Lit The Phantom Menace Novelization

Hello, I have just reread Terry Brook's Phantom Menace novel, and noticed he mentions Darth Bane. Is this the first mention of Bane? Thank-you.

 

Yes.

 

Yep; Lucas gave Brooks info on some of the Sith backstory he created while writing Episode I, which referred to Darth Bane. Notice here Bane's apprentice is a "he", whereas the EU gave him the female Darth Zannah. The Clone Wars episode "Sacrifice" is the first time we've actually seen Lucas's version of Bane since his mention here.

 

Thank-you!

 

Thank-you!

 

I like the final bit of this novelization. Where Darth Sidious looks out over the city as he's done in previous chapters. Only this time, it's not specified which city he's looking out at. One of the first subtle hints at Sidious's true identity.

 

That was a very good book that gave the movie justice.

 

I was actually thinking that someone should make a thread for the TPM novelization, as we're coming up on twenty years of its release. I remember it being such a big deal at the time, too - I had a lot of friends who each had their own copy (I think the Science Fiction Book Club promoted it heavily) and we each had the different character combos. I had the obvious best one, the Maul/Sidious pairing.

Although this is more movie-focused than the book, I recently reread Roger Ebert’s review of The Phantom Menace and I think he makes a good point: “If it were the first "Star Wars" movie, "The Phantom Menace" would be hailed as a visionary breakthrough. But this is the fourth movie of the famous series, and we think we know the territory; many of the early reviews have been blase, paying lip service to the visuals and wondering why the characters aren't better developed. How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders.” I actually think that if TPM was the first Star Wars movie, there’s a good comparison to how it would be received: like Jupiter Ascending. Great visuals and action sequences, hints of a vast universe beyond that both let your imagination roam but also seem like vital backstory was withheld, clunky dialogue and awkward romance, and continued debates over whether it’s a total failure, cult classic, or flawed but with hints of greatness. As is, I think the best comparison to TPM is another movie with Sophia Coppola in it, Godfather Part III - a decent but flawed follow-on to much better predecessors and so is seen as far worse in that light. I maintain the first 20 minutes of TPM are as good as the first 20 minutes of any Star Wars movie. It’s once Jar Jar appears that it goes downhill. Not just because of Jar Jar himself, but the plot and pacing as well.

I think there's also a comparison to be made between the TPM novelization and Vector Prime. Both are the first two books of the Del Rey era, the two big Star Wars book releases of 1999, the first two post-prequel books, and both are the first books in the two major new series that I think unarguably most defined Star Wars up until the Disney purchase (the prequels themselves, and the NJO). Both are first-time Star Wars novels by authors coming from the fantasy genre, with Terry Brooks never returning and Robert Salvatore, appropriately, only returning to do the AOTC novelization. Both novels also were written with at least some input from George Lucas (even if the VP input was apparently very minor indeed). Mark Hamill returned to be Luke for the unique Vector Prime TV commercial (sorry, TLJ, this is still the first time Hamill has voiced Luke since ROTJ), which is also kind of appropriate in that he also voiced Bane in final episode of TCW, and Bane got introduced in the TPM novelization.

As much as certain people on this forum seem to have the view that The Secret History of Star Wars is somehow anti-Lucas, the author on his website does note that as early as 1977, Lucas used the term “Chancellor” in an interview to describe the leader of the “Republican Senate,” who would be elected for a four-year term. So despite everyone fixating on the use of “president” in the ANH novelization to refer to Palpatine, there is actual evidence that the term Supreme Chancellor is more in line with what Lucas originally intended from the start and that “President” was probably an invention of Alan Dean Foster. Speaking of TPM's politics, Palpatine’s rivals for the Supreme Chancellor election in the novelization are Bail Antilles and Aks Moe, not Bail and Ainlee Teem as in the movie.

In terms of the TPM novelization itself, the Z-95 mention was awesome for me as it linked the real history of the EU to the new movie. And of course TCW would later do the same with the Z-95. With the section where Sidious first mentions Bane, and the history of the Sith, I've said it before but I feel like later authors misread the chronology Brooks laid out here; I believe the reading of the timeline is that the Sith emerge 2000 BBY, kill themselves off quickly, and Bane then emerges as the sole survivor at that point. But I guess overall it's really moot, and even that wouldn't match up with Lucas's "thousand year" line in AOTC.

I also noted that the novelization shortens Anakin to “Annie,” and not to the “Ani” spelling of later sources. Makes the AOTC comparison to Little Orphan Annie all too easy. It's also interesting that on the last page, Jar Jar gets the final line of dialogue - a pre-empting of the 2004 DVD version of ROTJ where Ahmed Best now has the final line of dialogue in the original trilogy.

It's also kind of interesting, and not something that I realized until recently, that the TPM novelization mentions not only the “life Force” but also the Unifying Force – apparently being the first mention of the latter. It helps set up that 1999-2005 really is its own era, not only with the prequels and the NJO series, but the entire NJO era itself. TPM sets up the Unifying Force; TUF brings it to a close.

 

Although I've not read The Phantom Menace novelization since 1999 and 2005, I felt like it and Attack of the Clones were by far the two weakest of the original six movie books. The prose was so simplistic and boring. I remember that my original read of it took two months, because I was just not engaged. (Though maybe it was the combination of the prose and Lucas' story; though I was still enjoying my theatrical viewings -- I went about nine or ten times that year.)

On the plus side, I enjoyed the EU references that Dr. Steve Brule mentioned, and it was also some cool foreshadowing of Anakin's Tusken slaughter with the extra scenes of him healing the insured Sandperson. I'll probably be giving it a re-read later this year when I plow through the entirety of the Prequel Era in chronological order.

 

The "Imagine if Episode I were the first SW movie" argument is a good one, and Jupiter Ascending is probably a good comparison. Cool use of CGI and imaginatively-created visuals, but a tonal mess with poor direction that can't quite figure out what it's trying to say or how it's trying to say it, and that would probably be forgotten within a few years.

I can't agree about the first twenty minutes, though --- they squander an opportunity to start the storyline coherently in favour of lightsabers and blaster action. What is the Trade Federation? What are their powers? Why do they have a droid army? The questions that Cloak of Deception had to answer because the movie, well, didn't. Don't get me wrong; kicking things off by throwing the viewer right into the middle of the action is fine, but when you do so and then forget to provide the necessary context and exposition later on, you've created a mess. Especially when you throw in confusing lines like "This planet isn't controlled by the Federation." What? Are they a government in charge of planets?

Then there's the succession of dumb things that happen in order to get Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on the planet's surface --- "They must be dead by now. Destroy what's left of them (what?)" and, as Plinkett points out in his review, them stowing away aboard different ships and just assuming that they'll land anywhere close to each other.

Novelization wasn't bad though. Handled Anakin much better than the movie did. My brother had the Maul/Sidious SFBC hardcover too!

 

Plinkett is the definition of "double standard", though.
You could easily nitpick the first 20 minutes of ANH just as hard.
The whole "no lifeforms" scene, also Leia for some reason having the script to know that George wrote the gunner as not firing on the pod specifically because they don't detect lifeforms (droids are not lifeforms), etc.

And for a parallel to the debatably poor "Trade Fed in charge of planets " line, the freaking opening crawl of ESB says that LUKE is the leader of the Hoth rebel cell.

Also TPM is not a tonal mess aside from one transition in the climax, George did not have a co director for ANH, and TPM has no trouble saying what it wants to say. The fact that you think the film mishandled Anakin compared to the book is also strange since I'm sure you'd crap on the "I'm going to marry you" scene from the book if it was in the movie.

 

Dp

 

What?

 

What what?

 

A large trade company, dhu

Because they are an evil large trade company

 

I will have to disagree. If TPM was the first SW movie it would still be ground breaking with it's design, special effects, motion capture technology and fight choreography.

A good comparison to how it would be received is not Jupiter Ascending, it would be Avatar or Lord of the Rings

And with lots of fanboys not feeling cheated because their extreme expectations was not fulfilled it would possibly not get such an extreme backlash.

 

@Gamiel took the words right out of my mouth. TPM wasn't my introduction to Star Wars, but it was what sold me on the franchise. When my siblings and I thought about Star Wars it was more Trade Federation droids and podraces and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan than stormtroopers and Death Stars and Han and Luke. We were enthralled from beginning to end, and I think it would have had that effect on a lot of people whether or not there had been other Star Wars films before.

(Though, to be fair, when watching Jupiter Ascending I did think to myself "Is THIS what the prequels seemed like to some people?!" I also got that sense from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets--I'd highly recommend both it and the comic it's based on to Star Wars fans.)

TC

 

Avatar maybe, LOTR no. LOTR was adaptating (technically, for the second time) a very well known book and as such had a huge fan base and huge hype for it out of the gate, and was already well-recieved despite being the first entry in a completely new, detailed fantasy realm. Avatar like TPM was recognized for having revolutionary special effects, good action scenes, wooden acting, and accidental racism (and being purchased by Disney after the fact), but if anything its plot was critiqued for the opposite, for being too simplistic and recycled instead of something too new and complex. Plus Lucas (and I'd argue Lucasfilm still) has the opposite of Cameron, they actually rush the sequels too much instead of taking forever.

On the subject of novelizations of Lucas movies, has anyone read the novelization of THX-1138? I like the movie of course, and I know the novelization was done by Ben Bova, an author I've always liked. I'm curious to see how he handled the movie. Plus, for a first movie by Lucas, getting Bova to do the novelization was a huge get, the guy was a giant in 1970s sci-fi. At least as big a get as Zahn was in the late 80s, maybe more so.

 

TPM had too complex a plot for some people?? WTH?

 

I liked the novelization better than the movie. In fact, just the book itself make TPM far more believable than the movie. The Yipeeeeeeeeeeeee and Roger Roger and mesa mee Jar Jar Binks killed it. The book on the other hand made everything a bit more .............I guess better. Very good book

 

When I first saw Episode 1 I was so excited I thought I would burst, especially the scene with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan when the Trade Federation try to gas them and they go into full combat mode. At that moment I was in SW heaven.

But then I started to lose my connection with the story. I didn't understand why Jedi would prolong their association with this Jar Jar character as he seemed like a liability to me. Then they went through the planet core and Jedi were both so very calm, while being attacked underwater, that the mood felt clunky and awkward. Then I couldn't understand why a Jedi would put a 10 year old's life at risk in a Pod Race in exchange for a new hyperdrive. It felt really mixed up to me, to the point of getting right in the way of the story and breaking the magic.
But the book really helped. Terry Brooks smoothed over those confusing story elements and gave me a way to view the film without breaking the magic. It breathed new life into TPM for me annd for that I am eternally grateful.

 

I've been a fan of the "Darth Darth Binks" theory since its inception a few years ago:



...and am now re-reading the novelization with that interpretation in mind. Just going by the novelization, there isn't very much to lend support to the above theory, but if it was meant to be a big secret in a later film it would make sense that Brooks wouldn't have been told about it or even noticed some of the very suspicious details about Jar Jar that are only noticeable on screen.

 

@Dr. Steve Brule

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-oral-history

Lucas: “Everybody said, “Oh, well, there was a war between the Jedi and the Sith.” Well, that never happened. That’s just made up by fans or somebody. What really happened is, the Sith ruled the universe for a while, 2,000 years ago. Each Sith has an apprentice, but the problem was, each Sith Lord got to be powerful. And the Sith Lords would try to kill each other because they all wanted to be the most powerful. So in the end they killed each other off, and there wasn’t anything left. So the idea is that when you have a Sith Lord, and he has an apprentice, the apprentice is always trying to recruit somebody to join him — because he’s not strong enough, usually — so that he can kill his master.

That’s why I call it a Rule of Two — there’s only two Sith Lords. There can’t be any more because they kill each other. They’re not smart enough to realize that if they do that, they’re going to wipe themselves out. Which is exactly what they did.”