10 Thinkpieces That Would Happen if "The Phantom Menace" Opened Today

Here's what analytical bloggers would write about if "The Phantom Menace" premiered in 2014.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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So much has changed in the 15 years since Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace first opened in theaters. The media landscape has been altered so drastically in the last decade-and-a-half that you have to wonder how differently things might go if the film hit theatres today. Don't get us wrong, the movie would still suck, but how people talk about The Phantom Menace's awfulness would be quite different.

In 1999, we were still in the dark ages of the Internet. If you wanted intellectual takes on the latest pop culture, you had to trudge down to your local newsstand and pick up a copy of The New Yorker or hijack your parents' subscription to The New York Times. Thanks to the awesome powers of the Internet, you can now read an extensive thinkpiece that confirms all of your biases the morning after a film is released. no matter what those biases may be.

Yes, we live in amazing times. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of The Phantom Menace, we wanted to give the film something it was deprived of by arriving more than a decade too soon. Here are 10 Thinkpieces That Would Happen if The Phantom Menace Opened Today. 

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Qui-Gon Baby Gone: How Episode I Spells the End for Liam Neeson's Renaissance

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Meesa Contrarian: Backlash Against the Jar-Jar Binks Backlash

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Phantom Red Menace: Parrallels Between the Star Wars Trade Federation and Putin in Ukraine

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Podrace Relations: How The Phantom Menace's Announcers Reveal the Soft Bigotry of the NFL Draft

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Situating Natalie Portman on the Anne Hathaway-Jennifer Lawrence Continuum

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How Rude: Jar Jar Binks and '90s Nostalgia

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He Built That and It Sucks: George Lucas' Relationship With Star Wars Fans As A Microcosm of Baby Boomers' Relationship With Millenials

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Gungan Style: What a Race of Aquatic Monsters Teaches Us About White Male Privilege

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Patton Oswalt Tweeted Once About The Phantom Menace and We Wrote an Entire Thinkpiece About It

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There Was No Rape Scene in The Phantom Menace But Here's How Offended I Would Have Been Had There Been One

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