STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE: THE ABRIDGED SCRIPT
By Rod Hilton
FADE IN:
INT. SPACESHIP
LIAM NEESON
It is vitally important we enter trade
negotiations with the federation.
EWAN MCGREGOR
I agree. This one planet and how it
trades with other planets is certainly
an important enough topic to be the
entire plot of a Star Wars film.
INT. SPACESHIP - MAIN DECK
EVIL ALIEN
Werr. What wirr we do now? My evil,
obviousry Asian race must prevair. I
wirr not face de Jedi. Send de droid.
INT. SPACESHIP - BACK TO THE JEDI
A droid enters.
LIAM NEESON
I sense a disturbance in the force.
EWAN MCGREGOR
Well, shit.
Suddenly, numerous pieces of CGI enter and begin
attacking the Jedi. The Jedi use the high concentration
of midichlorians in their bodies to use the force to
destroy the CGI. They run outside.
EXT. NABOO
They run until they smack into some more CGI.
JAR JAR
Who might you be?
LIAM NEESON
(staring in the general direction of Jar Jar, but
not really staring at him)
I am a Jedi. There are bad things
coming. Take me to your homeland.
JAR JAR
I see. That is quite interesting. I
will guide you to the land from which
I have come.
Suddenly, GEORGE LUCAS realizes the Jar Jar toys aren't
selling well enough.
JAR JAR
Oh! Meesa sorry! Meesa ment to
saysa: Weesa can go back to Jamaica
mon, okeyday?
EWAN MCGREGOR
(staring at something right
above Jar Jar)
Good. Do you have a hotel room for me
and Liam? We have..uh..Jedi business
to attend to.
JAR JAR
Weesa can smokesa some ganja, mon.
AUDIENCE
Die. Die, Jar Jar. Nobody likes you.
INT. SPACESHIP - MAIN DECK
The queen appears over some kind of thing which appears
to be better in technology than the kinds of things in
the original trilogy.
NATALIE PORTMAN
I am the queen. You've gone too far
this time. I will tell the senate and
you will be in a lot of trouble.
EVIL ALIEN
I'm so sorry, Amidala.
NATALIE PORTMAN
No, no, I'm Padme now.
EVIL ALIEN
I thought when in the makeup, you were
the queen.
NATALIE PORTMAN
No, I'm whoever is playing the queen
at the time. The voice changes don't
help you figure this out.
EVIL ALIEN
Stop trying to confoose me! Droids,
capture the queen.. or Padme.. er..
just capture everyone!
LIAM and EWAN and, fuck, JAR JAR too take NATALIE PORTMAN
and other members of her staff onto a ship and they
escape. They go to Tatooine.
INT. TATOOINE - SOME SHOP WHERE JAKE LLOYD IS HELD SLAVE
JAKE LLOYD
Hi there! Golly I'm cute.
NATALIE PORTMAN
You certainly are, little boy.
JAKE LLOYD
Am I the only one disturbed by the fact
that I'm gonna bone you in episode
two?
LIAM NEESON
Jake, I need you to have a pod race so
I can get the parts I need and free
you.
JAKE'S MOM
No, I won't allow him to pod race.
He'll get hurt.
(pause)
Ok, I will. Nevermind. Good luck.
They pod race. It looks really COOL.
GEORGE LUCAS
(attempting subtlety)
Oh! Look! There's a video game of
this scene... uh.. buy it! Hey, I had
to sacrifice a part of my grand vision
for these movies to include a part
that could be turned into a game, so
buy it or I'll do it even more in
episode 2.
JAKE wins! He has to leave his mother, which will become
very important in the next movie. He also has to leave
his protocol droid, THREEPIO.
AUDIENCE
He built C-3PO? Why wasn't this ever
mentioned in the original trilogy?
GEORGE LUCAS
Because I just made it up. Speaking
of stuff I'm just making up, how do
you like the midichlorian bullshit I
pulled out of my ass?
They all get into their ship and go to Coruscant.
INT. CORUSCANT - JEDI COUNCIL
LIAM NEESON
I want to train this boy.
YODA
Nope. Sorry. Too old the boy is.
Clouded his future seems. Vague my
worries are.
LIAM NEESON
Well, he is the chosen one. He will
bring balance to the force. I'm
training him.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON
Yoda told you no, muthafucka. What
the fuck is wrong with you, bitchass?
I'll fuckin' kill you! I'm gonna be a
fuckin bad ass in the next two fuckin
movies, you know. My toy has a
fuckin lightsaber.
LIAM NEESON
I'm going to go over your head and
train him myself, then. So there.
He exits.
INT. GALACTIC SENATE MEETING
IAN MCDIARMID
Damn I'm evil.
Suddenly, we see E.T! This does not make the film HYPER-
CUTESEY like Return of the Jedi, but CLEVER.
EXT. NABOO
NATALIE PORTMAN
I am either the queen or Padme now.
Regardless, your cheesy-looking race
of annoying, unrealistic characters
need to ally with our badly acting
race of creatures so we can capture
this one guy.
BOSS NASS
One guy? The climax of this film
revolves entirely around us capturing
one, pretty insignificant guy?
Doesn't that make this whole thing
kinda pointless?
NATALIE PORTMAN
No more pointless than how this
entire film revolves around taxes
on trade and the cutting off of one,
pathetic little planet half-filled
with annoying creatures.
They go after the bad guy or whatever. Who cares?
Finally DARTH MAUL shows up for a prolonged fight
sequence. Darth wears black boots, a black cloak, a
black shirt, has a red lightsaber, wears red and black
face paint, and has horns. He is EVIL.
Meanwhile, the Naboo people go after this one
insignificant guy and we really don't care.
Meanwhile, the Gungans go against a bunch of droids and
we really don't care except we want the Gungans to die.
Meanwhile, Anakin takes off into space to join the space-
battle, which is mostly over by the time he arrives. We
care a little bit.
INT. SOME KIND OF THINGY WITH SOME RED FORCE FIELDS
MAUL, LIAM, and EWAN all have a huge lightsaber battle
which has had a lot of effort put into the choreography
and is thousands of times better than any other
lightsaber battle in a Star Wars film.
AUDIENCE
Whoa! This is really cool!
Suddenly, we go back to one of the other three stupid
battles going on at the time. Eventually, we return to
the good one.
DARTH MAUL
(menacing as hell)
Grrr.
Eventually, MAUL stabs LIAM, which is very surprising,
especially to those of us who bought the film score which
has a song whose title gives away the ending. He then
kicks EWAN into a shaft. EWAN grabs onto something on
the side and holds on for dear life.
EWAN MCGREGOR
Well, you certainly are an experienced
fighter and there is little question
you could kick pretty much anyone's
ass.
DARTH MAUL
Muahahahaha.
Slowly, EWAN uses the force to grab LIAM'S lightsaber,
jump up out of the shaft, over MAUL, press the button
on the saber, and slice MAUL in half while MAUL stands
there like an idiot and does nothing at all. He dies.
EXT. SPACE
JAKE LLOYD
Whoaaaaa! I'm in space! Now this is
pod racing! Yipee! Uh oh! Man, I'm
so cute.
JAKE goes into a hangar, where the main reactor for the
ship is kept. He accidentally blows it to SHIT.
JAKE LLOYD
Uh oh! I better leave! Let's leave
Artoo!
They exit quickly. The ship explodes, which stops all
the droids and just makes everything great, because it's
always enjoyable when a serious conflict is resolved with
a slapstick accident.
EXT. THE STREETS OF NABOO
The Gungans are dancing and such, still alive. A huge
party ensues.
AUDIENCE
Wow! Watching this party and all this
celebration has convinced me that the
tiny, pathetic problem that has been
taken care of is actually really
significant! Hooray!
Suddenly, the AUDIENCE realizes that behind all the
mindless celebration and kiddie cartoon bullshit, what
actually happened was the future-emperor has actually
manipulated everything, come into great power, and that
one tiny problem has actually been resolved, but
thousands more have been created.
GEORGE LUCAS
Three years, suckers. I'd make them
come out sooner, but I work very hard
on my films, as I am an independent
filmmaker due to my disgust with
Hollywood's commercialism. Now go buy
some Star Wars toys!
END
