📽️ Watched Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
This isn’t as bad as I remembered. It’s still full of appalling spacified racial stereotypes and there’s literally a Looney Tunes-style sound effect after Jar Jar accidentally falls and lets loose a bunch of “bombads,” but some of it is gorgeous to look at: the palace of Naboo, the underwater jellyfish bubble buildings where Gungans live, and the Senate chamber. The pod race completely deserves to have inspired the video games it did. Darth Maul actually says words, which I had forgotten and let’s all admit that his double-bladed light saber is still cool. Also Warwick Davis is just kicking it with Jabba at the pod race and ET is a senator?
All of this to say: I definitely won’t watch it again before my kid inevitably makes me, but when he does make me, I won’t be as grouchy about it as I thought I would be.