Now This Is Podracing

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About

"Now This Is Podracing" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Anakin Skywalker (played by Jake Lloyd) in the 1999 science fiction film Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace ,the fourth installment of the space opera film series Star Wars. The quote is often mocked online for being emblematic of Lloyd's poorly received performance in the film.

Origin

On May 19th, 1999, The Phantom Menace was released in theaters, centering around the discovery of the young force sensitive slave Anakin Skywalker on the desert planet Tatooine. While flying a space ship during a battle sequence, Skywalker utters the phrase "now this is podracing" while fleeing several enemies (shown below).

On November 1st, 2010, YouTuber Donny Estee uploaded an video featuring an image macro of Skywalker with the caption "Now This / Is Podracing" accompanied by audio mimicking The Phantom Menace scene playing in the background (shown below).

Spread

On May 25th, 2012, a clip of The Phantom Menace scene titled "Now This is Podracing" was uploaded to YouTube.^[11] On November 16th, 2013, the Internet humor site ifunny^[10] posted an image of a woman driving a pair of cattle with the caption "Now This / Is Podracing" (shown below).

On July 26th, 2015, Redditor koleye submitted a Polandball comic titled "Now this is podracing" to the /r/polandball^[7] subreddit, where it received upwards of 4,600 votes (93% upvoted) and 360 comments prior to being archived.

On January 12th, 2016, Redditor Bacon_is_not_france submitted an image of Skywalker with the caption "Now this is / shitposting" to /r/meirl^[8] (shown below), being the first registered use from a May 26th, 2014 post from 4chan's /pol/.^[3]

Jake Lloyd's 2015 Arrest

On June 21st, 2015, TMZ^[5] reported that Jake Lloyd had been arrested after fleeing police in an "insane car chase" that went on for several miles, which ended when Lloyd drove into several trees. That day, Tumblr user xizor14^[4] posted Lloyd's mugshot along with the caption "Now THIS is podracing," garnering upwards of 2,700 notes in the next eight months (shown below).

Meanwhile, several Twitter users posted podracing-related jokes about the incident (shown below).^[6]