Star Wars rewatch: The Phantom Menace

 **SPOILERS HEREIN**

Every Star Wars fan old enough to remember the days when there were only three movies remembers that poster. That simple image encapsulated all the mystery of Darth Vader: what few details we heard in the original trilogy, sporadic lines and whispers in various Expanded Universe materials, fleeting comments from George Lucas, and whatever each of us personally imagined. Everyone was sure the journey from a mere boy to arguably the greatest villain in cinema history was going to be a great, epic tale.

And honestly, the prequels peaked right there, with whatever images it conjured in each of our minds. As it turned out, the actual movie the poster was advertising was not great, not epic, and in a way, didn’t even feel like Star Wars at all.

Let’s get this out of the way: yes, Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) is absolutely awful, annoying, unfunny, and possibly racist (though being unfamiliar at the time with the racial stereotypes some say he embodied, this criticism went over my nine-year-old head). All that has been said already, so I’m not going to waste any more words talking about it. Even if you take him out of the picture (as some fans have), there’s still plenty wrong with it.

The acting and dialogue are some of the most criticized elements of the prequels, and rightly so. Jake Lloyd, who plays Anakin Skywalker like a sugared-up kid picked as an audience volunteer for a Star Wars theme park attraction, is the worst offender. But unfortunately, he’s about the only energy the picture has. The rest of the cast is static and robotic. Practically every scene consists of characters dryly and stiffly spelling out every plot point while they stand still or walk slowly (Lucas apparently forgot the “show, don’t tell” rule). There’s no pace or energy in any of the scenes, no organic flow to the dialogue, and no inflection, emotion, or enthusiasm from any of the performers. Sadly, this would turn out to be a persistent problem throughout all three prequels. I hate to say this because it straddles the line between criticism and personal attack, but it almost seems like the cast and filmmakers didn’t even try. It’s hard to believe anyone watched these scenes and dialogue exchanges and thought they were satisfactory in the least. It seems more plausible that they were just trying to get the plot out of the way so they could move on to the next special effects sequence.

And what a bad, illogical plot it is. The whole Naboo-Trade Federation dispute is simply not interesting, not to mention small potatoes compared to the conflicts in subsequent episodes. In a trilogy that’s ostensibly about the Clone Wars, devoting an entire film just to this is like starting a World War II trilogy with a movie all about the Banana Wars (admit it, you don’t even know what that is). Of course, it’s just a ruse for the evil Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) to get elected Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, but his ascension could have easily been a single plot point instead of a whole movie.

Also, why would Palpatine send his apprentice Darth Maul (Ray Park) after the heroes? Wouldn’t it be better to seize power without letting everyone know the Sith are out there? It seems the character only exists so they could shoehorn lightsaber fights into the plot, not too successfully. It’s a wonder Maul has become almost as iconic to the saga as Darth Vader. He barely has any screen time, even fewer lines, and he’s killed off and never mentioned again after this movie (I’d point out the plot hole here, but who cares about holes in a plot that stinks anyway?).

As for Anakin’s story arc, the entire time on Tatooine feels like a dawdling, unnecessary tangent. It doesn’t get much better when they finally leave, either. For all the (deserving) flak from fans at the revelation about midi-chlorians, they’re only part of a much larger problem. The films also never explain what the Chosen One prophecy or “bringing balance to the Force” mean. It’s really vague, uninspired, and derivative storytelling, and it’s probably the most disappointing thing because Anakin’s story is supposed to be the driving plotline of the prequels.

So, while it fails at storytelling and developing characters we care about, does The Phantom Menace at least succeed as entertainment? Well, the famous podrace is a very cool sequence. It’s irrelevant to the overall storyline, but by the time it comes along, you’re too desperate for something exciting to really care. Other than that, the action is nothing exceptional. The battle droids look like cheap plastic models and are all but incompetent, so they elicit no tension in any fight big or small. The lightsaber duel pitting Darth Maul against Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) has some impressive choreography, but is emotionally underwhelming because we have little attachment to the characters (also, it doesn’t help that none of them say a single word throughout the whole fight). The best part of it is John Williams’ score, which is an unquestioned classic (really, the only truly great thing to come out of the prequels was Williams’ music).

As bad as the movie is, however, it might actually be the least bad of the prequels, or at least the least damaging to the saga. As I said, it doesn’t really feel like Star Wars. There are lightsabers and a few of the same characters and planets, but it feels overall disconnected from the saga. The events of the original trilogy aren’t even on the horizon, and the characters we know look very different from their counterparts in IV, V, and VI. I remember seeing the movie when it came out and feeling like it was from a completely different series, and the original trilogy’s aura remained mostly unspoiled. Even today, it still feels disconnected on its own, enough that you could almost brush it off as not Star Wars, but a knockoff of Star Wars.

That would become harder to do with the subsequent prequels, as the events leading into the originals started to take shape.