Originally Posted 5/4/17
How could a movie that took sixteen years to come to the screen not be better than this shit? The Phantom Menace was the first Star Wars film to be released since Return of the Jedi
in 1983. That long, sixteen-year time span was always its blessing and
its curse. The anticipation was so high that the movie was guaranteed to
be a box-office smash -- which it was. On the other hand,
writer/director/creator George Lucas set himself up for artistic failure
with all of the talk about the highly-esteemed and astonishingly popular
original trilogy being merely the middle of a larger story spanning nine
films in all. The notion that he had more than 22 years to perfect his
ideas (the first movie, Star Wars, debuted in 1977) raised expectations to impossibly high levels. Maybe Dr. Dre took note of Lucas' downfall when he scrapped Detox.
On
the plus side, and this can't be stressed enough--no other movie has Darth Maul.
He is absolutely the best thing about the prequel trilogy. And the
moment that the second blade emerges from his lightsaber is
applause-worthy. Either Darth Sidious or Darth Maul would've been great
on his own, but the combination of the two is almost too good to be
true.
All of the space action is magnificent and thankfully, Phantom made it out of production before Lucas went digital-crazy and decided to make everything that wasn't human CGI. Even the trailers are phenomenal -- but unfortunately, the movie that they promised wasn't the one that was released.
All of the space action is magnificent and thankfully, Phantom made it out of production before Lucas went digital-crazy and decided to make everything that wasn't human CGI. Even the trailers are phenomenal -- but unfortunately, the movie that they promised wasn't the one that was released.
The universal focal point for the hatred directed at this movie has historically been Jar Jar Binks. But it's not just him. All of
the Gungans sucked. The desperate attempt to appeal to kids under the
age of five with the pod-race was a low-point too. And seriously, the
day when filmmakers stop clumsily trying to tie all of the pieces of a
franchise together with familiar faces should be remembered as a
holiday. This case wasn't as bad as Spectre, but the inclusion of Jabba, R2-D2 and C-3PO was just lazy. Maybe the worst thing about The Phantom Menace is that it somehow lets Attack of the Clones off the hook -- and that is a much worse movie.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.
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