The Phantom Menace

Star Wars®: The Audience Strikes Back cont.

MMATTIS1 feels that Phantom Menace has many racial overtones:

“The evil traders in this movie talk like they have Japanese accents. Also Gun-Gans, a big lipped, goofy strutting, mush mouthed race of creatures seem to be making fun of black people. And then there is Watto the greedy trader with the big shylock nose who talks like a Jew. Now I don’t claim to know why Lucas put this into his new movie, which besides its racism I enjoyed, but I do know that the racist stereotypes for all the stupid or bad characters was pretty obvious"

Others like STEVEWALTERS believe that people tend to read too much into the movie:

“Are we to assume there are satanic overtones, because of the "horns" on one of the races? If the storm troops were all black, and walked round killing indiscriminately whilst the good guys were white, then that’s racist. If a certain species has certain overtones for us, maybe we should look more closely at our own beliefs? I fail to see any similarities in any film, unless I already have prejudices. (I hate those darn Ewoks by the way, does that make me sizist, or "furrist"?)"

Talk Back

Regardless of what you think, it is an explosive topic and just one of the many where The Phantom Menace is concerned. Another one of these is inconsistencies in the plot of the film. With three earlier movies that are placed later in time than The Phantom Menace, the threads of character history and plot line are inextricably woven, or as some would say, tangled.

Star Wars®fans are legendary for knowing their movies down to the credits and beyond. It is literally impossible to sneak an iffy detail past them. Complaints about everything from the Jedi knight hierarchy to that crazy midichlorian explanation have shown up in forum discussions. The Official Star Wars® web site attempts to keep all of the facts straight, but there are still those who believe that things could have been done better.

Things have changed quite a lot from when A New Hope first arrived in theaters. Well, perhaps not everything. There is one audience that adores The Phantom Menace and has very little criticism if any. It is perhaps the audience that George Lucas has intended the Star Wars® saga for all along. They are the ones that buy the toys and games and bug their parents to see it time and again. The kids. They aren't perhaps as large a force on the Internet as the adults are now, but one of these days they'll be hitting these message boards talking nostalgically about the good ol’ days when they saw Phantom Menace on the big screen.

[Discussion Links]

- Tam

Talk Back

All Star Wars content (e.g., clips, stills, designs, artwork, etc.) is Copyright © 1998 Lucasfilm Ltd. STAR WARS®, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK ®, RETURN OF THE JEDI (TM), STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE (TM) and all associated elements and logos are property of Lucasfilm Ltd. All content is protected by intellectual property laws and any use other than for private, noncommercial purposes is strictly prohibited. STAR WARS © 1977, 1998 Lucasfilm Ltd.; The Empire Strikes Back ©1980, 1998 Lucasfilm Ltd.; Return of the Jedi ©1983, 1998 Lucasfilm Ltd; Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace © 1998, 1999 Lucasfilm Ltd.