Unlike with the other movies in the prequel trilogy, The Phantom Menace had five years for George Lucas and his people to really tighten it up in every aspect. George may not be the best writer, but if you give him four years he can make an okay script into a really good one. And that's what happened on Episode I that he didn't have with the later prequels. He had four years to get the script for Episode I to his satisfaction. The dialogue, while cheesy in most places, is nowhere near as bad as it is in Attack of the Clones or even in Revenge of the Sith. Which is interesting given how much help George had on the first three films when it came to the scripting process. But because of this lead time on this movie, The Phantom Menace is, at least to me, the best of the prequels.
This is the first Star Wars movie I ever saw in theatres. I was twelve years old when The Phantom Menace came out in theatres in 1999 and I ended up seeing it twice within six days of each viewing. I went with my mentor from this Teen Mentorship program that I was a part of at the time. The second time I went with my nurse from school and her son. I remember loving it both times, because I was at the right age to love it seen as how Star Wars was meant for nine, ten, eleven, and twelve year olds.
Watching the movie this time around, I wasn't sure who I should sympathize with more: The Naboo because it's fate rested in the hands of the Republic which was run by petty politicians, or the Trade Federation because they were stupid enough to make a deal with Darth Sidious. Honestly, I really wasn't sure because neither side were really in a good position. At least Queen Amidala was on top of things when it came to her people.
Speaking of Queen Amidala, she was probably my favourite character in this entire movie. Even when people counseled her to do something, she made up her own mind about what to do. And she managed to convince the Gungans to join forces with them to defeat the Trade Federation. Which was incredible considering that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan weren't able to do so even with the Force guiding them. Which is saying something since the Jedi are used to persuading people to see things differently, but Boss Nass was stubborn and didn't easily change his mind.
I'm not going to talk about these two characters too much but I would like to briefly touch upon both Jar Jar Binks and Anakin Skywalker a little bit in this review. Jar Jar was created for children and of course George had kids by the time he began developing this movie, including a son that was pretty young at the time so he wanted a character that kids would love as much as the kids who saw Star Wars in 1977 loved Artoo, Threepio and Chewbacca or the kids who saw Return of the Jedi in 1983 and how much they loved the Ewoks. It was just unfortunate that the kids who saw those two movies were now adults with kids of their own and weren't able to view The Phantom Menace through the eyes of a child, as their parents had done when they went to see the first three movies in theatres. Personally, I don't have much of a problem with Jar Jar. He's not my favourite Star Wars character by any means, but he's still not as annoying as many people claim he is.
As for Anakin Skywalker, he actually doesn't do a whole lot in this movie aside from winning the pod race and blowing up the Trade Federation Control Ship and the focus of the movie isn't on him. In fact I'd say that there are two protagonists in this movie and they are Obi-Wan Kenobi and Queen Amidala. I guess Qui-Gon could be considered to be a third protagonist, but he's definitely more in the mentor role that Obi-Wan is in in the first film. But on the whole Anakin has the least amount of stuff to do in this movie in comparison to in the previous films as Darth Vader and the later two films as both Anakin and Vader. Which makes sense since he's only nine years old in this movie and you can't really expect a nine year old to be doing a lot of stuff in a movie like this.
This movie has probably the best Lightsaber fight in the entire saga when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan go up against Darth Maul at the end of the movie. While the fight doesn't have the emotional punch that the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight at the end of Revenge of the Sith does and doesn't have the grace and fluidity that the Luke/Vader fight at the end of Return of the Jedi does, this fight is probably the best choreographed fight of them all. The stunt coordinator, Nick Gillard did a really good job choreographing this fight. Plus adding a double bladed Lightsaber to the mix was pretty cool considering Maul was fighting two opponents at once.
By the way, did any of you figure out that Darth Sidious and Senator Palpatine were the same person like I did? It was supposed to be something that wasn't supposed to be revealed until Episode II or Episode III, but I figured it out within five seconds of being introduced to Darth Sidious. I mean he looked like the way the Emperor looked in Return of the Jedi, but younger, he had huge influence over the inner workings of the Galactic Senate as well as the Republic in general, and his voice sounded like Palpatine's even though the distortion of the holographic communications he used to contact Nute Gunray throughout the film. So while Sidious's true identity was meant to be kept a secret until the end of the trilogy, I figured it out right away, and I'm sure other people figured it out too. I even had a conversation about it with some friends up at the cottage that summer.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall while The Phantom Menace isn't my favourite Star Wars movie overall, it is my favourite of the Prequel Trilogy and is still a very good movie, not just a good Star Wars movie. The only thing I don't like about it is that it has nothing to do with the events of Episode II and Episode III and just kind of sits there in a way that doesn't work for this trilogy as the standalone nature of Star Wars did with the original trilogy. For that reason and because the film is entirely skippable I'm going to give Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace 8.5/10 stars.
UP NEXT: Spaceballs...
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120915/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
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