This sets the tone for the film’s repeated waste of its scariest character.īut salvaging Maul is easy: We just need to see a little more of him in action. But our first look at Maul is through a crappy, color-free hologram - wasting the element of shock and surprise that’s clearly an intended part of his character design. He exudes raw power and looks like the product of a night of clumsy passion between Satan and a Komodo dragon. The longer he’s away from home, the more his jokiness tapers off, and by the film’s end, we have a somber, emotionally bruised kid, one who has witnessed death and understands that he’s never going home again.Īt least one of your 11th-grade assessments of this film still stands: Darth Maul is rad. It could start subtly enough, with Anakin sulking in his first hours away from his mother. This could be easily accomplished, using just a few plot shifts, to create a darker character arc for Anakin, one that gives stronger hints about what he will eventually become.
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But Anakin should show some gradual changes in his character that make his eventual fall to the dark side feel more inevitable. We’re not asking for him to transform into a bad seed who screams “Yippee” while flicking matches at a wampa. (This is a kid who actually says “ Yippeee!”) Not quite the stuff evil space lords are made of. Even after he suffers a number of intense traumas - like leaving his mother or watching people die - he brushes the events off easily. But there are no hints at all that Anakin will become the most terrifying tyrant in the galaxy. Which would be fine if he were supposed to grow up to be a guy who manages an accounting firm in a deep-space office park. Not only would that lend the film some of the atmospheric darkness that makes Empire Strikes Back such a classic - but it would also cut a good half hour from the movie’s seemingly interminable running time.Īnakin Skywalker is a giddy kid who’s really good with machines, loves his mom, and is thrilled about the prospect of riding in someone’s starship - basically, your average all-Tatooinian boy.
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Don’t crosscut one of Jinn’s last living moments with a shot of Jar Jar getting hit in the balls let the drama and gravity of these situations authentically develop. Of all the problems with Menace, this is the easiest to solve. And since this film never met a high-stakes situation that it didn’t immediately downgrade to a mere kerfuffle, all of its wisecracks come off as painfully corny. Wisecracks serve to cut tension in a high-stakes situation. Yes, the original trilogy was full of quotable one-liners, but they were wisecracks. But as irritating as googly-eyed Gungan doofus may be, he isn’t the cause of your pain he’s a mere symptom of Lucas’s obsession with hokey slapstick comedy.
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But shuffling and slashing footage will get you only so far: No matter how much you tweak The Phantom Menace, there’s no getting around the fact that, in the end, you’re still stuck with a lot of scenes from The Phantom Menace.īut what if we were able to travel back and visit Lucas in the mid-1990s - before he had printed a single promotional soda cup or OKed his first Jar Jar lollipop - and whisper some changes into his ear? What would you tell him? Here’s how we would fix Phantom in seven (relatively) easy steps.ĭespite what some Internet contrarians will tell you, you’re right to hate Jar Jar. The first major reworking of the film, The Phantom Edit, debuted in 2001, and in recent years, Star Wars die-hards, such as Topher Grace and this anonymous person using Vimeo, have taken Menace (and its two sequels) out of carbonite, with the hopes of creating their own special editions. Though the movie made more than a billion dollars worldwide, it had few defenders and quickly became the object of scorn among fans - some of whom tried to rewrite galactic history with their own highly imaginative (and wholly unauthorized) homemade versions of the film.
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This weekend marks the 15th anniversary of the release of George Lucas’s first prequel, which means it also marks 15 years of fans being disappointed by Lucas’s first prequel. For the next 136 minutes, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace repeatedly, mercilessly let you down. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (the cinema behind your local mall that’s since been converted to a BJ’s), you cut your afternoon bio class, picked up a ticket you’d purchased six months in advance, and eagerly settled into your seat.