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Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace |
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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Released 1999 by Lucasfilm Ltd./Video release date April 3, 2000
Directed by George Lucas
Starring Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd
The Star Wars saga returns with the first installment of a new trilogy that reveals the history behind the classic Star Wars movies. The new series focuses on Anakin Skywalker, the boy who grew up to become Darth Vader. In The Phantom Menace, a pair of Jedi knights run into trouble when they try to mediate a trade dispute on the planet of Naboo. They escape with the planet's queen, but are forced to make an emergency landing on the remote planet of Tatooine, where they make the acquaintance of Anakin. They are able to repair their ship after winning a bet on a spectacular podrace. Young Skywalker returns to Naboo with them, and they proceed to hand the bad guys a sound defeat. This film quickly became one of the ten top-grossing movies of all time.
Warwick Davis plays four different characters in this movie. The first is Wald, a six-year-old Rodian who is a friend of Anakin. He is the only one of Warwick's characters to be listed in the credits. Wald makes his first appearance while Anakin is working on his podracer. Wald has only one line of dialogue, but he can be glimpsed frequently before, during and after the podrace.
Wald originally had a bigger part with more dialogue. The
picture at the top of the page shows him in conversation with Anakin, a scene that never
occurred in the finished movie. The picture at left (from the
Episode One Insider's Guide) shows the deleted scene of Anakin's scuffle with Greedo.
The two youngsters get into a fight when Greedo accuses Anakin of cheating in the podrace.
After Qui-Gon breaks up the fight Greedo walks over to fellow Rodian Wald, who tells Greedo
he will come to a bad end if he keeps this up. That's Greedo lying on the ground in the
picture; Wald is standing at the far right. ( Thanks to
T'bone's Star Wars Universe
for the picture.) This scene is included in
the DVD's deleted scene library, but a scene where Wald wishes Anakin good luck
before the pod race didn't make it in. Click here to read about
the scandalous way Anakin repays Wald's friendship!
My favorite Warwick Davis character in this movie is Weazel, a gambler at the podrace. Although he has no audible dialogue and is seen only in brief glimpses, his vivid facial expressions and varied emotions make you feel that he's a very real person with an interesting story to tell.
Warwick's third character doesn't currently have a name; there are rumors that Warwick plans to have a contest to name him one of these days on The Offical Warwick Davis Website. The character is popularly known on the Internet as Grimy Man. He's not easy to find without help - if you blink at the wrong moment, you'll miss him, and I couldn't spot him myself until T'bone told me where to look. The moment after the heroes enter the town of Mos Espa on Tatooine, a short person and a tall person walk across the screen in the background, moving from left to right. It's not the same angle as in the picture at the top of the page; you can't see their faces. Warwick is the short person, of course. There's also a brief behind-the-scenes glimpse of Grimy about 33½ minutes into the DVD's Making Episode I documentary.
The fourth character Warwick plays is none other than Jedi Master Yoda. Most of Yoda's scenes are accomplished using a puppet or CG animation, but Lucasfilm did resort to a little live action when Yoda had to walk in The Phantom Menace. It's generally rumored that the specific scene comes near the end of the movie, when Yoda can be glimpsed disembarking from a spaceship on Tatooine. Yoda's main walking scene, where he paces around while talking to Obi-Wan, looks like CG to me.
The Articles section includes a number of Star Wars-related articles.
The Pictures section includes Star Wars photo galleries.
The Star Wars saga is immensely popular. Many books have been written about it, and there are hundreds of fan pages on the Internet. There are so many great sites that it's impossible to list them all, but a few favorites are included here.
Starwars.com- the official Star Wars website, which has a Warwick Davis biography here.
theforce.net- continuous coverage of the making of the prequels and many other features. There's a 1998 interview with Warwick in the Jedi Council section.
T'bone's Star Wars Universe has an
extensive collection of rare behind-the-scenes photos, a great cut scenes
archive, and much, much more.
