

STAR WARS: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth

**1/2 (out of ****)

	It was an overcast, muggy Tuesday afternoon, the day before the
eagerly-awaited "Star Wars" prequel was slated to blast into theaters.  I
walked up to the bored-looking ticket seller at my local multiplex
(twenty-four screens to be precise) and asked "So what's the deal with
"Star Wars" tickets?"  Anticipating a long, drawn-out answer about nothing
being available until the 27th and having to wait "over there," the
lethargic teenager simply asked me what show I wanted to see.  "When's the
first one?" I asked.  "10am."  "And you still have tickets?"  "Yes."  "Then
I'll take one for the ten o'clock show please."

	Hmm...  No hoopla.  No lines.  I didn't even have to camp out!

	At 9:30am the next morning the parking lot was already pretty full,
and you can bet people weren't there for the new Jet Li movie.  The ticket
taker told me to hang onto my stub at all times, and to sit as close to the
middle as possible, as the show was sold out.  For a sold-out show there
were a lot of empty seats, but by that point all I could think about was my
hankering for some gummi sourpatch nightcrawlers.

	If you go to see "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace," as
it's correctly called (and I suspect you will), I recommend you get there
early.  Not just in case your particular show happens to be sold out too,
but to listen to "Star Wars" junkies complaining about this, that, and the
other.  My favorite comment came halfway through the film when some
numskull whispered reverentially "Shmi Skywalker's the Virgin Mary!"

	I saw the original "Star Wars" back in 1977 when it first came out.
A lot of hoopla surrounded it at the time and for the most part it was
deserving.  The special effects were light-years ahead of their time and
the story was a classic case of good vs. evil, beautifully realized, and
inspired by Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress."

	That blast from the brass section as the "Star Wars" insignia
appears from out of nowhere and slowly pushes its way into the starry
screen still gives me goosebumps.

	A little context for you.  Although I can't tell a bantha from a
Grand Moff Tarkin, I do believe that Harrison Ford can't act his way out of
a brown paper bag.  I believe that Mark Hamill didn't even try.  I believe
that Carrie Fisher is a better novelist than she is an actor, I believe
that Chewbacca was the series' best character and they should have brought
him back for "Episode I," and I believe that the Ewoks were a big mistake
(their TV series spin-off an even bigger one).  I believe in the twin moons
of Tatooine, the golden orbs of Unrath, the curve of Natalie Portman's
back, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three
days...

	But getting back to "The Phantom Menace."  What did I think of it?

	It's okay.

	We've been so deluged by special effects-laden movies in the 1990s
that we take a lot of today's technical wizardry for granted.  The new
"Star Wars" film is purported to contain some 2,000 "effects shots"
(compared to the 800 or so in "Titanic"), the most in any one movie, but
all that stuff seems like overkill at times.  We miss what we're supposed
to be looking at because there's just too much of it.  "Star Wars" did
exponential things with technology.  Relatively speaking, "The Phantom
Menace" would have required special footwear, probably, to have had the
same impact.

	Nevertheless there are some glorious paintings, models, and
backdrops in the film.  These cities and civilizations really come alive.
The craftsmanship is top-notch, state-of-the-art, exquisite.  The costumes,
not to mention Natalie Portman's hairdos (she plays Queen Amidala of Naboo)
are breathtaking.  That's right, breathtaking hairdos.  The Jedi commission
is made up of a bunch of funny-looking characters ... and Samuel L.
Jackson!  Terence Stamp is barely in the film.  The baddie, Darth Maul, is
appropriately named because he looks like some WWF spokesperson in a monk's
habit.  He's pretty cool.

	On the other hand, the Federation's computer-animated droids can't
hold a light saber to those imperial storm troopers.  Ewan McGregor (as
Obi-Wan Kenobi) is as stiff as a post and I hate to say it but the film
actually gets a bit boring at times.  The need to explain connections to
the original trilogy results in a lot of talky sequences and deja-vu, some
of it welcome and some of it not.  Jar Jar Binks, a walking, wisecracking
Rasta duck-billed platypus whose catchphrase is "How rude!" provides much
of the comic interest but after a while he tends to blend in with the rest
of the lop-eared platypi.

	One of the film's big set pieces is a "pod race" featuring the
young, fatherless Anakin (Jake Lloyd), an homage to "Ben Hur"'s famous
chariot race.  The point of all this spectacle is so that Jedi master
Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) can win a bet to pay a winged muppet called
Watto for spare parts to fix a crippled spaceship.  I know Jedi knights
must have some code of ethics but couldn't they have found an easier
solution to their problem (like, maybe, steal the hardware, or at least
borrow it?).  Similarly, part of the deal is to have the enslaved future
Chosen One freed but unfortunately our heroes are forced to leave the boy's
mother behind.  "I tried to win her freedom but Watto wasn't having any of
it," says Neeson's character, or words to that effect.  Sounds rather
pathetic from a Jedi, doesn't it?  "I wanted to kill Darth Vader, but when
I got to the Death Star, he wasn't home."  Puleez.

	The dialogue and plot elements aren't the reason to see the film,
of course.  You expect the general good-guys-have-to-stop-the-bad-guys
scenario (here, taxation plays a key role).  It's all those brave new
worlds, intergalactic shoot-'em-ups, strange reptilian and mechanical
creatures, and characters with funny names you can either cheer or hiss,
that matters.

	And "The Phantom Menace" has got 'em by the score.  It's a frenetic
visual feast indeed; there's nothing quite like it in the galaxy.  Let's
just hope that Episodes II and III spend a little more time on character
development, that's all.

	Written and directed by George Lucas.

--
David N. Butterworth
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