“When did the Clone Wars happen?” “Where was Anakin Skywalker from?” “Why are there so few Jedi?” These were just many of the questions audiences asked about Star Wars for so many years, and George Lucas decided to hop back on to creating another trilogy of Star Wars movies leading to A New Hope. Despite so many people getting their hopes up and anticipating so much, the prequel trilogy ended up doing more harm than good with bad storytelling, poor characters, etc. and infuriating viewers. After nearly 25 years, exactly what the Phantom Menace is wrong with the Phantom Menace?

Naboo is suffering from the Trade Federation disallowing any shipments, so two Jedi, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, are sent to investigate. During this, they are forced to make a pit stop in Tatooine while trying to get people from Naboo to Coruscant and come face to face with Anakin Skywalker. After Anakin wins the amount of money needed to repair the ship, he and the Jedi duo go to Coruscant to alert the galactic senate of the republic of the Trade Federation’s cruelty. Returning to Naboo, the people of Theed tell the warlike species known as the Gungans to join them in retaking the planet from the federation’s grip.

Okay, seriously? If Jar Jar Binks is truly George Lucas’s favorite Star Wars character then he should’ve gotten therapy. I almost wonder if George Lucas masturbates to him at least 8 hours a day!

The CGI characters look awful and were already dated looking when the Phantom Menace came out. A lot of comments I’ve seen about the CGI characters range from mentioning the glob monster from JumpStart 1st grade looking tame in comparison or that it looks like game cutscenes.

Y’know for being a slave owner, Watto doesn’t seem that cruel. I expected more hostility in him toward Anakin.

Coruscant is basically like Camelot, only with flying machines. Least they’re keeping somewhat in line with some of the medieval fantasy influences in the original trilogy.

So if Anakin created C3P0, and C3P0 goes “Thank the maker!” in A New Hope, did he… nah, he didn’t know Anakin was Vader anyway and his memory was cleaned out afterwards.

Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd didn’t deserve any hostility for their roles in the Phantom Menace.

Comparing quality to Disney animated features puts the Phantom Menace around Bambi and Sleeping Beauty.

1. Rugor Nass is hilarious.
2. The pod race scene.
3. Anakin was fine. Not what we were hoping for but close enough. If anything I preferred this Anakin over his later appearances in the Prequels since he’s not bitching all day long. His redemption in Return of the Jedi was still far better though.
4. Darth Maul vs. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.
5. Funny moments like when one of the racers freaks out and blows up.
6. For all the bad characters in this movie, there’s still some good ones like Darth Maul.
7. Great soundtrack by John Williams, typical of all Star Wars movies.
8. The subtle yet haunting Imperial March melodies give a hint toward Anakin’s dark future. At the end of the credits you can hear Vader’s breathing too.

1. Getting this out of the way… sigh… Jar Jar Binks. Nothing but a racist stereotype and not even funny. I remember in theaters seeing this and the entire audience laughing at Jar Jar eating fruit. Jar Jar is the Phantom Menace if you think about it. As I mentioned earlier, his only purpose for existing was for something for George Lucas to masturbate to.
2. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are rather aggressive for being Jedis and this continues throughout the prequels. Luke didn’t get anywhere near as violent as these two, with the worst being he was taunted to the point where he caught himself slashing Vader’s hand off in Return of the Jedi!
3. Palpatine coercing the Royal House of Naboo to sign a treaty is an insult to a great villain. Going further, the crawl says stuff about taxation and shipping. That doesn’t sound like Star Wars. Obviously politics were always a major part of Star Wars but taxation and trade federation don’t fit the atmosphere.
4. Midichlorians were an assault on the mysticalness of the Force. I thought George Lucas said Star Wars was a high fantasy franchise – or at least somewhat close!
5. You’ll get more enjoyment out of pod racing if you play Star Wars Episode One Racer (preferably on the Dreamcast) or Racer’s Revenge.
6. Some of the dialogue is awful. Who the hell says “big doo doo” or “p-yousa” in the Star Wars universe?!!
7. Going back to stereotypes, the Gungans as a whole can be considered this, as can Watto and the Trade Federation leaders.
8. The Jedi were always to believed to be some amazing knights of the round table, but what are they doing here? Nothing but going “duhhhhhhh there’s no such thing as the Sith” throughout the movie until Qui-Gon’s funeral. Fucking idiots.
9. There is way too much filler. You could remove almost everything in the galactic senate including the vote of no confidence bullshit. Why not just say that someone assassinated the old chancellor and just have Palpatine as a heir?
10. 95% of Phantom Menace has almost no connection with the other prequels except for Anakin and Palpatine becoming the supreme chancellor.
11. The CGI hasn’t aged well (even for 1999 it looked dated) and most of the characters that were fully CGI could have been made without being CGI and looking far better. A lot of these characters could’ve been made by just having people in costumes, stop motion animation, animatronics, or other methods. This is a major issue with an over-reliance on CGI in so many movies in the late 1990s and even as recent as the last few years (see some of the live action Disney hackjobs to understand where I’m going with this).