Shocking pop culture admission: the other day I watched Star Wars Episode I on DVD again, to prepare myself for Episode II – and I didn’t hate it. I didn’t really particularly like anything about it, but I didn’t have that white-hot hatred any more. I accepted that it was an OK, if overcomplicated and stilted, telling of the origins of Anakin Skywalker.
But as I’m writing this now, all the bad stuff is coming back to me: the Trade Federation jargon, Jar Jar, have-no-idea-who-he-is-and-now-he’s-cut-in-half Darth Maul, Anakin’s cries of “Yippee!”, stupid midi-chlorians, and on and on.
I’ve said this many times before, but George Lucas has absolutely forgotten what made the original films so good. They were simple, fun, swashbuckling, pulpy adventures. Movie serials for the new age. In contrast, Episode I was like Star Wars made by a committee of robots.
People say Episode II is better. I hope so.
I certainly hope so, too.
I didn’t *mind* TPM. There’s some neat, whiz-bang stuff, and learning more about the pre-Rebellion Republic was kind of cool.
But it wasn’t an exciting story about characters we care about getting into and out of danger. It was backstory. It was the eye-candy “Teacher’s Guide” to the “real” Star Wars films.
The buzz I hear is that perception will change after Ep II, that all of the mind-numbing taxation issues and everything will suddenly make sense. We’ll see.
But I was thinking about SW and Empire and Jedi last night … and remembering how exciting they were, because they were stories about people, about heroes to root for. PM lacked that. Hopefully AotC will restore it.
Hey, 4 5 and 6 were not that great people. They had heart though.