Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is the first installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. George Lucas returns to the franchise as writer and director in what has to be the most disappointing movie of all time. The story made little to no sense, and the characters were truly awful. It was as though George had only written one draft of the screenplay and then began to shoot, no one was going to question George as this point. Lucas had gotten rid of anyone who questioned him creatively a long time ago (Star Wars pun intended).
I remember going to the theater three times to see this movie. I was willing, or should I say forcing myself to like this movie, little did I know then, that I was in complete denial to the awfulness of this movie. I guess everyone assumed that a Star Wars movie would be an instant hit, how hard would it be to mess up the entire back story to Star Wars. It’s like messing up a boiled egg. Some of the decisions made in this movie are utterly mind boggling and deserve and in-depth look of what went wrong.
The Characters
One of the biggest and most glaring problems with the Phantom Menace are the characters. Let's have a look at movie making 101. In most movies the audience needs a character to connect with, a normal person they can relate to, to help guide them through the story. This is usually achieved with the protagonist. In addition to them being a normal person, we usually find them in a place where they are down on their luck. Eventually they will come up against some sort obstacle or struggle that they need to overcome. If we like them, we want them to succeed. The drama in the movie is us routing for them against the opposition. Eventually our protagonist will find themselves at the lowest point where all seems lost. But eventually they will pull through and defeat whatever obstacle opposes them. Our hero is now ahead from where they started, they have made a change and this is called an arc. This is not necessary for all movies, but it works well in the science fiction genre, especially if your movie has aliens, robots and a clumsy cartoon rabbit. This is applicable to the original Star Wars movie with Luke Skywalker.
Now with this all in mind, who is the protagonist in the Phantom Menace? The two Jedi? It's not them as they are on some boring mission that they don't care about. Is it queen Amidala? The movie was not specifically about her. You might think that it could be Anakin as he was a slave and then he saves the day by destroying the ship that looks like a giant donut at the end of the movie. But we aren't introduced to Anakin until 45 minutes into the movie, and a lot of what happens around him is pretty much out of his control and understanding. If the protagonist has no concept of what is at stake then there can be no tension or drama, and without that there is no real story.
The Opening
Straight from the opening of the Phantom Menace I knew that something was up. It opens with some boring dialogue from a pilot asking for permission to land on a ship. Then two hooded figures walk into a room at a flat angle and then sit down and drink some tea, and wait to talk about a trade dispute. Although we do eventually get to an action sequence, by this time I am already bored to tears.
If we compare this opening with the original Star Wars opening. We get a lot of information just from the visuals without the need of any awkward boring dialogue. We get a sense of how small and poorly equipped the rebels are in contrast to how large and strong the empire are. The low angle of the shot implies dominance and the length of star destroyer implies the long reach of the empire. This shot is so good that I suspect that Lucas may have had nothing to do with it.
Continued in Part II