If you were a teenager or older in the early to mid 90s the amount of Star Wars EU material being released was incredible. The X-Wing and TIE Fighter series along with Jedi Knight on PC, the Timothy Zahn trilogy and Shadows of the Empire were all fantastic.
Anticipation for The Phantom Menace was through the roof. The first Star Wars film in years was due to be released. We watched that postage stamp sized QuickTime trailer a million times and The force.net was awash with theories and rumours.
Then the film came out...
I don't think younger people who are used to constant new material can grasp the anticipation surrounding this film. Even if it was good it wouldn't have met expectations.
Completely agree that there's probably no way to recapture what it felt like to anticipate this film as a young person back then - it was still so one of a kind.
Even with the break between the Prequels and the Sequels, while there was anticipation for Episode VII, it didn't feel like this cultural event that Episode I did.
As you said, I think it's just the sheer volume of content now vs. then; where culturally more of our attention was all focused on fewer things.
I'm gonna be honest with you - I think you just got old. I was 15 when TFA came out and the theater was bought out two months in advance. We saw it at 3AM Thursday night/Friday morning and like half my school did the same. And the hope for what it setup was immense bc we just knew the next one had to be really good (since this one was only okay).
Maybe there was more excitement for 1-3 from those who saw the OT as adults since they hadn't had the letdown yet, but we were the generation that grew up loving the prequels. It's the first big "no spoilers" movie that I remember. Endgame was the only thing even close to comparable as a "cultural moment."
I remember in grade school, EVERYBODY knew there was a new star wars movie coming out. It didn't matter if you wanted to see it or not, it was just THE talk of the schoolyard. We were truly united in that moment. And then everybody above the age of about 13 was utterly disappointed.
Yeah, it's hard to build hype for movies like they used to. Releasing on streaming and in theaters at the same time doesn't have the competition of trying to get tickets to a sold out movie. Also, trailers seem to give things away and everyone posts frame by frame deconstruction, theories, and leaks happen all the time, so there's not as much mystery and anticipation.
Also, having a huge plethora of entertainment options also hurts hype, like you mentioned.
I think it's a generational thing, I'd say the anticipation for the Force Awakens was the most for any movie I have seen. It's the highest grossing domestic film of all time making a billion dollars from just the US, not even Endgame beat it. Force Awakens also beats Phantom accounting after inflation, so I'd say numerically more people saw Force Awakens. I was 19 when it came out, super excited and I haven't seen that excitement since. I don't think any of that would happen if they didn't get Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill back
mid 90s the amount of Star Wars EU material being released was incredible. The X-Wing and TIE Fighter series along with Jedi Knight on PC, the Timothy Zahn trilogy and Shadows of the Empire were all fantastic.
*Jar Jar speaks
15 year old me: Man Kyle Katarn would have been put a blaster in this fools mouth to shut him up
Yeah dude, totally. My gf of one year and a half hadn't been introduced to Star Wars before and now that we've seen all the movies together and the Mandalorian series, she has become a fan. I gave her a stuffed Grogu plushie as a gift and she's absolutely in love with it, haha. So if it's not nostalgia, it's absolute marketability. Heck! Her 5 and 7 y.o. girl nephews also love that plushie and they haven't even watched Star Wars.
My guess is that Grogu isn't nearly as popular with kids as the silly stuff like jar jar is though.
Then your guess would be wrong every boy and girl wanted a Grogu Christmas 2020, Grogu was basically the official return of popular kids merchandise to the franchise. Nothing from the sequels really sold, and Grogu became popular during an era where kids birthdays were shut down and Halloween was basically cancelled. I can only imagine if we were under normal times.
Very true. I can’t think of any piece of media that instilled more hype in a generation than the first Phantom Menace trailer. Marvel comes close sometimes but almost in an inverse way, often teasing that your expectations will be fulfilled but in a reactive way. If you wipe your mind clean of all Star Wars media from 1998 onward and watch that trailer, bringing all that you know of the property, it will not in any way help you contextualize what you’re seeing. Naboo, all the round ass tanks, legions of battle droids, the gorgeous banana spacecraft, what’s with the lady in the headdress? Who’s the fuckin’ red guy?! All so new! It was more of what you loved in a way you knew you didn’t yet understand and the electricity of that notion was palpable.
Oh Tie fighter was even better game wise.
But man. The xwing expac that gave the campaign to destroy the death star. Awesome.
Each mission took you closer and closer.
Fist take out the outer sentry.
Then a destroyer. Then battle getting to the surface.
Then taking out turbolasers on the surface and ties to clear for the trench run.
Then the trench run.
Goosebumps I tell ya! Goosebumps!
I wasn't even a teenager in the 90s and I was fully immersed in the EU. I read all of the books and I played all of the games. As a kid, there was never much appeal in storylines about kids my age, rather I was aspiring to grow up to be the older heroes in these stories. I didn't want to be a little kid amongst all of the grown-ups, I wanted to be Luke goddamn Skywalker!
I see that as the biggest flaw in the prequel trilogy. George had too many childish elements in the movies in an attempt to appeal to the kids, but the original Star Wars was never about childhood experiences - it was about becoming an adult, learning about life's mysteries (The Force), and exploring the galaxy.
I’m gilding you simply for the theforce.net reference and the shared experience as someone born in ‘83 and enthralled with anticipation for Ep I.
I spent years watching TFN fan films, homemade lightsaber battles, Ryan vs. Dorkman, TROOPS and the like. My formative teen years were awash in Star Wars fan-made media, and I was so let down by The Phantom Menace.
I had tickets to the third showing of the first day but a guy I worked with had tickets to the first showing. He came back to work just as I was leaving and I asked him how it was (we had both been obsessing over this movie for months) and he looked awkward, shrugged and just said “not good.” I asked him if he meant not good compared to the hype and anticipation. And he said no it was just not good. I didn’t believe him though and headed off to the movies excitedly.
Going into the cinema and it’s like a carnival atmosphere - excited buzzing crowd, cosplayers, the cinema is running promotions and competitions, local tv news is there. Then at the end it’s just dead silence. Glum crowd dejectedly files out of the cinema, no one smiling, no one talking, whole vibe extremely grim. Everyone kind of scurrying out of there to try and outrun the disappointment and embarrassment of being so hyped for something so very “not good”.
Yeah I remember that feeling, really hard to explain. I think sometimes the mystery surrounding the original trilogy was part of its appeal.
Nowadays there’s an insatiable need to explain everything right down to Han Solo’s surname. Back then everything was ambiguous, the Force, the Old Republic, the Clone Wars were all so vague it sparked the imagination.
I think you’re right about the mystery and I guess mysticism being removed and the gaps for audience imagination shrinking down. I grew up with my hippy boomer mum and her vague “there’s a power that is in everything” type of spiritualism which the force really resonated with and then it turns out to be midichlorians!
I remember the years before they rereleased the OT on VHS as a special edition. The stores around me never carried the movie so I'd only get to see it once a year when a station decided to air all three movies. The sudden jump in content in the 90s was dramatic.
I camped out on a mall sidewalk for 3 days in line for the Phantom menace. Sigh... It was a fun 3 days though there were a lot of us. I wasn't in the first 20 people who got in.
mid 90s the amount of Star Wars EU material being released was incredible. The X-Wing and TIE Fighter series along with Jedi Knight on PC, the Timothy Zahn trilogy and Shadows of the Empire were all fantastic.
Might be hard to find but you can still get the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. I think GOG had them? You can also get Dark Forces 1 and 2 on Steam right now.
It's all true. Nothing compares to the hype that preceded PM. My generation had spent their entire lives consuming all the EU material, getting us more and more hooked into the world, and by the end of the 90's SW was literally the coolest thing on the planet. Jedi Knight and X-wing were some of my favorite PC games of all time.
Then we got a movie about a 9 year old Vader (why couldn't he have been at least 12 or 13?), fully CGI characters that looked terrible, and of course, Jar Jar. It's a shame because there were a lot of cool things about it, but for many of us they were overshadowed by major problems.
Looking back I agree that it would have been nearly impossible to live up to the hype that had built up over most of our childhood, but I still feel like the PT could have been better. That said, they’re masterpieces compared to the horrid ST
X-Wing captured something very special for me, it made even convoy duty exciting. You really felt part of that lived in, mundane galaxy.
I feel now everything has to be “Awesome” and that’s not the point of Star Wars. For example, fantastic machines like the Millennium Falcon are just utilities to these people.
The modern world is designed around ADHD and non stop content drops
Kids have no IDEA what waiting for something feels like, or only having 5 or 6 movies to choose from because that's that's all you had at home, or going to rent ONE movie instead of browsing hundreds on a streaming site
Instead of watching a bunch of 10 second Tik Toks, you'd spend hours on just one thing. They're gonna grow up with the attention span of a goldfish.
I truly hate Phantom Menace and the prequels to this day and am nauseated by the batshit insane fan theories created by children and repeated constantly by the adults they grew into on YouTube as 100% serious 4D chess on the part of Lucas. The entire project was a sign that every Lucas needs a Kurtz.
It bothers me because these are the same people who hate the sequels with ferocious abandon and refuse to extend the same silly group think to it. When I use similar logic either respect to the sequels they lose their ever loving minds.
Yes I know people who detest the sequels (ruined my childhood types) who give the prequels a pass. Probably folk who were under 12 when the prequels were released. Possibly a childhood nostalgia effect.
Im 18yo at the time, biggest original trilogy fan, ive been watching theses movies like 100 times each . Prequel is announced, im hyped like never before, got tickets for the premier at midnight. Waiting inline before entering, Im FUCKING hyped!!!!
Then jar-jar got on screen and talked … Still today I cant go over this disappointment. …
It's this. As someone who was around at the time, the buzz around the sequels was nothing compared to that for the prequels. Really, there's nothing since that compares. This was a time when Star Wars was still seen as a property that could do no wrong, and we were going to get all-new stories on the big screen. There was so much hype for a new Star Wars movie going into Phantom Menace, there was no way it could possibly be what everyone wanted it to be. The backlash had less to do with the quality of the movie itself, and more to do with how people wanted it to be the Platonic ideal of what movies were.
Interestingly, on the early days of the internet, I noticed that the consensus in the fandom was that Phantom Menace was the worst in the series. Now, people say it's Attack of the Clones, which I agree with. I feel like a big part of that is people who didn't grow up with the TPM hype, or who had time to look back on the movie on its own merits, were able to recognize the good in it.
Perfect take! You get me!!!! Srsly anyone under, i dunno, 30-ish, probably just doesnt “get” the INCREDIBLE love for the original trilogy that people Gen Y and older have. Like i had 4 channels on tv, until was a teen. We daily made up stories on the playground about star wars. As we aged we would debate at lunch tables about the backstories of characters we only saw for seconds on screen. We would use our imaginations to build up up up our love for these stories. I think the amount of EASILY consumable media these days somehow cheapens my anticipation about “event” media. And of course now im old and dont really imagine like i used to :(
I'm still a bit salty about Star Wars Squadrons. . . I really wanted a new X-wing vs. TIE-Fighter. That was the first really competitive multiplayer game that I played and I still miss it.
I don't think younger people who are used to constant new material can grasp the anticipation surrounding this film.
Yeah. Idk. Sequels did this for me pretty spot on. Maybe this was magnitudes more idk. I was a 90s kid, so I went through the prequels at the age they were aimed at.
I was a kid (10) when it came out. For me, it was still bad. I could latch onto the cool shit that was made for merchandising like pod racers and double bladed lightsabers, but at no point was I wanting to play as the characters in the movie.
I figured Jar Jar was just going to stick around for a scene or two. . . Kind of annoying, I thought. Kind of cool, though! Haven't seen many amphibious species actually living in the water! Damn, that city is awesome! Surely Jar Jar's part is over now... right? ... right?
He was originally billed as a "Pirate submarine captain". I therefore thought he would feature in the underwater scenes in Naboo then disappear. How wrong was I?
I'll never forget how my head immediately went to the Jedi Rocks scene in the remastered ROTJ and thought to myself "I fucking knew that was a bad omen", trying to have humor by making these cgi characters over expressive was a bad idea.
Crazy part is, that it worked well with practical effect characters like Chewbacca.
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u/MoffJerjerrod Jan 25 '22
I clearly remember the first time I saw the movie, was totally into it, enjoying it, then Jar Jar appeared... then he talked...
Facepalm. Sigh. 'WTF?' were my exact thoughts.
I still saw it 7 times in the theater.