written and directed by George Lucas
SOCRATES: This movie may have been somewhat less unpleasant to watch than Episode I and Episode II, but it was still a far cry* from the original movies that I grew up with.
R2D2: Oh come on. Have some perspective. You were a kid and you saw those movies through entirely different eyes. “Star Wars” movies have always had bad acting and writing. Your sense that something has gone wrong is just based on nostalgia and your new “grown-up” standards, not on any objective difference between these and those.
SOCRATES: No, I’m telling you, these are worse, for real. They’re vapid in a way that those weren’t.
R2D2: Pauline Kael et al. seemed to see how equally “vapid” the originals were. You didn’t, which isn’t surprising because you were between zero and four years old. What are you claiming is actually different now?
SOCRATES: The original movies seemed to believe in their stories in a way that these didn’t. When Obi-Wan Kenobi is killed in Star Wars, the movie seems to really believe that something dramatic is happening, and that’s what makes it cool. When Momba-Nil Balloono** is killed in Revenge of the Sith, the movie seems to believe that something really cool is happening, and hopes that will make it dramatic. But it doesn’t. That’s not how drama works. It’s not even how coolness works.
R2D2: You’re still just talking in terms of your impressions. If you’d been a kid, you would have liked this movie.
SOCRATES: Hard for me to know what I would have thought of a lot of contemporary culture if I’d been a kid today. Even as a kid, I was certainly capable of thinking that certain things were just too trashy, too undisciplined to take. I never had the stomach for He-Man, or Voltron, or any of that low-frame-rate stuff. I’d like to believe that if I were a kid today, I would think that the new Star Warses were too soulless, too insular/nerdy, too CGI-y.
R2D2: You aren’t really claiming any kind of redeeming value for the original movies, though. If you’re honest and acknowledge your childhood dedication to those movies, you have to admit that worthless, pulpy roller-coaster movies with bad writing and acting were just your cup of tea at one point.
SOCRATES: I’m not saying that this movie was bad because it was pulpy, or a roller-coaster, or “worthless,” whatever you mean by that (something like “humanly irrelevant, purely escapist,” I assume). I’m saying it wasn’t a good roller-coaster. I’m saying that it was bad craftsmanship. For example, unlike a lot of people, I don’t think that Jar-Jar Binks was conceptually an unforgivable abomination – I recognize his kinship with all kinds of stuff that had already existed in Star Wars movies – I just think they totally screwed him up. They just didn’t have someone on staff saying “we have to watch out that it doesn’t get too annoying. That’s just a good moviemaking principle, to not annoy your audience, and I think we need to consider that as we do our work.” Or “this CGI stuff that we’re using, it comes off as a little insubstantial, you know? A little less momentous than, say, miniatures. It doesn’t blend as well with live-action, despite all our valiant technical efforts. So let’s accept that, and think about how to keep it restrained so as not to numb the audience with visual Nutrasweet.” Nobody took those kinds of quality-control steps. So I’m not complaining that they weren’t artistically more mature, I’m just complaining that they weren’t smart about doing their immature thing. I’m saying these movies didn’t handle their material as well as the originals.
R2D2: You’re saying that you weren’t pleased, and then you’re working backward as though it’s some kind of principled thing. But that’s just arrogance. It’s just subjective.
SOCRATES: Um, yes, this is all just subjective.
R2D2: Well there you go.
SOCRATES: That’s a lame argument, R2. Seriously. You were originally arguing that I was unfairly holding the original movies and the new movies to different standards, but I disagreed and argued I was holding them to the same standards, which I accordingly tried to express in terms of principles.*** Now you’re just saying that those principles aren’t objective principles, but that’s irrelevant. We all acknowledge that criticism is subjective. You’re just using it as a smokescreen so that you can back away from your earlier position. Your accusation was that I’m being inconsistent. Stick to that.
R2D2: Calm down, dude.
SOCRATES: I am calm. Don’t tell me to calm down.
R2D2: Dude, seriously, calm down.
SOCRATES: That’s really rude. Don’t do that.
R2D2: I’m just saying you need to calm down!
SOCRATES: You’re just trying to avoid the argument.
R2D2: Dude, it’s just a movie.
SOCRATES: I KNOW.
* “NOOOOOOO!!!”
** Samuel L. Jackson. The real character name is, I think, “Mace Windu.”
*** A couple other principles ignored by Revenge of the Sith (and by other pulpy stuff I don’t like):
I. Design is subordinate to content, not the other way around. Your idea for a cool location might precede the idea for what happens there, but in the final product, that can’t be apparent. This movie had an establishing shot of the beautiful fantasy landscape of the Wookie planet. Good so far. But then nothing happens there. The camera never sits down and lets us feel that we are there. We’re just looking at it. Ostensibly we’re looking at something plot-related, but the irrelevance of the plot, compared to the design, is overwhelming. Princess Leia’s hairdo in Star Wars was cool, but it wasn’t the point of the scenes in which she wore it. Things happened despite the hairdo. When Natalie Portman comes out with the same hairdo in this movie, it’s the point. “Get it?” The movie itself is like the flatbed that carries the parade float of the design. It might as well just be sitting still on the ground. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone was another example of an excellently designed series of still images that was just barely a movie.
II. Lines should as much as possible be interesting in themselves, not only in relation to other lines. Scenes should as much as possible be interesting in themselves, not only in relation to other scenes. Movies should as much as possible be interesting in themselves, not only in relation to other movies.
III. Disney/Dickens rule of characters: if you’re not going for realism, pick two adjectives (or for complex characters, three) and then have the characters consistently be those things. Fit scene-to-scene emotions into the context of those things. Do not figure out scene-to-scene emotions and then hope that they will cohere into overall characterization. For example, in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker was: boyish, eager for adventure. Han Solo was: self-satisfied, reckless, mercenary (but secretly susceptible to idealism). In Revenge of the Sith, Natalie Skywalker was: ??, ??. Ob-Ewan Kenobi was: ??, ??.****
**** REAL PERSON WHO JUST READ THIS: “The whole thing is pretty nerdy, but that last part is like you giving everyone advice on how to make a movie, or just how to do stuff. Don’t you think it’s kind of snotty?”
ME GETTING DEFENSIVE: I’m not actually “giving advice”; I’m expressing my displeasure and dissatisfaction with this movie, which is a normal part of a “review” or “response,” which is what this is. But I don’t like just reading that something was “bad,” so I’m trying to think and talk about what made it bad, which seems more interesting to writer and reader. I’m expressing that in the form of so-called “betrayed principles,” because that seemed to me like the most thoughtful analytic way of handling my displeasure. Do you disagree with the principles? Do you think there’s a better way of expressing them?
REAL PERSON WHO JUST READ THIS: [is eating pizza, stopped listening]
I agree with your design-content point, but for the sake of argument, what’s the implication for a movie like North by Northwest? Which, as its alleged original title suggests, was basically just an excuse to put Cary Grant inside Abraham Lincoln’s nostril.
Though I was also irked by ROTS, of course. (I didn’t care very much either way because I had nothing at stake, having disliked the first five.) I’d elaborate but it’s lame to be posting things on the Internet about Star Wars from an Internet cafe in Istanbul.
I’m reading that as: “it’s lame to be posting things on the Internet about Star Wars” and “but at least I’m interesting enough to be doing it from Istanbul, right?”
As I see it, the design vs. content criticism doesn’t apply to North by Northwest. I know I’m always saying that the lesson of North by Northwest is that the moments are more important than the structure they fit into, but those moments, as they were originally conceived, were content, too, not just atmosphere. They said “it’ll be exciting to have a guy be chased over Mount Rushmore,” which is a plot point that needs to be connected to other plot points. They didn’t say “um, Mount Rushmore,” which is just a location. Star Wars seems frequently to have started with pure design – static concept drawings – and only afterward tried to figure out what event might seem enough like a plot point that it could take place near the drawing and justify its inclusion.
No, more “it’s lame to be posting things on the Internet about Star Wars” and “and it’s even worse to be using up ostensible cultural time in a foreign country to do it.”
So there’s really a distinction between “it’ll be exciting to have a guy be chased over Mount Rushmore!” and, say, “it’ll be exciting if the aliens blow up the White House!” or “ooh, or the Chrysler Building, we’ve never done that one!” Maybe it’s just that North by Northwest is a really stylishly designed movie, and it’s actually funny, and Cary Grant is cool. None of which applies to Episodes 1-3 or cute, earnest Hayden Christensen, alas.
(Freaky aside: Hayden Christensen’s next project appears to be a film version of Boccaccio’s Decameron, entitled Decameron: Angels & Virgins. IMDB summary: “Young Florentines regale one another in the Italian countryside while the black plague decimates their city.” Mischa Barton co-stars!)
Why is there so much Star Wars hate on this page? I’m certainly not going to defend episodes 1-3 — even I thought they were unentertaining crap. And this is coming from the girl who loves Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, so what does that tell ya. And of course Adam doesn’t like them–name one sci fi action film that Adam *does* like. But take them for what they are: fantasy movies about ewoks and light sabers and what have you, and they’re actually pretty well done. Especially for their era. Have you seen the other movies of this ilk from the 70’s? They survive as little more than campy jokes for today’s society.
I think the design-content argument does apply to the 3 most recent Star Wars films, but the content of the original film really does pull its weight. It’s a fairy tale that every child could relate to. Luke lives on a planet that sort of feels like a very dusty Kansas, where his future holds little more than farming with his boring aunt and uncle. But lo and behold, he finds out he has magical powers! And there’s a whole, big exciting war happening, which involves monsters and robots and other things that kids love. The acting is good, the characters likeable. I rewatched the original film soon after I saw ROTS, and I was most struck by the difference in pacing and structure. SO much more happens in the latest movies than the first three. Star Wars ep. 4 moves slowly, has a small cast, and creates an intimate feel that helps you to actually care when people falter or get hurt. Well, I guess Adam didn’t, but most Americans did.
I’m sure you two sophisticates will pooh-pooh my vulgar opinion, but I love Star Wars too much to not say something in its favor.
Far be it from me to pooh-pooh a love for Star Wars. In fact, I think you must be misunderstanding my original position here, which was entirely pro- old Star Wars. The only negative thing I (Socrates) allowed was that, yes, those movies might be said – by sophisticates – to have had their share of “bad writing and acting.” And I’m really torn up about acknowledging even that, because it certainly wasn’t a kind of “bad” that I found problematic. At worst it’s an innocent, wholehearted clumsiness, which never bothers me. Even those stupid, overly cute Ewoks were nowhere near as phony as absolutely everything in Episodes 1-3. I think it might have been their creepy wet little lips that saved them.
Your observation about plot density/pacing is a very good one. These new movies revealed their badness by being swamped with stuff, none of it of any substance. It’s like George knew that none of this stuff was actually worth more than a minute of anyone’s time, so he just kept packing more of it in until he reached capacity; he built movies full of styrofoam peanuts and nothing else.
One sci-fi action film that Adam most definitely likes: Johnny Mnemonic. He will just not shut up about that movie. Adam, give it a rest already!
I don’t think I misunderstood your original article. The supposedly pro-original Star Wars position seems to be “Well, they’re crap, but they’re fun, entertaining crap.” I think that was a caveat that you felt, as an “intellectual,” required to insert. And I just wanted to say that I didn’t actually think they were crap at all. It’s true that I’m confused by the shift in Mr. Lucas. How could someone who now makes such bad movies have made such good ones at one time? That question is as hard for me to answer as whether American Graffiti is actually a classic or what the deal is with Howard the Duck, but I guess it shows that people are more flawed and complex than we like to think.
Adam likes Johnny Mnemonic? I find that very confusing. I’ve only seen about 10 minutes of that on TV. Is it that Keanu Reeves is hot?
You’re right, I did feel required to insert it, but not as an “intellectual.” It was my grudging concession to the evil voice of R2D2, who in the dialogue represents the nefarious forces of “oh please” in this world.
I still remember the shock I felt, at the age of 10 or something, finding one of Pauline Kael’s review collections and reading her frustrated review of Star Wars, and her downright disgusted review of Return of the Jedi. Of course those are the movies I looked up first. How could it be, I thought, that someone thought these movies weren’t great? I thought that had been established as fact! I felt deep confusion and the lurking potential for shame. I’ve actually been meaning to do an entry, for a while, about what havoc that external voice of “oh please” can wreak on a person’s opinions. I guess I should pull my thoughts together and write that.
I still think American Graffiti is charming. I’m not sure how George Lucas managed to make it; I think the answer might be that it’s actually about his life, unlike everything else he’s ever worked on. Never saw Howard the Duck.
re: Johnny Mnemonic. I was just being silly. The idea of Adam getting enthusiastic about any sci-fi struck me as funny, but particularly some second-rate badly dated flop. The first thing that came to mind was actually Virtuosity, but that wasn’t a funny enough title.
Ha ha ha… That actually is very funny, the Johnny Mnemonic thing. You totally had me going… Hey, Adam did think that snowglobe Jesus was funny, so who knows…
I actually bought a copy of Virtuosity on VHS. That was back when I was so excited that one of my favorite Australian actors had come over to the US. Yeah, that’s right Kendall Sq. theater dorks — I loved Russell Crowe back when he was the Romper Stomper down under actor prodigy. How come you never noticed him *then*?!? Of course, I’m a little embarrassed about that attitude now…
Broomlet, isn’t there any way your page could have a little “new comments” button at the top, so I could know when I need to leap into an old discussion and defend myself?
I actually laughed out loud (LOL!) — well, giggled, really — for several seconds after I hit the Johnny Mnemonic bit.
Sci-fi action movies that I liked: Uh, I actually kinda enjoyed Titan A.E. I was pleasantly amused by much of the remade Planet of the Apes, even the nonsensical last scene. I genuinely enjoyed Blade Runner. I liked Close Encounters that time Andy made me watch it. I liked the X-Files movie.
I think the trouble between me and Star Wars is that I didn’t see it until I was all grown up, and specifically in the run-up to Episode One — so it has none of the reflected allure of childhood nostalgia for me. And while I can appreciate it for its historical impact on moviemaking, that only gets you so far.
Anyway, I don’t hate it or anything, it just strikes me as kind of blah. Does this make me a horrible highbrow jerk? Maybe — but keep in mind, my favorite movies for years and years were Sister Act and Home Alone.
Also, the Jesus snowglobe days are far behind me.