As the 25th anniversary of The Phantom Menace sits just three days away (and happy 22nd anniversary to Attack of the Clones, which arrives on 16th May 2002) Lucasfilm have gathered a selection of the merchandise and promotional items that were available back in the day to hype what was (and probably still is) the most highly anticipated movie in cinema history.
By the late 1990s, the video game creators at LucasArts were among Lucasfilm’s most prolific storytellers, releasing both self-produced titles and others in partnership with outside developers. Beginning in 1999, the division would create more than a dozen games inspired by The Phantom Menace for the home computer and popular consoles like the Nintendo 64. Chief among them was Star Wars Episode I: Racer, an action-packed multiplayer title that allowed gamers to explore an entire circuit of Podrace tracks. Uniquely for the time, LucasArts also released a number of home computer games for children through its educational wing, Lucas Learning. They included the read-along, animated storybook Jar Jar’s Journey, as well as The Gungan Frontier, which allowed players to run ecological simulations in the diverse natural habitats of Naboo.