The Problem with Star Wars

I have a highly heretical opinion about where Star Wars went wrong that I love to promolgate.

Where did things go wrong? With The Empire Strikes Back.

Weird, right? I mean, universally this is seen as the best of all the Star Wars films. But bear with me while I explain things.

Star Wars (or A New Hope for you young whippersnappers) was a popcorn-eating, saturday matinee hero film. It had cheesy acting, whizbang special effects, Good Guys, Bad Guys, and a good amount of action; don't try to make too much sense out of it -- the Good Guys won and that is all that matters! Wheee!

And then came ESB.

This film had much better scripting, much better acting/directing, even better special effects, a darker, more serious tone, and strung in strong mythological elements. Yes, these are all the things we love, but you see none of these were really present (aside from the special effects, to a point) in ANH. ESB raised the bar to an amazingly high level! Star Wars was now a new mythology for us! People started claiming to practice The Force. This wasn't some cheezee little saturday matinee piece of fluff, this was EPIC.

And so we waited breathlessly for future enstallments to further up the ante.

Instead, we go ewoks.

If you take ESB out of the mix, what you have is a collection of questionably scripted, poorly acted/directed films with whizbang special effects that would be great for a saturday matinee and some fun for us geeks to talk about on the boards. And that would be about it. But by adding ESB to the mix people (even non-geeks) assumed there was Something Much More to the series. Since there isn't Something Much More, they are disappointed.

So, sadly, it would have been in the best interest of the series if ESB had been on the same quality level as the other four scripts to date in the series. Then it would have been a nice little franchise, but nothing amazing and people wouldn't be talking about whether Episode III (or as I call it "Episode 6") would be The One That Turns It Around. Instead Star Wars would be what it us -- fun popcorn fair, but not much more.

There is no Harrison Ford-like actor that grabs the movie by the scruff of the neck and makes it happen. What we have are a bunch of actors that effectively are Lucus' yes men.

There is also no real sense of Sith strength such as what we get in ESB. There is no major military defeat, main good guy getting frozen or sneaky Darth capturing everyone with ease. Instead we get a whiny Jedi, comic book Yoda fight scene and Ja Ja Binks.

Give me real actors with charisma, decent dialogue, less blatant CGI and no Lucus!

In a way, I think of the original Star Wars trilogy as something of a phenomenon. It combined sci-fi, fantasy, cutting-edge graphics, spirituality, romance, and action in a unique way that allowed the whole to transcend the sum of its parts.

Was the acting in the original trilogy fantastic? Not really.
Was the story of the original trilogy deep and complex? Not really.

Only the effects were truly breathtaking back then. And yet, somehow Lucas took these disparate parts and created something greater than any of the pieces warranted.

Now, he's trying to continue on in that vein, but it's been too long, and the lightning simply hasn't struck a second time. Just like before, he's tossed a bunch of odds and ends into the melting pot--the midichlorians, the Devil in Darth Maul (as opposed to Darth Vader's Death), more crazy hairdos, more silly kiddy aliens, and as before...incredible special effects.

It's not Lucas' fault he couldn't produce another miracle. I still appreciate him for the original trilogy.

Lord Pendragon said:

In a way, I think of the original Star Wars trilogy as something of a phenomenon. It combined sci-fi, fantasy, cutting-edge graphics, spirituality, romance, and action in a unique way that allowed the whole to transcend the sum of its parts.

Was the acting in the original trilogy fantastic? Not really.
Was the story of the original trilogy deep and complex? Not really.

Only the effects were truly breathtaking back then. And yet, somehow Lucas took these disparate parts and created something greater than any of the pieces warranted.

Now, he's trying to continue on in that vein, but it's been too long, and the lightning simply hasn't struck a second time. Just like before, he's tossed a bunch of odds and ends into the melting pot--the midichlorians, the Devil in Darth Maul (as opposed to Darth Vader's Death), more crazy hairdos, more silly kiddy aliens, and as before...incredible special effects.

It's not Lucas' fault he couldn't produce another miracle. I still appreciate him for the original trilogy.

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I agree that it has been too long. Lucas's skills as a director have clearly atrophied. When he was making Star Wars, he was a relatively neophyte director fresh of a huge success with American Graffiti. His vision both about what a movie could be and technical skill in seeing the project through while inventing new special effects technologies were breathtaking. He and his crew had to be really innovative.
Now, he's something of a cultural institution and the technology has really advanced so that there is, I think, less really creative innovation and more incremental evolution. There's no one to say no to him and tell him an idea needs rewriting or reworking. The technology of computer generated characters is reasonably mature so he's no longer on much of a cutting edge.
There were some things in PM that worked reasonably well. The light saber duel was quite excellent. Some of the themes touched on between Anakin and his mother and the others were nice and had potential for exploration. Clones pretty much threw all of that away, as I see it.
The current trilogy should have some pretty good potential. For one thing, most of the principle actors are higher quality than the actors of the first trilogy. Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan MacGregor. But Lucas has never been known as a great director for getting the best performance out of actors. He's the kind of director who does have some good ideas, especially visual on scene composition, but he's also the kind of director who needs someone else to work with.
The biggest disappointment for me is how, if you notice, everything in this 2nd trilogy is bigger and better. The Jedi seem to be able to do just about anything, Anakin could do much more at a young age than his son apparently could at any age. It's like Lucas is trying to one-up himself on this trilogy over his last one. It's like the Japanese director in Lost in Translation who tells Bill Murray "Same thing, with more... intensity."

The problem with Star Wars is that Lucas is a twit. To my knowledge, he'e never been involved with anything approaching decent without the help of Ron Howard or Steven Spielberg (both of whom could make any twit's movie into a masterpiece).

CrusaderX said:

Does anyone remember any cool or memorable quotes from the prequels?

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"Wipe them out, all of them."

Whenever I'm thinking in my BBEG mode, that line reverberates in my mind. That's when I know it's time for a TPK.

--G

Actually, I think George Lucas just can't win - no matter what he does, he could never surpass the original movies, because they have taken on an almost mythological sheen.

That said, I thought the Phantom Menace was pretty bad. I did like Attack of the Clones a lot. I think Lucas shook off most his rust. He realized he needed to dump Jar Jar, and added a bunch of great actors, both well known (Samuel L Jackson, Christopher Lee) and not (the guy who played Jango Fett)

Also, I've seen a lot of old serials (Zombies Stratusphere, Masked Marvel, etc, etc). I have yet to see one that actually featured good acting and dialogue. Most are pretty dorky.

And they also cheat. They always end on a cliffhanger, but then in the next episode, things are slightly different, and thus less deadly.

reanjr said:

The problem with Star Wars is that Lucas is a twit. To my knowledge, he'e never been involved with anything approaching decent without the help of Ron Howard or Steven Spielberg (both of whom could make any twit's movie into a masterpiece).

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Ron Howard would have been casted as Luke Skywalker instead of Mark Hamill.

And ROTJ, directed by Steven Spielberg, is not exactly my favorite of the three OT. Funny enough, TESB which was directed by George Lucas for the most part, is the best of the three OT.

But I think he's been away from directing too long, simply because he decided to set up a premiere yet independent special effects studio that many films and TV series have benefited from, including Star Trek. If you ask me, that's a good thing, despite neglecting his directing skill.

As a point of fact, I've (and most fans) have always seen the movies as a remake of serial type movies. Only lately, Lucas would kinda disagree with you, and claim that they were about Joseph Campbell's theories of the Heroic Journey and modern mythology. Hogwash. To add to Lucas' other flaws, he's now become insufferably pretentious.

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This is a big part of it right here. Back in the day, the Hero of a Thousand Faces ideas weren't the the focus of the films. Lucas incorporated alot of the ideas with some twists (i.e the father and the villin being the same person) because it resonates with audiences when you follow the pattern of half of western mythology, but at the end of the day the bottom line was cheesey fun. Lucas and others seem a bit hung-up on these thematic elements, and thus perceives the OT as something more than what is. This manifests as the new films lacking "heart," which is why I believe there are fewer memorable lines and why much of the humor feels forced. In the fans this manifests as disappoinment in the new films when held up against the built-up perception of the original films.

I have yet to see one that actually featured good acting and dialogue. Most are pretty dorky.

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Good serials had good dialogue, memorable and interesting characters with depth and good pacing. The Star Wars prequels really drop the ball on developing any of those.

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I'd rather say the dialogue in old serials was dry. Not flowery, but it got the job done. The dialogue in the OT wasn't the best written, but it didn't tout itself as Grapes of Wrath. I think what happened is that as the scope of the movies grew more intentionally epic, someone--be it Lucas or whoever--thought that the dialogue's level of complexity had to be as well.

There is no Harrison Ford-like actor that grabs the movie by the scruff of the neck and makes it happen.

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Agreed. We're missing the cynical, seen-it-all-already wise-guy. It seems all the characters are the playing the straight-man.

Now, that being said: I'm not trying to insult the fanbase. I loved the original trilogy. Disliked Menace--the focus of my ire being Anakin the moppet and Jar-Jar, though I will say that Jar-Jar instilled in me a greater appreciation for the ewoks. Liked Clones better, including comic-book Yoda (after he lifted the X-wing I just knew that he could totally flip out and not even care back in the day). I'm no film expert, and thus the views and opinions expressed herein are meant for entertainment purposes only. End of line.

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:

Would you be amazed to hear that there are some on these very boards that said those things were worse in Empire than in the others? Search is down so I can't really help with that, but it has been said by more than one poster.

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No, I would not be surprised. I've read some of those posts. However, among those interested in the subject matter (as well as among film critics), the general consensus is that The Empire Strikes Back is the strongest of the Star Wars films. This parallels the general consensus that Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menance, and Attack of the Clones possess some serious flaws when it comes to acting, dialogue, and overall story telling.

If there's no point in defending it, then what's the point in attacking it? Do you just not want anyone disagreeing with you? Am I THAT different as a Star Wars fan to actually defend what I feel should be defended?

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Perhaps I selected my words poorly. However, I still believe that any Star Wars fan (a designation I assume with pride) can still recognize and be annoyed with the flaws in the films as a whole. It's like recognizing that while I love John Williams, there are arguably more proficient composers out there. I love Star Wars, but this doesn't mean that there are some serious flaws and that those flaws are due to Lucas' incompetence as a director and storyteller.