Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

Anakin Skywalker is nine years old.

He lives with his mother, Shmi, and both are enslaved by Watto, a junk dealer in Mos Espa.

Anakin doesn't look particularly dangerous.

He's curious.

Generous.

Fearless.

He builds machines, repairs droids and has somehow constructed his own protocol droid — C-3PO.

He also races podracers.

Qui-Gon quickly notices something unusual about him.

Anakin's reflexes are extraordinary.

He seems able to anticipate things before they happen.

Qui-Gon begins to suspect that finding Anakin wasn't an accident.

The heroes need replacement parts for their ship.

They don't have the money Watto will accept.

Qui-Gon therefore makes a gamble.

Anakin will enter the Boonta Eve Classic.

If he wins, Qui-Gon gets the parts they need.

And Anakin gets his freedom.

The podrace became one of The Phantom Menace's defining sequences: enormous engines, impossible speeds and racers hurtling through the canyons of Tatooine.

Anakin's rival Sebulba expects him to fail.

For a while, it looks as though he might.

Then Anakin starts catching up.

He wins the race.

He wins his freedom.

But there's one person he can't take with him.

His mother.

For all the spectacle surrounding The Phantom Menace, one of its most important moments is quiet.

Anakin has spent his life dreaming of seeing the stars.

Now he has the opportunity.

But freedom means leaving Shmi behind.

She encourages him to go.

Anakin promises he'll return and free her someday.

Then the boy who will eventually become Darth Vader walks away from his mother.

The separation matters.

Fear of losing the people he loves will eventually become one of Anakin Skywalker's greatest weaknesses.

Here, we see where that fear begins.

Before Qui-Gon can leave Tatooine, a mysterious warrior attacks.

Red lightsaber.

Black robes.

Red-and-black face.

Darth Maul.

The Jedi believed the Sith had been extinct for a thousand years.

They're wrong.

Maul isn't acting alone.

His master, Darth Sidious, has been manipulating events from the shadows, using the Trade Federation as part of a much larger plan.

The Jedi don't yet know who Sidious is.

The audience is beginning to understand just how dangerous he might be.

Queen Amidala reaches Coruscant expecting the Galactic Senate to help Naboo.

Instead, she discovers bureaucracy.

Committees.

Procedure.

Delay.

Senator Palpatine of Naboo carefully encourages her frustration with Supreme Chancellor Valorum.

Amidala calls for a vote of no confidence.

Valorum's position collapses.

And Palpatine becomes a candidate to replace him.

Nobody has fired a blaster.

Nobody has drawn a lightsaber.

But one of the most important victories in the entire prequel trilogy has already happened.

Palpatine has moved closer to power.

Qui-Gon brings Anakin before the Jedi Council.

The boy's abilities are undeniable.

His future is less certain.

Yoda senses fear in him.

Fear of losing his mother.

The Council refuses to train him.

Qui-Gon disagrees.

He believes Anakin may be the Chosen One foretold by prophecy — someone destined to bring balance to the Force.

Qui-Gon is so convinced that he offers to train Anakin himself.

Obi-Wan is nearly ready to become a Jedi Knight.

Anakin, Qui-Gon believes, should be next.

The Council remains unconvinced.

Events on Naboo are about to make the decision considerably more complicated.

Throughout much of the film, Padmé appears to be one of Queen Amidala's handmaidens.

She isn't.

She is the Queen.

The elaborate costumes, makeup and decoys have allowed Amidala to conceal her identity while remaining close to events.

Back on Naboo, she reveals the truth to Boss Nass and asks the Gungans for help.

The Naboo and Gungans have spent years divided.

Now they face the same enemy.

For the first time, they fight together.

Three fighters enter.

Only two leave.

Darth Maul confronts Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan inside the Theed power generator complex and ignites a double-bladed lightsaber.

What follows is one of the defining lightsaber battles of the saga.

Fast.

Aggressive.

Physical.

John Williams' Duel of the Fates turns the confrontation into something larger than a simple fight.

Because the title tells us what's really happening.

This is a duel over Anakin's future.

Qui-Gon wants to train him.

Maul serves the Sith.

And Obi-Wan is about to inherit a responsibility he never expected.

The energy barriers separate Obi-Wan from the fight.

Qui-Gon faces Maul alone.

Maul strikes.

By the time Obi-Wan reaches his master, it's too late.

Obi-Wan fights with fury, eventually cutting Maul in half and sending him falling into the reactor shaft.

But victory comes with a cost.

Qui-Gon is dying.

He makes Obi-Wan promise to train Anakin.

Obi-Wan agrees.

The man who discovered Anakin Skywalker will never see what the boy becomes.

While the Jedi battle Darth Maul, the Gungans fight the droid army and Padmé attempts to retake the palace.

Anakin ends up inside a Naboo starfighter.

Then he ends up in space.

Then he ends up inside the Trade Federation control ship.

This was not exactly the plan.

Anakin destroys the ship's main reactor and escapes just before the entire vessel explodes.

The droid army shuts down.

Naboo is free.

For a nine-year-old on his first trip away from Tatooine, it has been quite a week.

Obi-Wan is promoted to Jedi Knight.

He immediately tells Yoda that he intends to honour Qui-Gon's dying wish and train Anakin.

Yoda remains concerned.

But the Council agrees.

Anakin Skywalker will become Obi-Wan Kenobi's apprentice.

Anyone who watched the original trilogy already knows where that relationship eventually leads.

That's what gives the ending its weight.

We're watching the beginning of a friendship whose destruction will reshape the galaxy.

Naboo celebrates.

The Trade Federation has been defeated.

The Sith warrior is dead.

Peace appears to have returned.

But Yoda and Mace Windu know the Sith always operate in pairs.

A master and an apprentice.

The question is obvious.

Which one did Obi-Wan kill?

At Qui-Gon's funeral, Senator Palpatine watches.

Soon he will become Supreme Chancellor.

The heroes have won the battle.

The real enemy has quietly won something far more valuable.

Power.

Expectations surrounding The Phantom Menace were enormous.

For an entire generation, the original trilogy had been Star Wars.

Then George Lucas announced he was returning to tell the story that came before it.

Audiences would finally see Anakin Skywalker before Darth Vader.

Obi-Wan Kenobi as a young Jedi.

The Republic before the Empire.

The Jedi Order before its destruction.

And the political machinery that allowed Palpatine to rise.

The result expanded the visual language of Star Wars dramatically.

Naboo.

Coruscant.

The Jedi Council.

Podracing.

Battle droids.

Darth Maul.

A double-bladed lightsaber.

The galaxy suddenly felt much larger than the one audiences had left behind in 1983.

Knowing what happens later changes almost every scene in The Phantom Menace.

Anakin isn't simply an unusually gifted child.

He's Darth Vader.

Palpatine isn't simply a helpful senator.

He's Darth Sidious.

Obi-Wan isn't simply Qui-Gon's apprentice.

He will become Anakin's teacher, friend and eventually his opponent.

The Jedi Council isn't simply debating whether a boy should be trained.

It's making a decision that will echo across generations.

That's what makes Episode I the beginning of the prequel tragedy.

Nobody standing in the celebration on Naboo understands what's coming.

Anakin is free.

Obi-Wan has become a Jedi Knight.

Palpatine has risen.

The Sith have returned.

And somewhere beneath all the celebration, the first pieces of the Empire are already falling into place.