Even worse than I remember. It has aged so badly to the point where every scene is either completely laughable or makes no sense. Might actually be worse than Attack of The Clones, although it’s still like choosing if dog piss or cat piss is nicer. At the end of the day they’re both piss.

Darth Maul sucks the hardest, I can’t believe anyone defends that character in this movie. Even the fight scene at the end that everyone circlejerks is totally lacklustre because there is no tension or stakes as the characters are so poorly set up. 

Jar Jar is even worse than you remember, his dialogue is completely incomprehensible so I had no idea what he was saying. He…

*previously a 53, now an 84*

I think I've reached the tipping point of my love for this thing, but then again, each rewatch is practically exponential in how it affects me as a Star Wars fan and a cinephile. Each frame of world building - cascading waterfalls, forests festering with fog, dusty Tatooine landscapes - is rich and lively in its conceptual work, with costuming, CG effects, and sound design providing a textual beginning to the saga. Lucas paints this picture as delicate and grandiose; a far cry from the uncertainty of Attack of the Clones and the devastating tragedy of Revenge of the Sith. All the puzzle pieces - galactic politics, bureaucratic interplay, Jedi as spies and samurai,…

I will try and explain why I dislike this film so much. It is a bit of a geeky rant, so bear with me.

A Universe of Boredom
The original trilogy gave us a window to one of the most interesting universes ever created. It is a fantasy, filled with amazing aliens and wonderful characters. The Phantom Menace was the film that could expand on this universe. We could have gotten more fantastical worlds, more foundation to the mythos. What we instead got was Tatooine......again. It could have traveled the entire universe but it instead gave us a planet we already know. This is but a tiny example of the unbelievable unimaginative feel this film has. This is most present…

84

It's been fun to see the tide turning in regards to the prequels, even if it's at the expense of Disney's trilogy - films which I find function expertly as nostalgic capsules and subversions of Star Wars as cultural history. George Lucas' trilogy deserves as much love as it offers, which it does in selfless, all-consuming amounts. The Phantom Menace, in particular, is sheer joy, mesmerized at Star Wars as an expansive property, technological tradition, and origin story. It's so happy to be itself and be alive as a movie. It really feels like magic, with a child-like glee and resistance to self-seriousness but never once losing a sense of danger. Astounding special-effects for the period, but the design…

An indiscriminatingly awful, vomit-inducing, excessively cartoonish, unbelievably stupid & mind-numbingly pathetic piece of shit that deserves to be counted amongst the worst atrocities ever committed on film canvas, the first chapter of George Lucas' prequel trilogy & fourth instalment in the Star Wars saga marks its creator's return to film direction after a 22-year hiatus and shows that world cinema was far better off without his directorial inputs.

Set three decades before the events of Star Wars in a galaxy far far away, the story of The Phantom Menace follows two Jedi Knights who are sent to negotiate a peaceful end to an interplanetary trade dispute but when that falls apart, they flee from their hostile situation to warn the Queen and…