In the beginning...

After sixteen years, we return to a galaxy far, far away, to learn the origins of Episodes 4, 5, and 6 (better known as Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi).

Music
For those of you who are fans of John Williams (the composer who wrote the music for all the Star Wars films), you will not be disappointed. From the very beginning, the music is grandiose, haunting, and very dramatic. The best sequence of music is The Duel of the Fates. This is the music in the background of the four-way battle going on in the space fighter battle above Naboo, the Jedi duel in the generator complex, the fight to capture the Viceroy in the Palace, and the ground battle between the droid army of the Trade Federation and the primitive army of the Gungans.

The music builds and builds from crescendo to crescendo. But the glue that binds the whole piece together is the haunting choral strains sung in Sanskrit.

Links between the old and the new
It is interesting how, when trying to introduce characters that we know and love, how many strange errors George Lucas made. Note Obi-Wan Kenobi's quote from Star Wars: A New Hope, when he said he couldn't remember owning a droid before, in reference to R2-D2. How could Obi-Wan have forgotten a droid who saved the royal starship when they were escaping the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo, or who helped Anakin Skywalker destroy the droid control ship.

In Empire Strikes Back, Yoda says that Luke Skywalker is young and impatient, to which Obi-Wan Kenobi responds: "Was I any different when you trained me?" And yet we see in Phantom Menace that Qui-Gon Jinn in fact trained Obi-Wan Kenobi as a Jedi.

These may seem like trivial matters, but considering the continuity of Episodes 4, 5, and 6, I find them strangely disturbing.

For those who thought it was lacking
Many people thought that Episode 1 was lacking in character development, as opposed to Star Wars: A New Hope. I find it to have accomplished its goal perfectly, and that I see as to introduce us to the characters who will form the backbone of episodes 2 and 3. The primary players: Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious, Queen Amadala, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda.

The special effects were breath-taking. From the CGI characters to the space vehicles, the detail was amazing. The space battles between the forces of Naboo and the Trade Federation were even more spectacular than the final battle around the new Death Star in Return of the Jedi. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) have labored to produce a truly spectacular film.

Despite the obvious plot holes, I fell in love with this movie from premiere night to the last time I saw it in the theater, to when I made it my own.