Thoughts upon watching Star Wars: Episode I

After seeing Episode VII, we rewatched the previous films. Some thoughts...

There may be spoilers for Episodes I through VI below! ...but none for Episode VII.

Episode I: Arguably, Episode I should either never have been made or should have been a very different movie from the others. Contrary to the movie serial conceit, the backstory for an action-adventure may not, itself, be an action-adventure. And this isn’t just an action-adventure but a mythic action-adventure. But here it is anyway...

(If it were a movie serial, Episodes I to III would be about the same characters as Episodes IV to VI. Was there ever a generational movie serial? Flash Gordon certainly wasn’t. You could imagine prior adventures for Leia and Han. Maybe Biggs too. Even Luke could have some minor “Young Indy” adventures on Tatooine. But a serial that followed the adventures of several separate heroes who meet up in Episode IV would be just as unusual.)

We now have Tatooine garb unequivocally becoming the Jedi uniform. This is emblematic. The first film was intended to be “Flash Gordon done right”. With a believable “used future” aesthetic. Here, this film completely contradicts that aesthetic.

Including C-3P0 and R2-D2 is, likewise, is trying to please the audience in the laziest of ways.

This film has been defended as being intended for kids. Which is pointless. A good kids movie has to be a good movie. Being for kids is defense for nothing.

Watching it again, this film does feels strongly like it was made for kids, and that is always a bad thing. Good kids movies don’t feel like they’ve been made for kids.

Furthermore, reflecting on seeing Episode IV when I was eight, it seems completely pointless to make a movie in the same series for kids.

I think a lot of criticism of this film unfairly expects it to be more like Episodes IV, V, and VI. It is a different time with different characters and different events. We already had Episodes IV, V, and VI; no need to repeat them.

The problem is that so little of what is new here is compelling. And the stuff that isn’t new isn’t used in the way that made it work the first time.

The first time I saw this movie, it was my job to make sure that the web site my company was building had no single point of failure. The idea that a droid army should have a single point of failure was—and still is—completely unbelievable. No amount of willingness will suspend it. Not to mention that a kid—no matter how strongly the Force may be with him—would stumble upon that single point of failure that professional fighter pilots wouldn’t find.

And I haven’t even mentioned the J-word.

At the moment I have nothing good to say about this movie.

We later checked out the “no cheese” edit on YouTube. It is amazing how much better it is. Still not good, but so much better.

Thoughts upon rewatching Star Wars: Episode VI

After seeing Episode VII, we rewatched the previous films. Some thoughts...

There may be spoilers for Episodes I through VI below! ...but none for Episode VII.

Episode VI: I’ve always had an issue with the fact that Luke—now calling himself a Jedi—acts in bad-faith right-off-the-bat at the top of the movie.

If Dagobah in Episode V was a muppet movie, Jabba’s palace is doubly so. Again, for both good and ill.

Then we learn that Luke has not been back to Dagobah since the end of Episode V. Yoda says he already knows what he needs to know. He just needs to confront Vader. (Wait...isn’t that exactly what he already did?) Just so we’re clear on this: The message of episodes V and VI are that spending a lot of time training isn’t really a key to being a Jedi. For good or ill.

As strong as Leia is depicted, she’s still not allowed to be quite as heroic as the guys.

Does what happens between Luke, the Emperor, and Vader matter to the outcome of the story? Perhaps...if the Emperor was powerful enough to prevent or survive the destruction of the second Death Star.

But, watching it this time, I don’t think it matters. It is OK if Vader’s redemption doesn’t matter to the universe at large. It’s enough for it to stand on its own.

It does seem a bit too easy, though. Presumably it wasn’t, as Vader is dying afterwards. But the film doesn’t really communicate the effort required or the injury...

Thoughts upon rewatching Star Wars: Episode V

After seeing Episode VII, we rewatched the previous films. Some thoughts...

There may be spoilers for Episodes I through VI below! ...but none for Episode VII.

Episode V: I would say that the conventional wisdom about this movie is this: Lucas’ weaknesses are writing and directing. Being able to afford to hire better writers and a better director makes Empire a better movie.

In the past I have cited this as the best of the series or vacillated between it and Episode IV. This time around, though—as I said before—I think IV is better than V.

The timeline seems off. Either the Falcon spends way too much time running from the empire, or Luke spends much too little time on Dagobah.

If you’re going to have hyperdrive to deal with the problem of interstellar travel, then you can’t have slower-than-light interstellar travel. If the first movie had glossed over interstellar travel, that would’ve been fine, but it didn’t. This movie not only embraces hyperdrive by making it a plot point, it also misses the implication. It would’ve been plausibility-stretching enough for Bespin to be close enough to Hoth (perhaps in the same system), but throwing the Anoat system in there as well... sigh

This viewing, Han came off as creepy to me rather than whatever the intention was.

I’m not sure if this was true before, but this time, I was constantly seeing that Yoda is a muppet. The scenes on Dagobah felt like a muppet movie. For good or ill. Probably both.

The first time I saw this movie, I assumed Vader lied. This time around, it feels like the entire movie is aimed towards that reveal. Like there’s no way it could be a lie.

When Yoda gives the reasons for why he won’t train Luke, he reminded me of a rabbi who turns a convert away three times. This scene isn’t really about whether he will train Luke. How could he not? Rather, this is a lesson for Luke.

If you take the things Yoda and Obiwan tell Luke at face value, they end up being very wrong. But they’re not stating facts. They’re expressing their fears. Yoda himself tells us in another movie that, “Fear is the path to the dark side.” Interesting that, in this scene, Yoda and Obiwan are afraid, and Luke isn’t.

Star Wars (Ep4) as argument against adaptions

I’ve often cited Star Wars (Episode IV) as an example for why movies shouldn’t be adaptions. Lucas synthesized myriad influences into a new (yet not new) work that is a better film than all but a few direct adaptions. (And many of the better adaptions wandered far enough afield as to arguably not be adaptations.)

Likewise, I’m not a fan of intellectual property and especially any form of intellectual property that restricts adaptions. The execution means more than the idea. The “owner” of the original idea should have no claim on the execution—the hard work—of others; and the execution shouldn’t be restricted by the “owner” of the original idea.

But Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon film. He made Star Wars because he couldn’t get the rights.

So, ironically, my example of why you shouldn’t create an adaptation only exists because of intellection property rights.

sigh

Thoughts upon rewatching Star Wars: Episode IV

After seeing Episode VII, we rewatched the previous films. Some thoughts...

There may be spoilers for Episodes I through VI below! ...but none for Episode VII.

Episode IV: The first time I saw this movie I would’ve been about 8yo. I thought Darth Vader and the stormtroopers were robots. I was completely unprepared to appreciate it. Without home video, the comic adaption and The Story of Star Wars recording were more the Star Wars I grew up with rather than the movie.

This movie is so good. A mash-up of fairy tale, Flash Gordon movie serials, and WW2 films. Not to mention all the literary influences snuck in there. No extraneous exposition. The “used future” design.

Younger me would have criticized it for the implausibility of light sabers, the airplane-like movements of space ships, and the impression of sound in space.

(Not that space shots need to be silent, but I appreciate it when the reality of no sound in space is respected. Maybe we get the sounds from within one of the ships. In the Star Wars movies, however, there are clearly sounds that are meant to be read as happening in space.)

But from the (paraphrased) “once upon a time in a faraway land” that it opens with, it is clear that those criticisms are not appropriate.

My nitpicks today are: Why do they have to fly down that trench to fire at the exhaust port rather than flying straight down at it? (Made even worse by the way the torpedoes are depicted as having to make a 90° turn to enter the port.) How can they detect the TIE fighters approaching but no one notices the Falcon’s arrival? But those are—indeed—nitpicks. They are important elements even if they lack a little plausibility/explanation.

There are three things that ground this movie in the 1970s: Luke’s hair, the short sequence of actual 1970s-era computer graphics, and Han’s line about “female advice”.

The only reason the “Greedo shot first” revision bothers me is...how could he miss?

The one place the design of Star Wars completely failed for me was the light saber handles. Those things (and the toy replicas) are not pleasant to grip. Weapons have better grips than that. Which is highlighted by the fact that the blasters are real guns with greebles, and therefore, have sensible grips.

Previously, I believed that Lucas didn’t decide who Luke’s father was until he started on Episode V. Vader seemed like nothing more than Tarkin’s evil wizard. Although, the way Guinness plays the moment before Ben tells Luke about his father...that has read to me like he is making the decision to tell the lie. That was the one thing, previously, that made me think it might to be a retcon. But Luke’s father is mentioned enough that his identity is clearly meant to be significant. I’m now willing to accept that it wasn’t a retcon.

I think it succeeds at being the modern myth. It is the hero’s journey and perhaps the most relevant of traditional values told via the action/adventure motion picture.

Overall, I am even more impressed by this movie today than ever. I used to vacillate over whether Episode IV or V was the best of the series, but today I say unequivocally that IV is the best.

Why don’t fans like Jar Jar?

From “Jar Jar Binks: A Digital Star is Born”:

Lucas doesn’t care too terribly much that some folks have a problem with Jar Jar. “I think the comic-relief character is an important dramatic device,” he says. “Some of the fans that want The Phantom Menace to be The Terminator don’t like the idea that there are comic characters in it. I certainly am not going to make a grim bloodfest out of Star Wars.”

I think Lucas is wrong. While there may be some fans for whom this is true, I think most fans who don’t like Jar Jar don’t like him because this comic-relief character is much too much the focus of The Phantom Menace. He detracts/distracts from the story rather than enhancing it.

(Which is why I’d love to see The Phantom Edit.)

I also suspect this is a direct result of Lucas experimenting with ways of filmmaking—doing pre-production, production, and post-production somewhat concurrently. My guess is that this process obscured the “big picture” from the filmmakers.

Star Wars RPG license

So, Mongoose says that another company got the license for a Star Wars role-playing game.

yawn

Yet another SWRPG that will start from scratch rather than being able to build on anything from the two versions that came before. (Assuming you count the Wizards of the Coast editions as only a single version.) If it is a smaller company, then the money they have to pay for the license will limit how much they can actually spend on development. If it is a bigger company, they will likely treat it something as a hobby while keeping most of their focus on their products that are not hindered by a license agreement. Plus, we already know that they will not have the license indefinitely.

sigh

Yeah, I will be interested to see who gets it. I will be interested to see what they do with it. There is the chance I will even buy it. It is just hard to be excited about it. It seems like their ought to be a better way here.