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This blog will be all about film reviews. I'm going to be watching a lot of movies, writing reviews, and hopefully not spoiling any movies you plan to watch.
Director: George Lucas Verdict: Thumbs Up (just) The opening movie of the Star Wars prequels, The Phantom Menace is possibly the most expositional movie ever created. Looking at the franchise as a whole, it feels almost as though it was the sacrificial lamb offered to the Force so that the rest of EVERYTHING may make sense, and yet it is really just the beginning of the disastrous crashing, burning wreckage of the whole prequel trilogy. The premise of the movie is to establish the events of the upcoming movies and the series as a whole, how the Empire came to be. The Story revolves around the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo, leading to a Galactic Senate to question what is going on. Through a series of unfortunate events, two Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi end up on the backwater planet of Tatooine. It is there that they discover Anakin Skywalker, who is very strong with the Force. They rescue Anakin from slavery and save the planet of Naboo. However in the process, Qui-Gon is killed by a Sith, Darth Maul. Enraged, Obi-Wan Kenobi cuts Darth Maul in half and reunites with his Master just long enough from Qui-Gon to tell him that Anakin is the Chosen One. I’m not sure what George Lucas was trying to achieve with this movie. He seems to have gone out of his way trying to over explain everything that would come to follow in the next two movies. This is really bizarre because the first Star Wars movie had almost no exposition and just got on with the story. Had this been the case with The Phantom Menace, a small amount of exposition could have been focused on finding Anakin but the rest could have been a brilliant film about the arrival of the Sith. This would have helped transform the whole of the prequel trilogy that could have resulted in a remarkably better feel. Instead, The Phantom Menace was the bearer of bad news and was only really remarkable for the brilliant lightsaber duel between Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenodi and Darth Maul. The sadness that fills any Star Wars fan when they hear of The Phantom Menace is do to the massive let down of it and the prequels as a whole. It could have been so much better but was strangled, mugged, and drowned in endless exposition that made the movie borderline painful to watch.
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June 2018
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