Fellman's Movie Reviews

RED = SPOILERS 

When you start a Star Wars marathon, you have to start at the beginning. And that’s exactly what Star Wars – Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is. The beginning of the Star Wars tale. The Skywalker saga stars here. The greatest story told in space. And it’s become almost a fad to say that you don’t like the prequels. But a lot more people do then they let on. They’re not bad movies. They’re just not the originals. People don’t like change and new stuff. They want to stick with what’s comfortable and what they’re used to. It’s understandable. That’s why old people don’t like teenagers’ music. But once people got around the fact that they weren’t the original trilogy, they saw that the prequels weren’t really bad movies at all. Except for Jar Jar Binks… We’re still not forgiving George Lucas for that… 

What’s it about? Episode 1 is about Qui Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi going to the planet Naboo to settle a dispute between the Naboo and the Trade Federation. Once on the Trade Federation’s space station, the two jedi are attacked and forced to hide out on one of the droid ships and make their way down to the planet where they unfortunately meet Jar Jar Binks. The Trade Federation invades Naboo and Qui Gon and Obi-Wan are forced to get Queen Padme off the planet. They escape to Tattooine where they meet a slave boy named Anakin Skywalker. The Jedi’s ship is damaged, and Anakin tells them he can help them fix it by winning the upcoming Pod Race. Anakin wins and Qui Gon also frees him in a simultaneous deal with Watto, Anakin’s owner. After freeing Anakin, everyone heads back to Naboo to stop the Trade Federation and shut down the droid army by shutting down the control station. In the meantime, Qui Gon and Obi-Wan go and battle the Sith lord Darth Maul.  

What’s good? Qui Gon is one of my personal favorite Jedi. It’s a shame he died so early. But, what are you gonna do? And also, the pod racing scene is pretty cool. Everybody likes a pod race… 

What’s bad? I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it. Jar Jar Binks is the worst thing that’s happened to Star Wars since the Christmas special in 1978. Everybody that’s seen Jar Jar hates him, and for good reason. It’s a terrible character, put in there for some kind of comedy relief. But Star Wars isn’t a buddy movie. Why does it need comedy relief? It was just a bad writing choice. It didn’t ruin the movie, but it did drop it down in the rankings by a whole bunch… 

The acting? The acting is mostly good. Liam Neeson is one of the greatest actors ever. It doesn’t really get any better. But, there’s other people in the movie. Like Jake Lloyd, the kid who plays Anakin Skywalker. I know he’s only 9 years old and it’s unfair to judge a little kid on their acting abilities, but he’s kind of annoying… And Natalie Portman, as usual, is bland and emotionless.  

The effects? If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times, any Star Wars movie is going to have the greatest special effects simply because it’s coming from George Lucas’ own company, Industrial Light and Magic. They’re always at the top.  

Little Anakin. He’s the star of the movie, so you gotta put up with him the entire time. But he’s pretty annoying. And then he starts mouthing off to the Jedi Masters in the Council Chamber, and it’s like “Who do you think you are, you little punk?” 

Jar Jar Binks. In the history of Star Wars, nobody will ever stop complaining about Jar Jar Binks. Nobody will ever suddenly just go “Oh, Jar Jar Binks? I love that guy!” Not gonna happen. It was like a cake where you mistook salt for sugar and put it in the oven. It doesn’t taste the same as you remember cake tasting… 

The Pod Race was Cool. The special effects in the movie were good. Good enough that they found an entire sequence to animate that looked more or less real. And considering this was back in the day, that’s pretty impressive. The end of the race has that Ben-Hur moment with Anakin and Sebulba that’s really flashy. It just looks good.  

Padme can’t wait to give up her cover. When everybody is in the Gungan’s secret place, about to talk to them, it takes Padme about 5 seconds to interrupt her double and reveal herself as queen. She couldn’t keep her secret if she wanted to. She was bursting at the seams to tell everybody she was Queen Padme. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan look at each other like one of them just won a bet on who said she would crack first…

Palpatine is so powerful. Palpatine is such a powerful Sith Lord that he is constantly surrounded by Jedi, and not one of them has detected his presence. Not one of them has noticed the intense power of the dark side that surrounds the dark lord of the Sith. He is able to mask his power so well and rise up through the ranks of the galactic senate and move his plots forward. That’s kind of ridiculous… 

Darth Maul kills Qui Gon and doesn’t even hesitate. When Darth Maul kills Qui Gon he doesn’t even stop to think about it. He just turns around and looks at Obi-Wan and paces back and forth like a caged tiger, waiting for the laser door to open with Qui Gon’s body lying there on the floor.  

Obi-Wan became a Jedi without passing the Trials. Because of what happened on Naboo, Obi-Wan was the first Jedi to become a Knight without passing the Trials first. It was decided that what he had gone through proved that he passed all the tests to become a Jedi Knight without passing the official Trials and was given the rank of Jedi Knight. He took Anakin as his Padawan learner because he promised Qui Gon that he would, whether or not the council approved. Subsequently, Anakin would then go on to become a Jedi Knight without passing the trials just as his master did before him.

Personally, I like Episode 1. And I’m willing to bet a lot of other people do too. But because so many people make fun of it, it’s become almost cliché to go along and make fun of it as well. Make fun of Jar Jar, not the movie itself. And as always, May the Force Be With You…