8 Things Learned From Re-Watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

5. The Young-Anakin/Padmé Relationship Feels Strange In Hindsight

Knowing what we know about Anakin and Padmé, it feels strange to see Lucas setting their love story in motion when the former is a nine-year-old boy. I'm in no way suggesting anything heinous in that regard, but if the director already knew where he was going to take the couple, he might've been better off not alluding to anything in The Phantom Menace, no matter how minor it may have seemed at the time ("Ani" asks her if she's an angel and it comes of as quite sweet, but when he mentions something similar in Attack of the Clones one is reminded of the initial reference and it just feels uncomfortable). That's not to suggest that Anakin and Padmé's affections weren't genuine from the get-go, but rather that their initial meeting here later plays too prominent a role in their all-encompassing love for one another. For example, the necklace Anakin gives her in this film is the same one seen wrapped around the hands of her dead body in Revenge of the Sith. Earlier she tells him that she has kept it safe since then - the necklace no longer an innocent gift from a child, but a memento of a supposedly irrevocable love.