Star Wars Episode III: REVENGE OF THE SITH

[anduril]

Like the lemming that I am, I went to see the final instalment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy last night. Sadly, my low expectations for this latest travesty were more than amply met by Lucas. I would not have thought it was possible that the man who made A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back could make The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, or Revenge of the Sith. This ought to be regarded as one of the worst collapses in creative talent in the history of Hollywood cinema. Certainly, the latest instalment delivers a few moments that will appeal to fans but I have not bought into Lucas's reinvention of the Star Wars universe. Lucas has prostituted the epic, operatic myth of the original trilogy on the altar of special effects and even then it is The Matrix and the Lord of the Rings trilogy that set the new special effects standards in recent years. Revenge of the Sith once again found me openly laughing in the theatre as its two prequel predecessors did: not at deliberately written humour but at the absurdity and nonsense in the movie. Lucas's reinvented Star Wars universe is too busy, too absurd, too campy, too superficial, too devoid of accessible characters to truly enjoy. Worse yet, Lucas had to bring that absurdity and nonsense to the original trilogy too with the Special Edition versions of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi; only Empire Strikes Back has survived the Lucas butchering. I can only hope that some day Lucas relinquishes some creative control over the Star Wars universe and hands over creative reigns to directors and writers who can recapture the qualities that made the originals so great: epic, mythic story-telling, classic tropes and themes, sweeping cinematography, strong characters, wonderful musical scores, and so on. The explicit and very trite political commentary; the increasingly incoherent elaboration of Jedi codes and religion; the moral ambiguity and relativism; the casting of Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd; the overuse of CGI and SFX; the inability to successfully use talents like Natalie Portman, Ewan MacGregor, and Liam Neeson; the racial stereotyping; Jar Jar Binks and the Gungans; the uninspired plots; the especially campy and laughable dialogue; all of this and more has destroyed the Star Wars universe. If only Lucas had chosen to mimic another Kurosawa epic like he did with the original trilogy (see The Hidden Fortress) perhaps there might have been something truly worth seeing in the prequel trilogy but unfortunately Lucas evidently relied on his own imagination and the results are crap.

So, having witnessed the implosion of Star Wars, I recently came to a new perspective on the movies. Could it be that the prequel trilogy is a reflection of our contemporary culture while the original trilogy is reflection of our positive potential? Moreover, though I doubt it was Lucas' intent, perhaps everything that is "wrong" about the prequels in comparison to the originals are not so much examples of Lucas's creative implosion but rather symptomatic of the collapse of the Republic and its reinvention as the Galatic Empire while everything that is "right" about the originals is symptomatic of the values and worldview that precipitates renewal. The prequels are a narcissitic story of political gamesmanship and the corruption of bonds of friendship and family without any clearly delineated heroes and a very unsatisfying, scientific, rational approach to "spiritual" phenomenon (i.e., the midichlorians). The characters and ideologies in the prequels are awash in or characterized by self-deception, contradictions, evil, incoherence, spiritual blindness, and/or religious and moral ambiguity. Additionally, the prequel trilogy itself is spectacle for spectacle's sake; it is superficial and shallow; a special effects orgy with fragmented and nonsensical plots; but, perhaps in being so it expresses in form what it also embodies in content. By contrast, the originals are an epic story of resistance against tyranny and evil, the hope and reality of redemption, the important bonds of friendship and family, the centrality of a mystical, faith-type spirituality, and the ultimate victory of good. There is a clear teleological narrative progression in the originals and the movies themselves are not superficial but rather are characterized by profound themes and motifs. Seen in this light, and in their internal chronological order of Episode I-VI, the full experience is a story of narcissim leading to destruction and then a renewal ... the "form", not only the "content", pointing to the philosophical/theological juxtaposition(s) that unite(s) the prequels and the originals. At least, this is now the way I like to view these movies and so redeem the Star Wars legend in my own mind.