Canis said:
It's not trying very hard to do so
but your point is taken.
I agree. But that agreement is why I think "You just aren't thinking hard enough and trying to interpret the movie, which is deep in this one particular part" doesn't fly as a defense. Saying that I'm supposed to think deeply about parts of the movie and completely ignore other parts for not making sense does not make sense to me -- and that's what I'm getting, although I'm not positive that I'm getting it from multiple posters. (That is to say, I'm not saying that someone here is trying to play it both ways. I'm saying that some people are saying "Lighten up, it's a popcorn flick", but then I criticize it based on a popcorn flick, and other people say, "You need to think more carefully, it all makes sense with careful thought," and so forth.)
That's possibly what all my issues with Episode 3 come down to: the idea (not fact, since this is purely my opinion) that Lucas never (to me) got a handle on what kind of movie he wanted to make, and so there are some parts that only work well if you think really hard about them and other parts that only work well if you kind of glaze over and go with the flow of silly action. It's a popcorn serial merged with a political drama merged with a Shakespearian tragedy, and those are three totally respectable dramatic forms, but for my money as a consumer, if you decide to multiple genres, you have to make every part of the movie work at least minimally on the level of every genre you've decided to use. You don't need the world's best political maneuvering during your action parts, but it needs to not fall apart totally for the people who were watching for the politics. Lucas tried to play it too many ways, and so while it's unfair of me to criticize a popcorn action flick for not having the best dialogue, it's unfair of Lucas to make a movie that can't be appreciated as an action flick because of the bland middle parts, can't be appreciated as a tragedy because there was more time spent with twirly lightsabers than with real, in-this-movie motivations that make Anakin's fall not just plausible but inevitable, or as a political drama because so much of the plot relies on the stupid-character device, which is fine in an action flick, expected in a tragedy where someone is undone by a character flaw, but hard to sell without really good writing in a political drama.
There are parts of Episode 3 that are really good as action. There are parts that are really good as tragedy. There are parts that are really good as political drama. No argument there -- and I'm apparently a much harsher judge than many, because that's why I gave it the 4 -- there are movies that don't get the 4 from me. But a movie that only works when the audience switches their suspension-of-disbelief gears to a different setting at different points in the movie is ultimately going to disappoint a lot of people.
It's certainly not disappointing everyone. I'm not sure how it's numbers would be if it weren't a Star Wars movie, but I'm sure it'd still be respectable. But I think that Lucas is making his fans do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of appreciating this movie.
I'm sort of surprised that I've turned into the Lucas-defense squad. I've actually got extensive thoughts on how I would do a total rewrite of I and II (despite enjoying them for the most part). But it sometimes seems like the man can NOT get a break anymore. He had the audacity to not live up to impossible expectations, and so people who used to praise him as the God of Cinema insist on picking him apart at every opportunity.
This goes to the beginning of my post. I didn't consider my expectations impossible. Maybe it was his attempt to make everyone happy, despite what he was saying, that made him make three disjointed movies instead of one cohesive one.
I can appreciate action flicks. I like action flicks (although oddly, I'm lately in the PG-13 set -- I'm into cinematic fight scenes, but not graphic arterial spray). I loved
The Rundown and I loved
Pirates of the Carribean, primarily because neither movie forgot what it was supposed to be. Both movies had their direction firmly on message -- swashbuckling for Johnny Depp, action-comedy buddy flick for the Rock and Stiffler. Once I realized what kind of movie I was watching in each case, I sat back and enjoyed the experience. I came away happy.
And yeah, neither of those movies has the sheer weight of decades of history and storytelling behind it, but maybe that just means that those movies are arguments in favor of succeeding at a modest goal rather than failing in an attempt at something glorious. Because for me, the guy who likes lightsabers a bunch and loves watching people flip through the air with glowing swords, the silly movie with the Rock popping gun-clips while surrounded by people shooting at him was a better and more entertaining experience for me than the culmination of Lucas's storytelling efforts.
It strikes me as somewhat unfair. When the Godfather, part III sucked flying monkey poo compared to the first two, people didn't accuse Coppola of metaphoric rape and tear into his films, his hairstyle, and his personal habits. I'm not sure what Lucas did to earn such ire.
EDIT: Not that I'm accusing anyone specifically here of such ire. The internet in general, however, has a notable odor of bile lately.
Fair enough. I'd say that Lucas reached for the brass ring and, in the minds of many people online, the people likely to share their opinions with others in settings like these, he missed. He still appears to have satisfied the vast majority, based on the ratings here and elsewhere, but it doesn't look like he made anything that's going to stand the test of time.
Doesn't mean that reaching for the brass ring is always bad, or that he's a bad person for trying. All he's done to bug me is get sloppy on his writing, which I can unfairly ascribe to him spending too much time working on spiffy digital effects instead of writing out a spiffy working plot. He's hardly insulted my children or spit on my dreams.
If I stay in these discussions, it's because I honestly want to see how uncritical people are -- not as an insult to them, but in terms of what the average not-looking-at-it-as-a-writer person thinks. I also harbor an intense dislike for
The Da Vinci Code, and last I checked, that thing's been on the bestseller list for like three years. I think I've figured out what makes it so popular, although by no means well enough to duplicate it.
I'm not so sure on Ep3. Right now, it seems like it's enough of a Rorshach that the people who aren't looking at it critically can make it into whatever kind of movie they want and interpolate lots of deep parts or mentally skip the fight scenes or whatever. Or it's simply the familiarity of the universe, which makes people willing to overlook continuity problems that would scuttle an original SF movie.
