Star Wars: Episode I

A day after seeing the film Star Wars The Phantom Menace, I ran to the store and picked up this novel. I loved the storyline that George Lucas was developing in the film, and figured the novel would have an even better one.

To my surprise it was different. Where I came home from the film feeling that the movie was mainly about politics and how the Star Wars senate works (with some interesting twists...don't want to spoil it of course!), this novel really developed the characters of Anakin Skywalker and Queen Amidala.

Anakin, to me, was a virtual non factor in the film aside from two major scenes, pretty well stole this book. The story on Tatooine lasts practically through three quarters of the novel, unlike the short amount of time in the film. Also the relationship between Anakin and Amidala is explained in detail here.

It fleshes out the movie. It's too bad they couldn't make the movie at least one more hour long so they could have fleshed it out as well as this novel. One thing strange in the novel is Dark Siddeous' identity. In the film it is pretty obvious, you can see the faces, in the novel, it is never explained. You can't tell who he is. I suppose we will leave that to the next Star Wars adaptation to do!

Overall a good read if you liked the way the story developed in the film. I am a slow reader, but it only took me a long night to finish.