Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

[kyle]

The parade music at the end of the film is melodically related to the Emperor's Theme from Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).

[darrell]

Qui-Gon Jinn identifies the Queen's starship as a Nubian model J-327. "327" was the number of the landing bay where the Millennium Falcon landed on the first Death Star in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) as well as the number of the landing platform in Cloud City in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). During the introduction of the pod racers, one of the pods is "327".

[ethel]

It has been long debated among fans as to the inspiration for the character name of Anakin Skywalker. One often most cited reason is that its a reference to the film director Ken Annakin. Another more cerebral possibility is that the name is a contrived wordplay on "akin" = alike. An akin Skywalker, a similar member of the Skywalker family, becomes then "corrupted" into the name Anakin. George Lucas, as of february 2019, has not officially confirmed if the name originated from either, or a combination of both sources, or if its in fact from a completely different inspiration.

[janice]

George Lucas described Sebulba's design as "a spider crossed with an orangutan crossed with a sloth", with a camel-like face, and clothing inspired by medieval armor. Part of the challenge was to create a creature that used its hands as feet, and its feet as hands.

[violet]

Anakin has two model ships on his bed in Tatooine. These are models of early designs considered for the Naboo Starfighters. In the documentaries on the DVD, we see these models being rejected by George Lucas.

[darrell]

Natalie Portman's voice was digitally enhanced to distinguish between Padmé and Queen Amidala.

[beth]

Liam Neeson convinced George Lucas to keep a scene where Qui-Gon Jinn puts his hand on Shmi Skywalker's shoulder. Lucas felt this might be out of character for the monk-like Jedi, but Neeson thought there should be an emotional connection between the characters. In an interview with Premiere Magazine, Neeson defended his action, saying, "It may be 'Star Wars', but we've got to have something in there for the adults."

[ella]

When fully dressed and in make-up, Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley resembled each other so much that even Knightley's mother, Sharman Macdonald, who visited the set, had trouble identifying her own daughter.

[claude]

George Lucas' first draft of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) began "This is the story of Mace Windu, a revered Jedi-bendu of Opuchi who was related to Usby C.J. Thape, a padawan learner of the famed Jedi." Both the character of Mace Windu and the concept of padawan learners make their first appearance in this movie.

[gerald]

Before the film's production started, fans campaigned on the Internet to retain Kenny Baker as R2-D2. George Lucas replied that the actor would remain.

[bessie]

In the original trilogy, light-saber activations and deactivations happened off-screen most of the time to prevent the "jumps" that would occur when the film was stopped to allow the "activated" light-saber props to be substituted for the deactivated handles. This no longer poses a problem, and every activation and deactivation occurs on-screen in this film.

[russell]

The film is the first film franchise to star Natalie Portman. Natalie Portman later joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe which she appeared in Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013) as Jane Foster.

[addison]

A binder with the film's storyboards served as a reference for live-action filming, shots that would be filmed in front of a chroma key greenscreen, and shots that would be composed using CGI.

[ronnie]

The character design of Watto was an amalgam of rejected ideas; his expressions were based on video footage of Andy Secombe's voice acting, photographs of animation supervisor Rob Coleman imitating the character, and modeller Steve Alpin saying Watto's lines to a mirror.

[frederick]

The Battle Droids were originally supposed to be as white as the Stormtroopers from the original trilogy. During pre-production, George Lucas decided to change them to beige.

[oscar]

Employment consultant firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimated that 2.2 million full-time employees missed work to attend the film, resulting in a US$293 million loss of productivity in the USA.

[jim]

In the Galactic Senate scene, when Queen Amidala is asking for a vote of no confidence, and the whole Senate are on their feet shouting, in the lower left corner you can see that there are E.T. species (as in movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)). George Lucas included them as a tribute to his long-time friend, Steven Spielberg, as well as showing them existing in the same universe.

[jamie]

The core-plot of the movie came from George Lucas' first draft of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), which he wrote in 1975.

[harry]

Keira Knightly claimed that although they tried to be consistent having her play only Sabé when she is decoying for Queen Amidala, there are a few long shots of her standing in for Natalie Portman when Padmé is supposed to be in-character as the Queen.