Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

For the past two years, our president has been telling us: "There can be no compromise with evil." And surely there are few patriotic Americans who would willingly bargain with the Devil (unless of course he offered to bulk-buy your book, or sue Al Franken for you, or Fed-Ex a Sucrets tin filled with "little blues"). But apart from those extremely limited exceptions, most hard-working citizens would refuse to placate the sulfur-scented minions of the Arch-Fiend. So why does the president continue harping on this theme, when there is clearly no abundance of Americans lining up to scratch Old Scratch’s back?

Perhaps the problem lies not in our hearts but in our eyes. Our intentions may be pure, but many of us have difficulty recognizing evil when we see it. For instance, the Editrix of this blog is only 36% Evil, leading most fair-minded folks to reason, "Well, it’s probably safe to compromise with her, since she’ll only turn into a scaly-faced, pop-eyed Gorgon and devour my soul one-third of the time." Now you may like those odds, and certainly in Vegas she’d be considered a pretty loose slot machine (no offense), but Evil—real Evil, with a hard, capital "E" and the first syllable drawn out the way elderly British actors do when they’re slumming in crappy sci-fi films—is less easy to discern. In fact, Evil wears the mask of Deceit the way…well, the way the President wears a flight suit, except Evil doesn’t stuff.

Nowadays, with broken promises, lies, and bald-faced spin, it’s difficult to know whom in public life we can trust. It’s even possible (although I admit, unlikely) that a presidential candidate could, say, campaign on a platform of compassion, humility, honor, and decency, and then once installed in office, embrace positions and policies so far to the right they would send Ronald Reagan shrieking into the arms of Eugene V. Debs.

What is the solution? Well, since the problem—indeed, the very concept of Evil—stems from Man’s capacity for reason, I submit that ratiocination is our only hope. When asked for the name of a political philosopher who had influenced his thinking, Bush replied, "Jesus. Because he changed my heart." (Cheney, when asked the same question, said, "Dr. Phillip Montrose, because he changed my heart’s plugs and points.") Anyway, we have followed our president’s example, and chosen an equally inappropriate political philosopher as our mentor: George Lucas.

In the first movie and fourth sequel of the Star Wars saga, Lucas boldly confronts this crisis of Janus-faced politicians which bedevils the modern American electorate. Sometimes, he seems to say, evil is apparent, as in the case of Jar-Jar Binks (who, with his long, scrawny, scarecrow-like physique, bad hair, and prominent Adam’s apple, is an allegory for Ann Coulter). But other times, even good men and true can fail to espy true Evil beneath the complaisant mask of Deceit. Does the fall of the Old Republic hold a lesson for our own troubled democracy? Or is this just a transparent effort to sneak in another movie review from our book, Subliminal Cinema: Life Lessons from Lousy Movies? Alas, that is something you must decide for yourself.

Choose wisely.

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Written and Directed by George Lucas

Our story begins with crawling titles that tediously establish the back-story (yes, it's the first movie of the series, and we already have back-story). It seems that the Fu Manchu Grasshopper People from the Federation have blockaded the planet of Nanoo-Nanoo. Jedi Knight Slo-Jinn Fizz (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (not Alec Guinness) arrive to negotiate with the Grasshopper Viceroy. Obi-Wan feels a great disturbance in the Force, as though millions of voices suddenly cried out at once, and asked for their money back.

Future-Emperor Palpitation (Whom-Nobody-Suspects-Of-Being-Evil-Even-Though-They-Are-All-Masters-Of-The-Force) orders the Viceroy to kill the Jedi. Escaping to Nanoo-Nanoo, Slo-Jinn meets local irritant Jar-Jar Binks, who looks like a malnourished moose, and talks like a Jamaican bobsledder who sustained a crippling brain injury at Innsbruck.

Meanwhile, the Federation forces have captured Amidala, the 16-year-old elected queen of Nanoo-Nanoo. Yes, we know—you never voted for her. But since being queen involves wearing Kabuki makeup and using a voice synthesizer, there probably wasn't a lot of competition for the job. (Do you think she dons this ornate headdress and ceremonial costume to inspire awe in her subjects, or is she just a typical rebellious teen, wearing these crazy fashions because it really bugs her mom?)

Slo-Jinn and company rescue Amidala and head off for planet ChorusGirl. The Fu Manchu people blast our heroes’ ship, but everyone is saved by a plucky trashcan that manages to insert the correct cable in the VCR’s "out" terminal. And that brave little dumpster was named … R2D2. Now you know . . .the REST of the story.

The good guys land on Planet Tattooing to make repairs. Slo-Jinn and his posse are heading to town to buy new spark plugs when royal handmaiden Padme informs them that the Queen ordered them to take Padme along because the Queen. . I mean Padme . . . wants to hang out at the mall.

At the garage, they learn that the only vendor who stocks the right brand of spark plugs is Watto, a giant house fly with some sort of accent which members of all ethnic groups find offensive. Watto’s slave, an angelic tyke who can see CGI people ("They’re everywhere!") just happens to be young Anacin Skywalker! Yes, we get to meet Darth Vadar when he was just a 6-year-old Jiffy Lube attendant. I suppose it's true that great oaks from little saplings grow, but you'd think that they might have found one who was a little less wooden to play this role.

Young Ani immediately gets the hots for Padme, and tries to seduce her with lines like, "I'm a pilot, you know." While getting a crush on the babysitter is common enough, you’d think Lucas would be over that fantasy by now. Anyway, Ani invites Padme and company to his house, where he shows them the robot he's building—a robot called C3PO. (Yes, Darth Vadar built C3PO, but apparently nobody thought to mention it in the previous three movies.) Ani informs his guests that C3PO is a protocol droid he's constructing to help his mother, the slave. After all, while most slaves in the Old South dreaded a brutal whipping at the hands of the overseer, their biggest fear was making a faux pas at the embassy banquet.

When Mama Skywalker confides that little Anacin is the result of a virgin birth (yeah, nobody’s mom ever has sex), Slo-Jinn has Ani’s blood tested, and sure enough, his "midichlorian" count is off the chart! "Midichlorians," as we all learned in Biology 101, are microscopic symbionts present in the cells of all living creatures, which reveal to us the will of the Force. Aren’t you glad Lucas explained this, so you could appreciate the true grandeur of his belief system? (In the next film, we will see Queen Amidala's own Force powers increase dramatically, since midichlorians are sexually transmitted.)

Meanwhile, Future-Emperor Palpitation sends his apprentice, Darth Maul (a highly skilled assassin with a weakness for the face-painting booth at the Lions Club fish fry) to kill Slo-Jinn and Obi-Wan. Palpitation and Maul represent the Synth Lords, who have vowed to destroy the Republic with German techno-pop.

Anacin volunteers to pilot his home-built pod racer in an upcoming event in order to raise money for the spark plugs. Pod Racing involves blasting through Zion National Park in a highly polluting hotrod, while drunken, disgruntled fans look up from their 32-ounce beers long enough to take pot shots at you. So basically, it’s NASCAR. Anacin wins the race, and Slo-Jinn wins Ani in a side bet. He tells Mom that he’s taking Ani to teach him the ways of the Jedi. She has his room rented before he’s out the door.

After a brief run-in with Darth Maul, we arrive at planet ChorusGirl, home of the Republican Senate and the worst traffic since 5:30 PM on the Beltway. Queen Amidala wears a hat made of whole ox horns in honor of her appearance before this august assembly.

But still no one will help her, so she and the Jedi head for Nanoo-Nanoo, where she seeks an audience with the ruler of the Dungans, a giant toad. When he asks her who she thinks she is, a skinny white girl like her wearing too much blush, she announces that she is Queen Amidala of the Nanoo-Nanoo. Then Padme jumps up and says that SHE is Queen Amidala of the Nanoo-Nanoo. It’s like an extraterrestrial version of "To Tell the Truth." Anyway, one of the queens asks the Dungans to serve as cannon fodder and the King agrees, because he finds his people really annoying too, and hopes they get wiped out.

The Dungans fight the HobbyHorse Droid troops (which look like something you’d buy at Ikea and assemble yourself) by throwing water balloons at them. This works pretty well, but still you worry about the Dungans, fighting such an overwhelming army—until you realize that everybody on screen is a computer generated image, and you just don’t care any more.

Slo-Jinn, Obi-Wan, the Queen, some other girl who might also be the Queen ("a long time ago, in a Parent Trap far, far away . . ."), and about four other people mount an attack on the castle. Since they couldn’t get a babysitter, they bring Anacin along too. Slo-Jinn makes him hide in a fighter ship, because what safer place could there be for a 6-year-old?

Slo-Jinn and Darth Maul have a light saber duel, while the Force Tabernacle Choir hums inspiring chords in the background. Since Maul’s saber lights up on both sides, he seems to have the advantage. This is confirmed when Jedi Master Slo-Jinn gets brutally kebobed.

Meanwhile, Anacin flies into space, gets through the Robot Control Satellite’s impenetrable shield and blows it up from inside! And he accomplishes all this by accident! See, what you or I have always called "dumb luck" is really THE FORCE!

Back at the battle, all the robot troops immediately cease functioning (which is often the case when you buy stuff at Ikea).

Later, Obi-Wan tells Yoda that he wants to make Anacin his apprentice. Yoda, who is cheesed because Jar-Jar is infringing on his "irritating Muppet speech" franchise, tells Obi-Wan that there is grave danger is training the boy, but hey, don’t let that stop you.

Then there’s a big celebration, with a parade and confetti and stuff, and the Queen presents the Dungan Toad King with a glowing Hippety-Hop.  The End.  Or is it???

So, what does it all mean?  Apparently, in the Star Wars mythos, an iridescent Hippety-Hop is the equivalent of our own MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner—in other words, it’s an allegory for an embarrassingly premature end zone dance.  But the primary theme of Phantom Menace is the tension between appearance and reality.  For instance, our heroine is the chief executive of an entire planet, but is she frankly addressing the legislative and policy issues confronting her government?  No.  Half the time she’s pretending to be her own handmaiden, and the rest of the time she’s distorting her voice with a synthesizer and slapping on more Clown White than Emmett Kelly.  Meanwhile, the Trade Federation assures us that deregulation will allow them to raise job growth and lower prices for consumers, when what they actually mean is that it will allow them to invade our planets, kill our leaders, and convert us to Sithism.

And what lessons can we take from PM that might help us in our everyday lives?  First, if a kindly, old politician offers to help you, a young and stupid leader, with your trade embargo or your vexing Saddam Hussein problem, you'd better check his imperial aspirations before trusting him completely: otherwise, you'll have Halliburton building Death Stars before you know it.  Second, while we may think that the people of Nanoo-Nanoo are idiots for electing Jar-Jar to the Senate in the next movie, he isn't the only vastly unqualified guy with a weird accent to be elected to public office (plus, his groping was due entirely to his clumsiness, as far as anyone can prove).  And lastly, since Queen Amidala blew her own NOC lady-in-waiting cover, Grand Moff Rove is off the hook for this one.

But if you want to learn all the lessons about the Movie Sequel Stages of Grief that this film (and ones like Highlander II: The Quickening, and Speed 2: The Crappy Sequel) can teach us, you'll have to buy Subliminal Cinema.  Coming soon to a bookstore near you, once we finish it and blackmail somebody into publishing it.

© Copyright 2003 World O' Crap. Last update: 10/24/2003; 4:19:45 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.