Star Wars Episode I: The Mournful Wailing

Aaaaaaauuuuuuuuuoooooogh....

Never has the phrase “I have a Bad Feeling about this” been more appropriate. There’s not much to be said about Phantom Menace that hasn’t been said a million times before. But then, I am an internet reviewer, and we’re not the most original bunch.

When people talk about this movie, the phrase “raped childhood” is never far from the tip of the tongue. The people who grew up watching the Star Wars Trilogy may or may not have a right to feel betrayed. I, however was not among them. No, there is a far subtler betrayal at hand here.

The Prequel Trilogy was the Star Wars I grew up watching.

I’d seen the Special Editions as a child, and hadn’t thought much of them. Now that I’m older, I can appreciate them in a way I doubt I could have as a kid. But I still have my VHS copy of Episode I, which I watched so often, that the tape was pretty much ruined. As a result, it’s been about a decade since I last watched the movie all the way through. So, I bought the DVD boxset, and started watching. One week ago, I was convinced that Attack of the Clones was the worst Star Wars Movie.

How I long for those Halcyon days.

I remember when I saw Phantom Menace in the theatre, I actually thought Jar-Jar Binks was a pretty funny character. I knew he was annoying, certainly, but that was his thing, wasn’t it? The one that annoyed Qui-Gon while he tried to get things done?

Watching this again, I found that I could remember almost word for word the dialogue of the film. Especially the times when people mispronounce relatively mundane words like “committee”. This is DEFINITELY the same film I remember loving so much as a child.

Why then, is it so shit?

Obviously, this film was aimed towards children. Cynically, I would say that this was due to Lucas’ forgoing payment in exchange for full merchandising rights. Curiously, this was the first Star Wars film to not receive a U rating in the UK [correct for current DVD versions of movies].

Harumble!

The Gungans are stupid. With weird syntax, they talk for no reason. Every word they speak is recognisable English (or Basic, in universe), yet Lucas seems to have insisted that they try and cutesy up every single word to make these horse-lizards endearing. Instead of Plasma Grenades, they have “boomas”. I can see that Lucas was going for an Ewok/Wookie thing with them, but it fails miserably.

Then there’s the Battle Droids. These are ridiculous, for many reasons. First of all, why build robots for battle, and NOT graft blasters onto their arms? That way people can’t pick up the rifle and use it against you should one cease to function.  And why are they sarcastic? Did the Definitely Not Chinese Stereotype Federation sit down and say to an engineer “No, I don’t think people would find emotionless Terminator Droids very intimidating. What the Naboo fear more than anything is Irony”.

But I’m nitpicking to avoid the obvious flaw in this movie. Tatooine. Jake Lloyd is NOT Darth Vader. Why he was cast over, say, Haley Joel Osment, is beyond me. Actually, scratch that. Jake Lloyd is PERFECT for the Anakin Skywalker that Lucas wrote here. Every “Yippee!” and “Oops!”sounds completely natural when it comes from that bland little Muppet’s mouth. Not to mention that ridiculous line of “This is TENSE!”. In the words of the Robot Devil; “You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!”

Just let this kid do it.  He can't be any worse...

This is to say NOTHING of that interminable pod race sequence. That is pretty much proof that this film was made to be a spectacle rather than the next major entry in a beloved film franchise. Say what you like about Hayden Christensen and the tacked on romance, Attack of the Clones was pretty decent, ESPECIALLY one day after watching Phantom Menace.

Ugh.

I don’t much care for it.