STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

When the trailer was released for The Phantom Menace in 1999, fans would queue to see a movie in which they had no interest, purely so that they could see the trailer beforehand and then leave without bothering to watch whatever film it was that followed. This of course, was in the days where the internet was in its infancy and those of us who had purchased computers for the first time only had painfully slow dial up internet access that made streaming movie trailers more or less impossible.

I saw the trailer just before a screening of Babe: Pig In The City. I sat bolt upright when I realised that I was looking at the Lucasfilm logo. I was spellbound as my eyes devoured the first footage that I would see of the first proper Star Wars movie for 16 years. My friend (not a Star Wars fan) may have been shushed when she spoke during it. Serves her right.

But I had niggles. It didn’t look very like Star Wars. There were no white armoured stormtroopers for a start. However, there were these creepy looking battle droids who slowly emerged from over a hill in their hovering armoured personnel carriers. Ok, I thought, maybe they’ll be a good substitute.

When I saw the movie a few months later, it was difficult not to leave the cinema feeling slightly crushed. There was a lot to dislike. It looked like Star Wars, but it was just a bit…dull. There were bits that worked. The pod racing scene is really rather good, ironically because this was the bit from the trailers that seemed least promising. Unfortunately there was so much more than just doesn’t work, and in true fanboy fashion I am going to list its flaws. Jar Jar is the least of its flaws.         

·     Anakin is just too young. In the next film, set a decade later, he is in his late teens. Padme on the other hand doesn’t look a day older, but it’s hard not to realise that there must quite an age gap between them. Perhaps the inhabitants of Naboo age at a different rate to people for Tatooine.

·         Lucas’ script grates badly. Qui Gon constantly calls Obi Wan “My young apprentice” which frankly gets on my nerves after a while. Even worse, is the notorious “Yippee” from Anakin. It doesn’t feel like a word that doesn’t exist in Star Wars. Nor does “Mom”; if Shmi Skywalker was simply called “Mother” by Anakin, it would feel right. Imagine Luke calling Darth Vader “Pop”.

·         The scary battle droids turned out to be less than scary. George Lucas has a terrible weakness for slapstick humour (see the comedy Jawas falling off things in the current version of A New Hope). Lucas decided that the attribute that a mighty battle droid army really needed was that they be programmed to be stupid and cowardly. Even worse, he gave them Smash Martian voices. (If you are not British, or are British but under 40, and no idea what I am talking about, you’ll find Smash Martians here).

·         TPM (and all the prequels) badly need a Han Solo character, someone who is fun and who gets lots of cool lines. Instead, the central characters are a bunch of warrior monks who take themselves way too seriously.

·         The final battle scene is awful. The battle on the surface of the planet between the Gungans and the battle droids feels like animation. That’s because it is entirely CGI. There is not a single real character in the mix, so you feel like you’re watching a very detailed cartoon. The space battle is even worse. It’s far too short and giving Anakin a scene where he accidentally takes off in a starfighter and then manages to singlehanded destroy the Trade Federation battlecruiser just seems impossible. If Anakin was a teenager, it wouldn’t feel wrong. The story should have started with Anakin at the same age as Luke is in A New Hope.

·         Darth Maul. He’s great, but he’s squandered. No real involvement until far too late in the day and then thrown away. Star Wars does this a lot; Boba Fett and Captain Phasma suffer a similar fate. No wonder that Samuel L Jackson insisted to Lucas that Mace Windu had to have a decent death. However, there is a very good Darth Maul joke in one of the Lego Star Wars TV shows (“Awesome….Awe-some!)

TPM is so unpopular that the so called Machete Order of watching the movies (4, 5, 2, 3,6…) drops it entirely.

Oh, and Babe: Pig In The City was better.