Hah! No, I didn't know that... I was just a wee tyke when Empire released. I barely remember even seeing it in the theatre.

Yeah, It came out a few months before I was born, so I didn't see it until I was at least 4 or 5. My dad loved those Star Wars movies, so we watched them all of the time. He also taped the Ewoks movies for me, which I would watch over and over again.

yeah, SW:EP1 definitely was hyped all to hell and back.

However, it wasn't a terrible movie. It was the worst of SW franchise and JJ was annoying, but that humor exists in other SW movies. Hell, rewatch ANH, C-3PO does really stupid things like bumping his head into a doorway etc. Not quite as bad as JJ, but pretty bad in its own right. Additionally, Anakin should have been slightly older and a better actor, beyond that it was a good SW movie.

It was okay. the story was predictable. Evil aliens are the villains of the peice (as is always the case these days) attempting to destroy/take over the Earth. to what end, probabily to take over the Universe, as is always the case in these types of films.

the film really worked because of the chemistry of the characters and the development of the Hulk. the character drama was very good. and the film was decent.

it was a fun film, maybe the best superhero film there is. i dont consider Batman Begins or The Dark Knight superhero films as such. theres no way you can compare the depth of the physcological themes embedded within those films and this film. so story wise, no ware near. but it was never designed to be a film in response to a Christopher Nolan film, so i dont slate in on that level.

it was what it was, a spectacular super hero mash up, with a preditable story, and some funny one liners. it didnt try to be anything more than that, so i dont feel it was anything more than that.

Spill.com's audio and video reviews of the movie.  Video is made from the audio reviews.  Just a bunch of really cool guys that review games, movies, etc.  One of my favorite sites.

Dark Knight is better but Avengers is great too.

My feeling was that The Phantom Menace is actually the closest of the prequels to capturing the spirit of the older films. The latter 2 got too epic and heavy-handed to really feel like the older Star Wars. Of course, i'm the guy that controversially favors Jedi out of the three original films, so make of that what you will.

I'm bored of all action movies now, they are all to cliche for me and I feel like I'm sitting through and paying for the same movie again and again. That comes with age I guess.

It didnt, mainly because print media is almost dead my friend The internet is the new thing and believe me, the commercials for TA got to far more poeple then the one of SW one, even if it was made on a lower ad budget.

You can actually have a pretty clear picture of how hyped a movie was pre-2000 by reading old articles and data. You only have to put together the pieces of the puzzle. SWE1 was hyped because it was the movie that had to dethrone itanic, yet it failed :)) Lets be honest on TV and on the Internet for the last 6 months all you could see where articles and commercials for The Avangers, hell even here in Romania you could see plenty, and I have no doubt that advertisement budget wise its probably in the top 5 of all times. We could probably never judge exactly wich movie takes the crown, but to be that high, you can throw around statments like "most hyped ever" and you wouldent be far from fact

As a counter to this, I go on the internet everyday and only just knew Avengers even existed (in London, UK).