The Phantom Menace
The Phantom Menace
EPISODE
I
The PHANTOM Menace
Fanfare for the first Lucas-directed Star Wars movie in 22 years was deafening. Phantom brought back Vader, Jedi duels, and introduced the series’ most controversial character.
Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi team up to take on the Sith warrior Darth Maul and his double-bladed light-saber, set to John Williams’ “Duel of the Fates.”
GEORGE LUCAS IS HOLLYWOOD’S HOMER, AND like the ancient Greek poet, the Star Wars creator knows our need for an origin story. What started the struggle between the Empire and the Rebels? How did Luke Skywalker’s father go from young Jedi to Sith Lord? Lucas had answered those questions before shooting a single frame of the 1977 film.
Fans quickly showed their approval of Phantom by setting a box office record, making it the second-highest-grossing film ever worldwide. (However, in response to a plot-line about taxation on galactic trade routes, at least one critic quipped that the film essentially dramatized the North American Free Trade Agreement.)
The saga begins with the Republic in turmoil; it is up to two Jedis, Qui-Gon Jinn(Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) to restore peace. Lucas conjures a classic adventure with the newest and shiniest tools at his disposal (green screens, eye-candy CGI effects), and the results are spectacular. New characters are introduced, but it’s the first encounter with a 9-year-old slave boy named Anakin (Jake Lloyd) that packs the most exhilarating jolt. There’s a thrilling sense of anticipation in wondering where the Force will soon take him…and us. —CHRISTOPHER NASHAWATY
“I’VE BEEN WAITING NEARLY 20 YEARS TO HAVE MY OWN LIGHTSABER. NOTHING’S COOLER THAN BEING A JEDI KNIGHT.”
—EWAN McGREGOR
The new face of the Dark Side: Darth Maul. Ray Park had all the necessary martial-arts skills, but his voice (all five lines) was provided by Peter Serafinowicz.
Young Anakin goes before the Jedi Council. Phantom’s 1999 release used a Yoda puppet that had badly aged, which changed to a realistic CGI Yoda for the 2011 Blu-ray.
The 14-year-old ruler of Naboo, Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman), finds herself on the throne during turbulent times.
Concept sketch of Amidala’s craft by design director Doug Chiang.
That Goofy Gungan
In Defense of Jar Jar
For one actor, a role in Phantom seemed like a dream come true—and then the critical brickbats and fan fury began.
AHMED BEST BROUGHT ONE OF the first computer-generated lead characters to life in arguably the most anticipated movie of all time—and immediately found himself in the eye of a storm of ridicule. The floppy-eared amphibian he played was denounced by critics and fanboys alike as the most annoying—and, some claimed, offensive—addition ever to the Star Wars universe.
No one foresaw the negative reaction prior to release. In fact, the cast found Best delightful. “Ahmed had Ewan and me in stitches most days,” says Liam Neeson. Natalie Portman concurs: “He was definitely everyone’s favorite person on set.” The Phantom Menace ensemble was convinced that Best’s character would become an audience favorite. They could not have been more wrong.
When the reviews finally rolled out, Best was stunned at the sheer force of the enmity. “There was never a question or comment about my performance or the character that arose while we were working,” says Best.
Especially jarring to Best were the charges that his character was a racist stereotype. To this day, these charges confuse Best rather than anger him. According to Lucas, Jar Jar’s speech patterns (“Meesa called Jar Jar Binks. Meesa your humble servant”) were to some degree based on “pidgin English from the Samoan islands and Pacific islands and the Caribbean,” but “it was a completely made-up language.” In fact, Lucas says, some of his son Jett’s baby talk even ended up as words. (The term “Gungan” is what Jett used to call cars.)
For the man who went from sleeping in his Star Wars sheets as a child to starring in a Star Wars movie, the negative reaction was humbling. “Jar Jar was a lightning rod for everything that folks didn’t like [about the movie],” Best says.
McGregor and other cast members rallied to his defense. McGregor says, “If there’s any criticism, it shouldn’t fall on Ahmed’s shoulders. Because he did exactly what he was asked to do. He did it very, very well. He gave a great performance.”
Part of the Star Wars audience agrees with that assessment: the younglings. “Kids really relate to Jar Jar because he’s a kids’ character, plain and simple,” says Best. “And that’s who the movie is for. So if kids like it, I did my job.” For his part, Lucas sees Jar Jar as merely the latest in a line of his characters that adults love to hate. “When we did the very first Star Wars, C-3PO was in the same position and was hated by some of the fans,” says the director. “Then when we did Return of the Jedi, everybody was completely disgusted with the Ewoks.”
Considering everything that he went through, does Best ever wish he had not been cast as Jar Jar Binks? “No, never,” he says emphatically. “I’m proud of it, I’m glad I did it, and I’d do it again. I’m proud George had enough faith in me to say, ‘You, kid! You do it’ and put me on a stage that’s the biggest you’ll ever get. I appreciate every minute of it.” —DALTON ROSS
On set, Best had to squeeze into a skintight motion-capture suit and wear Jar Jar’s head on top of his head to ensure the correct eye level for the other actors.
Viewing Order
STAR WATCH
IF YOU’RE PREPARING FOR THE FORCE AWAKENS WITH A MARATHON BINGE, YOU HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE: WHICH DISC DO YOU PUT IN FIRST? HERE ARE SOME PATHS YOU COULD PICK.
THE PREQUELS
THREE WAYS TO VIEW
RELEASE ORDER
It’s how the world was introduced to the Force way back when.
The original trilogy is where it all began. If it had not been as groundbreaking or inspiring, we would never have had prequels (or sequels). Unfortunately, while the action was fast-paced in 1977, it has aged; today’s Millennial audience may find the long, drawn-out scenes on Tatooine in A New Hope a bit of a snooze.
CHRONOLOGICAL
If you’re under the age of 20, The Phantom Menace was likely your first Star Wars movie.
And that’s the order that George Lucas intended the films to be viewed, stating that the prequels and original trilogy is the story of just one man: Anakin Skywalker. While this order will spoil some of the surprises in the originals, the generation of kids that grew up on the candy-colored digital effects pioneered by Lucas will love the podracing.
MACHETE ORDER
This fan-favored order cuts down the series to five films, skipping Phantom entirely.
Without The Phantom Menace, the story is tighter, and the reveal for Luke’s parentage is maintained. Just one actor plays Anakin in the prequels (and no creepy age difference between Portman and Lloyd). While you’ll miss that awesome lightsaber battle between Maul, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, it might be worth it to both skip the introduction of midi-chlorians (Force bacteria!) and cut down Jar Jar to just five lines.
Music of the Galaxy
Secrets of the Score
Breaking down the elements that give John Williams’ Star Wars soundtrack the power to move us still.
AS THEY LEFT THEATERS IN May 1977, newly minted Star Wars fans wanted somehow to carry the wonder home with them. Yet in an epic exit-through-the-gift-shop failure, officially licensed toys and other tie-ins wouldn’t go on sale for months, missing Halloween and even Christmas. Fortunately John Williams’ orchestral soundtrack LP hit stores and the Billboard Top 10 by the summer (along with Meco’s kitschy disco version), making it one of the first Star Wars souvenirs one could cling to. Even before they had A New Hope’s record, or those of its two sequels, anyone who’d seen the film was likely to have bits of Williams’ hummable score lodged in their heads. And who needs a plastic-and-rubber-band Luke Skywalker mask when, with a flashlight and some construction paper, you could wage a mock battle while voicing the triumphant theme: dun-DUN-da-da-da-DUN-da. ...
Until then, Williams was best known for reducing the stealthy horror of a great white shark to two ominous notes. Steven Spielberg once recounted the first time he heard Williams tap out the main theme for 1975’s Jaws on the piano: “I said, ‘That’s all?’ He said, ‘I really think that’s all you need.’ ” For the space saga that Spielberg’s pal George Lucas was planning, Williams brought many more notes in a conscious throwback to the sweeping, Old-Hollywood film scores in the manner of Max Steiner (Gone With the Wind) or Miklos Rosza (Ben Hur). The effect of Star Wars’ score was as indelible as that deceptively simple Jaws theme, in part because the composer used the 19th-century operatic technique of the leitmotif—repeated musical phrases that correspond to specific characters and story themes.
Think of the opening anthem, which accompanies each chapter’s expositional crawl: This octave-spanning tune, in wholesome B-flat major, is irresistibly stirring not only for its leap-frogging melody but for what that melody leaps over: a harmony built partly from a “quartal” chord, so-called because it’s essentially a stack of fanfare-like fourth intervals (the opening notes of “Taps” or the “Wedding March” are fourths), and a restless rhythm in the underscoring that alternates off-beat bursts of syncopation with an even-keeled march, keeping this otherwise straightforward processional on its toes.
Of course, it’s only fitting that a Manichaean saga of good and evil also has a shadow motif—something both more evocative and more slippery in its implications. The “Force theme” first memorably surges forth in the 1977 film as Luke gazes at a double sunset on Tatooine; it is later fitfully applied to scenes in which the reclusive Jedi Master Obi-Wan warily reveals his ancient secrets to his young charge. By The Empire Strikes Back, it has a more disciplined use: It stands for both the grave responsibility and terrible power of the Force, that yin-yang energy with which this saga’s heroes must struggle.
What gives this secondary melody its absurdly heart-tugging potency? Like the main Star Wars theme, it’s got some fanfare mojo, opening with a stalwart fourth that could be a quote from “Taps,” except that it’s in a sobering minor key. But here that minor key has a bracing rather than a downbeat effect, suggesting not mourning or danger but seriousness of purpose; that it is met at every turn by hopeful major chords, like shafts of light in a dark corridor, makes it feel like a struggle worth seeing through.
These two leitmotifs, and a half dozen others, are entwined like DNA strands throughout the six Star Wars films to date. Williams composed a new score for The Force Awakens, and the full trailer leans noticeably on his Force theme, as well as Han and Leia’s love theme, without a trace of the main melody.
By now Williams’ work on these films is a kind of living legacy: He has served his share of franchises, from Indiana Jones to Jurassic Park to Harry Potter (the first three films). But his unique contribution to Lucas’ vision makes it possible to think of his Star Wars music as one large body of work, like Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations or Wagner’s Ring cycle. Arguably, his scores have been more artistically consistent than the films themselves. And while it’s always fun to play “name that influence” (go ahead, Google Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War,” Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Kings Row film theme, and the “Sacrifice” introduction of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring), the operatic music of Star Wars soars above such petty second-guessing, a Force unto itself. —ROB WEINERT-KENDT
Weinert-Kendt is a composer, and the editor of American Theatre magazine.
“THE SOUND AND MUSIC ARE 50% OF THE ENTERTAINMENT IN A MOVIE.”
—GEORGE LUCAS
Lucas consulting with Williams on The Phantom Menace. While discussing scoring The Force Awakens, Williams said, “I actually feel like I’ve never really left it [the series] ... I’m just happy to be continuing to be part of the whole fun of doing it.”
Williams is joined on stage by two Ewoks at the San Francisco Symphony’s Pops concert in 1983.
