Two Movies: The Lightest and the Darkest Star Wars Episode

Rating: 7/10 (24 May 1999)

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
The Phantom Menace can be seen as two very different episodes in Star Wars. What is important to remember that as an episode, The Phantom Menace was never meant to stand alone. If you want to see a cute kids movie, don't read the rest of my review, if you want to see the darkest chapter in the soon to be Star Wars Sextet keep reading.
The Phantom Menace is quite simply the story of how Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious/The Emperor destroys the Republic through careful con games. As Darth Sidious, Palpatine causes the trade federation to attack Naboo, the planet he represents in the senate. This attack puts his planet in a position of sympathy in the senate. Palpatine, who has the complete trust of his queen, Amidala, manipulates her into calling for a vote of no confidence against the weak-willed and beaurocratically controlled Chancellor Valorum. Filled with sympathy for a planet which has fallen into a status of Nazi-Like occupation, the senate not only removes Valorum, but elects Palpatine as the new chancellor. Were this not enough, Palpatine throws the Jedi off his trail by using his colorful decoy Darth Maul. The Jedi are so overwhelmed in finding out Maul's secrets, that they don;t even notice that the REAL Dark Lord of the Sith is in the same room. It was chilling to see Palpatine tell Anakin that "I will be watching your career with great interest." After watching Return of the Jedi, I felt that the Emperor was an incredibly evil character, the Phantom Menace made Palpatine seem as evil as his apprentice Vader seemed in the original movie. The apparent nobility of Palpatine's motives to all in the movie made him that much more menacing.
There are also many elements of tragedy in the movie, the foremost being the character of Qui-Gon Jinn. Jinn, who was a little bit of a Jedi rebel wanted to prove that a Jedi could serve the greater good without adhering to the strict codes of the Jedi council. It is the ultimate in tragedy that Jinn's final request is for Obi-Wan to train the boy who would become a great killer of Jedi. The very innocence of Anakin in the film makes the tragedy even more apparent. The little boy who seems to be so incredibly generous will become one of the greatest evils in the galaxy. Amidala has allowed the republic and the future father of her children to fall into darkness, and she's too naive to recognize any of it.
If you didn't like the movie, and read these comments, give it a second chance. The movie is wonderful if viewed in its darkness as well as its light.