STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE: THE ABRIDGED SCRIPT

Hobbes

[Caution: contains spoilers, but if you haven't seen The Phantom Menace yet, I doubt avoiding spoilers is real high on your list of priorities.]

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, ****.

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, ****, 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
I'm 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 bull**** 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, mutha****a. What the **** is wrong with
yo, *****ass? I'll ****in' kill you! I'm gonna be a ****in bad ass in
the next two ****in movies, you know. My toy has a ****in 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 the fact that 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 ****.

JAKE LLOYD (cont'd)
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 bull****, 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

[Note - orignally written by Rod Hilton (xavier@voicenet.com, http://www.voicenet.com/~xavier/scripts).]