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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenjib" data-source="post: 97251" data-attributes="member: 530">I thought episode I was okay.  Not a bad movie but not as good as the older ones.  It definitely had higher production values than most sci-fi movies and was a quality film worth seeing.  It also had better effects, costumes, and choreography than the older movies.The podrace was pretty good but not nearly as good as something like the ol' death star trench run in EP IV, for example.  Consider how they built suspense by having several pilots, all with names, getting shot down and how you were made to care for each one.  I found this to be quite effective.  The pod race relied on the old "machine breaks down until the pilot magically hits some random switches and it works again" to build suspense.  Kind of a cop-out in my opinion.  Flipping a new metaphorical manual override switch every time something goes wrong is an old bit of worn out deus ex machina.  Consider when Han Solo hits the millenium falcon with his fist to get it going - that was very funny and a tongue in cheek way of having fun with this exact plot device.  That was a much more clever way of handling the same situation as the film was a bit self-aware regarding the fact that it was using a worn out cliche.  In episode I it is just blindly used without being aware of how worn out it is.  I won't delve into the whole believability issue regarding how such a racing industry, and experienced pilots, can even exist considering how the race unfolds, but this was a sticking point for me.The tan battle droids were not at all threatening due to their comedic appearance (unlike the threatening storm troopers), which completely ruined them for me as villains.  I half expected them to do the Three Stooges eye-finger poke thing to Obi Wan because they really reminded me of the skeletons in Army of Darkness.The fight between Jinn and Maul had no suspense or drama because Maul was never developed as a character.  He didn't seem like a very dangerous or important adversary because he never really did much throughout the film.  It was just a couple of guys fighting with glowing swords - not much beyond that.  It was okay but nothing special.  Darth Maul was only one step above mook - the "named mook."  Compare this to either of the duels between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, or even Darth Vader and the elder Obi Wan.  Dramatically, all three of those fights (one in each OT movie) were head and shoulders above the Darth Maul fight, even if the Darth Maul fight had more a contemporary choreography style.The problem was the way in which the dramatic parts of the film did not relate closely with the action parts of the film.  The drama all wove throughout the non-action scenes, the political negiations mostly.  The action scenes didn't carry all that much impact and so they felt like little more than eye candy.  The movie just doesn't hold together very well - it meanders and lacks a focus of gravity.On another note, I agree 100% with wolfspider that it's fair to judge a product by past history and advertisement.  You need to evaluate products before you buy them.  Furthermore, the trailor does give us insight into where the film is headed, what kinds of scenes it will entail, etc.</blockquote>

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