STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE: THE ABRIDGED SCRIPT


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, shit.

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 (contUd)
          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, fuck, 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 bullshit 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, muthafucka.  What 
          the fuck is wrong with you, bitchass?  
          I'll fuckin' kill you! I'm gonna be a
          fuckin bad ass in the next two fuckin
          movies, you know.  My toy has a
          fuckin 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 (contUd)
          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 SHIT.

                    JAKE LLOYD (contUd)
          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 bullshit, 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