Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Released: 1999

Directed By: George Lucas

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman

Certificate: U

Warning: positive review of The Phantom Menace inbound…right, now that the close-minded snobs have left, let’s continue: George Lucas’ second directorial entry in his space-opera saga shoots back almost forty years before Return of the Jedi, to the days of the old Republic. On a routine mission, Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and young Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) discover an insidious plot by the evil Sith to enslave the peaceful planet of Naboo. With the planet’s Queen (Natalie Portman) in tow, the Jedi flee across the galaxy in search of help. Their paths cross with young slave boy Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), setting in motion a chain of events that will alter their destinies and the universe forever.

Some people have a problem finding a main character in this film, and the simple truth is that there just isn’t one: the point is, do we complain about Avengers Assemble for having a menagerie of stars at the forefront rather than just one? If anything, having a variety of characters taking the centre stage (while overwhelming and complicated for some) means the audience has an easier time finding one to identify with: are you calm and composed like Qui-Gon? Are you headstrong and eager like Obi-Wan? Perhaps stoic like Queen Amidala, or clumsy and awkward like Jar-Jar?

For the intended audience (undeniably children, or the inner child for those of us in adulthood), the latter is a fairly reliable source of comedy, whilst young Anakin Skywalker is the one they feel closer to; a bright-eyed, wonderstruck child looking to the stars in hope. Poor Jake Lloyd looks and sounds out of his depth throughout, but when you’ve got the job of establishing one of the most prolific characters in cinematic history, you try it without cracking!

Another element of the cast (with the benefit of repeat viewings) is the then-unknown stars smattered across the film, a list featuring no less than Keira Knightley, Richard Armitage, Dominic West, Sofia Coppola, Ray Park and Peter Serafinowicz. The latter pair double up as the body and voice of fan-favourite villain Darth Maul respectively, a hard-as-nails warrior that many felt was killed off to quickly, but who I think works better as a short burst: yeah, he might be cool to look at and comes packaged with a double-bladed lightsaber, but he is, after all, a lackey to a larger enemy. The climactic duel between Maul and our two Jedi is a masterfully choreographed sequence, accompanied by composer John Williams ‘Duel of the Fates’, a piece of music that (like many of his works) has slipped from the confines of the picture and worked its way into the popular culture hive-mind.

There are, of course, still some issues: there’s a visible lull in the pace when the story takes us to the Galactic Senate and during the build-up to the final confrontation, while a whole fifteen minutes could easily be cut out of the pre-pod race meanderings, but never-the-less there’s still enough going on visually to keep the eye interested, even if the brain wanders elsewhere. Because whatever problems you might have with the plot or the characters, there’s no denying the quality of the production design and effects. Episode I contains more miniature work than the entire original trilogy put together, and the combination of practical models with the emerging use of digital imagery creates quite an impressive show, all coming to a head in the aforementioned pod race.