"It says here that this is Star Wars part III. That's funny. I would have thought that there had been more of them than that."
Overheard in cinema.
Major geek movies create an aura of religious fervor. "Star Wars" (*) is holy writ. Hating "Phantom Menace" is an object of faith. "Star Wars" is the greatest film ever made: "Empire Strikes Back" was a travesty. Or else "Star Wars" was a pointless B movie whose only merit was as a set up for "Episode V".
Who do you love more, Mummy or Daddy? Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Of course "Star Wars" is not 'just another movie', or just another series of movies. "Revenge of the Sith" considered on its merits, is a spectacular, galaxy spanning space operetta, with battles, high powered galactic politics, mysticism and tragedy. Parsifal considered as a pulp serial written by Doc Smith. What's not to like? Thousands of starships zoom across the screen; spectacular planet-scapes created almost in passing, billion dollar special effects as give-away lines. Did you ever stand in W.H Smiths drooling at the rows of "sci-fi" paper backs with lurid covers and lamenting that you would never, ever be able to read them all? George made this film for you, and for you alone. But would I have actually bothered with the movie if I wasn't already committed to these characters – or, if you want to be cynical, to the Star Wars "brand"?
I ask myself the same question at 7PM each Saturday.
Overheard in cinema.
Major geek movies create an aura of religious fervor. "Star Wars" (*) is holy writ. Hating "Phantom Menace" is an object of faith. "Star Wars" is the greatest film ever made: "Empire Strikes Back" was a travesty. Or else "Star Wars" was a pointless B movie whose only merit was as a set up for "Episode V".
Who do you love more, Mummy or Daddy? Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Of course "Star Wars" is not 'just another movie', or just another series of movies. "Revenge of the Sith" considered on its merits, is a spectacular, galaxy spanning space operetta, with battles, high powered galactic politics, mysticism and tragedy. Parsifal considered as a pulp serial written by Doc Smith. What's not to like? Thousands of starships zoom across the screen; spectacular planet-scapes created almost in passing, billion dollar special effects as give-away lines. Did you ever stand in W.H Smiths drooling at the rows of "sci-fi" paper backs with lurid covers and lamenting that you would never, ever be able to read them all? George made this film for you, and for you alone. But would I have actually bothered with the movie if I wasn't already committed to these characters – or, if you want to be cynical, to the Star Wars "brand"?
I ask myself the same question at 7PM each Saturday.
*
We've known Darth Vader for a long, long time. He is no longer just a movie character: he's a hieroglyph for "evil" (Or, if you prefer, for "Jungian Shadow" or "Freudian Father Figure"). Some comedians – John Cleese, Eric Morcambe, Tommy Cooper – could get a laugh just by walking onto the stage. There was nothing especially funny about their physical shape; but somehow, their presence reminded you of every episode of "Monty Python" and "Fawlty Towers". Darth Vader – his mask, the sound of his breathing, the Imperial March - triggers off a similar kind of Pavlovian response in a way that a big entrance by Just Some Villain never ever could. If "Revenge of the Sith" ends up delivering an emotional punch – and with qualifications, I think that it does – it's a punch that the film hasn't earned. It's paper money, backed up by a gold standard that hadn't been minted since "Empire Strikes Back."
*
I have a smart answer to the question "What do you think of the 'Star Wars' prequels." It is this: "I like ALL of the "Star Wars" movies, apart from "Empire Strikes Back", and the ones came afterwards."
It's a joke, of course. But it is true that when I saw "Empire Strikes Back" at the age of 15, my first reaction was disappointment. Whatever else this all-over-the-place without an ending movie where the good guys lose might have been; it wasn't the sequel to "Star Wars" for which I'd waited three years. In retrospect, "The Empire Strikes Back" was exactly the film which a 15 year old "Star Wars" fan needed to see. The very fact that we'd seen the first film when we were 12 and waited three years for the sequel guaranteed that what Lucas served up, however good, would be a disappointment. And that's what the film's all about: disillusionment, disapoinment, the demytholigisation of Luke Skywalker's world. Darth Vader tortures Han Solo and threatens to freeze Luke Skywalker; and then, in five words, destroys his world. Dad was evil. Your mentor was a liar. Deal with it, kid.
Did Lucas "intend" this? Not at any conscious level. He is an accidental film maker. Before The Force got fully appropriated into Buddhism, it's ethic was "let go of your conscious self and act on instinct" I don't know if that's a good code for living, or whether it would really help you blow up battle stations, but it works well enough as a guide to creating works of art. (**) Put down the first thing which comes into your head, and it will probably be interesting. Write what your conscious mind tells you you ought to write, which is probably what you think Mummy will approve of, and it will almost certainly be trite. Forget what your teachers said -- sketch or scribble or jam. George did what he felt was right, of course, and ended up with the film we needed to see at the time we saw it. It was in the wrong place at the wrong time: naturally, it became a classic.
That's why I found it so hard to hate "Phantom Menace": I'd already gone through my disillusionment with the saga, and decided that I could love "Empire Strikes Back" for being what it is, even if it wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. "Phantom Menace" may not be a good prequel to "Star Wars", but it's a more than adequate sequel to "Return of the Jedi."
A more serious answer to the question "What do you think of the "Star Wars" prequels?" would go as follows. George Lucas is producing what sci-fi writers used to call "a fix-up", a novel which has been assembled out of previously published short stories. He's like Niggle, taking his first, brilliant, rendering of a single leaf and physically pasting it into a vast, uncompletable painting of a tree, and then a forest. Lucas has taken the film which I loved and made it a single chapter in a science-mythical saga. The process of pasting the fairy tale into the epic drains the original of almost everything I loved about it. The innocent farm boy who rescued the princess turns out to be a second generation Messiah who has a role to play in the culmination of a conspiracy which goes back 1,000 years. I like the "Star Wars Saga" less than I like "Star Wars"; but I still think "the Saga" is a good and interesting thing.
It's a joke, of course. But it is true that when I saw "Empire Strikes Back" at the age of 15, my first reaction was disappointment. Whatever else this all-over-the-place without an ending movie where the good guys lose might have been; it wasn't the sequel to "Star Wars" for which I'd waited three years. In retrospect, "The Empire Strikes Back" was exactly the film which a 15 year old "Star Wars" fan needed to see. The very fact that we'd seen the first film when we were 12 and waited three years for the sequel guaranteed that what Lucas served up, however good, would be a disappointment. And that's what the film's all about: disillusionment, disapoinment, the demytholigisation of Luke Skywalker's world. Darth Vader tortures Han Solo and threatens to freeze Luke Skywalker; and then, in five words, destroys his world. Dad was evil. Your mentor was a liar. Deal with it, kid.
Did Lucas "intend" this? Not at any conscious level. He is an accidental film maker. Before The Force got fully appropriated into Buddhism, it's ethic was "let go of your conscious self and act on instinct" I don't know if that's a good code for living, or whether it would really help you blow up battle stations, but it works well enough as a guide to creating works of art. (**) Put down the first thing which comes into your head, and it will probably be interesting. Write what your conscious mind tells you you ought to write, which is probably what you think Mummy will approve of, and it will almost certainly be trite. Forget what your teachers said -- sketch or scribble or jam. George did what he felt was right, of course, and ended up with the film we needed to see at the time we saw it. It was in the wrong place at the wrong time: naturally, it became a classic.
That's why I found it so hard to hate "Phantom Menace": I'd already gone through my disillusionment with the saga, and decided that I could love "Empire Strikes Back" for being what it is, even if it wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. "Phantom Menace" may not be a good prequel to "Star Wars", but it's a more than adequate sequel to "Return of the Jedi."
A more serious answer to the question "What do you think of the "Star Wars" prequels?" would go as follows. George Lucas is producing what sci-fi writers used to call "a fix-up", a novel which has been assembled out of previously published short stories. He's like Niggle, taking his first, brilliant, rendering of a single leaf and physically pasting it into a vast, uncompletable painting of a tree, and then a forest. Lucas has taken the film which I loved and made it a single chapter in a science-mythical saga. The process of pasting the fairy tale into the epic drains the original of almost everything I loved about it. The innocent farm boy who rescued the princess turns out to be a second generation Messiah who has a role to play in the culmination of a conspiracy which goes back 1,000 years. I like the "Star Wars Saga" less than I like "Star Wars"; but I still think "the Saga" is a good and interesting thing.
*
So,. "Revenge of the Sith". Secular critics hate it, almost on principle. The review in the Indy said that the film would only appeal to people who collected the figurines. (Since that has included about 70% of the male population under the age of 40 that's not a terribly damning criticism.) Geekdom is already splitting along denominational lines: I've heard "better than 'Episode IV' " and "worse than 'Phantom Menace'', two statements which are pretty absurd. A lot of us are discussing the meanings of lines, points of connection with the previous movies, possible sequels, and the extent to which it causes some "Extended Universe" novels to be relegated from the canon to the apocrypha.
To "review" this movie therefore seems almost redundant. We'd all decided in advance what we were going to think about "Revenge of the Sith" and two and a half hours in a cinema are hardly going to change our mind.
*
Maybe "Revenge of the Sith" will turn out to have been the film that "Star Wars" fans who are pushing 40 need to see. As the fellow said, it's too early to say..
(*) "Star Wars" is the title of a film which George Lucas made in 1977. "A New Hope" is an after-the-event sub-title, appropriate only for considering the movie in the context of the large work.
(**) That is to say, for producing sketches and first drafts. If you learn to trust your feelings, write down what comes into your head and then polish it, improve it, and listen to criticisms, you may end up with "Sgt. Pepper". If you run away with the idea that you can publish your first drafts, then you are only ever going to produce the White album.
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But which order should I watch the films in?
ReplyDeleteStart with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, obviously.
I am reminded of a comment made in response to Phantom Menace (by a well known SF author, whose name I cannot remember), that it is pretty objectionable to tell a kid bought up as a slave not to be angry about it.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that that the Star Wars trilogy has gone from "Trust your Feelings" (IV-VI) to don't trust your feelings (I-III).
Of course, both of these are silly views, if taken to extremes...
I don't know about you guys, but I thought the way Vador turned to the dark side was actually ridiculous. There's no tension in all of this, we already know from the beginning of Episode III that he has premonitions, and that he WILL accept the Sith solution in the end. And then the whole process of turning bad has no interest anymore. It was all but subtle. Had Lucas been a bit smart, he would have done something like in "Apocalyspe Now" - a quest by a third party to find Vador and to disclose details bit by bit along the way, until a final encounter.
ReplyDeleteFocusing on ObiWan, Palpatine and Anakin could have been great, but it all seemed like a bad TV serie. With bad dialogue too.
I'm glad Lucas has mentionned he will not make any other episodes. The original trilogy has already suffered too much from the prequels.
1) If the premonitions were given to him by the Emperor then the film is about Anakin being manipulated (a la Kosh and G'Kar). If they were genuine premonitions then it comes close to being true tragedy. I prefer the second, because I think it makes a splendid tragedy.
ReplyDelete2) This is the only one of the six movies that I can remember the plot of. It's the only one that I have really been interested in the plot of. The other 5, to greater or lesser extents, have always been (very striking) set-pieces for me, with a hazy background of a few connections. Luke, Leia, Han were all without much in the way of personalities. Anakin and Obi Wan ar far more interesting. And I know that the rest of the world sees it the other way round but there you go. Just perverse I guess.
3) That was an astoundingly horrific film. Really horrific. Maybe we're not supposed to care about Anakin (after the y****ings incident) but it was really, very brutal.
4) The whole thing was quite clearly Yoda's fault. I wonder if George Lucas thought so?
Re: "Trust your feelings" vs "Don't trust your feelings."
ReplyDeleteI have a slightly different theory on the reasons for "trusting your feelings" being good in IV-VI and bad in I-III. My theory is simply this: The characters that trust their feelings are always the protagonists, because they're the ones you have to sympathise with.
At the risk of sounding utterly trite, all stories are ultimately about the people, and most of them are about human feeling on some level. So the characters have to follow their feelings or the story becomes a bit pointless. Luke is a hero, so trusting his feelings is Good, because the original Trilogy was set up for a happy ending. Anakin is a tragic antihero, so for him, trusting his feelings is bad, because we know he has to turn evil.
It's a similar thing with Love. If Anakin is ultimately turned to the Dark Side from love, this has more to with the fact that romantic love is one of three motivations that Hollywood characters are allowed to actually have, rather than being any cynical statement about the nature of relationships.
As Andrew put it in one of his Episode II essays, Anakin is forbidden to love Amidala, because that is the sorts of things that Mythical Fathers forbid Mythical Sons to do.
To consider the 'feelings' issue in a more sophisticated way, the message from the films might be "Listen to your feelings, but don't let them drive you". Although, cynically, I am not sure it has been thought through that carefully.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to look at it is to consider George Lucas himself - the IV-IV trilogy as the work of an impetuous young man wanting to shake up the system, and the I-III trilogy as the work of a more experienced and cagey older man who has learnt to be cautious.
Interesting stuff. I suppose commenting as anonymous is considered bad form. Sorry, but I'm a bit lazy and dislike filling out information about myself on the internet. My name is Parker. There, that feels better.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering if any of you could point my in the direction of further discussion of these films. I am looking for grown up content, so IMDB doesn't count. Interested in reading other opinions of themes and meanings and prehaps supplying a few of my own.
Thanks in advance.
On the subject of "trusting your feelings": I noticed that, in one short space of RotS, Anakin got "Search your feelings, you know it to be true" from both Kenobi and Sidious - but they clearly didn't mean the same thing. Sidious was playing on Anakin's emotions, telling Anakin to believe what made him comfortable; while Kenobi was talking about some deeper instinct that would lead a Jedi to the truth even if he didn't want to hear it.
ReplyDelete