Word: gon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...plot is familiar to anyone with access to a computer or magazine. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), hoping to settle a dispute between the flabby Republic and an insurgent Trade Federation, find Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) on the planet Naboo. Diverted to Tatooine, they meet the boy Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), who has a mysterious force--perhaps the Force. They amass for a fierce face-off against battle droids and the malefic Darth Maul (Ray Park...
...store for Anakin or even hint at a latent evil within him (although master Yoda is fervent in his assertion that he senses danger in the boy). The story doesn't really center on Anakin but on the Jedi, which is probably a mistake, because neither Qui-Gon nor Obi-Won is an engaging enough character to give the movie the gas it needs to really move...
...Which is not to discredit the performances. Neeson is a rock as the stoic Qui-Gon, an aging longhaired maverick among the Jedi who is uncannily certain of Anakin's great potential. And McGregor gives good Alec Guiness in a role that rarely gives him much to do but look concerned and buckle swash. Which he does splendidly--the lightsaber battles are perhaps the most authentically exciting parts of the film, and he and Neeson give us what we secretly missed in the original series--real fighting. We finally get a chance to see why the Jedi are considered...
...Watching the movie, one aches for a certain glory, but the camera never seems to linger long enough, and the awe and agony that pervaded the original movies never registers in the faces of Ewan McGregor or Liam Neeson. When those actors, respectively playing Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon, "swim" into an underwater metropolis at the start of the movie, one feels a tinge of wonder, but it is immediately muddled by over-done special effects. Often, the music is off (John Williams' score seems affixed, chopped up by Lucas' manic pace). And of course, one expects...
...Elsewhere, Lucas uses the old movies with less trite but equally lame intent. Qui-Gon needs to appear wise; thus, Lucas puts him in the back of a sea-pod cockpit, murmuring confident wisdom ("There's always a bigger fish.") just as Kenobi once presided behind Han Solo's pilot seat. Jabba's dancing girls return as masseuse-extras in a Tatooine hanger, once again serving to sprinkle Lucas' archetypal myth with just enough sexiness to be annoying...