Star Wars: An Introduction

Just looking at that title, you're probably wondering why I'm even bothering with an introduction to this because, let's face it, Star Wars doesn't, or rather shouldn't, need one: it's the very definition of a modern day myth. Everybody has either seen or at least heard of the movies and know of the characters, the story, etc. It's penetrated the popular culture in ways that few movies could ever hope to; in fact, I would go as far as to say that it has created its own culture, much like other franchises such as Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and such, since aside from the movies, there are tons of books, comics, video games and so on to introduce newcomers to the saga as well as expand on it endlessly. In short, the Force really does bind us. So why am I giving it an introduction? I'm not. I'm giving my introduction to it. Some franchises are just such a phenomenon that they go far beyond their original source and so, I feel I must give my introduction to said phenomenon in general. Here, I'm going to talk about how I first became a fan of Star Wars, what I think of the phenomenon and the fans, how I feel about George Lucas, and so on. Let's begin.

Star Wars was one of those things that I was vaguely aware of when I was a very young kid but I didn't know exactly what it was. I can't remember which I saw first but my first introduction to it was either this pinball machine at this Dairy Queen near my aunt's house or some commercials I saw that may have been advertizing the original trilogy's release on VHS or something. I also remember an advertizement for a puzzle game that featured clips from the original film and I caught a brief, and I mean brief, look at the original film on TV one day. It was during the cantina scene of all things and so, right off the bat my young eyes got a look at some of the weird creatures to be found in this franchise, some of the strangest things that I had ever seen up to that point. So when I was a kid, I was definitely aware of it. I didn't know what Jedi were or what the Force was or anything like that but I vaguely knew about the characters, like Luke Skywalker and such. I definitely knew about Darth Vader (whom I called "Dark" Vader for the longest time) because those commercials I saw had clips of him with his iconic heavy breathing and James Earl Jones' booming voice. There were also these Energizer commercials where Vader confronts the Energizer Bunny but the batteries in his lightsaber run out before he can kill him and he yells in anger. (Speaking of Vader, before I saw The Empire Strikes Back, Mom had already told me that Vader was Luke's father. Yeah, Mom didn't know anything about spoiler alerts back in the day.) I also got the idea that Star Wars was actually a TV show instead of a film series, and before you say that my young mind got it mixed up with Star Trek, I want to make it clear that I did also know about that. I just figured that Star Wars was a show as well and it wasn't until the special editions were released in 1997 that I began to understand that they were movies. Speaking of which, that year was also when I really became a fan, starting with my playing the Nintendo 64 game, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. The game was quite difficult but I enjoyed playing it nevertheless. I actually thought it was based on one of the movies but I found out that the first stage, the ice battle on Hoth, was the only part that was so. In any case, due to that game and some comics based on it that Nintendo Power started publishing in their magazines, I was already sort of a fan of Star Wars and if fate hadn't intervened, I would have just left it at that without ever having seen the movies. However, that was not the case.

It was on one Sunday when I was ten years old that I actually watched the Star Wars movies, or two of them anyway, for the first time. They were playing on USA and I'm pretty sure that this was after the special editions had finished their theatrical run by this point, although these were the original versions that I saw. The first one I watched a significant portion of was The Empire Strikes Back. Mom was through flipping the channels and came upon it about halfway in, at the scene where Han Solo seduces Princess Leia when the Millennium Falcon is broken down inside that asteroid. She and I, as well as a visiting cousin of mine, watched the rest of it (well, my cousin and I kept playing in-between and missed some of it but we eventually stopped what we were doing and watched the rest of the flick). Funny thing is that my cousin wasn't a Star Wars fan in the least but when he actually watched some of it, he changed his tune (although he now tries to say that he's never liked it but I just roll my eyes because I know that he's full of crap on that). Return of the Jedi was on next, making it the first one I saw all the way through. My cousin eventually went home and even though the movie's running time was going on past 10:00pm and I had school the next day, my mom allowed me to stay up and watch the whole thing. It was an experience that I would never forget and after it, there was no going back. I was now a Star Wars fan. I never got absolutely obsessed with it as a lot of people do but I did become quite a lover of it. That Christmas, I got the special edition trilogy in a VHS boxset, my own personal copy of the Shadows of the Empire game (I had rented it before then), a lot of toys (most notably a big AT-AT model that is still sitting in the same room me as I write this, as well as all of the other stuff that I got), and I also eventually read a few of the books in the expanded universe.

As has been the case with a lot of things, after a while, my love for Star Wars cooled down a bit. It was not because of the prequels or because of George Lucas' constant tinkering with the original trilogy or even because I went through a film snob phase: it was just because I entered high school and college later on and so, a lot of things took a backseat because I had much more important stuff to concern myself with. I still liked the movies quite a bit, having bought the DVD boxset when it came out, continued playing a lot of the video games, and went to see Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at the theater, but I never, and I still haven't, gone back to being as huge of a fan of it as I was when I was a kid. I still like the saga quite a bit and I'm not ashamed that I was once an uber-fan of it (though, again, not as much as a lot of people) but it's a more laid-back appreciation of it now than being a big fanboy.

Speaking of that appreciation, Star Wars is one of those things that, when you're a kid, you simply find to be cool but when you get older and more mature, you admire what it really stands for. As I said, it really is a modern day myth, one that incorporates so much of folklore, popular culture, classic writings, scripture, and so forth. At its basis, it is a tribute to the Flash Gordon serials, just as the Indiana Jones movies are for the classic adventure serials of the same era, with the opening crawling text and the basic plot but there's a lot more to it than that. It's an epic hero's journey, taking elements from classic like The Odyssey and The Iliad; the setting of Tatooine for most of the original film is very much like a western, with Mos Eisley being similar to those remote outposts you see in those movies, and the scene where Luke discovers that his aunt and uncle have been slaughtered has similarities to a moment from The Searchers; there are a lot of references to Gothic horror, particularly Hammer Studios since alumni like Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Dave Prowse had significant roles in various parts of the saga; and there's even parallels to actual history and real-world politics, with the Galactic Empire coming across as very fascist and brutal, not unlike how certain countries have been throughout history. If you want more insight into this aspect of Star Wars, watch the documentary Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed (which is truly excellent, I might add) or the first part of James Rolfe's overview of the saga because they do it far, far better than I could ever hope to. Basically what I'm trying to get across is that Star Wars is an incredible amalgamation of old ideas, concepts, and themes put into the setting of a science fiction fairy tale. As James Rolfe himself said, it truly is everything!

Now let's talk about the man behind the Force, George Lucas. He's truly an interesting figure in that I don't think I have ever seen anyone build up so loyal and loving a fanbase and then turn it completely against him in the way that he has. Let's start with his constant tinkering with the original trilogy and how he refuses to release the unaltered versions of it on DVD or Blu-Ray in any good form. I'm a bit biased on this issue because the version of the trilogy that I grew up with was the 1997 Special Edition. I only saw half of the unaltered version The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi I only saw twice in its original form so they didn't leave much of an impression (I've never even seen the unaltered version of the original film). Obviously, when I was ten, I was still a little too young to understand that what I was watching was not what a generation before me had seen but now, of course, I do get it. From everything I'ved read and seen, the bottom line is that Lucas never felt that the original trilogy was completed the way he wished it could have been, so he decided to go back and add stuff that he was unable to do because of money and time constraints and limited technology. Therefore, in his eyes, the special editions are the original trilogy and the unaltered versions are more like failed first attempts that he's trying to correct. I do think that since they're his films, he has every right to alter them however he sees fit but, that said, I do think that he's being a major prick by not allowing the fans who grew up with the unaltered original trilogy to continue to enjoy it. Directors make new edits of their films all the time now, like Ridley Scott with the many versions of Blade Runner and Steven Spielberg with the 2002 Special Edition of E.T., but they at least have the insight to know that there are many fans of the original versions and so, they give you the option to watch whichever version you choose; Lucas, on the other hand, is basically smacking the fans' hands away from the unaltered original trilogy and saying, "These special editions are the only you're going to be able to watch these movies so you better get used to it!", which is very narcissistic and stupid of him to do. An even bigger middle finger to the fans was that he did, in fact, release the unaltered original trilogy on DVD but they were ports from a laser disc that weren't remastered, weren't anamorphic, and were relegated to just being a bonus feature. That is just unacceptable. And even though I feel that it is his right to alter the original trilogy however he sees fit, I can't help but wonder why he does so every time he brings it out on a new format. What exactly is he trying to compensate for? I know he's probably still not satisfied with those films but I doubt that it's fixing anything by going back to them again and again. While I myself am updating these older reviews that I've done, I'm not going to keep going back to them and messing with them, especially since there are some that I thought weren't that good but I got good feedback on nevertheless. You just don't know what people are going to gravitate to and you should just let them judge for themselves instead of trying to force what you think they should like onto them.

I also can't deny that Lucas has gone from being a filmmaker to a businessman over the years. Once upon a time, he genuinely wanted to make movies but, after Star Wars, he never directed anything ever again save for the prequels. Even more so, he's become fully committed to ringing every last dollar out of Star Wars that he can. He said that after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, he was going to devote himself solely to more artsy films, with Mark Hamill commenting in an interview that Lucas now has the ability to make exactly the movie he wants to make. So... where are those artsy, independent movies that he can make exactly how he wishes? They never came to pass. Instead, he's still trying to milk Star Wars for all it's worth, from the countless toys and merchandizing tie-ins, to the CGI Clone Wars movie and TV show (the latter of which I've heard is good but I've never seen it), to the scrapped re-releasing of the entire saga in 3-D, selling it to Disney while still trying to butt in, and so on. I like that Lucas himself even admitted that he has become the head of a corporation, something that he was vehemently opposed to becoming when he was younger, but, you know, George, if you would actually make those other movies you wanted to, you might be looked at less as a corporate parasite and more as a filmmaker again. Either that or just don't make movies anymore at all if you're burnt out and don't want to even produce stuff anymore. Talking about how you hate having become a corporate entity and then continuing to suck on the Star Wars tit makes you look like a massive hypocrite (as does his once trying to stop Ted Turner from colorizing black and white movies and then turning around and altering his own films, perhaps going as far as to forever alter the original negative, and not letting anyone else have the choice of watching the unaltered versions, but that's a discussion for another day).

While we're still on the subject of Lucas himself, let's get into the next aspect of this issue: the prequels. When I was a kid and first saw the original trilogy, I had no idea why they were actually titled Episode IV, V, and VI, which really confused me. It wasn't until my aunt's boyfriend told me that Lucas was working on prequels (as well as when I finally understood that Shadows of the Empire had no place in the actual continuity of the films) that I understood. By that point, I had subscribed to a Star Wars fan magazine whose featured articles at that time were, needless to say, all about the upcoming prequels and in the months leading up to the release of Episode I, the magazine featured articles on such aspects of the film like Darth Maul, an interview with Jake Lloyd, and others. When I saw Episode I in the theater that June when my parents and I took our annual trip to Destin, Florida (which was a terrible trip, I might add, due to my getting sun-poisoning, throwing up twice that week as a result, and then coming down with strep throat the day after we got back home), I enjoyed it, as did everyone else in that theater. I didn't see Episode II in the theater but by the time Episode III came around, I had become aware of the general, negative consensus on the prequels due to a lot of my classmates at high school. Again, I had only seen Episode I by that point (when Episode III came out, I had graduated from high school) but I knew how much people despised everything about those movies, from the over-abundant CGI to the lame acting, the convoluted stories, Jar Jar Binks, and so on. While I don't hate the prequels as most people do, and I'll go into further detail when I actually review them, I do understand why they alienated people from Lucas even further. They really showed off his weakness as both a writer and director in terms of dealing with actors and his reluctance to get creative with the effects in favor of just using CGI for everything. While I prefer practical effects, I think CGI can be used well and he would have pretty much had to have resorted to it to create the worlds that he had in mind, but using it for virtually everything that moves save for the actual actors is a sign of laziness to me (I'm amazed it took him so long to make stuff that is completely CGI like The Clone Wars since he appears to have wanted that all along). As for Jar Jar Binks, while I don't out and out despise him as everyone else does, I do think he's useless and pointless, and I think you can see Lucas giving the haters of that character the finger by sticking him in the other prequels, albeit briefly and not speaking for Episode III, instead of eliminating him and even having you hear his voice in the 2004 edition of Return of the Jedi.

That I think exemplifies Lucas' major issue: he's not willing to let anybody criticize what he does or creates. The more you give him shit for something he does that you don't like, the more he'll rebel against you. But, again, you shouldn't get into a public business like filmmaking if you can't take criticism because you're going to run into it. And It also doesn't help that he's surrounded by people who kiss his ass and don't question anything that he does because he needs to hear those criticisms from people who work with him (don't know if it would work, though, because he won't listen to his best friend, Steven Spielberg, about the unaltered original trilogy, and I once read that he fired a person for disagreeing with him on the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles). To sum all this up, I think George Lucas is someone who once was a filmmaker but, through the years, became a businessman who can really be a selfish dick that refuses to take any criticism whatsoever and is determined to milk every cent he can out of his greatest creation. If you want more insight into this subject, I'd recommend the documentary The People vs. George Lucas, which is not only a great exploration of the issue but is also a great study of nerd-culture in general.

Finally, let's talk about the fans of Star Wars, who are some of the most loyal followers I have ever seen. From those who can quote the movies line for line to those who create short fan films (you can devote an entire book to the study of Star Wars fan films), those who have little groups who get together in order to dress up as Jedi and play Star Wars roleplaying games, similar to followers of Dungeons and Dragons, to those who fill every room in their house with toys and memorabilia, and so on, I'm not kidding when I say that Star Wars has become a culture all its own and I want to I want to say at the outset that I'm not here to judge. I'm not the kind of person who calls people freaks just because they're very deeply into something, mainly because I obsess over certain things myself. I don't dress up like the characters or decorate my entire house with the stuff or anything but when I do get into something, I can get very fanatical. Therefore, I don't judge Trekkies or Dungeons and Dragons groups or any of the gigantic factions of nerdom because I would be a huge hypocrite if I did. Granted, I don't understand some of it, such as the idea of camping outside the theater for days when a new movie is coming out (does it really matter if you're literally the first one to see the movie?) or writing your own fan fiction when something didn't meet your expectations in a movie, but, again, I'm not going to judge. If you're into something that hardcore, I say power to you. The only bone of contention I do have with it are those fans who accuse George Lucas of destroying their childhood, in particular those guys who sang George Lucas Raped My Childhood in that aforementioned documentary. He did nothing to your childhood. If you had fun with Star Wars when you were a kid, nothing that he's done in the years since can take that away from you. It's like when people bitch about remakes and say that they destroyed the originals. The remakes may indeed suck but the originals are still there! Watch them! It's the same principle here. Lucas may have messed with Star Wars a lot and turned it into something than what it used to be but he didn't do anything to your actual childhood. And as we've talked about, he doesn't care what you say, so you might as well quit bitching. Didn't mean to go off on a tangent there but there are some aspects that are simply beyond your control that you've just got to learn to deal with.

Okay, That's enough of an introduction; next, I will actually review the movies. I just wanted to talk a little bit about how I became aware of the Star Wars phenomenon, what it meant to me when I was a kid and what it means to me now, and my thoughts on the controversies surrounding it and so forth. Hope you've found this introduction enlightening and I also hope I've brought back memories of how you first became acquainted with Star Wars.