Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (novelization) Review

Every Saga Has a Beginning..... 

On May 19, 1999, almost 16 years to the day in which Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi had first been shown in theaters, I was one of the millions of movie-goers who rushed to multiplexes and other movie theaters to see Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the first chapter of George Lucas's Prequel Trilogy, on its premiere date.

A month earlier, Del Rey Books and Lucas Books had released the hard cover edition of Terry Brooks' novelization of Lucas's screenplay for the first of three stories which chronicle the rise of Anakin Skywalker - Luke and Leia's father - from a childhood slavery on Tatooine to Jedi hero, and his fall to the dark side and ultimate transition into Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith.

 When the first edition came out almost 10 years ago, I was faced with a Death Star-sized dillemma.  Either I waited four weeks to see Episode I on Opening Day and be taken totally by surprise, or I bought the novel (and if possible, the soundtrack album) to ease off my junkie-like's eagerness to get a Star Wars fix at the height of Phantom mania.

Naturally, I bought the novel, the illustrated screenplay and the soundtrack first.

Although I had heard much about Terry Brooks and his Shannara stories, I have never really been into the swords-and-sorcery genre popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien's books of hobbits and Middle Earth, so this would be the first time I ever read any of Brooks' works.

Because Lucasfilm had been "leaking" a few vague factoids about why Darth Vader wore that life-support suit as early as the late 1970s in such official publications as The Star Wars Poster Magazine, I already had figured out that The Phantom Menace had to start at a point in Anakin Skywalker's life when he was still a good person and was able to begin his training as a Jedi under Obi-Wan Kenobi's tutelage.

Also, because I know a little bit about the storytelling process, I figured out - even before I started reading the novel or Lucas's screenplay - that this was the exposition part of the saga that serves to introduce the characters and explains how the Galactic Republic's corrupt political system was primed for the inevitable transition to the fascist-like Empire seen in the Classic Trilogy.

Of course, Brooks devotes much of the novel to following the storyline as it was presented in the movie, starting with the attempt by Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to negotiate with the Trade Federation to end its blockade of the small planet of Naboo.  The Neimoidian-led conglmerate, aided and abetted by a mysterious Sith Lord named Darth Sidious, is irate that the Galactic Congress has passed a tax on the trade routes between the Core Worlds and the galaxy's Outer Rim.  Following Darth Sidious' advice to punish one of the worlds whose Senator backs the tax, the Trade Federation has encircled Naboo with a fleet of battleships, hoping the planet's young elected monarch, Queen Amidala, will pressure Senator Palpatine to withdraw his support for the tax and weaken Supreme Chancellor Valorum's already waning popularity in the Senate.

But even before Brooks gets into the now-familiar storyline of how Nute Gunray and his henchmen attempt to kill the Jedi and set off the chain of events that leads Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Amidala and the klutzy Jar Jar Binks to flee Naboo and end up on Tatooine, he has already given us four chapters set before the film begins about young Anakin Skywalker's life as a slave, aspiring Podracer and wannabe Jedi Knight whose biggest desire is to free Tatooine's slaves, particularly his mother Shmi, who's also one of Watto's slaves in the town of Mos Espa.

My Viewpoint

Though I wish (as I did in 1999) that Lucas Books had given the contract for this adaptation to an established Star Wars writer along the lines of Timothy Zahn or Alan Dean Foster, Terry Brooks' novel does help clear up or at least flesh out much of the exposition of Episode I's sometimes Byzantine plot, particularly when it deals with the politics of the Senate and Palpatine's Machiavellian maneuvering to become Supreme Chancellor.

Particularly interesting to me are some of the sequences early in the novel which precede the main plot in which we see Anakin Skywalker as a wide-eyed nine-year-old who dreams of flying to the distant stars and doing good as a Jedi Knight.

A noteworthy sequence describes Anakin's rescue of a wounded Tusken Raider (Sand Person) that he and his barely-built protocol droid, C-3PO-- find alone and near death in the Jundland Wastes.  Here we see Anakin's mix of kindness and recklessness at play, and it's an especially bittersweet highlight of how nice he is at this point in time, considering that a decade later Anakin will destroy a Tusken camp in revenge for his mother's kidnapping and death by the Sand People.

The Phantom Menace fills in some of the blanks in the Star Wars backstory, answering such questions as:

What were the roots of Anakin Skywalker's anger?

How did Artoo Detoo and See Threepio meet?

How did Jedi Knights serve as guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic?

How did Palpatine rise from sectoral Senator to Supreme Chancellor?

Star Wars fans know, of course, the future fate of the major characters of The Phantom Menace and the changes to come in the galaxy. Palpatine will someday be the Emperor, Obi-Wan Kenobi will end up on Tatooine as one of the last surviving members of the Jedi Order, keeping an eye on Anakin's future son Luke. Anakin Skywalker, of course, is destined to become the Sith Lord named Darth Vader, and young Queen Amidala will grow up to be Anakin's wife and mother of his two children.

Yet Brooks focuses on this transitional time in Anakin's life, when he's still a child with good instincts and big dreams, dropping subtle hints here and there that foreshadow the events that will turn a heroic Jedi into one of the most iconic villains in movie history.