Rating: 
Summary: The movie within the movie
Review: May 19th 1999, you saw it on Theaters. January 2000, you enjoyed it on VHS with a production featurette. But this is the most complete Star Wars video release ever, thanks to the power of DVD technology. George Lucas has embedded so much material in the two discs, that even die-hard Star Wars fans will be delighted for hours and hours. In fact, no other DVD I own has blown me away like this. Where to start?Disc One obviously contains the feature; subtitles, anamorphic widescreen and commentary by George Lucas and company included -the standard stuff, if you may. Non-standard, however, is the fact that you can link to hidden StarWars.com material by having the DVD on your computer's DVD-ROM tray, namely access to large-screen versions of a couple of already-released trailers of Episode II, and exclusive (until the time of this writing) access to yet another trailer for the upcoming continuation of the saga. Disc 2, though, is where most of the really cool material in the DVD is to be found, for those who like and those who dislike the movie, as well. To begin with, a full documentary containing all deleted scenes (some of them will actually make you hate the movie's editor!) along with interviews with Francis Ford-Coppola and a couple more great Directors/Editors, to hear the opinions about the whole process of editing a movie once it's been filmed in its entirety. The best part of Disc 2, however, is an all-new hour-long documentary shot during the production of the movie, that will captivate everyone. Complementing it are a 12-part award-winning Web documentary and five featurettes that go over more details about the pre-production/production of the movie. Some of its parts also made it to the full-length documentary, but essentially they're different pieces. Among the interesting things you get to see are what the crew had to go through when a desert storm blew away all their stuff, what Lucas called "bad droid karma" (all the history of technical complications around R2-D2) and how the brilliant final duel between Darth Maul and the Jedis was staged. Altogether George Lucas has opened up like never before, offering the movie within the movie, and showing why he is, in Liam Neeson's words "one of the world's greatest storytellers." Get a copy of this DVD: it has to be part of your movie collection, if not for the movie itself (which most people tend to agree as not being the best SW movie), for all the hours of pre-production and production material you can enjoy on it.
Rating: 
Summary: ZZZZZZ
Review: Maybe I'm older or maybe Lucas has finally lost his steam, but this movie flat out sucks. I saw the original Star Wars when I was 11 years old and was amazed. This however is a different animal. The story line and character developement moved at a very slooow pace. The special effects are good, but not great. Matrix had better effects and wasnt nearly as hyped as this movie. Unless your a hardcore Star Wars geek who reads the books then I would say rent this before you buy it.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best dvd's i've gotten in awhile!
Review: Me being the true skeptic i was scared when purchasing this dvd. But for the truely skeptic my words won't matter as your minds have all ready been made up.(hee hee) The deleted scenes part i thought could've been longer. I mean 7 scenes you would think would last like a half an hour or somewhere about that. There are some pretty cool features on this disc. The sound and picture quality BLOWS AWAY the video cassette!!!! The begining feature was pretty cool and interesting. My only other complaint is just Jar Jar is truely ******* annoying. Also enjoyed the mini interviews with cast. Not to give away anything but Ewan M.(Obi-wan) has one of best lines in the "making of" feature...Overall it has my seal of approval and should at least quench the thirst for other star wars dorks...
Rating: 
Summary: Mesa Liken dis movie....
Review: Mesa enjoyed de star wars episode one, it was bombad! Mesa thinken dat Jar Jar binks fella was quiten de goody actor, and noten understandin peoples disliken of hesa fine actin. mesa also liken de special effects and de bad fella darth maul getten crunched at the enden. The pod race was muy exciten and the sequel will be maxi big, mesa not minden tellin you.
Rating:
Summary: Jar Jar All The Way, Baby!
Review: Mooie, mooie, whatta awesome movie! Mesa gives it five stars jus because of dat cutie Jar Jar Binks! Hesa jus da bombaddest, cutest Gungan ever! Mesa would luv to take him home with me and hug him all day long. Oh mooie, I wanna play with those cute lil toes of his! And that tongue of his... *Clears throat* Okay, this movie was basically awesome. The special effects were top-notch and the action sequences were incredible. However, I would have hoped for the acting to be a little better, but you really can't complain given everything else the movie has to offer. After all, Star Wars isn't exactly about acting, and the acting in the originals was nothing to write home about. The Podrace scene was just a blast, and the lightsaber battles were edge-of-your seat excitement. There is lots of subtle symbolism and metaphors in the movie that can be easily overlooked by many people. You have look deeper to understand the full meaning of the themes going on throughout the film. I know that alot of people don't like Jar Jar, but I'm pretty much crazy about him (as you can see from the opening paragraph). There is really no reason to hate Jar Jar - he is just an innocent caught up in an adventure. He can't help that his voice sounds different and that he is clumsy. The world wouldn't be a very nice place if everyone hated someone based upon such things. There's something called "diversity" and I think that some people need to learn more about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Improves with Time
Review: Most dedicated Star Wars fans probably saw "The Phantom Menace" at the theaters. The first installment of the new Star Wars trilogy was unfortunately considered a disappointment by fans and critics alike. In fact, you can count me among the originally disappointed. Still, I ended up buying the DVD (as any Star Wars fan might) and I now find that on repeated viewings "The Phantom Menace" gets better and better. So for those "disappointed fans" out there, I say give this movie a second chance. By the way, the DVD extras are fun, too -- especially composer John Williams' "music video."
Rating:
Summary: I actually give it 4 1/2
Review: Most of the movie was really good, except I think they could have done a better job on casting the young Anakin. It kinda takes some of the "magic" I guess out of the movie when one of the actors isn't very good. But it's still a great movie, none the less.
Rating:
Summary: The worst Star Wars film, and bad period
Review: Most of the problems of this film have probably been covered in other reviews, but anyway... The film tells you almost everything and shows you nothing, simply poor filmaking. We should see many of the things spoken of in clearly illustrated ways, instead I'm supposed to buy it because Lucas wrote it down. Get real. And what did Lucas write down? Drivel. A filmaker with that little talent should not be allowed near a word processor. Hire a good writer for gods sake. He doesn't know how people talk, or how emotions work evidently. Too much time spent leering at special F/X I guess. Speaking of special effects, how can a man who owns IL&M and has more money than he knows what to do with, has more time to perfect this film than any other director would be given, and manages to produce effects that are subpar. Another problem is that they're the equivalent of a run on sentence, they punctuate nothing. The racial stereotypes are pretty plain to me, it just seems thoughtless. Two things I can give this movie as a plus. The score, and the lightsaber duel is the best ever in a SW movie, not the best swordplay ever mind you, but for SW it was great.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the wait, but too cute
Review: Most people are familiar with Star Wars. Those that aren't, should be. Taking advantage of the letterbox edition here allows a viewer to see all of the screen picture, not waht was edited to fit your screen. Obviously, the movie was amazing in its production, but at the same time, it had more cuteness in it than Ewoks could ever hope to offer. Between Jar-Jar Binks and Anakin Skywalker, I really hope future episodes are more dark and on-the-edge than this was. Still, for no Star Wars film in 20 years, seeing this movie at midnight opening day was one of my favorite memories. (And lest you think I am a sci-fi nut, just think of all the folks at 7am driving to work, hearing the whole plot ruined for them by some DJ who finally was allowed to discuss the movie...)
Rating:
Summary: Many many problems, very little to even them out
Review: Most people have a very simple problem with this film...Jar Jar. To be honest I wish I could wrap up all of my problems in such a neat little package but to be perfectly honest Jar Jar was not enough to stand out among the other sheer problems with this film. Let's start with technical issues I had. The script was horrible. Parts of it were rushed, parts of it were strung out way too long making the pacing of this film a lot like stop and go traffic...kinda surprised I didn't get whiplash. Other than that however the movie, technically was awesome. Cinematography was great, the special effects were really cool (Though I must admit I was expecting something better from ILM.) and while the design did not in any way fit with classic Star Wars I can forgive that given just how damn cool everything looked. (Well except maybe for the Naboo city which was so obviously ripped off from Dinotopia.)
The acting was horrible, but then again it was in the old Star Wars as well. Which is something I attribute to poor direction rather than the actors. Liam Neeson is a good actor and so are many of the others but in this film it was a sad sight.
I suppose I could complain about the fact that each alien race sounded like a stereotype of a modern Earth like race. Like the trade federation guys sounding like Chinese or Japanese people trying to speak english and were preoccupied with money. Or the Gungans sounding Jamaican. But let's be honest, it's not a huge deal. At least to most of us it isn't.
Let's get to the real two issues I had with this film. Number one is the insanely stupid way the heroes win the day at the end through sheer luck. I hear some people out there saying "Not luck, it's the force." Well it didn't look like the Force to me. It didn't have the mystical feel of intentional Will like Luke Skywalker firing the torpedo into the Death STar did. It felt like SLapstick luck. Hell the Three Stooges could have won the day the same way. Lets detail what I mean. Anakin Skywalker accidentally starts the ship and takes off for the battle in space because of autopilot. There was no intention there other than to hide and off he goes, where is the Mystical force in that? Then he accidentally flies into the main ship trying to avoid getting shot down and manages to land right in front of the main generator. Then he accidentally fires the main guns into the generator and manages to fly out of the ship without being harmed. It all felt like he was stumbling in the dark. Rather than the heroic against all odds force of Will that Luke seemed to use in the first film. And then look at the lightsaber duel with the two Jedi and the Sith. The Sith can handle both Jedi easily and kills the more talented and trained Jedi easily but when faced by a weakened young Jedi he gets suddenly easily distracted and stupid and dies. Come on, Obi Wan did not kill Darth Maul because he was better or because of the force, he killed Darth Maul because he got lucky that the nasty evil dude didn't cut him in half as he lazily drifted over his head in that slow as hell flip.
Now lets get to the real issue. All of the above can be forgiven, but there is one thing that can never be forgiven. Throughout every movie, every book, every comic and every story the Force is treated as a mystical energy Unquantifiable and unknown. It permeates everything and flows around everything providing this mystical flow to the universe. That was awesome, it was the Force, it was Life. But all of the sudden they reduce the Force to a known, measurable, controllable lifeform known as Midechloreans that infest living beings and grant them the power of the force. Nevermind the fact that the whole idea is ripped off straight from Madeline L'engle books Wind in the Door, Wrinkle in Time and a Swiftly Tilting Planet but even more recent Parasite Eve. That really doesn't matter compared to the fact that the whole concept completely destroys the mysticism and wonder of the Force. Suddenly it can be measured and detected? How is that mystical or epic or wonderous at all, Just makes me wonder if I have to pay the Power Company extra for it. However this film does boast the single greatest fight scene in cinematic history (Well ok, American Cinematic history.). The Lightsaber Duel at the end is epic and awesome and the DVD may be worth buying just to watch that scene over and over again. But given the name of the next film (Attack of the Clones) and the many problems with this film I would rather never see this scene again than give any of my hard earned money to an egotist like Lucas. But we are each allowed our own opinion. I am allowed mine and you are all allowed yours whatever they may be.
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