A couple of nights ago I listened to a very ernest 24 year old lad (cause they are always ernest) tell how much he loved the prequels. What phase you love of the Stars Wars is directed realted to your generation. I am in the 'I like Ewokes' generation. You know later Gen X - cause when did people decide people born in 1981 were Millennials? So since I was going to go through the series before the Rise of Skywalker I was going to watch the Prequels from the perspective of someone younger something who grew up with them - or I am going to try.

Firstly what I want from Star Wars is completely different from what I want from a movie and the two often clash. And that is not even trying to go into why these dopey movies about Space Wizards are so important.

As a Star Wars, it has the From A Galaxy Far Far Away, it has that Williams score, it has lots of dopey Space Wizards, doing dopey Space Wizards things. It has the tried and true, Villians be looking awesome but don't get to do much, and with some great sequences.

But as a movie, it's tonely all over the shop. Lucas falls into the Ridley trap, or Ridley had fallen into that Lucas trap, of so many ideas that it over takes everything, not just about the world but with the technology to do it with. George Lucas had to fall before Jame Cameron could run with Avaitor, then Marvel went hold my beer with previs. It's always going to be an important movie because of that.

I think Lucas was going for an over all thing, a more Roman thing. Which, is why non of the actors get to really emote anything, everything is this same mono level. Expect for poor Jake Lloyd, who deserved better direction from Lucas or the Assistant Directors. Whipyee!!!

Phantom Menace is always going to be a fascinating movie, easy to pick apart. But also easy to forget how influential this movie was for the new centuary, it got kids ready for CGI, Previs, Motion Capture. Lucas in many ways pushed how to make a movie forward, even if I still think we lost something with the loss of practical. Where I think that I reject this series a little and younger people love it. Cause damn it my Star Wars had sets as well as dopey Space Wizards. Maybe it's this divide that is at the centre of why Star Wars has become so divisive, it's a strick generational line because these movies do represent so much of childhood wonder, like me and Ewokes. Lucas in his patantic way created two very different wasys to make a movie both defining a generation. Though, non of any Start Wars director will ever ruin your childhood by doing something different with the series. Cause at the end of the day, it's dopey Space Wizards.