Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the first installment in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy and stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Pernilla August, and Frank Oz. The film is set 32 years before the original film, and follows Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi as they protect Queen Amidala in hopes of securing
Star Wars (film) had "Episode IV"s subtitle in mind before its release, but removed it to avoid confusing audiences. Kurtz has corroborated that they had originally considered using a higher episode number to emulate the chapter numbering used in the "Flash Gordon" serial. Some of Lucas's early script drafts bear titles such as ""The Adventures of the Starkiller (Episode One): The Star Wars"" (1975) or ""The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as Taken from the Journal of the Whills: Saga One: Star Wars"" (1976). The revised fourth draft of the script dated January 1975 acquired the subtitle ""Episode IV: A New Hope – from