20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

19. It Took Almost Two Years To Edit

The ground-breaking nature of The Phantom Menace's production has been well-documented, but the knock-on effect of Lucas spearheading an unprecedented fusion of practical and digital filmmaking techniques is that the film took close to two years to edit.

Filming began in late June 1997, with editor Paul Martin Smith getting to work on dialogue-centric scenes back in England, while Ben Burtt cut the set-pieces with George Lucas.

The Phantom Menace didn't end up hitting cinemas until May 1999, some 19 months after principal photography wrapped, and this is generally accepted to be a result of Lucas' endless tinkering with cutting-edge non-linear digital editing systems.

As such, Lucas constantly iterated on scenes with minor tweaks, and the film's edit wasn't fully completed until just a month before it was released.