I know what you're thinking. "Wait, did Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace have a Special Edition?" Well, the answer is yes, sort of; there hasn't been a massive fanfare about it (unlike the original trilogy, I doubt we'll be celebrating its twentieth anniversary with a high-profile re-release), but George Lucas has slyly made several changes to the first prequel since the movie's release in 1999. The first alterations came with the 2001 DVD release, which were then furthered by the 2011 Blu-Ray, the most commonly version available today. The other prequels has some other home release tinkering (Jango now tries to start his jetpack as Mace Windu attacks in Attack Of The Clones and Vader's "Noooo" was shockingly shortened for Revenge Of The Sith), but The Phantom Menace has now had enough alterations that the version you can buy now to pretty much counts as a completely different cut to the original, theatrical film. What this means is that most people who constantly demonise Episode I haven't actually seen its theatrical release, and those who have won't in well over a decade. I'm not saying that without these additions and changes that Lucas' no-holds-barred prequel is some bastion of cinema, but what they do is exacerbate some of the more potent criticisms of the film (or are so pointless it's obscene someone had to actually waste their time on it). Unlike the branded Special Editions, which at least in their earlier iterations were conceived as honest improvements to the film, all of the changes here are changes for the sake of changes; they're either so minor they're worthless or so extraneous they only further hurt the film and, as we'll see, were all done primarily out of laziness. Of course, few seem to care because of the movie's lesser quality, but that shouldn't really matter; The Phantom Menace was a highly-anticipated movie that defined the rise of internet film commentary, and knowing of and being able to see it in its original form is incredibly important. And so, in honour of respecting Episode I's place in film history, today let's take a look at the stupidest changes made to it since release.
