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| The saga begins today, twenty years ago, for expectant UK fans... |
"When I made The Phantom Menace, I knew that I was basically not going down the commercial route that everyone expected. I knew that I was doing it with a nine-year old kid, and everybody said, 'You can't do that. It's got to have Jedi fighting and all this kind of thing everybody wants to see.' I knew I was doing it without the cast from the other films, and everyone was saying, 'You've got to work Harrison Ford into it somehow.' I said, 'It's a Prequel. How can I do that?' And if I'd been doing it in Hollywood they would have done all their market research and said, 'This is the kind of movie you've got to make.' I'm more interested in the story than in whether or not the the film is a commercial success. That made everybody in marketing very nervous, but they did the best (they could.) Since we have to finance the advertising of our films, they do their best to get the tie-ins and do all kinds of things to make sure the film doesn't fail."
George Lucas - BBC News Online interview - 1999
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| Key plot points selling the film in the US TV campaign of May 1999. |
"The fans expectations had gotten way high and they wanted a film that was going to change their lives and be the Second Coming. You know I can't do that. It's just a movie. And I can't say, now I gotta market it to a whole different audience. I tell the story. I knew if I'd made Anakin a fifteen year old instead of nine, then it would have been more marketable. But that isn't the story. It is important that he be young, that he be at an age where leaving his mother is more of a drama than it would have been at fifteen. So you just have to do what's right for the movie, not what's right for the market."
"I'm very sorry they don't like it. They should go back and see The Matrix or something."
George Lucas - Empire Magazine - September 1999
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| A pre-release group publicity image outtake. |
US TV TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg8LcsGbd2E
"I love the fact that kids can go and see it. It's the first film I've made that kids could or would want to see."
Ewan McGregor - Heat magazine - 1999
"It (the film) has an unembarrassed idealism that I liked. It's not ashamed of idealism. Ewan is so cute; he's a total heartthrob. It's also very beautiful, with all the costumes and images. And I play a strong female character. I'm the one everyone works for and takes orders from. I'm in control!"
Natalie Portman - Online interview - 1999
"It's a rollicking great story told very inventively and creatively. I also think that these Star Wars films offer a return to old fashioned values and the ethics of loyalty and truth, integrity and humility. People may not intellectually grasp that but they intuitively feel that they need to see these types of stories that make a complex world easier to comprehend."
Liam Neeson - Empire magazine - August 1999
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