The Phantom Menace: 10 Years Later

When Star Wars Phantom Menace came out...... I was 4, and like everyone else, I was DYING to see it, and, like almost every other 4 year old in the world, I LOVED IT. It was not till I came to Spill when I realized how much people HATE the prequels, especially this film, and I can totally see why. But still to this day I really like this movie, but I don’t like the other 2 THAT much. But the point of this blog post is to flash back to what is, to this day, the most hyped movie of all time, and too many, the most disappointing. Here is a timeline of the movies build up and hype.

1994
- November 1st - George Lucas begins writing the first prequel.
It's based on an outline written in 1976, before Episode IV was released.

1997
- June 26th - Filming begins.

- September 30th - Filming ends.

1998
- August 13th - US release date announced as May 19st 1999.

- November 17th - Trailer released in US cinemas.
Many people bought tickets to “Meet Joe Black", saw the trailer, and then left. The trailer was even shown at the beginning and the end of the credits.

- November 23rd - The trailer hits the web. Collecting 400 hits a second during the first day

1999
- January 6th - Lucas says no to episodes VII, VIII and IX.

- March 11th - Second trailer hits the web. The trailer is not as well received as the first, mostly because it shows the first sign of Jar Jar Binks annoyingness

- April 6th Ewan McGregor gives his filming experience a poor word of mouth saying "There was no spontaneity. Your job, as an actor, was just to get it out. I was frowning a lot. It just became a frowning exercise."


- April 7th - Fox says no ads shall be played before Phantom Menace

- April 21st - Novelization released.

- May 4th - Soundtrack album released.

- May 13th - Early reviews come in. Many are dissapointing saying "It was a dream come true at first, but quickly turned into a nightmare."

- May 14th - tickets go on sale.

- May 19th - Film released in US.
It is estimated that 2.2 million people pull sick days in order to go see the film. Many theaters even had a lightsaber demonstration before the film. The mood changes from happy to disappoint pretty fast. BBC reported "Fans have 'mixed feelings' over Star Wars".

- May 21st - Box office record.
Phantom Menace makes $28.5m on its opening day, breaking the box office record of $26.1m set in 1997 by The Lost World: Jurassic Park.


- May 24th - Another box office record.
Phantom Menace becomes the first film to earn more than $100m in its first five days of release.

If you hate this movie, I don’t blame you. I can’t even imagine the sick feeling I would have had coming out of that theater. I was really thinking about how to end this blog post, I was even considering the whole " it’s just a movie" excuse, but no, because , well, it wasn’t a movie, it was an event, one we see every couple of years. We even saw one last year with a little film called the “Dark Knight", which not only lived up to the hype, but surpassed it. It’s one of the best films of the decade. “The Phantom Menace" is a film that, if you were alive in 1999 was an experience for everyone, and for better or for worse, is one you will never forget, as much as you may want to.