Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) - Review (Fair or Foul)
Originally published April, 2016.While the original Star Wars movies are more easily placed in the category of "Classic," the prequel trilogy by George Lucas is often viewed with embarrassment, disappointment, and even contempt. Many people who claim to be immense Star Wars fans actually hate half the movies of the franchise because of these films. None of these movies, however, have received quite as much ire from fans and critics alike as Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
I remember the hype leading up to the release of this movie. Even my 8th-grade computer class teacher spent the day downloading the brief trailer on crappy 56k internet to show his students. 90% of the class was excited and there were plenty of audible gasps from us as we watched the "amazing" CGI. I was certainly excited.
I remember riding past the theaters and seeing people in lines wrapped around the buildings as they waited to buy their tickets. It was the most excitement I'd ever seen for a movie before it came out, and I got caught up in it a little myself. So, when The Phantom Menace finally came out, I had a reaction similar to my reaction when I first listened to Metallica's St. Anger: I tried to convince myself that it was as good as the rest. This denial faded quickly, however, because after I saw it a few times, for one reason or another I finally realized that The Phantom Menace was not a great movie like I had expected. However, I didn't and still don't think that it is a terrible film or even the worst in the franchise, like so many others seem to feel.
Hear me out. If you are a long-time Star Wars fan from the original trilogy, I seriously doubt you weren't disappointed by The Phantom Menace in some way. The movie was a big letdown for a lot of people who had been waiting for the next big adventure in the Star Wars universe, myself included. It was part of the reason I initially lost interest in the Star Wars franchise. While I eventually became interested in the universe again after some truly fun video games pulled me back in, I've since become rather disinterested in the franchise to the point that I would say I'm not a Star Wars fan anymore. I can point to Episode I as the personal turning point where my nostalgic, childish adoration of the films started to fade.
There are some things about it, though, that still manage to make it a much more watchable film than what most people make it out to be. There are some genuinely cool or interesting things that exist and occur in The Phantom Menace that help elevate it above the mired garbage that permeates the other movies in the prequel trilogy. Yeah, I said it. I think that The Phantom Menace is the best movie of the prequel trilogy. Of course, that isn't saying much, but if you read my reviews that follow the other prequel films, you might see why I feel that way. For today's review, however, I want to focus on The Phantom Menace alone and simply ask the question: Is it Fair or Foul?
Fair: Darth Maul
Of the various minions of the "true" villain in the prequel trilogy, Darth Maul always stands out. Star Wars up to this point and beyond was rarely known for its characters to be short of words; they all seemed to have plenty (too much) to say much of the time. It's in the moments when their villains were quiet that tension was allowed to fill the screen—maybe that's why people like Boba Fett so much. Silence is what Darth Maul has in spades.
I think he has less than 3 lines in the whole movie, but stuntman and interpretive Sith dancer, Ray Park, does a lot with the role without using many words. His movements are extremely fluid and aggressive at the same time. Though it's a lightsaber that should only way a few pounds, he treats his weapon like a heavy one and uses his entire body when swinging it around, as though it were made of iron or steel. This sort of physical presence makes him far more menacing and intimidating when he shows up and is worthy of the subtitle of the film.
It's not just the epic lightsaber battle either (which we'll get to later). Every time he's on screen, we're interested in him. Part of the interest just comes from the straightforward, but creative character design and the very colorful face paint. When he was first revealed as the villain for the movie, he felt like a suitable icon to replace Darth Vader for this trilogy.
The other big draw of him is the mysteriousness of his character throughout the movie. We can tell he has strong motivations and dedication to his goal for the tenacity and ferocity he shows in pursuit of his targets, yet we do not know much more about him than that. In many ways, I wish he lasted longer than just one film.
Foul: Jake Lloyd
This kid...
To be fair and honest, he's a kid actor in the biggest disappointment of the biggest film franchise on the planet. He would have had to have been amazing to salvage the rest of this film and for fans to have liked his performance, all things considered. Not to mention, due to the fact that so many people hated this film, they turned a lot of their hate directly at him and probably ruined his self-esteem in a special way. So, he had it pretty rough with this role.
Nonetheless, there is only so much doubt of which you can give him the benefit. He sucks in this film, just as he did in Jingle All the Way. His acting was so stiff and animatronic, it felt like being at a 1st-grade play where the kid didn't rehearse and just read his lines directly off his hands instead, or was even just replaced with one of the creepy children robots from the It's a Small World ride at Disneyland. I even read a rumor that the cast and crew called him Mannequin Skywalker behind his back, so it wasn't just audiences who didn't like his performance.
McGregor's face says it all
It's a performance that is difficult to watch and he is the least tolerable thing about this movie. The other actors seem to have an easier time interacting with the digital characters who aren't even there than interacting with Lloyd. He pretty much sucks the momentum, emotion, and interest out of every scene he's in. Even my mother, who tears up at the first sign of an emotional heartstring to tug, was dry as a potato chip in the Sahara during the good-bye scene between Anakin and his mother.
Fair: Pod Race
This is the big set piece in the middle of the movie. The film hits a bit of a road bump and slows down to a crawl when the heroes' ship crashes on Tatooine. It picks up again, however, with the pod/chariot race. It's well shot and even though it uses a lot of poorly-aging CGI and has a bunch of unnecessary scenes added in the most recent Blu-Ray releases, it still is exciting in a way that is similar to the trench run of the original Star Wars. I don't really have much to say other than it's a good sequence in the film and it's much more exciting than the climactic starfighter battle that has Anakin miraculously saving the day by pressing buttons and (using the force) sheer luck.
Foul: Jar-Jar
Everyone who's ever reviewed The Phantom Menace brings up Jar-Jar. While I think Jake Lloyd's performance is the worst thing about this movie, and I can tolerate Jar-Jar's presence to a degree, he still was the character who became the butt of every joke in the franchise, and for good reason.
Jar-Jar is often considered the absolute worst thing about the prequel trilogy; the proverbial low point in Star War history. While I think that Anakin is the one who deserves that scorn, I don't disagree that Jar-Jar is a crappy character who doesn't need to exist. His reception was so poor that George Lucas reduced his role and presence in the following films to appease fans. He had bigger plans for the bumbling amphibian that were never allowed to come to fruition because fans hated him so much.
I don't blame them as he's a worthless character designed solely for cheap slapstick humor to appeal to children. It worked in some regards, as plenty of children liked Jar-Jar, much like how children were fine with the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. The problem is that he's not funny to anyone older than 10 years old. There are plenty of good examples of slapstick comedy throughout the annals of film and TV history that can still make full-grown, bitter adults, like myself, laugh. Most of those, though, have their jokes cleverly laid out and with a straight man or something to help stretch out the humor a bit more. Jar-Jar is just a louder, more obnoxious Larry of the three stooges who lacks clever humor or counterparts to make his character worthwhile.
If there's one thing about seeing Jar-Jar now, it's that the CGI for the character has not aged as poorly as I expected. It still looks shoddy in spots, but I know that the graphics, textures, and blending was touched up for the home re-release of the films because he doesn't look nearly as terrible as I thought he would. Still, nothing was done on the audio side to make up for the auditory punishment you must endure when you listen to a thick accent of unknown origin. If Yoda's reverse speech was supposed to give him the air of wisdom or intelligence, what is Jar-Jar's "yoosa gonna be-a" accent supposed to do, other than make him sound extremely stupid? There were many different ways Lucas could have made a funny character for kids that was still interesting, but Jar-Jar is a cheap easy trick that failed.
Fair: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan
Qui-Gon Jin is what I think of when I think of Jedi. A lot of people don't care for him as a character and find Liam Neeson to appear bored in the role, which is probably true. Still, I find the character to at least be more complex than people make him out to be.
He displays the wisdom that one expects of an experienced warrior who has a deeper understanding of this mystical power that surrounds everything, is a little arrogant because of it, and is rebellious by nature, causing him to go against the structure of the Jedi Order. There could have been a much deeper conversation in Lucas' story—if he knew how to write dialogue—about Qui-Gon being the voice that went against the strict rule of the "noble" Jedi. Qui-Gon is a hero, but he is not a goody-two-shoes who has to immediately help everyone he encounters. He has to weigh the options and consider the outcome, which makes him an ideal contrast to those who speak of good versus evil in such absolutes. Qui-Gon is a hero who has shades of grey to his character that make him far more interesting to me.
Obi-Wan manages to hold his own alongside Jin as a youthful and impressionable apprentice who is eager to please his master, but still inclined to follow the rules of the Jedi. He is more emotional and rash in his behavior, making him a good counterpart to the tranquil and wise Jin. Ewen McGregor seems to be having a bit more fun with his role and ends up being the one most audiences latch onto for the remainder of the trilogy. He is probably the character who grows the most and maintains a level of complexity to him. Not to mention that McGregor does a decent job with his speech patterns to resemble Alec Guinness' original portrayal of the character.
Foul: Thin Plot is Thin
What is the plot of The Phantom Menace? Does anyone remember or care? Actually, it’s tough to remember the plot points of any of the prequel trilogy, but Episode I's can be summarized rather quickly for those who've forgotten.
A greedy trade nation holds a planet hostage; Jedi are sent to negotiate peace and fail. The royalty of the planet escapes with Jedi, but ends up on a desert planet for 60% of the movie. They get off the desert sh*thole and go to space-Washington DC only to find out what we already know: Politics suck. They go back to the planet and fight against greedy guys. Win.
From the beginning of the movie to the end, no new information is actually given to the audience to move any sort of plot along. The only thing we learn is that the bad guys are working with other bad guys. Real insightful. In the original Star Wars, we find out about a rebellion, a captured princess, and the destructive power of the Empire's weapon, which we eventually learn is the Death Star. Plus, we learn about the Force. The journey of that movie feels like it's moving in a forward direction by taking the heroes all over for reasons that aren't arbitrary. The same is true for The Empire Strikes Back. Episode V has the rebels on the run, traveling the galaxy to obscure locations. There's a training sequence with Luke to show more Force abilities, while the other group is on the run only to be used as bait to a trap, and there's also the big twist. The stories and the dire nature of the circumstances expand as the movies move along.
The Phantom Menace fails to give a sense of expansion to the drama and feels more like just one plot point after another toward the same goal. It also fails to give a sense of real forward progression. The characters certainly travel to new and exotic locations, but it rarely feels like much is accomplished there. In the Gungan area of Naboo, they just seek safe passage, but don't get much else done. On Tatooine, they're stuck there for a while until they abduct a Skywalker. On Coruscant, they talk to Jedi and politicians and are denied their wishes. The only goal they manage to complete is victory in the final fight of the film, requiring them to go back to where they started. Lucas may have intended for his story to "come full circle," but it really just feels like he backtracked to the starting point.
Fair: Magic Maker
George Lucas. The guy can't write dialogue and he is a mediocre director, but he still has a vision for how he wants his worlds and aliens to look. Say what you will about the prequel trilogy, even though they were much less interesting and of significantly lower quality, they still feel like Star Wars movies to me. The new cookie-cutter one that came out in 2015 was perfectly fine, but it lacked some of the flair and vision that Lucas's films had, even though the worlds themselves didn't always make sense.
What is the purpose of this room?
This is a hard argument to make because I can't really back it up with much evidence. It's more of just an impression or interpretation one gets when watching his movies, so it's a very relative argument; if you disagree, I can't really give you a counterpoint to prove you wrong. I just think that, with all of George Lucas' films, there's a certain quality about them that makes them feel fantastical. The Indiana Jones movies, Labyrinth, or even Captain EO from Disneyland are similar in that they may not always have too much going on in terms of plot, but there's a certain hook that pulls you in. He loses it a little bit in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and in Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but the magic is strong in The Phantom Menace to me.
Foul: Retconning
Midichlorians are dumb.
They're dumb because it turns a space fantasy into a science fiction movie and undoes the mystical qualities of the Force, making it a completely different thing. They're dumb. They're only mentioned briefly in this movie and slightly later in the trilogy. Their references can easily be ignored. Ignore it. Everyone knows they're dumb. Get over it. It doesn't matter.
Fair: Lightsaber Fight
The Phantom Menace has the BEST lightsaber battle of the movie franchise. It's better than any of its prequel counterparts. It's better than the original films.
The choreography and the way the fight is shot are exciting and fun every time I see it, with Ray Park stealing the show as he shows off his acrobatic fighting skills as Darth Maul. This feels like a battle between Force masters, with all of them using particular Jedi abilities and fighting techniques that match the personalities of the characters. The films that followed this one failed to match the excitement because of how they were shot and their extra use of CGI completely diminished the impact of the lightsaber strikes. In the one that most people consider the "best" of the trilogy (Episode III), it's difficult to tell what's going on between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Here, it's a bit easier to see in the brightly lit room and with the color contrasts of blue, green, and red. Never mind the fact that the room in which they're fighting makes no sense in terms of design, form, or function.
Finally, in a rare moment of subtlety in a Star Wars movie, my favorite scene occurs during the downtime of the lightsaber fight. In the area of the room, where the force fields are constantly opening and closing for no reason, we see characterization through actions, without words. Obi-Wan, the emotional young warrior who is eager to succeed is jumping in place on his toes, aching to get to the fight. Qui-Gon, the wise and calm master who has a greater understanding of his existence simply sits and meditates as he waits for the force-fields to open. Darth Maul, the silent predator who has been hunting them the entire movie, stalks and prowls back and forth in front of the field like a caged cat, hungry for prey, never blinking. It's not actually subtle, but it's subtle by Star Wars standards, and I appreciate it.
Seriously, what is the point of this room?
Verdict: Fair
While I don't think The Phantom Menace is a great movie, by any stretch of the imagination, I think that the pros outweigh the cons. It still skirts the line between passing and failing, with just enough to put it into the Fair territory. If you're able to look past the disappointment you felt when this movie first came out and look at it more objectively, you might find that it's not as terrible as you remember. At least it doesn't force a stupid love story with no chemistry on you, but we'll get to that next time.
Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments!
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