So that was an incredible day.ĭoug Chiang, The Phantom Menace design director: I came to ILM in February 1989. It was the most highly-anticipated thing I can think of. We knew that this was going to be one of the most important projects that we would ever be involved in. Jean Bolte, The Phantom Menace Viewpaint supervisor: We all just sort of clutched our seats. I’m looking at writing stories now.” There was a lot of excitement about that. I remember around ’94 or so, in one of the company meetings he said, “Yeah, actually, I think I am. From the time I started there, every year somebody would ask, “Are you ever going to go back and make more Star Wars movies?” Back in the mid-‘90s, annually, we’d have a big company meeting, and George would usually address us and sort of tell us what he was thinking. John Knoll, The Phantom Menace visual effects supervisor: George had mentioned it in one of the company meetings. So there were a lot of issues that were just practical - Episode I wasn’t doable for a long time, so I waited until we had the technology to do it.
I had lots and lots of costumes, but I couldn’t afford to make them. I had cities, but I couldn’t build models that big. And in order to do that, I had to come up with a way of doing it, and that’s what digital technology brought me.
I had to go into the politics and the bigger issues of the Republic and that sort of thing. With Episode I, I didn’t want to tell a limited story. And I think we had more special effects than that did. Even in those days, 2001 cost like 25 million dollars. Today, that same film costs 300 million dollars. You have to remember, the first film was made for 13 million dollars. So it was really driven by what I could afford.
#Star wars episode i the phantom menace movie
We didn’t have a lot of the things that cost money on a movie like that. We didn’t go to any big cities, we didn’t have a lot of costumes, we didn’t have a lot of extras. The first three Star Wars films were designed very, very carefully to be done cheaply. George Lucas, The Phantom Menace writer and director, Star Wars creator: Well, my decision to make Episode I was more or less driven by technology. Lucas, for his part, spent the time raising his family and somewhat quietly shepherding the evolution of digital effects with Industrial Light & Magic, resulting in innovations like the liquid-metal T-1000 of Terminator 2 (1991) and the mind-blowingly lifelike dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (1993).įinally, on November 1, 1994, Lucas sat down to write Episode I. In the intervening years - dubbed “The Dark Times” by fans - Star Wars was largely absent from the public consciousness. Return of the Jedi Master: George Lucas with Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala.įollowing the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983, George Lucas’s commitments to Star Wars, at least in film, were complete. As The Phantom Menace celebrates its 20 th anniversary this month, spoke with several of its greatest architects to tell the story of how it came to be, and to reflect on it today. That might be especially true for The Phantom Menace, a colorful mashup of Kurosawa, political intrigue and history, racing, and family. “All of the Star Wars movies, in one way or another, are about me and my take on the world,” Lucas tells. George Lucas himself wrote the script and was back directing for the first time since 1977’s Star Wars, and the movie became a giant leap forward in digital effects - including a record number of effects shots and a major CG character in Jar Jar Binks. It was the first new film in the Star Wars saga since 1983’s Return of the Jedi, and the kickoff of the prequel trilogy, which promised to tell the story of how Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side and became Darth Vader, while the Emperor rose to power. Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace arrived on May 19, 1999, to a degree of anticipation and hype rarely seen before, or since, for a movie.
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