Where did they come up with the title: "The Phantom Menace"?

The Phantom Menace is Darth Maul.

No...it refers to Anakin.

It could easily be Palpatine or Anakin.  Therefore i say it refers to the sith in general.

In the phantom menace the Jedi council says the sith have been exstinct for a millenium and they don't believe they could return without their knowledge.

And Yoda says "ah! hard to see the darkside is!".

Haters of the prequels would say the Phantom Menace is Jar Jar, when jar jar appears star wars was destroyed from a certain point of view,lol.

In Episode II the growing power of the darkside clouds the jedis judgement in the force.  The secret creation of a clone army happens right under the councils noses.  Palpatine Sidious gets elected as Chancellor at the End of episode 1 and if there right when they burn Qui Gon's body.  When Yoda says " always two there are. no more, no less.  a master and an apprentice."  Then Mace says "but which was destroyed the master or the apprentice" then the camera zooms in on sidious face.

Everything from the trade federation dispute and embargo and capture of naboo and its queen, to the seperatist movement the creation of the clones.

The Jedi being made generals and leaders of soldiers, Chancellor Valorum being romoved through the lies and treachery of palpatine who used padme to gain his ends. 

The entire prequels are sidious pulling the strings and making the jedi move like pawns to the slaughter in his deadly game of revenge of the sith, the sith waited over a thousand years since the time of darth bane to exact their revenge.

Having already seen the original trilogy I knew full well when seeing Episode 1 for the first time that Palpatine and the Master of Maul where one and the same.  Even so Lucas tried to keep it a secret until episode III's reveal.  In Episode II a plot point was dropped about Sido Dyas the sith lord pretending to be a jedi who ordered the clones.  Instead they changed the name to syfo dyaas, and in the EU made him a jedi manipulated into ordering the clones and murdered by Dooku.

Palpatine the puppetmaster trys to make the future he sees through the darkside of the force come true.  Therefore by engineering an outcome he can claim to have foreseen it, as he does in return of the jedi.  But Luke does just what the emporer least expects.  He expects everyone to be coruptible by power, that is how Vader was originally seduced to the dark side.

The Jedi betrayed themselves once they went to war according to the novelization of revenge of the sith, they had lost from the very beginning because Jedi are peackeepers and not soldiers.

^ That's the first time I've ever heard that. How do you figure exactly?

It could refer to the Sith collectively. They're sticking mainly to the shadows, ("behind-the-scenes" to so speak) like Alfred Hitchcocks, working to bring down the protagonists.

I hated the title when I first heard it in late 1998.  It made me think of Scooby Doo.

I've since softened on it somewhat.  I believe it to mean that the Trade Federation Squabble on Naboo is a "phantom" menace and was simply a means to stir the pot and distract the universe while Palpatine "Shot the moon" by killing all of the Jedi and replacing the Republic with an Empire.

Other interpretations take me back to hating the title, so please don't disagree with me.  :)

Gaffer Tape said: I was just happy there was actually a title and people would stop referring to the damned thing as Episode I. Sadly, that never happened...

Hahaha. Yeah, I know what you mean. It has always bugged me too. I still don't get that whole, "star wars EPISODE I!!!!!! the phantom menace" thing. Not exactly sure when the episode number became the focal point of the entire title. Has any other series ever done that? I am going to go out on a whim here and say the answer is no.

T2 might be the closest cousin.

Ah, you're right. But I think that is still rather different. Terminator, T2: Judgment Day, T3: Rise of the Awful Film. It all flows rather nicely. But consider this,

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: EPISODE I: The Phantom Menance, Star Wars: EPISODE II: The Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: EPISODE III: The Revenge of the Shite.

For as long as I can remember, the films were labeled that way, Star Wars (then in small writting underneath you had the words "A New Hope", The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (with the small words above the title, "Star Wars"). It flowed perfectly back then. Now it really feels like quite a mangled mess.

C3PX said:

Not exactly sure when the episode number became the focal point of the entire title. Has any other series ever done that? I am going to go out on a limb here and say the answer is no.

Well, discounting Star Trek 1-6...what about Leonard Part 6?...or maybe Hot Shot: Part Deux?...Kill Bill: Volume 1 & Volume 2?

;)

Those are just a few that popped into mind.

Yeah, but you have to precede the number with the title, otherwise people won't know what you're talking about.  You can't just say "Six" and have people know you're talking about Star Trek VI.  But with Star Wars, you say "Episode I," and people immediately know what you mean.

Gaffer Tape said:

...with Star Wars, you say "Episode I," and people immediately know what you mean.

lol....not always. If I went up to someone on the street, and asked "Have you seen Episode I", they would look at me like I'm from Mars...or Kamino.

Davnes007 said:

C3PX said:

Not exactly sure when the episode number became the focal point of the entire title. Has any other series ever done that? I am going to go out on a limb here and say the answer is no.

Well, discounting Star Trek 1-6...what about Leonard Part 6?...or maybe Hot Shot: Part Deux?...Kill Bill: Volume 1 & Volume 2?

;)

Those are just a few that popped into mind.

C3PX said:

Not exactly sure when the episode number became the focal point of the entire title. Has any other series ever done that? I am going to go out on a limb here and say the answer is no.

Notice the words "focal" and "point", they play an important role in my previous post. 

I did not say, "Not exactly sure when movies began getting episode numbers..." Though if I had said that, your post would have been an ideal response.

I see your point. I think I was trying to be smart-ass. :)

I can't wait for the first show of the TV series:

"Star Wars: The Series: Season I: Episode I: Attack of The Phantom Clone Menace - Part 6"

Add "Special Edition" to the end of that a few years later.

The events leading up to the phantom menace are covered in the novel cloak of deception. 

Palpatines plot to became Chancellor.  Pretending to be friends with Chancellor valorum engineers the trade dispute and the nemodians blockade of his own planet. 

While playing the duel role of Palpatine and Sidious.  Which i knew about already though i think the novel tries to make you think they are 2 separate characters.

Basically the sith Plotted for a thousand years from the shadows for their revenge.  Palpatine could conceivably due to dark side techiques be hundreds of years old.

He says in Revenge of the Sith that he waited a long time for this.

I think he wanted a thousand year reign of the sith Through the Empire.  How many years did it last no more than decades, not even thirty years.

Perhaps the Phantom Menace refers to Palpatine's penis? His phantom penis made Shmi pregnant (what a menace!), which in turn causes her to give birth to the most evil man the galaxy has ever known... errr... well it causes her to give birth to a whiney little brat who stumbles across too much power anyway. Those are some pretty menacing things.

Janskeet said:

I think it is a cool title and probably the most clever thing Lucas thought of in the prequels. I remember when I heard it back in '98 when I was 10, I was like wow, The Phantom Menace, that sounds cool. At the time, I didn't even know what "menace" meant.

Really?  When I first heard it (I was 18 or so) I thought it was sooooo cheesy.  Then the next one was called Attack of the Clones amd I just thought 'oh, fuck this'.