It’s probably not the most flattering of feelings to hear your multimillion-dollar movie be compared to one of the most widely ridiculed blockbusters of all time, but at least as far as surface similarities go, there is some unmistakable overlap between the recent Avengers: Infinity War and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Specifically, it’s the Marvel flick’s climactic Battle of Wakanda which is being likened by some viewers to the clash between droids and Gungans in the third act of the Star Wars prequel, with both sequences starting with the invaded forces protecting themselves from outside attackers with a giant force-field.
Even while working on this Infinity War segment, the parallels weren’t lost on visual effects supervisor Dan DeLeeuw, who said to Screen Rant earlier this week that the more recent battle hopefully still had enough going for it to feel like more than a rehash of the fight on Naboo.
“It was in the back of our minds, for sure. I think it was something that… you get into the idea of a shield around a city, and you even go back to Thor: The Dark World which had the same idea of a shield around a city. It was just, with is, there’s much more of a ground assault, which does kinda liken it a bit more to The Phantom Menace. It was kind of, taking those, the idea of the shield and putting the Russo brother’s touch on it. So it was much more of a grounded way of shooting it and much more of war film way of shooting it and keeping it dirtier and a little bit more violent in a sense – the heroes were being taken down by the Outriders.
Continuing on, he said:
And keeping it balanced with the jokes between Cap and Thor and the viciousness of the villains that hopefully set it apart. But it was definitely at the edge of our… we all remember The Phantom Menace. The best thing about Marvel is that you’ve got a lot of movie nerds here, so they can call out movies from way back in the day, and say ‘oh, it’s like this, it’s like that, it’s like this.’”
Indeed, there were quite a few significant factors distinguishing the Avengers: Infinity War sequence from the climactic last stand of Jar Jar and his cohorts, not least that the Russo Brothers’ spectacle benefitted from a rich array of super-powered characters, allowing for more tonal variety and emotional stakes than the very slapstick-heavy skirmish that the Phantom Menace battle brought us.
Of course, another major difference between the two films is that the heroes eventually lose their fight, leaving it up to Avengers 4 to resolve this cliffhanger when it hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019. It remains to be seen whether the conclusion will find a way to pay homage to the Yoda battle from Attack of the Clones, but feel free to speculate.