I saw this movie the morning it opened--a friend of mine was lucky enough to obtain tickets to the 12:15am
showing--and my first impression was a good one. If you've seen the original Star Wars movies,
then you should know why this one is so important--it's the history! You should also know why not
to expect a whole lot, as the critics are doing.

Now, the critics didn't like the first three, either. I read reviews during the re-release that
gave "A New Hope" four stars and the other two three then two stars respectively. This in itself
is an injustice to the movies: By far the last two are the best two. Ask any fan which movie they
think is the better, and it will invariably be a toss up between "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return
of the Jedi." Certainly, some will say A New Hope, but more than likely it will be one of the last two.

The point is that the critics never did the first three justice, so why expect them to do this one
justice either? It makes sense that they'll hate it. I've heard critics say that Episode One wasn't
fun. I've heard them say that it's too dialogue heavy. Well, for cracking ice, guys, this is only
the first part of the entire series. Their problem is that they're expecting Episode Four. You see,
with the first part of anything you need to build everything up, including characters, situations
and story. With this, the first of either six or nine parts--depending on what Lucas decides to do--there
is so much more to be built up. There are at least six more movies that have to come after this one.
As for their complaints that this was too dialogue heavy, I personally enjoyed that aspect. It was a
very political story. One must remember that the Empire doesn't exist yet, nor does the Rebel Allaince.
Hell, Emperor Palpatine is Senator Palpatine.

What the critics don't understand--but any true Star Wars fan does--is that this movie is the history
behind the originals. It's the origins of everything. Where did Anakin Skywalker come from and how
did he become Darth Vader? How was the Empire formed? How did Palpatine rise to power? Who are the
Sith and why was Vader known as the Dark Lord of the Sith? What exactly were the Clone Wars? And how
did the Jedi Purge (when all the Jedi were hunted down and killed) take place? These prequels must answer
most of, if not all of, these questions. Palapatine's rise to power? That's a political question. Where
did Anakin come from? History. It's all the history. And that's what the critics don't understand.

Is the story any good? We all know it begins with a trade embargo, but that's all I'll say. It's a
very political story, although there are some nicely done battle scenes. Don't expect any humans blasting
the hell out of other humans; the battles here are entirely living versus machine. For this matter, it's
quite interesting to finally see battle droids at work. It's also quite nice to see where R2-D2 and
C-3PO came from. The only character this movie could have done without was Jar Jar Binks, a comic relief
character. However, even he doesn't detract from the movie all that much (keep in mind that when
I saw this the second time, I found Jar Jar to be a whole lot more enjoyable than the first time around).

For a history lesson, this one kicks ass. I've never been so interested in learning where everything
came from. And it's still not over. Anakin's only a kid in this movie, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is a mere
apprentice to Qui-Gon Jinn, and we still get to see Palpatine's rise to power, not to mention the Clone
Wars and the Jedi Purge, and how Anakin is turned to the Dark Side...

And if you're looking for amazing light-sabre duels, look no further. If you thought those from Jedi were
amazing, these will make your brain turn to mush. Beautiful. I've never seen fighting like that. It was
simply amazing, with fast moves and impressive stunts. Also, now that we're onto the stunts (let's face it,
watching people jump and flip as they attack with their light-sabres at the same time is more than impressive)
it's quite interesting to see the Jedi use their Force powers to any extent at all. During the originals, all
we really see is Luke make one high jump (to escape the Carbon Freezing mechanism), the infamous Jedi Mind
Trick, and pulling an object towards him (such as his light-sabre). I won't say what you see here, but the
Force is used to do a few more things than just that.

Oh, and for the critics who have complained that there isn't enough on the storyline about the one who will
bring balance to the Force, get with it, man! This is the first movie! They've got another two to
expand on the idea! My God, you people! They call us movie-goers impatient! Sheesh!

Go see this movie. Don't make the same mistake the critics are making by assuming this will be as good as the
original (I'm still undecided on that one). This is the history, plain and simple. If you're a Star Wars fan,
you won't be disappointed. I certainly wasn't.

Video Re-review
*** out of 5

It's the same movie, pretty much, but this is a bit more than a simple re-viewing to see if the movie
is better on the small-screen or not. This is also a chance to see if the movie itself stands up to the test
and scrutiny of time and a reviewer who no longer has his head full of cobwebs of thinking how cool it
is to see the origins of it all.

First off, it's just as good on video as it was on the big screen. Now for the rest....

Main question: Does it stand up to the test of time? The answer to this is both a "yes" and a "no".
The special effects stand up, of course. They were fabulous, even though you can often tell what was
cgi and what wasn't.

Hence one of those "hindsight is 20/20" beefs of mine. The computer graphics. This movie is full of them,
and yet you can tell when you're watching the cg. This is, in my own personal opinion, bad. The cgi and
live-action should intermesh perfectly. In this, you can tell which is which. Hopefully they'll have this
small quibble of mine worked out for Episode Two.

The story, though... how does it stand? Not very well, sadly enough. Lucas had a lot of time to make this,
but all he really did was have fun with toys. That's what this movie amounted to, really, was one huge
plug for toys and shit like that. Ain't nothin' wrong with that, mind you, except when you could have
had one hell of a good political story. Instead, he focused on a lot of... well, nothing, really. That's
the sad thing, when you think about it: Nothing really happens in this flick. There's a story, there's some
action, there are lots of special effects, but overall what happens? Not bloody much. And this is sad,
because there could have been one hell of an interesting and amazing story come out of this.

I stand by one thing, though, and that's my statement that this is but the first in a series of six. There's
a lot of room for improvement, and Lucas sets out the groundwork for something that could be an amazing battle
of good versus evil: The Jedi versus The Sith Lords. I look forward to this. Let's hope that he works a
bit more on story in the next one. He had a good excuse for this movie, it being the first, but from this
point onward he has no excuses at all. Movie Review List