I Love Star Wars.

[beccatoria]

I hate the prequels.

Actually, that's not entirely true, but I mostly hate them, and I've never really written out why, at least not here. I'm not the only kid who hated the prequels. Hell, I wasn't exactly a kid when I first saw the movies, impoverished as my childhood was by parents who never thought to show them to me until the cinematic rerelease. But I did see them, as a barely-teenaged girl, and I loved them. And when my not-quite-uncle told me to read the Thrawn Trilogy, I jumped into the Star Wars expanded universe and I never looked back. At times I drifted (and yes, the disinterest the prequels was at least partly responsible at times). At times it pissed me off, or I wondered why I was bothering. But I really don't know how to quit Star Wars. It's...beautiful in its absurd enormity. I don't know of another world that is as expansive and that tries as hard to incorporate every last damn thing into a single quasi-coherent universe, everything from cracked-out 70s Marvel comics to poorly-written, bland books aimed at 7 year olds to sparsely written, epic, brainwarping philosophical novels about torture, to 100% pure-grade action-thrillers. Even in the face of Lucas endlessly trying to reinvent the stuff we love, and writing over it like the kid with the biggest paintbrush yelling that his dad owns the wall anyway.

There's such crap stuck in there, but somehow, Star Wars teaches me the meaning of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

It even gives me some piece of mind about the prequels. Not because it makes them good, but because it helps make them irrelevant. It helps tell other stories around them that build up until in my mind, there are prequel-shaped holes, and the movies are just another hamfisted attempt to convey a piece of history. Just another Glove of Darth Vader masquerading as a Traitor.

Because dear god, those movies were awful. A lot of people think that The Phantom Menace was the worst because it had Jar Jar and a child actor who, well, got stuck with a lot of trash to say and not enough charisma to pull it off, but frankly I think it's the best of the three. It had Qui Gon Jinn and the duel with Darth Maul and a universe that hadn't quite yet been utterly subsumed by CGI. Anakin was kind of annoying and we all hate mini-chlorines and hate mini-chlorines being Anakin's dad even more, probably even more than we all hate Jar Jar which is a LOT, but at least our intrepid hero, the man even Yoda spoke of with quiet awe, wasn't courting girls by stalking them and then declaring that they'd just murdered an entire village including children.

The Phantom Menace was a shittily made movie. Someone needed to edit that sucker with a machete to take out the awful dialogue, and needed to clean up the storytelling so that shit made sense and we didn't cut schizophrenically from Jar Jar's comedy battle-antics to Anakin's quasi-comedy battle antics to Amidala's storming of the palace to Qui Gon's tragic death scene within the space of a minute. Someone needed to rewrite it to make it clear who the main character was, and preferably it would have had a less disjointed structure. But these are signs the movie was badly put together not signs it had terrible, horrible, irreparable underlying issues with its very concept.

Sure, I would have preferred that "When I met your father he was already a great pilot," not refer to a 10 year old race car driver. We all would. But it doesn't fundamentally fuck up the world as much as the epic hero of the saga leering at women who are literally saying, "don't look at me like that, it makes me feel uncomfortable," or screaming about how he just murdered a bunch of children, not even in the movie where he's SUPPOSED to be evil, only to get a hug and be told he's just acting human. UM. No, I'm sorry. Even if someone had just killed my mother and I was a great swordsmaster, I do not think I would consider it fair game to start murdering children who happened to live in the same village as the crime was committed. WTF, man. WTF.

Which I suppose is how we get to Attack of the Clones. The most disappointing movie I have ever seen.

This was the movie that destroyed Anakin Skywalker beyond repair for me. Well, I guess the next film could have saved him but I'm really not sure how.

I think Lucas forgot he was writing the story of a great hero, so that his ultimate fall to the dark side would be an epic tragedy, and instead was obsessed with foreshadowing the fact he would ultimately fall to the dark side, thereby making him a whiny, creepy, psychotic, mass-murdering stalker. You guys think Twilight sets a bad example of romance? Oy.

And on the other side of the equation we have Obi Wan. Who...I don't even know. I can't even critique this movie in terms of its narrative structure, because it...doesn't really have one. That's the difference. Arguments can be leveled at The Phantom Menace because there are improvements to be made. Because it's a film. I...hesitate to call this POS a film. Obi Wan wanders around a cloning facility investigating a mystery that is never solved, chases a bounty hunter to another planet where we learn nothing we didn't know from the opening crawl, then everyone ends up in an arena fight...because.

The central mystery of the movie, the central conflict, is based around this mysterious clone army. But we never find out who ordered it, we're left to assume it must have been Palpatine. Fine....I guess. But then, since Obi Wan spends half the film trying to work out who the hell ordered its creation because someone used a dead dude's alias, isn't that...important? Wouldn't the Senate be like..."Um, where did this readymade army come from?"

This movie has two plots. In one of them Amidala apparently succumbs to stockholm syndrome and falls in love with her psychotic, murderous ex-childhood acquaintance and in the other, Obi Wan investigates a mystery which is never answered or even referenced ever again. And then there's an arena fight. Because.

On the heels of that, is Revenge of the Sith better? Yes, yes it is. For starters, Anakin finally looks better, physically, as Vader, has more quiet power to his voice and physique and is...sort of...if you take into account the deleted scenes, a little less creepy and whiny.

But do I buy the bullshit that it's finally a return to form? Hell no. It's still worse than The Phantom Menace if only by virtue of how disappointing it is.

I think Lucas was going for some kind of Elsinore-like claustrophobia, with Anakin finding every friend he once trusted is hiding things from him while Palpatine plays his only confidant and plays on his fears that his wife may die. But frankly a) Lucas cut all the relevant scenes in order to have Artoo Deetoo beat up a bunch of droids in a comedy sequence, among other inanities, b) I might care more about Anakin's disillusionment with the Council, with Obi Wan and with his wife if previous installments had given me a reason to believe they really cared about each other and c) the visions of his dead wife thing seems...awfully convenient, and more than slightly contrived.

c) is the issue that I know people may disagree on. I guess if you want to set up Anakin for a selfish fall to the dark side, then it's a good enough motivation. Perhaps I'm coming up against that classic fact that there could never have been a fall that would have satisfied everyone. But I always thought it would be...larger somehow. More mystical or more all-encompassing.

I don't know. I think I would have bought it if he'd just killed Mace in accidental desperation, and really was horrified, and so went off to kill the Separatists to bring about peace because, well, it was practical at that point while Palpatine went off and slaughtered the Jedi at the Temple. But then Obi Wan shows up, they fight, Padme dies, and Anakin wakes up in the suit with his wife dead, all the Jedi slaughtered and nothing left but his absolute rage. I think...I could have bought that?

And it's not like I don't want the dark side to be a corrupting force. But there's something disatisfying and, dare I say it, at odds with the initial, Elsinorian attempts at atmospheric claustrophobia the film initially seems to want to build up with "I'll be a Sith then!" leading, within minutes, to child-murdering (though given his antics in AotC maybe I shouldn't be surprised) and choking the one person he did it all to save in the first place.

I can't help but feel that Revenge of the Sith fleeced people with a superficially more "adult" veneer, and the fact we all wanted, so desperately, to feel like his fall to the dark side was epic, the Epic Music, the Emotional Yelling and the Giant Gouts of Lava kind of...shortcut over everything genuine that could have been there.

"You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you," should have broken my heart. But I find it hard to find a single moment in these films where I genuinely felt that Obi Wan and Anakin were brothers.

I'm fairly certain that even for many people who did enjoy Revenge of the Sith, a great deal of the emotional resonance they found in Anakin's final conversion to Darth Vader came from their emotional investment in the original trilogy, not the prequels.

So yeah. The prequels. I hate them. I reject them from my mythology as anything more than badly rendered versions of events.

Because Star Wars, as so many of its media tie-ins will tell you, is a modern myth. It's my mythic cycle, for sure.

But you know what kind of annoys me? The contradiction of the franchise's attempts to monetize that notion. To simultaneously tell us that Star Wars is popular because it taps into something primal and mythic in us, while at the same time telling us that this is due entirely to the genius of George Lucas.

I'm not trying to say that the guy didn't have an amazing idea, or pull off three fantastic movies, and another I can stand to watch without wanting to gouge my eyes out.

But I am saying that if you claim that your success is down to your skill at evoking wider mythic resonances, then claim credit for that skill, not for the wider mythic resonances themselves. Acknowledge your sources. (And yes, A New Hope is a fabulous movie, and I have no moral issue with him stealing large tracts of the plot from The Hidden Fortress, but, you know, he did.)

And most importantly, acknowledge that myths become public property.

Perhaps the greatest measure of the original trilogy's success is that it became so mythic, enormous parts of not only fandom, but the general viewing public, rejected his attempts to bolt on these additions so violently he became, if not an outright disliked, at least one of the most divisive figures in his own following.

So what was the point of this post? I'm not entirely sure. Mainly, I guess, that I love Star Wars. It's mine, and George Lucas can't have it.

Comments

[mymatedave.livejournal.com]

Yes, so many times yes. Have you seen the youtube series which "reviews" episodes 1 and 2?

Very funny, slightly sick, and the guy does also does reviews of other scifi movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfBhi6qqFLA

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

I'd been considering Anakin as at least mildly psychopathic from the very first prequel, given how little appropriate emotion he seems to show. His later actions fit in with that assessment, and the "tragedy" of Anakin IMO is that no one seemed to realize that he needed psychological help. It's not that he was naturally bad, just that his moral compass was cracked from childhood, and all the people around him put him in the worst possible situations for someone with that kind of problem.

With that in mind, I think he did feel for Obi-Wan, but more in a "I like you because you pay attention to me" kind of way, even if he didn't admit this to himself. Likewise with Padme. Thus he could say how much he loved them, and really think that he meant it, but then very much not mean it as soon as they were somehow "against" him because the feeling was always rooted in self-interest.

However, despite that I don't just think that for fanwank purposes, I fully acknowledge that the only reason that Revenge of the Sith managed to briefly touch my soul was because of old-trilogy nostalgia. I grew up on the original movies, and finally getting to see broken!Obi-Wan and Darth Vader and Luke and Leia and the musical themes and a new foreshadowing of the upcoming redemption...*sigh* It was epic, at least for a little while.

[i_kender]

Yes god yes. I love Star Wars, hate the prequels, and like some of the Extended Universe stuff.

Two questions: One, I've never seen the deleted scenes in the prequels. Are they any good? Do they add anything to the story?

Two- the Clone Wars cartoon. Have you seen it? Is that any good? Does it, in fact, add anything more to the brotherhood/fellow warriors aspect of Anakin and Obi Wan's friendship?

And yes, I even love the Marvel Star Wars comics from the 80s, and think my twelve year old self could have written better prequels/sequels. Because I *loved* those films and that universe when I was a kid. It was almost my religion.

[rjsteamboat76.livejournal.com]

i much prefered the novelization of ROTS. that being said, my all time favorite SW stuff is KT's Republic Commando series and the follow up novel Imperial Commando:501st. i know she's not exactly popular cuz she does have a habit of being a bit snarky with fans at times, but it's still my favorite. how can you not love it, when she gave us the Mando culture. and yes, that means i reject what dave filoni did with Mandalore on TCW. meh, i'll stop raambling. heh.

[sache8.livejournal.com]

I actually really enjoy The Phantom Menace. For an intricate handful of reasons that sort of congeal into this distant fondness. The first and foremost is just a good association with that period in my life. I was a senior in high school, it was Star Wars and we all had such high hopes and I skipped school and waited in line for seven hours on a Wednesday for tickets and had the time of my life geeking it up with geeks. For those three months, everything was one giant plus in my life, and Star Wars was only the icing on the cakes. Second, TPM gave me Naboo and handmaidens. I don't think I have to elaborate further on that point. Third, I actually did not mind Jar Jar. Was he over-the-top? Yes. Did it strain all rational credibility that any leader in their right mind would make him a 'bombad general'? Hell, yes. But I guess I'm just the kind of person who has spent so much of my life being the awkward one in the room that I don't mind having an awkward fool in the gang. Not every alien sidekick can be as cool as Chewbacca. It is absolutely impossible, but I really think that is why I think Jar Jar got such a vehement backlash from the fandom. And finally, I wasn't disappointed that the movie was so introductory. It was supposed to be part one of a six part story. When is the beginning ever the most amazing part? I wasn't looking to be blown away, I was looking to be titillated. I even had a perverse fondness for the pod race because it was the perfect excuse to take a non-harried bathroom break, which meant I got to drink as huge a pop as I wanted during the movie.

(Mostly, though, it's the Naboo and handmaiden thing. ;-))

The absolutely only things I liked about Attack of the Cheesy Dialogue were:

The quadruple-layered conversation between Obi-Wan and Jango on Kamino.
Padme's wardrobe.
John Williams' composition of Across the Stars.
The teensy moment where GL let Beru say something.
Gazing at Bail Organa.

But I can't watch the movie anymore. I just can't. It hurts too much.

RotS is only slightly more tolerable because I loved the performance that Ewan was able to salvage from his material. And the scene with Luke and Leia being delivered to their respective families at the end (especially Luke, because Beru is a SW character very intimately dear to my heart, and I had written a whole fanfic about her life story and in that moment it was like my story leapt off my page and onto the screen and I was literally in tears).


... but yeah. Basically what all you said.

[asta77.livejournal.com]

Anakin's quasi-comedy battle antics

One of the cable stations was running a Star Wars marathon here a few weeks ago and I caught bits and pieces of the prequels. Anakin accidentally destroying a huge ass trade federation ship while highly trained pilots can barely save themselves is insulting on so many levels.

I think Lucas forgot he was writing the story of a great hero, so that his ultimate fall to the dark side would be an epic tragedy, and instead was obsessed with foreshadowing the fact he would ultimately fall to the dark side, thereby making him a whiny, creepy, psychotic, mass-murdering stalker. You guys think Twilight sets a bad example of romance? Oy.

WORD. Though an argument could be made that George just has no clue how to create romance and therefore should, by law, be prohibited from ever writing it. This is the man who allowed a brother and sister to makeout in order to make her future husband jealous. So Anakin being the poster boy for stalkers and Padme thinking it's cute is not so surprising. Wanna bet 'Every Breath You Take' was their song?

I've always believed that Lucas was so hell bent on creating another trilogy he was incapable of realizing he could have told his story in two films. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in fandom willing to argue we needed to see a ten year old Anakin. And while I completely agree with you that most of 'Attack of the Clones' is pointless, Lucas seemed to see it as the middle of a giant epic and therefore it didn't need to work on it's own, which might be OK for TV, but not for film.

"You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you," should have broken my heart. But I find it hard to find a single moment in these films where I genuinely felt that Obi Wan and Anakin were brothers.

I never felt a brother vibe. Qui Gon died and Obi Wan stepped in as mentor and (sort of) father figure. To be brothers there would have had to been some equal footing and there never was.

And can someone explain to me how Padme and Anakin's marriage could have been a secret? When not doing their jobs, they were together. At night. And no one ever questioned who knocked her up? Was the empire gossip free? Did a room full of Jedis fail to sense Anakin's impure thoughts???

WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME THINK ABOUT THIS?!?!!?!

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

It had Qui Gon Jinn and the duel with Darth Maul and a universe that hadn't quite yet been utterly subsumed by CGI. Anakin was kind of annoying and we all hate mini-chlorines and hate mini-chlorines being Anakin's dad even more, probably even more than we all hate Jar Jar which is a LOT, but at least our intrepid hero, the man even Yoda spoke of with quiet awe, wasn't courting girls by stalking them and then declaring that they'd just murdered an entire village including children.
Ahaha, I love you.

I STILL HAVE NEVER SEEN "REVENGE OF THE SITH". And I feel like I'm almost jumping on the bandwagon of other people's righteous hatred of those movies by hating them -- because while I enjoyed the original trilogy like crazy, I've never considered myself a big Star Wars fan so it's not like I ever felt they were ruining my canon or something.

But god, yes. The things you said! I think you make the best point ever in saying the movies should've built up Anakin as a real fallen hero instead of being so preoccupied with "Look he's Vader!" that they made him EVIL BY THE SECOND MOVIE. (Genocide is evil, George Lucas. Just fyi.) Phantom Menace had its obvious and glaring flaws, but none of it was as bad as suffering through the Anakin/Amidala "romance". And that's the part of the movie that made the *most* narrative sense, which is saying a lot.

It's mine, and George Lucas can't have it.
Aww, amen!

P.S. Arrrgh, am I the only one who cannot stand that YouTube guy? Co-workers kept recommending those videos to me, so I sat through the whole Phantom Menace one, and I was so turned off by the "also I'm playing this ~character~ who murders women lulz" digressions and intentionally shitty editing. It bothers me that there really is an enjoyable and funny review in there, but I have to keep filtering it through pointless hipster misogyny along the way. I'm really debating whether I want to subject myself to the Ep 2 review or not. [/totally off-topic rant]

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Wordy mcWordster.

it still irritates me no end that they screwed up Phantom Menace, because all the pieces were in place for that movie to have been superb. Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor for heavens sake. If those two had just been given a decent script and story, and maybe some direction, so they could have, y'know. Acted.

Saw an interview with Ewan once where he was asked about Star Wars, and you could see the pain in his eyes. He'd wanted to do those movies all his life, and when he finally got to do them, they were awful. I don't think he likes to talk about it anymore.

[samstareagle.livejournal.com]

Star Wars is really neat for me cause I consider the original trilogy one of the definitive works of art of the last century (even with the Ewoks :P), but at the same time have no problem revealing in it's inherent silliness. For the prequel trilogy, could they have been better, like, A LOT better? HELL YES. LOL But, for whatever reason, it doesn't bother me at all the way BSG or several other BIG fictional epics fell flat, probably because as great a premise as it is, Star Wars for me has always been those Saturday afternoon serials that Lucas wanted to recreate from his childhood. It is AWESOME, but a quasi-religious experience like it's made out to be by so many film geeks? Nah. Just a super cool cartoon, not a gift from God. I guess my feelings about the prequels from that perspective must be what Christmas is like for a lot of Jewish people...sure they think it's silly and have major reservations about people making it out to be the bestest thing ever...but then again, their other-persusioned friends still send them cards and the occasional "WOW" gift, and despite everything, they still get free cookies at the office, so what's to complain about? (If that came off as amazingly offensive, I TOTALLY apologize. LOL) Sure the Prequels didn't hold a candle to Empire...but I still got to feel like a 10 year old watching spaceships and robots blow up...and for that, I'm happy. :P

And I am LMAO at the Anakin/Padme, Edward/Bella comparison!!!

Bella- Padme, we really need to talk...

Padme- You're here about Ani, aren't you?

Edward- (slight gagging) Oh man, if she calls him that ONE MORE TIME...

Bella- EDWARD! Okay, look, I know people think me and my sparkly vampire true love are total fail, but seriously, you've got some serious issues. And I'd know issues, I fell for this guy AFTER he told he watched me sleep everynight without even telling me...and the whole eating people thing, but the sleepwatching really seems to irk people.

Padme- You don't know him! He's a good man!!!

Bella- Oh please!!! We all saw that scene with you two by the lake...and your gag inducing flirti, no, it wasn't even flirting! Yeah, I'm dating a guy that wants to eat me, but your dating a guy that wants to take all his orders from a creepy gay lizard guy, take over the galaxy in a hellish firestorm of blown CGI budgets and dress up like a robot Phantom of the Opera that smells like burnt bacon all because he had mommy issues!!!

Edward- Yeah! And tell her about the girlish whining! At least I know how to sulk with DIGNITY!!!

:P