star wars : ?
episode i -- the phantom menace ( 1999 ) director : george lucas cast : liam neeson , ewan mcgregor , natalie portman , jake lloyd , ian mcdiarmid , samuel l. jackson , oliver ford davies , terence stamp , pernilla august , frank oz , ahmed best , kenny baker , anthony daniels screenplay : george lucas producers :
rick mccallum runtime :
131 min .
us distribution :
20th century fox rated pg :
mild violence , thematic elements copyright
1999 nathaniel r. atcheson a fellow critic once stated his belief that a reviewer should not speak of himself in his own review .
i 've attempted to obey this rule in recent months , but to do so would be impossible in this case .
the fact is , nearly every person who goes to see the phantom menace brings baggage in with them .
the original star wars trilogy means so much to so many people .
for me , they calibrated my creativity as a child ; they are masterful , original works of art that mix moving stories with what were astonishing special effects at the time ( and they still hold up pretty darn well ) .
i am too young to have seen star wars in the theater during its original release , but that does n't make me any less dedicated to it .
on the contrary , the star wars trilogy -- and the empire strikes back in particular -- are three items on a very short list of why i love movies .
when i heard that george lucas would be making the first trilogy in the nine - film series , i got exited .
when i first saw screenshots from the film , well over a year ago , i embarked on a year - long drool of anticipation .
and when the first previews were released last thanksgiving , i was ready to see the film .
but then there was the hype , the insane marketing campaign , and lucasfilm 's secretive snobbery over the picture .
in the last weeks before the picture opened , while multitudes of fans waited outside of theaters and stood in the boiling sun days in advance just to be the first ones in the theater , i was tired of hearing about it .
i was tired of seeing cardboard cut - outs of the characters whenever i went to kfc or taco bell .
i just wanted to see the movie .
reader , do not misunderstand .
i did not have an anti - hype reaction .
the hype was unavoidable .
i understand and accept the hype -- it 's just what happens when the prequel to the most widely beloved films of all time get released .
five minutes into the phantom menace , i knew there was a problem .
" who are these jedi knights ?
"
i asked .
"
why are they churning out stale dialogue with machine - gun rapidity ?
" " why are n't these characters being developed before their adventures ?
" " why is there a special effects shot in nearly every frame of the entire film ?
" these were just some of my questions early on .
later , i asked ,
" where 's the magic of the first three films ? " and
" why am i looking at my watch every fifteen minutes ? '
by the end of the film , i was tired , maddened , and depressed .
george lucas has funneled his own wonderful movies into a pointless , mindless , summer blockbuster .
the phantom menace is no star wars film .
take away the title and the jedi talk and the force , and you 're left with what is easily one of the most vacuous special effects movies of all time .
it 's an embarrassment .
i looked desperately for a scene in which a character is explored , or a new theme is examined , or a special effects shot is n't used .
there are a few of each , but they 're all token attempts .
the fact is , george lucas has created what is simultaneously an abysmally bad excuse for a movie and a pretty good showcase for digital effects .
this is not what i wanted to see .
i did n't want to leave the phantom menace with a headache and a bitter taste in my mouth , but i did .
the story centers mostly around qui - gon jinn ( liam neeson , looking lost and confused ) and his apprentice , obi - wan kenobi ( ewan mcgregor , who scarcely has a line in the film ) and their attempts to liberate the people of the planet naboo .
naboo is the victim of a bureaucratic war with the trade federation ; their contact on naboo is queen amidala ( natalie portman ) , the teenage ruler who truly cares for her people .
after picking up jar jar binks ( a completely cgi character , voiced by ahmed best ) , they head to tatooine , where they meet young anakin skywalker ( jake lloyd ) and his mother ( pernilla august ) .
qui - gon knows that the force is strong with young anakin , and so the jedi knights take the boy with them on their journeys .
the bad guys are darth maul and darth sidious , neither of whom have enough lines to register as characters .
there is n't anything particularly wrong with this story when looking at it in synopsis form .
the way lucas has handled it , however , it unsatisfactory .
first of all , we do n't learn one single thing about qui - gon jinn .
not one thing .
what was his life like before this film ?
well , i imagine he did n't have one .
that 's why he feels like a plot device .
this probably explains why neeson looks so hopeless in the role , and why he 's recently retired from film ( i do n't blame him , honestly ) .
obi - wan , a character i was really looking forward to learning more about , is even less interesting .
mcgregor has just a few lines , so
anyone hoping to see the engaging young actor in a great performance is urged to look elsewhere .
since these two men are the focus of the phantom menace , lucas has served us a big emotional void as the centerpiece of his movie .
things start to pick up when our characters reach tatooine ; young anakin is perhaps the only truly fleshed - out character in the film , and lloyd does a thoughtful job with the role .
i was also hugely impressed with the sand speeder scene ; rarely is an action sequence so fast and so exciting .
and when anakin says goodbye to his mother , i found it moving .
also fairly good is portman , and she manages to give a little depth to a character where no depth has been written .
jar jar binks is one of the most annoying characters i 've ever had to endure , but he 's more interesting than most of the humans .
as soon as the relatively - brief segment on tatooine is over , it 's back to the mind - numbing special effects and depthless action scenes .
i 've seen many movies that qualify as " special effects extravaganzas , " but the phantom menace is the first one i 've seen that had me sick of the special effects fifteen minutes into the movie .
the reason is obvious : george lucas has no restraint .
i ca n't say that i did n't find the effects original , because i did -- the final battle between darth maul , obi - wan , and qui - gon is visually exceptional , as is most of the film .
but i also found the effects deadening and tiresome .
my breaking point was near the end of the picture , as anakin is getting questioned by yoda and the other jedi masters ; in the background , we see hundreds of digital spaceships flying around through a digital sky ,
and i wanted that to go away .
ca n't we have one stinking scene that is n't bursting at the seems with a special effects shot ?
i got so sick of looking at the cgi characters and spaceships and planets and backgrounds
that i really just wanted to go outside and look at a physical landscape for a few hours .
and then there 's the question of magic .
what was lost in the sixteen years between the phantom menace and return of the jedi ?
i have a feeling that lucas was so focused on how his movie looked
that he forgot entirely the way it should feel .
john williams ' familiar score is no help , nor is lucas ' direction .
i think it comes right down to characters
: there are none here .
i longed for the magnetic presence of han , luke , and leia , but i got no such thing .
and what about the ridiculous expectations ?
mine were n't that high ; i simply wanted a film that showed me the roots of the films that i grew up loving , a story that had a few characters and a few great special effects .
instead , i got two hours and fifteen minutes of a lifeless and imaginative computer graphics show .
i do n't hate the phantom menace as much as i resent it : i 'd like to forget that it exists , and yet i ca n't .
it 's here to stay .
i can only hope that episodes ii
and iii have something of substance in them , because if they do n't , then lucas will have pulled off the impossible task of destroying his own indestructible series .
Output: N