Action. Adventure. Magic powers and alienworlds. What's not to like? "Star Wars - The PhantomMenace" is a hit. Making over $100 million in its firstfive days (a record not likely to be broken until Episode II),George Lucas has really outdone himself this time.

Thespecial effects will blow you away right from the beginning.For example, take the Gungan, Jar Jar Binks. During filming, areal actor wore a semi-complete costume. Yet with newtechnology at Industrial Light and Magic, the actor wasreplaced by a very life-like computer-generated character.Almost every scene in the movie includes computer graphics.The space battles, which were especially fluid, were almostentirely CGI. Even the lightsaber fights were imaged over togive the actors "special powers," or, moreprecisely, the Force. The duels were intense, especially thefinal battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and DarthMaul (Ray Park), with a much more aggressive style than inEpisodes IV, V and VI.

The plot of "The PhantomMenace" may not be very complex, but one must rememberthis is only one-third of the story (or one-sixth, dependingon what way you think of it). There are some familiar faces(including R2-D2 and C3PO, Senator Palpatine and Jabba theHutt, that help to foreshadow what will happen in Episodes IIthrough VI. It is an ingenious move on Lucas' part, tellingthe story like that. All in all, I very much enjoyed "ThePhantom Menace" and suspect that many of us Star Warsfans cannot wait for the next two.