When I was a wee lass, I had some Legos. Unlike my rich little friends, I didn’t have very many, and it forced me to be very particular about how I chose to allocate Lego resources to any given project.
Where my rich friends could empty their five buckets of Legos on the ground and get to work building a hideous castle-spaceship-dinosaur thing, I had to make do with a much smaller assortment of bricks. My creations, although not as large or flashy, had a lot more class to them.
When George Lucas was a wee lass, he had some money. Unlike his rich little friends, though, he didn’t have a lot, and he had to be very careful about only implementing his stronger ideas.
Where his rich friends could pour bajillions of dollars into a project, George had to make do with a much smaller pile of cash. His creations wound up being a combination of innovative special effects and some halfway-decent stories.
Years later, I have enough money to buy myself huge assloads of Legos, and George has enough money to create whatever movies he’d like.
The difference is that, years later, I still have some taste.
A long time ago…
Copies of George Lucas’s original Star Wars script have been floating around the internet for years. Even before the web, you could find it out on USENET. It was even sitting in the file repositories of a few BBS’s.
I downloaded the thing back when I was in college.
It was terrible. Worse than terrible, actually. It was stream of consciousness sci-fi fantasy, and it made almost no sense. Some elements of it were entertaining and showed promise, but taken as a whole, it was a steaming pile of tauntaun poop.
There were too many ideas; too many things happening all at once, and which could never, ever, ever, ever be created on screen.
At least not back in 1973 when the script was written.
A few years ago...
George Lucas has too much money. He also has too much power, too much influence, and too much access to Hollywood. He could get up any day of the week, phone somebody down at 20th Century Fox, and say “I think I’m going to write, direct, and produce a movie about Nazi child porn,” and they’d let him do it. They’d give him funding. There would be Burger King tie-ins. And so on.
So, they gave him the green light on the new Star Wars series. And why not? He had a good track record with the first series, the work he did on Indiana Jones, and the Ewok Adventures. Plus, he was going to be pulling the dough out of his own pocket. All they had to do was get out of his way and let him work his magic.
Can’t blame them, of course. There was no way for them to know what would happen.
Last night…
I took Aydika and my friend Felix to see this celluloid disaster last night. Felix and I had gone to see the first two films when they were released. We were a good team because we had similar expectations, and we were able to act as a small, isolated support group for each other after the credits ran.
Last night, though, we were prepared. Having absolutely no faith in the new franchise, our expectations were low. Instead of working overtime to erect real-time mental scaffolding to support the crappy ideas in the movie, we both let ourselves go to simply experience the movie as it was.
Things got off to a bad start. The opening crawl was, unfortunately, hilarious. Seeing the name “Count Dooku” presented in the context of describing some major galactic threat is comedy gold. That name is totally inoffensive. George might as well have named him “Count Poopypants.”
And things didn’t improve much.
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s pretty dim, as though the tunnel-flashlight battery needed some recharging.
The first hour and a half: lame story and pointless dialogue…
Don’t expect much excitement. The first ninety minutes or so are meant to do two (2) things:
1. Set us up for the end of the trilogy
2. Make ninety minutes go by
The majority of the movie could have been squeezed down to about forty minutes without losing anything. Many scenes were redundant, echoing something that might have happened fifteen minutes prior, while others simply didn’t make any sense in relation to the story (the pointless trip to the wookie home-world, for example).
There’s a lot of “dialogue” between Anakin and Padme that goes like this:
Anakin: I think you’re so beautiful.
Padme: No – you are.
Anakin: No, seriously, baby. You’re hot.
Padme: Oh, Annie.
Anakin: I love you.
Padme: No, I love you.
Anakin: For reals, though, I think you’re so awesome.
Padme: You’re so nice.
Anakin: Obi-Wan is a dickhead.
Padme: Really?
Anakin: Totally.
Padme: No way!
Anakin: Way.
Padme: Wow. I love you.
Anakin: I totally love you more.
[lather, rinse, repeat]
You’ve probably heard about the dialogue, and it’s every bit as bad as people are making it out to be. It feels like there are really only two characters in the movie: the good guy, and the bad guy. Different actors have been assigned to one of these sides and then given random bits of dialogue to support it. However, the style of the dialogue is the same for both sides in that it’s stiff, choppy, and confusing. The result is that most of the movie feels like a schizophrenic argument between two personalities from the same brain.
Terrible.
The special effects
If the first trilogy was Audrey Hepburn (elegant, charming, and endearing), then this second one is Tammy-Faye Baker (bloated, overdone, and gaudy).
The special effects in the first trilogy were very well done, and I would argue that they hold up well even today.
The new CGI stuff is impressive, but the problem is that there’s just way too much of it. The human brain has short-term memory registers for 7 +/- 2 items. In the old trilogy, we were able to follow the excitement as three or four tie fighters chased after an x-wing. In the new trilogy, we’re lucky if we can focus our attention on one bloody pixel. Every scene has been made up to look like a cheap hooker after an all-night drinking and lipstick-smearing jag.
Rather than creating a thrill through all that’s happening on screen, attention is so divided that you wind up not being able to focus on anything, and so don’t care.
Another issue is that, in the old trilogy, the special effects stopped when we cut close to people who were actually acting. In the new series, the effects never stop, and they make the already confusing dialogue that much harder to follow. The actors are definitely playing second fiddle to the rendering engines.
I don’t know what George was thinking, but I imagine that it went something like this…
In the editing room:
George: This scene’s coming along well, but I think we could add a few things.
Editor: [very tired] Add a few things? Like what?
George: Why don’t we put about six-hundred ewoks up along this ledge here…
Editor: But this is a Republic warship!
George: OK, so give them some bows and arrows or something. And make the arrows those kind with the suckers on the end – we don’t want anybody thinking ewoks kill things or whatever.
Editor: All right. I’ll stick your bloody ewoks in there.
George: And make one of them fart. That’s so funny.
Editor: If there’s six-hundred of them, then how will we know which one’s farting?
George: Zoom in on it.
Editor: But this is the scene where Anakin kills Captain Frooty Gunstabber! It’ll totally take away from the whole point!
George: Farting ewok!
Editor: C’mon, George-
George: FARTING EWOK!
Editor: Seriously-
George: FARTING EWOK! FARTING EWOK! FARTING EWOK!
Editor: OK, OK… [sighs] Farting ewok…
On the set:
George: OK - cut!
Actor: Cut? I was just practicing for when we actually do the scene. I didn’t know we were filming yet.
George: Good enough!
Actor: But I was reading from the script! It was in my hands the whole time!
George: Fine. We’ll Photoshop it out later. We’ll stick an ewok in there or something.
Actor: You can’t do that! It’s going to look like I have my hand up the ewok’s ass.
George: Good point. We’ll make it look surprised.
It’s just too much.
And, surprisingly, some of the effects are so bad that they pull you right out of the scene. When Palpatine is walking along some computer-generated “carpet”, for example, it’s hard to get into it because the effect is sloppy and it looks like he’s half-sliding, half-walking along. It’s like he’s supposed to be moonwalking, but we know damn well that he isn’t.
But this is a movie for kids – don’t you think you’re being too critical?
My dear, I am always too critical, and I’m not going to draw the line at a movie I’ve been waiting more than half my life for.
I’ve been hearing this lame “it’s a kid’s movie” argument since the “Phantom Menace” came along like a scourge of sci-fi dysentery in the late 90’s. I’ve been told that I’m old and cynical, and that, if I were a kid, I’d “get it”.
You know what I say? I say: bullhonky. That’s just crap.
Go back and watch the new trilogy again, and tell me what child is going to enjoy dialogue like this:
Senator Gooseface: ..but the Trade Federation’s consumer credit tax rating is stabilizing – we couldn’t possibly cash King Happyslap’s check without raising eyebrows (and horns and tentacles and other things) in the Republic’s central banking insurance rate adjustment facility.
Queen Strawberry: Nonsense. His payoff quotient for the year was 5.9, and that was on a low-risk investment platform meant to subsidize the Outer-Rim branch of the First Intergalactic Wookie Banking Consortium on Moonibus IX. If we pull out now, then we’ll never get his vote in the next monarchy election.
Senator Gooseface: M’lady! I beg of you – please consider what this will do to intra-stellar interest rates in the first quarter of the galactic financial year. This could spell doom for our home planet!
Queen Strawberry: Do as I say, Gooseface. I have plans to carry over our depreciated lightsabre tax into the forthcoming planetary spending audit. Cash King Happyslap’s check, and send him a carbon copy using an overnight Space-Mail envelope.
Senator Gooseface: [reluctantly] It shall be done, m’lady.
Queen Strawberry: One other thing, Gooseface…
Senator Gooseface: M’lady?
Queen Strawberry: Get it notarized. [dramatic music…]
This type of garbage makes up the bulk of the dialogue in all three movies.
And for those of you who still have a childlike outlook on life and enjoy this sort of youth-targeted dialogue, rest assured: there’s plenty of it in this installment of Star Wars.
Break it down and wrap it up, Rory…
Even though this episode of Star Wars sucks rancor-wang, it still has its redeeming points. The last half hour is actually pretty good, and almost makes you forget about the first ninety minutes – even the first two movies – hell, it even makes you forget about Jar-Jar.
So, let’s take a look at what was good, and what wasn’t.
The Good
R2–D2
One of the best characters in this movie. He’s not around a lot, but when he is, he’s a lot of fun. Part of the attraction is that he doesn’t speak at all – it’s just a bunch of bwooping – so George wasn’t able to make him into a putz like everybody else.
There’s also something really cool about this little blue-collar droid zooming around, taking out baddies, and helping to land gigantic crashing ships. He has an air of dignity that most characters in the film lack.
Yoda
Of all the speaking characters, Yoda comes out miles above the rest. Because he’s computer-generated, and therefore not a victim of George’s “let’s go with the first take” mental-illness, a lot of work went in to his expressions. It’s odd, but he comes off as being much more human than any of the humans in the film.
He also gets the best of the drama and the best of the comedy. His character elicits laughter, sympathy, concern, and excitement. This is something that no other character in the movie manages to do.
If the same care had been put into the other characters, then this might have been a good movie.
The last half hour
It’s obvious that much more care went into the last thirty minutes of this episode than into the whole of everything which preceded it (including the first two movies). I was impressed with the job that was done taking Anakin from good-guy to Darth Vader. I’m not going to say that it was a complex sort of fall, but it also wasn’t as predictable and lame as I expected it to be.
Like the rest of the movie, there are a few crappy bits at the end, but they occur with a much lower frequency. You’re more willing to forgive the lameness because most of what’s happening works.
And that’s it for the good.
The Bad
I have to be in Alaska around mid-June, so I’m not going to have time to write up everything that I thought was bad about the movie. Instead, I’ll just focus on a few key areas.
Untapped potential
What sucks most about this episode is that, unlike the other two of the new trilogy, it actually had a lot of potential. There were scenes which, if modified slightly, could have been good instead of disasters. It somehow hurts more to watch a scene that almost made it than it does to watch a scene that’s beyond help.
Choppy editing
The entire new trilogy suffers from Too Much. There’s just Too Much going on all the time, and the editing makes it difficult to sort out where we are, what planet we’re on, how much we had to drink last night, and what species this weird purple eyeball is that I woke up next to this morning.
The story is glossed over and it feels like George wanted to keep it to a minimum so that he would have more time to show off the landscapes. It just doesn’t work.
I can’t breathe in here!
There’s no atmosphere. The original trilogy was packed with the stuff. Hoth felt cold. Darth Vader felt evil. The cantina felt sleazy.
Here, we’re treated to many impressively rendered backdrops, but they don’t feel like anything. There’s no soul, damn it.
Two words
Palpatine asshead.
You’ll know what I’m talking about when it happens.
The comedy
There was real comedy in the film that worked in places.
Where the comedy didn’t work was where it wasn’t intended. Felix, Aydika, and I were laughing through a lot of the movie. Some scenes were just so bloody stupid that the only way to react was with laughter.
It seemed that about half the theater found these scenes funny, while the other half sat in stunned silence.
Nearly everything that was said by anybody in any scene
I know it’s been said, but the dialogue is just that bad. If the entire human race ran out of things to complain about, then at least we’d still have all the words from this movie to keep our negativity-machines running for the next thousand years or so.
It’s that bad.
My advice: pretend that the first ninety minutes of dialogue is in Basque, and that only three people on Earth could understand it. Anytime someone opens his/her/its mouth to say something, just think “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!”
Then, at the ninety-first minute, start listening again.
You’ll thank me for this counsel later.
Darth Vader
Anakin’s fall is good. The rise of Darth Vader is bad.
The few bits of dialogue that everybody’s favorite galactic bastard gets are just retarded. So is the delivery.
So is what happens just after his lines.
I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who haven’t seen it, so I won’t go into detail. It’s enough to say that Darth’s first couple steps, along with the following vocal lamentation, are some of the worst few seconds of any film ever. George clearly wanted to do some kind of Frankenstein thing, but it comes off…
Uh…
Well…
All wrong. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Final thoughts
I feel like I’ve already said quite a bit. Although I could go on for the next few hours, I’m not going to.
This new trilogy is something that many of us have been waiting years to see. We’ve had a lot of time to build up our expectations, imagine new scenes in our heads, and prime our brains for an experience which would never happen.
The easiest way to summarize my feelings on this movie, and on the new trilogy as a whole, is with a line from T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”:
“Well now that’s done, and I’m glad it’s over.”