Disney Is Re-Releasing "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" For Its 25th Anniversary, And You Can Experience The Disappointment All Over Again
I actually appreciate how bass ackwards Star Wars has become. "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" has its following and its appreciators. I'm not going to act like I haven't seen this movie 1 million times, but it is by most people viewed as one of the greatest cinematic disappointments of all time. If you like it, great. I won't act like there aren't good things in it. It has the Duel of the Fates fight, which is, in my opinion, the best scene ever in a bad movie. Still, you can't tell me that it lived up to the hype compared to the original films, and yet, despite being one of the most polarizing and criticized films of all time, "The Phantom Menace" has been re-released in theaters twice now.
Do you remember that big 3-D craze in the late 2000/early 2010s after the first "Avatar" came out? George Lucas jumped on that and decided he would re-release all the Star Wars movies in 3-D starting in 2011. The problem is Disney bought LucasFilm in 2012 and put an end to that nonsense, so the only Star Wars movie that got released in 3-D was "The Phantom Menace." That amuses me.
The Star Wars prequels are the most fascinating anomalies to me. They aren't good. Well, let me amend that: two-thirds of them aren't good. Well, let me amend that amendment; like, 60% of the first two movies aren't good, and "Revenge to the Sith" is pretty awesome. That's what's weird. It's been like 1 million years, and I still need to make up my mind about these movies.
Star Wars movies have legacies. There was a time when the prequels were loathed, and now people who grew up on them have come around to loving them. I don't know the legacy for the sequel trilogy, but I don't see those movies having as strong a following as the prequels. There was just something very different about them, and while I did see "The Phantom Menace" in theaters with my family, I don't have much recollection of it. I wouldn't say I like that movie that much, but I do look forward to seeing it in theaters, and I'll probably dress up in full Darth Maul regalia, you know, for content.
One major positive that I have regarding the Star Wars prequel is that they existed at a time when Star Wars actually felt like an event. Now, you can't take a dump without hearing about a new Star Wars series that will be released. The mystique of that anticipation has been removed. Whether you like these movies or not, people remember where they were when they first saw them. No one's going to remember where they were when they sat down and watched "Andor" for the first time. Oversaturation has killed my nostalgia, but seeing "The Phantom Menace" will bring back some good memories.