Sunday Is The 25th Anniversary Of The Phantom Menace Release

Opening night of The Phantom Menace feels like it was yesterday, but when I look back on all that has transpired in my life since then, it was figuratively a lifetime ago. I still remember the lead up. For me it was a little bittersweet and a familiar personal tone. I was thrilled that Star Wars was coming back, but I was definitely disappointed that it would be prequels. I wanted to move the story forward, not chew old turf. I wanted Luke back. Also, the modern Star Wars line to that point was my raison d'etre, and I felt there was a lot of important work to do with Original Trilogy characters. I wasn't thrilled that this new media was going to derail that. We didn't even have a General Madine, b'gosh.

I had some early trepidation about the movie. I was nervous about Jar Jar from the first trailer. I didn't think he looked truly photorealistic, and the slapstick routine with the pod racer energy binders didn't hit quite right. But as the date was approaching, the event was sucking me in. In February of '99, I took a trip to visit family in Florida. One day, I went to the local mall which had a satellite FAO Schwartz store. In the Star Wars section, they had a monitor playing the trailer on a loop. I remember standing there for what feels like five minutes watching it over and over.

Then that spring, the toy line came out. After a stop and start collegiate effort, and a four year stint for Uncle Sam, I was just starting my professional career. For a few more months I was back living at home. I didn't have the funds to go all in on the line. We didn't have a midnight madness event in these parts, so I went to my local Walmart at open. There were a few other adult collectors there. I can still close my eyes and see the wall of figures. I promised myself I was only getting Maul, which I did, but I was mesmerized by Gasgano. That figure helped pique my building interest in the movie, but I left without it. I attached my lone trophy to the CommTech stand and put it on my dashboard on the way to work. Over the course of the next eight hours, I was eating my guts. I headed straight back to that Walmart after work, and bought a handful of additional figures on my way to completing the line. I feel good that I stayed strong for about a third of a day.

I'm not a crowd guy. I tend to avoid them. I said to myself that I would wait a week before seeing Episode I. On the day of the ticket presale, I was on the road for work. Before I returned to the office, I stopped off at the nearby theater out of curiosity. It looked like a hurricane had come through. The serpentine ropes were still set up, but the crowd was long gone. I headed up to the box office, and jokingly asked if there were any tickets left for the 7PM show. To my amazement, there were. I guess the waiting a week plan was out the window. I bought three tickets, and the anticipation nerves had fully set in.

On the morning of the release, my Dad delivered a gut punch. He was a daily Howard Stern listener, and he said the king of all media said that the movie wasn't good, and Darth Maul was barely in it. This devastated me. Star Wars movies felt like they should be similar to pizza: even when they're bad, they're still pretty good. This sent me on a path of reading online reviews, which happened to spoil much of the plot. They mostly confirmed what Stern had said. The movie wasn't being well received. Still I shook it off, and was setting in for an interminable wait. My then girlfriend insisted on going to dinner first, and the result was that I ended up in the third row. I was mildly miffed, but I didn't notice my screen proximity once the movie started. On first viewing, I absolutely loved it. Even though I had other plans, I made a quick pit stop back at my parents house. I woke up my Dad, and went on a profanity laced tirade blasting the idiotic critics. To this day, I'm pretty sure I scared the crap out of him.

I would see The Phantom Menace a total of ten times. I was so happy to be able to take my Dad who took me to see A New Hope as a kid, but with each successive viewing, the warts became harder to avoid. Jar Jar was more and more difficult to ignore, and the comparisons to the OT kept invading my thoughts. One thing I kept focusing on was the heroes' conveyance. The Millennium Falcon was odd, captivating, covered in all sorts of greeblies, and, most importantly, filmed in camera (in other words, it was a real physical model). The Queen's Royal Starship, by comparison, was obviously CGI, with an overly sleek surface (probably due to the limitations of 1990's CGI). It felt un-Star Warsy. But, again, I saw it ten times. I obviously liked it overall.

The summer of 1999 was far and away my favorite memory as an adult Star Wars fan. The magic felt like it was back. It was, sadly, the last time I felt that. Incredible toys kept coming all summer long. We found out that a Captain Panaka figure was coming out via the Flash Speeder box which felt like an epic Kenner era callback. And most importantly, everyone wanted in on the Star Wars game. Every product from potato chips to kids Valentine's Day cards wore Episode I branding. I grew up in an era when being a Star Wars fan wasn't considered cool. I was bullied for it in grade school. That summer, it felt like Star Wars turned the corner into coolness, and it dominated the popular consciousness. What a great time to be a Star Wars fan!

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