Star Wars

Star Wars

I caught part of a TV interview with George Lucas, about his trials and tribulations in producing Stars Wars, and about his vision for the movie. There were retro pictures of the early days, when he was young and struggling to be taken seriously in the industry. His personal saga is very impressive, even heroic, and very romantic, in the sense of having a single-minded purpose in pursuing his love and standing up for his beliefs against all odds, and living happily ever after. George had me right then and there, even before saying hello.
I remember the first screening of Star Wars. We were living in Baltimore. We stood in line five blocks long for hours, in Towson, just to get in. Harrison Ford was a nobody but was really cute in the movie. But not cuter that R2 and 3PO, and Yoda. And Darth Vader was unforgettable with James Earl Jones’ voice . Luke was forgettable as played by Mark Hammil (whatever happened to him?) and Princess Leia was only memorable to me because of her hair-do. For Halloween that year every little girl including my Jay-Jay wanted to be costumed as Princess Leia. I had to sew her dress, and I had the devil of a time fashioning those buns behind her ears. Jay-Jay’s hair was so silky, the buns just kept on escaping and unwinding from its hairpin moorings. Now Jay-Jay has a 6-year-old RahRah but I doubt that she’ll want to be Padme this Halloween.
The whole Star Wars phenomenon just blows me away. You’ll be an alien if you didn’t send someone off with the exhortation ; “May the Force be with you”. And did you catch Yoda’s speech reversals? And the money that went with it, blockbuster! I didn’t know until I saw the interview, that it spawned the merchandise tie-in business and that George himself was a techie genius and pushed technical innovations in animation and computer digital imagery. It said that until TheRevenge of the Siths, technology had not come in synch to match George’s vision for the technical wizardry.
Of course I have to go see this. I’m compulsive enough that it would feel incomplete if I didn’t go to this one, after all I went to all the previous installments. And closure is calming. George himself said that he can rest in peace now, he has come around full circle in 3 decades and the story is complete. Just like a life story. I have a sense of what he’s talking about. This past year, I have been through the endings of life stories of dear ones closest to my heart. George was also talking about influences that shaped his story-telling in Star Wars. He read Joseph Campbell. Wow, the man is deep! And of course you can see the classics in the story line, Shakespeare, the myths and fairy tales of the world, the Greek tragedies, the major faiths in the themes of the chosen one and incarnation and the hereafter, the struggle between good and evil, etc. Those are the subliminal themes that appeal universally. There is nothing original in the themes, but the story-telling captivates still.
So I decided to play hooky and catch the matinee at Phipps. I was with hundreds of school kids, wearing flowing capes and storm troopers get-up and Darth Vader masks chomping and crunching loudly at their popcorns. Their chaperones kept on standing up and hushing them. When the theatre went dark, and the opening scene of the galaxy and the crawling opening paragraph came on, there was a hush, and on cue light sabers flashed everywhere and there was applause, then for the rest of the movie, rapt attention and silence, not a popcorn could be heard!
At 2 hours and 20 minutes, it was a tad too long. It sagged towards the middle and I thought I’d snooze at the constant swish and kapow of the galactic battle scenes, it got boring. I thought the scenes were too busy with so many details that it sort of lost definition, one scene blended into the other. Perhaps the newfangled digital technology made it easier to create scenes and characters that it got too many, they became all background. The opening aerial dogfight was sterile. It had too many movements, but no drama and gripping moments where you can feel your heart in your throat and really live with the suspense and get into the scene. It was too video game-like, all maneuverings and no feeling. I wasn’t into the scenes either during the massacre in the Jedi temple and the murder of the younglins. It failed to create emotion, it failed to have impact. I don’t know what’s missing, but there was something missing. Even the genocide scenes just looked like tableaus, a picture that you look at like in an album and you move to the next page. However Hayden Christensen rules. Who is he? I hear he’s Canadian. He makes Darth Vader simpatico, and this movie is really about Darth Vader and in that George I agree did accomplish his goal. Hayden acted his role seriously, and that’s the tone of the whole movie. It was rather grave and heavy and dark, with little relief except a few scenes with R2 and 3PO and Yoda. The villain Palpatine is delicious. And Ewan Mcgregor was not bad, at least he did not play his part so seriously. Natalie Portman looked like a rich Jedi’s wife, she didn’t have much to do in the movie but look pretty and wait. I miss the tongue-in-cheek acting style in the first Star Wars. It lets the audience know that this is a fairy tale and a cartoon and just come and enjoy the movie, whereas Revenge of the Siths is trying to deliver a message and I don’t particularly care for that in my movie. And why was Bush speaking through Palpatine here? “ If you do not agree with us then you are against us, and you must be destroyed!”
Oh well, it was nice to slip from work and while the afternoon away at the movies, then shop Phipps after. I had a great time!