June 3, 2001

There has been a lot written on the net in general and, particularly, in the various online journals about the Star Wars trilogy with “The Phantom Menace.” Most people seem to come out with the opinion that “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back” are good films followed by a poor sequel, “Return of the Jedi.” The same people generally go on to assault “The Phantom Menace.” This has all reached a level that has forced me to respond.

To put it briefly, I believe that “Return of the Jedi” is, by far, the best movie yet in the Star Wars series. In RoTJ, you learn that the story hasn’t been what you’ve thought it has been all along. Up until the closing moments of ESB, you are led to believe that you are watching a space opera that features a ragtag rebellion attempting to overthrow a juggernaut of an Empire. The third movie reveals that this is not what the story has been about all along. The story is about Anakin Skywalker.

In “Star Wars,” Anakin Skywalker is known only as Darth Vader and is shown to be a menace so powerful that only his son, Luke, will ever have a chance to defeat him. Vader spends much of the movie killing nearly everyone in his path. Luke’s mentor, Obiwan, is dispatched in a moment that makes no sense until the final scene in RoTJ. Vader discovers Luke in the end of the film and attempts to kill him without fully realizing who he is. Only the sacrifice of his brave friends (and the timely intervention of Han Solo) allows Luke to survive.

The purpose of the entire movie is to get Vader to encounter Luke in the end. Everything else is mere filling. Yes, the story of the Death Star existing as the ultimate threat in the universe is pretty compelling. Even so, you have to wonder why the Rebels do not flee during the time it spends approaching the Yavin base. In the second movie, you are shown that the Rebels choose not to fight the Empire but to run instead. This is because Vader must encounter Luke in the only important scene of the movie.

In my opinion, ESB is the weakest movie of all. The ghost of Obiwan and Yoda train Luke after the slaughter on Hoth. Vader learns the identity of Luke between movies and spends another entire movie attempting to lure him into an encounter. When they finally fight, you wonder what Luke was learning in all that training. He’s overmatched even when Vader withholds most of his abilities. The point of the entire movie is to reveal Vader’s true identity as Anakin.

Without RoTJ, none of this means anything. The third movie begins with an important filler scene. Luke is shown years older and his skills have improved drastically. His ability to massacre Jabba’s troops almost single-handedly is shown. He is no longer a boy afraid of his own shadow but someone who could be a threat to Vader.

Yes, the Ewoks are a miserable joke of a marketing ploy. Lucas’ choice to make the only available allies on Endor cute bear-like creatures was the biggest mistake of the trilogy. It’s a mistake that can be forgiven in light of the compelling story that follows.

Luke seeks out his father and attempts to reconvert him. The scene where Luke and Vader speak as father to son while waiting for the Emperor is unbelievable. Obiwan told Luke that Vader and Anakin might as well have been two different people but Luke sees it for himself. You can see the conflict even through the mask as Vader feels compelled to turn his son over to the very embodiment of evil.

The Emperor’s plan is to seduce Luke over to the Dark Side of the Force. He uses the threat of massacring all of the Rebels in his first attempt yet Luke resists. Meanwhile, the most amazing battle sequence ever filmed takes place echoing the true action in the throne chamber. As Luke weakens, the Rebels appear headed for total defeat. Luke fights Vader who is weakened by his internal conflicts intermittently. They have reached an equilibrium.

Finally, Vader discovers a secret that detractors considered contrived. Leia is Luke’s twin sister. The threat to Luke’s family unhinges him and he falls under the Emperor’s power. Luke’s rage channels the Dark Side and he becomes more than a match for the conflicted Vader. When Luke chops off Vader’s hand and reveals its mechanical nature, he realizes killing his father would be tantamount to killing part of himself. I realized that Anakin had probably gone through a similar process and failed but Luke stepped back from the precipice.

The Emperor realized that he had failed so he decided to kill Luke before the prophecy of a Skywalker defeating him could be fulfilled. He channeled energy through his hands and began the process of torturing Luke to death. Luke was no match for the Emperor’s full power but he didn’t have to be. Seeing his son in so much pain ended the conflict in Vader. He became Anakin again and killed the Emperor quickly and mercifully as a Jedi should when forced to kill.

The redemption of Anakin Skywalker is completed when his ghost joins those of Obiwan and Yoda in friendship by the end. I now know why Obiwan allowed Vader to kill him. The Force must have granted him a vision of what was to come. The weak cave scene in ESB is explained as well. Killing Vader in that cave was shown to be the wrong thing for Luke to do because it would be tantamount to killing himself. In the original version, the fate of the Empire was left unclear because it didn’t matter. Anakin and the Emperor were the only important elements in the story.

Now, “The Phantom Menace” deserves more of the criticism that it faced but not all of it. Most of the problems that critics have with the movie can be explained by the title. People say that taxation of trade routes and the blockade of a boring planet made for too little plot. They expected the Republic to be threatened as a whole. They also felt that Anakin was a boring character.

Phantom is a word used to describe something barely visible if visible at all with a menacing context. The title reveals the simple fact that the story we saw involving battle droids and a Trade Federation wasn’t the real story. The real story involved the fact that the future Emperor used this minor problem to begin his seizure of power. He also met the boy who would become his most powerful servant. Therefore, the unseen menace can be seen as either the Emperor or Anakin.

The menace to the Republic had to be of a phantom sort or else it would have been crushed by the Jedi Knights. No one would believe that the blockade of a minor world and the discovery of a young boy would lead to the Empire but that’s exactly what happened. The rest of the story was an opportunity for character development. We know that future movies will involve the turning of Anakin and the fall of the Jedi Knights. I believe that the Anakin’s fall will be linked to his love for his mother. All sorts of possibilities could have been hidden in that movie.

I do believe that the movie fell far short of its potential. The first reason is Jar-Jar Binks. He is the most annoying character I believe I have ever encountered in any movie. He detracts from every scene in which he appears. He simply serves no purpose. The Ewoks were boring but they served the purpose of giving the Rebels allies on Endor. Jar-Jar appears to be a principle character, though. Maybe his people were useful in general but there’s no need for him to have been a major character.

The second reason is that Lucas spent far too much time on making things look good. Jar-Jar’s people were annoying to look at and the fact that they seemed to use a modified African American dialect is insulting. Pod racing took up entirely too much time that could have been spent far more profitably on the main plot. It was as if Lucas wrote two movies. One was an adaptation of the old cartoon, “Speed Racer,” while the other was part of a Star Wars prequel.

I may or may not decide to see the next movie in the theaters. The next movie will likely have a far more relevant plot. We will probably see Palpatine take full power and we might even see the fall of the Jedi. I just know that there has to be some equivalent of the throne room scene from RoTJ in the next two movies. My best guess is that Palpatine will send his next student out to kill Anakin’s mother. Anakin will be faced with the killer and the temptation will be too great. Anakin will kill him and become Palpatine’s unwitting slave. Vader’s suit is supposedly the result of a duel with Obiwan and this came from www.starwars.com, which is an official site, so this duel must take place.

“The Phantom Menace” accomplished all that it set out to do. It was not a great movie on its own like “Star Wars: A New Hope” but it did explain introduce Palpatine and Anakin. They are the real story of the Star Wars saga.