*Note – I wrote this piece on May 4th 2024, but didn’t immediately get around to hitting ‘publish’. I thought the time had been and gone to share it, but who knows, hopefully it’s still of interest to someone.

I would have been about 7 years old when Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace came out in 1999. I must have seen it in the cinema, although I can’t remember doing so. I do remember my Dad and uncle taking me to see the original Star Wars, (retitled Episode IV – A New Hope) at a very early age. In my memory of this trip, we had arrived slightly late. I seem to remember walking down the cinema aisle in the dark to find our seats whilst Vader interrogated a captive Princess Leia on board the Tantive IV (which would clock us running about seven minutes late, Dad!). I have to assume this was before Phantom Menace, probably a re-release alongside Lucas’s release of the much-maligned ‘Special Editions’ in 1997 – a shout out here to Harmy’s ‘Despecialized’ versions for righting the wrong of Lucasfilm replacing the original versions with the newer ‘digitally enhanced’ monstrosities that warped and distorted the films as they were released in 1977, 80, and 83. Chances are, this was in the lead-up to the release of Phantom Menace in 1999 – a re-release of the original film(s) to capitalise upon the hype surrounding Episode I and the new beginning of the saga.

I’ve seen The Phantom Menace who knows how many times at this point. From whole-saga marathons to standalone film nights, I have seen the film – as I have all of the Star Wars films – a significant number of times. On May the Fourth 2024 (the holiest day of all, Star Wars Day!), I watched it again on the big screen at my local cinema, the film being re-released in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The Phantom Menace is far from perfect, and certainly isn’t the best Star Wars film. In the past, I have treated it poorly, easily swayed by the criticism leveled against the film as well as its two sequels (Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith) for their tendency toward over-exposition (midichlorians!), overused (and now-dated) VFX, questionable dialogue (‘I don’t like sand’), and an inescapable paradox that they are at once both too dumbed-down (Jar Jar Binks being the usual scapegoat) whilst also losing themselves in semi-serious politicking. Who, for example, would have thought it was a good idea that the opening crawl for this new prequel saga, a continuation of the swashbuckling space opera that won audiences over across the world in the late 70s/early 80s, would have begun with the adrenaline-pumping proclamation – ‘The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute’.

And yet, reflecting upon the film and my own personal Star Wars fandom, I don’t think I would have become the fan I am today without having seen this film at the age I first did. My memory of the film crystalised around its blockbuster-oriented set-pieces. For the longest time, The Phantom Menace could be distilled down to a handful of key moments and characters in my mind: the tense opening sequence that sees Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi escape the clutches of the nefarious Trade Federation with their lives; the infamously long but nonetheless compelling pod-racing sequence; the now iconic climactic battle between the aforementioned Jedi and Darth Maul, soundtracked by John Williams’ superlative ‘Duel of the Fates’. Going back to the film over and over again since my first viewing, yes, I can see its faults more readily. But its meanings and layers reveal and refine themselves with each new encounter.

From a certain point of view, The Phantom Menace, indeed, the Star Wars franchise as a whole, takes on new and different meanings as we grow up alongside the films; we evaluate and respond to them first and foremost for their superficial qualities at a younger age: their action, their style, their central myth of good fighting against evil. In the screening I attended on May 4th, three audience members stood out to me. Whilst I can’t be certain, my assumption is that these individuals represented three generations of the same family, a young boy with his father and, perhaps, his grandfather. The child was wearing a Darth Vader mask and was clutching a toy lightsaber (no, Vader isn’t technically seen in The Phantom Menace, but we will let the kid’s error slide) whilst his youngish Dad also brandished his own weapon (‘an elegant weapon of a more civilized age’). Grandfather followed suit walking, slightly slower, but no less enthusiastically up the stairs to a row somewhere behind my own. All three of these men were there to watch The Phantom Menace, but all were undoubtedly watching three different versions of the same film. Had the grandfather taken his own son – perhaps a teenager in 1999 – to the film 25 years ago? Had he seen the original film when it came out in 1977? Was this perhaps the first time the child was watching The Phantom Menace, or perhaps any Star Wars film on the big screen? And what did the child make of it?

As I watched the film, it struck me that younger viewers around me might not grasp the film’s political intricacies or appreciate its slower moments. Surely, in sequences like the Senate debate over the invasion of Naboo, or the discussion of trade route blockades that establish the film’s opening act, those younger members of the audience (and there were a fair few around the room) must surely have been bored/confused/uncertain about what was happening and what they were watching. Where are the lightsabers? When would the next starship battle take place? But then it struck me: I don’t remember being bored or frustrated watching this as a seven-year-old 25 years ago. Why should they?

We take from a film only what we want from it – what resonates with us – at any given time . For those younger viewers (and I’m sure I was the same in 1999), the slapstick antics of Jar Jar Binks offer a much needed chuckle between the terrifying visions of the brooding Darth Maul or the tragic loss of Qui-Gon. The image of the then eight-year-old Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker piloting a spaceship and proving himself as a hero becomes a focal point for children of the same age. These elements might not engage me as much as they did back then, but I find myself now enjoying the film as the foundation of the larger monomyth that is Star Wars in all its iterations. I value the film’s technical innovation in digital filmmaking, its aesthetic and style, John-god-damn-Williams’ incredible score and the knowledge that, even for all of its faults, without The Phantom Menace we wouldn’t have many of the other elements of the Star Wars franchise that I love deeply.

Without the 1999 film, we wouldn’t have the animated show The Clone Wars, fantastic prequel-era novels like Claudia Gray’s Master and Apprentice or John Jackson Miller’s recent The Living Force set a year prior to the events of Episode I. We wouldn’t have Ewan McGregor’s performance as Obi-Wan Kenobi, seen in both the prequel trilogy but also the titular Disney+ series of 2022.

I thank The Phantom Menace for making me the Star Wars fan I am today. I write this sitting in front of a bookcase overflowing with Star Wars novels, comics, guides, and behind-the-scenes books – I know my ‘Legends’ from my ‘Canon’ – don’t try it! Around me I have models of the Millennium Falcon I put together myself, an animatronic Chopper droid my sister brought back from Disney World for me, and too many many Funko Pops to count. I teach a first year module in Film Studies that features a whole week on transmedia franchises, where I teach students about contemporary media franchising using – guess what – Star Wars (and yes, for better or worse, that week has colloquially become known amongst staff and students alike as ‘Chris’s Star Wars Week’). Recently, a student thanked me for my support at the end of the term with the gift of a pastel-green Grogu (‘baby Yoda’) mug for my office.

Is The Phantom Menace my favorite film in the franchise? No – nowhere close (If pushed I think I would say The Empire Strikes Back). But it is probably the film – alongside re-release screenings and VHS copies of Episode IV – that served first and foremost as the formative gateway, the genesis of my fandom as a whole. It might also be partly responsible for my love of and interest in film a whole – I have vivid memories of using my Dad’s camcorder to film an homage/re-telling of The Phantom Menace with my (reluctant) extended family, splicing in scenes from the VHS copy of the film alongside footage of a family member draped in a black cape pretending to be Darth Maul.

Twenty-five years later, and I still get so much joy from this saga – and I’m even lucky enough to be able to share this love and joy as part of my job (imagine that!) Some people have a specific football team, a band they’ll follow to the ends of the earth, James Bond or Doctor Who. Like me, it may have been a parent or friend that first introduced them to their passion and obsession. For me – it’s these characters and their stories: stories that took place a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…