Star Wars - Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace/Episode 2 - Attack Of The Clones (DVD 2002)

My 7 year old son loves Star Wars and wanted the first episodes. I did tell him that these weren't the first ones, 4, 5 and 6 were, but he just looked at me as though I was daft :) The films have linked into the original stories really well and to my son the story is seamless. May the force be with you :)

Although not a huge Star Wars fan, there was something about the original movies - their very atmostphere and the characters within - that gave it a special appeal all of its own. The mystery, the dark evil and everything that went with it kind of made the first movies better than the sum of their parts.

But then Episode 1 came along - a rather shabby and child-like affair that combined grossly over-the-top special effects with some very clown-like characters, not least of all the main 'bad guy' who looks more like he's just come straight out of the circus. With nothing to hold Episode 1 together, it seemed like things just couldn't get any worse - right?

Wrong.

Enter Episode 2, which quite frankly looks like it was based on a cross between Harry Potter and Scooby Doo. This is an absolutely pathetic take on a concept so many had come to know and love, combining some of the worst acting I've ever seen on the big screen with dialogue that sounds like it was written by a five-year-old and, worse still, special effects like something you'd expect to see on Children's BBC. The 'action' scenes, if you can call them that, are dire as well - they resemble something a high school drama class might get a 'fail' for.

All in all, my advice is to steer clear of both of these farces and watch something more gripping instead. Paint your walls and then watch them dry - even that's got to be better than enduring this tripe.

Not as good as episode III, but still better than THX1138. Have i really got to write 100 words. This is worse than having Dyslexia in the 70's, still i'm better at drawing than most people.

When Star Wars was first released, it very soon rose to the giddy heights of 'cult status'. The perceptions of George Lucas as director manifested themselves fantastically from an audience point of view.

The problem with many sequels/prequels is that they often fail to live up to the ‘ooo and arrr’ factor that the flagship film elicited. Not so, in my humble opinion, with the Star Wars series. The story line increased in tempo and the character base widened and individuals developed more depth.

I personally collected the twin pack of Star Wars Episode I & II in a bid to complete the series; all bar Episode III which I hope to obtain in the near future (Santa is visiting soon if I’m good). I am quite assured that I am completing the series because of the quality of the movies rather than just to fill in the blanks.

For me, the best episode is Episode I. I think that the intriguing introduction of Anakin as well as the complex paradoxes and mind curling ‘puzzle piece fitting’ and quite advanced technologies used in the development of the movie went together to make a fantastic movie.