Entertainment
'The Phantom Menace' dominated 1999's box office. History has been kinder to it
May 19, 1999, in a galaxy not so far away …
Excitement for “Star Wars” is at an all-time high. The first new film in the beloved series that originally concluded with 1983’s “Return of the Jedi” is about to be released in 2,970 theaters, with a majority starting their first screenings just after midnight. (Ticket sales opened just the week before.)
Audiences have had 16 long years to dream about what George Lucas has conjured up for this new cinematic adventure. But instead of whatever they’d imagined, “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” involves a nefarious trade dispute, myth-altering midi-chlorians and Jar Jar Binks.
And although it becomes, for a while, the second-highest grossing film of all time, the divisive new chapter gains a reputation as one of the worst “Star Wars” movies ever.
The 1999 Project
All year we’ll be marking the 25th anniversary of pop culture milestones that remade the world as we knew it then and created the world we live in now. Welcome to The 1999 Project, from the Los Angeles Times.
Today, “The Phantom Menace” returns to theaters in celebration of its 25th anniversary. In the 19 years since 2005‘s “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith,” the much maligned prequel trilogy has, in many ways, been redeemed.
Just look at how its stars — including Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen and Ahmed Best — have been re-embraced by fans in their returns to the franchise in television projects such as “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “Ahsoka.” Even the actors themselves have voiced appreciation that their original films seem to be regarded more positively. Becoming “more aware of the fondness that the generation that we made the prequels for has for those films … [has] meant a lot to me,” McGregor told NBC News in 2022.
And as the “Star Wars” franchise continues to grow, with upcoming projects including two new series, “The Acolyte” and “Skeleton Crew,” the second seasons of “Andor” and “Ahsoka” and at least two additional films, it has become increasingly apparent just how much of it is built upon a foundation laid down by the prequels. “Star Wars’” most recent successes would not exist if not for “The Phantom Menace.”
“The Phantom Menace” arrived saddled with many expectations. Audiences who grew up on “Star Wars” in theaters or on VHS tapes knew how Darth Vader’s story ended.
“The Phantom Menace” was going to show how it began, something only teased in the original films. Many fans camped outside movie theaters for weeks, just to be among the first to see it. Reports at the time mention that the line outside Westwood’s Village Theatre included about two dozen regulars ages 14 to 40 equipped with couches, recliners, beach chairs, video games and even satellite TV.
“It is only a movie,” The Times reported Lucas insisting during a press event during the lead-up to release. “We have tried hard not to let the film get over-hyped. . . . [It’s] a film for 12-year-olds . . . a Saturday-afternoon serial for children.”
From left, Natalie Portman, Liam Neeson, Jake Lloyd and Ewan McGregor in the movie “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.”
(Keith Hamshere / Lucasfilm Ltd.)
Set roughly 30 years before the events of the original “Star Wars” (which was re-christened “A New Hope” in 1981 after a re-release), “The Phantom Menace” introduced audiences to a 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker (played by Jake Lloyd), a child who would eventually grow up to become Darth Vader.
Anakin’s story begins when a diplomatic mission gone awry brings Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor), the clumsy and, to some, cringeworthy Jar Jar Binks (Best) and young Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) to his home planet, Tatooine.
Many critics were underwhelmed. In his review, Times film critic Kenneth Turan described the film as a “considerable letdown” but “certainly adequate.”
It’s “not going to change anyone’s life or method of worship,” wrote Turan. “It’s only a movie, and … a much less impressive one than all the accompanying genuflection would have you believe.” (Lucas, for his part, noted in advance of “Phantom’s” release that the original trilogy got “generally bad reviews” and that he expected the same this time around as well.)
What “The Phantom Menace” did have were state-of-the-art visual effects: Lucas was uninterested in revisiting “Star Wars” until the technology caught up to his vision. The film boasts the first fully computer-generated supporting character in Jar Jar Binks, and regardless of one’s opinion of the character, that is a landmark, paving the way for “The Lord of the Rings’” Gollum and the “Avatar” films.
“The Phantom Menace” also included such memorable sequences as Anakin’s podrace and a lightsaber showdown (referred to by the John Williams theme that accompanies it, the “Duel of the Fates”) between our Jedi heroes and the film’s fantastically designed villain, Darth Maul.
From left, Liam Neeson, Ray Park and Ewan McGregor in the climactic lightsaber duel of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.”
(Keith Hamshere / Lucasfilm Ltd.)
Still, audiences were much more vocal about the ways “The Phantom Menace” was a disappointment. Criticism of the film included concerns that certain new aliens like the Neimoidians and Gungans appeared to reflect racist tropes. (Lucasfilm rejected those claims as “absurd.”) Any thoughtful responses were drowned out by more vitriolic pushback on everything from the characters and acting to the story and execution.
It was an early glimpse into the darker side of the “Star Wars” fandom — and maybe self-entitled fandom in general. Jar Jar Binks actor Best has been candid about how the negative responses to his character led to his receiving online abuse and death threats. Such bad behavior intensified 16 years later, beginning with the release of the sequel trilogy, which saw stars John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran becoming targets of racist backlash.
And the newer shows are arriving at a time when “anti-woke” superfans who can’t imagine a “Star Wars” galaxy (one already populated with nonhumanoid aliens) as diverse and inclusive have been increasingly emboldened to make racist and sexist remarks.
Luckily, the “Star Wars” fandom is not defined by that vocal minority.
In recent years, appreciation for “The Phantom Menace” has grown. The 2022 arrival of “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” in particular, had even skeptics reassessing the significance of the prequel trilogy.
“The nostalgia for the prequels can’t redeem those movies in full … But they’re quotable, they’re memeable, and they’re fun to rant against and argue about and rally around,” wrote the Ringer’s Justin Charity.
Part of the reason “The Phantom Menace” has been increasingly embraced is because for a generation of fans, “Episode I” was their first “Star Wars” experience. They‘re now old enough to defend what was to them just as foundational as seeing “Star Wars” in a theater was for kids in 1977.
The prequel films have also been further recontextualized by additional storytelling. Series like the animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” set in the years between the events of “Attack of the Clones” (2002) and “Revenge of the Sith,” have fleshed out the universe. Live-action shows like “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett” have drawn on lore established in the prequel-era stories — with success.
The “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series revisits McGregor’s version of the title character for a glimpse at how the man at the end of “Revenge of the Sith” became the one in “A New Hope” (portrayed by Alec Guinness). Concepts like cloning and even midi-chlorians, the micro-organisms with ties to the Force first mentioned in “The Phantom Menace,” have also endured: The only reason the Mandalorian and Grogu even cross paths is because the remnants of the Empire are so interested in the latter’s midi-chlorian count.
Jake Lloyd and Pernilla August in “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.”
(Lucasfilm Ltd.)
In a larger sense, even shows like “Andor” can trace their DNA to the prequels, by being unafraid to enter into what is considered canon and challenge the assumptions of what is expected of a “Star Wars” story. The franchise has increasingly become one large tapestry where new titles build upon and reframe what came before — not a collection of three classics “owned” by gatekeeping fans. And while subsequent projects do not actually change the quality of past installments, they do sometimes lead to reassessment.
“The Phantom Menace” is also a precursor — for good and ill — of today’s modern media landscape of sprawling IP and interconnected universes like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Universe and even Godzilla’s Monsterverse. Lucas’ enormous box office success not only made an eventual sequel series an inevitability but it also signaled to others that there were possibilities in revisiting dormant worlds to attract new audiences.
The bar for “The Phantom Menace” was set impossibly high — not necessarily by the films of the original trilogy but the audience’s relationship with them. But “Star Wars” movies are special because of their potential to make people fall in love with storytelling just as much as the world itself.
And for a generation that grew up on the prequels, “The Phantom Menace” did just that.
“Iceman” has cometh — and then some.
After spending the better part of a year teasing his first solo album since 2023 — and his first, more importantly, since losing the epic rap battle that climaxed with Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” — Drake finally dropped “Iceman” late Thursday along with two other albums whose existence took much of the world by surprise: “Maid of Honour” and “Habibti.”
Together, the three LPs comprise 43 new songs from the Toronto-born rapper and singer who’s been searching for a path back to the pop-cultural perch he occupied for much of the 2010s. To assess his progress, The Times’ Mikael Wood and August Brown took a preliminary listen then exchanged some thoughts.
MIKAEL WOOD: Well, August, to paraphrase the most psychotic track from the Kendrick-and-Drake beef: Meet the many Grahams. Early signs suggested that “Iceman” would constitute a return to Drake’s tough-talking ways in the wake of his humiliating defeat, and indeed that’s largely what the album delivers over plush yet hard-hitting beats.
Yet with “Maid of Honour” and “Habibti,” the 39-year-old born Aubrey Graham is also showcasing his other dominant modes: globe-tripping dance-music hedonist (on the former) and callow-sensitive R&B lover boy (on the latter). Clearly, the sheer volume and breadth of music here is meant to serve as a kind of shock-and-awe campaign designed to jolt us back to a time when Drake seemed to rule over not just hip-hop but all of pop music. (Don’t forget that 2018’s “Scorpion” contained 25 tracks.)
What do you make of his super-sizing effort here? Does it speak of an overflow of creativity — or of an inability to edit? We should say that Drake’s guests on the albums include 21 Savage, Central Cee, Sexyy Red, Popcaan and Future, the last of whom appears on “Iceman” in a song called “Ran to Atlanta” — a clear callback to Kendrick’s line in “Not Like Us” where he accuses Drake of scurrying to the Southern rap capital any time he’s in need of some street cred.
I can see that song finding its legs on rap radio along with — hey, whaddya know? — “2 Hard 4 the Radio,” which feels like a classic Drake jam à la “In My Feelings” or “Nice for What.” I was also struck the first time through the albums by “Cheetah Print,” a frisky strip-club joint, and “Goose and the Juice,” which sounds like … MGMT? I don’t know, man.
Drake performs onstage during “Lil Baby & Friends Birthday Celebration Concert” at State Farm Arena on Dec. 9, 2022, in Atlanta.
(Prince Williams / WireImage)
AUGUST BROWN: Drake’s task at this juncture is interesting and unprecedented: How does a generational superstar come back from the most comprehensive “Ether”-ing in modern music history? To go from being the defining artist of the 2010s to fighting a scorched-earth war with your own label and hanging out with — ugh — Adin Ross on his livestream?
His low-stakes collaborative album with Partynextdoor last year suggested he might just lick his wounds and blow right past it. But this new music is neither a hard-bitten response to nor a rear-view departure from the worst years of his career. It’s a guy still figuring out his next moves and deciding to make all of them at once.
As you said, Mikael, the trap-smeared “Ran to Atlanta” shows he at least has a sense of humor about the whole debacle, reuniting with Future to do exactly what Kendrick accused him of. (Hey, the tactic works for a reason — because it sounds great.) “2 Hard 4 the Radio” is a truly funny song title for Drake and has a lively West Coast funk lean to boot. I agree that if there are any hits to be found amid this hook-light barrage of music, it’s those two, and maybe the album’s early single “What Did I Miss” — it’s gigantic and churning and triumphal enough to make the case that Drake is still impervious.
Yet the beef is still background radiation to the whole project, and there’s almost — almost — something sympathetic when he raps on “Make Them Pay” that “I need compliments ’cause lately it’s just falling-outs and disagreements / Industry is really evil / And I faced the way they paint me, but it hurts just like the Philly Eagles.” Drake is a rococo master of self-pity, but damned if he doesn’t have a real reason for it this time. (That said, after “Not Like Us,” I maybe wouldn’t use my comeback album cover to don a sparkly white glove and allude to music’s most infamous alleged child molester?)
Onto the rest: “Maid of Honour” calls back to his failed-but-intriguing experiment in deep house, 2022’s “Honestly, Nevermind,” but subs out that LP’s raver fog for squelchy Miami bass, footwork and ghettotech. He probably thinks this one is in the raunchy lineage of Dance Mania records, but it’s not nearly as committed to the bit. “Road Trips” and “Cheetah Print” have a fun Nina Sky bounce, and “Outside Tweaking” and “True Bestie” take cool hard-cut production turns. But if this is supposed to be his horny-devil dance-floor album, he’s still limply phoning it in about his woes with OnlyFans models. How did he get such a muted performance out of Sexyy Red, of all people? If someone sidled up to me at the club and whispered “So much ass you should be cremated,” as Drake does on “BBW,” I’d reach for my bear spray.
He does better on “Habibti,” which feels like it collects all the weird castoffs of this cycle but ends up being the most interesting to follow. “WNBA” evokes that woozy, widescreen kingmaker period of “Take Care” and “Views”; “White Bone” is restless and unstructured and bubbling with texture while the moody guitars on “Fortworth” feel like they’re calling from inside Bieber’s “Swag”-iverse. “Slap the City” clatters and coos with R&B falsetto and at least makes the blank nihilism of Drake’s dating life feel self-aware. This is the least intentional of this trio of gormless, spray-and-pray LPs but perhaps the most layered and ambitious.
MIKAEL WOOD: So what do we think this Temu haul of an album drop will do for Drake’s career? As you pointed out, August, “Iceman’s” cover unmistakably evokes Michael Jackson — an icon of success (and, uh, other stuff) whom Drake has repeatedly used as a benchmark to measure his own impact. Billboard reports that Jackson is the only artist ever to occupy the top three slots on its album chart simultaneously. Given the excitement about Drake on the internet Thursday night, it doesn’t seem impossible that he might equal that feat after a week of massive streaming activity (though gentle Noah Kahan, hilariously, might be the one who ends up thwarting him).
At moments over the last two years, Drake seems to have been projecting the idea that he’s past caring about playing the pop-hit game; you can look at his cringey manosphere dalliance as his attempt to go around the old gatekeepers and connect directly with a narrow (if deeply passionate) slice of his fanbase. But the whole point of Drake has always been hits: his ability to read the culture and to funnel what he finds into songs that become almost oppressively ubiquitous.
With only a few exceptions — “2 Hard 4 the Radio” really does feel inevitable — I’m not sure I hear that spirit in this stuff, either because Drake can’t access it anymore or because he doesn’t care to. Yet neither does he seem to be in his innovator’s bag, trying out things to lead pop somewhere new as he’s done so many times before.
Drake performs at State Farm Arena on Dec. 9, 2022, in Atlanta.
(Paul R. Giunta / Invision / AP)
AUGUST BROWN: I would absolutely crack up if Noah Kahan denied him the Jackson-equivalent chart feat he is so transparently trying for with this triptych. Social media buzzed with word that both Spotify and Apple Music had widespread outages last night upon release. But I wouldn’t put it past him to be on some Chaotic Good-type skulduggery spreading the rumor that he is bigger than streaming’s infrastructure. (Already, the most striking line from “Make Them Cry” — “My dad got cancer right now, we battlin’ stages / Trust me when I say there’s plenty things that I’d rather be facin” — may have been exaggerated.)
This trio of LP’s will be a huge hit, no question. At a time when rap seems to have lost its place on the Hot 100, this will surely notch a few top spots and reaffirm that Drake has a huge, committed fanbase that will stick with him in perpetuity. Not to compare a Jewish artist to a once-notorious Hitler-admirer, but there are echoes of the Ye model here, in that villain-arc Drake is now siloed off from pop and hip-hop music — both the culture and industry — when he used to define it. He’s now more or less an A-list Twitch streamer with million-dollar beats.
With these LP’s he’s performing full-throttle fan service, but I can’t see anyone outside of the Aubrey-sphere remembering much about these records in a year’s time, whereas people will be singing “Luther” and taunting “Wop wop wop wop wop” until the sun explodes.
If Drake truly sees himself as this generation’s Michael Jackson, an artist and economy that’s simply too big to fail (and too capable and adaptable to ever be truly uninteresting), congrats, he proved it. But the main feeling I have waking up from a long night with these three albums is exhaustion. Where the surprise-released “GNX” was airtight, instantly repayable and quotable, this is just a melting monolith of Drake content.
In the Grey, 2026.
Written and Directed by Guy Ritchie.
Starring Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rosamund Pike, Eiza González, Fisher Stevens, Jason Wong, Carlos Bardem, Emmett J. Scanlan, Christian Ochoa, Rana Alamuddin, Kristofer Hivju, Kojo Attah, and Gonzalo Bouza.
SYNOPSIS:
A covert team of elite operatives are living in the shadows. When a ruthless despot steals a billion-dollar fortune, they’re sent to take it back-an impossible heist that erupts into a deadly game of strategy, deception and survival.
Right at the top, In the Grey begins in medias res, with an under-fire Rachel (Eiza Gonzalez) narrating the legal-illegal tightrope she walks while recovering assets for clients from crooked billionaires, literally stating that she works in a grey area. Writer/director Guy Ritchie is also operating in that area as a filmmaker; he remains serviceable at staging action and is technically proficient, but there isn’t much motivation felt behind it. As I have said before reviewing some of his latest films, Guy Ritchie is just making films to make films at this point, apparently inspired by nothing but a paycheck and collaborating with new and old faces.
With a crack team of experts covering a wide range of skills, Rachel, employed by Rosamund Pike’s Bobby, has crafted an elaborate plan (a pincer movement) to expose Manny Salazar’s (Carlos Bardem) crimes and flush out details of his financial dealings and the whereabouts of his money through his equally shady lawyer, William Horowitz (Fisher Stevens, adding some light touches of humor profusely sweating more and more after each encounter). This multi-step operation also includes deploying her muscle, Henry Cavill’s Sid, to Saudi Arabia on an undercover mission to expose corruption with building renovations (and because that’s where some of the funding for the film came from), whereas Jake Gyllenhaal’s Bronco is the intimidator, heading off to Manny’s personal island to prepare for an inevitable meeting between all parties, which also includes creating evacuation routes through all modes of transportation and directions.
They work alongside demolition experts and stunt drivers, while hackers and other individuals with remote skill sets work elsewhere. Essentially, no stone is left unturned, and there is no avenue Rachel won’t take, moral or immoral, to amass crucial information and put the pressure on Manny. Admittedly, it is also fun to take in just how much effort the filmmakers have put into setting up and showing off the escape routes, which we know will come into play even if we don’t quite know how or why. Between this and the constant snappy editing depicting brief glimpses of Rachel getting what she needs in a court of law against William and other snippets of Sid and Bronco pulling off their part, there is something stylishly breezy here, in what is ultimately an hour of setup before an extended third act of nonstop action, making use of every set piece the film has set up prior.
For a film that has nearly no story or characterization (all that’s learned is that Rachel broke Sid and Bronco out of jail to work for her, seizing assets from criminals for reasons that are never explained why she got into), and that is once again another Guy Ritchie exercise in visual flair, double crosses, and destruction, he almost pulls it off as a slice of mindless fun that constantly moves at such a rapid clip that there is no time to dwell on the empty narration, and one that is aware not to take itself seriously even for a minute.
The big issue is that, while the action is moderately effective, there’s no real payoff or even much of an ending. When the credits for In the Grey roll, one practically feels annoyed for having been semi-invested in these games. It’s as if Guy Ritchie and everyone involved went to shoot with a sloppy rough draft of a script, with no intention of elevating it into anything memorable or worthwhile beyond a couple of well-executed action scenes. The hollowness hits like a grenade launcher once that ending comes, doubling as another reminder that Guy Ritchie may technically be making movies, but they possess almost no trace of a filmmaker actually excited about making movies. He is simply sleepwalking through his signature style. There’s nothing grey about that assessment.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
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