Moonrise.org: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Thoughts

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Content Created: July, 1999 / Updated: July 19, 1999

Here are just some thoughts about the new SW movie, after seeing it a couple times. I don't frequent any SW discussion areas, so in lieu of trying to get into one, I thought I'd just slap those thoughts here. These are quite uncontaminated by other online discussions.

I also have not read many of the SW books; I read the first two Tim Zahn novels ("The Last Command" and another that I forget) a while back, and I have some of the reference books that I've glanced over. Oh, and I've played a bit of the RPG. But I am a firm believer that all the other stuff is supplemental, and shouldn't be needed to enjoy the firms. Media novels also have the unfortunate tendancy to contradict the source material.

Spoiler Warning!

I mean it!

Sidious is Palpatine

On the second viewing, specifically looking for Ian McDiarmid's chin under the cloak, it does become quite obvious. But there are other data points:

Sidious' clasp is apparently the same as the Emperor's in ROTJ. Personally, I haven't looked that closely at either one. (We know Palpatine is headed for Emperorship, but we weren't sure about Sidious. Ian McDiarmid also happens to be the actor who played the Emperor in ROTJ. He must have been quite young at the time...)
Sidious spoke of keeping the Senate mired in debate; we don't know how he was planning on doing this (other than a broad application of the Sith Mind Trick) - Palpatine is in a great position for that to happen.
Qui-Gon got his heart cauterized without ever finding out what this "phantom menace"'s true motivation was, and the rest don't really have a good idea either. Palpatine using this war to generate sympathy for his bid at chancellor (no matter what he told Amidala) fits quite well.

If this is true (and I have little doubt), then either Palpatine is a master of mundane manipulation, or he's a really good master of the Force arts. He convinced Amidala (or bodyguard thereof) quite handily to enter the vote of "No confidence" in Valorum, without even moving his hands, like Master Qui-Gon does.

Anakin's father

there are three possibilities I can think of:

Shmi is telling the full truth - Anakin was a "virgin birth" by the Force, in order to fulfill a prophecy. This is actually the most likely.
Shmi is lying - She's protecting someone strong in the Force, but who?
Shmi is a victim of the Jedi Mind Trick - she conceived with a Jedi or Sith master who subsequently made her forget. This could be Sidious/Palpatine, but it would stretch credibility too much. ("Luke, I am your grandfather...") Besides, what would a Naboo senator be doing around Tatooine? (Although, Anakin said that he was on Tatooine since he was about three- could the Skywalkers be Naboo?)

Also, how far can we take Luke's comment in ROTJ about the Force being strong in his family? Are Shmi and Amidala strong as well? Qui-Gon never thought to test Anakin's mother for the Force bacteria

, and assuming the most likely possibility above, why would the Force choose her over the billions of other women in the galaxy?

"The Prophecy of the One who would being balance to the Force"

The Jedi masters were quite receptive to the One being a good thing, especially Qui-Gon. (Most had a problem with Anakin specifically, not the prophecy.) What does this "balance" entail? The Jedi are strongly aligned with the Light Side, and the Sith have been hiding or extinct for a millennium. Why would they want the Dark Side to gain equal power? Or is this "balance" something different that they want? What's the rest of the prophecy? (This is probably the most puzzling thing brought up in the movie...)

The Sith

I guess that the Sith are merely the flip side of the Jedi. I thought perhaps that they were a particular race that Vader had enslaved at some point. Also, I hadn't realized that "Darth" was a title, not a name. It makes more in-movie sense this way that Anakin would abandon his true name so as to set up the "Luke, ::wheeze:: I am your father" scenario. rather than have it obvious to everyone from the beginning. Like Palapatine would do the same to become Darth Sidious. We know that the Emperor's name is Palpatine from aupplemental materials, but it's not mentioned anywhere in the movies.

Female Jedi

Lucas has been reading a lot of Lensmen, apparently. (Not that that's a bad thing, Worsel would make a great Jedi, just think how many light sabers he could wield simultaneously...) In the movies, we've never seen a female Jedi - except now, for the glimpse of an Indian-looking one on the Jedi council (one of those who show up at Naboo at the end of the movie). Yes, I understand that Leia becomes something of a Knight after the original trilogy, but as mentioned, I've read very few SW books.

Beaming technology?

At one point, Qui-Gon sends Anakin's blood sample to Obi-Wan in the SR-71 Blackbird (sorry, Naboo Royal Starship

) for analysis. Either (a) the sample was transmatted/beamed there or (b) Qui-Gon's communicator did the analysis and forwarded it to Obi-Wan - but in that case, why put Obi-Wan into the loop? (Interface issues? Surely, that gadget he used to show the starship to Watto could be used for a readout as well?)

Dumb Jedi?

Why didn't Qui-Gon find some poor human, Mind Trick him into exchanging Republic credits for Tatooine native currency, and then deal with Watto? Or convert the credits into something else that he could use in barter with Watto? So we could see the overly-tedious pod race and get in good with that Skywalker brat, that's why.

Why didn't Obi-Wan telekinetically grab his saber while it was falling past him? So we could get the whole dramatic "using his master's saber" thing, obviously...

How could the Jedi order have been destroyed so easily by the Empire?

We see here that the Jedi are quite astounding warriors, and the Sith are... well, just Sidious, apparently. Grand Moff Tarkin in the first film says that Vader is the last of his "religion". Obviously, he doesn't know the Emperor is also a Sith lord, but still, where are all the other Sith that would be needed to take down all those thousands upon thousands (millions? It's a big galaxy...) of Jedi Knights. Sure, mundanes could kill a few, but sooner or later the (highly respected) Jedi would be removing themselves from the crosshairs and striking back at that mad Chancellor...

"This is my decoy..."

So, is Amidala's decoy a clone or merely a very clever surgical duplicate? And which one was addressing the Senate? (I think that might have been the real one, the rest of the time it was probably the decoy, except for the very last scene, where it was certainly Amidala grinning like an idiot at Anakin.)

"It seems some Tusken Raiders have camped out on the turn..."

While the pod race was a clever idea to show off a lot of different aliens without revisiting the Cantina, it dragged on too long (8 minutes from start to finish, by my watch, not counting the leadup). The Tusken Raiders were a nice touch, though...

"Worthy you are not..."

So, could Yoda take Maul down in a saber duel, or would he just use Force Lightning to blow him away? (Or is Force Lightning, something I've always felt wasn't appropriate for the Force to be able to do, just a Dark Side skill?)

"Shields up!" "Uh, sir, I don't think there's a point, last time, they walked right through them..."

If it's so easy for physical objects to penetrate shields (like Anakin's fighter, or the droid army in the battle), why not design some sort of torpedoes that could do that without the risk of actually having to go in yourselves? The proton torpedoes that took down the first Death Star went through the "ray-shielded" exhaust port. Why not use a variation of those and blow all the Gungans away without having to commit droid troops? Or by the Naboo in destroying the droid control ship? (Too bad the Naboo didn't have that really cool ion cannon that the rebels used to disable that Star Destroyer over Hoth...)

Darth Maul is a poor villain, no really!

Not like Vader from the first film, who was cool (although he got a lot cooler in the other films) Why?

Maul	Vader
3 lines (as I recall, things like "The Jedi will pay" and "Yes, Master")	A bunch of lines
looks thoroughly evil, like a devil	looks and sounds menacing, but without Maul's overt "I'm evil" sign
Follows all edicts of leader (Sidious) unquesrioningly	Follows most orders of leader (Grand Moff Tarkin) with grudging acceptance
Doesn't have political authority	Tortures his daughter (unknowingly) for information, and goes along with Tarkin's orders for her execution
Kills young Jedi Master he's met once before and never spoken with (3 lines, remember?)	Kills old Jedi Master, who was his teacher (there's a connection there- character development!)
Is killed by a Jedi apprentice (very embarrassing)	escapes destruction at the Death Star by blind luck (okay, the Force misdirected Solo's blaster shot...)

On the other hand, Maul certainly knows how to handle that light saber. The fights in Ep I were a lot more exciting than in Ep IV-VI. (They weren't dragging around all those cybernetics that Vader was then.)

But, Maul is not developed at all. We don't care at all about him, like we did Vader. He's just there to provide someone to hunt down the Jedi and fight them, since obviously we couldn't be having Palpatine/Sidious do it.