Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - Full Reaction

Anyone ever tell her Queen Amadala's decoy was played by Kieira Knightly

JPDotCom23

For the prequel trilogy, I am thinking to skip Episode I as many suggest, and only watch Episodes II and III. I have watched Episodes IV, V, and VI, The Mandalorian (S1 and S2), and Andor. I am age 60. 46 years ago - at age 14 I watched Episode IV in the theater when released. 20 years ago - I watched bits of Episode IV and other Episodes when playing them for my kids. 1-2 days ago - I watched closely Episodes IV, V, and VI.

Clay F

I just watched your reaction again (I'm rewatching all your Star Wars reactions) to this and noticed you were 100 percent into this movie. Your face during this whole movie was with interest, concern and joy. I somehow missed it last time Not my favorite movie, but definitely one of my favorite reactions!

Philip Alan

You have to watch your own copy of the movie along with her.

Philip Alan

I'm more forgiving than many fans regarding the prequel series but there are two things about this movie I can't stand. One is the racial stereotyping with Jar Jar Binks and Watto. Just terrible, racist caricatures. The other is all the CGI. The pod race is a perfect example. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and got a daily diet of so-called "car porn" ("Vanishing Point", "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry", "Gone In 60 Seconds", etc). In those movies, actual human beings got into cars and raced and jumped and crashed those cars - no fakery, which made the chases much more viscerally real to the audience. As a result, those chase scenes were FAR more exhilarating than the pod race in this movie. It's just one drawing chasing another drawing. There's absolutely nothing exciting about that. Also, as a side note, modern filmmakers too often mistake CGI for storytelling. And, sadly, audiences often seem to believe this to be the case as well. If you find yourself praising a movie for the quality of the CGI, I'd suggest that maybe you were too focused on the pretty pictures and not focused enough on the quality of the storytelling.

Just Plain Bob

why is it blurred?

You mentioned you were a fan of Natalie Portman. It made me think of another movie you may enjoy and likely haven't seen. Her break out role in The Professional. A 1994 film where a young (12 year old) Natalie Portman co-stars with Jean Reno, as well as one of my all time favorite actor, Gary Oldman.

Brian Wegner

Can't wait for Episode 3 now, best of the prequels by a lot

Dustin Nelson

Yeah I agree. Watch 2 then watch The Clone Wars of course.

CanadianNinja

Should be up in about an hour! It's encoding now!

Cassie

any idea when you'll be posting episode 2?

Itz_OTTO

People probably mentioned this but from what I recall, the idea of midiclorians ( bad spelling I know) is crap. That limits so much potential if you limit the ideas of who could or could not be a Jedi. Also If you are gonna watch episode 2 and 3, you may want to try The Clone Wars. It is a longer but good series to go side by side :)

GamerGal8684

Hey Sammi! Thanks for this - is there a video tutorial on how to do this?

Cassie

I remember being in the theater in 1999 - people were SO excited for this. No Star Wars since 1983 - 16 years! When that famous opening music and crawl came on the screen, everyone cheered - and a few had tears in their eyes. I felt a bit underwhelmed when I left the theater, but over the years, I have come to like this film a bit more. Yes, Jar-Jar is annoying, but he's for the kids (and Lucas has repeatedly said that ultimately, Star Wars is for kids). The effects are still remarkable in 2021. And the final action sequence (cutting between the 3 way lightsaber duel, the space battle for the control ship, the Gungans vs the droids in the fields, and Padme & team hunting the viceroy) shows that Lucas can be a master at thrilling action directing when he really puts his mind to it. Love your reactions!

Raj K. Dixit

I didn't think she did. Padmé, the character was 14 in the movie, I wasn't talking about the actress who played her.

Kal-El_138

If anyone needs help syncing the reaction to the movie on Disney+ you can try out this browser extension that I developed: https://www.casper.live/ You can pause and jump around in the reaction and everything is kept in sync. My recommended "offset" for this reaction is 58.1.

sammi

You know Padmé is 14 years old and Obi-Wan is 25 years old in this movie.

Kal-El_138

Watching that with you felt like watching it for the first time all over again. Can't wait for Ep. 2: Attack of the Clones.

Zachary Carter

The Sith (red & black guy) is Darth Maul. Darth is a title given to all Sith.

Chris Calvert

So glad you started this next trilogy...episode 2 will answer alot of the questions that will fill the void in...also try to pay attention to certain things at this point...I know its alot to soak in but memory does play alot to knowing what is starting to go on when you start to understand where Anakin's fate will go. Until episode 2!

Super J22