The Six-Hour Phantom Menace Extended Cut Exists, But There's a Catch
After all the hype – and sixteen years – The Phantom Menace was always going to struggle to meet expectations.
And it's no surprise that it's now widely considered one of the weakest elements of the Star Wars franchise.
Indeed, the online abuse and bullying from fans of Star Wars, coupled with over-the-top press criticism of Jake Lloyd (who played the young Anakin Skywalker) was enough to make him quit acting at the age of 12.
Although, the young star actually received a Young Artist award for Best Supporting Actor award for his part in the movie.
But that wasn't the last we heard from Lloyd and in a 2011 interview with ThatShelf.com he revealed that there is a six-hour cut of The Phantom Menace out there.
This may not be received with huge amounts of positivity given that all those additional hours of footage were deemed not good enough for the final cut of a film that was, at best, underwhelming.
After revealing the existence of the extended cut of the movie, though, Lloyd was asked whether he had seen it. To which he replied that he hadn't.
But he then went on to say that one of the few people to have watched the extended edit, Matthew Wood (who voiced Bib Fortuna in The Phantom Menace and General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith), described it as mind-blowingly awesome).
And this maybe sheds new light on the six-hour cut of the film. Because Wood is a respected voice in the world of Star Wars and LucasFilm.
Originally a games tester at LucasArts, he went on to become an award-winning sound editor at LucasFilm and is now supervising sound editor at Skywalker Sound.
So maybe, somewhere out there is a version of The Phantom Menace that would have delivered on fans' expectations – had it been a mini-series rather than a feature.
Because, let's face it, not even the most devoted fans want to sit through that in a cinema.
But it appears that we'll just have to take Lloyd's word that we can take Wood's word that this cut is indeed "mind-blowingly awesome".
Because the catch is that almost nobody has ever seen it in its entirety – and there are no plans for it to be made available for public viewing.
Although, in the world of entertainment, it's best to never say never.