Today marks the 10th Anniversary of The Phantom Menace. It is hard to believe that it was that long ago now. The Phantom Menace had one the largest marketing blitz of all the movies and it really showed. You could buy almost anything with the Phantom Menace on it and even years later it was very common to find stuff still in clearance bins. I picked up most of my figures for a couple dollars when I got back from England. It was also the first time a Midnight Madness event was held in which the toys went on sale at midnight to crazed Star Wars fans wanting to be the first to get the toys. Since then one of these events has been done for each movie and the most recent was last year with the Clone Wars. It’s always a fun way to meet up with some local fans and talk Star Wars while waiting around for new product.
In celebration today I am picking up my copy of the Fanboys which came out today on DVD. Below are some clips of some of the various media that was being shown at the time.
First up is the Music Video for Duel of the Fates. This was actually played on MTV at the time and I even remember hearing it on the radio.
Pepsico had a deal with Lucasfilm for tie ins which were done at their KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hutt food chains. Whoever thought you would see the Colonel with a lightsaber or the Taco Bell dog piloting a Battle Droid Turbo Tank. It has been said the KFC actually had too much overstock of the Phantom Menace product they actually had to close down stores in order to recoup from their losses.
and lastly their were of course lots of video games. One of the fun ones was the pod racing game. My favorite version of this was the arcade game which has the better graphics and more realistic gameplay, but the N64 version wasn’t too bad either. Here is the commercial for that one.
That’s it for my little retrospective. It may not be considered the best Star Wars movie, but it was an amazing time to be a fan. All the hype and build up leading to this movie was a lot of fun also all the speculation/debate as to how Anakin would actually become Darth Vader.