Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures it's the second part of my epic five-part article about Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace! If you want to go back to part one, CLICK HERE.

You might be wondering why I'm covering the film in five parts instead of four, or three, or one. Well, I did start off with one part, but then I just kept finding more and more to write about. George Lucas had a similar problem when he was coming up with the first Star Wars, as he found that he had enough story for a trilogy. Or a trilogy of trilogies in fact. I mean he didn't have the whole Prequel Trilogy written down in 1976, but he had backstory figured out that could be used as a foundation for more movies. Plus he called Empire Strikes Back 'Episode V', which was a definite hint that he had prequel episodes in mind.

I get the impression that people have gotten a bit wary of prequels, the shine's worn off the idea a bit, but I don't think they were much of a thing back in the 90s when this came out. In fact, I have a suspicion that The Phantom Menace is what really kicked off the trend and it's probably not a coincidence that a couple of years later Star Trek suddenly came up with its own prequel, Enterprise. The thing about Star Wars though, is so much of the story was still untold. We'd never gotten any hint about the origins of Darth Vader or the Empire, or who Luke's mother was etc. So unlike a lot of prequels, this trilogy was far from redundant. But was it any good? I'll let you know what I think, and you can me know what you think afterwards.

There will be SPOILERS here for Episode IV, Episode V, Episode VI and Episode I. Like major revelations about a character's identity you might not want to know.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace - Part 1

Written By:

George Lucas

|

Directed By:

George Lucas

|

Release Date:

1999

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. I've already written about A New Hope and The Force Awakens, so it's only fair that I give the prequel trilogy a turn. In an epic four-part article five-part article!

The Phantom Menace isn't the highest-grossing movie of all time and it's certainly not the most critically acclaimed of all films, but it's got a definite claim to being the most hyped movie ever made. The original Star Wars trilogy was one of the biggest events in cinema history, but then after 1983 it just stopped. Well okay, there were the Ewoks movies etc, but creator George Lucas basically just stood aside and let Star Trek take over as the biggest sci-fi movie series.

But the Star Wars franchise had been kept alive in books, games, and the Special Edition re-releases, so a 16-year break between movies only made fans more anxious to see some actual new Star Wars. People went to see it in droves and when they came back they had opinions, and those opinions were... generally positive I think. It took a while for people to really process what they'd seen.

In fact, it's taken me 24 years to get around to typing up what I think about The Phantom Menace. I could've waited another year for its 25th anniversary and honestly, it was tempting, but I need to get this done already so I can move on... to other stuff that also needs writing about.

The Star Wars movies are a little bit weird with SPOILERS due to the different orders you can watch them in, so I had to make a choice and I've decided that anything that came out before 1999 is fair game. So if you want to avoid knowing anything about A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, you probably shouldn't be reading this.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 1 Review, Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally back to writing about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds first season again. I reviewed the first three episodes in August last year, so this has taken me a little longer than I expected, but at least I'm getting this published before season 2 starts. Barely.

This time around I'll be reviewing four episodes:

• 1-04 - Memento Mori
  
• 1-05 - Spock Amok
  
• 1-06 - Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach
  
• 1-07 - The Serene Squall
  

Though first I just need to point out that episode 6 has an awesome title. I've giving it a special mention because the writers went the extra mile and that should be rewarded. I see what they did with Spock Amok as well, but it's not quite as as clever as Prodigy's Time Amok I'm afraid. The live action shows are going to have to step up their game if they want to keep up with the cartoons.

Alright, I'll be dropping SPOILERS for all four of these episodes and any earlier Star Trek episodes that jump to mind while I'm writing about them. Well, I mean when I did write about them, in the past. I scribbled my thoughts down the moment after I watched each episode, which was a while ago now. This means that there won't be any spoilers for later episodes, because I didn't know anything about them at the time.

Star Trek: The Original Series 1-14: Balance of Terror

Episode:

14

|

Writer:

Paul Schneider

|

Director:

Vincent McEveety

|

Air Date:

15-Dec-1966

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode Balance of Terror, from halfway through season 1. It's maybe a bit of a weird choice, seeing as the last episode I wrote about was the season 2 finale Assignment: Earth, but I have my reasons. Also by pure coincidence, it's the next episode alphabetically. That's the last of the A titles and this is the first of the Bs.

Speaking of titles, this and Encounter at Farpoint must have the two dullest looking title cards in Star Trek. Though I suppose it's thematically appropriate not to see anything. The title itself is also appropriate to the episode as a 'balance of terror' is when two opposing nations have an equal capacity for destruction on a horrifying scale, and a fear of retaliation keeps them from going to war.

I'm going to be watching the remastered version with the new CGI effects and I'll be curious to see how it compares to the other episodes I've written about, as this was the very first one to get the remastering treatment. They got it released on 16th September 2006, just a week late for the show's 40th anniversary.

I'm also going to be writing words under my screencaps and I'm basically going to give SPOILERS for every moment of the story. I may even spoil some things from earlier episodes as well, but nothing released after 15th December 1996. I mean within reason. I may mention a few things about Enterprise.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 2 Review, Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the dramatic conclusion of Star Trek: Picard's second season! I've written about three stories this time:

• 2-08 - Mercy
• 2-09 - Hide and Seek
• 2-10 - Farewell

Plus I wrote a little bit about the season overall at the end. I'm using the past tense here because I put my thoughts down right after watching each episode, which was something like a year ago now. I admit, I could've been quicker getting this published. Still, I'm doing better with this than I did with my Babylon 5 reviews, which were about 24 years late.

There are going to be SPOILERS here for the whole season and earlier Treks as well, but nothing that was released past 5th May 2022. So Strange New Worlds season 1 will be entirely unspoiled. For now.

Star Trek: The Original Series 2-26: Assignment: Earth - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm still watching the Original Series episode Assignment: Earth. Not to be confused with the DS9 episode The Assignment. This features an Assignment to Earth specifically.

If you're looking for PART ONE, click that text to jump straight over to it. You wouldn't think this of all episodes would have enough content for me to drag this out into a second article, but here we are. And now I'm having to write a second intro to go along with it, with even more trivia.

This is the season finale for season two, but Star Trek was made back in a time when seasons could have a ridiculous number of episodes, so it ended up being episode 55. That's the exact number of episodes that Star Trek: Discovery's current at after four seasons. Lower Decks and Prodigy have been around for a few years now as well, but even if you combine the two their episode count hasn't quite reached that high yet.

I'll be going through the remaining episode scene by scene but all my SPOILERS will be restricted to 1968 and earlier. That's season one and season two and that's it, there will be no Spock's Brain spoilers here.

Star Trek: The Original Series 2-26: Assignment: Earth - Part 1

Episode:

55

|

Writer:

Art Wallace

|

Director:

Marc Daniels

|

Air Date:

29-Mar-1968

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the infamous Assignment: Earth, the Star Trek episode that was blatantly a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series. A series that ultimately never got made.

Assignment: Earth the TV show was Gene Roddenberry's project, and the idea had apparently been around for a while. In fact he'd come up with initial story outline in 1965, shortly after the first Star Trek pilot got rejected. Star Trek's second pilot had a lot more luck, but Roddenberry continued working on Assignment: Earth's pilot as well, coming up with a first draft in 1966. By 1967 Trek's chances weren't looking good; even if it got a third season it likely wasn't getting a fourth, so Roddenberry decided to rework his script into a Star Trek episode. This would allow him to use Star Trek's resources to make his pitch in the form of a backdoor pilot.

(Though writer Art Wallace presumably did a lot of the rewrite work on it as well, seeing as it's his name on the teleplay. Wallace joined forces with Roddenberry after he pitched a similar series and got told that someone else had beaten him to it.)

Personally I'd say that the season finale is usually (but not always) the wrong time to give half the episode away to the guest stars. Though if things had worked out differently this could've been the last episode of Star Trek and the launch pad for the wildly successful Assignment: Earth! Decades later people could've been amazed to hear that the the series had been a spin-off of some long forgotten cult sci-fi show, and they'd be arguing over whether the Tom Cruise movies are better than the original series.

Alright I'll be going though the whole episode scene by scene, attempting to summarise what happens and what I think about it, while also finding room to sprinkle in a bit of trivia. This means that there's going to be SPOILERS, but only for the first two seasons of TOS.