So, whatya think about Episode Dos? Me? I had a good time watching a very, very stupid movie. I mean, This movie is ridiculous. Hopelessly retarded and demonstrably absurd. And yet, still a good time for a long time fan.
I think it's important to simply accept that the fun, but never cloying or insipid tone of the original trilogy is dead and buried. Lucas has decided to make movies for 8 and 9 year-old boys and girls and that's that. Sad, but in a perfect world he would simply have scripted 3 movie treatments and left it to someone more talented or more in tune with what made these films special to write the actual script and direct the movie I really wanted to see. He is 26 years removed from "A New Hope" and it shows. Clearly, his primary talent is assembling and orchestrating an army of gifted animators, computer technicians, art directors and costume designers. Certainly not writing or working with actors. So. So, I'm left asking questions like:
Why are Jedi such pompous assholes? They constantly ignore advice, send a single Jedi to do work more suited to a larger contingent, and generally think they're better than everyone else. I don't know, it just bothers me.
Does any Jedi have a healthy, productive relationship with his master? They're constantly bitching at or attempting to kill one another. What gives? Somebody should re-think this whole padawan thingy.
Why is romantic love forbidden to the Jedi? What kind of Catholic Church twisted John Lennon Communist crap is this? Imagine no plot conventions, it's easy if you try...
Heh. Even better: "Nothing's gonna save you from a love that's blind/ Slip into the dark side across that line..." When the main crux of your film can be reduced into sentiments shared by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band's ghost-writing for the fictional Eddie and the Cruisers fronted by a squinting Michael Pare, you know you've got some trouble.
And why in the hell would Padme fall in love with a whiny, fey, confessed homicidally maniacal brat? Cuz he's cute, I guess.
Why are there so many inconsistencies in tone and technology with the original trilogy? I understand that the wonders of CG have provided Lucas with an amazing new palette to create vistas and vehicles and creatures heretofore relegated to matte paintings, models and guys in masks. But nothing looks or feels like it once did. If he is attempting to create and inhabit a cohesive 6 film universe, he should be more mindful of creating ships and droids that move similarly to their earlier movie (but later timeline) counterparts. The ships in Episodes 1 and 2 are much sleeker and “high-tech” than anything that appears in the original movies. And what the hell is a 50's greasy-spoon diner and malt shop doing supposedly a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away from Lucas's “American Graffiti”?
And worse, who can explain the inconsistency within the core narrative? In Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi explains to Luke, “Anakin was a good friend. When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.”
Um. Who ever took these words to mean that when Obi-Wan fist met Anakin, he was a snivvling little 9 year-old slave-boy pod-racer? And why is he taking credit/blame for what was clearly Qui-Gon Jin’s intuition and folly, ultimately approved by Yoda and the entire Jedi council? Because regardless of pretense to the contrary and some supposed 6 film master plan, Lucas is making this shit up as he goes along. It’s obvious that whole Leia-is-Luke’s-sister thing was an afterthought as well. Otherwise, why all the Han-Leia-Luke love triangle stuff in Empire?
But why complain? Great myths and touchstones of youth should remain in the past where they belong. These new movies aren't more of the same or as good that they could be. They are something different. And while not all that good, still contain some rousing moments.
Like the exhilarating, momentous surge of Jedi warriors slicing through the battle droids. Obi-Wan smashing through a glass window to grab a hovering assassin droid. Or Yoda striking kung fu poses with his light saber. This is the stuff of giddy dreams.
I also liked the little touches aimed at long-time fans. You know, the er, geeks. Like C-3PO's greeting Anakin as "The Maker," thus echoing his Episode IV oil bath exultation "Thank the Maker!" And the return to the "future" Tatooine homestead of Owen and Beru Lars. R5-D4’s cameo (and the apparent origin of its bad motivator). And the musical cues foreshadowing the Empire Theme of the original movies when Anakin is being particularly evil and the very end when the republic army is getting ready to do start some serious dark side trouble.
I like the constant repetition of familiar setups and payoffs. A hand dismemberment. Swinging to safety. A race or chase through a maze of obstacles. The eponymous “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
But that last one. That piece of dialogue--so perfectly fundamental to the gee-whiz, comical sci-fi adventure serials of Lucas’s youth and the original trilogy-- here seems so obligatory. Especially when surrounded by endlessly expository dialogue concerning separatists and trade routes and political machinations as stiff as though frozen in carbonite. It definitely helps to watch this movie with an audience savvy enough to laugh at such inanities as Anakin bitching about this and that and professing his love as though he’s in the Care Bears movie. Which is how it occurred to me, precisely what is missing from these movies that has not been adequately replaced (impossible) or replicated: Harrison Ford.
Where is the cocky, everyman shoot from the hip cowboy? Where is the spirit of fun and skepticism inside all this solemn brooding and inexplicably lame whiny angst? Apparently, he’s putzing around with Calista Flockhart. See? Even he misses his relationship with Greedo.
He was the center of all that rippling dialogue and friction and camaraderie. Without that core, the movie is hung on flimsy effects and bland pronouncements. Rumor has it that a young Han Solo might make an appearance in Episode III, as a trainee at an Imperial military academy. That might just save the picture. Even better than the prospect of a familiar black helmet concealing the sourpuss of premature darkness we endure in the current picture.
Oh, but it’s still fun to watch.
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