2024 marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Directed by George Lucas, it had been years since a new Star Wars film was released so fans, old and new, were extremely excited to see their favorite franchise back on the big screen. In fact, fans were so excited that they sold out theaters showing Meet Joe Black, a mediocre and forgettable Brad Pitt movie, just so they could see The Phantom Menace trailer which showed before the movie. It was a fresh start.

Now, in the year 2024, we know that’s not the case. The Phantom Menace made a boatload of cash, but took a massive hit by critics and fans alike. It set Star Wars down a path that many think it has not recovered from.

So, what makes it so divisive? Weird directorial choices, bad acting, and downright horrible scripts make it very difficult to enjoy. But, under all of that, is there something worth watching? Let’s find out in our review!

The Phantom Menace | Summary & Recap

The Negotiations Were Short

The classic Star Wars opening text crawl informs us that the planet Naboo has been blockaded by the Trade Federation after a series of taxation disputes in the Outer Rim. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), are sent to meet with the Trade Federation in hopes of ending the blockade. Qui-Gon assures Obi-Wan that the negotiations will be quick. However, Viceroy Nute Gunray and his Trade Federation crew are instructed by a mysterious figure named Darth Sidious to start attacking the planet of Naboo now that the Jedi are involved.

The Jedi, while waiting for their meeting, are gassed. They escape, only to find several battalions of battle droids on the other side of the doors. After clearing the corridors, the Jedi climb into a dropship and head to the planet. Once there, they want to make it to the royal palace in Theed.

Meanwhile, Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) and her royal advisors meet to discuss the blockade and subsequent attack. The Naboo senator, Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) assures them that he is working with the Senate, but they are deadlocked. Amidala refuses to meet their show of force with hostility, not allowing her people to be led into a war where they can’t defend themselves.

The Naboo and the Gungans

On the planet’s surface, Qui-Gon saves a Gungan named Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) from being run over by a tank. Jar Jar follows them and says that the safest place on the planet is Otoh Gunga, the Gungan’s home under the water. However, Jar Jar is banned from the city. The Jedi convince him to take them there, despite his warnings of a hostile welcome.

Arriving at the city, Jar Jar and the Jedi are taken to Boss Nass, the leader of the Gungans. Nass reveals that the Naboo and the Gungans are not allies and they don’t care about the war above the seas. Despite this, he allows the Jedi to pass through the planet core to make it to the city. While the Jedi face big fish under the sea, the Trade Federation captures Queen Amidala and forces her into negotiations.

While the Trade Federation takes her to her prison, the Jedi arrive and destroy the battle droids. The Jedi advise Amidala to make contact with the Republic. With the communications disrupted by the invasion, the only way to Coruscant and the Senate is by stealing a ship and flying there.

The Trade Federation sees that a ship and the Queen were taken and informs Sidious. Sidious tells them that his apprentice, Darth Maul, will track down the missing ship.

Mos Espa

The ship can’t make it all the way to Coruscant due to a Hyperdrive issue. They are forced to land on Tatooine in the settlement of Mos Espa. Qui-Gon, Jar Jar, and Padmé, one of the Queen’s handmaidens, journey through the hot sands in search of a part for their ship. Searching the junk dealers of the area leads them to Watto, a Toydarian who owns a young boy as a slave. The boy, Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), is a skilled podracer due to his ability to react quickly. Padmé and Anakin seem to be getting along very well.

Qui-Gon sends a vial of his blood to Obi-Wan to test his Midichlorian count. The blood test reveals that his Midichlorian count is even higher than Master Yoda’s. This means the boy is incredibly strong in the Force. Qui-Gon makes a bet with Watto that, if Anakin wins the Boonta Eve podrace, he will free Anakin and give him the hyperdrive parts. If Anakin loses, Qui-Gon will give Watto his ship.

Anakin wins, of course, and Qui-Gon tells Anakin that he is free. Unfortunately, that means he has to leave his mother, Shmi, at Watto’s shop. Qui-Gon promises Anakin that he will teach him how to be a Jedi. After they leave the shop, the crew sets off to repair the ship. However, as they travel, Darth Maul attacks the Jedi in the deserts. They are able to escape just in the nick of time.

A Vote of No Confidence

Anakin and company make it to Coruscant, a planet that is one giant megalopolis. Queen Amidala meets with Senator Palpatine about what the Senate will do regarding the blockade. However, the Senate is bogged down in bureaucracy about possible corruption from the current Supreme Chancellor, Finis Valorum. Palpatine urges Amidala to ask for a vote of no confidence to get them out of that muck.

Meanwhile, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan debrief with the Jedi Council about their attacker on Tatooine. They do not believe that it could be a Dark Lord of the Sith, as they have been thought to be extinct for millenia. Yoda says they will look into the matter. He then senses that Qui-Gon has more to say. Qui-Gon tells the Council about a potential “vergence” in the Force, centered around Anakin. He believes that it is possible that Anakin was conceived by the Force and asks that he be trained.

Queen Amidala and Palpatine speak before the Senate to ask for aid for Naboo, pinning all of the problems squarely on the Trade Federation. The Trade Federation objects, leading to several other senators to voice their dissent to aid. Chancellor Valorum says it will be discussed in committee. Amidala refuses to let that happen and calls for a vote of no confidence, leading to Valorum’s ousting.

Queen Amidala waits with Jar Jar to hear from the Senate. Jar Jar tries to comfort her by saying the Gungans have an army and they won’t go down without a fight. Palpatine enters and says that he will likely be the next chancellor. She tells him that she intends to go to Naboo and work with the Gungans to save their planet.

Anakin meets with the Jedi Council to see if he can begin Jedi training. He passes all of their tests without batting an eye. Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), however, declares that the boy is too old to begin the training. Qui-Gon pleads with the Council. He believes Anakin is the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force. Yoda says that Anakin’s future is clouded.

Qui-Gon tells the Council that he will take on Anakin as a Padawan and that Obi-Wan is ready for the trials. The Council puts Anakin’s situation on hold, as they have more pressing matters. They send Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan back to Naboo in order to draw out the potential Sith and help with the oncoming battle.

The Battle of Naboo

Back on Naboo, the gang meets with Boss Nass and the Gungans to ask for their assistance in the upcoming battle. Boss Nass is skeptical of Queen Amidala, but is swayed after her humble handmaiden, Padmé, reveals that she was Queen all along. The Queen Amidala we have seen throughout the film was just a decoy to protect her. The two factions reach an agreement.

The Grand Gungan Army will act as a decoy while Padmé and her retinue infiltrate Theed to capture the Trade Federation and end the blockade. Meanwhile, a group of starfighters will head off planet to destroy the Droid command ship to stop their advance. The Neimoidians of the Trade Federation inform Sidious that the army is gathering. He responds to wipe them all out.

There are several battles going at once. The battle on the plains is about to take a turn for the worse. Luckily, Anakin was able to take a ship from the hangar and destroy the command center. This stops the droids in their tracks. At the palace, Padmé captures Nute Gunray after using these really silly grappling hooks to enter the palace.

However, the most exciting battle takes place in the hangar bay. Darth Maul approaches Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon with his dual-bladed lightsaber. They duel until they are separated by laser doors. Maul paces, a tiger trapped in a cage. The Jedi meditate. Once the doors open, Qui-Gon leaps at Maul while Obi-Wan is trapped again. Maul takes this momentary distraction to stab Qui-Gon in the gut.

Obi-Wan screams for his fallen master, bursting forth once the doors reopen. He goes on the offensive, eventually besting Maul, cutting him in half as he tumbles down a generator shaft. Obi-Wan runs to Qui-Gon and holds him while he dies. His last words were to ask Obi-Wan to train the boy, as he is the Chosen One.

Peace!

After the battle, the disparate groups gather at the Queen’s palace. Palpatine informs Padmé of his new title as Supreme Chancellor. Yoda gives Obi-Wan the rank of Jedi Knight and allows him to train Anakin, despite his and Obi-Wan’s reticence. Qui-Gon’s body is burned in a funeral pyre. During the funeral, Mace Windu and Yoda agree that there must be another Sith Lord out there, as there are always two, a Master and an Apprentice.

Some time later, the Gungans and the Naboo gather to celebrate their liberation and the newly formed alliance between their people. Palpatine tells Anakin that he will watch his career with great interest. Padmé and Boss Nass stand in front of the assembled revelers, lifting an orb to symbolize their unity. Boss Nass bellows “PEACE!” as the credits roll.

The Phantom Menace | Analysis & Review

Writing and Plot | 3/10

I’ll come right out and say that George Lucas is a very good writer of backstories. He can create characters and give them some incredible stories. However, he cannot write dialogue. Oh, boy, it’s so bad. Some of that can be attributed to the acting and directing, but, ultimately, if you have a bad script, it’s hard to make it a good one.

Let’s look at one scene in particular: Explaining Midi-chlorians to Anakin. Here’s the dialogue:

Master, sir, I heard Yoda talking about Midi-chlorians. I’ve been wondering, what are Midi-chlorians?

Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells.

They live inside me?

Inside your cells, yes. And we are symbionts with them.

Symbionts?

Life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the Midi-chlorians, life could not exist and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us telling us the will of the Force.

Before the above scene, we are told by Obi-Wan that Anakin’s Midi-chlorian count is higher than Master Yoda’s. For seasoned viewers, we know that Yoda is one of the strongest Force users out there. We can infer that Anakin will be powerful in the Force because of this prior knowledge. But, even not knowing Yoda’s strength, new viewers can infer that Yoda is strong because he is “Master” Yoda. We know that “Masters” are the top of the heap in terms of skill. This can also be extrapolated later when we see everyone deferring to him at the Council. On top of that, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are in awe of that high number. We can take a step further and assume that this count has to deal with how strong a Force user will be.

That’s all well and good. Great, we know this kid has a high count and will therefore be strong. So, when Anakin asks what Midi-chlorians are, Qui-Gon goes into a technobabble explanation about it. I mean, it’s about a minute of screentime to explain this to him. It’s filled with poetic words and includes things that Anakin doesn’t understand. This isn’t how you explain things to a child.

Does this mean that the explanation is unnecessary? Absolutely not. It should be explained. But, it already was. We are getting repeated information explained in a different way for way too long. With a scriptwriter who understands dialogue a bit better, it can still be poetic and Qui-Gon-like, but simpler and easier for a kid to understand. Here’s my crack at it:

Master, sir, I heard Yoda talking about Midi-chlorians. I’ve been wondering, what are Midi-chlorians?

Ah, yes. See, Midi-chlorians are what binds us to the universe. They give the Jedi, and the rest of the galaxy, the power to understand the will of the Force.

But, I can’t see them!

I’m not saying I’m better at this than Lucas, but I will say that this is a more effective way to explain the information to a literal child, both off and on screen. It would also give Qui-Gon a moment to be more fatherly to the boy, allowing a much deeper impact after his death at the end of the movie.

This is just one small example of the writing not being great. There are countless examples of strange dialogue choices such as: “Yippee!”, “That was wizard, Ani!”, “How wude!”. Not to mention the massive leaps in logic such as “A communication disruption can mean only one thing. Invasion!”. Even breaking down Darth Sidious’ plan shows the depths of how nonsensical the plotting and writing truly is.

Sound and Music | 10/10

The sounds and music in this movie are top notch and are easily the best part about it. Brad Burtt and his team make sound effects that feel out of this world. John Williams’ score? Come on. So good!

When talking about The Phantom Menace’s music and sound, everyone talks about “Duel of the Fates” (the Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon vs. Darth Maul duel song) and, yes, it’s one of my favorite pieces of orchestral music. However, I want to give credit where it’s due for the podracing scene. It’s a big chunk of the movie that is mostly just racing and sneering which could make for some dull moments. Luckily, Burtt was able to create the most realistic sound effects for these alien racers. The mixing was incredible, all the dopplering on the pods racing by made it feel like I was at the track.

The only bad thing about the music is something that isn’t related to the film, but to the release of the soundtrack. A CD version of the soundtrack was released before the film came to theaters. That’s a normal thing to have happen, however, two of the tracks revealed a massive spoiler. Tracks 27 and 28 basically gave away the outcome of the final duel. Track 27 was called “The Death of Qui-Gon and The Surrender of the Gungans” and Track 28 was called “GOOD TRIUMPHS OVER EVIL: The Tide Turns/The Death of Darth Maul”. Not a great thing to have happen before anyone has actually seen the movie.

Performances | 4/10

Let me just get three big things out of the way. 1. The Gungans as a whole were an ill-conceived and poorly executed stereotype of island cultures. 2. The Neimoidians have horrible accents that do not fit with their characters and even have speech affectations that are stereotypically “Asian”. 3. Watto is just a mess of stereotypes, all of which are bad.

These were three really egregious performance choices that affected the movie in a very negative way. It led to hacky, uninteresting, and stereotypical performances. It’s not good, it was never good.

Anyway, let’s move on to the real meat here. I’ll start with the performances I liked. I think Ewan McGregor does a serviceable job in this movie and he grows into his character as the trilogy goes on. In fact, I liked most of the Jedi’s performances. Frank Oz as Yoda never fails. I also thought that a lot of the Naboo contingent was good, especially Ric Olie, the pilot who explains everything he sees (seriously, go watch it again, everything he says is just a statement of fact).

Ian Mcdiarmid is a treasure. He reprised his role as Sheev Palpatine and it’s one of the few times in history where the actor aged into the character for a prequel. He can effectively straddle the line between camp and serious so well. Honestly, we needed more of this type of acting in the movie.

Now, for the not so great performances. I say “not so great” instead of “bad” because I truly do think that a lot of the actors were just doing what they could with the script they were given. A good example is Natalie Portman. She’s a tremendous actress but, boy, is she hard to watch here. She pitches her voice down as Queen Amidala to give her a regal authority, which makes sense, if only it allowed her to emote at all. She’s flat as Amidala, no affect, no panache. So, what about as Padmé? In this movie, not much better. A lot of the time, she was acting against Jake Lloyd or Jar Jar, two very hard people to work off of. This leads to a less than stellar performance.

So, what about Jake Lloyd? I will say that he is not a great actor. I’ve seen Jingle All the Way. I’m pretty sure you could take him from that movie, plop a lightsaber in his hand, and we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. He’s not great, no, but he’s also a literal child. I’m willing to give the kid some slack. Just think about the incredible pressure he’s under. He’s the poster child (literally) for the biggest franchise on the planet, portraying the boy who will grow up to be the most iconic character from the franchise (Darth Vader). That’s an unfathomable amount of pressure to put on this kid. Of course, it’s going to effect his performance.

And then there's Jar Jar. Oh, Jar Jar. Ahmed Best is a great character actor. A lot of the mannerisms and affectations were things that Best had brought to the table. He’s talented, funny, and charming. Lucas did him so dirty here. It had been a while since I watched this movie, so I thought “Oh, people are just exaggerating, Jar Jar wasn’t that bad.” I was sorely mistaken.

There are too many times that this movie focuses too much on Jar Jar’s wacky antics. Going to Tatooine? Better have Jar Jar step in poop. Eating dinner? Oh, how about we have him be a complete buffoon during a conversation about literal slavery. On the battlefield? Yeah, let’s make Jar Jar fall down a bunch while his comrades are dying by the dozens all around him. That’ll be hilarious. If they did two of the things I just listed, that would be fine. But, no, it was constant Jar Jar shenanigans from start to finish.

Lucas created Jar Jar as a character that his kids would find funny and to make the long talking scenes more palatable to kids. And that works, for sure. I was seven when this came out and I loved Jar Jar. But, much like the Force, it’s about balance. Balance his wacky antics with some heroics that were of his own making. Every time he saves the day, it’s because he bumbles into it by accident. Give us a reason to like this character!

I will state again that I don’t think this is all Ahmed Best’s fault. It’s not. He portrayed the character that was written. He was told to be annoying and he did it so well that everyone hated him and blamed him and Jake Lloyd for the death of the franchise. That’s not okay. He did a great job as Jar Jar and he needs the recognition for that.

Ultimately, it comes back to the writing and the dialogue. If the characters were written better, they would be portrayed better. Instead, we have characters that feel only one big emotion or no emotions and that’s it.

Overall Score | 4/10

Look, I’m not breaking new ground here when I say that this is not a good movie. The writing is clunky and just plain odd at times. Characters are either overbearing or too understated. The overuse of CGI was devastating, especially considering how many practical effects were used for the Original Trilogy. Apparently, every scene in this movie uses CGI except one. The gas that comes out of the vent at the beginning of the movie is all practical effects. That’s ludicrous. Of course, practical effects were mixed in with CGI, but not like before.

The main problem is that The Phantom Menace is a movie that can’t find the middle ground. George Lucas had incredible ideas for worldbuilding and continued to push the boundaries of what was possible for the medium. Each background character had a story, each starship was given incredible attention to detail, but to what end? If the main plot of your movie is poorly written and overproduced, it doesn’t matter that the ancillary details are so rich. Lucas needed to find the balance between the two.

The Original Trilogy was great because of Lucas, there is no doubt about that. Without his innovations for film and the world he created, this franchise wouldn’t be around today. However, giving him full credit is impossible. Martha Lucas, Irvin Kirschner, and so many other talented individuals kept Lucas on an even keel, reined him in when necessary. The Phantom Menace and the rest of the trilogy didn’t have those types of people. Ultimately, the lack of balance is due to George being unapologetically George with no one to hold his feet to the fire.

All that said, there is something here worth watching. It’s unapologetically science fiction camp. Did I like what I saw? Most of the time, no. Did I have fun while watching? Of course I did. It’s Star Wars! A common thread through all of my reviews on the Saga will be that all Star Wars is good Star Wars.

It had been a long time since I had watched this movie, so I was excited to go back to it for this review. However, what I saw made me feel a bit like Jabba at the podrace: sleepy and ready for my snacks. With a few more passes at the script and a better actor driven director, this could have been great. Instead, I have to be poked awake a few times by Bib Fortuna.