Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Corrected entry: After Obi-Wan cuts Darth Maul's lightsabre handle in half, one half falls to the floor. It can't have fallen into the pit, because of Maul's position when the sabre was cut in half. But in the following wideshot, the part that got cut off is nowhere to be seen, and it did not make a sound if it hit the ground. (00:56:45)

Correction: The half that Obi-Wan cuts off flies into a panel on a wall. If you look closely in said wide shot, you can see the wall panel with smoke billowing out of it.

Cubs Fan

Corrected entry: In the scene when princess Amidala, Qui Gon, Jar Jar and some other characters are recovering the palace, Amidala was sitting in a chair and then she opens some kind of box next to her and takes out a weapon; in the next shot she stands up and it seems as if she is almost going to fall.

Correction: How is this a mistake? People do find themselves off-balance at times.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: When Obi-Wan gets Qui-Gon's light saber and cut Darth Maul in half, when he falls he doesn't fall cut in half. They have to wait until they press standby to get the cut in half dummy. Basically even before Darth maul would fall he would be cut in half.

Correction: Since no one has ever been cut in half by a lightsaber, we don't know that. The two halves could have "stuck" together, from the blood and fluids acting as a glue of some sort. We also don't know the phisiology of Maul's species (Zabrak), so we simply can't make assumptions about how long it'd take for him to fall into two pieces.

Gary O'Reilly

Corrected entry: After Obi-Wan cuts Darth Maul in half and he falls into the pit, You see Obi-Wan and his lightsaber is off, a couple of seconds later you see that his lightsaber is on, with no sound of it reactivating.

Correction: There is no shot of Kenobi with his lightsabre off - in one shot, the beam follows the line of the wall, making it less clear, but it is there.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: When Darth Maul kicks Obi-Wan off the walkway, he falls off the walkway feet first. In the next shot, he falls down head first. (01:50:50)

Correction: Firstly, he falls off sideways, not feet first. Secondly, he falls a pretty long way - remember that Maul also falls to a lower walkway (Qui-Gon jumps down to join him), and Obi-Wan still has to leap upwards to get to them. We certainly don't see the entire fall, making it entirely plausible that he twisted in mid-air during the part of the fall that's off-camera.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: When the astromech droids are going to repair the shield generator, two of them start moving towards the lift that will take them up to the hull of the spaceship. One has yellow marks, the other has red marks. In the next shot, neither of them can be seen in the area near the lift, but when R2-D2 rolls out on the hull, both of them are there. (00:24:50)

Correction: There is no way to tell how much time is between when the red and yellow marked droids go up the lift and when R2 goes up the lift.

Corrected entry: After Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are gassed at the beginning, the door opens and they come out to fight the robots. During the entire fighting scene, the yellow gas remains inside the room although the door is wide open. In reality it would come out and diffuse.

nightline

Correction: By the time the droids get there, the rather large room has filled with gas, which is still being blown into the room after the door opens; therefore, it only seems like it's not diffusing, since the gas is so voluminous and ever-increasing in mass.

Xofer

Corrected entry: During the Podrace, the announcer says, "Skywalker's been forced onto he service ramp" before it happens. (01:04:30)

Correction: It may not have actually happened yet, but the annoucer has probably seen a good number of races and could have been able to tell that Skywalker would be forced onto the ramp.

Corrected entry: Andy Secombe based his vocal performance of Watto on Alec Guinness's performance as Fagin in "Oliver Twist." So essentially, Anakin is passed from one Alec Guinness impersonator at the beginning of the film to another one at the end.

Correction: Andy Secombe actually based his performance for the voice-over on an English 1960's TV commercial for antacid tablets: 'Settlers bring express relief.' The brief he received from George Lucas was for an imitation of an 'Italian second-hand car salesman.'

Corrected entry: At the beginning of the film we see two viceroys speaking to TC-14. After the point when Dofine says "I knew it! They're here to force a settlement" if you look closely at TC-14's left shoulder you can see the face of someone, maybe female.

Correction: I've watched this scene closely several times, and the only face reflected in TC-14's shoulder is Dofine's face.

Corrected entry: Similar to the trivia entries for "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" (1977) about the Imperial officer who unleashed the whole chain of events by ordering not to shoot the pod containing the two droids, have you ever thought about that stupid droid TC-14 in "The Phantom Menace" (1999)? Had not she warned Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray and his lietentant about the ambassadors being Jedis, Qui-Gonn and Obi Wan would have forced the settlement and none of all the events in the film would have happened; including the attack to Naboo leading to the finding of Anakin Skywalker and thus that very Imperial officer issuing that order, since the Empire would never have happened.

Correction: This is getting to be extremely coincidental. Even if the droid had not warned the Trade federation that the ambassadors were Jedi they would have noticed easily, and the call to Sidious would have been made in any event. The events may have been slightly altered or delayed in this manner, but the eventuality of the battles would have remained unchanged.

Corrected entry: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are up to the same hovercraft to Naboo, but Qui-Gon is walking alone till Obi-Wan comes out from the opposite direction.

Correction: Qui-Gon specifically says "Let's split up. Stow aboard separate ships and meet up down on the planet."

Garlonuss

Corrected entry: When Qui-Gon is walking with Jar-Jar in the city of Tatooine, look at the side, and you will see Luke Skywalker's speeder standing next to two aliens.

Correction: A) This isn't a mistake, if anything it'd be trivia and B) You can't expect Luke's speeder to be the only one of that model ever made. Chances are there are mass produced speeders, droids, ships and weapons in the Star Wars universe, just like there are in ours.

Gary O'Reilly

Corrected entry: During the parade on Naboo, in the shot where Anakin and Obi-Wan look at each other, a girl in a peach-coloured dress is standing behind Anakin and R2-D2. A couple of shots later, the same girl is with a group of children throwing confetti (she can be seen on the right side of the screen). Then she's back behind Anakin and Artoo at the end of the scene. (02:03:40)

Correction: It is not the same girl, they are just dressed similarly.

Corrected entry: In the scene where Obi-Wan, Jar-Jar, and Qui-Gonn are in the Gungan watercraft, they lose power for a bit. When they reach the surface later, it shows that the canopy disipates like a force field. If the pod lost power under water, the force field would not have operated drowning the crew.

Correction: Since the watercraft is semiorganic (like all Gungan technology), it no doubt has some sort of failsafe that keeps the canopy closed whilst under water.

Xofer

Corrected entry: During the invasion of Theed, Queen Amidala is looking out of a window. In the wideshot, in the bottom right corner, you can see ILM (short for Industrial Light and Magic) written in what looks like red spray paint on the wall. (00:20:05)

Correction: Trivia?

Corrected entry: Qui-gon says to Watto, "My ship will be the entry fee." How does he know for sure that the people in charge of registration for the pod race will accept a damaged ship? I realize it's a moot point, since Qui-gon talked Watto into supplying the entry fee.

Matty Blast

Correction: These are Hutts we're talking about - they'll likely accept just about anything of sufficient monetary value.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: At the start, we see Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan running very fast to get away from the Droidekas. Yet near the end, Obi-Wan is cut off from Qui-Gon and Maul by the large number of force fields, and when he tries to run through them as fast as he can to help Qui-Gon, he just misses and is cut off by the last force field. Why did he not just use the super force running trick to get through them all in one run?

Correction: Because he was out of energy. The same could be said about him running to the Force shields in the first place, but Obi-Wan was simply out of energy.

Corrected entry: When R2-D2 shows the holographic plan of the palace, the palace turns, but not the red path.

Dr Wilson

Correction: Not so. The path does in fact change orientation as the palace itself turns. It is most noticeable at the left edge; note how the red line moves from several inches into the hologram but shifts leftward until it is almost at the edge. It is also very evident at the square reverse-C-shaped curve of the path; the lower bar of the reverse-C decreases noticeably in length.

Phil C.

Corrected entry: When the neimoidian vice-roy is watching the battle on a screen Darth Maul comes, but his make-up seems different than during the rest of the film.

Dr Wilson

Correction: "Seems". Only to the person that submitted this, I'm afraid. The fact is that Darth Maul's makeup is the same in that scene as everywhere else in the film.

Phil C.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Qui-Gon, Jar-Jar, and Padme are eating at Anakin's house, Anakin's mum pours water for Qui-Gon. But when she gets to Jar-Jar, she tips the pitcher but no water comes out. (00:39:10)

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Trivia: This film had the dubious honor as being the highest-grossing film to be nominated for "Razzie" awards, until "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" was released in 2018. It also has the dubious honor as one of a few films to be nominated for both "Razzie" (for directing, screenplay, picture, and acting roles) and Academy Awards (only for technical achievements) at the same year. While it did not win any Oscars, it won only one "Razzie" for "Worst Supporting Actor" (Ahmed Best who provided the voice of Jar-Jar Binks).

megamii

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Question: Something I never quite figured out when watching the film was what the shields in the corridor were for? The shields that separate Darth Maul from Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan during the fight. There are dozens of them and all they seem to do is benefit the fight in the film without having any real purpose.

Lummie

Chosen answer: According to "Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Episode I" by Kristin Lund, they are "laser doors which lock into position in response to potentially lethal power outputs that occur intermittently during plasma activation process" (the fight takes place in a plasma energy processing plant). There are six laser doors in deference to an ancient Naboo legend in which Chaos is held back by six inpentrable gates. As you say though, they're really just a plot device to add dramatic tension to the duel!

Sierra1

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