Phantom Shortcomings

Salon: What's wrong (and right) with The Phantom Menace by David Brin
More interesting and incisive than mere nit-picking or Jar-Jar bashing, this article points up the real problems with the Phantom Menace, from its stunning lack of originality ("Big animals try to eat whole spaceships, yum. Where've we seen that before?") to glaring inconsistencies ("We Jedi protect the innocent! So let's take a 6-year-old along on a raid into the enemy's heavily defended HQ!").