Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: An all around excellent movie. The only flaw I saw in The Phantom Menace was Jar Jar Binks. George if you every read this, PLEASE leave out Jar Jar Binks in Episode II & III. Otherwise a truely awesome film. The Lightsaber duel at the end of the movie cannot be beat. Excellent!
Rating: 
Summary: A travesty...
Review: This movie is nothing more than a very pale shadow of the older movies. The characters were weak, the plot was weak, and Jar-Jar was nothing more than a marketing ploy for kids. I am a Star Wars fan and have been since I saw the first one on its debut night back in '77. I was 7 years old. That movie and its sequels were magic to me. They taught virtue and allowed the audience to care about the characters and their situation. This latest installment had nothing to offer except wonderful visuals by the ILM team and a great but anit-climatic duel.(why didn't Maul just slice Obi-wan on his Pete Pan-esque leap?) The story lost its sense of mysticism as well. Did we really need to know that the Jedi have micro-organisms in them that help them commune with the Force? NO! That debased the whole premise of the mystic and religious overtones of the originals. It didn't matter that Luke probably had a higher midichlorian count than Ben did. We didn't need the explanation! That would be like saying Jesus had a mojo-bag so he could hear God. What a shame and a sham. George, please, we can forget this if you do another Episode I that has a meaningful plot and characters with depth(other than 3D, Maya-generated characters), or at least end(kill) Jar-Jar in the next movie. I guess we all should have seen this coming. Ewoks... need I say more?
Rating: 
Summary: Worse than Godzilla
Review: This is the worst hyped movie I have ever seen. There is none of the Star Wars magic in this film. None of the characters in the film are sympathetic and Jar Jar is the worst creation in the history of film. Buying this movie is like telling George Lucas that it is okay to make a billion dollar movie with an awful script. The worst thing about this movie is that the computer special effects are the real star and there is no humanity or soul in the film. Star Wars was a great movie because it had characters people could relate to, but this movie has none. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS WORTHLESS MOVIE.
Rating:
Summary: i waited 20 years for this?
Review: Making his movie could be likened to writing the sequel to the Bible and expecting Christians to like it. George Lucas ceartainly had a monumentous ask before him. The first three movies were lauded so heavily, hat Lucas simply could not live up to public expectations, and he most certainly doesn't. The story of the phantom menace is contrived, slow and altogether a departure from earlier sar wars movies. The phantom menace is essenially a 2 hour advertisemen for the toys. A particularly drawn out scene is the pod-race, in which a predictable ending is streched through many minutes void of dialog or characterization. The characters themselves in the phantom menace were shallow and under-developed. (don't even get me started on jar jar binks) any actual emotion seemed a tacked on sub-plot. Other things I didn't like was the medicalization of the force, and the coy allusion to some immaculate conception of anakin. Both of these facets are only touched upon, leaving the viewer bewildered as to their deeper significance. I enjoyed the action at the end, but it was too litle too late. I was already bored from the bad acing and melodramaic script. i don't know what convinced Lucas that he could still write and direct. (lucas did not write or direct Empire or Jedi, but was an executive producer) I am a long time star wars fan, and I had waited a lifetime to see this movie, and I am sorry that it dissapointed me and others. I can only hope that episode two will bring a return to earlier form.
Rating: 
Summary: A Star Wars flick...sort of...
Review: Alright, if you really dig the Star Wars films, you've probably already seen this one. If you have not, but have seen the originals, then I have these words for you: It's just not the same. Between the making of Jedi and Phantom Menace, Lucas lost something (I personally think it's his mind). He just isn't as good a story teller. The places we visit in the film (Naboo, Tatooine, and Coruscant) are simply not as richly described by elements of the film as they are in the first three films. Lucas basically leaves it to a few wide shots to show us what Coruscant is like, and obviously uses our knowledge about Tatooine from the original films as a crutch, an excuse not to explore the desert planet more fully in this one. Naboo is explored, but the annoyance factor of Jar Jar Binks keeps the enjoyment of even those scenes which really could have made the movie great at a low level. All in all, it could have been much better. I hope they do better with the next one.
Rating:
Summary: The movie kept growing on me
Review: I was 12 when the original Star Wars came out, and for a brief time I felt like I was 12 again when I saw Phantom Menace. The first time I was a little disappointed, but a funny thing happened when I went back once, twice, then three times -- the movie grew on me. I began to see very interesting subtleties. Very disturbing parallels between world events and events in the movie. There is clearly a much deeper level to the movie than what most 12-year-olds will notice. Most noteworthy, the movie came out a month after the Columbine High School massacre, which was only a few miles from my home. The movie, as well as the killings, made me reflect on how a cute little boy could possibly mutate into a ruthless killer. It is clear to me that George Lucas deliberately set out to create a movie that was a little sillier and more frivolous than the earlier three. The contrast between Phantom Menace and Episode III (where, no doubt, lots of good people are going to die) should be very striking. Then, I think, people will understand Phantom Menace much better. What could Mr. Lucas have done differently with the movie? Not much, that I can see.
Rating:
Summary: Easily one of the worst film's of the year
Review: The Phantom Menace is technically beautiful but other then that there really isn't much there. It features a terrible screenplay that wastes the talents of several good actors. If you didn't see the movie don't bother purchasing the video. The Phantom Menace really is one of the worst film's of the year, very deserving of it's 8 razzie nominations.
Rating:
Summary: Aside from a few disappointments it was a great movie.
Review: Yes the plot wasn't easy to follow because it had multipleoverlapping stories happening at once, dialogs could have used somemore polishing, one of the coolest characters in the movie has too small of a part and than gets killed that was quite disappointing. Kid who played Anakin is not a very good actor, he seemed very uncofortable with dialogs he had to do and didn't really merge with the environment around him. If you saw the trailers you probably expected quite a bit more from a movie than there was. They seemed to have cut quite a few scenes from it. The battle between maul and obi wan in the desert that has been all over the posters, mauls dialog wich was heard in the trailer and music video. Still the movie is wonderful, the amount of talent and work put into it by artists alone is incredible, it has to be one of the best visual experiences i have ever seen. The jedi are a way better than in all previous movies. Final battle was really well done. Qui-Gon and Ob1 are excellent and are played by excellent actors. Movie has more great ideas than ever. Everything droid army, pod racing, underwater world, Coruscant are all amaizing concepts. I was disappointed when the movie was over. It definetly deserves to be besides original 3 episodes in anyones collection. END
Rating:
Summary: Falls way short
Review: Actually, 1 1/2, but I'll be nice and round up... First off, I was utterly disappointed with the changing of the Force from a spiritual power into some biological thing that could be measured. In Episodes 4-6, we are shown that the Force can take root in and flower in any person and they could develop their connection to that energy. Now it's a blood count thing. Like the Force is cholesterol or something. Ugh. Second off, I am going to put the Jar Jar thing to bed once and for all: Star Wars came out when I was a little kid and I didn't need some computer generated buffoon who sounded like a Cajun slave to grab my interest. Third of all, anyone who has studied the Nazi rise to power in Germany will recognize where the majority of the "plot" for this movie came from. Fourthly, why did the aliens have accents? Did the Trade Federation guys grow up in Tokyo? Was Watto a paisano? What was up with that? Also, I don't think the characterization with each accent was too appropriate (the japaneese accent with the money hungry trade fed, the italian one with the slave-owning junk dealer, etc.) Good things about this movie? I loved the Sand People shooting at the Pod Racers. That was great. For the few seconds Darth Maul was on screen, he was nice. The effects were ok too. I say skip it. Sure hope they hand off the action to Samuel L. Jackson in Pt. 2...
Rating:
Summary: disapointing
Review: commpared to the first 3 movies episode 1 was no big deal and was overly hyped. the reson why most people still saw it was because it is star wars. the special effects were so-so for our times. The plot was o.k. though. all in all it is a movie worth seeing but don't go out of your way unless you love star wars.
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