What does THE PHANTOM MENACE REFER TOO???

I'm a huge fan of star wars, and I never quite understood the title to Episode 1 TPM. Can someone explain to me what THE PHANTOM MENACE IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN???

Strilo edit: Please check the forum index thread for an existing thread on this topic.

 

The phantom menace has 2 meanings
1: the most obvious is darth maul, cause he is all evil looking like a phantom
2: the other is darth sidious bringing evl from the shadows, like a phantom
hope this helps
plokoonkenobi77

 

i always thought it was the sith in general, not just maul or sidious

 

Lemme help:

"I think it is obvious that [Qui-Gon] was wrong in Episode I and made a dangerous decision, but ultimately this decision may be correct. The ?phantom menace? refers to the force of the dark side of the universe. Anakin will be taken over by dark forces which in turn destroy the balance of the Galaxy, but the individual who kills the Emperor is Darth Vader?also Anakin. The tale meanders and both the prediction and Qui-Gon are correct?Anakin is the chosen one, and he did bring peace at last with his own sacrifice. Luke couldn't kill the Emperor himself, but he could make Anakin reflect on his life and kill the Emperor."

--George Lucas, Cut Magazine interview, 1999

 

I read an interview with GL, just before ROTS came out, and he got asked the question. His answer at that time was "The dark side of the force".
But you know georgie, he will change his mind soon and it will be something else!!

 

Look above you darth_punk

 

Looks like I was typing when you posted

 

Yeah, along with the Dark Side of the Force it also refers to Darth Sidious and the Dark Side of Anakin Skywalker.

 

Sidious is the Phantom Menace, and he represents the sith as a whole.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yup.

 

The "phantom menace" was the distractive threat by the Trade Federation, which was believed to be the greatest menace to the Republic at the time, while in truth it was staged and not a real menace at all. It was a phantom menace, a bogus, a diversion and a tool to promote the real threat, which was the "how to become chancellor" agenda of Palpatine.

 

The Phanton Menace is a shadowy man named Darth Sidious, who is seen by the audience (us), but not by the good guys in the movie. Sidious is also an ambitious and unassuming senator from Naboo named Palpatine, who is trying to manuever his way into more political power while trying to force Amidala to have a treaty signed that will make an invasion legal so he take the credit for stopping it, thus removing Valorum from office and positioning himself in Valorum's seat in order to do so, which will eventually lead to a staged war that will cause countless Jedi their lives, while keeping himself in more of a political postion to receive executive power from the Galatic Senate, which will in turn make the Jedi distrust him so he can eventually accuse them of treason and have them wiped out so the Sith can rule the galaxy with no opposition from the Jedi.

 

very good mjerome3

 

The title works like RoTJ in that it can represent several key themes and characters. However, if you subscribe to the idea that the Saga comprises the story of Anakin Skywalker, then it seems obvious that The Phantom Menace refers to the boy who later becomes pure evil.

 

i always thought it was sio bibble. he's got something up his sleeve.

 

I think Lucas discussed this in TPM DVD commentary. I think it refers to Palpatine.

BUT personally I think it could be many different phantom menaces. ie. The darkside, the sith, darth maul, darth sidiuos, darth vader, the empire... evil in general.

 

"I think it is obvious that [Qui-Gon] was wrong in Episode I and made a dangerous decision, but ultimately this decision may be correct. The ?phantom menace? refers to the force of the dark side of the universe. Anakin will be taken over by dark forces which in turn destroy the balance of the Galaxy, but the individual who kills the Emperor is Darth Vader?also Anakin. The tale meanders and both the prediction and Qui-Gon are correct?Anakin is the chosen one, and he did bring peace at last with his own sacrifice. Luke couldn't kill the Emperor himself, but he could make Anakin reflect on his life and kill the Emperor."

--George Lucas, Cut Magazine interview, 1999

There's the answer, in black and white. Nothing to see here, move along

 

Interesting in that quote you bring up. Because now we have two different versions. One he says it is Sidious, period, and in that one he is saying it is Anakin. So i guess the correct answer is "dark forces", which would apply to both Sidious and Vader--i guess this still makes the "phantom menace is the sith" statement correct.

 

In the February 1999 issue of VANITY FAIR magazine, George Lucas stated that Darth Sidious was The Phantom Menace.

 

Well, explaining the Trade Federation story and Sidious' plots would've given away one and a half movies to come at that time, so it wouldn't have been that smart to tell them in 1999.

What I don't understand is how the Sith, Anakin, the dark side etc. are a phantom menace? They are a hidden menace, I'd agree. But a phantom is:

- Something apparently seen, heard, or sensed, but having no physical reality; a ghost or an apparition.
- Something elusive or delusive.
- An image that appears only in the mind; an illusion

(www.dictionary com).
So as I understand it, it is something that is the illusion of a menace which doesn't really exist.

 

phantom as in you cant see it but its there--beneath the surface of things. Not too hard to understand.

 

It's a lot like A New Hope. The Phantom Menace can mean a lot of things:

The rise of Palpatine/Darth Sidious
The emergence of Anakin
The downfall of the Republic

And actually now that I'm typing this, the meanings almost mirror some of the meanings found in a A New Hope. A New could mean:

The rise of the Rebellion
The emergence of Luke and Leia
The downfall of the Empire

 

What I don't understand is how the Sith, Anakin, the dark side etc. are a phantom menace? They are a hidden menace, I'd agree. But a phantom is:

- Something apparently seen, heard, or sensed, but having no physical reality; a ghost or an apparition.
- Something elusive or delusive.
- An image that appears only in the mind; an illusion


That all sounds like the Dark Side of the Force to me.

 

Well, perhaps I have an erroneous understanding of what a phantom is. It's just that neither the dark side nor the Sith nor Sidious are an "illusion", they all exist in reality.

 

One of the definitions you listed was elusive. The Sith elude the Jedi. They know something is wrong, but what that is eludes them, and in the end, they have no answers, the person who attacked them is dead, and one of the people who encountered the unknown attacker is dead.