Somehow, it is 2024, meaning we are almost a quarter-century into this new millennium. 1999, the final year that look like it belongs in the past to my eyes, is 25 years ago. The upshot is the year was chalk-full of instant classics like The Matrix and Fight Club that are all enjoying 25th anniversary re-releases.

Many theaters commit one Sunday afternoon screen per week to classics or anniversary screenings, and it’s usually a magical experience, but a quiet one, a theater half-full of just the people who already know whatever film by heart. But on Saturday May 4, the informally recognized annual Star Wars Day because of the pun, of this 2024, many theaters cleared their larger houses for an anniversary film that couldn’t quite be described as an instant classic – that’s correct, the grandfather of all long-awaited sequels, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, is 25 years old now.

A quarter century later, I think I’ve found what viewers and critics in 1999 didn’t understand. There’s an invisible genre shift from Star Wars to The Phantom Menace, and the prequel makes a lot more sense if you look directly at it. Star Wars viewers are accustomed to disguised westerns, but this new film was hard sci-fi, with all its its off-kilter space characters and politics. The weirdness was the point.

Before we understand The Phantom Menace as a film, we must untangle it from The Phantom Menace as a cultural event.

Understanding the hype

One of the strange things that’s emerged as Marvel movies enter their full decline is many viewers remaining vocally very loyal, treating the studio more like a sports team to be supported year-in and year-out against opposition than a branch of a media company whose product is clearly slipping. A lot of bizarre fan behaviors, like raising children to know movies from your brand of choice, thumbing your nose at new fans or criticizing other franchise’ fanbases as being inferior for whatever reason, make a lot more sense when viewed through this lens. They aren’t people with different tastes in art, they’re barbarians supporting the wrong team! Going to the movies isn’t about sitting down and enjoying the movies, it’s an expression of tribalism, a sometimes painful but necessary cultural pilgrimage to retain this part of your identity, like getting tickets to see a rebuilding team.

This is one of the many, many ways The Phantom Menace predicted the modern Marvel movie. It wasn’t a film – it was a pilgrimage, one that Star Wars fans, the teenagers who watched the original film dozens of times in its initial run, hadn’t been able to truly make for more than a decade. The messaging from series architect George Lucas after Return of the Jedi released in 1983 was “that’s it, we’re done.” There was so much pent-up energy that Star Wars became the fifth-highest grossing domestic film of 1997 when the special edition was re-released for its 20th anniversary. After spending years only producing, Lucas was finally returning to the writer/director role for the first time since the original film.

Marketing for the film was in such demand it established a whole other audience for several films. Fans lined up around the block to see the trailers for Meet Joe Black and The Seige, which featured The Phantom Menace teaser, then walk out. The teasers and full trailer “broke the internet” for some of the first times in history.

After a press screening on Saturday, May 8, 1999 – the film would not release widely until May 19 – several newspapers violated review embargos to publish their reviews first. Reviews for this movie were on the front page of several Sunday papers, and that reception was mixed at best. Reviewers criticized it as not living up to the hype and were especially critical of comic relief character Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best). 

There was certainly no film that was more anticipated, and perhaps no film that was more beloved and more hated during its initial run, caught between the magic of returning to a galaxy far, far away, or seeing it with new eyes for a whole generation of moviegoers, and the distant, inhuman characters and the politics-heavy plot that didn’t make sense and didn’t appear to deliver on the basic promise of a Darth Vader origin story. Different people at different points in their lives all felt differently about The Phantom Menace, usually holding several emotions at once.

A major difficulty with Star Wars today is many potential new fans bounce off because they try to watch the films “in order,” but The Phantom Menace was made specifically for the existing fans who had consumed every piece of Star Wars media they could in the preceding 20 years, and there’s a lot that viewers were expected to know going in. It was no secret that Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) would eventually become Darth Vader, nor was it a secret that Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) would become the emperor – the character had already been given the name Sheev Palpatine in expanded universe media, and McDiarmid had played the character under prosthetics in Return of the Jedi. Audiences were expected to know they were watching a tragedy that would play out in three installments, and crucially, they were expected to give it the grace to play out over that time.

Giving The Phantom Menace another real shot feels like sacrilege not just because of the general reception, but to me in particular – the film was the focus of Mr. Plinkett’s 2009 feature-length Youtube review that basically defines internet-based film criticism the way Jon Stewart defined late-night television. It’s even been played in theaters as its own movie. Where initial reviews focused on basic questions like entertainment value and whether or not it was funny, Pinkett gave droning voice to the problems with the core concept and highlighted the extreme simplicity of the original Star Wars films, which are all pastiches to action serials of the ‘30s and ‘40s that rely heavily on traditional “Hero’s Journey” tropes to make a fantastic setting approachable.

Star Wars has always leaned heavily on a few main influences – early action comic strips and Lucas’ love of Japanese cinema, but also Frank Herbert’s “Dune.” The Phantom Menace draws from many of the same influences, but always in pointedly different directions and to pointedly different effect.

‘Phantom Menace’ as a different kind of action serial

Star Wars films are always introducing new elements throughout. At best, they’re a perfectly paced drip of new characters, new settings and new action scenes. The original film turns the unapproachable story of two droids caught up in a galactic civil war into the story of a boy just trying to get off his uncle’s moisture farm and back again.

The Phantom Menace follows the same structure, but much more pointedly, and with a more clear throughline – to do exactly what Lucas promised and show the Jedi at the height of their power.

We open cold, just as Star Wars did – there’s even the apparent visual quote of a firing squad bearing down on a smoke-filled doorway as the action really starts – on two strangers who have nothing in common with the average viewer: Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor), and though they’re quite distant as characters, their attitudes and the attitudes of the Trade Federation villains gives us plenty of context. We learn that a planetary blockade that will quickly evolve into concentration camps is usually not important enough to summon Jedi, but also that a shadowy figure who will become the emperor is pulling the strings. Despite being described as diplomats, we see that the two resort to violence almost immediately, and Viceroy Nute Gunray (Silas Carson) speaks about them as if they are the Republic’s feared enforcers.

In the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker’s Jedi powers progressed slowly film-to-film, from barely noticeable precognition in Star Wars to telekinesis in The Empire Strikes Back to clairvoyance and mind control in Return of the Jedi, and we see him rely heavily on his brawn and marksmanship. In The Phantom Menace, we see powerful Jedi in regular practice of their skills, and they solve every problem with their powers – but those problems escalate with each setting. Their swordsmanship clears the way aboard the command ship and their psychic powers secure transport on Naboo, but they start to encounter problems they can’t solve. Watto (Andy Secombe) is immune to Jinn’s charms, and they must gamble to get off Tatooine. Then, they arrive on Coruscant to face an enemy they cannot even perceive for two more films.

It’s still an action serial moving along the same drumbeat as the original, changing settings, resolving conflicts and introducing new characters at roughly the same moments, but the vignettes are built from different sources now. The pod race, which is explicitly Lucas’ attempt at recreating the famous chariot race scene in Ben-Hur, sticks out, but Jar Jar and his scenes work well as a reference to old-school silent film clowns like Chaplin or Keaton, and the journey through Naboo’s core makes sense as a specific reference to adventure films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or The Lost World.

Like Star Wars, The Phantom Menace is heavily inspired by Frank Herbert’s “Dune,” and with 25 years hindsight – and 25 more years of life experience and media knowledge, I was about to turn 7 when this came out – The Phantom Menace finally starts to make sense.

‘Star Wars’ as ‘Dune’ adaptation

As we’ve read about and experienced in recent years, Frank Herbert’s 1965 tome “Dune” hit the science fiction genre like a meteor, and several attempts to adapt the daunting novel to film failed in several ways – many identify Denis Villeneuve’s recent films and forthcoming adaptation of “Dune: Messiah” as finally getting it right, but I have my doubts.

The overlap between Star Wars and “Dune” is undeniable. “Dune” is famously difficult to approach, and if it is partially a “Dune” adaptation, Star Wars is the simplest one possible, leaning into the romantic and action elements while leaving the politics and menagerie of human mutates aside. The Phantom Menace, if that is partially a “Dune” adaptation, leans into the political complexity and hard sci-fi.

As Plinkett notes in his review, the films immediately announce different reading levels in their opening crawls – contrast “It is a period of civil war” with “The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.” He also notes that none of the characters feel human or approachable, which is another part of this genre shift – the fantasy/Western elements are mostly gone, as are the sympathetic, easy-to-understand leads. We are now in a hard sci-fi, and nothing and nothing resembling modern human life is on the screen.

It’s also much easier to see the real-world politics and history of the film now that I’m not 7 anymore, which brings many characters into sharper relief.

‘Star Wars’ as social commentary

Star Wars, and particularly Return of the Jedi, was always meant as a comment on imperialism. The fall of the Galactic Republic will be lamented as sudden in later films, but The Phantom Menace shows a system that is obviously in dire disrepair.

The Jedi are treated police in a state that is relying on them to solve more and more problems and will eventually push them into a military role – the line “We can’t fight a war for you” contrasts sharply, and I believe intentionally, against the next two films, when we see Jedi referred to as generals at the head of the Republic’s army. We see a planetary blockade that is for some reason seen as trivial, one that is within a short distance of a planet where the Republic has so little reach that its currency is not accepted and slavery is still in common practice. Perhaps this is the very border of the Republic’s power – perhaps even Naboo is a new addition to the Republic, which could be why no one seems to care about the attack on the planet.

In this context, Queen Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) becomes an image of fierce leadership and dignity. This is a 14-year-old girl who looks at a force holding her entire planet hostage and the chancellor of the Galactic Republic and tells them both to shove it, then insists on going back to a warzone to die with her people. It is she, not the Jedi, who is the film’s bravest and most heroic character, but her defiance is masked by her ridiculous costumes and expressionless performance.

The Jedi’s quickness to violence and seemingly arbitrary decision-making seems par for the course in this context, and the image of Anakin in the Naboo peace parade already dressed in Jedi robes and with his hair already assimilated into the padawan style is intentionally, not accidentally, disquieting.

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, we see Anakin’s point of view in this moment – the parade passing under a monument that looks exactly like the Brandenburg Gate. In a democracy that we know will soon be taken over by an empire represented by jack-booted thugs who are explicitly coded as Nazis, it is a scream about what we’ve been watching the whole time.

Looking at The Phantom Menace as an aesthetic escalation of Star Wars, but with this genre shift complicating the tone and message, it suddenly seems like a stoke of brilliance and a dark complement to the original films.

‘The Phantom Menace’ as its own unforgettable adventure

As Disney’s disappointing Star Wars products shot out and their reputation got worse and worse, some snarked that the prequels don’t look so bad now. I don’t think one bad movie makes another look better, but watching The Phantom Menace with my 32-year-old eyes, it’s all too obvious what the sequels were missing.

The sequels, handed by one of the most sanitary media companies in history to one of the worst storytellers in the world in an era where action is often computer-generated and more a framing device for clever banter than its own scene, are boring mysteries that seem to take joy in how little they risk and how little they deliver.

The Phantom Menace has mystery elements, but it is not a mystery. The Phantom Menace is an action movie from a dying era where the action still mattered, and it brings the goods.

Watching Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan shred battle droids rules. It’s fun! A flaw of the film is they make it look too easy, and the battle droids are too flimsy to seem threatening – something that should have been fixed with better designs, and we do see more threatening-looking models in later entries.

The pod race rules. It’s five solid minutes of pulse-pounding race action, with a terrific underdog narrative, spectacular, out-of-this-world cars, clear-cut characterization expressed purely through design and vehicular mayhem on par with a Mad Max movie brought to life with some of the best sound design work ever done. Every conceivable way a pod racer could get destroyed we get to see in this sequence.

The Duel of the Fates rules. It’s so iconic it’s never even been imitated. Everything about it is perfect, from music to setting to bold, athletic swordplay that hadn’t yet been seen in this series.

It’s bizarre to think about, but a lot of what’s iconic, almost taken for granted, about lightsaber combat was established here, to a pretty severe extent. The Phantom Menace is the first movie to feature something so simple as both a green and a blue lightsaber, and it’s the first movie to feature a lightsaber duel with more than one able-bodied participant. Darth Vader needs a stiff, prosthetic suit just to breathe by the time we meet him, so Darth Maul’s breakdancing is completely new. It’s easy to take for granted in hindsight because all Star Wars media has taken after this, but it was also easy to take for granted in foresight because none of this was conceptually new, it just hadn’t been brought to life before.

The Phantom Menace may have been a pilgrimage for many filmgoers, but Lucas was still trying to deliver new iconic moments, and he succeeded.

Living with the phantom

While the prequels have often been pointed to as predicting much of modern moviemaking, in which just about everything is created via greenscreen in a self-defeating attempt to cut costs – Disney is the biggest offender here, but because this is perceived as a way to shovel costs under the rug, just about every major franchise blockbuster also uses this process right now. Lucas saw this extensive use of greenscreen as a cleaner way to imagine his universe, and it isn’t his fault that the tools eventually fell into the hands of producers instead of directors. Though the other prequels would become more cartoon than live-action, more machine than man one might say, Phantom Menace, the last film in the series to be shot on 35mm film, feels startlingly real by contrast, especially compared to how the rest of the series is remembered.

When looked at in this light, as follow-ups to the original trilogy rather than deliberate steps back, the prequels seem even more like the prototype of the modern long-awaited “reboot,” a film that attempts to recreate a beloved and still-profitable classic and strike a balance between updating it and keeping everything the same. The Phantom Menace is much, much better than most of the Disney Renaissance “live-action” remakes or anything in the vein of Star Wars: The Force Awakens or Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but it still trips down into many of the same pitfalls.

After Phantom Menace was both received poorly by critics and joyously at the box office simply because of the legacy it inherits, Lucas took everything personally, and Star Wars starts to be undone. The next two films would deliberately correct and apologize for The Phantom Menace’s pain points, and as criticism intensified into the ‘00s, Lucas would dejectedly sell to Disney in 2013. The megacorporation would spend the next decade fiddling with the franchise, blindly making many of the same mistakes and responding with many of the same course-corrections – the horrid, racially tinged reception of Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi darkly resembles the reception of Jar Jar, including both actors contemplating suicide and both characters being mostly written out of the next installments.

Watching The Phantom Menace today isn’t surreal at all. It’s easy. It’s smooth and enjoyable, the music is spectacular, the action is great and constant, and it sounds exactly like Star Wars ought to sound. What’s surreal is recognizing its worst elements, inspired and appropriate for this specific, if very unique, film, like recognizing the elements of the empire glancing out from the background.

As in the film itself, the tragedy appears to have already been written.