Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

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Movie Details

• Genre: Drama, SciFi/Fantasy
• Release Date: 2012-02-10 Nationwide
• Running Time: 131 min.
• Director: George Lucas
• Cast: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid
• Producer: Rick McCallum, George Lucas
• Writer: George Lucas
• Distributor: 20th Century Fox
• Official Site: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Official Site

Just as episodes IV through VI and their "special editions" offered slightly tweaked yet soothingly familiar forms of nostalgia, Star Wars circa 1999 is pretty much the same as it ever was--that is, the epic tale, told with weird creatures and whizzing spaceships, of Good's miraculous triumph over Evil. To put it another way: After untold hours spent scratching his beard in monastic seclusion, George Lucas finally has the power to "paint" the frame digitally in any color he chooses--and yet, what do you know, his favorite shade of character is still white. At least this xenophobic prequel dares to explain the insidious genetic reasoning by which nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), future father of Luke, comes to be selected for the privilege of Jedi-dom: Seems an unusually high concentration of Force-ful material was found in the young master's blood. Where the original Star Wars arguably had to do with earning one's way into the elite, Episode I, perhaps because its (box-office) future has already been told, is tediously Calvinistic in celebrating the power of predestiny. According to the dour Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), Anakin is "the Chosen One" who, born of a virgin mother(!), is fated to bring "balance to the Force"--but only if he can separate from his mom (Pernilla August) without remorse. Gee--any guess as to what phantom menace will turn poor Anakin into Darth Vader in Episode II? (Rob Nelson)