Essay, Research Paper: Starwars

MY STAR WARS: EPISODE 1REVIEW


CHARLES SANFORD ENG. 11
As I sat in the huge theater awaiting the movie that I had been awaiting so long to
see, seen so many trailers before just about every other movie released this year. The
previews before this movie seemed ten times more boring than they usually were, then like
a thunderous cloud on the horizon the opening scroll began to fly up screen and the
traditional Star Wars theme began to play, my mind was racing a mile a minuet awaiting
all
the action and special affects that I saw on the previews, and also being a huge Star Wars
fan anyway, I was even more eager to hear what a wonderful story line George Lucas had
come up with this time, little did I know that in comparison to the original Star Wars
trilogy this movie was truly bantha fodder.
the biggest flaws in this movie in my eyes are
1) the fast pase in witch it flows doesn’t alloy for people seeing this and having it
be
there first Star wars experience to catch most of the humor and important background
information. The opening scene with Obi-wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jin talking in the
Federation Space Ships meeting room is a perfect example of that. Obi-Wan make a
remark about “having a bad feeling” and if you have never seen a Star Wars movie before
this is nothing but a bunch of cheep acting to create a sense of fear and uncertainty that
you already knew you were going to have pushed on you in a few moments when the two
heroes are gassed and shot at by battle droids. This point is also clear in the choice of Ian
Macdermid as Senator Palpatine, and also as the sinister Darth Sidious. IF you have
never seen the Emperor from Return of the Jedi wearing his long black cloaks and talking
in almost perfect English how could you piece together the clues left behind pinning the
characters together?
2)Most of the major action and massive special effects were already viewed in ]
either the movie trailers viewed in theaters everywhere or on the previews seen on TV I
was at a loss when I already knew what the outcome of every major scene in the movie
would be. The underwater beasts of the great oceans of Adda Gunga where in extremely
life like, but it lost affect when I had already seen them four time already. Possibly the
greatest part of this movie, the fighting scenes between Darth Maul(Ray Park) and the Jedi
Gui-Gon jin and Obi wan Kenobi (Liam Neison and Ewan McGregor), was shown almost
in its entirety during the movie previews!
This movie was however not all that bad to a die hard Star Wars fan like myself. I
got lost in the plot twists and foreshadowing that only a true die hard fan would truly
understand. The fast pace of this movie does not allow you to get bored, and it did not
bog me down with lots of back information about the other movies, but instead it seemed
to be like an independent film at the beginning of what could be a great series of movies to
come. That one fact is in my eyes what saved this movie, George Lucas did a great job at
making a movie that must in a sense “ set the stage” for the other great Star Wars movies
after the fact that they have already had astronomical sucess almost a decade before
episode one was even a dream in Lucas’ mind.
When looking from an over all view I would give Star Wars: episode 1-The
Phantom Menace- a B+, but looking from a true fan’s perspective I give it a definite solid
A. I guess it all get down to if you haven’t seen this movie yet, even after all the media
hype and merchandise sales preceding its release then I recommend you do, you will not
be sorry, and who knows for all you people out there who have the opinion “ Star wars
sucks” this movie may change your minds.


Word Count: 695