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Star Wars Episode I - Die dunkle Bedrohung
Ein grandioser Welterfolg!
DVD - ab 25. Oktober! Jetzt vorbestellen!
Es war einmal: Anakin - Luke Skywalkers Vater - ist neun Jahre
alt und ahnt noch nicht, dass er dereinst als Darth Vader das
Universum unterjochen will. Obi-Wan Kenobi macht sich gerade auf
den langen, schweren Weg zum Jedi-Ritter-Ruhm. Doch dunkel drohen
am Horizont die Zeichen einer neuen Zeit. Ein grandioser Welterfolg.
Regie: natuerlich Georg Lucas.
Club-Preis: DM 44,95
Klicken Sie hier: http://www.derclub.de/dse/product?125534&ID=33

(DER CLUB Newsletter)

http://www.dvdinside.de/dvd-inside/arch ... 0901-1.htm zeigt neben einer Zusammenfassung der technischen Details seit heute auch Menübilder der Doppel-DVD.

George Lucas hat einen langweiligen Geschmack.

--
Aleph

Ein grandioser Welterfolg!

hmmm...
sicher ?

Ja sicher doch *g*!

Hier alles weitere zu den 4 Stunden Zusatzmaterial:
http://www.dvdinside.de/dvd-inside/arch ... 0901-1.htm

CU
~Harry

[ Diese Nachricht wurde geändert von: Harry am 2001-09-09 00:04 ]

New York Times

May 19, 1999, Wednesday

THE ARTS/CULTURAL DESK

FILM REVIEW; In the Beginning, the Future

By JANET MASLIN

Things look dicey for the new ''Star Wars'' crew when their undersea craft is
threatened by a large aquatic critter. But then an even mightier beast appears,
and it swallows up the first. ''There's always a bigger fish,'' observes the Jedi
sage Qui-Gon Jinn, speaking for more than marine life on the planet Naboo,
where the sequence takes place. That description also sums up the earthly
atmosphere into which George Lucas's pathologically anticipated ''Star Wars:
Episode I -- The Phantom Menace'' arrives today.

Mr. Lucas's new opus is only a movie. This revelation has touched off shock
waves in a cultural climate (much stranger than Naboo's) where anything short
of the biggest, splashiest and most moneymaking qualifies as a galling flop.
And the reception of ''The Phantom Menace'' has not been helped by
spoilsport tie-ins that make it (according to an item in The Hollywood
Reporter) ''the first film that will make money even if nobody buys a ticket to
see it.'' Nobody, not even camp followers ready to turn this souped-up ''Star
Wars'' into the second coming of the Grateful Dead, wants to be sick and
tired of a film before it hits the screen.

But stripped of hype and breathless expectations, Mr. Lucas's first installment
offers a happy surprise: it's up to snuff. It sustains the gee-whiz spirit of the
series and offers a swashbuckling extragalactic getaway, creating illusions that
are even more plausible than the kitchen-raiding raptors of ''Jurassic Park.''
While the human stars here are reduced to playing action figures, they are
upstaged by amazing backdrops and hordes of crazily lifelike space beings as
the Lewis Carroll in Mr. Lucas is given free rein. The ''Star Wars'' franchise
was funnier and scrappier when it was new. But it simply wasn't capable of
this.

There are film series that grow palpably desperate for inspiration as they age,
but ''Star Wars'' isn't one of them. If the real Force at work is Mr. Lucas's
boyish belief in the sci-fi universe he has created, then it hasn't dimmed. It's
not hard to believe that the story of ''The Phantom Menace,'' a genesis for the
trio of films we already know, was always on a back burner somewhere. Or
that the hundreds of design and computer-graphics artists who have brought
Mr. Lucas's imaginings to life here really believe this epic fable and think you
should, too. In the beginning, according to ''The Phantom Menace,'' there
were noble Jedi (''the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy'') and a
whole lot of trouble-shooting to be done. Though Mr. Lucas's screenplay
carries far more baggage in the form of interplanetary turf wars and highly
ceremonial political wrangling, the basics will suffice. What matters is that the
series' sense of good and evil is still quaintly naive, just as its notion of
remains rooted in movie traditions much less nihilistic than today's. The big
battles are crisply staged and sadism-free.

Appealing To the Inner Child

It goes without saying that those scenes also work hard to have kiddie appeal.
''You mean I get to come with you in your starship?'' exclaims pint-sized
Anakin Skywalker, the prepubescent who will grow up to be Darth Vader
and who is the new film's most pandering creation. Played in conventionally
cute style by towheaded Jake Lloyd and outfitted as a junior Luke
Skywalker, Anakin seems to be here mostly to try out the film's many toys.
Only in the bland conception of Anakin is ''The Phantom Menace'' really
undermined by its own innate boyishness. There's no hint of the future in him,
though the audience knows this is one high-pitched voice that's really going to
change.

In a notable change of pace, the earnest Swedish actress Pernilla August
(''The Best Intentions'') goes from playing Ingmar Bergman's mother to
Darth's, as a ''Star Wars'' madonna nobly raising her boy on the desert planet
Tatooine. Unlike much of what is seen in ''The Phantom Menace,'' Tatooine is
familiar from the first films, but it has been brightened to suit the new film's
visual brio. The rogues' gallery on Tatooine is also new and improved, led by
the blue, winged Watto, the alien most skilled at upstaging the film's humans.

The showpiece pod-racing sequence on Tatooine (''Ben-Hur'' with jet
engines) is a model of the film's cheerful ingenuity. The stadium is huge and
filled with excitable creatures. Anakin's chief rival has flesh dreadlocks and a
wicked grin. The course sends racers hurtling through a video-game
Monument Valley. Each racer is of a different species, just as the pods are
differently designed and make different noises; look closely, and each has a
tiny flag to match. Somebody has even bothered to come up with Tatooine
ideograms that appear on the pods' instrument gauges. As if all that weren't
enough, Jabba the Hutt makes a humorous cameo appearance from the
stands.

Without excessive clutter, ''The Phantom Menace'' stays that busy in each of
its exotic settings. The terrific design team led by Doug Chiang has effectively
put global culture in a blender and come up with what is still the series' ace in
the hole: a viewer-friendly fusion of the bizarre and the familiar. Just as the
creature designs show off a playful knowledge of zoology, the space cities
jumble and recycle earthly architecture with mischievous abandon. One of the
real jaw-droppers, a spectacular underwater bubble city, looks for all the
world like an elaborate Art Nouveau lamp.

New Creatures, Old Notions

The filmmakers could have been smarter about throwaway references when it
came to the ethnic hallmarks of their creatures. Some of the most unsightly
villains sound embarrassingly like dated stereotypes from the sinister Orient.
And lop-eared, clownish Jar Jar Binks is made noxious by his obsequious
Caribbean-sounding patois. Only when it comes to the new Darth Maul does
the film have no toes to step on since his Devil makeup and horned head
speak for themselves. The martial arts expert Ray Park makes him a villain
you'll love to hate.

The other actors are often sandbagged by the physical demands of their roles.
As Qui-Gon Jinn, Liam Neeson carries himself gallantly and gamely converses
with creatures (''Patience, my blue friend''), but he can't make it look easy.
Ewan McGregor, a naturally dashing actor, is stymied by the flat and passive
character of young Obi-Wan Kenobi, though his echoes of Sir Alec Guinness
are uncanny at times. Natalie Portman, under the weight of gaudily
breathtaking costumes, becomes a one-woman doll collection as Naboo's
Queen Amidala. (Who can fail to love this story's character and place
names?) But she and young Mr. Lloyd, as the future parents of Luke
Skywalker and Princess Leia, are often wooden as can be.

Just as ''Star Wars'' became one of the most widely imitated pop phenomena
of its time, ''The Phantom Menace'' looks like a template for a new generation
of computer-generated science fiction. And unlike ''The Matrix,'' another film
liable to spawn imitations, it is sweetly, unfashionably benign. Whether
dreaming up blow-dryer-headed soldiers who move in lifelike formation or a
planet made entirely of skyscrapers, Mr. Lucas still champions wondrous
visions over bleak ones and sustains his love of escapist fun. There's no better
tour guide for a trip to other worlds. Bon voyage.

''Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace'' is rated PG-13 (Parents
strongly cautioned). It includes battle scenes that are as good-hearted as
battle scenes can be.

STAR WARS
Episode I -- The Phantom Menace

Written and directed by George Lucas; director of photography, David
Tattersall; edited by Paul Martin Smith; music by John Williams; production
designer, Gavin Bocquet; creatures effects by Nick Dudman; visual effects
supervisors, Dennis Muren and John Knoll; visual effects art director, Doug
Chiang; animation supervisor, Rob Coleman; produced by Rick McCallum;
released by 20th Century Fox. Running time: 132 minutes. This film is rated
PG-13.

WITH: Liam Neeson (Qui-Gon Jinn), Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi),
Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala), Jake Lloyd (Anakin Skywalker), Ian
McDiarmid (Senator Palpatine), Pernilla August (Shmi Skywalker), Ahmed
Best (Jar Jar Binks), Frank Oz (voice of Yoda), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace
Windu) and Ray Park (Darth Maul).

Published: 05 - 19 - 1999, Late Edition - Final, Section E, Column 3, Page 1

New York Times

May 21, 1999, Friday

MOVIES, PERFORMING ARTS/WEEKEND DESK

TAKING THE CHILDREN; With the Force
as Ever, A Generation Far, Far Away

By Peter M. Nichols


Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace

Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian
McDiarmid, Ahmed Best, Terence Stamp, Ray Park, Frank Oz
Directed by George Lucas
PG-13 132 minutes

In a galaxy far, far away, the time is a generation before the original ''Star
Wars'' (1977), and (no huge surprise here) the powerful are about to dispose
of some inconvenient little folk.

For bureaucratic reasons that don't seem to matter much, the tiny planet of
Naboo is singled out for attack by the giant Trade Federation, which is
controlled by an electrostatic see-through presence named Darth Sidious.
Naboo's Queen Amidala (Ms. Portman), a diminutive teen-ager with a
startlingly throaty voice but not much in the way of a defense force, must
succumb and is taken prisoner.

Amidala, though, has the allegiance of two Jedi knights, the wise older hand
Qui-Gon Jinn (Mr. Neeson) and the able but inexperienced Obi-Wan Kenobi
(Mr. McGregor). Together the pair dismantle scores of Federation soldiers
(robotic contraptions called droids) with their light sabers and eventually
rescue the Queen, who determines to mount a resistance.

On the remote planet of Tatooine, the knights encounter Anakin Skywalker
(Jake Lloyd), a tow-headed 9-year-old boy with a gift of gab and a genius for
things mechanical. And Qui-Gon Jinn senses more: the lad may look like a
refugee from ''Leave It to Beaver'' but the Force is clearly with him. Train him
right and he could be a knight among knights.

For now, young Skywalker runs away with the pod race, a wildly exciting
contest between jet-powered chariots that does ''Ben Hur'' proud. Later he
hops in a star fighter and, though he can barely see over the dashboard,
plunges into the climactic battle for Naboo.

VIOLENCE -- The two knights duel furiously with their light sabers and there
are big battle scenes, with armies laid to waste and space ships erupting in
great orange fireballs. But the violence is bloodless and often more industrial
than fleshly or disturbing.
SEX -- None.
PROFANITY -- None.
FOOTNOTE -- For all the ''Star Wars'' fanaticism, this is also a children's
film. Convoluted in its details, the story is easy to follow in broad outline.
Creatures tend to be amiable cartoon critters. Serious matters of villainy are
frequently forgotten at the sight of the next big vista -- an enormous cityscape,
a vast space colony, a stadium for a half-million spectators -- which is this
movie's strong point.

For Which Children?

AGES 3-6 -- The film may be too much extravaganza for some of the littlest
ones, though not all.
AGES 7-9 -- They'll love the creatures and the spectacle.
AGES 10-13 -- They'll be hooked, too.
AGES 13 AND UP -- Teen-agers generally will stay on board, but in some
corners of the older reaches of this category there could be a cry for a little
more edge and sophistication.

(..)

Published: 05 - 21 - 1999, Late Edition - Final, Section E, Column 5, Page 8