# Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

### reviewed by
Cheng-Jih Chen

    "Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father...  C3PO, _I_ am
    your father."

We waited out in the rain at the 34th and Lexington movie theater. There were umbrellas up and rainslickers worn, but no lightsabres, no one dressed as Chewbacca. This was the 8:30PM show, and I suspect the folks who would have come that way were going to the Ziegfeld at midnight. The line started to form at about 6PM, though it didn't get serious until after 7PM. The smartest man on line had gotten there a bit earlier, and was sitting in a portable chair underneath the movie theater's marquee, out of the rain. We were in the first dozen feet of the bunched together line, half the group in the rain, half out of it. We did have a box of Krispy Kremes, so we were reasonably prepared. I have to admit -- sheepishly -- I took a bit of organizer's prerogative and ducked out for half an hour to have a burrito dinner at Blockheads out of the rain.

I think "Star Wars" was the first movie I saw in a movie theater. I guess I was seven. This was the old RKO Keith's in Flushing, now a burned out shell after a real estate development dispute. A pity: it was a landmark, decked out in a Beaux Arts style. There's, of course, great affection for the saga, though I realize that there's a certain cheesiness to it all, that Harrison Ford doesn't figure out how to act until about halfway through "Empire", and so on. The momentum of the movie carries all such deficits away, making them irrelevant. It's part of our secular mythology.

The new movie does well, and is not a godawful Godzilla-sized disappointment, which is what some of the worst reviews make it out to be. Not as fun as "Star Wars", not as dark and somberly open-ended as "Empire", but not as stupidly goofy and Ewok-ridden as "Jedi", it's more an introduction, the first step on a path to Anakin's Greek tragedy two films away. Despite the cluttered plot and the slow wait for things to get moving, it's not bad. We see new vistas and familiar characters in different settings; since this movie cannot be seen outside of context, there is a purposeful, barely perceptible cloud of doom hanging over some of these first meetings. The action, once it gets going in the second half, is fantastic, culminating in the lightsabre duel between Darth Maul and the two Jedi.

It's a worthy beginning, but it could have been better. As noted, things took a while to get moving. In "Star Wars", before we settle into the story, there was a fantastic first punch of action with the boarding of Leia's ship. No such luck here -- the pacing failed for me -- though we do have a fascinating view of what fully trained Jedi in their prime can do, how much of a One Man Army they are. Yes, it's just like the computer game.

Darth Maul had too little to do. We understand that he's bad, but he doesn't do more than be the apprentice of a greater power, and participate in the climatic sabre duel. Vader, at least, had more to do in the first film, and especially in the second. His casual evil is demonstrated in action, not simply signified in bad-ass black garb.

That the whole conflict was sparked by some sort of trade dispute is somewhat silly. I think it's Lucas's attempt to create a relatively inconsequential reason for the Federation to go to war against Naboo: mercantile issues shouldn't motivate combatants with thoroughgoing passions in the way nationalistic fervor, the will to power or the fight for freedom might. At the end of the movie, the Federation's leaders can be carted off for trial and the stripping of their trade privileges, leaving the status quo ante relatively intact but the insidious motivator still hidden. My problem with this sequence of events is that the trade dispute turned massively bloody. It is far too pat an ending. I'm sure someone could have come up with a more credible conflict to get things rolling.

I disagree with Lucas's attempt to give a pseudo-scientific explanation for the Force. It's deeply lame, deeply distracting: you think they're basically mispronouncing "mitochondria", which is a real symbiotic bacteria found in multicellular life. This attempt robs the Force of its mysticism, undermining the long-elaborated theme from the previous films of spirit triumphing over machine. Better for the Jedi to feel a great stirring in the Force when around Anakin than to take a blood sample. I'd be thrilled silly if the following two movies never bring up this point again. By the way, I'm not touching Anakin's immaculate conception with a ten-foot pole.

The fight choreography of the lightsabre duel between Darth Maul and the Jedi is spectacular, far more dynamic or energetic than the duels between Luke and Vader, or the somewhat stiffly geriatric duel between Vader and Kenobi. I suspect this is due partially to better effects technology: a guy doesn't have to sit there and hand paint all the glowing sabres frame by frame, because a computer can do this, following the arc of a fast moving sabre more effectively. Perhaps more importantly, the fight choreography of martial arts films has become more mainstream than it was in the Seventies and early Eighties. We expect flashy aggressiveness and balletic spins in this sort of combat. Anything bordering on stiff and clumsy is deemed insufficient.

Interestingly, while the wonderful dynamics of the sabre combat exists when the Jedi face Darth Maul, but it's not quite there when the Jedi hack their way through hordes of battle droids. Partially, this is intentional: the droids pose no serious challenge to Jedi. A more compelling argument is that the actors have nothing to react to when they're supposed to be facing the droids, whereas Darth Maul is physically there in the form of Ray Park wielding a prop sword. I remember at least two instances where Ewan McGregor twirls and swing the sabre casually into a droid. There seemed to be no force, no urgency in the action. Well, there was nothing there to act against.

No wonder, then, that Liam Neeson wants to quit movie acting; no wonder McGregor found the filming a chore: they spent a great deal of time interacting with CGI characters. This can't be fun for an actor, spending weeks in front of a blue screen, talking to things that aren't there. Such is the result of technical change over the past decade. Perhaps an intriguing analogy may be made with the introduction of sound in film. Silent film actors who were adept at the exaggerated facial expressions and gestures of that type of film had a difficult time adjusting. What we may see in coming years is a cadre of actors well-suited to the blue screen for one reason or another. Consider, though, Ebert's statement about an upcoming golden age of visual style at http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/clear18f.html.

I suppose we'll have to see what happens in the subsequent films. Clearly, Anakin, as an apprentice Jedi, will attempt to free the slaves on Tatoonie, and perhaps his passion to save his mother will be his undoing, the tragic flaw through which he becomes Vader. Hopefully, Obi-Wan will be less stiff and constipated, with more screen time. We'll just have to see, but I think it's a good start.

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