I will not sit around while you script this film in a committee...

Rating: Null/10 (21 July 1999)

TPM has just recently hit these shores so I thought it might be worth a comment or two...
Overall, enjoyable: visually superb (with some exceptions: see later) and a good sense of unease towards the end of the film, particularly in the final few seconds (did anyone else notice or am I imagining things?).
However, what I think the film lacks in comparison to the originals is a sense of depth. The way the first trilogy presented an entire, detailed universe was almost certainly what fuelled the imagination of kids like myself at the time and ultimately made the new prequels possible. There were plenty of opportunities to create this impression in TPM, but deliberately or otherwise they weren't taken. Either Lucas is 'keeping his powder dry' by throwing in a few teasers and red herrings for the next films, or the film was written by a committee (with representatives from Nintendo, Mattel etc). The film contains a lot of elements which while crowd pleasing are not really fully explored, as if a list of sequences for inclusion was compiled and then ways contrived to fit them around the plot (the obvious computer game plug which was the Pod Race being a classic example).
For example:
1. Where did the Sith (and particularly the excellent and Glaswegian Darth Maul) suddenly spring from and what were they aiming to have their 'revenge on the Jedi' for? What was DM up to on Tatooine? Presumably this will be explained.
2. The film visits three planets and neglects to explore or explain much about any of them. Instead it chooses to base the action around a couple of admittedly very detailed 'stage sets' per world. A an 8 year old I don't think the fact that Watto had stubble on his neck would have fuelled my imagination much, whereas the references to Han Solos gambling debts etc. did.
3. 'My people are dying Senator': we never got to see any 'people' on Naboo.
The same criticism would have to apply to some of the characters/creatures, which were ironically enough quite often unconvincing and badly presented. I remember being happy enough to accept that wookies might exist somewhere and the films gve some idea about what they might be like however the new film contained:
1. Several unlikely pink panther like creatures and a cartoon pea as pilots in the Pod race (no pun intended). 2. Some fairly anonymous green things whose mouths didn't move properly and spoke with cliched Chinese voices as the Viceroy et al. 3. Jar Jar Binks, who though not as annoying as had been suggested was shakily animated, incompehensible and definately cartoon like. Reminiscent of Pete's Dragon by Disney.
Anyway, it remains to be seen whether all this is part of the bigger picture...certainly we should hope so. Ultimately though Lucas is probably ill advised in underestimating his young and old audiences' intelligence and imagination: something which he did not do with the first trilogy.