I suppose I realized the right way to admire The Phantom Menace

Greater than something, Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace is an interesting cultural object. It has been 25 years since I noticed the movie in theaters, and over a decade since I final rewatched it (in a useless try to assist my Trekkie spouse catch as much as the prequels). I’ve had sufficient time to course of the preliminary disappointment and embarrassment of introducing my spouse to Jar Jar Binks. So when Disney introduced it was bringing the prequel trilogy again to theaters, I used to be virtually giddy about revisiting them to see how George Lucas’s ultimate movies in comparison with the onslaught of Star Wars media we have skilled over the previous decade. Was The Phantom Menace as unhealthy as I might remembered? Properly, sure and no.

Boring however filled with creativeness

In 1999, I knew Episode 1 could be a little bit of a slog as quickly as we hit the second line of the opening crawl: “The taxation of commerce routes to outlying star programs is in dispute.” Actually, George? This was what Star Wars followers have been ready for since 1983’s Return of the Jedi? Throughout this rewatch, I used to be extra tickled than aggravated by the various baffling narrative selections: The empty drama of a commerce blockade; the complicated choice to ascertain a romance between a literal baby and an older teenager; and throwing in Jar Jar Binks to appease children amid the hideously uninteresting dialog.

It is as if The Phantom Menace was written and directed by an alien who hadn’t truly seen a film, or engaged in any side of popular culture, for the reason that early ’80s. On the similar time, that near-outsider perspective is a part of the movie’s allure. Seeing a society slowly lose management of an idealistic democracy to a power-hungry dictator is a lot for a PG-rated fantasy movie. But that additionally units up the primary two prequels to really feel eerily-prescient beside the worldwide response to 9/11.

By the point we reached 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, the allusions to George W. Bush’s Patriot Act and International Warfare on Terror have been laborious to overlook. “That is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause,” Padme says as her fellow Senators hand over emergency powers to Palpatine, turning Supreme Chancellor Palpatine into the Emperor, and reworking the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire.

Past political machinations, The Phantom Menace is stuffed with a great deal of attractive imagery: Naboo’s lush palace and aquatic Gungan metropolis; the designs of recent ships and weapons; and, in fact, each single outfit worn by Princess Amidala. It will have been good if these visuals cohered into the narrative higher, however their presence makes it clear that Lucas was surrounded by world-class expertise, like .

The Phantom Menace additionally leaps to life in its handful of motion set-pieces. Certain, perhaps the pod-race goes on a bit too lengthy, however the sense of pace, scale and bombastic sound all through remains to be completely thrilling. (The movie’s sound crew — Gary Rydstrom, Tom Johnson, Shawn Murphy and John Midgley — was nominated for an Oscar, however misplaced out to The Matrix.)

And sure, your complete Duel of the Fates struggle remains to be an absolute banger. There is no doubt that The Phantom Menace would have been a stronger movie with less-clunky dialog and extra character improvement proven by motion. At one level within the struggle, the entire individuals are separated by laser limitations. Qui-Gon Jinn meditates, nearly utterly at peace. Darth Maul prowls like a caged lion. And Obi-Wan Kenobi is solely desirous to get on with the struggle, like a hot-shot scholar who simply desires to indicate off. That sequence tells you extra about these characters than the remaining two hours of the movie.

A precursor to ubiquitous digital characters

Whereas I did not come round to loving Jar Jar Binks throughout this rewatch, his very existence as a fully-CG character felt extra important than ever. Voiced by the actor and comic Ahmed Greatest, Jar Jar was roundly trashed upon launch and his implementation was removed from seamless. But it surely was additionally the primary time we noticed a motion-captured efficiency be reworked right into a fully-realized character. Now that expertise is so frequent in films we virtually take it with no consideration.

“You may’t have Gollum with out Jar Jar,” Greatest mentioned in . “You may’t have the Na’vi in ‘Avatar’ with out Jar Jar. You may’t have Thanos or the Hulk with out Jar Jar. I used to be the sign for the remainder of this artwork type, and I’m happy with Jar Jar for that, and I’m proud to be part of that. I’m in there!”

In 2017, Greatest provided an expanded model of his ideas in a Twitter thread (): “Jar Jar helped create the workflow, iteration course of and litmus check for all CGI characters to today. On some days the code was being written in actual time as I used to be shifting. To disclaim Jar Jar’s place in movie historical past is to disclaim the a whole bunch of VFX technicians, animators, code writers and producers their respect. Folks like John Knoll, Rob Coleman and scores of others who I labored with for 2 years after principal images was ended to carry these films to you.”

A fantastic story caught in a foul movie

I’ve realized one of the best ways to look at The Phantom Menace is to soak up the points that I like and substitute Lucas’s many baffling selections with my very own head canon. The story of Anakin Skywalker being born by the sheer energy of the Pressure and changing into the Jedi’s Chosen One? That is attention-grabbing! Inventing Midi-chlorians to provide individuals a literal Jedi energy rating? That is unhealthy, to hell with you! (Midi-chlorians are nonetheless technically canon, however they have been largely ignored in current Star Wars media.)

This time round, I could not assist however think about how a extra pure and energetic storyteller would have tackled The Phantom Menace. Certainly they would not front-load commerce disputes and taxation. A extra expert author, like Andor’s Tony Gilroy, may thoughtfully weave collectively the Republic’s potential downfall. And I might guess most individuals would not waste Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan by holding him off-screen for an hour, whereas everybody else goes on a pod-racing journey. (It positive could be good to have him spend extra time with Anakin!)

I nonetheless have not seen , however his choice to start out in the midst of Phantom Menace’s climactic lightsaber battle is sensible. A lot of Episode 1 feels totally superfluous when the actual story of Anakin Skywalker is about falling in love, being tempted by the Darkish Aspect and in the end betraying his grasp.