Star Wars, arguably the best set of films ever made and IMO they probably are. However, as much as I love Star Wars, there are some things that really annoy me about the films so I'm going to talk about them here and see who agrees/disagrees or just doesn't care cos they hate 'those filmsÂ’ (looks @ Teresa ).

First off I'll say that the original trilogy is brilliant. I must have seen all three films at least 1000 times each if not more and as geeky as this sounds I could probably quote my way through the entire script for Episode 4: A New Hope After watching these films as a kid I always hoped there would be sequels and the flurry of excitement at the news that instead of sequels we were getting prequels was just as great. I remember waiting to see The Phantom Menace, I remember sitting in the cinema in awe as the yellow Star Wars logo rolled up the screen. I remember leaving the cinema at the end of the film feeling...slightly disappointed Maybe my expectations were to high but The Phantom Menace just didn't work for me. Attack of the clones was better but still not a patch on A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. This gets a bit long so rather than do each film I'm going to do a separate post on each film. So this thread is dedicated to Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Try to keep all discussion about to just this episode and I'll add a thread about each film over the next couple of days.

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

The film starts off well enough, introduced to Qui-Gon Jinn and a young Obi Wan Kenobi, a brief battle with some robot soldiers and an introduction to the bad guys. All fine. It's when Obi Wan meets the worst muppet ever that the film starts to go downhill. Having characters like Jar Jar Binks in a film is all well and good from a merchandise point of view, I mean I loved the ewoks. He adds a comic spark for the kids (who the film is aimed at), which is fine. The thing that makes me hate Jar Jar is the voice. That first showing of TPM I didn't have a clue what he'd just said. [jar jar]Mesa wasa aving a boom bad time makin it out[/jar jar] It meant that parts of the story that Jar Jar explained I didn't get until either later in the film or when I'd watched it about 20 times. Its no wonder the rest of the Gungans banished him..none of the rest of them spoke as badly as he did.

Another thing that annoys me about this film is the introduction of R2-D2 & C3-PO. I love the droids. They're probably part of some of my favourite memories from the original trilogy but their presence in this film (and the other prequels) causes problems with the time line of the story IMO. 25 years after first meeting the droids Obi Wan Kenobi can't remember them when he meets them in the Dune Sea on Tatooine after saving Luke from the Tusken Raiders (See Star Wars: Episode 4 A New Hope for this scene) yet Obi Wan remembers them 10 years after meeting them when he sees them in Attack Of The Clones. This could be explained away by the fact that droids are common and mostly look alike to humans (in the same way as kettles and toasters do in our world) in the Star Wars galaxy. Also he says that he never owned any droids, which is true..from a certain point of view . Why do the droids not recognise Obi Wan though? One reason could be the toll age has taken on him making him look different to the droids, another could be that the droids memories were wiped after the last time they saw Obi Wan (which is the explanation I'd go for). Then you have the fact that Anakin built Threepio. Why doesn't he recognise his droid when he sees him all those years later?? Doesn't he recognise the names of both R2 & 3-PO??

Yoda's appearance in the prequels is another disappointment. To me it takes away from the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke meets Yoda for the first time. You're supposed to think this little green alien is some sort of waste of time parasite not one of the greatest Jedi Masters ever, however now if you've seen the prequels the minute you see him you'll know who it is. To me that spoils the surprise that Luke (and the audience) get when he reveals himself.

The midichlorians and the virgin birth is something else that really gets to me. Why did they even bother with this? Why couldn't Anakins dad have died when he was younger instead of a mystical birth?? Also if they've got a device that can measure midichlorians(and from the way Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan did it, it's not a difficult task) why didn't the Empire measure every baby when born and kill any with an above normal count that way ensuring the destruction of the Jedi?? I feel this was a sloppy job on Lucas' part of trying to give the Force a religious significance it didn't need and it shows by the fact the midichlorian storyline was dropped from Episode 2(as far as I can remember they don't get mentioned again after Ep 1). All it does for me is create inconsistencies within the story.

So what did I like about the film. The initial fight scene was entertaining. The middle of the film was okay if a little grating (Midichlorians ) but things got better when they were leaving Tatooine and were attacked by Darth Maul. From then on I enjoyed the film. The final battle between Qui-Gon, Obi_Wan and Darth Maul was really good and I liked the fact that Anakin destroying the droid control ship was vaguely similar to what Luke would do 25 years later in destroying the first Death Star.

So there you go my pet peeves for Episode 1. What do you think?? Episode 2 discussion will follow soon