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May 19, 1999

'The Phantom Menace': In the Beginning, the Future

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By JANET MASLIN

hings look dicey for the new "Star Wars" crew when their undersea craft is
threatened by a large aquatic critter. But then an even mightier beast appears,
and it swallows up the first. "There's always a bigger fish," observes the Jedi
sage Qui-Gon Jinn, speaking for more than marine life on the planet Naboo,
where the episode takes place. That description also sums up the earthly
atmosphere into which George Lucas' pathologically anticipated "Star Wars:
Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" arrives.
Lucas' new opus is only a movie. This revelation has
touched off shock waves in a cultural climate (much
stranger than Naboo's) where anything short of the biggest,
splashiest and most moneymaking qualifies as a galling
flop. And the reception of "The Phantom Menace" has not Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM.

been helped by spoilsport tie-ins that make it (according to Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) tallks
an item in the Hollywood Reporter) "the first film that will to junk dealer Watto as young Anakin
Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) looks on.
make money even if nobody buys a ticket to see it."
    Slide Show  (12 photos)
Nobody, not even camp followers ready to turn this
souped-up "Star Wars" into the second coming of the
Grateful Dead, wants to be sick and tired of a film before it hits the screen.

But stripped of hype and breathless expectations, Lucas' first installment offers a happy surprise: it's
up to snuff. It sustains the gee-whiz spirit of the series and offers a swashbuckling extragalactic
getaway, creating illusions that are even more plausible than the kitchen-raiding raptors of "Jurassic
Park." While the human stars here are reduced to playing action figures, they are upstaged by amazing
backdrops and hordes of crazily lifelike space beings as the Lewis Carroll in Lucas is given free rein.
The "Star Wars" franchise was funnier and scrappier when it was new. But it simply wasn't capable of
this.

There are film series that grow palpably desperate for inspiration as
they age, but "Star Wars" isn't one of them. If the real Force at work
is Lucas' boyish belief in the sci-fi universe he has created, then it
hasn't dimmed. It's not hard to believe that the story of "The
Phantom Menace," a genesis for the trio of films we already know,
was always on a back burner somewhere. Or that the hundreds of ADVERTISEMENT
design and computer-graphics artists who have brought Lucas'
imaginings to life really believe this epic fable and think you should, too.

In the beginning, according to "The Phantom Menace," there were noble Jedi ("the guardians of peace
and justice in the galaxy") and a whole lot of trouble-shooting to be done. Though Lucas' screenplay
carries far more baggage in the form of interplanetary turf wars and highly ceremonial political
wrangling, the basics will suffice. What matters is that the series' sense of good and evil is still
quaintly naive, just as its notion of heroism remains rooted in movie traditions much less nihilistic
than today's. Lucas' big battles are crisply staged and sadism-free.

It goes without saying that those scenes also work hard to have kiddie appeal.
"You mean I get to come with you in your starship?" exclaims pint-sized
Anakin Skywalker, the prepubescent who will grow up to be Darth Vader and
who is the new film's most pandering creation. Played in conventionally cute
style by towheaded Jake Lloyd and outfitted as a junior Luke Skywalker,
Anakin seems to be here mostly to try out the film's many toys. Only in the
bland conception of Anakin is "The Phantom Menace" really undermined by its
own innate boyishness. There's no hint of the future in him, though the
audience knows this is one high-pitched voice that's really going to change.
In a notable change of pace, the earnest Swedish actress Pernilla August ("The
Best Intentions") goes from playing Ingmar Bergman's mother to Darth's, as a
"Star Wars" Madonna nobly raising her boy on the desert planet Tatooine.
Unlike much of what is seen in "The Phantom Menace," Tatooine is familiar
from the first films, but it has been brightened to suit the new film's visual brio.
The rogues' gallery on Tatooine is also new and improved, led by the blue,
winged Watto, the alien most skilled at upstaging the film's humans.

The showpiece pod-racing sequence on Tatooine ("Ben-Hur" with jet engines)

is a model of the film's jubilant ingenuity. The stadium is huge and filled with
excitable creatures. Anakin's chief rival has flesh dreadlocks and a wicked grin.
The course sends racers hurtling through a video-game Monument Valley. Each
racer is of a different species, just as the pods are differently designed and make
different noises; look closely, and each has a tiny flag to match. Somebody has
even bothered to come up with Tatooine ideograms that appear on the pods'
instrument gauges. As if all that weren't enough, Jabba the Hutt makes a
humorous cameo appearance from the stands.

Without excessive clutter, "The Phantom Menace" stays that busy in each of its
exotic settings. The terrific design team led by Doug Chiang has effectively put
global culture in a blender and come up with what is still the series' ace in the
hole: a viewer-friendly fusion of the bizarre and the familiar. Just as the
creature designs show off a playful knowledge of zoology, the space cities
jumble and recycle earthly architecture with mischievous abandon. One of the
real jaw-droppers, a spectacular underwater bubble city, looks for all the world
like an elaborate Art Nouveau lamp.

The filmmakers could have been smarter about throwaway references when it
came to the ethnic hallmarks of their creatures. Some of the most unsightly
villains sound embarrassingly like Hollywood's old stereotypes from the
mysterious Orient. And lop-eared, clownish Jar Jar Binks is made noxious by
his obsequious Caribbean-sounding patois. Only when it comes to the new
Darth Maul does the film have no toes to step on since his Devil makeup and
horned head speak for themselves. The martial arts expert Ray Park makes him
a villain you'll love to hate.

The other actors are often sandbagged by the physical demands of their roles.
As Qui-Gon Jinn, Liam Neeson carries himself nobly and does his best to seem
conversational with nonexistent co-stars ("Patience, my blue friend"), but he
can't make it look easy. Ewan McGregor, a naturally dashing actor, is stymied
by the flat and passive character of young Obi-Wan Kenobi, though his echoes
of Alec Guinness are uncanny at times. Natalie Portman, under the weight of
gaudily breathtaking costumes, becomes a one-woman doll collection as
Naboo's Queen Amidala. (Who can fail to love this story's character and place
names?) But she and young Lloyd, as the future parents of Luke Skywalker and
 Princess Leia, are often wooden as can be.

Just as "Star Wars" became one of the most widely imitated pop phenomena of
its time, "The Phantom Menace" looks like a template for a new generation of
computer-generated science fiction. And unlike "The Matrix," another film
liable to spawn imitations, it is sweetly, unfashionably benign. Whether
dreaming up blow-dryer-headed soldiers who move in lifelike formation or a
planet made entirely of skyscrapers, Lucas still champions wondrous visions
over bleak ones and sustains his love of escapist fun. There's no better tour
guide for a trip back to the future.

PRODUCTION NOTES

'STAR WARS: EPISODE I -- THE PHANTOM MENACE'

Rating: "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" is rated PG (Parental

guidance suggested). It includes battle scenes that are as good-hearted as battle
scenes can be.

Written and directed by George Lucas; director of photography, David

Tattersall; edited by Paul Martin Smith; music by John Williams; production
designer, Gavin Bocquet; creatures effects by Nick Dudman; visual effects
supervisors, Dennis Muren and John Knoll; animation supervisor, Rob
Coleman; produced by Rick McCallum; released by 20th Century Fox.
Running time: 132 minutes. This film is rated PG.

Cast: Liam Neeson (Qui-Gon Jinn), Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi),

Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala), Jake Lloyd (Anakin Skywalker), Ian
McDiarmid (Senator Palpatine), Pernilla August (Shmi Skywalker), Ahmed
Best (Jar Jar Binks), Frank Oz (voice of Yoda), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace
Windu) and Ray Park (Darth Maul).

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