Robots: from
the film.		 Herald Sun, Saturday April 3, 1999.
Even Longer ago in a galaxy far, far away ... NUI TE KOHA in Los Angeles reports on the prequel to Star Wars
An unstoppable force
  It seems destined to be the biggest box office hit ever.
The secrecy surrounding the new Star Wars movie is surpassed only by the expectation of fans eagerly awaiting it's Australian premiere on June 3.
But even at this stage, the closely guarded plot is still the subject of rabid speculation.
And while George Lucas, director of the prequel The Phantom Menace has leaked a few details of his latest epic, he is saving the best for the film's release.
Even the main players - including Liam Neelson, Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman - were kept in the dark during a large portion of the shoot.
Young hero: Ewan McGragor plays a young

Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel.
  Lucas was simply trying to keep his baby - of which the Star Wars trilogy and merchandising has earned $5.8 billion to date - under wraps.
Until Lucas released a two minute teaser late last year, he says "80 precent of everything on the web was completely bogus, I mean, not even close."
"Just people spinning fictions," Lucas said, "trying to make themselves feel good, or feel important."
Or, perhaps, get into the spirit of one of the most anticipated movies of the decade.
"This wanting to know every single detail before it even hits the screen is sad," Lucas said.
"It's like; Guys, Christmas morning is coming. You will get to open your presents.
"Why do you want to suck the joy out of it?"
The Phantom Menace opens on the planet Naboo, where the evil Trade Federation has sparked a war.
At issue, the Federation wants the peaceful planet to comply with unfair trade routs, but Naboo's Queen Amidala (17-ear-old Portman) refuses.
Jedi knights Qui-Gon Jinn (Neelson) and his student Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) come to Amidala's rescue, and take her to Coruscant, where the young queen hopes to lobby for support from the Galactic Senate.
However, Federation leader Darth Sidious, sends his pupil, Darth Maul, to intercept Jinn, Kenobi and Amidala.
Maul damages their ship, and they are forced to land on Tatooine, where they meet a young boy, Anakin Skywalker (played by eight-year-old Jake Loyd).
To the initiated - and most who live in the western world are - Skywalker is seduced by the dark side of the force, to eventually become the Star Wars trilogy's arch villain, Darth Vader.
"You see the heyday of the Jedi, when they are guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy," Lucas told Vanity Fair in February, "sort of like the old marshals out west. And there's thousands of them."
The Phantom Menace has been described by the trade magazines as the ultimate independent studio flick, mainly because Lucas funded (as he did with The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi) the 130-minute, $115 million epic himself.
It means total autonomy - from directing, to overseeing every aspect of the film and it's fallout.
On guard: Liam Neelson and Ewan McGragor with light

sabres at the ready in The Phantom Menace 1999.
  "It meant that I didn't have to stick to anybody's schedule," Lucas said.
"If I wanted to do another day of shooting, I did another day of shooting."
The Phantom Menace will be completed at the end of April.
Last month, Lucas's post-production empire, Industrial Light and Magic, was still working on a climatic battle sequence, in which 3000 computer generated alien infantrymen take on 4000 battle droids.
The Phantom Menace will have 2200 special affects shots - nearly four times as many as Titanic.
"I've gotten much better performances out of my aliens this time," Lucas said, lamenting the lack of technology for the Star Wars trilogy.
Ordinarily, for any other film, 11th hour post-production would be considered suicide.
But The Phantom Menace is a different proposition.
When the first trailer debuted in the US in November last year, movie houses reported chaotic scenes.
One Los Angeles theatre, which premiered the trailer with the full length feature dud Meet Joe Black reported a full house for the Star Wars teaser, then a massive walkout before Brat Pitt's bore-fest.
Portman says because the film relies so heavily on special effects, most of the acting is about hitting marks and keeping eye lines with creatures, people, droids or entities dropped onto the movie at a later stage.
"Liam looked shell-shocked," production designer Gavin Bocquet told Entertainment Weekly last week.
The lighter side: Jake Loyd as Anakin

Skywalker before he becomes Darth Vader.
  "He was supposed to behave as if various creatures were flitting and crawling around him all day. It took a lot of adjusting."
Lucas will shoot the prequel's second of three chapters - in which Anakin Skywalker is confronted with darker, sinister elements - in Australia.
For now, there's the matter of the first chapter.
At a rough-cut screening last week, director pals Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese were repeatedly "blown away."
"The whole situation that has developed around the film is pretty amazing," Lucas said.
"I mean, there's never been anything like this, that I've been aware of, for a movie so far before it comes out.
"It's like a game. It's fun, as long as people don't take it too seriously."
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