I've mostly been into the Star Wars franchise as a teenager but only really watched the films in the Original Trilogy, not bothering with the original Expanded Universe material until later on (and they've pretty much been invalidated due to Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm). I knew that the OT movies were labeled Episodes IV through VI as a larger saga, and I naturally took excitement at the announcement of the prequel trilogy beginning with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It really polarized the hell out of critics and fans who believed the OT films to be untouchable (which I've long found to be BS), but I still have a good appreciation for it and have really gotten into heated debates about the merits of the Prequel Trilogy since their release.
Episode I opens with the Galactic Republic threatening to tax trade routes, which pisses off the Trade Federation and causes them to blockade the backwater planet of Naboo, with Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum sending Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to resolve the matter peacefully. Upon release, fans whined about Yoda being the Jedi Master who instructed Kenobi, but keep in mind that in the Original Trilogy, Obi-Wan lied to Luke and contradicted himself (the decanonized Expanded Universe material indicated that he trained under Yoda as a youngling before becoming Qui-Gon's apprentice, so that could still be in the case in the new canon material).
Queen Amidala, actress Natalie Portman's star-marking role, and the democratically-elected monarch (?) of Naboo, rages at Viceroy Nute Gunray, the ethnically-stereotyped leader of the Trade Federation (representing Asians), for his blockade, and confers with Senator Sheev Palpatine about what's going on, and the Federation proceeds with its invasion of the planet. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan flee the Federation ship they infiltrate to the planet's surface and meet the ever-polarizing character Jar Jar Binks, the Gungans representing Africans in terms of ethnic stereotypes (but personally, I find Donald Duck and Lisa Simpson to be a million times more annoying).
The Jedi go with Jar Jar to the underwater Gungan city of Otoh Gunga to meet their xenophobic leader, Boss Nass, voiced by BRIAN BLESSED, who tells them to piss off and sends them on their way through the planet's core to Theed, Naboo's capital, where they flee via ship. Despite having a million freaking directions to flee in space, the queen's starship moronically flies near one of the Trade Federation vessels (a plot hole bequeathed from The Empire Strikes Back), sustaining damage, but a group of astromech droids lead by none other than R2-D2, the sole survivor of the repair efforts, helps them get away to safety.
Damage to the ship's hyperdrive leads the queen's starship to land on the desert planet of Tatooine, where the party meets a young slave boy named Anakin Skywalker, who with his mother Shmi is enslaved to a Toydarian junk dealer named Watto, representing the Jews in terms of ethnic stereotyping. Qui-Gon tries to buy parts for the ships, but as Tatooine is outside the Galactic Republic, his money is worthless; at the same time, the rogue Jedi Master senses that the Force is strong in Anakin, doing a blood test to determine that his midi-chlorian count is off the charts. The Force having a biological basis has been another point of contention for series "fans," but this makes sense later on in the Prequel Trilogy, and even the Original Trilogy hints that the Force may have a strong biological basis.
True to Obi-Wan's word in the Original Trilogy, Anakin is indeed a "great pilot," and really excels at mechanics and Tatooine's resident sport, podracing, preparing for a huge race that serves as a brilliant homage to Ben-Hur, which he wins, and consequentially, his freedom from slavery, although his mother is left behind in the bargain with Watto. The enigmatic Sith Lord Darth Maul harasses the party as they began to leave for Coruscant, but they eventually get there, with the Jedi High Council determining that Anakin is too old to be trained in the Order given his inner demons and Oedipus complex.
In a session of Congress that plays out like a galactic version of C-SPAN, Queen Amidala and Senator Palpatine call for a Vote of No Confidence against Chancellor Finis Valorum, but their petition is shot down, which leads the queen to go home and get the help of the Gungans in repelling the Trade Federation from their planet. Queen Amidala plans to have the Gungans serve as a distraction in getting the droid armies out of Theed so she and her team can infiltrate the capital, after which the battle on the plains of Naboo plays out. One thing I found particularly odd is the Gungans' forcefield system, which the droids can't shoot through yet can oddly walk right on through.
Anakin Skywalker finds himself in the midst of all the chaos that ensues on Naboo, taking refuge in a starfighter with R2-D2, although he accidentally takes it into space, becoming the accidental hero of the day and showing his early genocidal tendencies by taking out the Trade Federation ship and its alien crew, disabling the droids the Gungans are fighting against. "Now this is podracing!" I think demonstrates Anakin's inherent Dark Side tendencies in treating war like a game, which pretty much proves the case later on in the Prequel Trilogy era.
In the meantime, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan take on Darth Maul with his badass twin-bladed lightsaber, in which the latter ultimately takes the quick-and-easy path to becoming a Jedi Knight and becomes Anakin's master, to the chagrin of Master Yoda, who is ultimately proven right since Kenobi turns out to be a terrible teacher in the long run. Senator Palpatine succeeds Finis Valorum as Galactic Chancellor, which of course eventually bites the Galaxy in the ass, and promises to watch young Skywalker's career with "great interest," a bombastic ceremony in Theed concluding the film.
As usual, composer John Williams rocks the music boat with his soundtrack including of course the iconic main Star Wars theme and its occasional variants throughout the film, with tons of original melodies as well, many of which utilize vocals, in the case of the battle against Darth Maul. I've also begun watching films to their ending credits nowadays, with the concluding music at the very end being really haunting, ending with Darth Vader's iconic respiration, a chilling reminder of how an innocent boy like Anakin can succumb to evil, and giving me tears just to think about as that's pretty much been the story of my life.
The visual effects are nice as well, and while nitpicky critics have complained about "stupid conspicuous CG bullshit," I really can't tell the difference, with the worlds and effects being beautiful. Some have complained about the alleged superiority of the technology compared to the Original Trilogy, but it's not nearly as bad as in, say, the Star Trek franchise, and Star Wars has been far more about the characters and worlds anyway than the goings-on of starship crews. There are further a lot of questionable, sometimes lampoonable, plot elements, but the OT films aren't ones to talk in that regard, as the Family Guy parodies brilliantly point out.
All in all, I think that "professional" film critics and so-called "fans" dislike The Phantom Menace for all the wrong reasons, the wrongest being that the original films are absolutely perfect and among the greatest films of all time. It's definitely far from a flawless film, but...no amount of gaslighting or having the crap beaten out of me will convince me that movies with "twists" like Obi-Wan Kenobi and "Ben" Kenobi being one and the same or dialogue like, "Why you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!" are "masterpieces." As George Ball said, "Nostalgia is a seductive liar," and to rephrase it in Yoda's speech patterns, "A seductive liar, nostalgia is."
| The Good | The Bad |
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| The Bottom Line | |
| Definitely not perfect (but neither are the original films), but really misunderstood and disliked for the wrong reasons. | |
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