We-ell. So, I've seen The Phantom Menace. And, well, what can I say? It's got a good beat, but it's got no soul.
It was worth seeing in the theatre, and is certainly recommended by this humble (snicker) surly bastard, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
The first is that some time after Return of the Jedi was made, our George Lucas was exchanged with his counterpart from another dimension. While The Phantom Menace is certainly a technically superior movie, with some truly superb fight choreography and CGI scenes, it is not, in fact, a prequel to the previous trilogy. I'm not sure what it's a prequel to, but it certainly isn't those movies. Now, maybe it's a prequel to their altiversal counterparts, but this gets into metaphysical situations and stuff like that. Not that I'm averse to such things, but they tend to get a leeeettle bit confusing.
George Lucas has turned into John Byrne. For those of you who don't know what this means, let me explain. John Byrne writes comic books. And is actually a fairly good writer, when allowed to work on something that's short and to the point and doesn't have any sequels. His problem comes when he's asked to add stuff onto an existing story, to whit, he doesn't actually read the story he's adding onto, but cheerfully redefines things to fit his whim of the moment. Byrne taking over a book is generally referred to as "Byrning a character" by people who were previously readers. What comes out may be a gramatically correct and enjoyable story, but it will have only superficial connections to what came before, and will cheerfully invalidate previous continuity, assumptions, characterization, et cetera.
This, understandably, makes people surly.
Now, invalidating what's come before is generally known as "retconning", for "retroactive continuity". There are two ways to do this, really. One is not really bad at all, but still seems to make people surly, and it's taking something that wasn't firmly established before, and revealing it to be different than you've thought. For example, Luke and Leia being siblings in the original trilogy. While it might be stretching things a bit, nobody ever said they weren't so technically speaking it's "fair game".
The second way is to take facts that were actually established "on camera" and either ignore or... well, generally you just ignore them.
This is what makes people surly.
Another thing that makes people surly is excessive cuteness. It's fine in a comedy, but the comic relief should never actually win the day.
That being said... there are a lot worse movies you could go see.
Just don't let me catch you with any Star Wars merchandise, or I'll have to lop your arms off.
Oh, and stay until the end of the credits. Trust me. (Those two words should send people scrambling for the exits the moment the credits start to roll, heh heh...)
The Morning Weather: Cool and foggy.
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