The Trade Federation, with encouragement from the evil Siths, has taken over the planet of Naboo. Jedi knights Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan help Queen Amidala escape. Their ship is hit by enemy fire and they are forced to land on a planet run by the gangster Hutts. There they meet a young boy, Anakin Skywalker, a slave who is a genius at building things. Qui-Gon makes a bet on Anakin in a pod race and wins Anakin’s freedom and the parts he needs to fix the ship. They travel to Federation H.Q., but the Queen determines to go back to Naboo to help her people. The Jedi knights go along. The Queen’s people make peace with the other race on the planet with the help of Jar Jar Binks, a clumsy dunce. Jar Jar’s people stage a diversion while the Queen and the Jedi knights enter the palace to capture the Trade Federation leaders. Meanwhile, Anakin takes off in a fighter and wipes out the control ship, which causes all the enemy droids to shut down and wins the battle for Naboo. But the Jedi have to fight the Sith, and Qui-Gon is killed before Obi-Wan can kill him in return. Obi-Wan agrees to take on the training of Anakin to be a Jedi.

• In scenes where Padme and Queen Amidala appear together, Natalie Portman is Padme, while Keira Knightley is Sabe, one of the handmaidens disguised as the Queen.

I’m not sure why, but I was rather bored. The whole pod race sequence was dull, since I knew how it had to end. The idea of an eight (?) –year-old boy wiping out a huge spaceship was pretty ludicrous. The idea that nobody could figure out that Padme was really Queen Amidala was as silly as Lois Lane not knowing that Superman is Clark Kent. The whole part of the story with Jar Jar was annoying.