3/20/05

Alright, a moment of confession. I was talking with people about Star Wars just before service started today. They were almost universally bashing it. Rage. I was thinking about it during service. More rage.

So I will have to let it out via the blog. The people who were part of the conversation are probably going to read this, so hopefully I can provide you a good laugh (as in, you can laugh at me). Or maybe I can change your mind. I'm not holding my breath though.

Alright, so, most of the criticism leveled at Star Wars is on the heels of Episodes I and II. It seems that they are almost universally regarded as bad movies. I vehemently object. I don't claim they are great movies, and they certainly have lots of warts. But I point people to take a look at what the critics were saying back when those movies came out (go to the Yahoo! Movies section and type in Star Wars). Some people liked them, some people didn't. Ebert gave Episode I an A-, 3 and 1/2 stars. Both movies averaged out at a B or so. The BBC reviewer gave Episode II an A. The Chronicle hated both of them, but gave Troy a B+, so go figure. Anyway, my point is that they aren't universally looked at as terrible movies. Now, most of the critics do point at the weakness of the dialogue and acting, but let's be honest here, those weren't really there in Ep. IV, V and VI either.

Herein lies one of the great problems that Lucas faced when making the prequel trilogy: nostalgia. I truly believe that nostalgia has made people look back to the old movies and made them more than what they were. It's why someone who hadn't even seen the old movies carried a great expectation into seeing one of the recent ones, because of the cultural impact Star Wars made. It has it's place in the lexicon of movies and entertainment forever. But what flew then doesn't necessarily fly now. Just witness the use of color in Phantom Menace with a movie that came out at the same time, The Matrix. People were into the grittier, edgy vibe of the Matrix. The fact that there's no swearing, relatively little violence, all of that doesn't transfer over to the vibe that we're used to now in entertainment. Star Wars is PG for crying out loud. For the type of movie that people were expecting, or even that it's trying to be, it couldn't carry its weight.

Anyway, there might be a million reasons why someone might like Star Wars - the technology and special effects, the memorable characters, the spirit of adventure, like some space cowboy movie, whatever. Maybe some of those things have been lacking - there is certainly a lot more emphasis placed on plot/story development in this trilogy than in the original. For me, though, what I like about it is a) the story, and b) character/character development. And those things, whatever you might want to say about how bad other aspects of the movie are, are still there, if you are looking for them.

So this leads me into why I'm excited about Episode III, and why the recent trailer made me even more excited about it. First of all, from the story aspect, it's just fascinating to me how things develop. How Palpatine manipulates, how the Republic crumbles from within, like the Roman Empire, how the behind the scenes machinations lead people to unwittingly make the wrong choices, choices that will have a cosmic effect over an entire generation. It's so interesting. In Episode IV, Gov. Tarkin announces how Palpatine has dissolved the Senate, and someone asks how they will be able to keep control without the bureaucracy. You see how that power has developed through the first trilogy. Anyway, just stuff like that.

Also, with the characters, it's so interesting. The people who span both trilogies are obviously most developed. But I think the first trilogy has made characters like Obi-wan and Yoda more complex. They, too, made good and bad choices that had effects, and it makes them more poignant, I think, when we look at them later on. What kind of regret and sadness do they carry with them, how much more important is the hope they carry when you see what they lost? And of course, the most important of all is Anakin, who Lucas has repeatedly said is the main character of the Star Wars saga. But if Anakin pissed you off because he's immature or because of his wooden dialogue, then I think you're missing the point. The point isn't that he was so likable or such a good guy, or whatever, but that he was complex, that he came from a complex background and went through complex experiences, and that he didn't get into that black suit because he was always so evil and terrible.

It's a generational story - the things that parents do (both good and bad) have effects on their kids, and what kind of journey their kids will face. It's generational from Jedi Master to Padawan learner, as brough up by the legacy from Yoda to Dooku to Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan to Anakin.

So that brings me to the final point of this rant. You can't look at the movies as individuals. If he was always writing with these other movies in mind (which, aside from the first one, I think can be pretty plausibly deduced), then it will impact how each individual movie and script is created. In any trilogy that sets out to be one from the beginning, the first installment is going to have elements that most people are not going to like. Why? Because there's so much, in terms of character development and plot, that need to be established. Anyway, the point is that Lucas has said that he wants people to be able to watch from Ep. I to Ep. VI, that it's one long story. I mean, this isn't Star Trek VII or whatever, that's just a bunch of different adventures. It's a long story that is unified, whose plot elements and character development are necessarily connected and need to be viewed as a whole, rather than as an individual piece. That's why, even though I hate the Ewoks probably more than any of you hate Jar Jar, I accept them, they're not the main part that's enough for me to get riled up about. And that's why Episode III is so important, because it's going to bridge a pretty substantive gap in the story. This is pretty much the main event on which the pendulum of the story will be swung - how the Republic turns into the Empire, and how Anakin becomes Darth Vader.

Anyway, so what, right? Hey, we all like crappy movies sometimes, that other people don't. And maybe we don't even think those movies are crappy. Like, I enjoy Armageddon, but I know it's crappy. I'll probably make this into another blog sometime ... 10 movies I like that I need to confess to, or something like that. I just don't think the Star Wars movies are as crappy as people make them out to be, and just need to be viewed through the right lens. Like looking at the bigger picture of Star Wars rather than each individual installment on its own.