7. Liam Neeson Was A Great Choice For Qui-Gon Jinn
An actor still in his serious phase when he was cast as Qui-Gon Jinn, Liam Neeson brings some welcome gravitas to the role, gifting us the only truly good performance in the film in the process (Ewan McGregor would grow nicely into the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but he's a little shaky in his first outing) despite being lumbered with some of the worst lines of dialogue ever produced by a major director or screenwriter (see later). In a decade which saw him play Oskar Schindler, Rob Roy, Michael Collins, Valjean in Les Misérables, and Adolf Hitler (in the TV mini-series 1914-1918), The Phantom Menace represented Neeson's first real action role since Darkman in 1990, and while much of it is spent walking-and-talking and delivering exposition, it remains a fine bit of work, the actor fully believable as a wise Jedi Master who can still swing a lightsaber when he needs to.