0:00

Every generation has a legend. Those

0:05

are the first words that appear over

0:08

a black screen in a trailer

0:10

that teased one of the most

0:12

anticipated movies in Hollywood history. Twenty-five

0:18

years ago this month, George Lucas

0:20

gave us Star Wars Episode I,

0:23

The Phantom Menace. The

0:25

movie promised to tell the origin story

0:27

of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.

0:29

You refer to the prophecy of the one who will

0:32

bring balance to the force. You

0:34

believe it's this boy? It

0:36

was the first Star Wars movie in

0:39

sixteen long years. When it came out,

0:41

Return of the Jedi felt like ancient

0:43

history to Star Wars fans. There are

0:45

all these stories about people

0:47

buying tickets to go see the movie

0:49

Meet Joe Black because Meet Joe Black

0:51

had a Phantom Menace trailer on it.

0:54

So they would go and buy a ticket to the

0:56

Meet Joe Black, go watch the trailer and leave the

0:58

theater. All these

1:00

other movies had these box office bumps

1:02

just because people wanted to see the Phantom

1:05

Menace trailer. Journalist Eric Schwartzl is writing

1:07

a book about Star Wars and he

1:09

can trace the way blockbusters are marketed

1:11

and promoted today back to

1:13

the excitement around the Phantom Menace. I

1:15

remember the Pepsi cans and I remember

1:17

the Pizza Hut campaigns and I remember

1:19

there being so much around it, the

1:21

anticipation of it. Star Wars Episode I

1:23

cans collect all 24 this summer. In

1:27

1999, local news stations across the country

1:29

treated the movie release like breaking news.

1:32

They talked to fans in brown robes

1:34

and braided hair and big plastic helmets.

1:36

Fans who had camped out for days,

1:39

sometimes even weeks at movie theaters to

1:41

see the film on opening day.

1:43

The original trilogy was just so phenomenal. People

1:46

have been awaiting this for like sixteen years. It's

1:48

going to be one of the many wonders

1:51

of the world. There are now eight wonders of

1:53

the world. One of them being this movie. Are

1:55

there any of you that think this is going to be a lousy

1:57

movie? Well...

2:01

NPR sent two critics to see the

2:03

film and provide their response, and no

2:05

Tom Shales did not like it. The

2:07

new Star Wars movie, Episode I, The

2:09

Phantom Menace, is a menace. It's not

2:12

about storytelling and it's not about people.

2:14

It's about effects and technology. It's

2:16

a computer movie through and through, by

2:18

computers and maybe for computers. NPR's Bob

2:20

Mondello took issue with one of the

2:23

film's most infamous characters, Jar Jar Binks.

2:25

What could he have been thinking, you

2:27

say to yourself, as he introduces a

2:29

race of idol-worshipping primitives who speak

2:31

in Caribbean accents and behave like

2:34

refugees from Amos and Andy? The

2:36

backlash did not stop there. Even

2:38

some of the hardcore fans complained.

2:41

People didn't like the idea of a nine-year-old

2:43

Darth Vader. I'm a pilot, you know, and

2:46

someday I'm gonna fly away from this place.

2:49

They didn't like all of the talk of taxes

2:51

and trade embargoes. You will not be so pleased when

2:53

you go to the last day by, sir. The

2:55

old trade going caught by a planet has ended. You

2:58

start to see just like this absolute,

3:01

this very loud wave of backlash.

3:03

After 16 years of

3:05

waiting and hoping, a lot of

3:08

the fans were not amused. There's

3:10

this pretty loud, angry reaction. Consider

3:12

this. For many of those who remember the

3:15

heady excitement they felt from the original Star

3:17

Wars movie and the cherished characters developed over

3:19

the first trilogy, The Phantom Menace was, to

3:22

put it graciously, a disappointment.

3:24

But with the 25th anniversary of

3:26

Pwness, it is time for a little... It's

3:42

considered this from NPR. The

3:44

Phantom Menace came out 25 years ago

3:46

this month. And to commemorate that anniversary, the

3:48

film is getting a re-release in theaters. So

3:51

I thought it was very important, for journalistic

3:53

purposes of course, to go see it with

3:55

the biggest Star Wars fan I know. NPR's

3:58

senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith,

4:01

a mentor outside of DC's Alamo Draft House theater. Why

4:03

don't you just tell us what you're wearing to? I'm

4:05

wearing a shirt that says, may the fourth estate

4:08

be with you, and some

4:10

Star Wars themed earrings, maybe. Because you're

4:12

a reporter and you like Star Wars? Indeed.

4:14

Yeah. Indeed. Let's

4:17

start with this. What do you remember about the

4:19

Phantom Menace when it first came out? What did

4:21

you think about going to see it? What do

4:23

you remember your first impressions were? I

4:25

was in college. It was a very big

4:27

deal. We picked the movie

4:29

theater because it was the theater in

4:32

San Francisco that allegedly George Lucas had

4:34

optimized the speakers in to make his

4:36

movies most enjoyable. Student lied outside for

4:39

a very long time to see this

4:41

movie, and I

4:44

did not like it. So now

4:46

I'm kind of like, I feel on the fence about

4:48

it, but at the time, like I remember walking into

4:50

the theater. I remember the excitement of seeing the crawl,

4:52

and I remember leaving feeling like that was a good

4:54

movie. I remember it was mostly positive, and it was

4:56

only after the fact years later that the

4:59

haterade kind of came into my head on this. We

5:01

settled into our seats, ordered a whole lot of

5:04

popcorn, and re-entered a galaxy far, far away. And

5:06

as much as we both like Star Wars, we

5:08

both tensed up and cringed when Jar Jar came

5:10

on the screen. Mr. Cross, that's okay. Mr. Cross,

5:12

that's okay. Mr. Cross, that's okay. Mr. Cross, that's

5:14

okay. I have one minute. I

5:17

just can't do it. I just can't abide. Mr.

5:19

Cross, that's okay. I feel like

5:21

this is the top thing that I want to know, like, with anyone

5:24

telling George Lucas anything was a bad idea this

5:26

month. There was a little

5:28

bit of redemption. We've been hating on this movie

5:30

here and there, but I feel like the

5:32

best part of the movie just started is that it's the

5:35

music and the fight scene between Dark Maul

5:37

and Obi-Wan and Cloggard. And

5:39

the devil-sided lightsaber, which is

5:41

simply mind-blowing. As

5:44

Tam and I left the theater, I asked her

5:46

if she saw anything differently this time around. I

5:48

mean, it was everything I remembered. I

5:51

remember being excited for

5:53

the exciting parts and absolutely

5:56

appalled at some of the other parts. And that

5:59

continued. After

6:04

the movie, I piloted my pod racer back to

6:06

the NPR newsroom and called up Eric Schwartzl

6:08

to talk more about the legacy of the Phantom

6:10

Menace. Schwartzl covers the film

6:12

industry for The Wall Street Journal, and he's

6:14

writing a book on the cultural juggernaut of

6:16

the Star Wars franchise called Empire. Do

6:19

you remember what your initial thoughts were about The

6:21

Phantom Menace when it came out in 1999? Do

6:24

you remember going to see it in theaters?

6:26

Did it register for you in that moment?

6:28

You know what I remember and what's so

6:31

interesting to look at now is I remember

6:33

just a

6:35

lot of the noise around it. I remember

6:37

it was really like looking back, I think

6:39

the first example that I have and maybe

6:42

that the film industry has of

6:44

like the movie almost being beside the

6:46

point because there was so much anticipation

6:48

with every trailer drop. I

6:50

mean, I think one thing that I've been

6:52

trying to do is put myself in

6:55

the mindset of a fan, let's

6:57

say like a 28 year old

6:59

fan the year that this is

7:01

coming out. The anticipation

7:04

must have been absolutely almost like crippling

7:06

to fans who

7:08

had waited so long for a new Star

7:10

Wars story. I remember I just read this

7:12

story about a guy who was trying to

7:15

get a licensing deal at Lucasfilm, and so

7:17

he grew out a beard so that he

7:19

could dress as a Jedi to the pitch

7:21

meeting. Did it work? I think it

7:24

did, yeah, he got it, yeah. So I think

7:26

we'll get to the response and the backlash

7:28

in a moment, but I think that certainly

7:30

set that up because the expectations were so

7:32

sky high and then the movie comes in

7:34

and it's just so wildly different than the

7:36

original Star Wars movies. But let's

7:38

tap into your reporting here. What

7:41

can you tell us about what George Lucas's goal

7:43

was when he set out in the mid-90s to

7:45

write and direct The Phantom Menace and

7:47

basically do it all himself? Well

7:50

George had been saying For years,

7:52

really since the start, that this was going

7:54

to be a much bigger project than just

7:56

three movies released in the 1970s and the

7:58

1980s. These, ah, but

8:00

but that there were stories he wanted

8:03

to tell and ways he wanted to

8:05

tell them that just were not available

8:07

to him yet. And so, I'm really

8:10

one of the real pivot points in

8:12

his career and in movie history really

8:14

was whenever he saw Jurassic Park for

8:17

the first time because Jurassic Park and

8:19

the special effects used in fascists in

8:21

traffic parks really convinced him that the

8:24

technology had caught up to his vision.

8:26

And so when he started work on

8:28

the prequels. And he always

8:30

knew that he would be going back in time.

8:33

Ah, To tell the story of how. Star.

8:36

Wars came to be arm. He knew that

8:38

the technology was there to really populate the

8:40

world with the creatures and the planets that

8:42

he wanted to populate it with. the how

8:44

would you characterize the initial wave of response

8:47

and and how that response changed over time

8:49

because I feel like performative li hating on

8:51

the Phantom Menace. It's a big part of

8:53

Star Wars fandom. at this point it is.

8:55

He has become a bit of a punchline,

8:57

although I do think that's changing a little

9:00

bit and I'll explain why of it's but

9:02

I do think that there there is this

9:04

arc that you can see and. And there's

9:06

this will dramatic irony because there's these are like

9:08

men and women in their in their. Mid.

9:10

To late twenties who worth Star Wars. Kids

9:12

who are now excited about the Prequels and

9:15

you're reading these stories And and there's this

9:17

like that now. I read them in Twenty

9:19

Twenty Four with this sort of mounting sense

9:22

of dread. Sixty Six, You know what's going

9:24

to happen and you hear these people talk

9:26

about about this being the greatest? They have

9:28

their life and then the critics of the

9:31

first. The first indications there were some problems

9:33

that the know started whenever the critics said

9:35

it to take a look and and the

9:37

critics were actually, I think even tougher. Maybe

9:40

Then. some of the fans were armed

9:42

really to saying this is this is

9:44

a very weird film it's very dry

9:46

it's very boring the acting is like

9:49

is you know the side of public

9:51

access and and really to start just

9:53

knocking it down and that's when the

9:56

record scratch starts to happen and group

9:58

all these interviews like a you

10:00

know, like man on the street interviews, like

10:02

outside the theater, like what did you think?

10:04

And there's all these people just like, they

10:06

sound like more like confused, and like they're

10:08

trying to figure out what's

10:10

happened to them over the last two

10:12

and a half hours. And they're trying

10:14

to sort of talk themselves into, into liking

10:17

it or explaining it. And

10:20

then you start to see just

10:22

like this absolute, this very loud

10:24

wave of backlash. And now I

10:26

think we've come to understand that

10:29

maybe that might have been, I

10:31

wouldn't say like a vocal minority, but

10:33

like, but like an outsized voice in

10:35

the in the reaction. And this is

10:37

the perfect place to talk

10:39

about Jar Jar Banks, who became

10:42

like the avatar of all of

10:44

the feelings about this movie. On

10:46

my morning girl, Dungeons no liking

10:48

outside her, so don't expect to

10:50

learn welcome. Yeah, it was

10:53

a huge part of the conversation pretty

10:55

immediately actually with with a lot of

10:57

critics saying that Jar Jar's behavior and

11:00

speech patterns like really called to mind

11:02

like a like a history of like

11:04

Hollywood's dark history with

11:06

minstrelery and with these like

11:08

racial stereotypes. And Lucasfilm would

11:11

always, you know, Lucasfilm doesn't

11:14

really engage too much with with

11:16

fan reaction traditionally. But that was one

11:19

thing they would always come out and

11:21

and deny was any kind of like

11:23

racial motivation in in the character. But

11:25

it was one it was something that

11:27

really, it seems like took hold.

11:31

So here we are in 2024. We are living in

11:33

this world of endless Star War content

11:36

and merchandise and theme parks. And I

11:38

don't know how many movies and shows

11:40

have have been produced since then. How

11:42

much credit do you think the Phantom

11:45

Menace deserves for this world of Star

11:47

Wars as this multi generational juggernaut? I

11:50

think it actually I've come

11:52

to really appreciate its role

11:54

in building Star Wars into

11:56

this kind of multi generational

11:58

juggernaut. One thing I

12:01

would say is, as you

12:03

said, we have this kind of fire hose.

12:05

After fans had to wait 20, 25

12:08

years for a new Star Wars story, we now

12:10

have more than you could almost possibly keep up

12:12

with since Disney bought Lucasfilm

12:14

12 years ago. But

12:17

what's interesting to me is that I think

12:19

even when Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, there

12:22

still was this kind of stink

12:25

on the prequels. As

12:28

I said, it was sort of seen as

12:30

this punchline or this evidence that maybe George

12:33

Lucas had lost his touch. But

12:35

what you have seen since then, if

12:37

you look at a lot of the

12:39

TV shows that Disney is producing, a

12:41

lot of them lean very heavily on

12:44

the era of storytelling that the

12:46

prequels explore and even the characters

12:48

that they explore. They bring back

12:51

a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hayden Christensen,

12:53

who maybe was second

12:55

to Jar Jar in the beating he

12:57

took from fans over the prequel. He's

13:00

now popping up in

13:02

streaming shows time and again. In fact,

13:04

when I was at a different fan

13:06

convention last year in London, the

13:08

longest line for autographs by far

13:11

was for Hayden Christensen. I

13:13

think since then, we do

13:16

have to acknowledge that that era

13:19

and those characters is actually what's

13:21

kind of sustaining Star Wars at

13:23

a time when fans aren't getting

13:25

new movies or new

13:28

breakaway storylines. The last

13:30

thing I wanted to ask you is that you have

13:32

been working on the sprawling look at the Star Wars

13:34

universe, and I mean that in a good way. Like

13:38

you said, about 50 years to take in. How

13:41

much of your brain has focused on the

13:43

Phantom Menace compared to all the other aspects

13:45

of the Star Wars universe as

13:47

you have done your research? I

13:49

would say it's a, you know, I mean

13:51

I think, you know, when I'm putting the book

13:53

together, I think about what are the hinge points,

13:56

and there are always obvious hinge points in a

13:58

narrative like this and then less on the screen.

14:00

obvious ones. And this is this

14:02

is a huge hinge point because for

14:04

all the reasons you you enumerated

14:06

here, right, it really showed us

14:08

evidence of the machine. In some

14:11

ways, I think it did define

14:14

Star Wars fandom because it it

14:16

allowed fans to find one another

14:19

and, you know, find

14:21

common cause, whether it was in anticipation or outright

14:24

criticism of it. I think

14:27

it's become absolutely this like

14:29

undeniable pivot for

14:31

for the franchise. And and even

14:34

though it wasn't the

14:36

experience that so many fans wanted it to

14:39

be, even the fact that it was as controversial

14:41

as it was, I think has

14:44

contributed to Star Wars

14:46

taking on this massive

14:48

presence in our culture. Because if anything,

14:50

it's allowed fans to debate

14:53

something. It's allowed them to to rank.

14:55

It's allowed them to criticize. It's allowed them

14:57

to engage with Star Wars in this almost

14:59

kind of like, like scriptural way, right? It's

15:01

like something you can argue with and you

15:03

can you can volley back

15:06

and forth over. Eric

15:08

Schwartz covers the film industry for the Wall Street

15:10

Journal. And right now he's working on a book

15:12

about Star Wars called Empire, though I

15:14

cannot let this interview end without saying

15:16

that a long time ago in a

15:19

galaxy far, far away, Eric and I

15:21

were rival bloggers covering the Pennsylvania fracking

15:23

industry. Journalism, it'll take you

15:25

to crazy places. Thanks so

15:27

much, Eric. And when you're done with the book, come

15:29

back and we'll talk about it. Absolutely. Thank you, Scott.

15:33

This episode was produced by Mark Rivers. It

15:35

was edited by Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer

15:37

is Sammy Yennig. Before we go,

15:39

a quick thank you to our Consider This Plus listeners

15:42

who support the show. Your contribution makes

15:44

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15:46

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15:48

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15:51

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org. It's

16:04

considered this from the interior. I'm sorry to interrupt.