Although a decent-enough film, The Phantom Menace is not in the same league as the original Star Wars. But, then, it was never meant to be.
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It's not the one we wanted, but it's the first one we got. Many hard-core "Star Wars" enthusiasts consider "Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" a sacrilege. How can this be? It opened to gargantuan box-office grosses and continued earning money for months in first-run theaters. Did fans find it difficult to accept their story being told backwards? I mean, Han, Leia, and Luke hadn't even been born yet. You know, of course, that George Lucas, the genius behind the franchise, initially envisioned a nine-part series and started in the middle with installments four through six. "The Phantom Menace" goes back and starts at the beginning with Episode 1. Presumably if Lucas doesn't get too worn out from doing episodes one, two, and three, he'll do episodes seven, eight, and nine. Last I heard, though, he was ready to quit while he was ahead after number three and forget about the final trio. I dunno. Fact is, way back in 1977 when he made the first "Star Wars" film, he hedged his bets by bringing the story to a satisfactory conclusion. If the proposed series had ended there, we still would have felt satisfied. Now that he knows what a good thing he's got, he can afford to end a movie on a cliffhanger (as he did with "The Empire Strikes Back"). But this isn't particularly satisfying for the audience.
"The Phantom Menace," 1999, develops few likable characters, kills off most of the ones we take any serious interest in, adds an annoyingly so-ugly-he's-cute creature who talks funny, and then leaves a lot of it hanging. Yet, as Lucas has tried to spell out, the movie is meant only as an introduction to the three-part opening section. "Phantom Menace" isn't supposed to be satisfying on its own, as the original "Star Wars" was; it's meant to be part of a set. Well, OK, we'll take Lucas's word for that. In the meantime, fans are encouraged, I'm sure, to pick up any "Star Wars" DVD they're offered; and, in fact, "The Phantom Menace" isn't half so bad as its more severe critics claim. Its coming in a super-deluxe, bonus-laden, two-disc package doesn't hurt, either.
First, a word of background on the series. As I understand it, Lucas was a friend of mythologist and mythographer Joseph Campbell. That would help explain why the plot and characters in "Star Wars" seem so familiar. They've been around for thousands of years, perhaps since the beginning of Mankind. In Campbell's two most celebrated books about the influence of myth in the world, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," 1968, and "The Power of Myth," 1988, he suggests that the Hero is "...someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." For Campbell the Hero myth, sometimes known as the "Hero's Journey" or the "Hero Schema," is important in terms of being applicable to every individual. (A schema provides a structure or guide for understanding.) He argues that the ultimate trial is the giving of one's self to some higher end, and when the individual ceases to think primarily of his own preservation, a heroic transformation of consciousness takes place. Sound like Luke Skywalker to you?
Furthermore, continued study of the "Hero's Journey" suggests an eight-step process, all of which can be seen in the "Star Wars" episodes. The first step is the call to action; the second is the threshold of action, with the help of guardians, helpers, and a mentor; the third is an initiation and transformation, which come with challenges; then there's the abyss; the transformation; the revelation; the atonement; and finally, the eighth part, the return to the known world. Again, following the exploits of Luke, Han, Leia, Yoda, and the rest would indicate Lucas's reliance upon such schema. In psychology, this journey is seen as a process that each of us undergoes as we advance toward growth and change. The Hero's Journey is supposed to duplicate the various stages of our individual rites of passage. We face separation from the known, familiar world; we undergo initiation and transformation, where our old ways of thinking and acting are altered or destroyed, which opens the way to a new level of awareness. Thus, after successfully meeting these challenges, it's hoped we find freshened confidence to cope with a new, adult world.
Providing I haven't bored you already with too much background material, the "Encyclopedia Britannica" supplies a final bit of information: "...many mythic schema were employed regarding the origin and ordering of this world. It was viewed as being the result of the conscious or unconscious emanation from the transcendent realm; the result of the fall of a deity from the Beyond; the creation of a hostile, ignorant, or evil deity; or a joke or mistake. The purpose of this speculation was pragmatic: if one could determine how this creation came into being, one could reverse it or overcome it and be saved." In "Star Wars," a whole galaxy is enslaved by a corrupt Empire. A young man enters--a common boy, living under this tyranny--who is impelled to action by wise elders, Obi-Wan and Yoda, who teach him to rebel against his oppressive world. Accepting these teachings, the young man grows in strength and wisdom and then leads a group of followers against seemingly impossible odds, eventually overcoming the forces of the Evil Empire.
Whether you buy into this "Hero's Journey" business or not is beside the point. What's clear is that it's a pattern of life and growth for everyone, so we see it all around us from the movies and television to great works of literature and the experiences of our own mundane lives. Joseph Campbell may have expounded it, but Lucas was canny enough to entertain us with it and to profit by it. Lucas further admits he lifted the plot for "Star Wars" from Japanese director Akira Kurosawa?s "The Hidden Fortress" (1958), thus making his sci-fi epic a more dependent child than we had imagined.
As I said, Lucas envisioned at the outset a nine-part "Star Wars" series in three segments of three episodes each. But apparently he got tired after "The Return of the Jedi" (1983), and it would be sixteen years before the premiere of "The Phantom Menace." Furthermore, he's hinted that he may not go on after the second trio of films is completed, perhaps handing over the reins to someone else or perhaps bringing the whole affair to a screeching halt. Anyway, with the Empire destroyed at the end of the first three installments and the galaxy far, far away supposedly at peace and harmony with itself, the director was now ready to tell us how it all began.
With Lucas having returned both to writing and directing in "The Phantom Menace," the film acts as a prequel to the "Star Wars" series, filling out the early lives of later important characters and providing details about the Empire's rise to galactic supremacy through politicking, maneuvering, and sheer might. ("The Phantom Menace" is, in this regard, a little like "Animal Farm" in that we get to follow the step-by-step rise of a nefarious dictatorship.) Among the film's new characters, two of the most prominent are Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, played by Liam Neeson, and the malign Sith apprentice, Darth Maul, played by Ray Park. They are the epitomes of good and evil, the dashing knight vs. the villainous henchman, but it's a shame more couldn't have been made of their roles. Queen Amidala of Naboo is ably played by Natalie Portman, often a task under a ton of makeup. Jar Jar Binks has been added for comedy relief, a completely animated character voiced by Ahmed Best in an odd Jamaican-flavored accent. And there are a number of other new people of note: Senator Palpatine, played by Ian McDiarmid; Shmi Skywalker, played by Pernilla August; Governor Sio Bibble, played by Oliver Ford Davies; Captain Panaka, played by Hugh Quarshie; Chancellor Valorum, played by Terence Stamp; Mace Windu, played by Samuel L. Jackson; and Boss Nass, played, or at least voiced, by Brian Blessed. Fortunately for the sake of continuity, two major leading characters from the later series are given renewed life--a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Ewan McGregor, and an even younger Anakin Skywalker, played by Jake Lloyd. One presumes they will take over as the leading characters in the next installments. Obi-Wan, of course, would become the wise old elder in the later episodes, the Merlin of Arthur lore, if you will, or Gandalf from "The Lord of the Rings"; and Anakin would grow up and turn to the Dark Side, changing his name to Darth Somethingerother, you know who. Finally, returning in small appearances are R2-D2 (Kenny Baker), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), Yoda (Frank Oz), and Jabba the Hut (Himself).
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