Star Wars Re-View

Okay, I've had this damn thing sitting in my drafts folder since the beginning of December. I haven't even opened it up and worked it since the New Year. So, fuck it, I'm done trying to make it perfect, so I'm throwing it out there with no further ado.

I've gone through the Star Wars hexilogy (or whatever the hell six connected movies is called) in HD via Comcast OnDemand on our new plasma TV.

The Original Trilogy actually holds up pretty well. There are a lot of things, though, that, when you stop and think... it's not that they don't make sense, but that they seem kinda rushed. In A New Hope, it's mostly a matter of character timelines: the characters just seem to get way too chummy way to fast. Now, being thrown together in a dangerous situation can made bedfellows out of the most disparate characters, but there is a certain... intimacy that just seems to come out of nowhere.

Empire Strikes Back, while definitely the best of the Original Trilogy, has a huge timeline issue. Luke is on Dagobah for about two days, apparently, before cutting his training short and going to Cloud City, yet apparently learns everything he needs to know to be a Jedi. But, whatever, because nothing will ever top "Luke I am your father!" and "Noooooooooooo!", nor "I am not a committee! *Threepio squawks as the Millennium Falcon shakes in the asteroid "cave"*"

Return of the Jedi is actually pretty good in terms of timeline and characterization. And I like the Ewoks, and I don't care who knows it! (I had a Wicket teddy bear when I was a child, as well as an R2-D2 toybox. I wish I'd kept them in good condition, since they'd probably be worth money by now, especially the toybox. Unfortunately, the toybox was very roughly treated and kinda fell apart. Poor Wicket lost his hat and, several years later, was the recipient of my dear, departed Dusty's pubescent.... attentions.) There's also the whole triumphing over the Empire and redeeming Darth Vader stuff, which is all uplifting and crap. But there's something, some spark, missing from it. I think it's the lack of time on the Millennium Falcon, to be honest. Except for Lando in the cockpit, we hardly see it! I don't know why, but that really takes something away from the movie. Or maybe the lack of Falcon represents what's the real issue: that, more than in any other of the Original Trilogy, the gang are all off doing different things most of the time. The times when everyone, or even a large percentage of everyone, is together and interacting is relatively low, which takes something, some charm or chemistry, away from the movie.

The Phantom Menace

...still sucks. And it's not, as a lot of people seem to think, Jar Jar Binks' fault (though he doesn't particularly add to anything and they went way overboard with that ridiculous accent), but the AWFUL writing and acting. The original cast somehow made the horrible lines somewhat believable, or at least campily fun, but even such esteemed actors as Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson can't muster up enough enthusiasm to make their material work. Liam Neeson, in particular, often seems to be silently conveying the message, "What the hell am I doing here?!?" And I don't care what anyone says, I don't like Natalie Portman. I also pity the poor kid who played Anakin, because the lines Lucas came up with for HIM are even more excruciating and eye-roll-inducing than those of the rest of them. He talks like an adult, but a really boring, stilted one. His mom kinda rocks, though. Oh, and Yoda is a lot cooler as a puppet in a swamp than a puppet in a council room or a CGI creature kicking ass, as we'll see throughout this and the succeeding two movies.

Attack of the Clones

AotC actually turns out better on re-viewing. The romance isn't nearly as annoying as it is in RotS (more on that in a sec), though still rather inexplicable. I mean, you can see it from Anakin's POV, idealizing this pretty older girl he met ten years earlier and hasn't seen since and getting his hormones all worked up about her, but not from Amidala's POV. She just sort of falls in love with him because he's there and reasonably attractive. Hayden Christensen is also much better at lighthearted banter and action than he is at strong emotion. He just looks kinda pouty and petulant in the latter state (more on that in a second, too). Ironically, I saw a mini-documentary OnDemand that went along with the movies where George Lucas says that he picked Christensen because he did dark better than light. Errr... yeaaaaaaah, George. Whatever you say.

My favorite part of the movie is Jango and Boba Fett. My friend and I call young Boba "the surly kid" because he's always either being rude or really, really into killing people, and it is awesome. But then it's Boba F'n Fett, so what else did you expect? Jango is both hot and dangerous. And the moment at the end where Boba touches his forehead to Jango's decapitated head/helmet, while sort of creepy if you think about it, is rather touching.

Darth Tyranus/Dooku (which is stupid-sounding name in a whole galaxy of stupid names) was woefully undeveloped, especially in light of the ignominious ending he gets in the next movie. I know he's more developed in the Clone War cartoons and the comics and books and such, but in terms of the movies he just doesn't cut it as a villain (which is a shame considering how awesome Christopher Lee is). I blame that stupid cape. Only Lando can wear one of them and [kinda] get away with it. Frankly, I would have preferred Darth Maul be resurrected or something.

Revenge of the Sith

Overall, I think Hayden Christensen was miscast. He seemed more petulant than conflicted on the road to evil. Not that petulance can't be an expression of evil, but I just don't think that's what they were actively going for, so it doesn't sit right. Plus, he and Natalie Portman have flat chemistry, making the "romantic" dialogue even clunkier and painful than it would have been regardless. Natalie Portman also had nothing to do in this movie except be pregnant and die. The spunk and moxie her character shows in the other movies is entirely lacking; she goes from an active participant, to a mostly passive plot point. I mean, you can't have a pregnant lady running around shooting things like in the first two movies (especially in strategically ripped white jumpsuits), but I think they went too far the other way. I also think Portman was very unhappy with this turn for the character because, though as I said above I don't like her, it's obvious that she just gave the hell up by this movie. She was much livelier and more engaged in the first two movies.

The movie is absolutely gorgeous. Of all six movies, RotS is the most beautiful. And the action is really good, too.

One thread thing that runs throughout the prequels, which I hadn't really noticed before, and comes to full flower at the end, is fatherhood. Anakin doesn't have a father (literally), so one of the foundations of the whole trilogy is his relationships with father surrogates. Qui-Gon is the first, the one who recognizes that he's special, that takes him away from slavery and into the Jedi Order. Ben starts out as a mentor father-figure, though it turns into a brotherhood sort of thing in a way I would think is common with single fathers left to raise their sons alone. But the biggest, in many ways, father relationship is with Palpatine. It's a twisted, dysfunctional relationship, but it's undeniably important. And, surprisingly, it's not (just) one of Palpatine's plots. While he undoubtedly uses it as a lever to turn Anakin to the Dark Side, you do get the feeling that he genuinely cares for him, in a very dark way. His concern for Anakin's life (and this just may be Ian McDiarmid's superior acting) is palpable when he finds the burnt remnants of his new apprentice on Mustafar, for example. And he's a very bizarre "proud papa" at the moment of Darth Vader's "birth." There's also a similar paternal streak running through the Original Trilogy, with Obi-Wan and Vader the ultimate good dad/bad dad contrast.

Random

I really don't know if Lucas intended it, but by the end of the prequels, you're left with the strong belief that the Jedi were a bunch of dicks. For me, anyway, they kinda deserved what they got. Their arrogance and aloofness made it almost pitifully easy for Palpatine to take them down. Their arrogance (though often rather subtle) is understandable what with the superpowers and all, and forgivable for the fact that they mostly go around do-gooding, but it can't have endeared them to many, and blinds them to their own shortcomings and mistakes. Being aloof can work for a mystical order of monks who actually don't interact much with the world, but not when you're a mystical order of monks who go out into the galaxy and kick ass all the time. One can't be both inward- and outward-looking, but the Jedi somehow try to do both, and it's part of their problem. And because they're all "above" it, they're also dangerously naive, politically. "Politicians bad!", while perhaps true, is not a terribly instructive or constructive opinion to hold when you're working for them. They also really feel that they're perfectly right and superior: the attempted Jedi coup proved that.

Both Sith and Jedi want order, though in different ways, with the Sith wanting a perfect empire to rule for all time, and the Jedi a perfect utopia of peace and justice. But they both fail, as all tyrannical ideologies fail, because perfection and perfect control, of the galaxy or even one's self, are impossible. The universe is a chaotic and unpredictable place, and always will be, no matter how hard one tries.

Both orders are also too concerned with feeling and not enough with thinking: the Sith wallow in passion and greed and every other emotion, whereas the Jedi bottle their emotions up, all while at the same time relying on them, "searching" their feelings and impulses to find the "correct" course of action. They think too highly of themselves and their abilities with the Force to ever even consider that they can't find all the answers just by looking inwards to themselves (either individually or within the Jedi Order more broadly). A good dose of rationality and critical thinking would help them enormously.

C-3P0 and R2-D2 rock. They rock hard. Really, the whole saga is all about them; screw the Skywalkers, it's the droids! Also, despite the fact that Anthony Daniels is apparently actually a dirty old man who likes young women and it's just his Britishness that makes him seem gay, C-3P0 is the gayest, most fabulous android ever! I seriously wanted to be him when I was young.

I want Amidala's outfits! Even the white jumpsuit!

Captain Antilles, the commander of the Tantive IV, one of Bail Organa's aides? Dreamy. Blink and you'll miss him, though. I also love and totally want those Alderaanian poncho things they were wearing.

Ian McDiarmid obviously had fun camping it up, and I for one loved that. It was an aspect of the Original Trilogy that was sorely lacking, otherwise, from the prequels.

Ewan McGregor is hot, not that that's really news or anything. I'd be his Padawan (so I can call him "Master," of course) any day! It was scary, though, how much like Alec Guinness he progressively looked over the course of the prequels.

So that's my ginormous Star Wars review that took about ten thousand years to post. May the Force be with you, always!