Movie - Star Wars I - the phantom menace
Full title adds "episode I"
Score : 4/10 Year : 1999Director: George LucasCinematography: David TattersallMusic: John Williams Country: USA Language: English Duration: 2h16Writers: George Lucas
Full cast & team (IMDB)
Prequels are often hit or miss - or most often, miss, for me...
Indeed, prequels lock stories into a known set of factors, especially if they go back in the history of characters we've already seen in a previous movie, set later in the story... So, it's hard to surprise, and we have to accept the journey of the 'how' instead of a journey of discovery of new things...
In this prequel, the story starts on Naboo, in the in-universe year 32 BBY. (and that many years before the events of Star Wars IV : a new hope).
Ahead of a planned invasion, the evil Trade Federation has set a blockade around this planet. Two Jedi are sent to confront the leaders, and during their quest to find allies, they meet new friends, and a young boy catches their attention.
The original Star Wars trilogy was released in 1977, 1980 and 1983... more than 15 years later, George Lucas came with a trilogy prequel, and seems to have actually reduced in qualities and magic that the original had, hence my severe overall score of 4/10!
Let me see, where do I begin with this movie that I wanted to like, but had to be so critical with :
First of all, I find most of the acting to be underwhelming, or even totally phoned-in, wooden, though one would expect higher level of acting 22 years after the first movie, it's a huge downgrade!
Only Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn delivers well, and everyone else is either just ok or very mediocre, if not outright bad.
A second issue is the lack of emotional bonding with the characters, or between themselves. Let me explain the first part : none of the characters here really grab or captivate, and when someone is hurt or dies, we didn't feel a thing, though we normally should have. As for the second part, in the backstory to Anakin, his mother tells us of how he was born... and let me tell you, Lucas totally missed both on writing and directing this! He implies either a magical birth or one by an unnamed rape, and when the mother says it, it's almost comical and she has ZERO emotional affect, none, zilch, nada.
Those are mere two examples and the movie has many moments where emotions aren't present at all, it's just clinical and action based story, with no depth and no endearment towards the heroes, nor anger or outrage at the mediocre villains - though anyone who has seen other movies will recognize one as a much greater presence in one or several of them (I won't say in how many).
Although cinematography should shine in the two decades that separates the original trilogy and the start of this prequel one, there are moments where the special effects are simply far too evident and one giant battle scene it's a disaster of cartoonish-missing-at-close-range shoot-out where so many of the fighters should be wounded or dead! But, much like the issue of about Anakin's backstory mentioned above, this scene and that one are made to target a main young audience, missing those who would have been first in line to watch it : the ones who'd seen the original trilogy! It's a family oriented movie, for good and for ill alike.
Another ill is the much debated character Jar jar binks. First of all, the name sucks. Secondly, the character is too much like Steve Urkel in space : clumsy and annoyingly childish. The movie loses a LOT of its score based on Jar Jar's presence in it. Thirdly, the theories about clues about his real goal aren't enough, and I find unconvincing. He was simply horribly written and executed.
Gender and race balance has never been a strong part of Star Wars, not in the original trilogy, and not here - it'll only improve with the trilogy comprised of chapters 7 to 9, from 2015-2019. In this first prequel there are token women, token POC, few of whom get dialogues, and one of these POC, Captain Panaka, is too much like Lando Calrissian, minus some sexist aspects he had. As for Natalie Portman as both the Queen and Princess, she doesn't convince in either, very sadly, poorly written and one of the worst acting of this movie altogether, and I'm told she's actually a very good Actor! What a shame!
Pacing in Star Wars I is horrendous, far too many scenes are far too long and short ones are far too short, there is simply no balance whatsoever.
One last issue is the massive change about the Force, which I prefer to simply omit as if it were never written, it's just that bad... in one simple dialogue, the entire cake crumbles into nano-bots, really awful decision, which I assume is the fruit of the second wave satanic panic of the 1990's, which most probably also caused the demonic appearance of cartoonish and à-la-jean-claude-van-dame villain that isn't even scary and gets only two short lines...
Most humor falls flat and feels unnaturally delivered and written...
The sound ?? dialogues are so muted in comparison to the music ; is it because of the movie or the transfer to dvd quality ? I cannot say, as I only watched it on a french dvd borrowed from the library.
So, what IS good in this prequel to warrant those 4/10 anyways??
Costuming, especially Portman's as both Queen and Princess are lavish and gorgeous.
Alien variety and remaining Star Wars-ish through and through.
John Williams's score is almost perfect, lacking in coordination in just a few places.
Very few moments of actually humorous situations that are well done.
Some of the characters and overall atmosphere that still feels Star Wars, despite the issues.
Star Wars I had potential ; it could've been amazing with visual effects upgrade and presence of a big-actors names cast, but sadly falls flat on its unemotive and unemotional feet, where most cast seems to phone their lines in as if it were a b-movie with badly dubbed dialogues, and where depths has been forgotten in the storytelling...
I cannot recommend it unless you watch it for the chronology or if you've never seen the original trilogy before it... it's far to disappointing and we don't even own it, nor plan to buy it...
Cast : Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Terence Stamp, Watwic Davis, et al.
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