Lucas broke his own rule

Rating: 3/10 (7 August 2007)

I am as big a Star Wars fan as there is, and I have to say although there are many problems with this movie, the biggest one (and one that sadly followed him to Episode II) was that the non-humans spoke English. Think about it. We accepted characters from Jabba the Hut to Greedo to Chewbacca in the first movies. None of them spoke English. The first two were subtitled and Chewie was just Chewie. The only non-humans to speak English were 3PO (a protocol droid) and Yoda (a 900 year old Jedi master).
And Phantom Menace illustrated why this was important. When you have your aliens speak English (or even worse, English with a "funny" accent) it comes out, at best, cartoon-like and at worst offensive. From the leaders of the Trade Federation to Jar Jar, the English speaking aliens killed this flick.
Then again, dialog has never been Lucas' strong point. How many of his most beloved characters never speak or have only a couple of lines? (Chewie, R2D2, Boba Fett, Darth Maul, Jabba, etc.) Perhaps there were just too many lines, generally. Lucas should stick to his affects and his story lines and let someone else write his dialog. Which he did - in the later films.