Criticising the critics: The “irresponsible” movie review Ron Howard hated
Having started out as a child actor before evolving into one of Hollywood’s most dependable directors, Ron Howard has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of the industry during an association with the entertainment business that’s spanned virtually his entire life.
As a result, the filmmaker took serious issue with a scathing assessment of a hotly-anticipated blockbuster before it had even been given a chance to hit cinemas, with the downside being that his concerns were unfortunately proven to be entirely well-founded in the long run.
After an absence from the big screen that had spanned more than a decade and a half, expectations were through the roof and into the stratosphere when George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was on the cusp of release, and there was little chance it would be able to live up to the hype.
Whether it was a triumph or a tragedy remains entirely in the eye of the beholder, but one thing that can’t be argued is that Jake Lloyd’s treatment was nothing short of despicable. He was only a kid, but the relative newcomer’s performance as the young Anakin Skywalker was savaged.
This was more than 20 years before the Golden Raspberry Awards apologised, withdrew the nomination, and set an age limit on nominees after placing a 12-year-old in the running for ‘Worst Actress’ when Ryan Kiera Armstrong was singled out for her turn in the remake of Stephen King’s Firestarter, with Lloyd afforded no such mercy.
When he caught wind of criticism being levelled towards the future Darth Vader, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker felt compelled to step in. Blasting the “generally snide and insipid” assessment, Howard was indignant at how “the pot shot at 9-year-old Jake Lloyd was downright irresponsible.”
Although he conceded “movies are subject to public scrutiny,” he drew the line at how criticism of The Phantom Menace had been used “to attack a child’s performance,” calling it “shameful” behaviour before comparing it to his own experiences.
“As someone who was acting professionally from an early age, I can assure you that 9-year-old Jake is quite capable of reading, understanding, and feeling the full humiliation of a piece like that.” Sadly, Lloyd ended up withdrawing from acting altogether less than two years after The Phantom Menace, and it was an unsavoury period in the franchise’s history for grown adults and film critics to be making a point of tearing down a child for doing the job they were hired to do.
Howard might be a long-time friend and creative collaborator of George Lucas, but he wasn’t simply wearing his Star Wars supporters’ club hat when he defended Lloyd from the deluge of negativity that was coming his way, because he’d been down that very road himself.
