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Part I of VIII
Aaa, yes. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Hated by many, moderate to most, and loved by some. It’s the movie that continued this saga’s impressive downward spiral by turning out to be one of the grandest disasters in blockbuster history. I must admit, as a kid, I ravished this prequel. I really did—and I’m sure most who grew up with it did as well. But with the gain of around two decades, opinions began to change, thus creating my current stance on George Lucas’s The Phantom Menace: It’s not particularly…good. In fact, it’s borderline s***.
There are some things I can fathom about The Phantom Menace: parts of the pod-racing sequence, the locations, (some of) the character designs, the EPIC lightsaber battle, and DUEL OF FATES (TAKE THAT NEW DISNEY STAR WARS TRILOGY SCORE). But… that’s about it. Yeah? Yeah.
Story-wise, this movie has little going for it, and this further confirms why I firmly believe this prequel tale revolving around Anakin Skywalker could’ve been appropriately wrapped up into one movie (AKA, basically just Revenge of the Sith). Everything that happens in this movie is just plain…vanilla—especially when you compare it to the eccentrically colorful narratives of the original trilogy. Furthermore, as many have said, the acting is quite poor, the writing is unbearable, the humor is pathetic, the cartoonish tone is absolutely DISGRACEFUL, the special effects have held up worse than grocery milk, the cinematography is of the equivalent to a moldy potato, and the movie is just too damn lengthy.
But hey, there’s no way the next Star Wars movie could possibly be any duller…
Verdict: D
“Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” is now available to stream on Disney+.
Burning the Celluloid 
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