posted 05-19-99 03:11 AM ET            

A shiver went down my spine as soon as the Star Wars scrolled across the screen, showed "Episode I", and it was all uphill from there.

Ewan McGregor has Obi-Wan down pat, Ian McDiarmid is an excellent Senator Palpatine.

posted 05-19-99 01:20 PM ET         

It's open here, people are going crazy 'cause they're having these 24 hour marathon showings at theatres. I can't get any work done here.

I'll watch it in a few weeks, when the initial craze has died down...

posted 05-20-99 02:09 PM ET            

The one thing that dragged the movie down was Jar...Jar..Binks. A "touch" overbearing? More like completely totally evil and awful! It pained me to see him attempt to make jokes! Deeply! And they made plot holes in order to include him. So they need a navigator, I can buy that. But he doesn't help at all, and they're like "Don't worry, we'll just use the Force to guide us." And Qui Jon doesn't want to take the queen's first lady in waiting, or whatever she claimed to be, because it's gonna be rough on Tatooine, but he has no problem taking Jar Jar, who almost gets them killed. Plus, he's a marine creature, on a desert planet! He even complains about it! He has no useful purpose on Tatooine. He should stay on the ship. And of course, doesn't everybody love the Gunguns getting slaughtered as comic relief? That seemed a bit wrong to me.

posted 05-20-99 03:28 PM ET            

Actually, when they announced the names of Senators running for Chancellor, I heard 'Bail Antilles of Alderaan.' Bail Organa is supposed to be Leia's adopted father, and was a Senator in the Republic. I wonder if this is just another novel-disrupting bit of info. Remember, the droids in Ep4 were 'property of Captain Antilles,' and 'Wedge Antilles' is the pilot who Luke told to get clear during the Death Star run. I wonder if it'll be cleared up in the next two movies...
I think the Jedi Council knows the Republic is in trouble. They know what Anakin could do if he were trained; hasten the end. Then stuff happens to screw up their plans, and allow Obi-Wan to train him, perhaps just to make it official (nothing worse than a Jedi training a child while he's feeling animosity towards the Jedi Council...)
And Qui-Gon was *wrong*. Anakin doesn't bring balance to the force; his children do.
That isn't 'little Greedo'...it's just a child Rodain (Rodian? Can't remember spelling). That kid would be 40+ years old when Ep4 rolls around; Greedo wasn't.
Ep1 was surprisingly consistant with the other three movies; I see no real conflicts or holes so far.

posted 05-21-99 08:00 AM ET            

No plot points here, but I will say the sabre fight scenes are much improved. The fighters stand closer to each other (ie. actually within striking distance), seem to be aiming for each other more than each other's weapon, and the pace of the fights are picked up a bit. Normally the acrobatic stunts would be enough to turn me off, but given the premise of the Jedi Knight, it fits in really well and creates some amazing scenes.

posted 05-22-99 01:47 PM ET            

Jar-Jar was the only bad part about the movie.In the book he wasent annoying.

posted 05-28-99 08:49 PM ET            

Now, compare that to the movie Lucas should have made (i.e. a good Star Wars movie), which would have made a much better impression. If there were cool characters and cool ships, people would be all over them.

In addition, this episode serves as a commercial for the next two. I know a lot of people who have said that they would not be eager to see the next movie, based off of this one. I'm betting that a lot more people will wait for reviews on the next one.