Ramblings of a Madman on the Anniversary of Episode I

1999: "Episode I is the worst Star Wars movie ever!"
2002: "Not so much."
2019: "Everybody loves The Phantom Menace!"

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was and is, almost despite itself, a monumental achievement. The film that launched the Prequel Trilogy was such a long time in coming that many doubted it ever really would. I remember reading a blurb in Starlog magazine in 1993 that mentioned that Lucas was starting to work on the prequels with the expectation that they would be out around ’95 or ‘96. (For our younger readers, a magazine is like if the internet was made of paper and only came out once a month.) In 1996, I was at a Star Trek convention (wanna fight about it?) in Nashville; an entertainment reporter took the stage and answered questions. Someone asked him about the Star Wars prequels and he said, quite seriously, that he would believe that Lucas was doing another SW movie when he is sitting in the theater watching it. Nevertheless, three years later, there it was: the most anticipated film release in years, even though we all knew (more or less) how the whole trilogy had to end. What we got was a movie that earned $924.3 million dollars worldwide and proved two things: Star Wars was still an extremely viable theatrical draw, and 16 years worth of hope, hype, and anticipation can be a very dangerous thing. I saw TPM 5 times over the course of the summer of 1999 (and once more in 2012 for the 3D re-release). I’ve never thought of Episode I as a bad movie. It has some bad (or, more accurately, poorly executed) stuff in it; but the good has always seemed to outweigh the bad.



For the most part, The Phantom Menace is exactly the movie that it has to be. In the Original Trilogy, we know exactly who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. More importantly, the good guys and bad guys all know who each other are as well. The only real act of betrayal is Lando, and we basically understand that he is a good guy in a difficult situation before he makes a relatively quick turnaround. In the PT in general, and TPM in particular, the true nature of reality is veiled. The entire trilogy is built on deception and, ultimately, betrayal. It must be so. Fans would have known going into it that the PT must end on a note of failure (with a glimmer of hope). Failure means that the good guys have to lose and the bad guys have to win. This is where the subtle genius and, frankly, artistic integrity of Episode I come into play. Here is the first paragraph of the opening crawl of A New Hope:

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.

It doesn’t get any simpler than that: open war, good Rebels, and an explicitly evil Empire. It’s as black and white as the armor of the faceless masses that carry out the Emperor’s will.

In fairly stark contrast, here is the first paragraph of the opening crawl of The Phantom Menace:

Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.

What? How are the Jedi going to solve this conflict? Are they gonna audit the Trade Federation's books? But, don’t you see? That’s the genius of it. For several years there has been a suggestion floating around the internet (my info attributes it to Rod Hilton), that the best viewing order for the PT/OT is: IV, V, II, III, then finally VI and just leave I out completely because it contributes nothing of substance or importance. No, it is perhaps the most important film of the PT; because, again, the genius of TPM actually lies in the fact that the fall of the Republic, the birth of Darth Vader, the rise of the Empire-it all started with a stupid trade dispute on some backwater planet.



The lesson here, and I think it is an invaluable one, is that these things that end up being great evils will often start from a place of banal tedium. Qui-Gon actually refers to the dispute as “trivial” in the beginning. The movie knows exactly what it’s doing. His admonishments to Obi-Wan to “keep your mind here and now” speak to the fact that the film is in a near constant state of misdirection. Queen Amidala is not always who she appears to be, the Trade Federation’s true motivations are hidden even from themselves, and the kindly Sen. Palpatine is an ambitious schemer. The fact that we, the viewers, were mostly in on the secret isn’t really the point. The foundation must be laid, and The Phantom Menace does what is necessary. When we first see the person who will become Darth Vader, is he a brash warrior? No, he is a little kid whose main concern is helping other people. The Phantom Menace not only had to show us the person who would become Darth Vader; it also had to show us why, in the end, Darth Vader was able to go back to being Anakin Skywalker. This is why; because underneath the armor, the scars, the brave Jedi warrior, and the moody padawan there was always a little kid who gave with no thought of return. The Phantom Menace had to introduce us to that little kid, and so it did.

The Phantom Menace can be an outright goofy movie sometimes, but it is that very goofiness that serves to further veil the sinister truth always lurking beneath the surface. Jar Jar prancing around and getting farted on, the stoic Jedi waving off Qui-Gon’s suggestion that the Sith have returned, the Queen’s outrageous wardrobe, the little kid accidentally winning the whole battle; underneath it all is a thread of darkness that is best summed up by the sound of Darth Vader’s respirator after the credits have rolled and the triumphant ending them has waned.

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