The other day, Jason (from the first episode of this blog’s podcast, it’s all about first episodes it seems) gave me a pass to go see ‘Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’ since they had received a few of those at Astro Books.

  When I asked him if he was going, he made it clear he had no intention to go see it, despite being one of the biggest Star Wars fans that I know.

  Earlier tonight, I decided to go see it. For one thing, it was free anyway. Secondly I hadn’t seen that movie in a long while ever since the VHS tape I had of it broke about two years ago. Thirdly, I was curious about what the 3D would look like, coming from Lucasfilm and all… And finally, I recalled that when it first came out and I was a teenager, I actually really enjoyed the movie! Sure it couldn’t compare to the original movies, but what could?

  As it turns out, while I was watching the movie I was reminded of the character of Andrew from the t.v show ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ when he said “I’m bored… Episode 1 bored!”

  This movie is not only bad, but it’s also boring! Except for the pod race and the fight scenes with Darth Maul, which are incredibly small portions of the film, nothing of interest happens at all!

  But I’m not telling anyone anything new. What I struggled to understand was how come I liked it so much back when I was a teenager. Sure, someone could point out that maybe I was less difficult when it came to action/adventure movies, but if anything I would have had less tolerance towards a movie lacking in action. So what was it?

  It dawned on me as I watched it… Quite simply because when it came out, the effects were amazing, like nothing we had seen before! It’s not unlike Avatar, where the effects are what made the movie and years later when it’ll have only its story to stand the test of time, it won’t seen under a very good light. (Though at least Avatar is entertaining despite its average-at-best story and has a lot of action going for it, but I digress) I then remembered that when I owned a copy of the VHS tape of Episode 1, I would always fast-forward many scenes of the movie to get to the good stuff, which were the pod race and the lightsaber fights. The rest I pretty much skipped. (Having a DVD of the movie would have made that even easier, and thinking back on it, maybe it was the constant fast-forwarding that made my VHS copy become more used than it should have been and break years later?) I mean, even during the final duel I would fast-forward all the parts with Anakin inside the ship and Amidala infiltrating the castle, I just wanted to see the fight against Darth Maul! In a way, by realizing this, I got to forgive myself for having once liked this movie. I still have good memories of seeing it and discussing the universe of Star Wars with my friends, even if I cannot enjoy the movie itself one bit these days!

  Oh and the 3D? Pointless, you barely notice it most of the time.