‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace’
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is strange, but beautiful film that posits what the Star Wars saga really needed was more attention focused on trade route negotiations. Okay, but jokes aside, George Lucas’s first Star Wars prequel film radically changed the way we saw the Star Wars universe. Set thirty years before the original movie, we learn that before he was Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) was a podracing moppet living in slavery on Tatooine. When Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) arrives on the sandy planet with Queen Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), and a comical Gungan named Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best), the little boy is caught up in an adventure that will determine the future of the universe. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace still boasts one of the all-time great fight sequences between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul (Ray Park) and is a perfect pre-game to new Star Wars series, The Acolyte.