Rating: 
Summary: What do people mean no character?
Review: There is plenty of character and plot development in episode 1. It shows the very beginings and only hints out some of what you are to find later. It shows the rise of Palpatine from a lower beuracrat on his way to one day becomiong the evil emperor. There is much story here you just have to pay attention and look beneath the surface. A beginning is a very difficult time, and this movie does a damn good job of it. Starting a legend from a few small pieces. They will get better.
Rating:
Summary: FINALLY IT'S HERE
Review: Well i've been waiting for this moment for 3 years. I can't see why everybody thought it was a bad film. You've got to view it as a completely different film. Don't compare it to the other 3 films. When i saw this film in the Cinema i was in shock "STAR WARS" "oops sorry i dribbled !!" I think that the film was excellent a well thought out plot that has started to reveal the truth. Just get it even if you already got the video. Come on George Release The rest !!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Real Entertainment
Review: Every saga has a beginning. Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is a good beginning for the saga of Star Wars. The story is quite interesting and entertains a lot. The visual and sound effects are really impressive, the costume and production designs are wonderful and, one more time, John Williams composed a spectacular soundtrack, which makes this movie perfect for a DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: If there was -5 stars, that's what I'd rate this movie...
Review: Okay, it's kinda hard to rate this film. If it were written and made 20 years ago, the screenplay would have been better(considering nowadays people don't make movies as well). But now that it was made in our present day, the graphics are better. Either way the plot was way too weak, it was boring, the cast was bad, the screenplay was bad, and it wasn't interesting. For some REAL science-fiction movies, check out the Abyss, the ORIGINAL Star Wars movies, Aliens, or the Matrix. If you ABSOLUTELY£MUST see this movie, I suggest renting it first.ñ
Rating:
Summary: tha mutha of all mutha's
Review: Basically, tha mutha of all mutha's. Finally on DVD. If not crammed with behind-the-scenes, interactive, audio commentary prepare for resistance. Support for Lucas franchise has been stolen away from rent/car/food/child support payments for years, why stop now? Because liquidation of assets for Lucas means fun. Buy it.
Rating:
Summary: NOT the sci-fi classic any of the other movies were
Review: Part of what makes the Star Wars trilogy so timeless and enjoyable to watch today is that it was written and produced for adults, which we all gorw up to be. Sure, we may have missed some of the jokes and misunderstood the characters when we were younger but understanding it now makes the movies worth watching over and over again. Episode 1 on the other hand is a feel good kids movie with about as much depth and intellegence as a McDonalds kiddie soda. McD's should come up with their own marketable character rather than making Star Wars enthusiasts suffer through the idiotic ramblings of JarJar Binks. This movie is a short sighted sell out. I hope the chocolate shakes and stuffed animals George Lucas sold on this one made him a fat profit because this movie has no place in an adult's movie collection. Hold onto your money, rent this one if you must see it at all.
Rating:
Summary: JJB was bad, but the lack of character was worse
Review: I will not buy this on DVD. I will not buy the "first" three either (unless they release a NON-special edition version). I'm not going to make Lucas or Fox any richer on my dollar. I'm not going to talk about what this movie could have been. Everybody has their theories about what they wanted to see on that screen after waiting 20 years. I want to approach this movie on it's own, and not as part of a universe. The main reason that Alien 3 was so disappointing was because of the story line inconsistency with the previous movies. It was terrible what that film did to the story that Scott and Cameron had built up, but taken on it's own it's not really that bad of a film. I wanted to give the Menace the same chance. To address some arguments before I begin. First, as far as I know, in 1977, Star Wars was not made for children. Star Wars did not cater to children. It had audiences from 5 to 75 fascinated. Not just 3-13 year old future Gen-Xers, but all audiences fell in love with that movie. In LA, people in their twenties and thirties went to see Star Wars two to three times a day. This film was ground breaking and blew people's minds. Sure, when you see "Star Wars" or "2001:A Space Odyssey" now, it is possible to forget the impact these movies had. Taken in context of when they were released, these movies inspired, confused, and awed audiences of ALL AGES world wide. Second, I state that children do not need to be catered to. When I was eight years old I saw one of the greatest films ever made, Raiders of the Lost Arc. At that time in my then short life, Raiders was the most incredible thing that I had ever seen. As an eight-year-old, believe it or not, I did not need a flatulant pack animal or a goofy sidekick or a "yippee" child to keep my attention. I enjoyed a movie that was able to be very fun and intelligent on it's own merits. Now on to the menace. The first thing seen in this movie are bug-like aliens who have overdubbed Asian accents that don't match their lip movements. In the beginning of this epic space opera, the director starts us off with the equivalent to what we see at 2:00 in the morning watching 70's Kung Fu movies. Bad overdubbing. Next we get our buddy. The Jar-ster. I don't think I need to comment. Within the first two minutes on screen the Biggs quotes Wayne's World. How "current" to make reference to a movie that came out in 1991. I'm sure at least half of the 1300+ reviews below me have gone into how hideous this character is, so I don't need to. The Phantom Edit speaks for millions...."exsqueeze me"?????!?!?!?!? The "bad guys" in this film, rather than the menacing Stormtroopers, are a group of rickety robots. They don't have any emotional quality to them, so the only way to make them threatening is to show them in immense numbers. Who are the robots the biggest threat to? The CG gungens. Oh...no real loss there. The gungens are rather annoying anyway, and watching the CG robots attack the CG gungens doesn't really impact the film viewer in any way. The pod race was 80% there. The sports announcers really took from that scene. It brought the movie out of "long ago and far away" to USA Saturday Football game. It totally killed the suspension of disbelief that a viewer tries to build up. Also, the race was so ... boring that Jabba even fell asleep. Yippee! What I put above are what would give this film two or three stars. Add into the mix that Darth Vader built C-3PO, the really stupid space battle where Anakin accidentally blows up the robot control ship...whoops, the E.T.'s that were in the Galactic Council. The stupid accents given to every alien race, rather than developing a creative language like Jawwa, Huttes, and Ewok. Changing the Zen philosophies of "Empire" into mitochondria...*cough* I mean midichlorians. What gives this film the 0-1 star rating is the lack of character. I don't give ... about special effects. Clerks, Rear Window, The Godfather, Reservoir Dogs, and Goodfellas had hardly any special effects, but are superior films because the characters are fascinating. Special Effects can only help a movie, and will never make a movie great unless there is meat underneath them. As the now gone Eon Magazine said, Obi-Wan was basically a glorified mechanic in this film. His job was to...fix the ship. At last Darth Maul will have his revenge. For what? Qui-gon is on the outs with the Jedi council...why? My Phantom edit: Give Qui-gon and Darth Maul more flushing out and back story. Cut out the gungens completely. Edit the space battle so it's exciting. Cut the slave stuff out. We've spent 3 movies on Tatooine now, time to move on. Spend an additional 20 minutes on Corsecant (sp?). Spend 20 fewer minutes on Tatooine. Spend a lot less time on gungen planet. Try to edit the other action sequences to be as exciting as the light saber duels. There's too much to fix, so I maintain my 0-1 star rating. I hope the second film will be better, but I'm not holding my breath. A friend of mine at ILM tells me that they will return to that desert planet a fourth time, and have just as much frigging Jar Jerk as before. At least we have "The Fellowship Ring" to look forward to. Peter Jackson has yet to disappoint!
Rating:
Summary: Not Your Father's Star Wars
Review: True, this is not the Star Wars of 20 years ago, but I still enjoyed it and feel that it was well worth seeing. In today's theaters full of attempts to take your money, on films that are sometimes not worth advertising, much less seeing, The Phantom Menace is worth viewing. It does contain a fairly good story with a decent plot, interesting character's - both new and old - and nice special effects.
Rating:
Summary: Star Wars...its coming
Review: ALL I CAN SAY IS FINALLY....THE STAR WARS WEBSITE SAYS IT WILL HAVE 480 MINUTES OF FOOTAGE AND SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDING: Here's what the two-disc set will feature: *The Phantom Menace, mastered by THX for superior sound and picture quality, presented in Anamorphic Widescreen and Dolby 5.1 Surround EX (English), Dolby 2.0 Surround (English and Spanish), and Dolby 2.0 Surround (French, for Canadian release) *Audio commentary by Writer-Director George Lucas; Producer Rick McCallum; Co-Editor and Sound Designer Ben Burtt; Visual Effects Supervisors Scott Squires, John Knoll and Dennis Muren; and Animation Supervisor Rob Coleman, offering personal insights into the making of the film *Seven never-before-seen deleted scenes with full visual effects completed just for the DVD release *"The Beginning" -- an all-new hour-long documentary culled from over 600 hours of footage offering unprecedented access inside Lucasfilm and ILM during the making of Episode I *Multi-angle storyboard to animatic to finished film feature, that lets you flip through the various phases of development of key action sequences *Five behind-the-scenes featurettes exploring The Phantom Menace's storyline, designs, costumes, visual effects and fight scenes *The popular "Duel of the Fates" music video that debuted in 1999 *All 12 parts of the Lynne's Diaries, the web documentaries that first appeared here at starwars.com Galleries of theatrical posters, print campaign, and never-before-scene production photos Downloaded by millions from starwars.com, *The original theatrical teaser and launch trailers, plus seven TV spots including the "tone poems" This looks to be a good one, however note that this film will be released again in a BIG BOX SET in the future, so those of you who will be mad if LUCASFILM re-releases it...you know in advance. But I cant wait any longer...Star Wars Fans..GO FOR IT
Rating: 
Summary: A bland film gets what was ONCE a long awaited DVD...
Review: But now it means nothing to us. The movie wasn't great, and when it was first released, we were ticked for it not having a DVD release. Now that that 'phase' is over, a DVD is released. I know I don't want it anymore. The movie has already been played on TV. Why waste the money?
| 
