A complete information embargo, of course, was impossible. I knew there was a movement afoot to kill Jar Jar Binks, that there was a slight air of disappointment among fans, and that various ethnic groups had taken umbrage at perceived racial slurs based on character design and accent. I even knew Qui-Gon Jinn dies. Other than that, I was an Episode I virgin.
Well, now I've seen it, and my opinion is it could have been better. I enjoyed it, but I left the theater with none of the emotional connection to the characters I felt with the original trilogy. Frankly, I was so benumbed by the constant barrage of digital wizardry that I couldn't make a human connection to the real live characters.
This isn't to say this is a bad movie. Yes, the plot thread is anorexic. If this were a book in a print trilogy, I'd say it suffered from Second Book Syndrome. That's when a writer has too much material for two books but not quite enough for three. What usually happens is that the first and third books are full of story, but the middle volume has only a bridging storyline that's padded with flashbacks to volume one, foreshadowing to volume three, and a lot of relevant but not necessarily significant business. Sound familiar?
The Phantom Menace was replete with talented actors, all of whom did an outstanding job of creating something from not much. Certainly there was none of the background material we had on Luke, Leia and Han, sketchy as it was. Tell me honestly - what do you really know about Queen Amydala or Obi-Wan or (fill in the blank)? The dialogue, unlike the witty repartee that made the first trilogy such a delightful romp, is pompous and unoriginal. The only time two people actually talked to each other instead of orating at each other was the tiny scene en route to Coruscant when Padme-cum-Amydala and Anakin tell how much they care about each other.
The lack of realistic dialogue may be a factor in the vast amount of annoyance generated by Jar Jar. It isn't that this digital character is too animated and intrusive, but that everyone else is so wooden and flat he sticks out like my cowlick on a bad hair day. As for the alleged racial slurs, those accusations are ridiculous. The "Jewish" junk dealer's accent is more Italian-Hungarian than Yiddish, and the Trade Federation's "Oriental" accents are perfectly in tune with their anatomy. The same can be said for the "Jamaican patois" the Gungans speak. To this listener, the pidgin sounded quite logical in view of both Gungan anatomy and the fact that they had little contact with humans.
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