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If you're like me, you probably haven't watched Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace since its original release in 1999, because you've had literally anything else to do. And you probably think, in your hazy hindsight, that it's just "not that good" or "pretty bad" or some other relatively gentle descriptor that lets George Lucas off the hook for being an affably clumsy old billionaire man-frog. However, having recently rewatched Phantom Menace to prepare for its upcoming 3-D rerelease (do you like the Star Wars prequels but just wish you could also have a headache???), allow me to say this: HOOOOOO MY GOD FUCK US ALL BECAUSE THIS MOVIE GOT BIT BY A RADIOACTIVE GARBAGE AND IT IS A FUCKING MONSTERPIECE THEATER THAT TRANSCENDS BAD AND GOOD-BAD TO COME BACK AGAIN TO BAD AND REDEFINE COMEDY ITSELF. Seriously. Seriously. Drinking game: Take a shot every time something hella dumb happens and/or every time Jar Jar Binks makes you want to personally send tear-soaked reparations to 110 percent of the black people on earth. Oops, sorry about how you're dead now (alcohol poiz).
So it's space. Outer space. Something incredibly boring is happening (in space) involving trade tariff regulationatory senate subcommittees (space politics), and the space people are not happy about it! Someone sends Liam Neeson and Obi-Wan Beponytail to deal with it, on a ship. Everyone is robots. But Mssrs. Neeson and Ponytail are here on legitimate boring space business and they would like to speak to a non-robot immediately, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Specifically, they are looking to meet with these very tall CGI space bishops who speak in a sort of Jerky-Boys-fake- Chinese-restaurant-cashier patois because OH WHY NOT. Instead: Robots attack! For some reason! (Space reasons.) But anyway, it doesn't matter, because robots are stupid at fighting and so everyone escapes. NEXT.
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Down on a planet, Liam Neeson bumps into this fish-beast named Jar Jar Binks (meet-cute!), and they totally hit it off. Now, Jar Jar Binks... I'm not going to say he's worse than the Holocaust, because that's incredibly insensitive and I would never ever say anything like that. But... Jar Jar Binks also isn't better than the Holocaust. You know? Let's just leave it there.
The team heads out of town to meet up with this horrible child-slave named Anakin who is some sort of electronics mega- genius, which is totally annoying, but not as annoying as the fact that NOBODY IS EVEN IMPRESSED BY IT. Because sure. It's only a 4-year-old who built a flying car and a sentient mechanical man out of garbage. Oh, also, it turns out that this kid's mom is a 50-year-old virgin who got impregnated by mysterious space magic. Again, no one speaks of it. Unflappable cardboard motherfuckers.
Then, as a grand finale, there's like three hours of real-time space-senate negotiations, which somehow manages to be more boring than actual human C-SPAN, even though HALF OF THE SENATORS ARE ALIEN MONSTERS. And then Natalie Portman bangs that child-scientist. Not really, but she's gonna. Later. It's gross.
Seriously, though, was this movie made by Tim and Eric? Seriously. SERIOUSLY. Seriously. 
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There was one sequence where Portman had a clothing change in every jump cut!
Oh, and Lucas sucks.
I shudder to think anyone in their right mind would subject themselves -- or children! My God, think of the children! -- to that sewer trip, ever again.
No less in 3D.
The only hope in hell for my reviewing would be if it was re-released as a silent -- to be spared, at least, from the dialogue, as wooden as a redwood when it wasn't promoting racist stereotypes.
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I personally might be able to forgive him, but I would *never* *EVER* inflict Jar-Jar on myself or anyone else, ever again. I've got a feeling there's gonna be cobwebs on those theater seats in the cinemas where it's playing.
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There is no way I'm going to see the 3D re-release of this piece of shit. And I say that as a fan of the original Star Wars series.
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But Lindy [and pardon my poor writing; we're two margaritas into this, and I do tend to go on, when my blood is hot}, I generally love your writing (and obviously agree with you here, aside from your assertion that it "redefine[s] comedy itself"), but will have to side with Mr. Teller (short of his misogyny) if you don't make some effort to elevate your writing a bit. Seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY [I get to say stuff like that, as I'm not a journalist, nor paid to be a clever writer], I know that you write for a generally youthful audience, but it's not pre-teen is it? If I take another shot of tequila for each incidence in your review where the prose becomes "hella" silly, it'll pickle me good! Please take it back up a notch, before you become, in my mind, a pandering caricature [wow, michael, that was harsh, and a little hyperbolic, no? yes, but I was trying to evoke the irony of some Binx-ish imagery, and failed, my not being as clever as I think I am when drinking tequila]. Good day, sir.
Sure, it had its problems. Aside from Harrison Ford and the criminally underused Carrie Fisher, not a single performance is worth remembering; and Lucas categorically sucks at dialogue. But otherwise it's a model for what a franchise should hope to accomplish: a story arc that's long in time and broad in geography, and an ensemble cast engaged in a grand struggle.
Between Return of the Jedi and Fellowship of the Ring, there was almost a twenty-year drought where no media franchise approached Star Wars in quality, or even tried to. Lucas was something, once...
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