STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE - Pure Rage personified in DVD form

Ah, poor old Episode 1, the redheaded stepchild of the Star Wars family, much maligned and abused. Fair? Unfair? Lets find out. . . .

For those of you just joining us, let me briefly recap: A long time ago - I mean an even longer time ago - in a Galaxy far, far away, the poor planet of Naboo is under attack from the Trade Federation, a galactic conglomerate of shady businessmen. The Republic sends two Jedi Knights (well, a full fledged Master and an Intern Jedi) to help sort things out. Unfortunately for them, the occupation of Naboo is the opening gambit of a two thousand year old plan by the Sith to take over the galaxy. And the Jedi have walked right into their trap. . .

Much like the rest of you, I was - and am - a huge Star Wars fan from my youth. Being born in 1969 meant that I was eight when Star Wars first came out in 1977 - the prime Wars demographic. I was 11 for Empire and 14 for Jedi - pretty much my childhood was defined by Star Wars. In fact, if the following timeline applies to you, welcome brother or Sister! You are part of the Star Wars Generation:

* Star Wars opens: you are still in single digit ages, and you think the creatures are way cool.
* Empire Strikes Back opens: You are now in early double digit ages, and you are convinced that the special effects are much better, the characters are cool, and you want one of every collectible out there.
* Return of the Jedi hits the theaters: you are now a teenager, and you cannot get your eyes off Princess Leia's breasts or Han Solo's butt.

I watched the Holiday special, I recorded the Ewok movies on VHS, the Marvel Comic kept me going during those long years between movies, I had (and still have) nearly every action figure under the sun - up until Jedi, when I was a teenager and toys suddenly weren&#146t cool. I played the West End Games RPG, I spent hours playing Empire on the Atari 2600 and Star Wars: The Arcade Game at 25 cents a pop.

Fast forward 16 years, The Phantom Menace was released in 1999. I was 30 years old - older, wiser, and like most of you, hungry for every scrap of information I could get my mitts on when George announced that he was revisiting the Saga that put him on the map. I suffered through Meet Joe Black just so I could see the trailer on the Big Screen a few days before it saw general release. I stood in line on a very cold May morning at midnight - despite having to work the next morning - in front of the Toys 'R' Us to get a piece of the new action figures right off the shelf. I waited ten hours just to buy the tickets for on opening day, and then another ten or twelve on release day just to get good seats. And then, when the moment finally came, when the Fox logo appeared, and I heard the fanfare, my Inner Child quickly became my Outer Child and I had the biggest, cheesiest grin on my face.

And. . . .

At the end of the day, I was over the moon because I had finally gotten a brand new Star Wars movie. I saw it again later that day with my mom (who had, like a dutiful parent, done everything she could to take me to see all three movies on opening day. It was nice that I could return the favor years later), I saw it three or four times more over the summer and a boatload of times when it hit the dollar theater in the fall. Eventually though, the honeymoon was over, and I was left to critically analyze the film.

It wasn&#146t all that bad. Wasn&#146t great - but I don't think it offended me as much as it did everyone else. I think the problem was two things:

01) No movie - no event in human history - could have lived up to the expectations laid before the movie. Some of it was Lucas's fault, as the Hype Machine went into overdrive before the release, but most of it was just the collective geek world having sixteen years of pent up desire unleashing in a torrent of WANT! NOW! I don't think the movie could have lived up to expectations if Christ himself arranged the second coming on opening day and passed out bricks of solid gold wrapped in fine Belgium chocolate to everyone as they left the theater.

02) The Lightning in a Bottle factor. Back in the seventies, it was a different time, more optimistic and open, where society was less jaded and more accepting to be washed away in a sense of wonder. More importantly, we had NEVER seen anything like Star Wars at that time, so it was fresh and new. Back in 1999, we had photo-realistic Dinosaurs, killer robot assassins form the future morphing into different people, and video games who's graphics far outpaced the special effects of most movies - all this on a daily, constant basis meant that George had to really up his A-Game of suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous geekdome.

Thing is - I don't think he was capable of it. The original Star Wars was a classic that shaped my life - but honestly, it's not that good. The plot is simplistic, the acting was dreadful (aside from one or two outstanding performances), there was inappropriate comic relief and the effects occasionally faltered and stumbled. Each and every one of the criticisms leveled against Phantom Menace could equally applied to Star Wars in one form or another.

Oh sure I could have done with less wacky Jar-Jar antics, but Phantom Menace had enough to carry it along to make me happy - the pod racing scene is fabulous, all the different sounds whizzing around from left to right, front to back, all around you was really incredible. And of course the battle at the end - the war on the ground, the battle in space and the fight between Jedi and Sith - okay, Maul didn&#146t have a huge part, but he was a total badass. Say what you will about his movie making skills, but you have to admit that George knows how to cut a climax.

At the end of the day, I could have wished for the movie to be perfect - but any Star Wars is good Star Wars.

THE DVD -
Put this DVD in and prepare to have you ass kicked. This thing looks fantastic. The colors are vivid and accurate, and any defects from the original source were long removed. The Image was just a hint soft - but it was like that in the theater, so I wont hold it against the movie. The audio is a very aggressive mix, with the surround mode turned up to 11 and your subwoofer getting a workout like it was in a 20 minute aerobics class. Ben Burtt really knocks your ears over the fence with this one.

THE EXTRAS -
A wealth of extras here - starting with disc one, we get a commentary from George, Producer Rick McCallum, editor and sound designing god and Ben Burtt, animation director Rob Coleman, and visual effects supervisors John Knoll, Dennis Muren, and Scott Squires. The tracks were recorded by themselves and edited down into one seamless whole, which kind of takes the organic nature of a discussion away, but eliminates the dead air spaces. Also nice touch - the subtitles track displays the name of the speaker when their part is up. I wish more DVD tracks did this.

The second disc is were the true bounty lies. We get two trailers - the teaser and the full theatrical trailer, the Duel of the Fates music video, five tone poems, and two TV spots. There's a handful of deleted scenes, all completely finished and presented with the same overall quality as the main feature, plus some features on why the shots were dropped and the history of the footage. It's all pretty interesting stuff.

Astute fans will note that not all the missing scenes are included. The shot of Obi-Wan rising from the Naboo swamp isnt included, we don't get R2-D2 falling off the landing platform on Coruscant and the extended fight between Qui-Gon and Darth Maul on Tatooine is MIA. Guess they're holding something back for the inevitable six movie, 12 disc boxed set.

The other main feature is an hour-long documentary entitled The Beginning, culled from 500 hours of footage shot throughout production, and is easily one of the most honest looks at the making of a film you are likely to find.

In the Featurettes, Web Documentaries, and StarWars.com, you get, well. . . featurettes, web documentaries, and StarWars.com. The web documentaries are a 12-part series that was presented on the official site. They range from about three to five minutes, and give unique looks at the making of the film. There are five featurettes, all around eight to twn minutes long. They are more traditional, more like we are used to on DVD. The link to StarWars.com is supposed to open up the exclusive website for owners of the DVD - but of course I'm completely wary of the "smells of spyware" program that the DVD tries to install. I wouldn&#146t trust the InterActual software as far as I could throw it.

Rounding things out, we get animatics for the first lap of the pod race and for the submarine sequence, dozens of photographs in a gallery, a poster gallery and a short piece of the making of Starfighter for the PS2 and PC - very skippable, since its mostly just an extended as for the game.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
The Phantom Menace isn't a perfect movie - far from it, in fact. I will point out that Holy Trilogy are at times flawed too, however the rose tinted glasses of youth and nostalgia allow folks who love and adore the old movies squirt liquid hate from every bodily orifice at Phantom Menace for more or less exactly the same things.

Me? I'm just happy to enjoy the Star Wars magic no matter what the form.