Premium Post: How I Would've Done THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999)
The concept was better than I expected, but there was so much that could have been done better
Although the film podcast Myopia Movies covered Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith awhile ago — listen if you want to see my fan-rage in all its glory — we didn’t initially critique the earlier prequels. So at the request of regular guest Evan, we did an episode on Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. Although I remember liking it when it came out (I was at the very tail end of eighth grade), watching it again I see why it got mocked. Daniel recommended I do another one of my “how I would have done it” write-ups, so here we go…
In General
*Other than Jake Lloyd, the casting is good. However, I’m not sure whether it’s Lloyd, the script, or both, but I don’t really like him as young Anakin Skywalker. I know they’re trying to emphasize the tragedy by depicting one of cinema’s great villains as an adorable little boy who wants to help people, but he comes off too much as a 1990s precocious kid. I would probably go with both — a different actor (and an older one too so it doesn’t, per a podcast colleague, come off like a nine-year-old crushing on his babysitter) and cut dumbest lines like, “This is podracing!”
*Make the Jedi Council more overbearing. This article from Tor.com shows how one really needs to watch the animated Clone Wars cartoon to really understand why Anakin turned like he did and apparently the show depicts the Council at its worst — mistreating Anakin’s apprentice Ahsoka Tano and refusing to admit fault, jacking Anakin around, etc. However, although the Council in TPM is rather pig-headed and annoying, they’re all bark and no bite. Obi-Wan repeatedly chides Qui-Gon for refusing to follow the Jedi Code, but Qui-Gon has apparently been doing this for years and all the Council does is…not seat him on the Council. After Qui-Gon’s death, Obi-Wan flat-out tells Yoda he’ll train Anakin even if the Council forbids it…and they let him.
Why did Anakin and Padme have to hide their marriage (which violates the Code, at least as interpreted by the Jedi at the time) if that’s all the Council would do if they got caught? Anakin might have liked the honor of a Council seat, but the bureaucratic stuff would bore him to insanity. If they caught him and decided his punishment would be that he’d never sit on the Jedi Council, he’d probably be relieved they aren’t turning him out onto the street.
(Heck, given Anakin’s personality, putting him on the Council seems like it’d be a punishment. One of those ironic “be careful what you wish for” kind of things.)
It would have been better if the Council were more cultish, Qui-Gon’s relative free-spiritedness is only barely tolerated, and that Obi-Wan is more in line with the Council than with his master. Remove the one influential Jedi who doesn’t have his head up his own ass and have the Jedi marinate in their own nonsense for a decade and by Attack of the Clones, Anakin has very real reason to fear the Council. According to people who know the old Expanded Universe better, Obi-Wan was a martinet who was unduly harsh with Anakin and fond of threatening to kick him out of the Order. This might be in-character for an inexperienced teacher whose first pupil is a gifted but troubled and rebellious youth who isn’t much younger than he. Add that Obi-Wan is drinking the Council’s Kool-Aid because his own mentor is no longer around to moderate it and you have a recipe for a not particularly healthy relationship. This would in turn make Anakin more vulnerable to Palpatine’s manipulations, since he’d have a much greater reason to resent the killjoy Jedi Council in general and Obi-Wan in particular.
*Jar-Jar. Episode II shows how a well-meaning but not very smart person could be easily manipulated (he’s the one who convinces everybody to give Palpatine emergency powers), but he’s so annoying. I’d tone down the accent, although the clumsiness and well-meaning ineptitude are a major part of his character and an occasional source of legitimate comedy.
Act One
*When we first come to Naboo and see the Trade Federation blockade, there’re 10-20 carriers, but by the time the final battle rolls around, there’s only one. If Palpatine had ordered the Trade Federation to weaken the blockade and then the heroes pull this amazing come-from-behind victory, they’d never trust Palpatine again and the Clone Wars of canon would have never happened. I would depict only two or three, since this is an age of peace and so Naboo simply might only have ten to twenty fighters, the equivalent of a police force. Three military-surplus carriers carrying hundreds of drone fighters can easily blockade the planet. That the Republic can’t slap the Trade Federation down shows how weak the central government is — either their military has withered in the millennium since defeating the Sith or like the United Nations of today it never really had much power of its own to start with.
*More variety of Neimodian accents. I’m not going to complain about them all dressing like Confucian officials, but the fact they all have stereotypical quasi-Chinese accents too? Racism aside, we’re also getting into Planet of Hats territory. An entire species is unlikely to be monocultural, even if there’s a single dominant group. If there was some kind of human space empire today, it might be American-dominated, but you’d see contingents from China, the European Union, etc.
*I had no problem with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Their conversations do a good job depicting their differences in philosophy and illuminating their characters. And when the time comes for fighting, they’re great.
*However on the matter of fighting, Palpatine is supposed to be this mastermind whose convoluted plots turn out just how he likes. Ordering the Jedi killed to prolong the crisis to his own benefit makes sense, but I would imagine he would explicitly order the Trade Federation to make it look like an accident. Although the Trade Federation’s desire not to escalate would explain why they use poison gas in the meeting room rather than go in with guns blazing, it wouldn’t explain why they destroy the Republic cruiser. That’s not just an escalation, that’s an act of war against the galactic government and even a weak one wouldn’t tolerate that. I’d have depicted the poison gas and then then droid attack, but Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon have to flee because they simply cannot fight their way back to the cruiser, not because the cruiser’s been destroyed.
*Ditch the elected middle-schooler queen. If Padme is a hereditary monarch it could explain why a 14-year-old is in that position, but nobody in their right mind is going to elect a teenager. Some of the old EU said it was a Naboo custom to involve children in public service from a young age and the downside is they could be manipulated by ill-intentioned adults, but there’s a difference between Padme the legislative page and Padme the chief executive of a planet. I’d have her inherit the throne recently (i.e. still mourning her father or mother) and depict her advisors squabbling among themselves as to whether they should fight the Trade Federation or continue diplomacy. If Padme leans in the peaceful direction due to personal temperament, that would lend weight to the peace faction whose support for a diplomatic solution is more pragmatic (the Trade Federation would crush them in battle) rather than ideological.
*When the Jedi meet Boss Nass, make it clear the Gungans and the Naboo are historical enemies rather than just his resenting the Naboo for (allegedly) thinking they’re smarter. In the novelization, a character (Jar-Jar?) references past fighting and now the Naboo stick to the plains and the Gungans the swamps, something when combined with how widespread humans are in the Star Wars galaxy implied the Naboo are not natives. The Gungans are the indigenous race who, like the Native Americans, have lost most of their lands to outside invaders. That would make Padme’s humbling herself before Boss Nass later and the ending parade much more meaningful. However, I’d make sure it was handled subtly — this is Star Wars, not Dances With Frogs. Maybe I’d just have Boss Nass say something like, “now they-sa know what it’s like” and let the audience figure out the implication.
And while I’m at it, Boss Nass’s verbal tics and Nixonian face-waggling is really annoying, so that’s going too.
*A planet core is full of water and monsters? Naboo is pretty normal-looking, so I would imagine there’s a molten core generating a magnetic field and all that. I’d have made it a little more subtle — Boss Nass is sending them through an underwater cave system connecting Otoh Gunga with a lake or river near Theed. There’ll still be the cool monster chases and what-not, but it’s less ridiculous. Bonus points if we see obvious Gungan remains near where the submarine surfaces, further hinting Theed used to belong to them. The queen is rescued and off they go.
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