defective yeti

Start FF time

End FF time

Elapsed Time

What you're missing

Why you might want to watch it

14:25

24:46

10:21

Following the formula that worked oh so well in Phantom Menace, Lucas grinds his film to a halt 15 minutes in for an interminable sequence that does absolutely nothing to advance the plot. This time we have Obi Wan and Anakin racing around in a jetcar as they chase down the assassin who attempted to kill Amidala, confronting the assassin in a bar, and then dragging the out to a back alley, only to see her killed by a dart from the gun of Jango Fett before she can reveal any useful information.

The bar scene is marginally interesting so you could stop fast-forwarding at 21:46, but I suggest you just lose the assassin entirely, since she in completely unnecessary. Just imagine that Jango himself was the one who tried to kill Amidala and Obi Wan found the dart on the scene.

34:50

36:03

1:13

Love scene: The first of many.

Anakin gives a little background on the Jedi and mentions that they discourage "attachments" (i.e., "nookie").

44:00

45:48

1:48

Love scene: Good gravy, this one is really dreadful. AVOID.

To see Anakin and Amidala first kiss.

47:47

50:17

2:30

Love scene: Anakin and Amidala talk politics

The scene contains this exchange which is actually kinda important:

Amidala: The trouble is that people don't always agree

Anakin: But then they should be made to.

Amidala: Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.

Anakin: Well? If it works ...

53:00

56:41

3:41

Love scene: Anakin and Amidala discuss the assorted reasons why their relationship is forbidden.

If you've ever wondered what Romeo and Juliet would have sounded like had it had been written by a 12 year-old girl.

1:37:17

1:42:38

5:21

Anaki and Amidala wander into a droid factory; the subsequent scenes are as exhilarating as sitting on your couch and watching your roommate play Tomb Raider. This whole sequence looks so much like a video game that I expected the Master Control Program to be awaiting them at the end. Skipping this scene is also essential if you want to avoid entry #3 in the litany of Wrongheaded Star Wars Revisionism; namely R2-D2 CAN FLY WTF DON'T YOU THINK THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN USEFUL IN EPISODES 4-6??!!

There's no good reason for this scene, and it doesn't even make sense according to the movie's own (tenuous) internal logic. All you need to know is that Amidala and Anakin are captured by Dooku's forces.

1:42:38

1:49:32

6:54

Dooku tosses Anakin and Amidala into a arena along with the previously captured Obi Wan, and the three have to fight off a multitude of crappily-rendered CGI beasties.

Astute readers will notice that the start time for this segment is the same as the end time for the last. Why didn't I just lump them together into one fast-forward, then? Because you need to see the conclusion to the arena battle -- my recommended fast-forward ends as the heroes are surrounded by battle droids -- so you may just want to watch the whole thing. But I still advise against it.

2:15:47

2:22:20

7:07

End Credits

You want to check for the thirtieth time to see if that's really Samuel L. Jackson in the role of Mace Windu, so you can marvel at Lucus' uncanny ability to coax subpar performances out of even great actors (see also: Natalie Portman).

No, I haven't seen Revenge Of The Sith yet. Stop asking.

I had never intended to see it soon after it's opening, although I have resigned myself to the inevitability of seeing it in the theater eventually. Actually, I was kind of excited about it for a little while, but my enthusiasm seems to have peaked about a week ago, and my interest in the film has been dwindling ever since.

So in an effort to rekindle the Star Wars flame -- or possibly snuff it out entirely -- I decided to rewatch The Phantom Menace. I wanted to reacquaint myself with the story, and this seemed the best way to do it -- even though, truth be told, I was dreading the screening. I'd seen The Phantom Menace twice before, and pretty much hated it both times.

What I really wanted was an abridged version of the film, with just the plot and the cool scenes but none of the crap. Such a version is rumored to exist in the form of The Phantom Edit, but I had no idea how to secure a copy. The next best thing would have been a knowledgeable friend sitting next to me as I watched the DVD, telling me what stuff I should fast-forward through.

Well, I'm that knowledeable friend now. If you foolishly decide to watch The Phantom Menace yourself, here's all the skippable stuff.

I started compiling these fast-forwards with two objectives: to get the film under 90 minutes, and to eliminate as much Jar-Jar Binks as possible; halfway through the film I spontaneously added a third: to omit all the midichlorian flummery. (This might be a bad idea -- it's possible they play a role in Revenge of the Sith, though I'm guessing that, like Jar-Jar, Lucas is going to pretend like he'd never introduced them.)

Start FF time	End FF time	Elapsed Time	What you're missing	Why you might want to watch it
10:55	18:40	7:45	Qui-Gon and Obi Wan flee Trade Federation ship and literally run into Jar-Jar; he takes them to the Gungan city, where they are given a ship to travel through the planet's core to reach the main Naboo city. Many gratuitous special effects and much Jar-Jar bufoonery ensues.	If you can't remember the exact moment in The Phantom Menace when you realized the movie was going to suck Tauntaun balls, you could remind yourself by watching this eight-minute scene, jam-packed with Jar-Jar and jar-jarringly bad dialog.
19:19	20:39	1:20	Underwater voyage concluded; Qui-Gon, Obi Wan and Jar-Jar arrive at Naboo city	If you watched the previous sequence and really, really liked that part where the giant marine monster attacked their ship, only to then be eaten by an even larger creature, you could watch this segment and see that exact scene a second time.
28:53	29:30	0:37	Padme meets Jar-Jar; Jar-Jar recaps the last 15 minutes of the movie in unintelligible gibberish	None. Seriously, this scene serves no function whatsoever.
30:13	31:38	1:25	Padme, Qui-Gon and Jar-Jar walk into a Tatooine town. Padme insists on accompanying them. Once in town, the look for somewhere to buy parts for their broken spaceships	Qui-Gon gives little background on Tatooine, but doesn't say anything you didn't know from A New Hope. The presence of Jar-Jar (stepping in dewback droppings no less -- hah hah!) negates the usefulness of the exposition.
35:16	37:10	1:54	Jar-Jar's slapstick in a Tatooine market gets him in trouble; Anakin intercedes on his behalf.	This is arguably the most important scene in the entire film, as it's when Anakin meets his first Jedi in the form of Qui-Gon. Padme and Jar-Jar met Anakin in an earlier scene, though, so all you need to know is that Anakin recognizes the Gungan and joins the party as they wander around the market.
47:13	51:08	3:55	Oh man, there's a lot of bad stuff in just four minutes. First: Anakin has no father, and was the product of immaculate conception: WHAT. THE. FUCK. LUCAS????!!!!! Then we get Anakin working on his pod racer with a generous side of intolerable Jar-Jar slapstick. And then, as if you aren't already trying to figure out a way to go back in time and kill Lucas's great-grandfather, we get "midichlorians" sprung-on us, the ridiculous "mastery of the force has a biological component" claptrap that is second only to "Greedo shot first" in the litany of Wrongeheaded Star Wars Revisionism.	Anakin is teased by some local kids while working in on his pod racer in a scene that proves the unprovable: there exist worse child actors than Jake Llyod. (His last name is spelled with two l's -- you know, like "unwatchablle".)
55:24	1:10:01	14:25	The pod race. Yes, in its entirely. If you're bridling at the suggestion that you omit what was often cited as the best sequence in the whole movie (after the final light saber battle), then you clearly don't remember how unfathomably boring it was. It may have been worth watching for the state-of-the-art special effects when Phantom was first released, but now it looks like the obsolete video game it essentially is. Just skip it. Anakin wins, that's all you need to know.	If you are a big fan of The Wacky Racers but wish the races were twice as long and half as interesting.
1:25:07	1:25:16	00:09	This is the briefest fast-forward in this entire guide, but essential if you want to steer clear of the midichlorians.	Like Transformers combining into a single, giant robot, here Lucas manages to takes the two dumbest conceits of the film -- Anakin's immaculate conceptions and the midichlorians -- and weave them into a revelation that is stupider than the sum of its parts: Anakin may have been sired by the midichlorians. Gah!
1:35:31	1:36:21	0:50	MIDICHLORIANS I AM NOT LISTENING LA LA LA LA LA!!!	Lucas's clumsy attempt to show off what little he remembered of "mitochondria" from his eighth-grade biology class wonderfully illustrates the old adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
1:48:18	1:50:03	1:45	As in Return of the Jedi, the climax of Phantom Menace cuts back and forth between two separate battles. In this case, it's the Gungans trying hold back the droid invasion of Naboo, while Qui-Gon, Obi Wan, and Anakin attempt to disable the robots by destroying the spaceship that controls them. Unfortunately, only the latter is interesting. The skirmish between the droids and the Gungans looks like shit now that you've seen computer-generated mass-battles done right in Lord of the Rings, Jar-Jar zaniness infests every scene, and the whole thing is completely lacking in tension. Better to just skip it and stick to the other plotline.	If you haven't seen a movie featuring computer animation in the last few years, you may still be impressed by the special effects showcased here. But, then again, maybe not: I remember thinking the whole thing looked fakey even in 2001.
1:53:05	1:53:35	0:30	More Gungan v. droids.	If you've skipped all the scenes I've suggested above, you could watch this one to remind yourself how Jar-Jar almost singlehandedly ruined the Star Wars franchise.
1:54:32	1:55:19	0:47	One of the stupidest escape sequences ever committed to celluloid.	Actually, this one is so awful it's almost worth watching.
1:56:40	1:58:10	1:30	More Gungan v. Droids	You know, trying to find positive things to say about this movie is wearying.
2:09:45	2:16:00	6:15	End credits	You're dying to know who the gaffer was.

Total time saved: 42:42 (although I'll admit that including the end credits in the time is kinda cheating).

Conclusion: Rather to my surprise, The Phantom Menace was every bit as bad as I remembered. I thought that perhaps it had gotten worse in my memory, but, nope: it's full-on travesty. The saddest thing is that the first 10 minutes of the film are very promising, making minutes 11-138 all the more tragic, like spotting a $100 bill on the sidewalk, bending over to pick it up, and having a piano dropped on you.

"Unlike you I am not an idiot and have no intention to rewatching Phantom Menace, so why don't you sum up?": You can find a very thorough summary here. In a nutshell, though, there are three main points:

Senator Palpatine, in the guise of Darth Sidious, engineers the invasion of Naboo, knowing that the Republic's Chancellor will be unable to deal with it. When his prediction proves true, Palpatine arranges for a vote of no-confidence in the current leadership, and, in its aftermath, is voted into the position of Chancellor -- his true aim all along.
Qui-Gon and Obi Wan, two Jedis, encounter a boy named Anakin Skywalker, who has more innate ability with the Force than anyone they have ever met. Anakin is taken to the Jedi Council where he proves his aptitude with the Force. The Council refuses to train him, however, saying that he is too old and full of fear. Qui-Gon defiantly decides to train Anakin himself, and the Council grudgingly agrees. When Qui-Gon later dies, he makes Obi Wan promise to continue Anakin's training.
Qui-Gon and Obi Wan are attacked by Darth Maul, a member of a group called the Sith that was thought long extinct. The Jedi Council considers the reemergence of the Sith be be worrisome in the extreme.

Random revelation: I have long assumed that the title of the final movie in the series, Return of the Jedi, refers to Luke Skywalker. At some point in watching Phantom Menace, though, it occurred to me that the titular Jedi could be Darth Vader -- when Luke is on the verge of being killed, the Jedi in Anakin returns and intervenes.