“The Phantom Menace”... Is it Better than You Remember?

So apparently “Star Wars Episode 1- The Phantom Menace” is coming back to theaters this May in celebration of its 25th anniversary. This is the first of the prequel installments and will be soon followed by the other nine films that constitute the "Skywalker Saga."

Now, it is not exactly hidden knowledge that the “Star Wars” franchise has mostly undergone some ups and downs in recent years... mostly downs.

The Walt Disney Company has not handled the franchise in a way that they truly should have and focused on upsetting the fans (their most loyal customers/consumers) and diluting a brand that was once viable and iconic.

In other words, it is just another broken Hollywood franchise now. Not great, Disney... just not.

Let us rewind back to a time when “Star Wars” was a series worth embracing, and one where each new installment was an exciting new event.

By the time “The Phantom Menace” rolled around, there was not a single new “Star Wars” film in theaters for sixteen years, the last being “Return of the Jedi” in 1983.

All audiences and fans had were the original three films to rewatch on VHS over-and-over-again. If you were a kid, you might have caught the “Droids” show on television, but that is deep cutting it a little bit.

You could imagine that after years of limited “Star Wars” movies, the announcement of a prequel trilogy would excite fans immensely.

In 1999, “The Phantom Menace” was released and the reactions were decidedly mixed. You either had people praising it or dismissing the film. Though it was universally accepted, no matter the opinion, that the prequel movie was not as good as anything in the original trilogy.

Then Disney bought Lucasfilm, and even though the prequels were not as good as fans originally expected, things would only get worse from here.

After the modern Disney-Lucasfilm disaster, “The Phantom Menace” has had some time to soak in with fans a little more, and surprisingly enough, it has aged well.

To get this out of the way, while it isn’t the best “Star Wars” installment of all time, it’s certainly not the worst anymore... thanks to Disney. In fact, it’s better than 95% of the material that has been released for the franchise. Yes... it is.

First off, the action sequences in the movie are better than a lot of the action in Disney products. The Disney Plus shows tend to be boring in that department, and even “The Mandalorian” doesn’t win out in that department.

All three of the Sequel Trilogy installments also do not contain the most interesting action sequences. “The Force Awakens” is mostly uninteresting, “The Last Jedi” has some poor choreography as well as some logistical mishaps, and “The Rise of Skywalker” is just a bunch of rushed visual noise.

Thankfully, at least the “Rogue One” anthology movie has a terrific sequence at the end with the Battle of Scarif, but that is easily the best Disney-Star Wars movie out of the five anyway.

One reason the action sequences in this movie are better is because Lucas knew how to properly edit action, something the D+ shows fail at. They are supposed to be unique visually and fast-paced. Somebody explain why “The Last Jedi” needs to be paced like something out of “Star Trek”?

Secondly, when George Lucas was planning out the Prequel trilogy, unlike Disney, he had no intention of deliberately upsetting the fanbase, nor did he fully intend to simply make a horrible rehash simply filled with the "member-berries."

All Lucas wanted to do in the prequels was to explore Anakin Skywalker’s backstory from becoming an innocent Jedi child to Darth Vader while simultaneously exploring how republic governments become dictatorships.

Meanwhile, all Disney could do is rehash the same adventure and story tropes from the original trilogy, while also creating a brand-new character whose sole purpose was to usurp Luke’s role as a Jedi Master and strip the Skywalkers of their legacy.

Additionally, it is also ironic that the character of Jar Jar Binks is also no longer the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise (unless we are counting the “Holiday Special”).

The character is meant to be comedic relief, but a lot of fans considered him to be too aggravatingly annoying and stupid. And sure, a lot of his mishaps feel out of place with the rest of the movie.

Despite that, compared to the rest of the mistakes Disney has made with “Star Wars,” Jar Jar Binks is no longer the worst part of the franchise.

In fact, a lot of fans would even welcome him back at this point. Though, it is possible even Disney would ruin Jar Jar.

Lastly, while the prequel movies have initially received flack for being too CGI-heavy and whose special effects have not aged so well (even though Lucas was using them to push the boundaries of SPFX), “The Phantom Menace” ages well in that regard.

This first prequel actually has a lot of practical effects naturally mixed in CG effects and environments, creating a consistent look, and actually has way more practical effects than a movie from the original trilogy believe it or not.

Jar Jar Binks was also the first mainstream motion-capture creature put to screen (not Gollum), and despite Jar Jar not being everyone’s favorite character, his visual look matches up pretty well in the final cut.

The special effects for the epic pod-racing sequence were always effective. Go ahead and try to find one bad shot of that sequence... take your time.

Overall, it’s obvious at this point that maybe “The Phantom Menace” wasn’t so bad. It's at least more memorable than a show like “Tales of the Jedi,” and serves a unique purpose in the saga, unlike the entire Sequel Trilogy and the atrocious “Obi-Wan Kenobi” show.

Go watch this in theaters in May... please.

Logan M. Sharp is a fourth-year majoring in film production. To contact him, please email lxs5590@psu.edu.