Worst to First: Ranking the Sequels of 1999
https://lebeauleblog.com/2019/06/19/worst-to-first-ranking-the-sequels-of-1999/
4. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menaceshare
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%
Domestic Gross: $474,544,677
Place in Franchise: 4th of… oh dear lord how am I supposed to keep count at this point?
Years Since Last Movie: 16 years of building anticipation
Actors Replaced: Most of the casts consists of new characters or versions of familiar characters played by different actors
Summary: Episode One is a big topic. I could probably write multiple articles about the start of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. On the other hand, twenty years later what is left to say? Most people fall into two camps. There are people who defend the prequels. For a certain generation, this is the Star Wars they grew up with and they love it. And then there’s everybody else.
I was one of the kids who had grown up on the original movies. They were as important to me as any other movies I had ever seen. I had waited for over a decade for the adventures to continue, so I was beyond excited that George Lucas had finally returned to a galaxy far, far away. Looking back, I was setting myself up for disappointment. But even if I had kept my expectations in check, there was no way I could have anticipated some of Lucas’ bad choices.
There’s Jar Jar. Obviously. Yes, he’s annoying and casually racist as are a lot of the CGI-rendered aliens. The computer effects were ambitious for the time, but Lucas overused them. As a result, the actors seemed not to know where there were supposed to look most of the time. But perhaps the biggest misstep, even bigger than the midichlorians, was the decision to devote an entire movie to the story of Darth Vader when he was a moppet.
What the heck was that all about? Who asked for that? Lucas has this weird fascination with the childhood of his characters. He did the same thing with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles on television. Someone really needs to sit George down and explain to him that even though ten year olds buy his toys, they are not interesting protagonists.
The initial reviews for The Phantom Menace weren’t as bad as you would think. Roger Ebert called it “an astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking” in a rave review. And it made buckets of money too. Adjusted for inflation, it’s still the third highest-grossing movie in the Star Wars series.
Personally, The Phantom Menace was the first step in my journey away from Star Wars. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my devotion to the saga has steadily declined over the last two decades and that started with Episode One. There are things to like. Darth Maul is a visually interesting if under-used bad guy and that lightsaber duel was exciting. But overall I find the movie (and the prequels in general) to be a real slog.