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EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE

We begin with what was, without a doubt, the greatest letdown in Star Wars history. Why the backlash? Well, that’s obvious—not one person lost a hand onscreen. That’s right. No hands were harmed in the making of this motion picture.

And this pisses me off. I mean, we got a 1138. We got a “bad feeling” line. Why no hands? Why, cruel master of black fate?

Instead there were lame replacements for the loss of hands. This is why we didn't beat Titanic at the box office.

(I must pause here for a bit of explanation. I initially wrote this site in 1999. At the time, we were really, really hoping to beat Titanic. I realize this means nothing to most of you whippersnappers. Anyway.)

So what did we get, besides about eight million Pepsi cans depicting Queen Amidala? Well, Darth Maul’s lightsaber was chopped in half—a poor man's hand-sever. And when Darth Maul himself got chopped in half, the message was clear: close but no cigar was the name of the game.

Perhaps Obi-Wan was too much of a sadistic, revenge-fueled psycho that he ignored the noble art of hand-cutting and went for the whole shebang. (I know that sentence is awkward. Like I said, I wrote this site in 1999. I was in high school. You’re lucky I haven’t scrubbed the whole thing in abject shame.)

Fear, anger, hate, suffering, you know how you do.

Now Jar Jar Binks. People would have liked this movie a lot more if his hand got chopped off and he screamed: “Aggh! Aggh! Mesa get hand cut off!” or something along those lines. That is neither the best dialogue nor the worst that would appear in one of these movies. Someone else would have to iron out the specifics, but I’m just trying to entertain the mainstream here, George. It’s not as complicated as you might be tempted to make it.

Bear in mind, there was a hand-chop during the events of Episode I. Just not onscreen. And you’ll read about that later…

I must pause here. (Again.) Once every couple of months or so, as regular as the misty moon over the lonely hills, I’ll get an e-mail saying “Hey Adam! I bet a battle droid got his arm chopped off in The Phantom Menace!” Sorry, folks, but I’ll only count it if the hand/arm specifically gets removed from an otherwise fairly intact body. None of these chopped-into-twenty-pieces affairs. If you’ve got photographic evidence of your basic, plain, simple hand chop, send it my way. I will analyze it with the same scrutiny granted the Zapruder film.

Until then, a moment’s silence for what might have been.

On the up side, as greater scholars than I have noted, the Podrace was pretty cool.