She could hold her own with a blaster, wore fabulous gowns, was kindhearted and wise, and was elected queen of a planet at the age of 14. As a young girl who still couldn’t legally drive a car, I thought Padmé Amidala, the ruler of Naboo in “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” was the most amazing thing I had ever seen on screen. I repeatedly voted for the movie’s most important musical theme, “Duel of the Fates,” on MTV’s “Total Request Live.” I bought everything from the paper dolls to the commemorative Pepsi can and made “Amidala” part of my AOL Instant Messenger screen name.
And then as an adult, I was informed that this was not an acceptable opinion, that the prequels were inferior in every way to the trilogy that came before. And to be sure, it’s hard not to rewatch the prequels and cringe at Jar Jar Binks or recoil at more than a few poorly conceived lines of dialogue. But as Star Wars fandom finds itself again mired in frustration over the newest trilogy in the saga, particularly the divisive “The Last Jedi,” the prequels are being reassessed through fresh eyes.
On the 20th anniversary of the release of “The Phantom Menace,” it is worth revisiting just why it is that people like me still hold affection in our hearts for the films that thrilled us as kids, and what this might tell us about the impact our adolescence has on our lifetime cultural attitudes. In a recent podcast conversation between conservative writers Jonathan V. Last and Matt Continetti, Continetti noted that he had lately “come to appreciate the originality and value of the prequels.” Last replied that he had recently met — gasp! — “a millennial” who concurred:
Thankfully, there’s polling data out there to support the idea that Last’s encounter in the wild with a real-life millennial was not unrepresentative. In 2017, Morning Consult surveyed Americans on their views of the “Star Wars” film franchise, including views on the films as well as the characters. Slightly more 18 to 29-year-olds report having seen “The Phantom Menace” at all (42%) than say they saw “A New Hope” (39%).
But “The Phantom Menace” is the favorite “Star Wars” film of only 3% of the under-30 crowd. For older generations, the preference for the original trilogy is much stronger, with the prequels and newer films falling further behind among increasingly older cohorts. Even looking at individual characters themselves, Padmé’s highest favorable ratings are among those under age 45, while for (spoiler alert!) her daughter Leia Organa who was the female lead of the original trilogy, favorables are highest among the 45 to 54-year-old cohort.
All of which is to say: When you are born and when you become aware of the world around you plays a noninsignificant role in how you think about culture. (Another example: Around age 33 is when our brains stop becoming as receptive to new music.)
This phenomenon is certainly the case in politics, where extensive research suggests political events you experience between ages 14 and 24 have three times as much of an effect on your political views as events you experience at age 40.
Not everyone who was young in 1999 was as enamored of “The Phantom Menace” as I was (“Duel of the Fates” only topped out at #7 on “Total Request Live” and was off the countdown by Memorial Day), but there’s no doubt that being the right age at the right time made the film have a much greater impact on me than had I seen it at age 34 or even 24.
The things you love when you’re young stick with you. “Star Wars” may be no different than political partisanship in that regard.
