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

I love the original films, probably ANH most of all. If you saw it on it's original release you had a cinema experience unlike any other. There just weren't films like this being made. Sure, it drew on films and books of the past, but nothing had looked or sounded like this.

You have to remember the world we lived in then. Video games were very rudimentary. Even ASTEROIDS was several years in our future. And 2001 was one of the few films to show us convincing views of space travel.

STAR WARS was something new with a capital "N". Audiences loved it. And it changed movies.

By 1999, we'd seen numerous Science Fiction movies, lots of space battles, lots of special effects. And video games had developed a realism that was shocking compared to what we'd had in 1977.

Enter THE PHANTOM MENACE. Not only did this film have to live up to memories of the originals, it also had to compete in an entertainment world that had caught up. Lucas could never create an experience as mind-blowing as he had in the original.

But he was going to try. And he was also going to try to do a few other different things. The nexus of this new thought was Jar Jar Binks. A CGI creation that was also a character. And a type of character never before seen in the SW Universe, a comic relief character. But more than that, a slapstick comic relief character.

In many of the movies that inspired STAR WARS there are such characters. And Lucas wanted to try one in his films.

Well, for most, he failed. Many, or at least the most vocal, hated Jar Jar Binks. And few of these people even credited him for trying something new. They didn't want Lucas' STAR WARS. They wanted their STAR WARS. A STAR WARS, it is important to note, that only exists in their minds.

In addition, he decided to make Anakin a small boy. Another new decision. STAR WARS had never featured a boy character. Again, the fans whined. They didn't like it. They didn't want Lucas to try new things.

But he also gave them what they came to expect. A truly great action set-piece: The pod race. One of the best action set-pieces in the entire series. And he gave them a lightsaber duel unlike any they'd ever seen. But that wasn't enough.

Sadly, had Lucas made a film that was little more than a remake of STAR WARS with Anakin in the Luke role, fans would have been happy. And I think that says more about the limited scope of STAR WARS fans than it does about the talents of George Lucas.

THE PHANTOM MENACE, like all the films in the series, has it's own unique tone and flavor. And though these flavors may not be to everyone's taste, I think in the coming years more and more fans will come to appreciate this film for what it is, rather than what they wish it would be.