The Long Way to Episode VII: Refreshing the Star Wars experience: Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens starts this Christmas on the big screen. Born 1986 I grew up with Star Wars. First with the good trilogy, which I've seen numerous times. Then came the 'new' one which covered episodes I to III. I've seen it once, I think, as I thought it was quite inferior to the magic of the older movies. Well, with Episode VII done by Disney and J.J. Abrams I am not sure what to expect. It can't get worse than Episodes I to III. Or The Hobbit movies... Which were all sufficent reasons to go to the cinema but didn't stand the comparison with the original movies (or Tolkien's slim children's tale which Peter Jackson raped into three movies larger than his Lord of the Rings movies).

So what will I do? I will watch all of the six Star Wars movies from Episode I to VI and blog about my experience watching them again. Then, and now it gets interesting, I plan to read through the original way the story developed further after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. I am of course talking about novelist Timothy Zahn's so called Thrawn Trilogy. I read (part of) it during my teenage years and now finally got the missing book in my hands. That will be a tight schedule as about two months remain and I still have two Hyperion/Endymion books to finish first. I also have no idea about how relevant The Clone Wars animated series or The Force Unleashed games for example are to the canon and I doubt I can also watch and play through these in time. But we'll see how far I get until the release of Episode VII.

The Force Awakens is revisionist in that the Thrawn Trilogy will be treated as it never were. I want to see how the story 'really' continued and then be able draw a comparison. Follow me on this journey, if you like.

And why not directly begin? Yesterday evening I watched Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

You could say that at least now I got the worst behind me. Jar-Jar Binks... I forgot how annoying this character is. I think it is mostly Jar-Jar's fault that fans like me never appreciated this movie. And while we're in rage mode already: Too much cgi. When it comes to digital characters in this 1999 movie I have to think they were generated with a Dreamcast console. That's what it looked like. Should've better used some of the old puppets.

So now that that's out of my system let me get to the things I enjoyed about the movie. The story starts rather dull: There's an intergalactic republic and taxation disagreements with the mighty and seemingly corrupt Trade Federation puts the small democratic world of Naboo under military siege. It's a democratic world, yet it has a matriarch - Queen Amidala. The Council of Jedi from Coruscant, the city planet that is the galaxy's hub of diplomaxy, suspect something larger behind this than taxation disagreements and send two of their Jedi emissaries - Qui-Gon Jinn, graciously played by Liam Neeson, and the young Obi Wan, played by Ewan McGregor. It comes as it has to and they are dragged in a struggle for power and become Amidala's bodyguards. As it later turns out, the Sith, the anti-thesis to the righteous and exalted Jedis and long believed to be gone from the universe, are behind this. The remarkable Darth Maul, one of the best things in this probably weakest Star Wars movie, poses a real challenge to Qui-Gon and Obi Wan, and ambushes them on the backwater world Tattooine, where they meet the child slave Anakin Skywalker. Qui-Gon instantly notices that The Force is strong in the young Anakin Skywalker. The Pod Racer-race scene where Anakin wins his freedom and enables Qui-Gon to repair Her Majesty's space ship is the most exciting scene in the movie. I remember there even was a video game based on that scene on Sega Dreamcast (there it is again). The group travels to Coruscant where a brief skirmish in parliament for the withdrawal of troops from Naboo leads to nothing (you could as well watch any United Nations session to understand where the filmmakers got this idea from). On Naboo the battle between humans alongside with amphibic creatures against the Trade Federation's android army begins. Here it is notable that this scence was created before the cinematic world knew Peter Jackson's The Lord of The Rings which defined how scenes of armies battling each other have to look for eternity. So it looks rather comic. In the end the two Jedi face Darth Maul, Qui-Gon dies, Obi Wan kills Maul, Anakin with the help of R2D2 destroys the orbital android command space station and the war is won. Meanwhile on Coruscant senator Palpatine is elected the new chancellor. Obi Wan becomes Jedi Knight and Anakin despite Yoda's reluctance the padawan (pupil) of Obi Wan.

All in all the movie was not as bad as I remembered it. It wasn't a particular great movie, but it managed to appease fans with nostalgia like the appearance of Jabba The Hutt or C3PO who was created by the young Anakin. Jar-Jar Binks is and will always be terrible. I can't understand how they put some crude joke ruining every scene like him in. I heard there's an improved version of the movie in which loyal fans cut all the Binks crap out. I am now more interested to see how Anakin slowly turns into Darth Vader. I'll post my impressions then as well.

Here's the trailer for you. And in case you want a 20 minute summary of all the movies, just click.