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: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith the details—only major plot points. He began working on the screenplay for "Episode III" even before the previous film, "", was released, proposing to concept artists that the film would open with a montage of seven battles on seven planets. Michael Kaminski, in "The Secret History of Star Wars", surmises that Lucas found flaws with Anakin's fall to the dark side and radically re-organized the plot. For instance, instead of opening the film with various Clone Wars battles, Lucas decided instead to focus on Anakin, ending the film's first act with his killing of Count Dooku, an action that signals