Yes, I am mega-geeked about the last Star Wars flick.
I’ve read half the novelization in stolen moments in Shanghai’s City of Books (for a novelization, it’s pretty darned good). There’s still a few details I haven’t been spoiled on, but not many. And know what? Being spoiled don’t matter.
Although I had a strong and early obsession with Star Wars, the first one I saw was The Empire Strikes Back, around the time I was five. (Then and now, my opinion on this one is the same: what a great ****ing movie!) Since then, I have seen all of the series on the big screen, most of them multiple times (except, I think, Return of the Jedi).
So here’s a few thoughts from one Gen-Xer who ate and breathed Star Wars for a period of years, as we confront the end of the journey.
- From his first moments onscreen in The Phantom Menace, Ewan MacGregor has been incredibly f**king scary in his resemblence to Alec Guiness. His vocal inflections are perfect! The way he carries himself, his whole performance, is totally convincing as a younger Obi-Wan, despite having exactly zero resemblence to the actual young Guinness.
- The Phantom Menace is an atrocious movie, but it didn’t need to be. The materials are all there for a good story. Due to poor writing and directing, however, most of them backfire. I mean, seriously, was anything in the climax resolved by means other than “whoops!”?
- Lucas seems to be attempting more shades of gray than he has been credited with. Count Dooku, in Attack of the Clones, makes a strong case for the separatist movement and, if he were on the level, he’d be dead right. In the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, the separatists largely have good reason for their position, but have been betrayed by devious leadership. In other words, many of those aiding the bad guys aren’t evil themselves, and in fact are pretty darned good. Lousy taste in allies, is all.
- Lucas is a closet libertarian. The separatists’ flag ship in Revenge of the Sith is The Invisible Hand. The clone army is called “The Grand Army of the Republic”. The Merchants’ Guild and Banking Clans, numbered among the bad guys, are not representatives of capitalism, but of mercantilism. (Think of the British East India Company. Naboo’s Indian-influenced designs and culture, as well as its being ruled by a “viceroy”, hardly seem accidental.)
- What’s the bug up everyone’s arse about Attack of the Clones? It was light years better than Menace and, apart from the tediously cliched love story, pretty darned effective. (I once defended the love story on the grounds that it presents a first love situation, and first loves are always boring and cliched. I was playing devil’s advocate. The love story sucks.)
- What will Lucas do next? (Whatever it is, let us all hope and pray that he plays to his strengths, which are mostly those of a producer.)
(No, I’m not back up to full-speed blogging yet. Just didn’t want to leave things dormant for too long.)