**Spoiler Alert Warning**

Over the weekend, a few of my friends and I travelled down to Regal Cinema so we could see Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. As we all know, this movie originally came out over ten years ago so it is not anything new or ground breaking. However, the re-release was in 3D so there was some hype to see a few lightsaber battles and high speed chases coming out of the screen in high definition. I myself am a pretty huge fan of Star Wars, so I jumped at the chance to see one of the films in the theater. I even brought a lightsaber (it’s ok to be jealous) and got the special edition Darth Maul 3D glasses. Despite the average person in the theater being an eight year old boy or the 68 year old grandparent that brought them, I still had a rollicking good time.

But that does not mean The Phantom Menace is any sort of quality what so ever. The first three Star Wars films were so good! So naturally one might expect the next three films to live up to the bar previously set for them. Not the case. Star Wars is great and all, but there are so many things wrong with Episode One I hardly know where to begin.
Let’s look at the biggest problem first. Jar Jar Binks. I do not know what kind of drugs George Lucas was on when he decided to create this character, but boy was it a mistake. Jar Jar is the Gungan that introduces the Jedi, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, to a secret city and moves the plot along. Somewhat. Aside from about three total scenes of importance, everything Jar Jar does is stupid, pointless, loud, and annoying. I guess he is supposed to be some sort of comic relief, but the attempt fails miserably. You can hardly understand him when he speaks, his voice is loud and shrill, and he is essentially unnecessary. Not only is he obnoxious, but due to the absence of Queen Amidala at the Galactic Senate, Jar Jar fills in for her and puts forward the motion to give Senator Palpatine emergency powers. So Jar Jar is indirectly responsible for the downfall of the Republic and the rise of the Sith.

But the horrors do not stop there. The plot to The Phantom Menace is weaker than dry balsa wood. Everything about this movie is practically a hollowed out reasoning for things that will eventually happen in the original trilogy. For some strange reason, a Trade Federation decides to start up a war. That’s almost exactly how the movie starts. No explanation why. No rationale. Eventually through some hard to obtain details of alien babble I think the audience is supposed to ascertain that the Empire is behind all this, but it is quite unclear. Then one space battle leads to another and eventually Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discover Anakin Skywalker, a slave  boy with a “Midichlorian count higher than master Yoda’s”. No one knows what this means but apparently the boy’s mother birthed him without having sex. So maybe the kid is Jesus. The audience can infer that it means something significant about the Force, but the strange explanation provided later in the movie about what a Midichlorian count is merely makes you think that Anakin has high cholesterol. Naturally there is turmoil about Anakin’s possible tutelage but eventually that works itself out when Obi-Wan decides to teach him the ways of the Force.

The character development is the cherry on the top of this appalling movie sundae. Take Darth Maul for instance. He is the big bad guy in this movie, the villain of the final battle scene. He is even the main character for the promotional movie poster. But he is on screen for a total of about fifteen minutes! Probably less. He has about three lines and does absolutely nothing other than kill Qai-Gon and then die. But Darth Maul has an awesome red face with horns and a double sided lightsaber! He should have been a major factor throughout the entire movie. Another character done poorly was that of Senator Palpatine. He is some sort of diplomatic leader with Naboo but then it turns out that he is in the running to take control of the Senate. No explanation as to how this happened. Going further along in the series, we eventually learn that Palpatine is actually Darth Sidious, the leader of the Sith. There is no explanation as to how he may have risen to such powers in either cases and overall remains a very mysterious character that could have been done much better. After three fantastic films in the original trilogy, The Phantom Menace is a disappointing follow up.