Nobody likes a guy who says "I told you so."

In 1997, after seeing George Lucas receive the James Smithson Medal from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, I wrote in these very cyberpages of my emerging disillusionment with Lucas and my growing fear that the prequels, left in his hands, could not live up to the standard he set in Episodes IV-VI. Lucas, I suggested, had grown too insulated by his imperial minions at LucasFilm, too fond of the technological terrors that ILM has constructed, too out-of-touch with his best creative impulses. When the Special Edition came out on video and Rick McCallum (Lucas's young apprentice) claimed that for the original Star Wars "the essence of the storytelling had to be sacrificed because of the level of the technology," it seemed like my worst fears for the prequels were about to be confirmed. Rather than make another failure like ANH, Lucas and McCallum would bring all the computer-generated bells and whistles to the prequels that they had given the Special Edition, and with it bring all the "effective storytelling" that came with the decision to have Greedo provoke Han Solo into killing him. In other words, I was afraid we were in for a real disappointment.

Now, with The Phantom Menace out in theaters for a month, I come to you completely vindicated. Don't get me wrong; the movie wasn't really all bad -- some very promising groundwork has been laid for Episodes II and III, and for all TPM's many shortcomings it is sort of exciting to see the Republic and the Jedi in all of their glory. But neither the digital visual spectacle nor the thrill of seeing the world that preceded Episodes IV-VI can make up for the terrible deficiencies of storytelling. Think about this for just a minute: Palpatine (and we know from a Rick McCallum interview that Palpatine and Darth Sidious are the same person) begins by prompting the Neimoudians' blockade of Naboo (for reasons that are never explained) so that he can force the Queen to sign a treaty (whose terms or relationship to Palpatine's plans are never explained) when his plans are first spoiled by Amidala's escape from Naboo, then by her unexpected return to Naboo, then by the defeat of the Trade Federation in the final battle at Naboo. Yet, despite these setbacks, Palpatine rises to be Supreme Chancellor in the end. Stymied and surprised throughout the film, his plans turned entirely on their head, Palpatine nevertheless rises to the top of the Republic and we are left entirely without any explanation of what he ever had in mind in the first place -- if this is what happens when his plans are thwarted.

Why is The Phantom Menace a mess? It probably has a lot to do with McCallum's comment on the Special Edition video release and with Lucas's many public comments to the effect that he only decided to make these films once Jurassic Park convinced him that he could finally realize his vision through computer-generated visual effects. In other words, for Mr. Lucas and Mr. McCallum the most important parts of the story are what we can be shown with the technological wonders that they've spent two decades creating. Just glance at TPM: every scene is full of the sort of lavish visual details that leave your head spinning. Banthas roam near the Queen's starship on Tattooine, airborne traffic jams zoom around Coruscant, and senators from untold numbers of worlds jabber in the Galactic Senate, but look for that sort of detail in the storytelling (like, for example, why the Federation has blockaded Naboo) and you'll only find a desert more trackless than the Jundland Wastes. Thousands of hours must have been spent on fashioning computer-generated characters like Watto, Sebulba, and Jar Jar Binks -- it's just a shame that nobody put half as much time into developing stronger characters for any of the human actors to work with. There can be little wonder why a craftsman like Liam Neeson was left so cold by the experience of making TPM that he would muse publicly about never making another film.

To really understand the problem with Phantom, take a look at the most lyrical scene in any of the Star Wars movies: the moment in ANH when Luke gazes off at the setting suns of Tattooine and wonders if he will ever leave his uncle's farm. Not a word of dialogue is spoken and the only elements of the scene are Mark Hamill, two suns, and John Williams's music. This scene is so simple, but filmmaking doesn't get any better -- we in the audience feel like we're standing on that rise with Luke Skywalker and can hear the thoughts in his head. Now stop and wonder if there was ever a moment like it in The Phantom Menace -- not just a moment that was lyrical, but even a moment that was silent (in both an auditory and a visual sense). In the end, TPM is not a movie that we can absorb the same way as Star Wars or Empire because it is a movie that is constantly demanding our attention. It's more work to watch it with less reward for the effort -- a lot like soccer.

All of which made watching the June 18 broadcast of "The Mythology of Star Wars" with George Lucas on PBS a little strange. The man talking with Bill Moyers about the role of myth in the Star Wars movies was saying sensible things about myths and stories. The man Moyers was interviewing never once used words like "digital" or "computer-generated." The man on my TV screen was saying things that could only be interpreted as meaning that the "essence of the storytelling" was actually about the story you are telling. In other words, the man sitting opposite Bill Moyers was not the man who made The Phantom Menace.

I'm serious. I'm going to say this out loud, and you heard it here first. For twenty-two years George Lucas has been whining and carping about how much work it is to write and direct. He was so sick of it after Star Wars that he turned both tasks over to other people. Now we're supposed to believe that he actually troubled himself to write and direct this film that bears no substantial likeness to Star Wars or the better elements of Empire or Jedi? Well I've read and listened to his public comments and the public comments of Rick McCallum, and I'm prepared to proclaim the obvious, that McCallum ghost-wrote and ghost-directed The Phantom Menace. It's all his baby. How else can we explain the crushing disappointment that this film is, how it is so sickeningly Disney-fied and how its plot matters less than Godzilla?

Don't believe me? Well if that's not good enough, listen to what McCallum himself said in a 1997 interview with Jasper Westerhof in the Dutch magazine Sum: "Even though he is a very big filmmaker in many ways, [George is] primarily a story-teller, an editor and an executive producer. He doesn't like the process of directing that much." Pity poor George who's had this unpleasant task heaped upon him by a world teeming with his admirers. It's hard to imagine that a guy who feels that way, a guy who knows that the public will accept just about anything he dishes out with "Star Wars" written over it, and a guy with a loyal lapdog like McCallum wouldn't look for somebody else to shoulder the unpleasant burden of bringing these prequels to the screen.

Search your feelings...you know it to be true. And twenty years from now when Woodward & Bernstein blow the lid off this thing, remember:

I told you so.