Rating: 
Summary: This entry is for diehards only.
Review: I will not be explaining how tortuous it was to watch a movie that took my childhood dreams and destroyed them in 180+ minutes of eye-gouging atrocities. But I will go out on a limb and say that George Lucas should be killed by his own creation, i.e. a life sized granite statue of Jar Jar crushing him to death. I will not sleep until the rating of this movie is reduced to one star, since "no stars" is not available. Brothers of the True Force unite in my crusade! I will be rating this movie with one star every chance I get. On a more serious note, I wasn't kidding, George Lucas should be killed for this abomination. My only regret is that it took so long for me to vent my anger to the world. George, wherever you are, I hope you are reading this.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite Bad, actually...
Review: Star Wars fans waited 16 years for this film, but unfortunately it was not worth the wait. The old Star Wars films were by no means masterpieces of modern cinema, but they were still fairly good and very entertaining. This film, however, is just plain bad. The story is boring and the characters are for the most part weak and one-dimensional (I'll not even begin to discuss Jar Jar Binks). Furthermore, the script is perhaps one of the worst ever written for a major blockbuster. It has been said that the purpose of this film was to set up episodes 2 & 3, but that does not justify making something this poor.
Rating: 
Summary: Democracy is not paradise
Review: In this first episode of Star Wars Lucas is once again an innovator. He uses the new possibilities that computerized imaging and creation propose to devise a completely new generation of films. These new tools enable him to freely create hundreds of beings, settings and even situations that could otherwise never be created. He takes great pleasure in the creatures he can create. In a way he is god. So he creates all kinds of monsters, aquatic or land monsters. He also creates intelligent beings with physiques that have little to do with man, and yet they walk and behave in many ways like human beings. Actually he used human models and then created the computerized beings from these models. These new tools also enable Lucas to set up tremendous scenes with strange machines and breath-taking races. This gives to the film a completely new dimension that is pure pleasure for the viewer. At the same time, in this first episode he introduces some characters we have met as older characters in the later episodes, but now in their young age or infancy. We can finally understand why and how the empire appeared and why and how the republic was destroyed. Lack of unity in purpose in the Republic. Democracy hijacked by bureaucracy in the Republic. The desire for a more effective and faster government in the Republic. The desire of the merchants, the industrialists, to impose their commercial rules to everyone and to conquer markets free of any taxation to increase their profits. Finally the ambition of some to seize that power and impose their own will over the whole galaxy. The Jedis are very powerless in front of such a decaying situation in which private interest is taking over collective interest. This film also has a great emotional value with the kid who has to leave his mother, who is freed and has to abandon his mother in slavery, because this Republic goes along with slavery on some planets. A great moment of entertainment. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
Rating: 
Summary: Star Wars with a weak heart
Review: I didn't really like the story for this Star Wars. Sure, the special effects are good but the story is really lame. Worst of all are the wooden acting of all the main characters (with exception of Ewan MacGregor, who is always full of life). It looks like a B-grade movie with A-grade special effects. I must say that Lord of The Rings are 100X much better!! I gave the special effects the 3-stars point but zero for the plot. Anyway, I can't stand this movie that I gave away my copy.
Rating:
Summary: George Lucas IS The Phantom Menace
Review: This film, like the rest of the Star Wars prequels, is utter garbage. It's become apparent that Lucas cares only about the technical aspects of moviemaking, and not the need for good storytelling. The dialogue is pretentious and awful. Jar Jar Binks is insulting, even to a child's intelligence. Jake Lloyd is the worst child actor in history. Gary Coleman could have played a better Anakin Skywalker! Some of the plot elements don't even jive with what Lucas filmed years ago. Anakin created 3PO? The Force is a bunch of microbial entities in your bloodstream? Anakin was an immaculate conception? I suppose the writing was on the wall when Lucas ruined his own masterpieces in the forms of the Epidode 4,5,6 "Special Editions." Greedo shoots at Han first? I don't think so.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother. Wait for the DVD.
Review: If you're like me and thousands of others you bought this tape like a good little Star Wars geek and like me you were not happy with how long this widescreen release was in coming, but you were satisfied when it finally arrived. My advice to anyone looking to purchase this VHS tape is to wait until you have a DVD player and purchase the DVD.
There are a ton more features to this relatively mediocre movie title. The (...) extra film cell hardly makes up for that. Also, Jar Jar is still annoying and the plot has some holes, but at least on the DVD suffering can be at a minimum with the skip feature. But let's be honest what we really want with this movie is a way to relive what we all really love in the original Star Wars trilogy. It is evident to me that after seeing this movie and Episode II that Lucas CAN NOT direct or motivate actors to save his life. Empire and Jedi were pulled off so beautifully because others directed them. If you look to the first of the series (A New Hope of which most of you simply call Star Wars) the same directing flops are present and bad acting reigns supreme. Maybe in years to come when these movies are remade we will have a director step up who can actually direct, but until then we'll have to deal with this blundering yet beloved fool called Lucas.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmm
Review: I'm rating the DVD as well as the film itself. The movie plain and simple, is not good. It stinks. It was an astonishing visual achievment, but the writing, well..... was pathetic. Its like watching a really elaborate video game. Except video games have better plots, and characters. I found both the childrens performances to be a little wooden, but given the dialogue, who can blame them? Everyone else plods along gamely enough, and the whole thing seems to work on a ; buy these toys at your local kay bee level. I was rather dissapointed.
The DVD itself is pretty good. Several deleted scenes fully completed , special effects and all. The sound on the DVD is some of the best you will find and if your good home theatre system and are a fan you'll enjoy this DVD.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have!
Review: This DVD is amazing. It's a must have for anyone!
Rating:
Summary: Not Really Disappointing At All
Review: I am an avid Star Wars fan. I grew up on Star Wars. I still have the original Kenner action figures and I'm not even thinking of selling them on auction websites. When I heard that George Lucas was going to reprise his role as a director and work on the prequels, I was extremely excited to see how everyone got there, how Anakin Skywalker transformed into the evil Sith lord Darth Vader. In "The Phantom Menace", we are introduced first to the young Obi Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), and his master Jedi, Qui Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson). Then we are introduced to (we all know this by now) the mother of Luke and Leia Skywalker, Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) at 16 years of age. Finally, we get to meet Anakin Skywalker at 10 years of age (Jake Lloyd...could they have cast a better child actor?). A lot of people blasted "The Phantom Menace". I have to disagree. This is an inside look into how everyone started. And if you are a big fan of the original trilogy, you should be able to appreciate how George Lucas tells the tale of how an innocent child is transformed into pure evil. There are no real outstanding acting performances in this film, except for Natalie Portman and the outstanding fine Ewan McGregor. It is so exciting to see how the Jedis were at this time frame because in the original trilogy, they were always discussed and during that time, I would always wonder what the Jedi were like in their prime. Of course, we only see two of them here, but we just see how strong they are in using the force, and the treat in this film is seeing the Jedi Temple and the Jedi Council. I can't wait for the third prequel to come out. One day, when that DVD comes out, I will play all DVDs in sequence! This DVD is also excellent if we're talking about special features. And don't forget to look for the easter egg.
Rating:
Summary: Star Wars fans would be better of without the prequels
Review: It's taken a good number of years to arrive at a final opinion about "Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace". After vacillating between the good and bad of the movie, it is my final opinion that "Phantom Menace" is a tremendously disappointing movie that not only is aggravating to watch in its own right, but also heavily damages epic scope and mythos of the original trilogy. This movie still warrants two stars because there are still some excellent visual scenes and it is Star Wars, but this is too much of a letdown to recommend to anyone.
While it is true that no movie could live up to pre-release hype generated by the George Lucas hype machine and 16 years of anticipation, "Phantom Menace" fails on its own merits. Where, exactly, does it go wrong? Well, the first obvious problem is the acting. Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor are excellent actors in their own right. Yet, there performances as Qui-Gonn Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, respectively, are wooden at best. Obi-Wan seems like he's around just to remind people of the earlier trilogy. He does very little and carries none of the presence he did in "A New Hope". The computer-generated character of Jar-Jar Binks was gross miscalculation by Lucas. Jar-Jar comes across as nothing more than an attempt to pander to a younger audience (which he did successfully with the Ewoks in "Return of Jedi" without hurting the movie), while aggravating the older core of Star Wars fans. When a character utters lines that sound like they're from Stephanie Tanner from "Full House", you know there's a problem. However, the biggest acting disaster the performance of Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker. Young kids are capable of acting (see Haley Joel Osment for example). Jake Lloyd is not one of those kids. All of his lines come across as incredibly forced and incredibly whiny. Some of his scenes are so cringe-inducing that I had to turn away from the screen when they happened.
Acting, alone, is not the only place "Phantom Menace" went wrong. It seems that Lucas lost his understanding of the intangible elements that made the original trilogy to special and magical. The climatic scenes in a "Phantom Menace" are nothing more than a rehash of the climatic scenes from "Return of the Jedi". There's a space battle scene that includes the 'out-running the ball of fire' sequence from "Jedi". Yet this scene is decidedly indistinct and lacking in drama. There's a ground battle scene that pales in comparison to its "Jedi" counterpart, and there's a lightsaber battle that, while more technically proficient than the Luke/Vader showdown in "Jedi", it carries none of the importance or emotion. Luke was fighting for his father's soul. Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan's battle with Darth Maul seems perfunctory and without significant meaning. This was all done so much better in "Return of the Jedi" and yet it seems as though Lucas thought he could recapture that amazement by simply recopying the elements.
Alas, it gets worse. Lucas also made some extremely questionable plot choices in "Phantom Menace". One of the more aggravating ones was to give the 'Force' and biological basis in the form of midi-cholorians. In the original trilogy, the 'Force' seemed like a mysterious, magical energy field that influenced all there was in the universe. Here, it seems like a simple biological anomaly that can be easily tracked and understood. This really damages the mythology of the 'Force'. Another bad plot twist was making it so that Anakin was the creator of C-3PO. This seems incomprehensible in the original trilogy and appears to be thrown in to make everything more convenient than it should be. The final ludicrous plot development was the suggestion of Anakin being of a virgin birth. Implying that he is a Jesus-like character is equally as offensive as the 'slave-language' of Jar-Jar and the stereotypical Asian accents of the Trade Federation.
The timeline of events also doesn't mesh particularly well with the original trilogy. It all feels like it fits together in fashion that is too neat and tidy. The magic of the original "Star Wars" trilogy was created as much from what we didn't know and learned from conjecture versus what we did know. With the prequels, Lucas chose to answer a number of questions about Star Wars past that were better off left unanswered.
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