Rating: 
Summary: I enjoyed it, but..
Review: My favourite parts of this movie were:1) The sabre duel. 2) John William's score. 3) The attention to detail. 4) Did I mention the sabre duel? I've watched it multiple times, and noticed some little thing going on in the background that I didnt notice before. The amount of detail that went into this film was incredible. I wish Lucas had put just as much effort into the dialogue and character development. The musical score was superb. I own the soundtrack and I love listening to Duel of the Fates and the Federation themes. Very appropriate, probably the most conistant part of the film. The sabre duels were 1000 times better than all of the duels in the other 3 installments put together. It's just too bad that there wasnt enough Maul. Lucas gave the audience zero reason to hate Maul, except for the fact that he was a pawn of Palpatine. Ian McDiarmid was probably the most consistantly good actor in this flick. Jake Lloyd should not have had a speaking part. Natalie, Ewan, and Liam all seemed bored, and their lines sounded canned. Finally, I hope Sam L Jackson gets to kick some ass in Episode II or else its going to be a pretty dull trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: Only One Major Flaw
Review: My feeling about what detracts from episode I when compared with episodes IV-VI is that there isn't a central character that we can identify with fully enough. In episode IV-VI, we have a pivotal moment at the end of each movie: Luke has faith in the Force and destroys Death Star, Luke discovers Vader is his father, Luke defeats the Emperor by refusing to give into the dark side when he had the advantage over his father. In episode I we have a pivotal moment in the battle between Obi Wan and Darth Maul. But this moment doesn't carry the emotional impact that the similar moment did in the other three movies.
Obi Wan Kenobi should be the Luke Skywalker for the first three episodes. We don't develop an emotional understanding of Obi Wan Kenobi. We are not prepared to see the great potential significance of Obi Wan giving into rage as he attacks Darth Maul. Basically Obi Wan went to the dark side for a moment to defeat Darth Maul. This stands in opposition to Luke's defeat of the Emperor in episode VI. Obi Wan has evidenced a weakness that represents a crucial character flaw that impacts everything that happens afterwards. Obi Wan's rage makes him a less than adequate mentor for a young Anakin who has a real problem with anger. It is this crucifixion between love and the patience to choose other than a quick course decided by hatred for those who have destroyed what you love that must be chosen by the Jedi. Otherwise, the dark side prevails.
This movie needed to explore the source of Obi Wan's rage and its consequences in order to give us a profound moment of "Oh no!" when he turned himself loose on Darth Maul. I believe that it would not have taken much to create that effect given the rest of the plot. Even if Obi Wan had a quick counseling session with Yoda afterwards and admitted his feelings in the moment in his fight with Darth Maul and a concerned response on Yoda's part regarding how his foresight has becomes significantly more clouded (as he mentions in episode II) might have been helpful.
Otherwise, I find the movie as engaging in every other sense as the previous movies. I just think that this episode and episode II both lack this personal spiritual climax that we were spoiled with in the other three episodes.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent DVD
Review: My five star review is mainly for the DVD of Episode I.(The movie itself I would give a solid 3 1/2-no,I don't hate it the way some do)
The picture is very good(in my opinion anyway,I'm not an expert-but I've read some reviews to the contrary),and the 5.1 Dolby sound is simply amazing,with sound filling the entire room.
The bonus materials on the 2nd disc are very entertaining.They include trailers,featurettes and a lot more,plus a VERY interesting documentary(it's actually more of a video diary) about the making of the film. Overall a great DVD release,and even those who absolutely despise the film should be able to find something entertaining here.
Having said that,PLEASE give us the original trilogy on DVD,George!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: I will spare you the usual complaints...
Review: My five-year-old brother liked it. My fourteen-year-old brother thought it was childish. I think you might enjoy it if you are young enough. This movie has nothing to do with the masterful episodes IV and V. It is much closer in spirit to episode VI, which was already pretty bad and clearly targeted at a young audience. If you had no problems whatsoever with the Ewoks, you might be able to enjoy this... One good moment: the fight scene.
Rating:
Summary: EPISODE ONE
Review: My friends say i'm not a true "Star Wars" fan because i absolutely loved "The Phantom Menace." I guess that is their way of telling me that they didn't like it. I felt the film did a fine job serving as the first episode of the saga. First off, in rebutal to what others may have claimed, the movie didn't exactly have "loose threads" in the story. In my opinion, i saw them as open doors for what is yet to come in Episodes II & III. Second of all, i had no complaints with any of the actors or their performaces. Ewan Mc Gregor and Natalie Portman are just getting warmed up as, the young, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Queen Amidala(mother of Luke and Leia). Liam Neeson's performance as Qui-gon Ginn was as noble as his character was meant to be, from the start of the story to his untimely death. Many people complained about Jar Jar Binks. I never had a problem with him or the Gungans. I didn't mind their comic releif at all. In fact i was more dissappointed when an army of Ewoks defeated the imperial stormtroopers on Endor. Others have also complained about Jake Lloyds performance, I felt he played his role very innocently, just as his character is. Ray Parks' performace as Darth Maul was one to definitely pay attention to, adding some stunning light saber work to the film. I was really happy to see R2-D2, C-3PO and Jabba the Hutt again. New characters such as Watto and Sebulba, were instantly classic. The new computer generated characters, blended in perfectly with the human actors. Some may have felt that some characters lacked the depth of other "Star Wars" characters, but why should there be another Han Solo or Chewbacca? They are in Episodes IV, V & VI. I think the charcters will really come to shape in the next two episodes and people will recosider the characters of Episode one. See the awesome effects. Hear and feel the great sound effects, as well as the awesome, John Williams, score. See it for yourself and enjoy it. I urge those who weren't immediately pleased in the theater, to go back again and check it out on video and look for the things that they may have missed before. As a fan,i feel that the widescreen version is a must, the bonus documentary, art book and film strip are great bonus. I seem to enjoy it more and more after each viewing. The only thing i find dissapointing, is having to wait two more years for the next episode and another five for the third. Until then, i will enjoy "The Phantom Menace" over and over(as well as the other three).
Rating:
Summary: For all you who DID enjoy the movie
Review: My hat is off to George Lucas for this "earliest"installment of the Star Wars saga. For those of us who saw "theoriginals" in the theater, and have enjoyed them ever since, this movie was in no way a let-down . . . with the one exception of Jar Jar. We could have done without him. As someone mentioned earlier, George Lucas has every right to leave loose ends in this movie. Why on earth would he want to give everything away in the first new movie? There would be nothing left for eps II or III. Regardless of what format is available to us currently, this movie brought back many childhood memories, and allowed the little child in me to live once again outside of the real world and invited me in to a realm of alternate worlds that could only be experienced by the die-hard Star Wars fan. Thank you, George, for your wonderful movies. We look forward with anticipation to the next two.
Rating:
Summary: Could've been a lot better
Review: My husband and I went to see "The Phantom Menace" on our honeymoon in Marco Island. We had both seen and enjoyed the original Star Wars movies (well, he really didn't care much for the Ewoks). So we were eagerly anticipating the "prequel". My husband liked the movie, but I was disappointed. First, almost all of the characters (with the exception of Darth Maul) acted "wooden" - you really didn't care about them - even if they survived or not. Second, they really should've developed the main characters roles a little more - like knowing something about their past and how they're important to the lives of those they interact with (like between Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan). Third, while computer animation is a great thing, too much of it (which this movie had alot of) can take away from the "realism" of the scenes. Now, don't get me wrong - the movie wasn't a total loss: I loved the duel between Darth Maul, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and the racing scenes felt like I was playing POD, but I felt the movie was missing something. Maybe I expected it to be along the vein of the first 3, but it could have been alot better. But I will buy "The Phantom Menace" when it comes out on DVD for my husband because at least someone in the household will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: anakin
Review: my only real problem with this movie was anakin skywalker. i know he's only a kid, but he really was an awful actor. episode 1 would have been greatly improved had they gotten Haley Joel Osment to play anakin
Rating:
Summary: An absolutely gorgeous DVD, well worth the worth.
Review: My review is geared more toward the DVD itself than the movie. I'll just state for the record that I've been a lifelong Star Wars fan since I saw The New Hope back in 1977 at the age of 11 and have been extremely loyal to the whole experience since. The Phantom Menace may not have been the masterpiece of TESB but it was better than ROTJ even with Jake Lloyd's sometimes wooden acting. I didn't even mind Jar Jar too much considering he was better than the annoying Ewoks of ROTJ which absolutely killed the movie for me in parts. At least the Gungans were believable when fighting the Trade Federation army compared with....never mind, I'm not going to start explaining what went wrong with ROTJ (at least for me). On to my review. The 2-disk DVD for TPM is an absolutely joyful experience after waiting so long for any of the Star Wars films (let alone any Lucasfilm title) to come out on DVD. Considering how much time, effort and care George Lucas puts into his projects, you just knew that this DVD would be something special to behold. Beautiful little touches like the wonderfully animated menus (absolutely loved the Pit Droids on the 2nd disk) to the inclusion of every single trailer made for the film made this just a thrill. The hour-long behind the scenes documentary was great, though I wished it had been longer (probably no length would have been long enough but that's beside the point). The movie itself is an absolute vision to behold, finally in digital as it was meant to be seen. The dual layering on this disk is flawless with absolutely no transition detected on my 4+ year old Toshiba DVD player (compared to flawed layering on The Matrix which pauses several times during the playback or T2 Special Edition which has a definite pause during the layer transition). I have the Dolby 5 version and since I live in a shared-wall townhouse a DTS system pumped up is a luxury I can't indulge in so I don't care about the lack of DTS encoding for sound. Besides, DTS encoding eats up disk space and most likely would have bumped some extra(s) due to space considerations. From what I can tell with my system this disk is almost as close to flawless in encoding as possible, true blacks, no white bleed, beautiful Dolby layering, etc. Truly a fantastic example of what DVD can display. Since I only got the DVD last night I haven't had a chance to watch all of the extras but I have enjoyed pretty much everything. Although I do like the deleted scenes included on the extras disk I wish that they could have been incorporated into a version of the full length film (in their entirety instead of the minor reintroductions of parts of the pod race and the air taxi). I do wish MORE deleted scenes had been included, especially the one at the beginning on Naboo when Obi Wan was running from the STAP because of a shorted-out lightsaber and had to be saved by Qui-Gon. Several others come to mind but that again is just me, I was happy enough to get a glimpse of some of the deleted footage. Thank you George Lucas (and everyone else involved at Lucasfilm) for delivering a top-notch DVD and making my Phantom Menace experience a great one at home. I look forward to the other Star Wars movies in the future, the Indiana Jones trilogy and Willow which comes out just before Christmas this year as more stunning examples of what the creative minds of Lucasfilm can come up with for us on the DVD front.
Rating:
Summary: Home Alone with spaceships!
Review: My sole purpose in writing this review is that one of the folks at Lucasfilm will read it and get their act together. The movie all in all wasn't all that bad I suppose. The effects were excellent, the acting was up to par for the most part but the script....... If there is such a thing as a script Doctor in Hollywood, this thing needed Jack Kevorkian. There was no character development, no suspense and many of the main characters didn't even talk , Darth Maul for example. And poor Samuel L. Jackson. Why under heaven do you cast such a huge actor in a big budget movie and give him three speaking parts? The scenes with young Anakin Skywalker made much of the film seem like "Home Alone" with space ships. I am an avid Star Wars fan and Loved chapters 4 & 5, though Return of the Jedi was the weakest of the bunch. It seems all the mistakes Lucas made in Jedi he repeated in episode 1. In short- excellent effects, mediocre acting, awful script. Hope Episode two is better
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