Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

Nothing says exciting space action movie like trade negotiations, right? To get ahead of where I stand on this movie, I’ll say right away that this is not as good as any of the original trilogy. While there are a few moments that stand out as great parts of Star Wars lore, they just don’t make up for some of the glaring issues with the remainder of the film. I have had a very love-hate relationship with this movie in the past. When I was younger I thought this movie was amazing and truly didn’t understand the hate that people gave it. Years later I watched it again and thought “Oh… that’s why”. Watching it with a more critical eye this time left me in a grey area in between.

The Phantom Menace begins with two Jedi peacekeepers headed to negotiate with the Trade Federation who are causing issues by cutting off all trade routes to Naboo. Qui-Gon and his apprentice Obi-Wan are met with hostility at the spaceship above Naboo, and have to fight their way out to escape to the planet below. Here they meet and save a local Gungan, Jar-Jar Binks who takes them to see the Gungan leader. After unsuccessfully trying to convince them to join with the rest of Naboo to fight against an incoming invasion, they find their way to the queen of Naboo, Padme Amidala. They narrowly escape the Trade Federation as they flee the planet, but due to some damage taken to their ship along the way they have to make an emergency landing on the planet of Tatooine.

At this point I was honestly pretty happy with what I had seen so far. I had remembered this movie being more about politics than anything else, and there was exciting action (with special effects that looked pretty amazing after having just finished the original trilogy). At this point though, things start to go downhill for me.

Qui-Gon, Padme and Jar-Jar all set off into a nearby village to find the parts they need to fix their ship, and come across the store of Watto and his slave Anakin Skywalker. For the next, what seemed like an hour, not much happens and there’s a decent amount of poor acting and line-delivery until there is a podrace where some betting and deals add very high stakes: If Anakin can win, he will be freed and Qui-Gon gets all of the parts he needs for his ship. The race is off, and the most exciting portion of the film is underway. The action, visuals, and even commentary add significantly to how exciting this was. As expected, Anakin comes away with the victory and everything looks like it’s finally going the right way for the good guys. At this point though the evil Emperor’s apprentice, Darth Maul, finds our group of protagonists and has a pretty good lightsaber duel with Qui-Gon before the good guys are once again able to escape.

They head briefly to Coruscant so that Padme can try to plead with the Senate to take action to resolve the issues plaguing her planet. At this time Qui-Gon makes his case to the Jedi council to have young Anakin trained to be a Jedi. Neither really gets their way, and they all head back to Naboo. Once they arrive, Padme herself goes to the Gungan leader to beg for their help, and they oblige.

The giant CGI battle gets underway, and I still don’t understand how this portion of the movie looks as bad as it does. While this happens, Anakin finds himself in a starship in the space battle trying to take out the command center of the droid army invading the planet. He accidentally ends up saving the day and gets away unscathed. Our Jedi heroes, however, are not so lucky. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan end up in the greatest lightsaber fight to date which ultimately leads to the death of Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan is able to defeat the evil Darth Maul by cutting him in half. With this death, Yoda of the Jedi council promotes Obi-Wan to full Jedi Knight and allows him to take Anakin as his new apprentice.

Like I said at the beginning of this, there are some great moments in this movie (specifically the podrace and the lightsaber fight at the end), however this just doesn’t make up for the long spans of nothing happening, the poor acting, and lack of any real character development. The only characters the movie made me care about, or show any interest in them were Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul. When more than half of the characters you cared about die in the end, it makes it hard to get excited for the next movie. I think it’s safe to say that people give this movie a little bit more hate than I think it deserves, but it is certainly the worst of the bunch and I’m hoping things take a step in the right direction with the next in the series.