It’s a challenge to remember, lo these many years later, how excited THE WORLD was to see this movie. My level of excitement was something north of most of the rest of the world and it resulted in my seeing the movie at a 4:00 am showing the day The Phantom Menace opened. I went again later that evening.
I remember loving it. I remember loving the action, the story, Liam Neeson, the final light saber duel, Darth Maul (both halves of him). I remember loving all of it.
And then a day or two passed… and the reality of Jar Jar and Boss Nass and Watto set in. So did the talk of midichlorians. And the relative skill level of Jake Lloyd as an actor (“yippee!”).
And though I saw the movie more than five times that summer of 1999, I became grudgingly disenchanted because I wanted to love it. As it turned out, unlike A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back, repeat viewings didn’t help me love the movie more. Rather the reverse. The more I saw it, the more flaw I found in it.
Perhaps we all had set our standards too high and George Lucas could never possibly meet them. Perhaps Lucas should have realized that he didn’t have enough plot in this film, that the stakes weren’t high enough and that trade disputes are a poor substitute for battling a planet killing Death Star. Perhaps…
I hadn’t watched the movie in over two-year before viewing it again as part of my own personal (and highly obsessive) preparations for The Force Awakens this past weekend.
Some context. I watched with The Cinnamon Girl, HJ jr, Stretch, Sous Chef and friends of HJ jr and Stretch. These kids are all over 16 and had all seen the movie at some point before, though Sous Chef remembered very little of it. I braced myself for their reactions. If Lucas included things like Jar Jar and the Gungans to appeal to young children, he was barking up the wrong tree with this audience.
Surprisingly, they all responded very well to Jar Jar and laughed at the places that Lucas probably planned to have his audiences laugh. They enjoyed the Pod Race sequence (which the boys remembered well from playing the Star Wars LEGO game). They loved Darth Maul.
They enjoyed the movie.
That was good perspective because, as I’ve ranked the films in my head, this is always 6 out of 6… (or 7 out of 7 if one includes the Star Wars Holiday Special!). Not only did my kids not hate the movie, they actually liked it.
But, how did it hold up for me after a two-year hiatus from seeing it? Frankly, it held up better than I thought it would.
Darth Maul is a remarkable creation. He’s pure villainy and each reveal is better than the last. There are at least three scenes of doors opening onto the character and each one works. Then there’s the moment he pulls off his head on his horns are visible for the first time. Then there’s the double-bladed light saber to say nothing of the duel he has with Qui Gon and Obi Wan. He kicks it in every scene he’s in and is one of the most memorable creations in the Star Wars saga. That’s saying something when one considers he, literally, speaks 3 lines.
Ewan McGregor is terrific as young Obi Wan Kenobi. One can see this character as a legitimate precursor to Alec Guiness’ creation. And the actor is clearly loving playing around in this universe.
Liam Neeson is very good as well. His Qui Gon Jinn brings appropriate gravitas to the proceedings and Neeson is very good in scenes with Anakin. There is one draw back here, though. Maybe George Lucas realized what a disaster he had on his hands with Jar Jar Binks because Qui Gon, for all his Jedi training and nobility, is a complete jerk to Jar Jar from the moment they meet. He insults him, uses Jedi mind tricks on him, questions his intelligence, grabs his tongue – I was honestly surprised. I hadn’t remembered how terrible he treats the Gungan. It’s an odd choice in writing a Jedi.
The action of the movie in general and the final 3 pronged, tension filled scene in particular, is very good and the light saber duel was the best we’d seen from Star Wars up to this point. The computer generated battlefields and cities are still pretty breathtaking.
And what really does work are the links to the original trilogy, especially R2-D2 and C-3PO. While I didn’t love the in process C-3PO, the two have a budding comradeship that is comfortable and nostalgic. It’s fun to see Jabba (who is listed in the credits as playing himself, by-the-way). Even the first encounter with a CGI Yoda is a warm reminder of what’s to come.
All of this almost outweighs the less than stellar parts of the movie.
Almost.
Let’s face it: Jake Lloyd is not very good as Anakin (that’s a hard thing to write about a kid and this may well relate more to Lucas’ bad casting/weak directing than it does to Lloyd himself). At times, he’s painful to watch. It’s impossible to believe he’ll grow up to become one of the most feared forces in the galaxy. The role Lucas puts him in is just pretty silly. It was one thing to watch untrained, farmboy Luke save the day in A New Hope. It’s quite another to see prepubescent Anakin ride that same horse.
Natalie Portman isn’t that great, either. Granted, she is not given much to do but wear elaborate costumes (or plain clothes depending upon what scene we’re in) and deliver stilted dialogue, but I was struck re-watching the movie at how one-dimensional Queen Amidala is as a character.
Jar Jar is Jar Jar. One either loves him or hates him. There isn’t any in-between. I am a hater, and not just because of the rampant silliness.. The Gungan doesn’t do much for the plot but cause trouble and the less savory aspects of his characterization are so close to the surface of his portrayal that they are very, very hard to ignore. Removing Jar Jar from the film entirely does nothing to change it, except improve it.
Finally, Mr. Lucas, DON’T explain the Force. Don’t tell me about midichlorians and virgin births. Don’t go there. Ever. Enough said.
There is a “menace” to be battled somewhere in this movie, but it’s a “phantom” one in every sense of the word. The audience hears how terrible things are during the occupation of Naboo, but none of this is shown so it’s difficult to take the threat of the Nemoidians seriously (and this is without noting how non-threatening their character design is). Darth Maul, as cool as he is, is dispatched with relative ease. The only loss the audience can be expected to feel is that of Qui Gon Jinn and none of the characters actually seem that upset about his death after echoes of Obi Wan’s “No!” die out.
This is the major issue with the movie. It’s too much set up, too much prelude. The true villain, through we know who it is, is not fully revealed and never emerges here as much of a threat. In fact, The Phantom Menace ends with such joy and ties up its plot lines – such as they are – so tidily that it’s hard to believe it would have inspired a sequel at all were it not a Star Wars film.
Yes, I loved it when it opened. It’s Star Wars, after all. I said at the time that Liam Neeson could have read the phone book in costume and in character and I would have watched him do it – would have paid for the privilege to see him do it – more than once. That remains true today.
The Phantom Menace is a phenomenon. It just isn’t a very good film.
STAR WARS EPISODE ONE: THE PHANTOM MENACE receives TWO MIDICHLORIANS out of a possible FIVE.
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And There Came a Day... 