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STAR WARS: Episode 1, The Phantom Menace
or
How I Learned to Hate George Lucas
A review by David Blalock
copyright 1999
One thing can be said for Star Wars: Episode 1, The Phantom Menace. As a movie, it makes a beautiful landscape portfolio.
George Lucas' latest, and hopefully last, addition to the Star Wars franchise is a Disney movie on steroids. Visually stunning, its cinematography is a seamless blend of real and computer-generated sets and locations. With thousands of hours of experience, Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic could have delivered no less.
Thousands of computer-generated aliens in dozens of different forms, some new, some not, fill out the landscapes in an impressive display of background detailing testifying to meticulous attention to even the most trivial bit of each frame. Mos Eisley Spaceport, a nearly deserted place in the original Star Wars, becomes a bustling and raucous marketplace. In contrast to the bleak, nearly empty halls of the Cloud City of Empire Strikes Back, the underwater Dunjun city in Phantom Menace is crowded with passersby, rubberneckers, and police. And we finally get to see the planet-city of Coruscant, seat of what will shortly become the Imperial Senate.
Then comes the storyline, and Star Wars: Episode 1 starts to fall apart.
After you recover from the visual imagery, you remember why George Lucas doesn't write many movies. As a director he is technically brilliant. As a producer, he is shrewd and intuitive in determining how a movie should be handled financially, what kind of marketing it needs, etcetera. As the head of the Star Wars marketing giant, he continues to milk the franchise for every penny.
As a writer, he sucks.
Star Wars: Episode 1 is written with the six-to-twelve-year-old demographic in mind. The dialogue is childish and often puerile, even to including toilet humor. The story often leaves even Star Wars reality behind to cavort in inanity unseen since the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi.
There are least six stories vying for attention. First is the invasion of Naboo by the "evil Trade Federation". Then there is the conflict between the land and sea life forms on Naboo. Thirdly there is the political maneuvering and intrigue of Senator Palpatine in his bid for ultimate power. Fifth are the Jedi Council and the Jedi itself; who are they, what are they, and where did they come from? Last is the story of Anakin Skywalker, the boy who would become Darth Vader. Any of these stories, pursued to their utmost, would have made a marvelous movie. In Star Wars: Episode 1, all six are squashed together into an unrecognizable swill of nearly unpalatable plotline.
Worst of all, and probably least forgivable, is the acting.
Liam Neeson as the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, master to young Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is wooden and stilted. Neeson was apparently cast as the Jedi knight because he looked like one. He does, as long as he isn't required to speak. McGregor fares a little better, but only because he spent many hours studying Alec Guiness' marvelous performance in the previous films and did his best to emulate that performance. Neeson's stone-faced Jedi, if meant to convey stoic peace and oneness with the Force, does not come across believably. There is no sense of loss when Qui-Gon is killed by Darth Maul, because we never feel Qui-Gon is worth caring about.
And so on, and so on. Suffice it to say that, if you are over the age of 12, you are not likely to come away from Star Wars: Episode 1 with a good taste in your mouth. The gorgeous special effects, the massive hype, the marketing, the pre-release foreplay had us set up for a night of the same excitement and fast action the original Star Wars gave us 22 years ago.
Back then the writing was just as bad, the plot as thin, but the special effects were little better than lighted papier mache models and rubber and latex. The movie was Luke finding his way in a complex world, Han weaseling his way into Leia's arms, Londo maneuvering to keep his wealth, the Emperor scheming to destroy the rebels, and Vader trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side.
Star Wars: Episode 1 is none of that. It is a stained glass window on an abandoned warehouse, pretty but useless.
If it sounds as if this reporter is disappointed in Star Wars: Episode 1, that's not entirely true. The lightsaber duels were wonderfully choreographed. They brought back the magic for awhile. Bits and pieces of recognizable storyline, explaining for instance where C3PO and R2D2 enter the picture, gave a little continuity to an otherwise scattershot script. Finding out how Obi-Wan ended up as Anakin Skywalker's teacher made it easier to understand the connections between the characters in Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
When Episode 2 gets made, and it surely will (the Star Wars franchise has lost none of its "cash cow" draw), Lucasfilm needs to remember the formula used in the original Star Wars: Keep it simple. Lots of action. Real bad guys. Real good guys.
And the good guys win in the end.
THE CAST
Qui-Gon Jinn...Liam Neeson
Obi-Wan Kenobi...Ewan McGregor
Queen Amidala...Natalie Portman
Anakin Skywalker...Jake Lloyd
Senator Palpatine...Ian McDiarmid
Shmi Skywalker...Pernilla August
Jar Jar Binks...Ahmed Best
C-3PO...Anthony Daniels
R2D2...Kenny Baker
Yoda...Frank Oz
Mace Windu...Samuel Jackson
Darth Maul...Ray Park
See the website at http://www.starwars.com/episode-i/
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