I Regret to Inform You That Twenty-Five Years Later, The Phantom Menace Still Sucks
The 2009 stinker Fanboys is an absolutely abysmal endeavor with one great moment/line that highlights what makes the rest of the film so dire.
Fanboys is just barely remembered primarily for the behind-the-scenes drama when Harvey Weinstein, the Darth Vader of American independent film, decided that a movie about a terminally ill Star Wars fan making a sacred pilgrimage to be disappointed by The Phantom Menace before the rest of the world would be a bummer for young audiences.
So he hired Happy Madison staple Steven Brill to shoot new scenes and remove the Cancer subplot in its entirety. Fans revolted and the Cancer subplot remained in the film, alongside other raunchy scenes added at Weinstein’s suggestion.
For extra ick, noted degenerates Kevin Spacey and Harry Knowles were also prominently involved in the film’s production. Spacey was a producer, while Knowles was a character in the movie itself.
Fanboys can’t imagine a new Star Wars movie that isn’t a transformative, life-changing experience worth waiting sixteen long years for, but it also finds plenty of time for gay panic jokes and endless fan service.
The only time Fanboys even acknowledges the possibility that The Phantom Menace might not be everything fans wanted and expected is in its final line.
The dying teen realizes his life’s dream, but his friends must wait to see it with the rest of the world. Before the movie starts, one of them asks the exceedingly relevant question, “What if it sucks?”
The Phantom Menace did, in fact, suck. The film opened to a worldwide sigh of disappointment. The movie made a lot of money because of all of the hype and anticipation, but it might genuinely be the single most disappointing movie in the history of American film.
When it was released, I found things to like about it. Of course, the writing, acting, and plotting were all transparently terrible. I don’t think it’s right to criticize children's performances, so I will refrain from saying anything about Jake Lloyd’s acting.
The consensus seemed to be that Lucas pulled a real choke job when it came to writing, directing, acting and pacing but that he’d once again single-handedly pushed the technology of film forward with groundbreaking special effects.
The Phantom Menace might be clunky, stiff, tedious, and weirdly devoted to ancient racist and anti-Semitic stereotypes, but it was at least supposed to look amazing. And if adults whined excessively about Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd’s li’l Darth Vader, Lucas wanted them to know that he had made a family movie for children, not a sacred text.
I had a strong negative reaction to The Phantom Menace when I saw it. I had just as strong a response when I re-watched it for the Jar Jar Binks My World of Flops piece included in my book The Joy of Trash.
But when my wife suggested that I take my nine-year-old son Declan to see it in the theater with a half-full audience to commemorate May the Fourth day and the film’s 25th anniversary, I experienced a shiver of hope.
I was disappointed with The Phantom Menace the first time in part because the hype was so deafening and ubiquitous that even a good movie couldn’t possibly live up to it.
When I first saw The Phantom Menace, I was twenty-three years old and single and believed that the primary goal of children’s movies should be entertaining adults.
I thought The Phantom Menace might be a markedly different, more impressive experience if I watched this children’s movie with my child. I similarly thought that the problem might be that I expected too much.
This time, my expectations were way lower. I thought that even if I remained unengaged by the storytelling, I could at least count on revolutionary, eye-popping visuals.
It consequently brings me no pleasure to concede that even under ideal circumstances (semi-packed screening in a theater, movie-loving child in tow, nostalgia up the wazoo, and low expectations), The Phantom Menace continues to suck.
The Phantom Menace is, if anything, even worse than before because special effects, CGI, and green screen that were revolutionary, cutting-edge, and groundbreaking at the time now look dated, clunky, and ugly.
I entered the screening full of hope. Maybe it would be different this time! Maybe the boy would love it. Maybe I would come to love The Phantom Menace the way I have so many films I initially hated, including but not limited to Nothing But Trouble.
That did not happen. Oh, sweet blessed lord, did that not happen. This retrospective screening afforded me an opportunity to experience The Phantom Menace through the eyes of an innocent child—my son Declan, who is the same age as Anakin in the film.
That innocent child was, if anything, even more bored than I was. You’ve got to hand it to George Lucas: that infamous opening scrawl lets audiences know exactly what they’re in for: a talky, convoluted, and over-plotted mess.
A half-hour into the movie, Declan leaned over and said, “I’m bored. I’d much rather be reading about ventriloquism.”
I did not blame him. The movie was somehow even worse than I remembered. Even more depressingly, I also knew that it would not get any better.
I never thought I would write these words, but the taxation of trade routes fails to be a riveting subject for a swashbuckling space adventure.
My son kind of wanted to leave and go home, and so did I, but I stuck it out because I wanted to have the full experience of being disappointed by The Phantom Menace ALL OVER AGAIN.
I found nothing to like about The Phantom Menace this time around beyond it being less cynical and pandering than Rise of Skywalker. Also, it inspired “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “The Saga Begins,” so at least something good came out of its otherwise unfortunate existence.
The 25th-anniversary screening was such a bust that when the audience applauded at the end, I wanted to turn around and say, “Are you kidding me? Did we just see the same movie?”
Oh well. I’m sure Declan and I will have a much different, much better experience when we see The Phantom Menace in 2049 to commemorate its all-important 50th anniversary.
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