re: #9 KGxvi

The Phantom Menace gets a bad rap. I still remember seeing it at a midnight showing, packed theater, and everyone was jazzed the whole time.

Prequels generally are hard to pull off because we all know how the story ends. But the movie was, ultimately, fun.

For me it was a really mixed bag.

Positives:
- Liam Neeson (I liked the way his character was at loggerheads with the council)
- Samuel L Jackson
- Natalie Portman
- Darth Maul
- The final lightsaber battle
- Palpatine/Sidious
- The underwater monsters
- I liked that Lucas tried to go bigger in scope, even if it wasn’t 100% successful.

Negatives:
- JAR JAR BINKS!
- Over reliance on CGI
- Jake Lloyd (though to be fair, he wasn’t given great dialogue to work with)
- Story seems too disjointed
- Secondary to that, the ending battle sequence seemed rushed and overly complex.
- Lack of background on the Jedi Council and the Republic
- Trade Federation guys are annoying.