Rating: 
Summary: AND TO THINK HOW LONG WE WAITED FOR THIS DVD
Review: George Luicas took a long time before putting out this DVD, and as an extra features two disc set, it is excellent. (...) I found Episode I boring and lackluster. Iam Neesen just seems bored by it all and somnambulates himself through the film.The CG effects are too obtrusive and all over the place. I suggest renting this but don't spend your money buyong it even thogh it is not expensive.
Rating: 
Summary: Great sequel to a classic series of films!
Review: I really don't understand all of the bad things that everyone has said about this movie. Personally I thought it was great. Better than Star Wars... incredibly better than Jedi... and just as good as The Empire Strikes Back, my favorite entry in the original series. Granted, it's not perfect but the positives outweigh the negatives here... Pluses: Jake Lloyd does an excellent job as young Anakin. Back when the film was first released, I read an article that said that that little annoying elfin lad Haley Joel Osment was considered for this role. I'm so glad Lucas chose this kid instead. Lloyd is charming and likable as the future Darth Vader. Liam Neeson, Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, and Natalie Portman are also fine in their roles. Ray Park(s) (aka Darth Paul) was also a great addition to the ensemble. However, his talents were mostly used in fight sequence and just looking completely sinister. I also liked all of the little pieces of continuity and history that are in the film. We see how C3PO and R2D2 meet... a young Yoda... a young Greedo... just what Emperor Palpatine was before he became the Emperor... and we even get to see a young Jabba the Hutt and Bibfortuna, too! Finally, the special effects are awesome. Lucas outdid himself here. I sat there in awe for the entire duration of the movie. No other film has ever had that kind of effect on me. But there also a few negative spots, too: Samuel L. Jackson wasn't used as much as he should've been. Jar Jar Binks annoyed the bejesus out of me. No Wookiees. There should've been at least ONE Wookiee in the movie dagnabbit! :) All in all, it's a great movie and I recommend it to fans of science fiction and Star Wars. If you haven't seen it, get this DVD now and enjoy! You won't be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: The best DVD I own
Review: This DVD is the best I own.
The second disc is filled with exciting content, the movie's image and sound quality are excellent, and the movie's content is really good. Being a StarWars fan, I can talk for hours about the movie, but it is not the issue here.
I understand why it took so long to be available on DVD. I'll wait for the other episodes' DVDs, and hope they are as good as this one.
If you are a StarWars fan then this one is a must-have
Rating:
Summary: Rate the DVD not the movie!
Review: I'm rating the quality of the DVD as an ABSOLUTE 5 stars!! This was the most incredibly well put together and thought out DVD I've purchased thus far. They actually COMPLETED the deleted scenes and included them so they could be spliced right into the movie.
The menu views are wonderful, Lucas put together an amazing product to showcase a moderate movie. Honestly, I thin kwe all know by now that Episode I did not live up to our expectations, but what could?
Did I mention that if you own a DVD PC (not Mac, boo for that) you get access to special Episode II trailers? AWESOME!
I'm looking forward to getting the first three on DVD as soon as they are availible.
In short, if you love the DVD experience, you MUST buy this one!
Rating: 
Summary: For what it is, it's really good!
Review: This is a fun, exciting story with plenty of awesome scenery. Besides the movie, I LOVE the deleted waterfall scene. John William's music is 5 stars, but the overall experience is a solid 4. The DVD package is nice. (Some of the criticism in these reviews may be accurate, but since I got this for my birthday from my mother-in-law, knowing that I didn't spend MY money on the DVD, I don't pay much attention to it!)
Rating: 
Summary: A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT!
Review: I suppose I had figured the mythology of the first three Star Wars films(SW,ESB,ROTJ) all wrong. I thought that the major theme was "Power-Over vs. Power-Within." I thought I had an understanding of what the makers of these films were trying to say. I guess I was wrong. Here are the basic points that I want to make: 1) In the Phantom Menace(PM), the cosmic war is CHRISTIANIZED, with Darth Maul looking like Satan! How incredibly shallow! Yeah, villians NEVER look like "normal" people in real life, right?! Please! Whatever happened to the concepts that really made you think, such as Luke going into the cave at Dagobah and understanding that what Luke saw as evil were really just components that he himself owned? 2) In the Empire Strikes Back, Yoda's home is on a planet that is nothing but a swamp which was meant to call your attention to the powers and mysteries of nature (where "the Force" comes from), but in the PM, Yoda lives on a planet that has wiped nature out and the Jedi reside in a Vatican-like Ivory Tower! I guess not EVERYONE has equal share of the force, just the SPECIAL HONOR SOCIETY ones do! 3) Anakin and his mother are Slaves on Tatooine, yet they live better than I do?!?!?! 4) Anakin yells "this is INTENSE!" while in the fighter at the end battle scenes. PLEEEZE! He also yells "YIPPEEEE" when his slavemaster lets him go home. Yeah, I really believe that these characters are so downtrodden by their lives as slaves. Lucas must have read "Roots" by Alex Haley before writing these characters (My eyes roll). 5) Lucas did not include any discussion about possible environmental/sociological/psychological elements making Anakin turn to the Dark Side. If Lucas did his research, he may have found that most tyrannical real-life despots come from majorly abusive or traumatizing childhoods. I guess Anakin's scars come from winning the Pod Race (My eyes roll again!). The storyline has a lesser social relevancy because of these dim-witted character sketches. 6) C-3PO was made by Darth Vader?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Imagine the odds!!!!!! 7) It is odd that with such a vast infinite number of galaxies, alot of what goes on in The Star Wars films take place on Tatooine! 8) Although the Star Wars films were nothing like the real-life war movies such as "Full Metal Jacket", they still had people getting tortured and killed in sometimes graphic scenes. Then all of a sudden, they decide to make these movies JUST FOR KIDS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! 9) I thought that the two main Jedi (played by Neeson and that other guy who was supposed to be Obi-Wan) were a bit too MACHO! Right before they both do the lightsaber fight with Darth Maul, they see him in the hangar and say something like "Leave him to us!" Like the audience is supposed to say "Yeah, go get him! WOO HOO!!! KICK HIS DARK-SIDE BUTT" This is not in keeping with the original understanding of the Jedi. Well, that is all I can say now. If I were to talk more, I would only collapse in pure tragic horror over this baleful film! (...) It has been a year since I have seen the film. I decided to watch it again so as to see if my critique was adequate. I found, once again, that my review was quite on target in many ways (if I do say so myself). There was one crucial aspect that I had alluded to, but still grossly overlooked. Thanks to another review which further pointed this element out to me, I now see further evidence of this film's flimsy structure.
What I am refering to is the scene at the end of the lightsaber duel after Liam Neeson's character gets killed by Darth Maul. Obi-Wan then kills Darth Maul out of REVENGE (not self-defense). Knowing from ROTJ that striking your opponent down out of anger and revenge leads to the Dark Side, why didnt Obi-Wan become evil? This is something that 99% of the audience never questioned. In fact, most of the audience thought of Obi-Wan as the hero after killing Darth Maul (and it surprises me that this is how Lucas wanted the audience to react, I suppose Overconfidence is George Lucas'es weakness.)
So, Im sorry that many found my review to be unhelpful. But these are people who I seriously DOUBT would be willing to actually discuss with me on an intellectual basis the EXTREME extent of how this film is flawed. Ok, I feel better now.
Rating:
Summary: It's Star Wars, but it doesn't make much sense...
Review: Lucas certainly developed and used a whole horde of new CGI and other special effects technologies in the making of this; it's too bad that the story has so many holes in it. The clear purpose of it is to introduce us to "He Who Shall Become Darth Vader." Unfortunately, rather than creating a cast of characters appropriate to him, it ties huge amounts of the story to the "future" characters. R2D2 and C3PO apparently knew "Darth," as a boy, and he spent some "quality" time on Tatooine. This makes the story of "A New Hope" make a whopping lot _less_ sense. Darth Vader _knows_ the robots; he _knows_ Tatooine; he should even have some bittersweet memories of he and his mother living there. Instead, in IV, he chooses to just _ignore_ all this stuff... Another thing that _really_ irritates me is the whole "Anakin's Mom" part of the story. After Anakin does so much to help out a Princess who RULES A PLANET, they can't imagine the notion of sending back a "Galactic Express" funds transfer to buy his mother out of slavery? The waffling over whether Anakin should get trained seems pretty nonsensical, too; if the Jedi Council is so worried about him getting training, it would make sense for them to actually Do Something. Maybe put him to death due to the danger. (Pretty amoral, but we know, what with Parts IV-VI that he's going to kill a whopping lot of people, and help throw the empire into deadly chaos. Nipping him "in the bud" would be pretty logical.) Or even to just say "We'll keep him around, at the Jedi Academy; he'll get a Special Training Course." (That would _actually_ amount to keeping him under guard...) But instead they propose just tossing him away, right when it's clear that there are Dark Jedi Forces that would doubtless be _fabulously_ interested in such a potentially-powerful apprentice. And the only way Jar Jar is at _all_ forgiveable is if he proves to be some sort of unconscious "Drunken Jedi Master" that hasn't realized who he actually is...
Rating: 
Summary: Worthless until Jar Jar can be COMPLETELY deleted
Review: In short, this DVD will not be worth owning until there is the option to totally delete Jar Jar Binks from the movie. There was nothing wrong with the Gungans - in fact, I rather liked them (the normal ones that you could understand when they spoke, and who weren't shuffling, stumbling, mumbling idiots). As a point of reference - I've seen Episodes 4, 5, & 6 together more than 100 times, and have over 50 sci-fi movies in my DVD collection, but I'll never own or watch Episode 1 again until Jar Jar can be erased.
Rating:
Summary: Apology accepted, George
Review: Consider George Lucas's $4 million investment in bringing the Phantom Menace to DVD an apology for the oft-maligned Episode I, and you'll feel good about adding the double-disc to your collection.
Disc one features a sparkling THX transfer of the film, or one should say "data", since so much of it was generated digitally anyway. Several scenes have been tweaked or extended, in true Lucas fashion, but Jar-Jar remains annoyingly intact. The audio tracks astound with perfect Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX, and English and Spanish Dolby 2.0 tracks. Track four contains film commentary by George Lucas, producer Rick McCallum, Ben Burtt, Rob Coleman, John Knoll, Dennis Muren and Scott Squires. Burtt, Coleman, Knoll and Muren are most impressive, with Lucas and McCallum not really saying anything new.
Disc two provides a rare glimpse behind the scenes at Lucasfilm with hours and hours of footage, stills, deleted scenes and trailers. One caution for sensitive viewers of disc two is the fondness that Episode I producer Rick McCallum apparently has for the F word- all clipped of course to just "f.." - but most are obvious. Included in the hour-long documentary "The Beginning" is a hint that several at Lucasfilm, including Lucas himself, may have had an early indication that the Phantom Menace was falling short of expectations by attempting to do too much, but strived to improve the picture right up until its theatrical release in May 1999. Thanks again, George. We'll be watching...
Rating:
Summary: Should have been called "Muppets in Space"
Review: No, I take it back...that would be an insult to the real "Muppets in Space". I have no idea what George Lucas was thinking when he made this movie, but the result is an embarrassment to the Star Wars franchise. At least the DVD version is packed with some decent extras...hopefully the original Star Wars will be released on DVD in a similar package and in the process of putting it together Lucas will be reminded of what made Star Wars so popular in the first place.
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