You Just Can't Ruin Star Wars

Star Wars. As a title it is pretty unimaginative. Break it in half and you have masses of incandescent gasses and possibly the lowpoint and potential downfall of human social evolution. Somewhere in between those letters, in the tiny space between these four letter words, more than a world was created-- an entire galaxy of worlds that has somehow enchanted people all over the world.

You can call it childish; you can call it make-believe; you can call them fanatics and losers. It doesn't matter because you can always call it business. $2,631,600,000 on movie tickets alone for the four films. What in the world is in these movies?

It isn't a mystery why Star Wars is so popular. The wonder isn't that it didn't do anything in particular better than other films. It is that it did everything at once better than anyone ever. Look at the original film. You have one part drama, one part swashbucking, one part adolescent romance, one part dogfighting. It may have been a mystery as to why no one thought of this before. To an extent it had been done already. Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek. Bringing the idea of science fiction out of the ranks of cultism was the challenge. It required the combination of the unknown and a universal humanity in the script with technical innovation for the screen.

George Lucas just happened to love movie making and was the first to put in enough effort to get it right on the first try. In some ways, people find the motivations behind the story's creator as inspirational as the films he created.

Lucas had already met with success in American Graffiti in 1975. This film had made him a good deal of money personally, and he has said that it was his love of movie making that led him to create Star Wars. He must have loved movies a great deal, for to truthfully create his vision required leaping technical innovation in sound and imagery, not to mention a good deal of his own money. For the film Lucas founded two companies, Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, both of whom have won many awards for their work. This was no mythical undertaking. Lucas directed and produced the film himself, calling it a simple space-western while reinventing both genres at the same time. The film not only made a great deal of money but won critical acclaim and currently sits very high on the best movies of all-time list compiled last year by the American Movie Academy. The professional acknowledgment for Star Wars that he had received for American Graffiti showed that Lucas had brought sci-fi out of it's darkened corner.

Jump forward twenty years and two sequels later. The world is going nuts for the re-release of a film that is two decades old. The film's second showing made 132 million dollars and outsold all but two other films that year.

At most theaters there were more people in Stormtrooper uniforms than were actually in the movie. What the hell is going on? All I can say is nothing compared to what would happen for the half a year before May 19th 1999.

The release of Episode I: The Phantom Menace was in some ways good practice in case the world is going to end December 31st. Possibly the biggest surprise in the existence of our planet is that the world continued to turn after the release of this movie. The cliched, if not telltale, signs of Armageddon were all present. Thousands of strange colored flashlights, people wearing all sorts of celebratory fancy outfits, the upcrop of strange religions complete with splinter factions, people quitting their jobs, living on the sidewalks and collecting essentials such as food, water and plastic action figures.

One of the most interesting aspects is how the society and culture upon which Star Wars is based reacts in turn to the film. Lucas' decision to make only the three prequels may have been because he was concerned that the fervor of nine films might find a way to exceed the damage done by the Imperial Death Star. In the meantime, it was showtime.

One of the more interesting decisions by Lucas was to make the three prequels to Star Wars rather than three sequels. Part of this decision definitely had to do with the fact that much of the story after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi has already been determined.

He instead decided to capitalize on the popularity of one of the most famous villains in movie history, Darth Vader, by investigating his past as Anakin Skywalker, father of Luke. The original trilogy backs this up with the intense focus and mythical nature of the Skywalker family. The concept was tantalizingly revealed in one of the trailers that stated "Every Saga has its beginning." For Star Wars it would begin fifty years before the events of the 1977 movie with Anakin as a little boy.

Then the script got a little rocky. The problem of having Anakin as a good little boy is that in our world the arch-nemeses of children are hyper-developed playground bullies who don't get enough attention at home, certainly not an intergalactic evil empire, not even an intergalactic evil Good-Humor man. So one could expect the ties between Anakin and whatever opposes him to be rather general, perhaps like the little girl in Aliens. What seems to have disappointed people is that Lucas has created a movie that is dependent on a six-year old child to move it along. Almost every complaint about this movie is centered on this one fact. The Pod-racing scene was too long and took too long to setup. That was because the movie needs you to understand why it's important. Anakin's lines don't fit into what a Star Wars script should be. Realities are very different for children. Jar-Jar Binks is so annoying I don't care that his character borders on racism.

This one I am reluctant to explain. I don't see that much difference between him and C-3P0 in the original trilogy. Yes, his behavior is annoying (along with everything else he does). His purpose is clear. Lucas wants to entertain children, but I think he is also aware of what this kind of comic relief really does. A world of Sith lords and gun battles, robot armies and people dying of starvation is not unusual. Placing a child in the middle of it makes it unusually bleak, and with the lush backdrop too real to life where devastation doesn't take place on a planetwide scale. Jar-Jar acts as sort of a distraction throughout the movie, much like he does for the trip past the sea monsters through the center of the planet. Without actually doing anything about it, his character balances out all the violence and suffering that would otherwise make this a very dark movie. It still would be nice to see him get eaten or something.

Many people have said that The Return of the Jedi was the worst of the original Trilogy. I think its a pretty good movie to have that kind of superlative attached to it, but I understand. The original Star Wars was an amazing introductory adventure and movie while the second film was just really fricking cool. What I feel everyone always misses is the climactic end to the film, which is masterful moviemaking.

At the end of Return of the Jedi, you have the major characters spread over three different scenes: Lando and Ackbar making an assault on the Death-Star; Leia, Chewbacca and Han Solo down on the surface of Endor trying to take down the shield generator; and Luke, Vader and the Emperor in the throne room staging a confrontation between the Jedi and the Sith. It had been set up beautifully and woven from one scene to the next every thirty seconds until all three were crashing together in a grand finale.

This style had been done to an extent all throughout the series and it was expected to continue in this new film. Continue it did, but it lacked effect because the other movies had more significant and understandable events in these short scenes. The Phantom Menace only had these on occasion with the cuts leaving the audience wondering, honestly, why they should care. For example, Darth Maul's pursuit and discovery of the Jedi on Tatooine created an urgency that the story was desperately needing after the long pod-racing sequence. Then he has a quick twenty second battle with Qui-Gon before Gon leaps into his ship and flies away. The sum of his entire pursuit is Qui-Gon telling Obi-Wan that 'this guy is good.' It wouldn't have surprised me if Obi-Wan had replied, "No kidding. Shouldn't you be down there having a tiff of epic furiosity with him right now?" While we whine, there was also too much dust.

No matter what happens, you can't really ruin Star Wars, which seems to be what people are afraid of. First of all, it belongs to Lucas anyway and he's not that stupid. Us older folk must remember that our memories of the toys and even the films in theaters are through the eyes of children. If we are true fans we must think, 'What will make Star Wars more timeless and span generations ­ An updated Star Wars of the past for adults, or an entirely new Star Wars for children? Let the movies try and work their magic. If you feel an argument still sits on your shoulders sit back and think how anxious, good or bad, you are to see Episodes II and III. Meanwhile let the movie drag you back into the youthful spirit as you imagine space travel, lightsaber fights, and whether Queen Amidala will be sporting any of Leia's outfit from her days in Jabba's throne room.