Happy (I Guess?) 20th Anniversary To The Phantom Menace

The Beginning Of The End, and the Long, Slow Downward Spiral. Believe it or not, The Phantom Menace was released exactly TWENTY YEARS ago today, on May 19,1999.

I vividly recall Star Wars fans working themselves into a lather when The Phantom Menace trailer was released, exhaustively analyzing ever single frame. Heck, things got so crazy that they actually paid good money for tickets to the movie Meet Joe Black, the trailer was playing before it. And once they'd seen the brief two minute preview, they exited the theater en masse!

I remember there was a HUGE merchandising push for the movie— every product you could possibly imagine had the logo slapped onto it, and licensed crap was being sold everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE— even in places that had no business selling such merch. They even had an action figure display inside my local gas station! 

Then the movie finally premiered, and cineplexes across the country were littered with the broken and shattered bodies of disappointed fans. It wasn't pretty. With all that buildup, it was inevitable that the movie would disappoint..

It's hard to believe it's been TWENTY years since George Lucas foisted this horse-faced, lop-eared frog onto an unsuspecting public. It just doesn't seem possible that we've been living in this Post-Jar Jar World for an entire decade. How quickly the years roll by.