In the 1960s and 1970s, the world seemed to be falling apart – cultural, social, economic and political upheavals imparted a general sense of gloom that pervaded everything, and the movies reflected that. In part, that was through gritty, independent films that presented a bleak view of the American landscape.

There was another side of Hollywood, though, which found a way to capture the discomfort and fear of the time and turn it into something spectacular: the disaster film. Starting with the huge success of the all-star Airport in 1970, movie producers discovered that putting movie stars in peril was big business.

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Airport Trailer

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Audiences couldn’t get enough, which in part might be because by portraying the most terrifying and seemingly impossible concepts, then thrusting big movie stars into the roles of victims and survivors, the disaster films showed moviegoers that anything, even the end of the world, was theoretically survivable.

It’s one of the reasons that in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, disaster movies seem oddly, unexpectedly comforting. “We like to find hope, and these movies do find hope,” says Los Angeles-based psychotherapist Louise Bale, who specializes in helping clients work through trauma. “The hope is always in human resilience and in humanity coming together.” Adding in big-name stars and big-budget productions actually helps audiences connect. “They start out glamorous, but the glamour gets stripped down and they become more like us. We can relate to that person, who looks a little more haggard than they did at the beginning of the movie.”

Whether finding an impossible path through an overturned luxury liner or looking for the way out of a 138-story building, “On a psychological level, the stories help us know that that’s what surviving looks like, and we root for these people because we know they are not helpless or hopeless.”

Of course, coping with crisis isn’t as simple as watching a disaster movie. But for many people, seeing movie stars beat impossible odds can be wonderfully cathartic. Whether you’re unfamiliar with the disaster-movie genre, or you’ve always longed to board the S.S. Poseidon, here are four can’t-miss disaster movies that will make you think, “Hey, if they can get through that horrible thing, so can I” – and that’s a message we all could hear these days. Plus, as Bale notes, what we’re experiencing is hard, unprecedented and downright scary at times, but not everyone wants to express those fears. “Maybe we’re trying really hard right now not to look as scared as we feel, but if we watch something that’s scary or very thrilling, we can say, ‘Ah, I’m only feeling this way because the movie is so intense.’ And that helps us work through our own emotions.”

Whatever the reason for watching them, you cannot go wrong with these four disaster films!

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

The Poseidon Adventure (1972) Trailer

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Get past the dated, hokey (but often funny) first 20 minutes and as soon as a giant tidal wave smacks into the grand luxury ship S.S. Poseidon this super-blockbuster, which grossed the adjusted-dollar equivalent of $515 million, holds up as one of the most riveting adventures ever put on film. Led by Gene Hackman as a disillusioned preacher and Ernest Borgnine as a gruff cop, a group of survivors have to find a way out of the ship, which has completely turned over. They’ve got just hours to do it, and The Poseidon Adventure consistently finds ways to capture the humanity of these scared, shell-shocked people even while the sets explode and fill with water all around them. Between they explosions, they create compelling, affecting characters, plus an undercurrent of real moral consequence; as they move deeper into the fiery ship that resembles hell, even the preacher isn’t sure God is on their side. (Available on all streaming services for $4 to $5 rental.)

The Towering Inferno (1974)

The Towering Inferno Trailer

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Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway and William Holden were all huge stars, but the movie’s real star is the 138-story glass tower that’s getting ready for its grand opening. If The Poseidon Adventure found some humanity in its giant cast of characters, The Towering Inferno seems more focused on the thrills themselves. It takes all those pretty people, locks them in a room 138 stories over San Francisco, and then lights the whole thing on fire. How they get down is the film’s primary story, but why you’ll watch is to see what happens when rich and powerful people find out they’re in the same boat as everyone else. (Available on streaming services from $3.99 to $14 to own)

Earthquake (1974)

Earthquake (1974) Official Trailer #1 – Charlton Heston Movie HD

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Also released in 1974, leading some to suggest a double-feature of this and Towering Inferno could be called “Shake and Bake,” Earthquake plays a surprising amount of its story for laughs. It knows its campy and over-the-top, that it’s an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that’s just a half-step above parody. It also looks at times like a made-for-TV movie. But none of that can diminish its success. Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Genevieve Bujold, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene and Victoria Principal are the human stars, but you’re here to see them crawl their way through a shattered Los Angeles, and on that the movie delivers. (Available on major streaming services for $3.99 to $4.99)

Deep Impact (1998)

Deep Impact – Trailer

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Disaster movies lost their appeal for a while, but in 1998 came two end-of-the-world movies just around the time that some were predicting the new millennium would be the end of the world for everyone. Between Armageddon and Deep Impact, only one cares about the human element of its story, and director Mimi Leder’s more gentle (yet still plenty crash-and-burn) approach to Deep Impact makes it the most lasting and affecting of the two films. It’s about a comet that’s hurtling toward Earth, and what happens when science discovers that the world really might end. The epic story never forgets the human scale – it’s fascinating to watch these characters try to grasp the magnitude of what is happening. There’s also Morgan Freeman as history’s most pragmatic, kind-hearted and well-spoken president. (Available on all major streaming services for $4 to $5)

John Singh is a writer and entertainment-industry veteran who began his career as a newspaper journalist and has also worked at Disney, Lucasfilm Ltd., DreamWorks Animation and on a variety of films and TV series.

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In an effort to smooth out the potential loss of salary from missed games, the NBA and its players agreed on Friday to cut May 15 paychecks by 25 percent, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. This is a pre-emptive move to get out in front of the NBA having to invoke the “force majeure” clause, which would allow it to withhold player salaries entirely in the event of missed games.

By agreeing to cut pay by 25 percent a month from now, players will receive their May 1 paychecks as usual and prepare for the missed income. It also means that when and if the league invokes the force majeure clause, a portion of the lost salary will have already come out of players’ wallets.

Altogether, according to an analysis by Jeff Siegel at Early Bird Rights, the league could take away as much as 24.7 percent of players’ total salaries, if the entire rest of the regular season and playoffs were to be canceled. That seems relatively unlikely, after reports this week indicated optimism about the possibility of ending the NBA’s hiatus.

Player contracts also take various shapes based on agents’ negotiations with teams. Some are front-loaded, while others are more evenly spread across the season, so different players will have received different proportions of their total salary by this point in the year. Rather than writing a massive check to the league in a couple months, the players have agreed to spread out the losses over time, as it’s probable by now that at least some games will be sacrificed.

Sometimes good R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the hottest R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

Daniel Daley and Nineteen85 of Dvsn came through this week with their album A Muse In Her Feelings, which includes a track featuring Summer Walker that flips their 2016 Sept. 5th cut “Do It Well,” The-Dream came together with Jhene Aiko for the freaky bedroom single “Wee Hours,” and Pink Sweats dropped off his latest tune “Ride With Me.”

Dvsn — “‘Flawless’ Do It Well Pt. 3” Feat. Summer Walker

I am truly grateful for the divine intervention that which brought together Dvsn and Summer Walker for “‘Flawless’ Do It Well Pt. 3,” a rework of 2016’s Sept. 5th‘s cut “Do It Well.” The OG track is all about a girl who essentially dances so well that Mr. Daniel Daly is compelled to throw cash in the air. “‘Flawless’ Do It Well Pt. 3,” which lives on the newly released A Muse In Her Feelings, is simply an answer to the track from the perspective of Summer Walker and oscillates between a slow groove and upbeat-tempo.

The-Dream — “Wee Hours” Feat. Jhene Aiko

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter The-Dream and healing vocalist Jhene Aiko did what needed to be done on Mr. Nash’s SXTP4‘s “Wee Hours.” It’s a freaky late-night love tale about sex so good Jhene sings about “keepin’ hair ties and scrunchies” ready just in case.

Pink Sweats — “Ride With Me”

Pink Sweats second single of the year “Ride With Me” is a fun, R&B bop that is absolutely summertime ready. The heart-warming jam follows the Philly-bred singer’s previously released song “17,” and at this rate, it feels like there’s more to look forward to from here.

Themxxnlight — “It’s Over”

Dynamic R&B twins Themxxnlight gave fans a double dosage of music Friday with “It’s Over” and “Miss Me,” off their pending EP The Cure. “It’s Over” is a paralyzing subset and emotional need for closure of a love that has passed, while “Miss Me” is a charming slow groove lined with heavy-bass as a loving enchantment to look into “the moonlight.”

Amber Mark — “Waiting (Demo)”

Continuing the momentum of her COVERED-19 series, Amber Mark brandishes her vocal range with proweress on “Waiting (Demo).” Drenched in infallible emotion, Amber chants a promise to hold down her lover now and forever. Last week, the burgeoning singer released a cover of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.”

Leon Bridges — “Inside Friend” Feat. John Mayer

Leon Bridges and John Mayer combined their omnipotent voices for the sex playlist-ready track “Inside Friend” at an impromptu jam session last year. It’s an introvert’s dream of finding a love who is down for being lazy together on a Saturday morning with an open door policy to back through whenever.

Lyrica Anderson — “Marriott”

Lyrica Anderson might be known for Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood, but she’s actually a Grammy Award-nominated, hit-making machine as certainly one of the top songwriters in the industry. Today she reminds everyone why with her addictive break-up track “Marriott.” Lyrica runs through her thoughts as she chills at the hotel to think things over romantic drama being exposed on The Shaderoom and now she’s ready to bounce on to the next, tapping into her inner savage.

Ashton Travis & Chase B — “Casino”

Houston’s own Ashton Travis and Chase B connect for an otherworldly melodic trance, which is offered by their collaborative single “Casino.” Though the world is currently confined to their homes, Ashton imagines splurging on his woman during a quick trip to Las Vegas.

Rotimi — Unplugged Sessions EP

Power star Rotimi has been keeping busy making music during the quarantine and delivered his Unplugged Sessions EP with three fresh songs and three acoustic versions of his popular singles “Legend,” “Love Riddim,” and “In My Bed.” The six-pack features Rotimi’s voice passionately serenading on every track as he returns to the missed loving elements of R&B.

Allyn — “Dirty Laundry”

Sacramento R&B staple Allyn doubles down on her secret love and tempts the object of her affection with her recently released single “Dirty Laundry.” The sultry track is Allyn’s first single of the year and the follow-up to last year’s Needed EP.

Kaash Paige — “Frank Ocean”

On this day, Frank Ocean released “Thinkin’ Bout You” and Kaash Paige pays homage to the song and the man that she says influenced her the most. “Frank Ocean” is Paige’s interpretation of the Channel Orange favorite as she ponders if her boo is thinking about her just as much as she is.

Keke Palmer — “Sticky”

Keke Palmer claims what’s hers on the saucy single “Sticky” as she brags about the magnificence of her kitty cat. “Lipgloss sticky, attitude bitchy / How I taste? Peachy,” she sings with pure seduction and satisfaction. Keke has been releasing track after track lately, hopefully a full EP lies somewhere in the near future.

Lala The DJ — 4th Dimension [side A]

Lala The DJ gifts us with over 40-minutes of smooth R&B cuts, featuring chart-topping hits and underground gems for her 4th Dimension [side A] rhythm and blues project. Exercising her proven expert ear and musical knowledge, the Los Angeles-based artist/ DJ takes the best picks from Jacquees, Melii, PRZNT, Bryson Tiller, Vory, Summer Walker, PARTYNEXTDOOR. It’s perfect during our forced downtime and even more perfect to dedicate to your quarantine crush.

Don Toliver — Heaven or Hell (CHOPNTSLOP REMIX)

OG Ron C and DJ Candlestick of the illustrious Chopstars got their hands on Don Toliver‘s Heaven Or Hell and worked their chopped and screwed magic for the Chop Not Slop Remix. The Houston crooner is currently signed to Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack label and impressed on Scott’s Astroworld cut “Can’t Say,” following the release of his 2018 debut project Donny Womack. This year, his track “No Idea” off Cactus Jack’s No.1 collaborative project JackBoys went viral on TikTok and now he’s gearing up to join The Weeknd on his After Hours Tour.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

We’re all looking for things to listen to while we’re stuck in quarantine. With digital streaming platforms, we have all of the music in the world at our fingertips, but still can’t seem to figure out exactly what we want to hear. Lucky for all of us, Geoff Rickly is here to help with Making A Mixtape, the new video offering from Uproxx’s Indie Mixtape. As the singer for the post-hardcore band Thursday, Rickly has a unique and experienced perspective on what it takes to craft an epic mixtape.

Earlier this week, we launched the first episode of the series, which found Rickly collaborating on a “Moody” playlist with Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings. On this new episode, Rickly is joined by Avery Tucker and Harmony Tividad of Girlpool to collaborate on an “Energy” mixtape, a collection of songs to throw on for a run, or even when you just want to pump yourself up while you’re stuck inside all day.

Check out the new episode of Making A Mixtape above and follow the “Energy” playlist here.

Against Me! — “True Trans Soul Rebel”
Vundabar — “Montage Music”
LCD Soundsystem — “Tribulations”
Girlpool — “Like I’m Winning It”
Nine Inch Nails — “Closer”
Kelly Lee Owens — “Melt”
The 1975 — “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)”
Perfume Genius — “On The Floor”

Follow us or subscribe to the Indie Mixtape newsletter to hear about future episodes.

Michigan garage rockers Dogleg just released their debut record Melee, a nod to the popular Super Smash Bros. video game. The group previously debuted visuals to their unrestrained tracks “Kawasaki Backflip” and “Fox.” Now, the band returns with a clever visual to accompany the revved-up number “Wartortle.”

According to a press statement, the boisterous video was filmed “mere hours before the governor of Michigan declared a statewide, shelter-in-place lockdown.” A parody of the cult-classic film Clerks, the visual opens with vocalist Alex Stoitsiadis playing the lead character Dante. Stoitsiadis gets a call from his convenience store, asking him to come in on his day off. Begrudgingly, Stoitsiadis obliges. The black-and-white visual cuts between Stoitsiadis and other members recreating scenes from Clerk while also shredding on the store’s rooftop.

While Dogleg put on equally energetic live shows, they also offer fans a challenge before they get on stage. Anyone who can beat bassist Chase Macinski in a round of Super Smash Bros. Melee gets to walk away with free merch. To this day, despite the fact that they have played hundreds of shows and many fans have challenged Macinksi, only a few were able to claim victory.

Watch Dogleg’s “Wartortle” video above.

Melee is out now via Triple Crown Records. Get it here.

When Patrick Patterson decided to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers this offseason, he, like many Angeleno transplants, had more than basketball in mind. The 31-year-old NBA journeyman was trying to plant the seeds of what might become his second act, turning a production company from a far-off dream to reality. Now, with the NBA season on pause amidst an epic Clipper season, Patterson finds himself unable to leave his home in the heart of the entertainment business.

Though Patterson can’t take the types of meetings with Hollywood power brokers right now that he might typically, he’s using the prolonged shutdown of the NBA to put more time into writing his next chapter. That doesn’t just mean Zoom calls and diary-keeping — Patterson is bringing fans into the experience, taking the movie screenings he has become known for among local fans to the internet.

Through Netflix’s virtual screening room, Netflix Party, Patterson has hosted two events, with the third coming on Friday at 9 p.m. ET. To choose the film, Patterson logs into Netflix and scrolls through the pages for his favorite genres — thriller and suspense — until he finds a few films with good reviews and a recognizable cast. Then, he lets fans vote to determine the final selection.

Throughout the movie, Patterson interacts with fans about the movie and life as a basketball player.

“I’ll keep them engaged and ask them questions about the movie, but then I give them free rein to ask about anything,” Patterson told me over the phone earlier this week. “People (ask) about my tenure in OKC, Toronto, talk about the season, the situation going on right now, teammates.”

These questions go far beyond basketball, too. At one point, he was asked his favorite Oreo — he’s a fan of the “OG original double stuf with vanilla” — and while those sorts of questions are silly on the surface, Patterson cherishes them.

“It’s random stuff we talk about, which is why I like the engagement factor,” he says.

The virtual film club led him to Good Time, the Safdie Brothers’ thunderous breakout starring Robert Pattinson. Though Patterson insists the selection was random — “I probably would have never watched the movie if not for the situation that we’re going through right now,” he says — the Safdies inserted themselves into the NBA conversation last fall with the release of Uncut Gems, which centered around Kevin Garnett and a gem salesman played by Adam Sandler whose reckless wagering on the 2012 NBA Playoffs led to him getting into a world of trouble.

Garnett is just one athlete venturing into Hollywood. While that list features guys like LeBron James rebooting Space Jam and starting SpringHill Entertainment, it’s not an endeavor limited to those who are able to take on projects that large. The way Patterson sees it, the entertainment industry is the latest obsession around the league.

“All these guys in the NBA have become wine connoisseurs going to Napa or wherever else and learning about wine and grapes and where they come, how to make it, how to taste it,” Patterson says. “Now, it’s athletes being more involved with movies, whether it’s acting, creating, writing or trying to start up their own companies.”

Asked who’s interested in the creative side that fans might not expect, Patterson points to teammate Paul George, who is more known for his work in the southern California community than for acting or creating. But George is just one of many who Patterson sees looking into Hollywood as an appealing business away from basketball. Athletes in movies is nothing new, but Patterson sees more high-profile hoopers looking into the creative side to tell their own stories.

“At the end of the day, all NBA guys are movie people as far as watching movies,” says Patterson. “There are X amount that want to be in front of the camera (with) their attitude, their demeanor, their likability. They can do the crossover. Then there are guys who want to create, who actually want to go into some type of film-making, writing, producing. Whether it’s movies, TV, animation, there are a handful of guys in the league who are interested in pursuing that.”

With time to dwell on the movie business, Patterson believes virtual screenings from companies like Netflix represent a pathway for theaters. With the closure of movie theaters and film festivals, transitioning to a virtual setup could allow content to make its way to audiences more quickly, especially if the pandemic jeopardizes gatherings into the fall. He imagines an AMC or Cineplex app with showtimes and virtual ticket stubs, which would allow studios to reclaim lost revenue while creating a more communal experience through social media. If everyone’s watching the same movie at once, it’s sort of the best of both worlds.

Before theaters across the country shuttered to encourage social distancing, Patterson was able to catch a showing of The Gentlemen, a pulpy action jaunt not unlike Good Time. Other 2020 favorites include the horror remake Invisible Man, as well as Bad Boys 4 Life, which Patterson says took entirely too long to put together but was still “solid.”

The recent alone time and bingeing of new movies and TV series has served as inspiration for Patterson as he thinks about what his first projects might look like.

“(We’re) using this time to write, so every single day, writing down ideas, writing down stories, things that could be adapted into screenplays and movies or even a TV show, whatever it may be,” Patterson says. “Right now, just taking this time to focus on life after basketball, creating the business, and hopefully when everything’s good, start creating and putting that out there for the world to see.”

Of course, the NBA season is still in flux. He may have to jump back into the daily routine of the season at a moment’s notice. He sees the daily updates like everyone else, but hasn’t heard a plan that he feels checks all the right boxes. In particular, he’s not on board with the idea of being separated from his loved ones in any kind of bubble league.

“It doesn’t have to be an individual athlete’s wife, kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents,” Patterson explains. “It doesn’t have to be that drastic, it could just be you get four tickets and that’s it, but I definitely would not want to play without the important people in my life in that arena, which is my wife and my parents, and her parents as well.”

With safety far from guaranteed right now, thinking about basketball seems strange. Trapped in a haven of creativity with nothing to do but watch and think, Patterson’s mind has opened to the possibilities of the future and the limitations of our current reality. The future seems clearer now, but the present is as cloudy as ever.

For nearly a month, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness has been the most-watched title on Netflix. Not most-watched title about large cats or most-watched Lisa Frank inspiration — most watched, period. The seven-part documentary (plus a recent special) ranked at the top of the streaming service’s Top 10 list for a record 25 straight days. But it has finally been usurped by some banana-loving tiny, yellow rascals.

The Wrap reports that the “docuseries had its 25-day streak at No. 1 on the streaming service’s daily rankings of all its available movies and TV shows in the U.S. snapped by Despicable Me.” Tiger King is still in second place, but why Gru and the Minions? And why now? I can answer the latter: there’s a lot of fed-up parents who are happy to plop their children in front of a screen (not a judgement), and they can only stomach so many episodes of The Boss Baby: Back in Business. As for why the Minions:

Now that’s something everyone can enjoy. Following Despicable Me and Tiger King, the rest of the top-10 goes Outer Banks, Ozark, The Innocence Files, something called Code 8 (???), All American, Money Heist, Chris D’Elia: No Pain, and The Big Show Show. Expect the intentionally-trashy Too Hot to Handle to dominate for the next month.

(Via the Wrap)

Everyone’s life has a Luke Skywalker moment – when something completely unexpected happens that hurls you from the life you knew into one you didn’t think was possible, and you take your first step into a larger world.

For me, it came in December 2002, when a friend told me about a job he had been interviewing for, but which he decided he couldn’t take. He and his wife were moving back to their hometown, and he thought I would be perfect for the role. He submitted my resume; I got a call the next day, a week after that I was interviewing, and five days later I got an offer to join Lucasfilm Ltd., initially to manage international publicity and ultimately to work as director of entertainment publicity.

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Star Wars had already been one of the defining moments of my childhood (including my own 10-minute-long, Super 8 “remake”), now it was going to change my adult life. For six years, I made my professional home at Lucasfilm, and had the enormously good fortune to spend time with George Lucas, who entertained questions from journalists, fans, researchers and employees with unmatched patience and genuine interest.

As we all worked on the production and release of what we assumed was the final Star Wars film – Episode III Revenge of the Sith – I listened to many discussions of the origins and ideas behind Star Wars. Eventually, I came to think of Star Wars movies less as entertainment and more as work, and I spent a not-insignificant amount of time defending the Star Wars prequels. On the day I left Lucasfilm, a TV producer I know joked, “Now you don’t have to keep insisting that those movies are good anymore.”

I never really had to insist on that, and always did believe it. But once I left Lucasfilm in 2009, I never watched any of the first six Star Wars films from start to finish. The stay-at-home world of coronavirus changed that, and I allowed myself to watch Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace … and discovered that I appreciated it more than I ever thought possible.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace – Trailer

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When it was released in 1999, I saw The Phantom Menace a half-dozen times in theaters and was bemused by each screening. Since 1977, I had only occasionally wondered what the “war” in Star Wars was all about, and why an intergalactic civil war had raged. The Phantom Menace promised an explanation, and gave one – but it wasn’t at all what anyone expected: Princess Leia had stolen secret plans, Darth Vader had killed Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker had blown up the Death Star, Yoda had trained Luke, Han had been frozen in carbonite, all because trade routes were unfairly taxed?

That sense of disbelief was long-lasting, and by the time I started working at Lucasfilm four years after The Phantom Menace was released, it hadn’t abated. The questions of Episode I loomed over everything we did, and were still on my mind when I re-watched The Phantom Menace through different eyes.

It was impossible not to hear the mildly exasperated chuckle in George Lucas’s voice whenever he answered questions about what it all meant. He always maintained a patient insistence that it had not a mistake to tell the world that the roots of Star Wars were indeed in political bureaucracy and microscopic organisms.

To watch Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace again is to realize a truth: George Lucas was absolutely right to do it the way he did. When given complete artistic freedom (he was spending his own money, after all) to tell the Star Wars story he wanted to tell, he remained true to his extraordinary vision a mythology rooted in the foibles and imperfections of our own world.

Director Jim Henson (left) and Lucas working on Labyrinth in 1986

The Phantom Menace is a film stuffed – perhaps overstuffed – with ideas, so many that it is hard to keep up with them. If it is far from a perfect film, with stilted dialogue and sometimes uncomfortable acting, it is never a dull or boring movie. And as arcane as “the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems” may seem, the origins of all wars – even the unbelievable one we’re in now, which began not with a bat or pangolin, but with bureaucratic, political decisions that stretch back years.

Mundane actions have massive consequences, and The Phantom Menace still surprises by looking at some of those actions closely. Even the opening scene, with its discussion of blockades, negotiations, ambassadors and senators stands in opposition to the slam-bang openings of the first three Star Wars movies.

The first half of The Phantom Menace can seem drawn out and dry, yet Lucas’s script is doing much more than simply setting up the action that will lead to the discovery of Anakin Skywalker. It’s also establishing a complicated world view, one in which politics as a whole is not to be trusted, but is the only imperfect option for getting anything done (sound familiar?).

Bear in mind that within the first couple of minutes of the original Star Wars, we’ve already learned about a civil war, an Imperial senate, and, a bit later, an “Old Republic.” While he could have chosen a more action-oriented, mindless backstory, George Lucas uses The Phantom Menace to begin showing how that republic became an empire, how a politician became a tyrant, and how the senate allowed it all to happen.

In that regard, The Phantom Menace is a more consequential and intriguing film than any of the most recent sequels. It’s also pointedly, proudly a George Lucas film. Its sprawling story, which is always splitting its time between two or three different plot lines, bears much more resemblance to Lucas’s earliest features – THX-1138 and American Graffiti – than any of the Star Wars films Lucas didn’t direct. Watching The Phantom Menace, it’s easy to see Lucas’s love of the craft of moviemaking come to the fore.

DARTH MAUL – Complete Lightsaber Fight – Star Wars : The Phantom Menace

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The Phantom Menace is equally a rumination on the cultural significance of mythology – when Anakin Skywalker’s mother Shmi struggles to explain what she means about her son’s conception and birth the film is also observing how the mythology of cultures around the globe share the same underpinnings. If Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope found inspiration in Joseph Campbell’s ideas of comparative mythology, The Phantom Menace is a master’s thesis in the teachings.

One of its most central ideas is one of the concepts most derided by fans: midichlorians. With the benefit of having heard George Lucas talk over and over about the concept of an underlying physical connection with the Force, I’ve come to think of midichlorians as the most intriguing aspect of the entire Star Wars saga. They are destiny made manifest, a bold attempt to explain why some people, given the same opportunities, passions and training, achieve more than others. They do not undermine the concept of the Force, but help explain why not everyone becomes a hero.

Star Wars: Phantom Menace – What Are Midichlorians (Movie Clip)

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Thy also speak to a concept that George Lucas would bring up over and over: the ubiquity of myths. For some reason, people around the world, separated by time and distance, have developed similar myths. Their stories and their religions bear remarkable resemblance to each other. Could it be something within us that motivates these beliefs?

Ultimately, The Phantom Menace becomes a rousing action film, though never a straightforward one. To get us to its final 45 minutes, Lucas concocted a story filled with switches and reverses, betrayals and false allies. It all leads to a grand finale in which at least four different battles are happening simultaneously. Lucas’ skill as a filmmaker ensures we always know where we are throughout this massive conclusion, even if we aren’t entirely sure of the ever-changing identity of one core character.

Though its midichlorian-induced hangover effect put fans on the defensive for years, a rewatch of The Phantom Menace proves the furor over the film may have been overdone. The more you watch The Phantom Menace, and the more you look at how it’s put together, listen to its dialogue and even its music, the more you realize that it has a great deal to say – not just about Star Wars but about our endless need for stories that help us make sense of a non-sensical world.

John Singh is a writer and entertainment-industry veteran who began his career as a newspaper journalist and has also worked at Disney, Lucasfilm Ltd., DreamWorks Animation and on a variety of films and TV series.

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