Rating: 
Summary: Gotta Start Somewhere
Review: 20yrs had past... So its not going to be like the original... at least the first one isnt going to ... when you do prequels especially 20yrs after the originals you have to re-enter duce of the characters and build a story upon that.. The Phantom Menace maybe not be as good as the originals but they werent meant to this was a whole new outlook the 2nd 3rd movies i here the next one will be released next year. Those are the ones that are gonna be awesome cause now they have the characters enter-duced youll be able to follow along better. But if your any true Star Wars fan ull buy anything with the name star wars attached to it. So i definately recommend u getting The Phantom Menace
Rating: 
Summary: Darth Maul Is WICKED !
Review: 3.5 StarsI've seen quite a range of opinion in the amazon reviews and my opinion falls somewhere in the middle. I find the movie to be entertaining, if somewhat predictable, but very well produced. But if the movie is less than expected from hard core fans, at least a continuity of sorts is established by seeing Anakin as a young boy and Obi Wan as a young man. The video, audio and special effects are excellent, as expected for any Star Wars film.
Rating: 
Summary: Top Five Reasons this Movie is Terrible . . .
Review: 5. The FORCE is just the collective wishes of of bunch of algae??? 4. The waspy little boy they got to play Vader makes the Olsen twins acceptable "actrons" by comparison. 3. Ends with a large space station blowing up. Gee I've never seen a Star Wars movie in which that happened before. 2. The racist portrayal of Asian "bad guy business aliens" in the begining. 1. The affront to nature that is Jar Jar Binks. Do even any three year old crack-babies like this heinous addition to the Star Wars mythology? BAD Mr. Lucas, BAD. See a real science fiction movie and buy The Matrix instead.
Rating:
Summary: Episode One - the Conspiracy Starts
Review:
Qui-Gon Jinn knew he could destroy the Jedi Order with Anakin.
Yoda knew something was up. He might not have cared.
Obi-Wan was merely a foot soldier. He didn't know about this conspiracy.
Anakin's destiny was to wipe out the Jedi. They had grown too corrupt. In the beginning of the movie, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are dispatched to bring a settlement to a trade negotiation. The Neomoidians were scared to death. The Jedi, guardians of the light side of the Force, were being used as tools of government. To this end, they were abusing their Jedi powers. Qui-Gon knew this. He didn't like it. He listened and obeyed the living Force, and put up with the politics because he was a Jedi, and could not practice outside the Order.
Qui-Gon Jinn didn't care about politics at all. He had zero interest in The Council's mandates. He was disgruntled with the way the Republic used the Jedi to settle its matters. When a chance to restore balance to the Force came along, he jumped at it. Evidence:
The Order knew Anakin had too much fear. Qui-Gon must have known this too. He was at least as capable as anyone in the order. Still, he was going to discard his current padawan and train the boy. Obi-Wan: "They all know he's dangerous. Why don't you?" Qui-Gon still insisted.
At the beginning of the movie, Obi-Wan knew something was afoot. This was the student catching onto the Master's true intentions. Still, Qui-Gon told him "keep your mind in the here and now, where it belongs."
Rating: 
Summary: Welcome to commercialism
Review: A "must see" for Star Wars fans? And why is that? Because it's another Star Wars movie? I like to be a bit more objective than that.
And objectively, what can I say? This movie stunk up the joint. With the unlimited time and money to put together a masterpiece, Mr. Lucas instead gave us great advertisement for the toy line, no plot line to speak of, horrible dialog, atrocious character development, and overall just an insipid waste of my time and money. This movie was not written. It was manufactured. The characters were one-dimensional, dull, lifeless, uninspiring. In short, it was a far cry from everything I loved about the first three movies. I give it two stars, instead of the one star it probably deserves, for the special effects. At least they managed to get that right, even if it was at the expense of every other aspect of the movie. While I was wowed by the exstensive and intricate visual display, the underlying plot and themes bored and disgusted me, and detracted from what little good there was in the movie. I hope that before the next chapter is released, someone involved in the creative process actually acknowledges that there are people out there with intellect that would at least like to have it stirred every now and again when they watch movies. Otherwise, I can't imagine it will be any better than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Shameful. Sheer Greed.
Review: A barely passable little movie. It features some of the most vulgarly bad writing and directing of the past decade. What was charming and clunky and even kind of clunky about Lucas' rather forced dialogue has since ossified into a stilted preaching quality, as the dialogue becomes little more than exposition. The attempts at comedy remain mere attempts. The less said about JarJar the better. And if that weren't bad enough, we are expected to pay more money for a widescreen version than for a pan and scan version! The widescreen SPECIAL EDITION is merely a scam, and a transparent one at that. George Lucas is now clearly interested in one thing, and one thing only: lining his pockets with money. And this is the creator of Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi? He looks more like the Grand Moff Tarkin.
Rating:
Summary: A stinker
Review: A big budget, A-list actors, and the coolness of lightsabres can't save this clunker.
Rating: 
Summary: lack of strong characters
Review: A big part of the success of the previous three episodes was the strong cast of characters which is a crucial thing for any movie regardless of the plot. What the new episode lacks big time are strong characters with their individual idiosyncrasies. When you ask the question "what are the characters in Phantom Menace like?", the answer would not go beyond "kids and two text book Jedi knights". The inclusion of a strong female character would have added a lot to the movie. One cannot help wishing Natalie Portman matures fast enough for the remaining episodes...
Rating:
Summary: .
Review: A big-budget, silly little children's movie. Darth Maul, although even he looks a bit stupid in all that face-paint, is the only thing here that comes even remotely close to capturing the mystery and menace of the original trilogy. I am not a hardcore fan who was pre-disposed to hate the film and trash it for not being exactly like the original. But a stupid, poorly-made film is a stupid, poorly-made film. Special FX are not enough, and anyhow, while often impressive, the FX here are often quite gaudy and tactless as well. You have to understand that, for those of us who had a sour reaction to the movie, it isn't that we can't just "relax and have a good time," -- it's just that we figured, based on what we knew of Lucas' work on the original trilogy, that we would *not* be required to set aside our intelligence, aesthetic sensibility, and a host of other basic critical standards in order to do so. We're the people who went to see this because we wanted to be rescued from the typical stupidity and gaudiness of the mainstream Hollywood blockbuster -- not be suggested to it in the form of a tedious kiddie-flick. That sabre-battle at the end is pretty juicy, I'll give that, and there is a good moment here and there. Darth Maul was rather impressive, but he only has about 4 minutes of screen time, and presumably will not be returning. So what was even the point. Just for Lucas to tell us: "Yes, I am still capable of doing good things, but I consciously choose to toss it aside in favor of insultingly cheesy gimmicks aimed at 4-year-olds." Geh. No one over the age of 10 could possibly have found Jar-Jar's presence in the film anything less than physically painful -- I refuse to believe it. And those "alien accents" HAVE to go. What happened to good old subtitles over sqonky noises? That was *fine.* Aliens should not be speaking in italian, french, and japanese accents. They all look pretty goofy, too. In a bad way. By the way, the acting is TERRIBLE. I mean -- WOW. It's SOOOOO bad it's difficult to believe. Is this really Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor I'm seeing? I didn't think they were even capable of being this incredibly flat and boring. The little kid is awful -- it is actually embarassing to listen to him speak his lines. And the whole "climax," with him "accidentally" saving the day, and NARRATING the entire experience to us -- is profoundly dumb. I mean, even viewed as a KIDS movie this is awful. The Neverending Story is a "kids" movie and it's frickin' brilliant. Anyhow, I'm not going to say "don't see it," (to those few who haven't.) If you grew up on Star Wars, there is a very tiny part of you that will still find a few little things to enjoy here. But it shouldn't be such a difficult task to find them and pull them out.
Rating:
Summary: Come on man! Be wise. Don't watch that!
Review: A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME! This film was a complete waste of time. For these 2 1/2 hours i could have washed my teeth, called my boring old grandma and watched the beginning 'Gone With The Wind' fot 153th time and still i would have had more fun. First I should say that i would have given this film -5 stars if that was possible. The characters are flat likea blackboard. Jar-Jar Binks is stupid. Anakin shows an IQ of 50 points or less. The two good Jedis walkedaround like two boredcops tryingtofind someoneto knock down. They were so dumb, that inthe end i sympathised Darth Maul. He was the only guy inthe film who, despite being stupid, won my sympathy. On the whole this film is not worth watching if you want to see a logical film or at least something which has some kind ofa normal storyline.
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