Here are excerpts about SW Ep. 1 that appear on LucasArt's new CD product, Behind the Magic. You can get it at many retail outlets for only $ 19.95. It's a bargain!
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
A generation before Star Wars: A New Hope, the great Galactic Republic rules the galaxy, but the days of peace and justice are now threatened. Into these uncertain times come a great mystic warrior and his brash apprentice: an elder Jedi master and Obi Wan Kenobi, a young learner. Obi-Wan's wise and powerful mentor is teaching him the ways of the Jedi, instructing him in its code of honor and training him to become a full fledged Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan is brooding and impatient, but an excellent student, and the two make a capable team.
Plunged into the thick of treachery and galactic politics, the Jedi face more than they bargain for on a mission gone badly awry. In the course of their adventures they reach a forbidding world in the Outer Rim - the remote desert planet of Tatooine - where they encounter the boy Anakin Skywalker living in poverty. He is gifted and good-hearted, and the elder Jedi sees something even more than all the promise of youth - Anakin is strong with the Force.
On Coruscant, the galactic capital, betrayal and weakness at the highest level may signal the death of the Republic, while high within the spire of the noble Jedi Temple, Yoda and the Jedi Council consider the fateful choices before them. Dark enemies challenge the Jedi with dangerous strength and ferocity, and amidst the chaos, freedom and justice are threatened at many levels. Young Anakin Skywalker faces the path of his destiny, and his remarkable abilities mark him as a unique individual...although, as some of the Jedi sense, his future is strangely clouded.
Battle Droid Warriors
In these troubled times of failing politics, many nations and worlds are once again turning to military hardware for strength. While few will take the bold step of outfitting an army of soldiers, it is now common - if whispered - knowledge that battle-droid armies have been built. There are in fact more battle-droid armies than galactic leaders would prefer to admit.
Utterly heartless in the performance of their duties, battle droids are instruments of destruction and anathema to the more civilized peoples of the galaxy. In the present uncertain political climate, no one can count on security. Battle droids are often built to roughly resemble their creator species, since they serve as stand-in soldiers but many other factors can affect the designs of these robotic creations.
Naboo Royal N-1 Starfighters
Royal Fighter designs throughout the galaxy often express the values of their native culture over pure utalitarianism, and the Naboo Royal N-1 Starfighter is no exception.
This handcrafted space fighter embodies the Naboo lore of elegant design, incorporating the necessary components and hardware within a custom-designed space from which makes the ship a work of art. Created for planetary defense sorties, patrols and formal diplomatic escort missions, the N-1 features galactic standard sublight engine components in a vectored J-type (twin radial) configuration, giving the lightweight ship a high degree of maneuverability. In accordance with the Naboo philosophy of harmony, the engines have been modified to produce fewer atmospheric emmissions during launching and landing.
A galactic standard astromech unit assists the pilot, loading through a harch in the underside of the ship. As the galaxy becomes ever more troubled by the threats and actions of great powers, noble fighter corps like Naboo's N-1 squadrons begin to seem like a thing of the past. The fearsome war machines now being amassed by certain organizations are dedicated to nothing but destructive power and comparitively fragile "artwork spacecraft" would be no match of such savage modern constructions.