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The Phantom Menace, the 1999 prequel, is the first 3D re-release of the entire Star Wars saga. Now playing nationwide, click for movie times and trailer.
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In 3D-ifying his six film saga, George Lucas has found yet another way to gather revenue from the increasingly less beloved franchise (I can't wait for the holocube editions in 2021!), but it must bother him that the first one to be released is the most famously derided film of the last twenty years. Still, I embrace any opportunity to see an old film on the big screen and I was curious to see how this would hold up a decade after I last watched it.

The things that were good about The Phantom Menace in 1999 now seem even cooler: the pod race (which feels right at home in 3D); the undersea monsters and the final showdown with Darth Maul.

Conversely, the stuff that reeked in 1999 is now even more painful – the yawn-inducing political plot; those weird Asian stereotype aliens; people saying 'mesa' and 'yousa' and Jake-freaking-Lloyd. Indeed, more than any other single element (save perhaps, the script), Lloyd's terrible performance as young Anakin Skywalker ruins The Phantom Menace (He's a grown up now, he can take it).

The 3D effect in the film is relatively (and pleasingly) subtle, with a slight fuzziness marking this separate from the crystal clarity of other recent 3D sci-fi movies. It can't do much, however, to distract you from the fact that this film remains one of the most devastating fudged opportunities in the history of cinema. Kids might like it, though.

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