Herald Rating: * * *
Running time: 133 mins
In stores: Now
Review: Ewan McDonald
SWEP1 (I don't have a lot of space, if you catch my drift) is both the fourth and the first story in the saga, so you're going to be introduced to some characters you've already met: photos from
the albums of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and R2-D2 and C-3PO. You'll also meet a fresh-faced kid named Anakin Skywalker who you now know as Darth Vader.
SWEP1 goes back to the first meeting between the Jedi knight, Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), and the young slave, Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), in a store where the Jedi is looking for parts for his crippled spaceship.
Sensing Anakin is fated for greater things, Qui-Con backs the young man in a high-speed pod-race. Realising that his role is to prepare the way for Anakin's apparently glittering future, and to test his fitness for it, Qui-Con becomes the youth's mentor. In a nutshell, that's the story.
But a Star Wars movie is more about Lucas' special effects - places like the underwater cities and the vast, spherical Senate chamber and characters like Jar Jar Binks, a computer-animated alien. And this one has plenty of those (even dear old Jabba the Hutt turns up to run the pod-race) and plenty of fun along the space-way.
