people consider Jake Lloyd to be the reason that Anakin is such a terrible character, but I myself blame George Lucas. Anakin serves almost no purpose in this movie. Why is he even in this movie? I know Lucas must have wanted to throw some homages in, which he does successfully with Yoda and Jabba the Hut. However Anakin is not necessary and is portrayed as one of the most unlikeable and annoying children in cinema history. Bad choice Lucas, bad choice.
3) JarJar Binks. What a lame, cringe-worthy and pathetic excuse for a character. Lucas has created characters like this in the original trilogy, with far more success. I'm talking about C-3PO, in the originals he was always getting into absurd situations and managed to be annoying in a GOOD way. But JarJar Binks just has no appeal whatsoever as a character and should have lost the stereotyped Jamaican accent. The only good thing I can say on behalf of JarJar is that he does play a role in the plot. He isn't just (horrifically failed) comic relief.
4) CGI. This was made in 1999, a year before the new millennium so cgi was an inevitable inclusion. However the cgi in this film is not terrible. It was nice to see a non-cgi Yoda for the last time and also George Lucas uses the cgi in a way to improve the story and introduce new landscapes. The only scene of gratuitous cgi was the pod race scene. It looked cool for the first lap, then it just got boring.
I personally don't think that the Star Wars prequels are terrible, well okay they are terrible when you dissect them and discuss them at great length. However they do have good watch-ability factor, JarJar, Jake Lloyd and bad dialogue aside.
I rate this movie 6/10 for the potential that it has and for the things that it has going for it. I don't think that it's in league with the originals, how could it be? I believe that prequels are often doomed from the beginning. Movies which HAVE to end a certain way often have a lot of restrictions and have difficulty turning out the way people want them to. However taking this into account, I think Lucas did okay.