by Edward Gross
SCOTT CAPURRO
(voice actor, “Beed”)
I was surprised how much the CGI still looks like us. Sorry, I was alarmed at how much I actually resemble an alien. I guess our heads didn’t match our bodies, but I could’ve told them that on the shooting day.
GREG PROOPS
I think it is a classic sci-fi homage to the chariot race in Ben-Hur and, of course, the most thrilling part of the picture.
SCOTT CAPURRO
It’s fast and thrilling. Proops is very funny. For myself, for the lines in Huttese, I asked for cue cards. I tried to memorize the lines, but I was nervous and wanted to be exacting, because I’m both lazy and anal. It’s a curse.
DAVID TATTERSALL
The podrace represented an interesting situation in which we dealt with large blue screens and interactive lighting came up while we were filming Anakin’s ship during the podrace. We shot that with Jake Lloyd sitting in a full-scale pod mockup, which was on a gimbaled rock-and-roll base. We had a map that showed the route of the race, so we knew when he would be flying across wide-open spaces with plenty of sunlight, through narrow canyons, under stone arches, and through tunnels. We then had to re-create the interactive lighting characteristics of those different areas on the race circuit, including nearby explosions caused by other pods crashing into canyon walls and so forth.
RICK MCCALLUM
Digital technology is an extraordinarily powerful tool, but it is just one part of the complex process of making a film. Digital effects were in their infancy. They still needed very complicated software and code that had to be specifically written to be able to achieve each result. That’s what makes ILM so special. They were able to develop the technology and write the code to achieve everything we asked of them in-house. We presented them with what I had thought of as insurmountable problems, and yet they continued to amaze me by solving all of them.
JONATHAN RINZLER
Not only did George do big battles [in Episode I], but the shots are so beautifully composed. The tanks coming over the hill with the grass blowing underneath it—that is a fantastic shot. But also, people forget—or maybe they don’t forget, but some people need to be reminded—George did not shut down the model department. The physical model department was in all of its glory. He’s shone this PR spotlight on the digital side, because he was pushing that agenda very, very hard. Without a doubt. In some ways there was backlash against him for that. But he never actually shut down the model department. Until post–Star Wars.
* * *
By the time filming wrapped (not counting postproduction) on September 30, 1997, Lucas had shot 1.25 million feet of film—that quantity, in part, was shot because of his preference for master-shot coverage, allowing for maximum flexibility in the editing room. Due to the fact that Lucas and editor Paul Smith were editing throughout production, and because many of the sets were able to stand long after scenes utilizing them were wrapped, it was not difficult at all for the first unit to return to any given scene for additional footage if necessary.
DAVID TATTERSALL
The first shot of the day was always the master. After that, it was a matter of moving in to get two-shots, over-the-shoulders, and close-ups. We then switched to the reverse angle and repeated the process. It’s really a classical way of getting coverage and so many other directors tie themselves in knots, from an editing standpoint, by not doing exactly that. The great thing about doing a wide master first is that nobody on the set is in any doubt about what’s going on in the scene, which is important when there are so many effects. Confusion can very easily occur.
* * *
As things entered the final stages of production, Lucasfilm began to unveil its marketing push for the film. An unprecedented show of force, only galvanized by the large success of the brand during the 1995 “Power of the Force” action figure line, along with the continued success of the Star Wars books and comics, showed what a potent brand Star Wars remained in popular culture after nearly two decades. To say anticipation was high for the film’s eventual release is something of an understatement. While today movie trailers are eagerly awaited, with their very own PR campaigns to entice the hordes on social media, in 1998, theater owners were shocked to find showings for The Waterboy, Meet Joe Black, and The Siege were sold out, only to discover their numbers drop appositionally after the previews ended—all because of fans wanting to see the trailer for The Phantom Menace.
DAN MADSEN
There’s never been another time, and there never will be in Star Wars history, that was as exciting to live through, as the time leading up to Episode I. Everybody had been waiting for so long—for something new of Star Wars to come out. Never knowing if George was ever really going to get back to making it or not. Suddenly, everything is top secret. They’re starting to work on it. The excitement, the anticipation around that. Even [leading up to] The Force Awakens, there was never a time in Star Wars history that was so exciting, and had such anticipation as that period leading up into Episode I. Unlike any time period I think I’ll ever experience again.
Even a year before the movie came out, I flew out to Skywalker Ranch again, and Rick met with me—I met him in his office, I think we were doing one of his updates for Star Wars Insider magazine in person there. And he took me into this room, and there’s George sitting in this editing bay, and he’s literally editing the trailer, the very first trailer for Episode I. And Rick says, “George, look who’s here.” And George greets me, and I get to sit down. I get to sit there and watch the very first trailer—that George is literally editing at that moment—for Episode I. Rick is on one side, George is on the other, and they let me watch it. Then they’re questioning me, “What did you like? What didn’t you like? What worked, what didn’t work?” So, I was giving my feedback for the very first trailer that was ever going to go out there for Episode I. I got goosebumps from the very first scene with the [text] that comes up with the “Every generation has a legend” kind of thing. And then you see that Gungan riding in on that Calf through the mist, and I’m thinking, “Holy Mackerel, this is incredible.”
I can remember people going [to the movies] just to see that trailer, and then going again—they didn’t really want to see the movie again, they were going just to see the trailer. That’s how exciting it was. I don’t know if I’ve ever known a movie that had so much excitement for it, that people went to go see a movie they didn’t care about, just so they could see the trailer before it. That was an unusual situation as well. It was a time period that was so unique, and there was such excitement about the fact that Star Wars was coming back. And whether you liked the movie, or didn’t like the movie, the whole buildup to that time period was truly an amazing and wondrous time to be a Star Wars fan. We’re spoiled now, we have so much Star Wars—it’s not as rare as it used to be. I’m grateful that I got to be at ground zero during that time. Because I got to be there in the trenches.
* * *
The trailer alone garnered tens of millions of views, which, in the days of dial-up internet, was no small feat.
Licensing for this film was at an all-time high—unlike the events that occurred in ’77, Lucasfilm no longer had to beg and scrounge for licensees. They had to turn people away. Like the previous films, a comic book adaptation was completed by Dark Horse Comics.
HENRY GILROY
(comic book writer, The Phantom Menace adaptation)
Probably about five years before [adapting The Phantom Menace to comics] I started doing some short Star Wars stories for Dark Horse Presents and Star Wars Tales. Somebody at Lucasfilm said, “Hey, we should get a guy who did the Star Wars Tales, but also knows how to write a screenplay, to maybe do The Phantom Menace adaptation.” It was funny, because eventually that became the same reason I became involved with the Clone Wars project: “Hey, this guy knows animation, he knows Star Wars, why don’t we bring in someone to help us bring this all together?” I’m very fortunate to have been chosen by the producers,
and George, who approved me early on.
They weren’t letting any footage out at the time I was writing The Phantom Menace comics adaptation, so the material we were given were the scripts, a few storyboards, but mostly it was going to be still-frames. It was very important for George that the artist, Rodolfo Damaggio, draw the characters to look like the actors. I think, in previous adaptations, they aren’t as specific about it—and George, in his mind, he wanted the comic book to be the movie on a printed page. I tried to add thought balloons, and narration here and there, and he was like, “No, no—just adapt the script.”
* * *
Today, in the era where Lucasfilm waits six months to release a comic book adaptation (when at all), it’s novel to look back to 1999, when Dark Horse put out The Phantom Menace adaptation before the film was even released.
HENRY GILROY
I asked actually that we push the release of The Phantom Menace comic adaptation back, and Dark Horse laughed. They go, “No, no, no, we want to do as much sales as we can beforehand. That’s a huge part of it.” Another part of that, a little insider story is, I had been sent The Phantom Menace script, and it had my name engraved on it, whatever, the watermark. Once it had been announced I was doing the adaptation, I think [in] ’97, people started to try and find out where I lived. I was so paranoid about the script, that actually, before I left the house, I would hide it in the attic underneath insulation. So I probably inhaled all sorts of fiberglass particles, getting this script out and putting it back. I was so paranoid after I heard, “Oh my gosh, Henry Gilroy is adapting The Phantom Menace. We need to go find where that guy lives so we can go get information.” I figured it was harmless enough that they just wanted to ambush me to try and get a copy, or get spoilers.
* * *
As the film entered the last few months before its release, John Williams returned once more to compose the music for a galaxy far, far away.
JOE KRAEMER
(composer, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Jack Reacher)
The score to The Phantom Menace marked John Williams’s return to the London Symphony Orchestra for the first time since Return of the Jedi. Like that score, this, too, was recorded in Studio One at Abbey Road. The centerpiece of the new score was “Duel of the Fates,” a dynamic orchestral piece featuring choir. In a first for the saga, the choir would sing text. In choosing what words the choir would voice, John Williams chose a Celtic poem about an ancient, ongoing war between trees, focusing on a particular couplet that he felt resonated with the context of the film: “Under the tongue-root, a fight most dread, while another rages behind in the head.” Williams had a linguistic expert at UCLA translate the phrase into a variety of languages before settling on ancient Sanskrit, picking and choosing key words from the translation for the choir, based on the strength of the vowel sounds, which lent themselves most effectively to singing. Although the final “lyrics” are not a direct translation of the phrase, the result is an effective derivation that resonated with the film and audiences around the world. Lucas was so happy with the piece that he told Williams, “You’ve already scored the end of Episode III!”
Williams created a new theme for the character Anakin Skywalker, who is introduced as a nine-year-old boy in this film. Knowing his eventual fate would be to become Darth Vader, Williams chose to incorporate that villain’s iconic melody into Anakin’s Theme, tying the film to the original trilogy in a fundamental way. Anakin’s Theme starts as an innocent, slightly magical tune (using the Lydian mode as he did in Yoda’s Theme), but as it develops it darkens and finally reaches its conclusion—a melodic presentation of Darth Vader’s Theme with altered chords.
New themes were written for Jar Jar Binks, the Trade Federation army of battle droids, Darth Maul, and Qui-Gon Jinn, as well as a sinister motif for Darth Maul, a set piece for the Flag Parade that introduces the podrace, and funeral music for Qui-Gon that would return for the climax of Revenge of the Sith and bookend the prequel trilogy. Anakin’s mother Shmi also has a theme, which will return in the next film, Attack of the Clones.
Returning themes included the Main Theme, the Force Theme, Jabba the Hutt’s Theme, and Yoda’s Theme, as well as subtle references to “The Rebel Fanfare” and the secondary theme from the “Main Title.” The Emperor’s Theme makes a significant impact on this score, recurring several times to underscore Darth Sidious. A quote of Darth Vader’s Theme is also explicitly heard at the end of the film when Yoda warns Obi-Wan of the danger he senses in training Anakin to be a Jedi.
The final scene of the film is a victory parade through Naboo, and the music is a clever use of the Emperor/Darth Sidious music in disguise, reinforcing the victory of the true menace of the film, the phantom Sith Lord. Williams takes the Emperor’s Theme from Return of the Jedi and moves it into a major key, while also transposing it from low male choir to children’s voices, turning its funereal dirge–like quality into happier, more triumphant music. The title of the track on the soundtrack album, “Augie’s Great Municipal Band,” is a reference to an obscure early recording by “Johnny” Williams called “Augie’s Great Piano.”
Reel 6 of this film is the battle of Naboo, and has a very strong connection to Lucas’s first draft of The Star Wars from 1974. There are four simultaneous battles happening at once: The Gungans face the battle droid army on the plains; Padmé leads a team into the palace to capture the trade ambassador; Naboo pilots strike the Trade Federation ship in orbit around the planet; and the Jedi face Darth Maul in a thrilling lightsaber duel. This sequence underwent several major revisions in picture-editing, based on feedback Lucas received at different times from different directors, and as result, the music written and recorded for the scenes needed a lot of editing to fit the final flow of the picture. Additionally, Lucas had asked Williams to write a “religioso” choral piece for the duel with Maul, and upon hearing it, he reportedly liked it so much that he began inserting it into reel 6 in lots of places where it hadn’t originally been intended. As a result, a large amount of highly detailed action music went unused in the final film, something that would come in handy for the music team on the next film.
Another sequence that underwent some significant changes in music was the podrace, which in the finished film bears little resemblance musically to the way it was originally conceived by John Williams. The soundtrack album offered a better look at his musical intentions for the exciting scenes.
* * *
The Phantom Menace, the first Star Wars film in sixteen years, was released on May 19, 1999, produced at a cost of $115 million, and has a cumulative gross of a little over $1 billion. Reviews were mixed, with many fans being particularly critical over the oftentimes kid-friendly tone, Jar Jar Binks, and a seeming obsession on Lucas’s part with visual effects and virtual sets.
RAY MORTON
Unfortunately, the assets do not outweigh the movie’s deficits, chief among them the very weak storyline (more an episodic collection of sequences than a fully realized plot); the many feeble story elements; the excessive slapstick; Jake Lloyd’s performance as young Anakin (which, unfortunately, is quite amateurish and conveys neither the promise Qui-Gon is scripted to see in him nor the potential menace that supposedly concerns Obi-Wan and the Jedi Council); the frequently juvenile tone; and Jar Jar. Many critics and fans consider The Phantom Menace to be the worst film in the entire series. For me it’s the second worst behind The Rise of Skywalker. However, for all the film’s faults, one has to admire Lucas’s attempts to expand the Star Wars universe by introducing so many new worlds, cultures, characters, and concepts, as well as his determination to not repeat himself. The Phantom Menace is an extremely flawed movie, but it’s not a rote, predictable retread of any of the films from the original trilogy. Many fans were disappointed by this, but I think it’s something for which Lucas should be commended.
RICK MCCALLUM
There is a hardcore fan base. It might be a million people. It might be two million people. It migh
t even be three million people. But it’s not what drives Star Wars at the end of the day. It’s no different from the mantra of marketing. When you’re at a studio, the studio executives and the marketing division think that they’ve made the movie if it’s a hit. And if it’s not a hit, then it’s the filmmaker’s fault. The truth is that you’ve got to market and spend an enormous amount of money just to get people to even know that your movie is out there.
At the end of the day—and I don’t care what the research shows or what the marketing bullshit is—a film only works by word of mouth. A movie may work the first weekend, but then if it doesn’t deliver, if people don’t go back to work or back home and discuss it, or talk on their cell phones or the internet, then the movie just doesn’t work. You might get it to $100 million with hype or to $150 million. But anything after that is a movie that works. Once you get a movie that makes $200 million, $250 million, you’re in the stratosphere of people liking the movie. You’re talking about people who like it so much that they’re going back and seeing it two, three, four, five times. That’s the only way you get to $450 million. You can have all the hype out there, all the bullshit, but that’s not what drives you to those numbers.
