Review: SW:E1: The Phantom Menace.

I was a hardcore Star Wars fan about five years ago. I’m talking a fan that watched the movies more times than he can remember. A fan who read every Star Wars book out there. A fan who not only had the schematics of every Star Wars vessel, but who knew the attributes of every major Star Wars character out there. Not only was I well versed in the Star Wars RPG, but I had almost memorized the Star Wars encyclopedia. I dressed as Vader for the re-release of Episode Four; I was the fool yelling at the top of his lungs whenever a signature character appeared on screen. I incited cheering in the crowd. I was a Star Wars geek, no doubt about it.

Given this, you’d expect me to have gone out and bought tickets for the release of Episode One, at 12:01am on Wednesday, May 19th. Heck, I was given the offer, but somewhere along the course of this past half decade, my interest in Star Wars faltered. It had become too mainstream, too developed. There was no longer a single Star Wars thread, but branches upon branches of discontinuity, thanks to the lack of care Lucas took to keep every book, every comic, and every other instantiation following one main timeline. Lots of people, especially the non-hardcore fans, didn’t care. I did, though, and it was a major turn off. Needless to say, I was still looking forward to The Phantom Menace, if only to acknowledge the past. And, truthfully, the trailers really did rock.

After some thought, I decided to watch the movie two days after the release. This way, I figured, the hardcore buffs wouldn’t be there in as many numbers, and I wouldn’t give Episode One a biased review based on the atmosphere. I wanted to go to see how true Lucas kept to his original idea, and then compare it to the overall picture.

Friday night approached, and I didn’t race to get in line when I got to the theatre. Granted, I was there early, so that I could get a decent seat, but I swore that I wouldn’t wear Star Wars apparel, or give the slightest sign of true fan-dom. With the number of screens the movie had been played on for the past two days, the other moviegoers weren’t as fanatical about the showing either.

The movie began with a slight delay, the previews being pretty lame. It became immediately apparent when the movie started that Lucas was going for the reminiscence factor; after the LucasArts logo, the familiar opening text of the Star Wars movies appeared, followed by old-school scrolling text. Now, thought the touch was nice, the scrolling text wasn’t. The Phantom Menace was not only a prequel, but it was the first episode. There was absolutely no reason that the scrolling text needed to be there. The entire back-story could have been explained in the movie itself, not by a viewer-read prelude. Even if Lucas really wanted the scrolling text there, it should have been used to explain not a back-story, but to provide details of the galaxy in general (who was in charge, etc.) Considering what Lucas did instead, it seemed that his aim was at the Star Wars fans, not at the general movie-going audience. Then again, I suppose this was expected.

When the two Jedi appeared on screen, things moved pretty quickly. Liam Neeson looked exactly as he did in Rob Roy, or at least, as I remember he did, and I found this to be a very nice touch. The initial lightsaber scenes quickly brought back the feel of Star Wars, but unfortunately, when they ended, so did the movement of the film. For me, the movie became pretty stale up until the ending, when the same two Jedi fought Darth Maul.

There were times, of course, when the movie’s pace picked up a little, at least temporarily. The computer graphics were amazing throughout, and with a few minor glitches aside, the space and ship scenes were among the best I’ve ever seen. The aliens, too, looked nice, probably better than in most movies.

Of course, bringing up the aliens, I have to bring up Jar Jar. Having read a couple reviews before I watched the movie, I was well aware that Jar Jar would become annoying. Prior to this, he seemed like a pretty cool character, but unfortunately, this was not so. Not only did he begin to annoy me, but he began to annoy me in the first scene in which he appeared. His purpose was pretty obvious, but I have to admit that the attempts at comedy his character stood for were pretty stale, and I can’t see them working for anyone but younger children. At times amusing, he was like the Egyptian priests in Prince of Egypt, detracting too much from the scope of a movie that could have been better had it maintained a serious image.

This mix of the youth-appealing scenes and the potential depth of the political saga was very aggravating. The Trade Federation could have been so much cooler, and without giving away much more, the true scope of the Sith and the Jedi could have been made more clear. It seemed that Lucas was preoccupied with making the film more appealing to children however, an image I didn’t see in the trailers.

Granted, the movie wasn’t supposed to be action packed, but there aren’t any real arguments one can make to justify the film’s brilliance by pointing at the ongoing political saga, because frankly, it was pretty pathetic. Not only was it straightforward, but it wasn’t the in-depth political scandal many expected, nor did it really strike at Star Wars’ heart. It just seemed to be a science fiction tale with familiar characters thrown in, giving an almost too contrived feeling.

I may as well take this next moment to focus a bit on characters themselves. As I said before, Liam Neeson played a Jedi master really well, and the role of Obi Wan was likewise good. Since Obi Wan pretty much takes the place of Luke Skywalker, it’s pretty easy to compare the two. Hands down, Obi Wan is much, much cooler, and the only thing keeping him in the shadows is his master, who, had there been more character development, likely would have been my favorite character. If any actor was right for his role in Episode One, it was Liam Neeson playing Qui-Gon. Everyone else, I think, could have been played my another actor, and probably just as well.

I’ve already noted how annoying Jar Jar was. If it was up to me, I would have either cut the character, or redeveloped him. It’s one thing to have comedy relief, but another when the comedy relief detracts from the rest of the movie, which was true in this case.

The Queen (real and fake) was done well, and despite the in-character disbelief I have of such a switch taking place, it worked pretty well, and was perhaps the only time I was caught off guard by the film’s progression.

Now, at this point, I’m going to bring up something many people won’t like, which has been mirrored in many other reviews thus far, this being the acting of Jake Lloyd. Sorry, folks, but it wasn’t up to par, and I don’t want to hear any, “but he’s just a kid,” excuses. There have been plenty of children actors, and I thoroughly believe that young Anakin’s part could have been played much better than it was. While I had a couple other gripes about the acting in the movie, they were, for the most part, excusable. Anakin’s part, however, was too much like DeCaprio’s in Titanic; very mature, unbelievable, and contrived, in the sense that some image had to be thrown into the character for plot reasons. While Lucas did a good job of making Anakin seem like the good guy, getting the crowd to root for the young boy, Anakin’s innocence could have been portrayed much better by making him say less, display more emotion, and have him be a bit more humble.

Onto the bad boys. It seems almost obvious now that Senator Palpatine is the same person as Darth Sidious. I was disappointed by the Senator’s appearance, though, hoping for something more sinister, but that’s not a big deal. Assuming that Sidious really is Palpatine, though, I have to question the consistency of it all; would the Jedi not know that the Emperor possessed power over the dark side of the force? Either way, the road to the next two episodes has been paved, unfettered, in my opinion, by the supposed death of Darth Maul. Probably the coolest character in the film, I was disappointed by the lack of development for him. While I have to admit that I thought the character was lame at first (his name, most definitely), the character will likely remain a signature character for the rest of Star Wars’ life. Of course, I’m quite certain that Darth Maul will come back; for the amount of hype that surrounded Darth Maul, and the lack of screen-time he had, he’ll come back in one incarnation or another. Considering that the next Episode will deal with Anakin as a young man, supposedly courting the Queen, Sidious can’t be without an apprentice until the rise of Vader, and I doubt that Lucas will create another Sith to replace Maul.

As for everyone else, I only have a couple comments. The Gungans were cool, and the battle between them and the battle droids was good creativity at work. The battle droids themselves, I thought, were pretty cool. Perhaps the only real gripe I had with the supporting cast was with the Jedi council, as it wasn’t at all what I expected. First off, it seemed way too small. There weren’t nearly as many Jedi in the movie as I expected there to be, and the Jedi council didn’t make the Jedi seem very cool at all. In fact, I thought it detracted from the movie, making the council very open, and less majestic. Secondly, they were, for the most part, humanoid, not human. The majority of people in Star Wars are human, and I thought this would be reflected in the Jedi council, but it wasn’t. Finally, I still can’t believe that Samuel Jackson played Mace Windu, probably the greatest mis-casting in the movie. I don’t see why Lucas chose him at all, especially considering that he’s a mainstream actor, exactly what Lucas was trying to avoid during his casting. Perhaps Windu will play a greater, more important role in the next two Episodes, but in Episode One, I couldn’t help but wonder why Jackson was in the film.

Let me jump to the battle between Qui-Gon and Kenobi against Darth Maul. This was my favorite part of the movie, and though I felt there was a glaring in-character error (which I’ll get at in a moment), it was the best fight scene of any Star Wars movie. Lightsabers aside, Darth Maul used his limbs as weapons, which is the way it ought to be. He not only took on two Jedi, but he was winning. The choreography was done really well, and though the moves were pretty simple, they were spectacular nonetheless. Now, though the scene was really cool, I don’t understand why it was Qui-Gon who died, and Obi-Wan who prevailed, since Obi-Wan wasn’t even a full-fledged Jedi Knight at the time, certainly not one who was as experienced as Qui-Gon was made out to be. For plot reasons, I understand why it was done, but I question the believability of it all. This aside, Qui-Gon’s death was cool, something I hoped that Lucas would portray somewhat dramatically, and I was not disappointed. When the shield’s that kept Kenobi back were down, he jumped into a fighting stance and prepared for battle, as any modern martial artist would. This was a nice touch, making Kenobi seem more human than I thought the film would. The one major inconsistency, however, is that it seemed as though Obi-Wan attacked Darth Maul out of anger, at that point, and there was no reason to believe otherwise. Did I not know that Obi-Wan would become a Jedi Master one day, I would have thought that he was slipping to the Dark Side, not young Anakin. Regardless, though I expected Maul to be able to react to Kenobi’s final blow, I dismissed the notion, because as I said, I’m pretty sure that Maul returns, and Maul’s soaking of the attack, intentional or not, has made everyone believe that he is indeed dead. The voice of Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet chimes in, “Fooled you!”

Before I wrap this up, I’ll add some quick, personal commentary. Did anyone notice in the beginning that Qui-Gon and Kenobi ran really, really fast, away from the transforming droids? That’s the Jedi Run, a power my friends and I came up with years ago during a Star Wars campaign, long before it was ever used by anyone at LucasArts. And, so too, did we use the dual-lightsaber, as well as other variations on the idea. Two things that we could relate to, and which we thought were pretty funny.

Anyway to end this review, I have some mixed feelings. Was the movie true to the Star Wars universe in general? Not at all. Lucas took the liberty of rewriting everything from the origins of the droids (C3PO and R2D2) to the concept behind the Sith and the Force (what with that ridiculous cell-count thing). Hardcore fans, I fear, will be disappointed. Was the movie a good prequel? It had lots of information, tightly packed into a somewhat weak storyline, and though worth watching for anyone with an interest in Star Wars, Episode One does not make a good movie for the non-initiate. If you’ve never seen the older Star Wars movies, don’t watch this one first, or you may not want to watch the others. I don’t think Episode One ranks anywhere close to Episodes four through six, and is probably the worst of the bunch. This said, Episode One seems to be a giant teaser, an intro of sorts. Taken alone, it wasn’t that good, but as the first part of a larger movie, it shows potential, and I look forward to the intended darker plots of Episode two and three. If anything, Lucas has learned a couple lessons from The Phantom Menace, and hopefully, won’t make the same mistakes in the upcoming films.

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