Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace 1999 by AverageMansReviews

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace 1999 by AverageMansReviews

Review Time

Warning: there is flashing effects/colourful effects/shooting/stabbing/impaling/melting/dismemberment/vehicles crashing/animal cruelty/animal feeding/animal waste/electrocution/vehicle crashing/ritual/burning/robotics/medical.

Happy 25th Anniversary: briefly; Qui-Gon Jinn [Liam Neeson:] is a Master Jedi that has a Padawan/an apprentice/other position title by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi [Ewan McGregor:] a young Padawan/Apprentice to become a Jedi Knight, which can be seen as head strong, but means well. On their travels with dealing with something else, they come across Anakin "Ani" Skywalker [Jake Lloyd:] he is a slave like his mother, they belong to Watto, but Jinn believes that Skywalker is The Chosen One from this prophecy that can bring balance to The Force based on his quick reaction and more importantly his high-level of midi-chiorian, which I am sure it absolutely nothing will go wrong, but for now I would suggest quickly moving as something or someone is hunting them. [Before I receive backlash from the community of Star Wars fans; I should just point out I don't give too much away of the storyline and when I go on to further instalments I will change the character in this paragraph.]

Generally speaking: the framework and pacing of this 136 minutes film is fluently quick as it has been structured like a book as sometimes we have these sweeping effects to take us from one place to another [so it acts as basically or something to the effect of "Meanwhile"] so this kind of structure has always been one of the franchise's biggest assets, because it tries not to waste time [I'm going to say tries just to cover my back for future instalments, so it just gives me a little bit of leeway to work with in the future] and more importantly it immerses the audience from our world into theirs.

Art, action and comedy; the art is very clear to see from this scenery to wardrobe and accessories to outer space, to underwater and the action sequences; it is all to a impeccable standard minus one thing, but I will discuss that later; for those super picky people yes the age of the computer special effects on the scenery now and again are beginning to show their age as in if you know what you are looking for bits and pieces will stick out, I am not holding it against this film, I was just making reference to it for those super picky people [if you are one of those people that like to find these moments; look for the black lines there are one or two moments which easily stick out.] Now moving on to the action I am obviously going to begin with Boonta Eve Classic Podrace; this is still excellent fun after all these years, as there is so much having from dirty tactics to seeing things from Skywalker's prospective including trying to keep his pod together and running repairs; including throughout this sequence of events some really natural comedy elements. [The only thing I don't like connected to this sequence is the fact that they made a video game based on Podracing and yes I have played on it; entitled  Star Wars Episode I: Racer originally released in 1999.] Later on we have this massive war sequence and simultaneously this 2-on-1 situation this is all excellent.

Character developments, performances, voice performances; there is a lot of good character developments and excellent chemistry between the cast regardless of how it comes to us, now if you were thinking hold on he is slowly building to somewhere you would be correct. I really still don't like Jar Jar Binks, I mean it has been 25 years and it is just taking me this amount of time to stop flipping out every time this character is mentioned in a conversation, he is by far the worst character ever in the history of Star Wars, I mean he has two funny moments in this film it is where Master Jinn and Padawan/Apprentice Kenobi tell him what is heading this way and the other is when he walks straight through some animal mess, other than that she did isn't funny or amusing, he really does irritate me.

This film receives: 7/10, this film is good; I mean obviously I had to take mark for this irritation which I have just spoken about. But other than that this film is good fun viewing, there is one other thing I should really point out, I actually watched this film in the cinema based on when this content was first dictated it was May the 4th and as most of you should know that date/day is known as Star Wars Day. This film also has some awards accredited to it and no they are not all positive, but such as 28 Winners and 71 Nominees, I have decided to break things down as the following; 3 Winners ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards 2000 ASCAP Award Top Box Office Films John Williams, BMI Film & TV Awards 2000 BMI Film Music Award John Williams and Young Artist Awards 2000 Young Artist Awards Best Performance in a Feature Film - Young Actor Age Ten or Under Jake Lloyd. 3 Nominees Academy Awards, USA 2000 Oscars Best Sound Gary Rydstrom Tom Johnson Shawn Murphy John Midgley, Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing Ben Burtt Tom Bellfort and Best Effects, Visual Effects John Knoll Dennis Muren Scott Squires Rob Coleman. Now representing the negative awards a mixture 1 Winner 1999 Bogey Awards, Germany and 2 Nominees Razzie Awards 2000,  Razzie Awards Worst Supporting Actor Ahmed Best (voice of Jar-Jar Binks) and from the same award ceremony/event Worst Supporting Actor Jake Lloyd