William Shakespeare’s The Phantom of Menace (book review)

Review by Elizabeth Weitz

I have put off reading this book for a while now.

The hurt, the pain, the sheer disappointment of the movie still lingers in my bones and when I start to think that I’ve got a good grip on the blanket of depression that usually wraps around me when I think about The Phantom Menace, I find that I do not…

For there are people who share this world with me for whom their very first introduction to the beloved Space Opera is not the vision/mind obliteration that are two space ships engaged in a stacked-deck battle against a black background, but the sound of racist Asian stereotypes…passing through the lips of Nute Gunray (sigh).

But I will persist, like the Rebels, and go forth into Ian Doescher’s Star Wars-ian Shakespeare hoping that through the beauty of The Bard’s language I can remove myself from the movie’s disastrous dialog completely…

‘Tis but a truth that all disappointed souls can relate to.

And thank god for it because being reminded of this:

The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.Now get out of here.

Stings far less when cloaked in the word glitter of:

Jar Jar: [To Qui-gon] O moiee-moiee, I so luvee!

Qui-Gon: Thou brainless knave! Almost thou kill’d us both.

Jar Jar: I speakee, speakee, look at mee-mee!

Qui-Gon: That thou canst speak doth not yet make thee wise. Now, go ye hence. Away!

See, almost Palpatine…I mean, palatable.

And therein lies the utter charm and brilliance of Ian Doescher’s Star Wars/Shakespeare series. 

This is not so much a parody of two genres intertwined, but a marriage of wit and soliloquies and drama and death which creates a weighty worthiness to both, not to mention a narrative that, let’s face it, is lost to even the most impressionable fans of Shakespeare who stumble over the words like blindfolded jesters negotiating cobblestone streets after drinking pints of strong ale.

See what I mean!

If Doescher can make even the most ardent mocker of the prequels fall into line (although it helps to swallow it all down via the pills of the beautiful illustrations), how can I not appreciate them (Gasp!) and swell with tears when Shmi, saying good-bye to her son, gives her parting such a sweet sorrow:

Shmi: Now go, my son, and look not backward. Yea, I bid thee, keep thine eyes e’er forward turn’d. O, look not backward.

Rather than the dull atrocity of:

SHMI SKYWALKER

Now, be brave, and don’t look back. Don’t look back.

So fear not fellow travelers, Go forth and wander this strange Menace and be glad in heart…for this is not the terrain of broken hearts but a pathway to a strange enlightenment that may lessen the ache of Lucas’ betrayal.

May the Verse be with you.