Read a review of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
Read an interview with
The Power of the
Force
STAR WARS:
EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE
George Lucas' return to Star Wars
is a satisfying adventure.
With Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd
Written & directed by George Lucas
AT LAST, IT'S HERE: Two hours of film that some people have waited 16 years to see. I remember the summer of the first Star Wars, when Deb Patterson roamed the halls of my college dormitory, walking and talking like C-3PO. She was pretty good at it. I had enjoyed the movie, but I didn't see how it could amount to anything. Naturally, with such intuition about the cinema, I became a movie critic, whereas Deb - whose obsession that summer foresaw the course of American popular culture - became something useful.
Watching Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace was like reuniting with old friends and meeting new ones. That's a clich? which I fear dozens of other people will write this summer. But it's no less true for being so common, and my pleasure at watching Phantom Menace was tremendous.
Although George Lucas is the storyteller and producer of the Star Wars series, he hasn't actually written or directed a movie since 1979. It's good to have him back. The script of Phantom Menace, like the three before it, is neither literature nor pulp, but rather largely a series of demi-aphorisms, spun into dialogue and spoken by the actors with the gravity and dignity appropriate to mythology.
It's Lucas' confident direction in Phantom Menace that sets his work apart. In this episode, which takes place about 30 years before Star Wars , we witness the first coming together of certain famous characters - like R2-D2 and C-3PO, or Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader - whose lives we know better than they do. A lesser director would have overplayed those moments for all they're worth. But Lucas presents them almost as if they don't matter, which affords us the colossal satisfaction of filling in the future for ourselves. Nor does he pander to our returning favorites: Episode II will clearly be Obi-Wan's movie because this one is not, and the classic repartee between Artoo and Threepio never materalizes.
These choices carry the wisdom of Yoda in what's necessarily a high-tech adventure film. Phantom Menace probably has more special effects than the three earlier films combined. And why shouldn't it? How can you build places that don't exist using equipment that does? So Lucas turned to computer technology, and in doing so he creates imaginary worlds that you can't stop watching. His planets, buildings, spaceships and aliens are so fully conceived that I'm still not sure he didn't actually film this movie on location in Naboo and Tatooine. Of course, some of the images on screen are what we would call "real." But after a few minutes, you won't care which ones.
The story of Phanton Menace begins just as the sinister Trade Federation occupies Naboo in a ploy to force the planet's strong-willed teen-age leader, Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman), to sign away her people's freedom. Rather than surrender her democracy, she escapes with two Jedi knights: Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), a Jedi master and a bit of a maverick; and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), who's on the verge of ending his apprenticeship and standing alone as a full Jedi knight.
The knights and the Queen shoot their way through Federation attackers and take refuge on Tatooine, where they befriend an uncommonly brave, inquisitive, promising 9-year-old, Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), whom Qui-Gon discovers has the power of the Force within him to an even greater degree than Yoda. After a while they take young Skywalker back to the Jedi Council, where Yoda and Mace Wendu (Samuel L. Jackson) discourage Qui-Gon from developing the boy's powerful mind.
It all builds to a well-managed climax spread across three locations, featuring an act of heroism that plays out like a space-age video game, and a light saber showdown that lays a path for Anakin's transmutation into Darth Vader.
There are, of course, bad guys in the story, especially the devil-horned Darth Maul, and the duplicitous Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), who becomes Emperor in the middle trilogy of films. And there are plenty of good guys, like Jar Jar Binks, the story's sporadically intrusive comic relief, who can best be described as a walking amphibian with long floppy ears. He's completely computer animated, and his seamless interplay with the living actors marks an awesome advance in visual effects technology.
There's much more to discover in Lucas' long-ago, far-away galaxy, and myriad effects to realize it. It's all about the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, a rather banal theme with very little of genuine relevance to our complex modern world, except maybe for the comment: "The Senate is full of greedy squabbling delegates with no concern for the public." The Star Wars mythos may run deeper than my attention span for such things, but if there's one truly far-fetched element to the scenario, it's Anakin Skywalker's apparent virgin birth. Decide for yourself what that twist means.
As a point of reference about acting, let me confess that I've never thought much of Harrison Ford, and I didn't think Mark Hamill was all that bad. In Phantom Menace, Portman tends to speak a bit too quickly; Neeson speaks with more distinction and volume than usual; and McGregor (Trainspotting), the audacious Scot who seemed an odd choice to play Obi-Wan, so masterfully emulates the courtly quality of Alec Guinness' voice that you can almost see the grand old actor in this fine young one.
My only regret now is that I'll have to wait three more years to learn what happens next, and then three more years after that to watch it come together. So if you need to contact me during the next six years, I'll be sitting safely at home, staying out of harm's way, anticipating the next chapter of how it all begins.
Read a review of
Read a review of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
Read an interview with