Get Mauled by The Trailer for the Remastered “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace”
The new trailer for the remastered Star Wars: The Phantom Menace brings us back, chronologically speaking, to the events that reshaped the galaxy forever. George Lucas’s world-beating sci-fi franchise began in earnest with 1977’s Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, yet it was The Phantom Menace, released 22 years later in 1999, that began to piece together the story behind the original trilogy, tracking the rise of the Emperor and his most lethal ally, Darth Vader, by introducing us to a child by the name of Anakin Skywalker.
The trailer celebrates the re-release of the first film in Lucas’s prequel trilogy, which carried on with Attack of the Clones in 2002 and Revenge of the Sith in 2005. The film returned to theaters over the May 4th weekend, pulling in an extremely impressive $14.5 million at the global box office, a pretty stunning achievement for the re-release of a film that’s a quarter of a century old.
The Phantom Menace is centered on the life of a young Anakin Skywalker, a gifted child whose journey will come to have a massive effect on the galaxy (and, as we know, he will go on to father Luke and Leia Skywalker, although he’ll have a, um, troubled relationship with them. We watch that child (played in Phantom by Jake Lloyd) become a young man (played by Hayden Christensen) in The Clone Wars and The Revenge of the Sith, the latter of which detailed Anakin’s final, excruciating descent into the Sith lord Darth Vader after a brutal lightsaber battle with his former mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). That fight also explained how and why Darth Vader ended up in that iconic helmet, and it was far more brutal than anything we’d seen in Star Wars up to that point.
Christensen has since reprised the role in two Star Wars series for Disney+: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka. In these series, his tortured Sith Lord battles his old Jedi master Obi-Wan and battles and teaches his former Padawan warrior, Ahsoka, how to survive in a brutal galaxy.
The remastered re-release of The Phantom Menace celebrates its 25th anniversary—it premiered on May 19, 1999—and also introduced us to Ewan McGregor’s younger version of Obi-Wan, Liam Neeson’s Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, Natalie Portman’s Queen Amidala/Padmé (Luke and Leia’s mother), Ian McDiarmid’s Senator Palpatine, and Ahmed Best’s Jar Jar Binks, as well as re-introduced Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker as C-3P0 and R2-D2 respectively and Frank Oz as Yoda. The film also introduced us to Ray Park’s formidable Darth Maul. If you head to the theater to see The Phantom Menace, you’ll also get a special glimpse at the upcoming series Star Wars: The Acolyte.
Check out the trailer below. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is in theaters now.
For more on all things Star Wars, check out these stories:
“The Mandalorian & Grogu” Looks to Add Sci-Fi Legend Sigourney Weaver to the “Star Wars” Universe
“Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace” has Big Re-Release to Celebrate 25th Anniversary
Featured image: Ray Park is Darth Maul in “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” Courtesy Lucasfilm.
