"Defending Episode I" By Adam Slight

As the Star Wars franchise continues to grow well into its 31st year I seem to sense more and more cynicism towards my beloved saga. While the original trilogy unquestionably introduced dramatic technical innovations to cinema, it’s the new prequels that get the brunt of public criticism for its apparent cash-cow qualities. With a new TV series on the way and a CGI remake of the Emmy-award winning series Star Wars: Clone Wars to hit theaters this summer it is difficult for many to take the Star Wars Universe seriously anymore (if it’s really meant to be all that serious to begin with).

At the forefront of the Star Wars cynic’s arsenal (aside from the mind-numbing 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special) is undoubtedly Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. While I’ve always proclaimed my unconditional love for the six installments I must admit that even I have kind of shoved Episode I aside. After watching it recently though, I would like to attempt the impossible. It is my hope this evening to defend Star Wars: Episode I.

While George Lucas’ ability to direct has always been questioned (remember, he only directed A New Hope before he did the prequels, and Indiana Jones was co-directed with Spielberg) I would like to express my support for his direction of Episode I. As I watched the film I couldn’t help but distinguish that beautiful 70’s cinematography that made Lucas and his pals (Coppola, Spielberg, Scorcese etc.) so big. I even feel that Spielberg has dropped a lot of these qualities. This punctuated style I find is strong in Phantom Menace, especially in the scenes on Tatooine (and the classic scene transitions). At points I even felt like I was watching a kind of interstellar The Godfather. The podrace, which I also often hear complaints about, is almost a perfect shot-for-shot tribute to the famous chariot race in Ben Hur. So while Lucas is often labeled as a money-grubbing hack, I’d say the cinematography in Episode I harkens more to an auteurist style of the past than that of a special-effects vehicle such as 300 or the later Matrix installments.

Another credit I give Lucas is his ability to flesh out refreshing anthropological worlds and cultures. While I do believe that he gets a lot of help from development teams as far as design goes, I do know that Lucas’ input is heavy and he always has the final say. The cultures in Episode I are the strongest of any in the six films, in my opinion. The five most prominent in the film are the Nubians (Queen Amidala and her crew), The Gungans (Jar Jar and his folk), the “scum and villainy” of Tatooine, the delegates and Jedi of Coruscant, and the Trade Federation baddies. I found that while these were all fantastic and alien, they were all rooted in a mixture of real human cultures. Through this Lucas is able to mesh “the other” and “the familiar” creating other-worldly groups that we are still able to identify with. While the Nubian culture I find resemble a mix between the ancient Greek and that of Venice, the Gungans seem to be a mix of aboriginal Australian and Jamaican. The crime lords of Tatooine are a sort of American-Italian lot and those of Coruscant are a kind of privileged, Evian-drinking, Upper-class. While seemingly semi-stereotypical, the importance is not the resemblance to specific existing cultures but that they are distinct. It is this diversity that helped me to reconcile my differences with Jar Jar Binks. If you’ll notice, the Gungans all have their silly tendancies, not just Jar Jar (The Gungan captain says “It’s ouch time” before the final battle, and their Boss has that wacky loose face-skin). To condemn Jar Jar for his silliness would be to put one’s self at risk of ethnocentricity. I’m not saying you’re a racist if you hate Jar Jar Binks. I’m just saying that one must understand the difference of his culture to understand him. It is also this philosophy that allows me to actually enjoy the Coruscant politics.

I would also like to make the claim that Star Wars: Episode I is the most “Star Warsy” of the prequels. The film was made at a time before the true CGI explosion of the 21st Century. Much of the film is still set, prop and model based. The explosions and destruction were still fundamentally born from reality as were the vehicles and sets. Yoda and a lot of the aliens are still muppets. And while some of the CGI is primitive, this flaw almost makes the film more aesthetically pleasing as too often do we see distracting CGI these days. Speaking of distracting CGI, the big space battles in Episode I still remain conceivable, unlike the opening of Episode III, which is just mind-boggling. Here is a battle from Return of the Jedi, compared to Episode I (not bad) and then Episode III (still cool, just not as "Star Warsy"). As the prequels progressed into Episode II and III Lucas became more dependent on CGI and CGI Artists in directing the action of the film. The end battle in Attack of the Clones follows a completely different style than any installment before it.

One may also note the dialogue of the film. Many complain that it is too clunky. Any such critic obviously has blindly fond memories of the original trilogy. For example, which Star Wars do you think this line from: “But I was going into Tashi station to pick up some power converters!”. That’s right, A New Hope. So as you can see, Episode I follows a prominent Star Wars tradition of barely-speakable dialogue. While we don’t have Harrison Fords talking about bouncing into supernovas, Episode I has a much similar Star Wars flare in its writing. The film’s dialogue (and actor-blocking) seems to take the approach of the epic films of the 50’s. And while John William’s composing has seen better days, Star Wars: Episode I is the only prequel with 100% original music (That’s right, II and III steal complete tracks from Episode I).

There are many more points that I could elaborate on: how Anakin is actually cool and not annoying (from a certain point of view), how Episode I has DARTH MAUL and how the Jedi seem to be in their most perfect Jedi state in this film alone. I just don’t want the point of this testimony to be lost in a sea of fandom. So while you people can continue to bash Episode I, I’d strongly suggest re-watching it with a new outlook and the above things in mind. It could be possible that Episode I is only enjoyable after immersing one’s self into endless pondering over what Star Wars really is, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. You may begin to feel as I do: that The Phantom Menace has aged like a fine wine…or blue milk. Whatever.