Theres actually far more to love about The Phantom Menace than its reputation would suggest (its certainly not the headless turkey that its famous for being), but Jar Jar, the hopelessly irritating Jake Lloyd as the young Anakin Skywalker, and that bloody awful pod race have joined forces with the lamest, dullest plotting and editing imaginable to spoil the film for all time. Its understood that trade embargoes are all a part of Palpatines master plan to gain control of the Senate, but the humourless opening crawl, the terrible exposition, the senate meetings... there are ways to make intrigue and political manoeuvring interesting, and none of them are in this film. Lifelong Star Wars fan and film editor Mike J. Nichols worked on and released a pirate edit of the film (called The Phantom Edit) that managed to recut The Phantom Menace into a shorter, tighter and more entertaining movie by cutting down political exposition and scenes, as well as those involving young Anakin and Jar Jar and the unfortunate mention of midichlorians being the genetic cause of a predisposition to being Force sensitive. Including the reinstatement of deleted scenes to fill plot holes, a total of eighteen minutes were trimmed from the movie, leading to a sleeker and more exciting film with far less teeth-grindingly annoying moments.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
