Dir. George Lucas, USA, 1999, 133 mins
Cast: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Nathalie Portman
Review by Carol Allen
This is Episode I of the world’s most bizarrely ordered serial, which started in 1977 as simply Star Wars and then became Episode !V – A New Hope and the first part of a trilogy (V and VI). Then in 1999 George Lucas fulfilled his ambition of telling the beginning of the saga in Episode I of what was to be the prequel trilogy. This film, dear reader, is the one that tells you how it all began.
Jedi knights Qui-Gon Jinn (Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) take up arms in the name of The Force to protect Queen Amidala (Portman) and on the way discover a small boy Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), in whom The Force is phenomenally strong. And those of us who’ve seen the original trilogy (who over the age of 40 hasn’t?) and Episodes II andIII(2002 and 2005) know that Ewan McGregor is going to grow up to be Alec Guinness and Yoda (Frank Oz) is quite right in his doubts about little Anakin. That one is going to grow up to be a very bad boy indeed. It’s also the film in which Lucas creates one of the most irritating Star Wars characters ever in the twittery and incompetent creature Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best). Jar Jar, I seem to remember also upset the politically correct brigade in 1999, who accused the film of racism. Can’t see it myself. He’s just annoying. If anything, some of the members of the evil Trade Federation, with their Fu Man Chu type accents or the bumble bee type creature with the big nose, who has enslaved young Anakin, are far more racist, if you want to read that into what is after all just a fantasy.
So how does the film stand up after twelve years? Neeson dominates it on the acting front – just as well, as it was his only crack at the franchise – and McGregor as his acolyte is still to come into his own as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes II and III. The visual imagination of the film with its armies of battle droids and fantastical non human creatures is impressive, as are the set pieces such as the pod race, the city of Queen Amidala, and the vast courtroom, where she argues her case from a floating witness box. Does it benefit from now being in 3D? Not really. It adds little to the existing spectacle and sometimes looks more artificial than the flat screen, while those blasted dark glasses dim the colour.
Unless you’re a Star Wars fanatic, having gorged so much on big screen spectacle over the intervening years, it can actually get a bit tedious – a bit like eating too much chocolate cake. However there is a new generation of young filmgoers, who haven’t seen the film, at least in the cinema, and most of them will undoubtedly love it.
- posted on 24/05/2012 00:25:44
