Has it really been 20 years since STAR WARS: EPISODE I – THE PHANTOM MENACE debuted in cinemas? The year was 1999. After our minds got blow by the bullet time of The Matrix, but before we learned the secrets of The Sixth Sense, lapsed filmmaker George Lucas got back behind the camera to shatter box office records. Decades later, the jury is still out on it.
Every saga has a beginning
Back in 1998, there was barely an Internet to break. Here in Australia, only 41% of adults said they went online, and most of us were using dial-up. Despite using at work and uni, even a geek like me was only taking his first steps into home dial-up around then.
StarWars.com had launched in November 1996, and like most websites at the time it was a novelty. There to promote the Special Editions of the original films, things really started picking up when production began on a new series of films. Pre-empting the YouTube generation of behind the scenes oversharing, Lynne’s Diaries – hosted by LucasFilm director of publicity Lynne Hale – a series of downloadable ‘making of’ videos teased us with the process that went into making the sausage.
When a teaser trailer for THE PHANTOM MENACE was released online on 13 November 1998, it was a red-letter day for Internet fandom. In the first 24 hours alone, the trailer was downloaded 1 million times. In the first five days, it was downloaded 3.5 million times, soaring to 6.4 million within three weeks. It looked different: newer, fresher, and cleaner than the lived-in world we were used to. Yet it was the first new Star Wars footage in fifteen years (the Ewok films notwithstanding), complete with John Williams score, lightsabers, and digital effects that were cutting edge. It was a win for the internet, a win for Apple’s compact Quicktime format, and a massive coup for Star Wars.
A second trailer was even bigger, perhaps even a cinematic event in its own right. Released into cinemas on 12 March 1999, people were buying full-priced cinema tickets to see the trailer in front of otherwise forgettable films. In the US, punters turned up to see Wing Commander and left after the trailer was screened. I have memories of sitting in a session of John Carpenter’s Vampire‘s at Hoyts Eastgardens here in Sydney watching at least one Star Wars trailer. I stuck around for the feature: it wasn’t that bad!
Shops, and our houses, were filled with merchandise. The teaser poster imagery of a young Anakin – with literal foreshadowing of Darth Vader – hung on many a wall. It was, and still remains, as cool as hell. The soundtrack, complete with spoiler tracks, hit the stores a few weeks before release telling us of “Qui-Gon’s Noble End.” Which was fine: I’d already read the hardcover novelisation that came out in late April. Toy shops were on alert. From the complete set of collectible Pepsi cans to Jar Jar tongue lollipops, this was our chance to get in on the ground floor of the biggest cinematic event of our time. Hands up how many of your bought Jar Jar toys prior to the film’s release? I thought so.
I have a bad feeling about this…
When the film came out in May 1999 (and June in Australia), it arrived with all the hype of a royal visitation. I had barely started writing about movies in those days, so I lined up with the rest of the Sydney punters on opening day.
The energy was crackling in beautiful art deco cinema The Randwick Ritz as the lights faded. The familiar 20th Century Fox logo got a massive cheer and as ‘A long time ago…‘ appeared on screen, the room was set to explode. The John Williams score announced the familiar opening scrawl. We were home. Then something happened.
The text was filled with exposition about a trade blockade. We were a long way from a “period of civil war.” During the introduction of a young Obi-Wan, the Jedi padawan remarks: “I have a bad feeling about this.” It was a quote straight out of the original series, but Obi-Wan spoke for us all. A flash of lightsabers and some droid battles later, we were feeling okay about this. At least until we landed on Naboo and heard the first full conversation with the all-CG Jar Jar Binks.
Scores of reviews have been written as to where THE PHANTOM MENACE went wrong. Jar Jar cops a lot of the blame, but he is really just an avatar for Lucas’s attitude towards the film. (“Jar Jar’s the key to all of this,” remarked Lucas in a making of video). In making it for a childhood audience, he seemed to be wilfully ignoring the adults who had grown up with the original saga. Then again, it’s not as though Lucas hadn’t warned us about his feelings towards tradition with the Special Editions.
Fear is the path to the Dark Side..
Racist stereotypes, an over-reliance on CG, actors who aren’t sure where to look, cheesy dialogue, and a puppet Yoda that is the stuff of nightmares. These are just some of the things that plague Lucas’s film, but it wasn’t all bad. To this day, the Podrace sequence is one of the most thrilling chase sequences of the era. The Duel of the Fate lightsaber fight – a three-way battle between Darth Maul, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan – was the first time we’d seen Jedi at their full strength. The landscaping on Naboo’s surface was magnificent. On a technical level, the special effects are groundbreaking.
While The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were collaborations with other writers and directors, Lucas took full control of THE PHANTOM MENACE. There’s a making of video (The Beginning) that shows Lucas quickly assessing a wall full of concept art, surrounded by yes men, and seemingly picking random designs and moving on. It was the mark of someone who was still unquestionably a creative force to be reckoned with, but more concerned with aesthetics than substance. Perhaps Lucas wasn’t heeding Master Yoda’s 1980 warning: “If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will…” Then again, Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan wrote that.
The anniversary of THE PHANTOM MENACE also marks another weird date for me. Just after the screening, I had a chicken burger at a major chain. To this date, it was the last time I would ever eat meat of any kind. Is there a connection between the two? I’ve never worked it out. Perhaps they were both signs of a turning point where the things I loved as a child would no longer be part of my life. Or maybe that’s just more random stuff that gets wrapped up in the pop cultural references that make up a geek mind. Yet twenty years on, and another half dozen Star Wars films later, I never went back to meat, but I saw the film another three or four times at the cinema. I guess all I’m trying to say is, mesa hatin’ crunchin’. Dat’s the last thing mesa want.
