Blog:Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is a 1999 sci-fi action film directed by George Lucas and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Pernilla August, and Frank Oz. It is the first installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and was released on May 19, 1999.

Plot
In the year 32 BBY (thirty-two years before the events of A New Hope), the Trade Federation, led by Viceroy Nute Gunray, has issued a blockade against the planet of Naboo in a trade dispute. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his young Padawan apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to protect Queen Amidala and settle the conflict. Meanwhile, a nine-year-old boy named Anakin Skywalker and his mother Shmi are slaves on the desert planet of Tatooine.

Why It Kickstarts The Franchise

 * 1) Ian McDiarmid, Liam Neeson, and Ewan McGregor give great performances.
 * 2) Epic battle scenes, particularly Darth Maul's two-on-one fight with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.
 * 3) While it did not really achieve anything as far as the plot was concerned, the pod-racing sequence was well-shot, exciting, and the video games it was clearly designed to sell were, for once, actually fairly good.
 * 4) John Williams, as always, delivers an excellent score, especially "Duel of the Fates".
 * 5) The cinematography is fantastic, just like the original trilogy.
 * 6) Neat visuals, with some very detailed backgrounds and interesting designs for weapons and vehicles, though said visuals are dated in comparison to modern films.(See BQ#2)
 * 7) Interesting characters in Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), Darth Maul and particularly Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid), who is the highlight of all three prequels. Darth Maul, rather like Boba Fett before him, proved interesting enough to fans, that he returned in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated TV series, Rebels (in which he finally meets his death at the hands of the elder Obi-Wan), and Solo.
 * 8) Darth Vader's origin story is an interesting concept, and was very well executed.
 * 9) Most of the characters are likable, like Qui-Gon Jinn.
 * 10) The very final part of the ending credits scene has a big foreshadow reveal with "The Imperial March" theme slowly plays, including Darth Vader's breathing, which shockingly hints that Anakin Skywalker's future as Darth Vader, which increases through the prequel trilogy.
 * 11) Duel of the Fates is a pretty good theme for a battle scene, and they even used that for Revenge of the Sith.
 * 12) The podracing scene, while the scene doesn't have to do with the plot, is pretty entertaining.
 * 13) The callback of his podracing when Anakin manages to destroy the main station.
 * 14) "NOW THIS IS PODRACING!"

Bad Qualities

 * 1) It rehashes some aspects of A New Hope, where it involves a force-sensitive boy from a desert planet getting involved in a war.
 * 2) The CG sadly hasn't aged all that well.
 * 3) It's kind of unclear as to who or what Darth Maul is.
 * 4) Jar Jar Binks, while funny, can be a bit annoying at times.
 * 5) The podracing scene, while really cool and fun to watch, barely has anything to do with the plot.

Reception
The film's premiere was extensively covered by media and was greatly anticipated because of the large cultural following the Star Wars saga had cultivated. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace received mixed reviews from critics and fans of the series upon its release, however. While the visuals, action sequences, themes, John Williams' musical score, and some of the performances (notably Neeson and McGregor) were praised, the screenplay, pacing, characterization, and the respective performances of Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks and Lloyd as Anakin as well as the character Jar Jar Binks were criticized.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 53% based on 230 reviews, with an average rating of 5.94/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Burdened by exposition and populated with stock characters, The Phantom Menace gets the Star Wars prequels off to a bumpy – albeit visually dazzling – start." Metacritic gives a score of 51/100 indicating "mixed or average reviews", while the film has a 6.5/10 rating on IMDb. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Conversely, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "an astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking" and said, "Lucas tells a good story." Ebert also wrote that, "If some of the characters are less than compelling, perhaps that's inevitable" because it is the opening film in the new trilogy. He concluded his review by saying that rather than Star Trek films, filmmakers could "[g]ive me transparent underwater cities and vast hollow senatorial spheres any day".

Current Reception
Once the prequel trilogy was finished, the trilogy and especially The Phantom Menace used to position itself as one of the trilogies or movies, it was the most deficient and disappointing in history, which increased after the great premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One, however, following poor executive decisions by Disney brought on by the poor or polarized reception of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the many issues involved in the production of Solo: A Star Story Wars, sabotage to the production of the film itself, and problems with the respective casts, many fans as well as moviegoers have re-evaluated the film in a more positive way, at the same time many considered its story more striking than New Hope or Return of the Jedi and the general public have stated that it was underrated by the media, however the film, despite the new reception, many fans consider it to be a middle ground, stating that it was better than the new Disney trilogy, but was still one of the weakest in the Saga.

The Phantom Menace is often "Mostly in the first place" in the list of the most disappointing movies in history and the movies that angered fans, however, after the arrival of the 2000s and 2010s when the cinema of Superheroes began its boom, the Phantom Menace has lost the position of the film that most disappointed and infuriated fans by the chaotic as well as controversial premieres of Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, or, X-Men: origins of Wolverine.

Awards and nominations
The film was nominated for seven Razzies and won one for "Worst Supporting Actor" for Ahmed Best, losing the rest to Wild Wild West, The World Is Not Enough and Big Daddy.

Despite the Razzie nominations, the film was also nominated for three Oscars, but all lost to mh:greatestmovies:The Matrix''.

Videos
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Trivia

 * Several then-unknown actors, such as Keira Knightley, Dominic West and Richard Armitage, appear in the film.
 * Ahmed Best, actor of character Jar Jar Binks, would later claim he contemplated suicide after how heavily he was criticized by several Star Wars fans, while Jake Lloyd retired from acting in 2001 due to being bullied in school by young Star Wars fans.
 * On June 17, 2015, Lloyd was arrested for reckless driving and driving without a license in Colleton County, South Carolina. In April 2016, he was moved to a psychiatric ward after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
 * E.T. from mh:greatestmovies:E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial briefly appears in the film.
 * The concept of midi-chlorians was, surprisingly, planned all the way back in 1977.
 * In February 2012, The Phantom Menace was re-released in theaters in 3D. Episodes II-VI were also originally going to get 3D re-releases, but they were cancelled after Lucasfilm's acquisition by Disney so that production efforts could be focused on the sequel trilogy.