To paraphrase the Book of Psalms: "Lucas, Lucas, why have you forsaken us?" That could well be said of George Lucas' latest attempt at cinema, THE PHANTOM MENACE. After a 22-year break, ol' Georgie Porgie returns once again to direct a STAR WARS film. Unfortunately, the Force seems to be no longer with him. The 1977 debut film A NEW HOPE was easily a celluloid masterpiece and has earned its rightful place in Hollywood immortality. But in 1999, like a pale shadow of the original, came THE PHANTOM MENACE. If A NEW HOPE was filet mignon, then THE PHANTOM MENACE is just a little above Hamburger Helper. And now, breakdown:
PLOT: One of the greatest things about A NEW HOPE was its devilishly basic story: an evil Empire, led by the merciless warlord Darth Vader, kidnaps Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, and it's up to a farm boy, a smuggler, a Wookiee, a Jedi Knight, and two droids to rescue her and also defeat a massive planet-destroying superweapon, the Death Star! THE PHANTOM MENACE, on the other hand, has a plot that goes something like this: Two Jedi Knights arrive as Old Republic ambassadors to a blockade by the greedy Trade Federation of the planet Naboo, ruled by the 14-year-old Queen Amidala who is trying to appeal to the Republican Senate on Coruscant which is filled with corruption, etc. What?! This is the movie's single greatest flaw - the fact that Lucas, disregarding the time-honored aphorism that less is more, has crammed every last inkling of plot he can into what is supposed to be a simple space opera for kids from 4 to 94. Whatever happened to the gee-whiz, tried-and-true sci-fi formula that was employed - and worked to maximum effect - in 1977? If it ain't broke, George, then don't fix it. Unfortunately, he did.
CHARACTERS: Many of the characters in this movie are so bland that you actually don't care when bad things happen to them. The most likable character by far is Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), a courageous yet earnest Jedi Knight who leads his companions into battle and is also responsible for the discovery of young Jedi-to-be Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd). A classic hero, Qui-Gon radiates charisma, personality, and good humor - much more than could be said for any of the other characters. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the wise old Jedi in the original films, is here portrayed by Ewan McGregor as a whiny Gen-Xer who questions everything. Though he is more level-headed in some ways than his master Qui-Gon, I couldn't help thinking that Ewan really needed to loosen up in his performance as the young Jedi. His brooding demeanor really brought the role down. Could somebody please tell me why Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) the mother of the dynamic duo of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, seems more like a department store mannequin than a monarch? She's actually kind of creepy, with a makeup job like Marcel Marceau and an accent like Nikita Krushchev. That flat, emotionless voice got so boring after a while that I kept hoping she'd burp or get the hiccups or something - anything to break up the monotony. Her costumes were ridiculous and she could have gotten rich donating the whole lot to museums. And to top it all off, she is even more grim than the somber Obi-Wan and waits until the film is 75 percent over before finally cracking a real smile. And then there's the boy. Granted, Anakin Skywalker is a tough role to do and you can't usually expect an Oscar-caliber performance out of a 10-year-old. But Jake Lloyd's take on the child hero was a little too cute. At some points, it was so syrupy that you could have drowned a thousand flapjacks in it. Are we to believe that a child shrewd enough to speak alien languages and build machines all by his lonesome would respond to a joyful situation with an insipid "Yippee!"? And I know this movie was pure fantasy, but Lucas threatened to stretch our credulity to the breaking point by having Anakin win (let alone survive) a treacherous pod race and by also having him blow up a gigantic space station without ever having been in such a battle before (if I could have done that at his age, my fame would have been celebrated by the carving of my face on Mount Rushmore). Overall, I find the idea of the little rugrat one day becoming the notorious supervillain Darth Vader a little hard to swallow. Maybe he just has a little more growing up to do. Mesa no liked Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best). A member of the amphibious Gungan species native to Naboo's swamps and lakes, Jar Jar spends the entire movie clowning around and speaking even worse English than Yoda (Frank Oz). His antics, while gut-bustingly hilarious, become so prevalent that they distract the audience from everything else that is going on in the movie (and there's a lot going on, believe me). I realize that Jar Jar was supposed to be a substitute for Chewbacca the Wookiee in the earlier films, but the correlation isn't quite as accurate as Lucas intended. Chewie may have been comical at times, but at least he had authentic human qualities (such as loyalty to Han Solo or anger at Lando Calrissian's apparent betrayal of Han). Jar Jar, on the other hand, is just a clueless buffoon. Other than bringing the Gungans and the humans of Naboo together in a grand alliance against the Trade Federation (a feat which must really be attributed to Queen Amidala), Jar Jar does nothing except do his best Bob Marley imitation, hoping that that alone will suffice as comic relief.
OTHER STUFF: The inconsistencies between THE PHANTOM MENACE and the original films are legion. Why is it that practically every alien species in TPM speaks English while Yoda and Admiral Ackbar were the only Anglophone characters in the originals? How come the Jedi Knighs in TPM all know tae kwon do when martial arts were never used by Luke and the gang? And what on God's green earth was Lucas thinking when he decided that the Force should be the by-product of Jedi cooties rather than a mysterious energy field? The special effects also bugged me. Sure, they were spectacular. But that was precisely the problem. The STAR WARS movies have always been remembered for their uncompromising realism in creating the look and feel of science fiction, so making the effects too fanciful somehow takes the edge off Lucas' distinctive atmosphere. Besides, too much striving to keep up with technology only tends to date the films. Young people who saw THE PHANTOM MENACE and who grew up after the 1970s and '80s will eventually see the original films and dismiss them as outdated, pre-CGI schlock. Not only that, but later generations will likewise look at this film and find the effects to be a product of their time.
FINAL THOUGHTS: As a self-confessed STAR WARS geek, I am overjoyed to see the greatest fantasy phenomenon in movie history return to the big screen. But as a film historian and movie purist, I can only evaluate THE PHANTOM MENACE according to its superior predecessors. No matter how good a STAR WARS film is nowadays, it's invariably going to be compared to the 1977-1983 trilogy, which will always be the first and foremost in moviegoers' hearts. Alas, THE PHANTOM MENACE, which is supposed to be a prequel and a mere prelude to the grandeur to come, has the crippling aura of "remake" about it. When something has been done right the first time, sometimes it is best to just leave it alone.
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