I have completed the first movie in this timeline marathon.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. I won’t be talking much about the history of the movie, because when it was released in 1999 I was two years old. In this review I will briefly talk about the plot of the film, and then go into key parts that can affect the franchise as a whole.
I do want to address that for some of this timeline marathon I have the physical copy of the movie/tv show/game. If there’s something I enjoy I personally want to get the disc of it to keep and watch offline instead of streaming sometime. For Episode 1 I have a DVD of it, and included in it is an extras page that says there’s unique online special features. I can’t use is on an Apple Macintosh or on my regular blu ray player, but someday I might figure out what online special features there are.
The movie starts off talking about taxes. A group called the Trade Federation has created a blockade around a planet to protest (?) paying higher taxes on the galaxy’s government, The Republic.
Two Jedi: Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi were sent to negotiate ending the blockade. It does not end well, and the Trade Federation invades the planet with a droid army.
To be completely honest, I don’t get how a blockade around the equator works. Couldn’t the people on the planet go around where there isn’t a blockade, then move to their original landing spot once they’re in the atmosphere?
I’m going to quickly type out the plot points for the rest of the movie. There’s going to be some details I miss, but these are the key moments in the film:
Gungan!
The two Jedi sneak aboard an invading ship to get to the planet Naboo and meet a frog-like creature called Jar-Jar. He leads them to his underwater city, where the other frog-like people (Gungans) give them a ship to go to the above-water city and rescue the Queen.
Podracing!
The gang has to emergency land on a sand planet called and find parts to fix the ship. They don’t have the money! However: they meet a young slave boy named Anakin there who tells them about this upcoming race. They enter the race and he won with his homemade pod racer. The group of travelers win the parts to fix their ship, and wins Anakin’s freedom as well.
Citys!
The team goes to the Republic capitol, Coruscant, to tell the government about the invasion on Naboo, and to get Anakin tested for Jedi school. Unfortunately, neither of those tasks work out. The Senate is stuck on procedures, discussions, and voting instead of actually taking action to do anything. As for Anakin, the Jedi Council decided that despite his high test scores, he is too old to start training to be a Jedi. Jedi take young kids before they become attached to family to help limit their emotions, and Anakin grew up with his mother, so they thing that’s a problem.
War!
Queen Padmé goes back to her home planet to help stop the invasion. She meets with her neighbors the Gungans, and together they form an army that will fight the droids on land, in the palace, and in space.
Anakin sneaks aboard a ship and flies to the spaceship that controls the robots, and on land the Jedi meet for the first time a Dark Jedi: A Sith named Maul.
This is pretty significant to the timeline marathon because in the previous Young Jedi Adventures series, there were no Sith in existence. The most those Young Jedi had to face were pirates, not evil Jedi with the same abilities as them.
Qui-Gon and Obi Wan were fighting to survive this battle, and unfortunately Qui-Gon did not survive. He was stabbed by Maul, and Obi Wan immediately avenged him by cutting Maul in half and throwing him down a shaft.
Up in space Anakin was able to successfully destroy the control station, and all of the droids shut down. The battle has been won.
Although they defeated the droids and Maul, the Jedi are left to wonder where he came from. Obi Wan has also been tasked with training Anakin to be a Jedi, so we will see how that plays out in the next few things to watch.
Favorite Scene
Since this isn’t a television show, I can’t just talk about my favorite episode of the series. I can however say that my favorite scene is probably the podracing scene. Going fast takes skill and Anakin really shows how great of a pilot he is in this scene.
The announcers are probably the best background/side character in this movie. The two headed brothers(?) talk about the events in the race, one in regular language, and the other in an alien dialect.
I think this scene also helps create an expansion on the galaxy in Star Wars. What do people do for fun? What sports do they have on planets since stuff like football and baseball are Earth sports.
Racing is universal. Kachow.
When I finished watching the movie I remembered that earlier this year I downloaded a video game for my Nintendo Switch called “STAR WARS EPISODE I: Racer”. It is quite possibly one of the worst names of a video game I’ve seen, but it’s a pretty fun racer so far.
I turned it on for the first time recently just to try it out, and so far it seems pretty easy to win races. I’m not sure why Anakin and the others in the movie were struggling to beat Sebulba.
I didn’t want to play as Anakin Skywalker during the game. Mostly for the same reason that I never play as Mario in a Mario Party game, but we all know from the movie that he won the race. This game starts at Anakin’s winning race, and then travels to other planets for the racing circuit.
Also, just look at his model in the game. Ugh.
All the other characters are aliens, and are some of the goofiest looking creatures with the silliest names. I won 1200 Truguts for first place as well. What are Truguts? Money I think? Hopefully.
I may continue this game as I go just to see how far in racing I can get. I can upgrade my speeder to get faster and control it even better, and maybe since in my game Anakin never won the race, the future movies and shows will all diverge into a fractured branch and it will alter the course of the timeline marathon.
That is all I have for timeline media number two: Episode One. The names and titles in this series will get even more confusing as we go I’m sure.
Kristopher K. Online 