As we count down the days until Star Wars returns to theaters, it's difficult not to flash back to 1999 when we all felt this same anticipation for The Phantom Menace. Though not without its memorable moments, Episode I was of course a massive disappointment and so perhaps tempering expectations for The Force Awakens would be wise. But rather than just trying to erase that experience from our minds, it's also worth examining what that film got wrong specifically so we know what to look out for this time around.
The most common criticism of the film is easily Jar Jar Binks. In the same way a bad special effect can pull you out of a movie, Jar Jar suddenly reminded us all that we were watching something intended for children. He's like a creation out of a Nickelodeon cartoon and every moment he's in could easily be cut out of the film. There's also the fact that the plot is rather muddled and the saga goes from an epic struggle between good and evil to a dispute over the taxation of trade routes.
But these complaints are rather trivial compared to The Phantom Menace's most egregious fault. We've seen incredibly over the top characters in Star Wars before, as Salacious Crumb would be happy to tell you, and the plot has been iffy in parts of the original trilogy too. Star Wars has always been more of a visceral experience than a story one, and that falls apart in Episode I for one simple reason: none of the characters appear to care about anything that's going on.
Think back to A New Hope, and part of what's great about it is that we're being thrown into a massive world along with these people and being overwhelmed by it just as much as they are. Take the scene where Han Solo pilots the Millennium Falcon away from the Death Star while being pursued by Imperial forces. C3P0 freaks out as the Falcon is fired upon. Luke sweats uncontrollably as he takes aim at enemy ships and screams, "They're coming in too fast!" Han Solo tries to assure everyone their transport will hold together as it's clearly falling apart around them. A brief moment of celebration when Luke takes down a TIE fighter doesn't last long, as Princess Leia exclaims, "there's still two more of them out there!"
By the end of this thrilling sequence, the gang has just barely made it out alive, and they did so by the skin of their teeth. That's typical for the original trilogy, where our characters don't simply glide through the events without a care in the world. Each performance is full of passion and the characters are fully exerting themselves and fighting as hard as they can to survive.
Compare that to The Phantom Menace, a movie whose heroes are completely confident and in control the entire time. The very first scene of the movie is Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn arriving on the Trade Federation's ship and they seem flat out bored. Qui Gon even describes their mission as settling a trivial trade dispute and says, "I don't sense anything." When the action begins and their lives are threatened, it comes across like they're going through the motions, and we never feel a threat is legitimately being posed. Some people are trying to kill them, but they don't seem all that bothered. They swing their lightsabers around while barley emoting and then move on.
This can be explained away as the two leads being trained Jedi and so they have a mastery over their feelings. But compare a scene from A New Hope to The Phantom Menace and the tonal issue with this first prequel couldn't be more clear. One movie is full of raw emotion, but in the other, how are we to become invested if our characters aren't?
All throughout The Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan and Qui Gon just kind of wander around aimlessly, eventually stumbling upon Anakin Skywalker and nothing much of consequence happens. That only changes at the very end when they duel with Darth Maul, but even then, the highly choreographed nature of the final fight conflicts with the tension. It's less like we're witnessing our hero putting up the fight of his life and more like we're watching an actor jump all around and perform moves that he rehearsed for hours beforehand. Even the non-Jedi characters are rather unfazed throughout the film. Padme seems like she'd rather be anywhere else and Anakin approaches his very first journey into space like he's playing a video game.
Actually, the only lead who seems to have a genuine reaction to anything is Jar Jar Binks, the one to naturally freak out during the underwater Naboo sequence. If only the rest of his character weren't so ridiculous, maybe that could have really worked.
So beyond just the issues of silly dialogue and a disappointing plot, it was the underlying emotions of The Phantom Menace that left us empty, and that's what J.J. Abrams needs to get right with The Force Awakens. Luckily, the very first clip released from the movie shows the two main characters, Finn and Rey, desperately sprinting for their life, screaming at one another other and cowering in fear at a nearby explosion. Perhaps we're in good hands after all.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens on Dec. 18.
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