Shock Rating

Shock Rating

PG

The Phantom Menace is a family-friendly romp through a galaxy far, far away. Even when compared to other Star Wars films, the violence in The Phantom Menace has been sanitized. With bleach.

Stormtroopers have been replaced with battle droids, and watching the Jedi slice through them has all the visceral oomph of watching crash test dummies met their end. We assume some of the pilots and podracers die when their vehicles are destroyed, but the film focuses on the crashing vehicles.

Here there be spoilers: The only scene of semi-intense violence comes at the film's climactic battle, when Qui-Gon Jinn is stabbed by Darth Maul. This isn't a Jedi dissipating into nothingness like Yoda or Obi-wan in the original trilogy. Jinn gets straight-up impaled and is visibly in pain. It's nothing compared to, say, an Indiana Jones film, but it can be surprising given how mild the film was leading up to that moment.

As for sex, the Star Wars universe is one of the most platonic zones in the fictional multiverse. The Jedi aren't allowed to date or marry, and Padmé is too busy saving her people to go on the make. Shmi didn't even have to have sex to have Anakin, admitting her son was some sort of space Immaculate Conception.

As for Jar Jar… you know what, we're not going to even open that door of thought. Let's just move on.