rebootied

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but:

I saw Star Wars in its opening month in 1977. It became an immediate obsession. I was so crazy in love with the movie, it was just amazing. Close to a religious experience, for my young mind.

I collected every series of Topps Star Wars Cards, and when the "Darth Vader's TIE Fighter" card mentioned "next year's model," I took it to mean there would be a sequel. I was overjoyed.

ESB came out in 1980, and it was even more enthralling and engaging than the first movie had been. Lucas talked about making 9 movies total. I was giddy.

ROTJ played in theaters in 1983. I was working in a comic book store at the time, and Marvel accidentally sent out the comic adaptation a week or two early. I grabbed my copy from the store's stash, and read it that very day. It seemed... okay. The movie came out, there were teddy bears beating up stormtroopers. Han Solo didn't seem cool anymore. Vader is redeemed by tossing the Emperor down a hole, though he has killed billions of people. This all seems overly simplistic and childish.

GL stops making Star Wars movies.

Fast forward to 1999, Episode I is released. I stay up to watch a 1AM showing on its launch. On the way home, I wonder what the fuck I have watched. Home Alone in space? This was not great. The Prequels, on the whole, are entirely disappointing. GL shows us just how much he doesn't want to work with actors. Episode II is worse than I. Episode III is the least bad, but still confusing, ham-handed, overly-reliant on its CG budget. The best thing that can be said is it makes Return of the Jedi seem to make a little more sense by humanizing Anakin.

When Episode VII: The Force Awakens finally appears, it looks like someone has remembered how to make a Star Wars movie. Practical effects, practical sets, some mystery, and a sense of the familiar among everything that's alien. It's good fun.

I know it's contentious, but Rian Johnson's Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is my third favorite starwars work. Listen to the dialog. Hear what he's saying. Rian did his best to take the story from one of hereditary greatness, divine right, the right of kings, to instead democratize the Force. Rey is NO ONE. Her temptation is to join in the service of the selfish, sociopathic hereditary heir, or to risk death and die as a talented nobody. She risks death rather than submit to serving as nihilism's partner. Kylo himself has a point: sometimes you have to tear down the past in order to build the future. Leave it behind. It's fucking great.

But the butthurt fanbois of the world couldn't take a girl hero, couldn't take that their incel champion was simping after this "Mary Sue" character, and so JJ Abrams went back and undid all the democratization of the Force, reintegrated Rey as a member of a heroic bloodline, and erased everything that is interesting in Episode IX.

If you told me in 1977 that all nine films would eventually be made, but that the last one would be so utterly horrible that it would diminish my love for the work as a whole, I would not have believed you. But there it is. Episode IX is irredeemable. åç

Saturday, I saw Star Wars, which was prettier than it was good. It was better than Episode 1, maybe better than Ep.2, but most suprisingly it had more laughs in it than anything since Empire. Lots of fun moments and guffaws. But most suprising is the visual language; it was just gorgeous. Dark, but very painterly and lush.

Story-wise, I tried really hard but was unable to get past the damage that Lucas did to the franchise with the prequels. There is just no getting past the bad-ass Jedi being constantly unable to see the Sith Lord RIGHT in front of them. That may be the Siths' ultimate ability, but it's never explained in the movies, which otherwise go out of their way to over-explain anything else.

It's impossible for me to like the Old Republic troopers. They're stormtroopers. They're mass-created clone warriors who are fundamentally wired to betray those Jedi who have been fighting alongside them for the entire war against the secessionists. They're never cast as tragic in this regard; it's just a switch in their head, and as such it's impossible for me to feel like they're deserving of empathy or support.

And lastly, Anakin himself, who was supposed to have been "seduced" by the Dark Side, who was supposed to have had a gradual, one-bad-choice-after-another slide into darkness, but instead basically does a big flip-flop at the most critical juncture in the story, and suddenly becomes the world-destroying analog for Hitler and Satan or whatever, he's the most difficult of all to feel any sympathy for.

He gets a charming, plucky Padawan, Asohka, with major attitude and skills to back it up, and he has to learn how to deal with being a teacher. Handled a little more skillfully, the story might have shown how this was another chance for Anakin to avoid sliding into the Dark Side, and then give a nudge or hint as to why it wasn't ultimately effective in changing his ways, such as the padawan being injured or killed, and that experience would further distance Anakin from emotional attachment or taking others into his care.

Nope.

Anyway, it was fun. I will probably buy the DVD, which I should have waited for to begin with.

NSFW - "Language, Darth..." (via chadu)