A Review by Wes Ray - This is a film I have been waiting a long time to see, and an even longer time to review. From as far back as I can remember, I have always watched, collected, lived, breathed, and eaten (maybe the coolness of lightsabers has something to do with my love of mozzerella cheese sticks?) Star Wars. Actually as a child, I loved anything science fiction. TRON, THE BLACK HOLE, WARGAMES...these and other 80's sci-fi movies were among my favorites, though the trilogy that George Lucas created with the Star Wars universe remains the only one that I actually cared enough about to buy action figures, pajamas, cereal (Kellog's C-3PO's were great!), etc. To say the absolute least, I was anticipating this movie.
Though I don't have any really cool stories about standing in line for the film, I did wait for two hours in the pouring rain for tickets to go on sale. My feet were tired, but a brand new Star Wars movie awaited inside. This was the most excited I'd ever been for the opening of a movie since 1996, when I would've gladly waited two or more hours in line to see John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM L.A. (So, I'm a big Snake Plissken fan. Sue me.) Anyway, about the movie...
The plot concerns a blockade by the greedy Trade Federation on the peaceful planet of Naboo. Naboo sends two ambassadors to negotiate with them, however the Jedi ambassadors are greeted by Trade Federation battle droids and have to somehow escape with the Queen of the Naboo to the out of the way planet of Tatooine. Once at Tatooine, they happen upon young Anakin Skywalker (who, as we know from the previous trilogy, will eventually be led to the darkside and become Darth Vader). Anakin helps them out and eventually they all have to defeat the Trade Federation before they find Queen Amidala and force her to sign a treaty saying that the Trade Federation can invade and attack Naboo. Whew...its not really as complicated as it sounds, because Star Wars stuff is always difficult to put into words. I mean, how can you explain to someone who hasn't seen it what The Force is?
I was worried about a few things before seeing the film...the main thing was that I thought the film would rely too much on computer animation. In some senses, it does. Almost every setting in the film was created digitally. However, I frankly could've cared less about how much computer animation was used in the film...ALL CGI SETS AND CHARACTERS WERE BRILLIANT! The main problem with a lot of films that use Computer Generated Images (CGI) is that they've done all this hard work on this stuff and they want you to see everything. THE PHANTOM MENACE isn't like that in the least bit. I mean, some CGI objects in the film were created soley to be used as blurred out in the background that are out of focus. It truly felt like everything was real...like George Lucas was actually filming these large armies of Gungans and battle droids.
Another thing that worried me before seeing the film was the bad word of mouth that one character had gotten...Jar Jar Binks. I was scared of him ever since I saw him get zapped by something in the teaser preview, and all the bad stuff I heard about him being annoying and having a really hard to understand dialect got me even more worried. He looked too cartoonish, and I really felt that he was going to be out of place in the Star Wars universe. But, you know what? He WASN'T! I found Jar Jar to be a very interesting and important character. So his words may not be easily understood...So what? Could we understand a single thing R2-D2 or Chewbacca said? No. But the characters onscreen could understand them perfectly. Its no big deal. In all, there were only a couple of things that Jar Jar did that really bothered me, but not enough for me to say "do not put him in Episode Two". I liked Jar Jar.
A few very minor complaints...the two-headed podracer announcer has GOT to go. He makes the film seem cheap and kid-oriented. A few of the aliens needed their own dialect and language. Almost all of them except Jabba the Hutt and Watto spoke english, and they even gave Watto english for some reason...Jake Lloyd is a TERRIBLE actor. I wanted to strangle him every single time he uttered something. He could've had a simple sentence like "Yes." and screwed it up somehow! But, he is a child actor, so I suppose I have to overlook his lack of acting. It just breaks my heart to think that this child actor eventually turns into the dark arm of the Force that speaks such powerful lines as "What is thy bidding, my Master?" Then again, Vader was voiced by James Earl Jones, so I suppose that's a huge spot to live up to...Boss Nass' cutesy slobbering got on my nerves a lot more than Jar Jar ever did...and, as I expected, George Lucas is a tad rusty on his directorial skills. The scene between Anakin and his mother when he finds out he's been freed should've been sad and heartwarming, but instead it's treated as "just another moment."
On the whole, this was a very enjoyable film filled with very enjoyable visuals and very enjoyable characters who I can't wait to see in Episode Two. If you are a Star Wars fan, don't raise your expectations to colossal proportions. This film is awesome, but it's not the second coming of Christ. Lighten up, and enjoy it, because when all is said and done, it IS Star Wars and it DOES fit with the rest of the series. Give it time. Once the rest of the trilogy is seen, then we will be able to tell how this one stands up to the rest. Until then, enjoy STAR WARS EPISODE ONE: THE PHANTOM MENACE. May the Force be with you...Always.