Initial Audience Reactions to The Phantom Menace

Hey folks! To commemorate the 25th anniversary release, I made this infographic for the film, based upon neat polling data Gallup did for the movie (thanks Gallup!) during the summer of 1999. (Source articles here: 1, 2, 3). I think the results are quite interesting.

Look at those expectations -- 35% expecting it to be better than the original Star Wars! Wow. And how about the characters -- Jar Jar ahead of Obi-Wan! Qui-Gon dominating the favorites seems only right, and Anakin isn't doing too shabby at all either! I like this polling data because it's a time capsule to a time and place before people's views were very much affected by the internet or cultural buzz that picked up later on, as we all are all-too-familiar with. Another thing I find interesting is that although children did like the film more than adults did, the disparity is not too large -- and the amount of detractor who actually hated the movie is small in both groups.

Feel free to share this around if you want -- one reason I decided to put this into an infographic format was to make it easily shareable, so feel free to do with it what you wish! Interested here you guys' thoughts, on the infographic and Gallup's data, or even just more widely, about the release of the film and the initial response to it.