STAR WARS: The Trailer for Phantom Menace

In order to balance out the absurd anti-prequel sentiment in our last post, I thought it would be good to balance it out by posting one of the greatest trailers ever made in the history of cinema. And I say that with no hyperbole.

The Phantom Menace “Trailer A” was the world’s first like at a new Star Wars film in more than 15 years. Fox attached it to a variety of movies that we all had to pay full ticket price to see to see the trailer in its full glory. Sure, we downloaded it in quicktime, but with a dial up modem in 1998, that meant downloading all night. And if something went wrong, you had to start the download all over again.

 

Say what you will about The Phantom Menace (just not to me, keep it to yourself), this trailer was a stunning work of art.

 It had such an impact on me, I even based a fan-film I made in 2001 on it from memory. It’s called Revenge of the Jawa:

Click to see Revenge of the Jawa.

It’s important to remember that most people like the prequels and the generations who love them are getting older and venerating them the same way a narrow band of people who dislike the prequels worship the classic trilogy alone. There will be many from both of those generations who will probably do the same thing for this new trilogy.

But for those of us who love Star Wars in all its forms, we’re the most excited of all and we’ll be the most rewarded.

2015 can’t come soon enough.