July 1, 1999
In the immortal words of Dante (Clerks, not the Inferno) “Jedi was nothing but a bunch of muppets…” And the same could be said about The Phantom Menace. Given, they are CG muppets, but a muppet is still a muppet. Not that I did not love Episode One, because I did. It was 100% better than I thought it would be. Except for Jar Jar – that stupid Jamaican muppet annoyed me every single time it was on the screen. “Youa say that Ia sucka cocka? Me get no pay – Fucka George Lucas!” Jar Jar was so wussy that he made the Ewoks look like Wookiees. The only thing stupider than Jar Jar were ‘midochlorians.’ End of rant.
Awesome. I was blown away by the verisimiltude of the special effects. This CG Jabba was way better than the Special Edition Jabba. He still wasn’t as good as the original Jabba, but not bad. Yoda was okay, but I think that Frank Oz forgot how to talk like Yoda. I miss the claymation creatures though. There was a certain tangibilty missing from the CG creatures that the hokey models had. The spaceships were great though. CG ships are better than models any day. I see Oscars in ILM’s future.
As much as I wanted to hate Lucas’ new vision of Star Wars, I really liked it. It was a lot of fun to watch, though predictable as Hell. I am one of those dorks who went to see it on opening day, but at least I didn’t have camp in a tent. Definitely not worth sitting in a tent in the rain over, but I am looking forward to the next two.
Rating – PG
Runtime – 133 minutes
Genre – Star Wars
Director(s) – George Lucas
Writer(s) – George Lucas
Actor(s) – Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Liam Neeson, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid
BOB Rating – Three BOBs
Favorite Quote – "My parts are showing? Oh, my goodness, oh!" - C3-PO (Anthony Daniels)