> First one is obvious....Cut down Jar Jar Binks' Urkel-esque performance.
>

Yep. I don't *hate* Jar-Jar, but his character was overused.

> They could have really used Darth Maul a bit more.
>

Yep. See above, but reverse it.

> In the case of the Phantom Menace, I think 'less' could have been 'more'. They tried to fit too much into the movie. Maybe they could have focused more on the important things and cut out all the crap.
>

Maybe. I felt sort of the same way after the first viewing, but upon seeing it the second time, SWE1:TPM started to seem much less thinly spread out, and I could see the cohesiveness of the plot. At this point, I'm inclined to think it covered pretty much the right amount of ground plot-wise, and did a fine job of story-telling.

> I was talking to a friend today that I haven't talked to in a while. We got on the subject of the Phantom Menace. He mentioned that he liked it (I did too, just thought it could have been better) but that it was one of those movies that made you feel guilty for liking it. Like if you got caught going to see Babe in the movie theater. It was too much of a kids movie. I would have definitely balanced out the story a little more and made at least some of it aimed towards adults. You figure die hard star wars fans probably saw the first StarWars when it was originally in the theaters. Why make a kids movie when obviously Star Wars core fan base is people between 20 and 40?
>

Your feeling is shared by many, many people. I felt the very same way until I recently read an interview with George Lucas in which he claimed that the Star Wars movies are *supposed* to be childrens' movies; they're created with that audience in mind. The appeal that they hold for older audiences is incidental, and explicable in a couple of ways. First, many of those "older" audiences used to be younger--weren't many of us children when Star Wars first captured our imaginations? We were kids, attracted to a kids' movie. Same thing is happening with today's kids and TPM.

Second, as Sam is fond of pointing out, Star Wars can be seen as a modern myth, something with cross-generational appeal. Plenty of grown-ups enjoy the Star Wars myth, but that needn't alter the fact that at bottom, they're intended to be childrens' movies. I guess that if I have to endure Jar-Jar's painfully silly antics during the course of the movie, it makes me feel better to reflect that he's not in there for my benefit at all--he's intentionally designed as a character with appeal for children. George Lucas may not have made exactly the Star Wars movie that you or I wanted to see, but at least he wasn't *trying* to do so. :-)

> I'm also one of those people that won't judge the Phantom Menace alone. When I see all three prequels I'll judge them as a whole, because the Phantom Menace is like part 1 to a really long drawn out mini-series.
>

Good policy. I'm eagerly awaiting the next two installments for the same reason.

Iss "when are we going to see a Phantom Menace review in At-A-Glance?" achar