Last week:Elegy for the Rancor.
Next week: Dookus diabolical designs.
I loveGeorge Lucas, because of everything and despite nothing.
Lucasfilm
I dont mean great in quality terms, to be clear, and love conflates awe and pity.
His career crosses the great industries of post-real California.
Your local multiplex would play the THX logo before feature films.
In 1999, Lucas releasedThe Phantom Menace, his first directorial effort since 1977.
Lucas had to createStar Warsto sell it all over town.
Wouldnt it be easier if you didnt have to create anything?
He had built himself a kingdom in sleepier Northern California days, surrounded by adoration in his Marin estate.
and then Baxter quotes John Milius, a bygone friend, comparing Lucas to actual cultist Jim Jones.
The only interesting opinion to write aboutPhantom Menacewould be some sort of profound defense, or intensive deep-dish analysis.
I cant offer either; am I stalling?
Its bad for all the reasons the internet has dissected for 20 years.
The Trade Federation are worse than Jar Jar, tone-deaf caricatures deploying nonsense machinations.
Actually,The Phantom Menaceseems to be inventing whole new ways to be problematic.
Lucas was crazy for this one.Natalie Portmanplays Queen Amidala, a teenager elected to run her planet.
The governments some kind of matriarchy that depends on a heavy use of doppelgangers.
And this subterfuge works, strangely enough, because of the single best special effect inThe Phantom Menace.
Credit casting director Robin Gurland:Keira Knightleyand Portman were microscopic teenaged body doubles.
Except: Were there any walls?
Digital effects always age poorly, and even the brief moments of stupid wonder inThe Phantom Menacehave soured flubbery.
It is metropolis as seen through the window of a limousine, or a private helicopter.
Lucas would claim thatPhantom Menacewas for kids.
(He would say that about all ofStar Wars; we were warned.)
Hmm, yes, the taxation of trade routes, grumble grumble.
Important politicians greet you with smiles but betray you in court, howdarethey, afterall Ive done for them.
I think the prequel trilogy looks better now, in general, in a pick-your-poison kind of way.
There remains something mesmerizing, albeit boring and inadvertently monstrous, in how the prequels depict the Jedi Order.
Am I just ragging onThe Phantom Menace, like everyone else?
The shadowy bad guys inHobbs and Shaware an actual Phantom Menace, a see-you-next-sequel placeholder likeDarth Sidious.
[Next:Attack of the Clones]
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