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| Jake Lloyd, Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson,
Natalie Portman, Frank Oz, Ian McDiarmid |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 EX |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Obi-Wan
(Ewan McGregor): I have a bad feeling about this.
Qui-Gon (Liam Neeson): I don't sense anything.
Obi-Wan: It's not about the mission, Master. It's something...
elsewhere. Elusive.
A
Jedi Knight and his apprentice become emrboiled in an intergalactic
political scheme in which the young Queen of small planet and a small
boy with special abilities come to play an important part.
 Little
actually remains to be said about the most eagerly anticipated, over-hyped
and ultimately downright disappointing blockbuster in recent memory.
The first three Star Wars movies, the first of which was produced
on a nostalgic whim of a withdrawn experimental filmmaker named George
Lucas, ended up defining commercial moviemaking in Hollywood more than
any other. It also left an indelible imprint on American popular culture,
with its story and characters taking on a mythic quality that has grown
universally recognizable. A whole series of strategically timed and
furiously marketed home video and theatrical re-releases of the original
Star Wars trilogy finally ended up creating such an enormous
awareness for the 'prequel' George Lucas started working on in the late
1990s, that The Phantom Menace was to be a sure-fire hit more
structurally guaranteed than perhaps any other since Gone With The
Wind in 1939, and, as one writer famously put it, the most critic-proof
movie ever made. And so it was: no matter how bad the reviews were and
how well-documented the fans' disappointment following the hugely publicized
premiere, the movie went on to gross more money worldwide than almost
any other.
So what is it that makes Episode 1 a disappointment to the initial
films' most hard-core fan base? One could pinpoint quite a few little
details, such as the lack of spontaneity in the actors, the obtuse plotting,
and the inclusion of the computer-animated JarJar Binks character whom
every viewer over the age of six is sure to find terribly annoying.
But the main reason why this film fails where the previous ones succeeded
is that George Lucas appears to have turned his gaze inward and is no
longer dealing with the universal archetypes and narrative schemes that
made at least the first two Star Wars movies so great. Made up
of repackaged but instantly recognizable elements most directly culled
from the western, the WWII movie and Kurosawa's samurai films, Lucas
reshaped these motifs into technically brilliant, faux-naïf
American adventures that held something for everyone. But whereas
the first two movies play like smorgasbords of their creator's favorite
movies, Episode 1 is clearly the result of years spent thinking
about nothing but Star Wars, and has lost all reference to actual
mythology or movie culture. Therefore, no matter how impressive the
sound and visuals may be, the movie is rarely truly exciting beyong
the momentary thrill of a race or an impressively rendered panorama,
and it barely registers at all on the emotional scale. It's telling
that another science-fiction movie was released in the same year as
The Phantom Menace that did manage to capture the global
audience's imagination and tap into a popular consciousness of the themes
and concepts of the time: it was The Matrix rather than The
Phantom Menace that became the year's generation-defining popular
movie experience. Let's hope George Lucas wakes up and opens his window
to let a breath of fresh air into the upcoming two Star Wars
movies. |
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Identical
two-disc editions are released worldwide on October 16, 2001.
The
anamorphic widescreen image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx.
2.35:1. Though mostly quite impressive in its visual presentation, this
transfer somehow isn't quite as good as one would expect from such a
high-profile effects movie that took its royal time coming to DVD. The
wholly digital sequences (and there are quite a few of them) look absolutely
flawless, with great, bold colors and immensely detailed backgrounds
and textures. But quite a few of the composite shots of live actors
interacting with artificial sets and/or characters seem to have a grey
sheen over them, giving them an artificial, over-processed look. Graininess
also pops up noticeably in some shots, which one also wouldn't expect
from a movie like this.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix however is one of the strongest, most
dynamic I have experienced on DVD yet. Sound designer Gary Rydstrom
(previously responsible for the sound of Jurassic Park, Saving
Private Ryan and both Toy Story movies) once again proves
himself to be one of the absolute top of the world's sound designers
working in Hollywood today. The densely textured, beautifully detailed
sound effects and John Williams' full-on score bring the film to life
even more than the much-lauded visual effects.
Packing
its two discs to the hilt with great stuff, the extras section is where
this release truly makes good. Disc 1 features an excellent audio
commentary edited together from extensive screen-specific audio
recordings by George Lucas and six other key contributors from his production
team. The editing is very smooth, and telling the various contributors
apart is helped by placing them at different points across the front
three Dolby ProLogic sound channels, and by having their names and function
appear on-screen in a dedicated subtitle track. The main part of the
commentary deals with the film's many technical issues, but the speakers'
scope is wide enough to cover the major bases on everything Star Wars-related.
Disc 2 is wholly dedicated to extra features, all of which are presented
in handsome anamorphic widescreen. This disc's centerpiece is clearly
the 65-minute documentary 'The Beginning', which surprisingly
turns out to be a candid fly-on-the-wall look along the entire production
process. The documentary crew had access to the production during the
entire shoot, and this hour-long look over the crew's shoulder is informative,
involving and very nicely paced.
Focusing on specific aspects of the production are five eight-minute
featurettes, which are a little more promotional in tone due
to the inclusion of some by-the-numbers cast interviews. But they do
shed a lot of light on their various separate subjects. Even more rewarding
is the series of twelve web documentaries originally produced
for the Star Wars website. They provide brief but intense four-minute
glimpses into all the major phases the production went through, from
George Lucase sitting down at his desk with pencil and notepad to start
writing the story all the way through to post-production.
Another great section contains seven deleted scenes, post-produced
and finished exclusively for this DVD release. Apart from two six-minute
sequences that are basically extended versions of two parts of the pod
race sequence, the scenes are very brief, and were clearly cut to keep
the pace up and avoid too much redundancy in the storytelling. Each
sequence looks stunning, with specially produced Dolby Digital 5.1 audio
mixes and great anamorphic widescreen transfers that look as good as
any scene in the final film. They are precede by a six-minute documentary
that includes interview footage with several major directors, who explain
why certain scenes end up on the cutting room floor no matter how fond
the director is of them. The two pod race sequences each have an additional
three-minute introduction that delves a little further into the scenes'
backgrounds.
Two major sequences from the final film ('The Submarine' and 'Pod Race
Lap One') are treated to nicely produced multi-angle storyboard-to-scene
comparison. Angle 1 holds the original black-and-white storyboard
designs, Angle 2 the rough production footage and Angle 3 the finished
sequence, while Angle 4 presents all three angles within a single screen.
Final production audio accompanies all four angles, and there's an excellent
seven-minute documentary that introduces these two presentations very
nicely.
Several still galleries are also featured in this section, including
a production photo gallery with plenty of good behind-the-scenes
images, all with explanatory captions, a poster art gallery that
basically presents the same theatrical release poster over and over
again in different languages, and a print campaign gallery that
focuses on the magazine and billboard ads presenting the movie's main
characters individually. The well-known teaser trailer and theatrical
trailer are of course also on board, as are seven TV spots.
Rounding out these amazing extras, there remains a short featurette
on the making of the spin-off video game Starfighter: The Making
of a Videogame, the music video for John Williams' main Episode
I theme Duel of the Fates and DVD-ROM link to exclusive
material on the Star Wars website. The
animated menus are the first visible indication of how much effort went
into producing this long-awaited DVD. Not only does every single screen
of the menus feature impressively integrated animation and sound effects,
but several of the screens even have alternate versions that will pop
up and surprise you the next time you pop the disc in. Clever jokes also
appear unexpectedly here and there in the animations, and navigation is
always clearly marked and understandable.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on Star
Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
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