Slap & Tickle

May the Force Be With Us All…

Now that I’ve finally seen the new Star Wars, I’m a bit sad it’s all over. Sure, there will be a TV series and specials, but the story is now complete—even sadder when you think the conclusion of the series is Return of the Jedi… (what a load).

If I had to put them in order of preference, I guess it would go: IV (Hope), V (Empire), III (Sith), VI (Jedi), I (Phantom), and absolutely last, II (Clones). Sad, when you think of how technologically advanced I, II, & III were and yet they can’t come close to the originals. Maybe, it’s because the originals have a story and didn’t depend on technology.

Here is my humble opinion of the "silogy” in order of appearance:

A New Hope: The original Star Wars. Fun story, fun action, and mind-blowing (for their time) special effects. George Lucas, the Hollywood outsider who wanted to be a true independent filmmaker, created the most Hollywood/studio film ever and brought in the mega-budget, mega-spectacle summer blockbusters that the studios will continue to crank out to only moderate success. Best, in the sense that it is a very simple story, and is the only film in the trilogy to truly stand alone. George combined and borrowed (some would say “stole”) from a number of cultures and mythologies to create vivid and exciting new worlds. The film is an incredible achievement in filmmaking and perseverance by a filmmaker.

Granted, there was one flaw in this film and that’s George Lucas. He tends to run roughshod over things he doesn’t really care about. Poor Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. They raise Luke, take care of him for 18 years and when they die a brutal, horrible death, Luke sort of shrugs it off, saying, “There’s nothing for me here…” and quicker than you can say “lightspeed!” he’s off in space. Later, when Ben Kenobi dies—a man he’s only just met—he’s inconsolable. Besides that (and Luke’s constant whining), ‘Hope’ was a winner.

Empire Strikes Back: Truly the best film of the group. Dark and complex, it took the fun action film and turned it on its ear. “Luke, I am your father,” was as mind-blowing as the special effects. Darth Vader went from being this menacing, almost-peripheral figure, to momentous. No longer did we want Darth Vader to be beaten, we wanted to know more about him—who was he, what happened? The simple story and vivid worlds of the first film now become complex and multi-layered. These people are real, they are multifaceted in that they aren’t good and bad, but have bits of both within them.

On the plus-plus side: Luke did considerably less whining—although, on Dagobah, he did bitch and moan quite a bit (granted, for comic effect). I wanted to shout out, “Hey, Luke! Suck it up! You’re training to be a Jedi! Do you hear Marines crying, ‘Hey, that’s mine!’? No, you don’t. So, suck it up, Jedi. Get one with The Force and then go kick some Empire butt!”

Sadly, while Empire really doesn’t completely depend on Hope, it ends with such a cliff-hanger that they really should have warned us that we weren’t seeing the entire film.

Return of the Jedi: Talk about building to a conclusion! Man, this should have been the best of the lot—We’ve moved from fun and exciting, to dark and intriguing to… F’ing Ewoks? George, George, George… Is this during your Linda Ronstadt dating period?

Sadly, you can almost follow the story-board of ‘A New Hope’ in this film: the plot is the same (destroy the Death Star), it starts on Tatooine, we have the “crazy aliens” (the Cantina in Hope—Jaba the Hut’s gang in ‘Jedi’) and it goes on from there. They just added a little more to make it seem different. Leia is your sister (ugh), Yoda dies, deep down Darth really is a nice guy… (“There is good in you!” Oh, Luke, shut up), the whole thing just fell apart. It felt like a Hollywood studio-head came up with the concept: “Why don’t we go back to the beginning and just do it all again… but different! Heck, we can even blow up the Death Star again—we’ll just do it a little differently!"

But it was the f’ing Ewoks that ruined this for me. First, they didn’t blink. How creepy is that? Second, their lips kind of moved, but their faces really didn’t. Third, these little boxy little creatures could outwit and out-maneuver the Empire’s storm troopers? They brought down imperial walkers, not with lasers or blasters, but logs, rocks and some rope? Based on this logic, they should have just let a log float into the Death Star and it could have clogged the exhaust port. The Death Star: The Ford Pinto of Imperial Space Stations. I still don’t get how hundreds of storm troopers were killed by those things and only one f'ing Ewok died?

It makes you wonder about the choice of using Jango Fett as the model for the clones: Those troopers seemed to fall at the drop of a stick… (Did you notice that when someone is shooting at them with lasers, they shoot back—but if little furry things are throwing rocks at them they put their hands up to block the rocks… the storm troopers were wearing armor, right?)

The Darth Side blog put it best when discussing the f’ing Ewoks: "Have you tried one of these Ewoks, m'lord?" asked Admiral Piett, offering me a crisp kebab. "Delectable!"

The Phantom Menace: When the opening credits drone on so long that one begins to fall asleep, you know you’re in trouble. Is it my imagination, or did the scrawl contain the current prime interest rate set by the Republic, because I swear it was running at an astounding 18.4%…

Why George felt compelled to answer every freakin’ question anyone could ever ask about Darth Vader and his beginnings is beyond me. Throw-away lines from ‘Hope’ took up way too much screen time (“He was the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen” became the intolerable pod race). Why didn’t anyone tell George he could leave some things unanswered? A little mystery would have done us good. A significantly shorter running time certainly would have done my tired ass some good as well.

You would think after the amount of attention that Darth Vader collected, that George would understand the power of the bad guy… so he created, what appeared to be his most compelling and mysterious character: Darth Maul. He was cool, badass, totally tattooed and had an awesome double light saber!

Maul got about a minute of screen time and then he split… literally. WTF? When Darth Sidious found Anakin, you know he seriously lucked out, because his previous apprentices sucked ass. Look at how inept Count Dooku was in Clones… The Emperor couldn’t be that stupid—so it must be George.

Attack of The Clones: I gotta admit, I think I slept through a lot of this. I was so confused… or maybe I just stopped caring, but this movie was just freakin’ dull. George can do so much with technology, but just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you must do it. Jango Fett dies in a quick and stupid manner, kind of the way that Darth Maul disappeared in Phantom. The center of the film is the completely bland Hayden Christenson, who is perhaps the worst actor ever. He brought absolutely nothing to this role. Who knew Darth Vader was such a dull guy?

Oh, and another thing: Count Dooku? WTF? George, that’s the best you can do for a name? Something that sounds like someone crapped in their pants? “Do you occasionally count dooku? You’re not alone and now, Depends for count dooku is available at all finer pharmacies and grocers…” I think none of the Star Wars characters would have gone bad if they’d had a good name. Palpatine, Dooku, you just know they were teased in the locker room in high school. “Hey, Dooku, you lookin’ at my ‘palpatine’?” [and then they snap a towel at Dookus butt and high five each other while Palpatine cowers in a corner plotting: “I’ll get them all for mocking me and my abnormally small palpatine… damnit!”]

I saw this film once and that was more than enough for me. Mind you, I saw every one of the original trilogy dozens of times—that’s including the one with the f’ing Ewoks.

Revenge of the Sith: Heaven help me, but I liked this film. Its sole job was to wrap up the complete confusion from the first two disasters and to Luke, Lea & Han, and I think it did it well. It felt so much like we were moving home—towards “Hope.” It certainly isn’t a great film, but I liked it more than “Jedi” (no Ewoks, immediately put points in Sith’s corner. I must admit, I enjoyed the detail of the production design more than f/x. All the ships, the interiors, the costumes were one-generation off of what we’ll see in ‘Hope.’ It made it seem, well… real (for lack of a better word). I could almost taste the joy of the original and that made it worthwhile.

Sure, it still suffered the blandness of Hayden (when that kid stood up in the Darth Vader costume, it so reminded me of Rick Moranis’ Darth Helmet in Space Balls. That helmet looked out of proportion—I don’t think one should laugh at Darth Vader—Hayden, even hidden from view, still can’t measure up…) I’ve seen pieces of paper with more personality of this kid. Before you try and defend him with his performance in “My Life as a House,” there are a number of actors who hit it once brilliantly and then forever either played the same role again, or couldn’t measure up (Sandy Dennis’* 1964 Tony winning role in “Any Wednesday” is a classic example. She did the same thing again in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf,” up until “The Four Seasons” in 1981**, she gave the same damn performance).

The film also suffers from trying to answer all the questions and wrapping everything up tightly. I guess absolutely nothing happened in the Empire between Luke’s birth and the time that the droids land on Tatooine.

The one great success of Revenge of the Sith is that it made me want to watch Star Wars again. And for that both the Force and I are with George.




*Jeez, talk about a reference NO ONE will get… I really pulled that one out of my ass. Should I have chosen Juliette Lewis and every movie she’s ever been in? Whatever. Sandy Dennis and “Any Wednesday” are comedy gold, I tell ya. I’m sure you laughed even though you had no idea what I was talking about. Didn’t you? You know you did…

**I made it a point to avoid Sandy Dennis movies after that… so did the rest of the world. Sadly, she died a few years ago. What is most ironic is that while she performed the same role again and again, she was the only one who could really do it well.***

***I am SO talking out of my ass right now…