June 19, 2005

Criticism of the Star Wars prequels (literally “before the quels”) generally runs in two veins (before it is pumped back into the aorta): (1) criticism from people who are genuinely surprised that Star Wars is not quite up to the level of Goethe, and (2) criticism from people who thought the films' primary problems would have been solved by additional light saber battles in place of tedious “political” discussion and the entire character of Jar “Jar” Binks.

Clearly, these people are nuts (or, to use a more congenial and polite term, bonkers). The critics of vein #1 pummeled Jurassic Park for similar reasons, as if people who went to see that movie commonly announced on their way out the door, “All right, we're off to watch some characters develop and maybe perceive a theme or two!” only to be sorely disappointed when they got to the movie and found out – SHOCK OF SHOCKS – the movie was about dinosaurs chasing people around. So these same critics then line up for the Star Wars prequels in order to “see what the fuss is all about,” and discover that (surprise!) the fuss is not about making you think real hard about stuff, just like every other fuss that ever was made. These critics have nothing to offer people who are capable of enjoying fantasy for its own sake.

The second kind of critics are more correct, but often fail to diagnose all the heinous maladies that truly should be criticized with these prequels, claiming that this latest movie, entitled Revenge of the Sith (because the Sith evidently needed revenge after they lost the last- wait a minute, never mind), was a great Star Wars movie because it had more action and fewer fart jokes. It was certainly better , but while Mussolini may have been “better” than Hitler that sure doesn't make him good . It seems to me that these people fail to realize what the original trilogy had that these latest mega-productions do not, enabling them to blindly enjoy a movie. Well, poo on them! No enjoyment while this critic is on guard! And here are some reasons why you should never enjoy Revenge of the Sith ever again:

1) No sense of gritty reality. The original Star Wars trilogy was different than other “futuristic” fantasies I saw growing up because you could actually imagine yourself living in that world on a day to day basis. Things were dirty, ships were “pieces of junk,” people worked on farms, sat around smoky bars, went to Tashi Station to pick up some power converters and then came home and whined about it all day because they are egregious sissies, repaired moisture vaporators, and targeted womprats on their speeders. In Star Trek, by contrast, we are meant to believe that people live in a world without religion or money, meaning that if they are not in Starfleet finding new life and new civilizations, they do… what, exactly? Take up the flute and study archaelogy? If Star Trek had any sense of reality to it at all, people would go into the Holodeck, turn on Holoporn and never ever come out. But Star Wars was different. Main characters were allowed to die from time to time instead of only the infamous personality-less hapless ensigns. People were crooked and corrupt, like they are in real life. In Star Wars you could imagine yourself piloting a tiny, beat-up X-Wing or training in a swamp to become a Jedi or smuggling whatever crap people smuggle in that universe. In Star Trek you can only imagine yourself standing around in Spandex wondering why, if technology has advanced so far, your starship needs a crew of thousands to fly from place to place. What is the guy at “helm” doing anyway? Manually dodging asteroids? You don't know! (The only thing he might be conceivably doing, calculating heading and mark, is unnecessary because the captain is already able to do that in his head before he gives the order.)

The prequels completely abandon the gritty reality. We have no idea what real Jedis do on a day to day basis, how they survive, where they sleep, what issues they have to deal with. They go on bland adventures making bland facial expressions while fighting bland ridiculous-looking CGI creatures in bland worlds. Coruscant is every Tokyo-like futuristic city you've ever already seen, Naboo is pretty and stately and all the people there seem to do is walk around looking stately, and all the other worlds are weird and obviously computer generated. And even then, Lucas shoots us through so many worlds so rapidly and never takes time to stop telling us his stupid story and let us admire what he's created, so if there's anything that might save a world from blandness, we don't ever get to see it.

2) The characters' actions never ever make sense. For the first two-thirds of the movie, Anakin is polite and controlled, apologizing to Obi-Wan, arguing with Amidala over who loves whom more, being occasionally headstrong but always being right in the end. And then, he helps the Emperor kill Samuel L. and sinks to his knees, crying (in a somewhat remorseful fashion), “What have I done?” IMMEDIATELY THEREAFTER, he pledges himself to eternal evil. “I pledge myself to eternal evil,” he says, as the emperor intones, “Good! GOOD! GOOOOOOD!!” lending a whole ‘nother layer of ridiculousness to the scene. Well, what else could he have done in that situation? Really? NOT pledge himself to eternal evil? Pfft! Don't make me laugh!

His first act, as a devotee of eternal evil, is to slaughter children, a good warm-up, I suppose. And he CRIES. A tasteful tear runs down his cheek. WELL, ANAKIN, IF IT UPSETS YOU, WHY ARE YOU DOING IT? None of it makes sense.

I'm not asking for Goethe here. I just want my characters to be believable. I want Star Wars to be real and make sense within its own world. This doesn't even come close. Why would Obi-Wan leap into the middle of a droid army after taking great pains to sneak around on a giant yelping iguana? Why would General Grievous choose to take him on single handedly instead of sic, oh say, the convenient nearby army of droids on him? Why would a wise Jedi decide that the obvious tactic when a trap is sensed is to “spring the trap?” Why is Yoda just standing there when the Wookiees are being attacked? Why are we even being shown the Wookiee battle? Why do the people herald the start of the Empire just after the biggest threat to their security is defeated once and for all? Why don't Obi Wan and Anakin seem to feel hot at all on a volcanic planet? Why does Obi-Wan think of Anakin as his brother? Why doesn't Obi-Wan find him annoying and whiny? How exactly were Obi-Wan and Anakin supposed to avoid that forcefield trap at the beginning of the movie? How on earth did the droid army kidnap Palpatine without there being any evidence of a past ground battle at any point during the movie? Why does Yoda admit defeat after only falling down a hole? Shouldn't he have gotten at least a little pummeled? If those Chinese-corporate aliens were sincerely acting from a desire for “peace,” why did they instigate the war?

Sigh… I'm sure you could come up with explanations for all these things, but that shouldn't be the viewer's job.

3) No memorable quotes. In the original trilogy, we had “Let the Wookiee win,” “Sorry about the mess,” “I care,” “That is why you fail,” “I find find your lack of faith disturbing,” “I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit,” and many others that are either amusing or iconic. From Revenge of the Sith , we get the Emperor screeching “NO!” at increasing levels of shrillness and Anakin saying, “No, it's because I'm so in love with you.”

So anyway, yeah, the movie's not so great. I should know. I watched it twice.