[In
response to the unexpected news that Disney has bought the Star Wars franchise
and will be releasing a new Star Wars film in 2015.]
All
judgment must be suspended until the film actually comes out in 2015. Then we will see if this is a huge disaster,
or if this is really really cool.
There’s a
danger that it will be a huge disaster (like the prequel movies were) but I am of the opinion that the Star Wars franchise should not be
treated like a sacred cow. No matter
what happens with the sequels, they won’t take away from the original movies,
and on the small chance they might be good, it’s worth trying.
And my nostalgia for Star Wars is such that they already have my price of admission, not matter how bad the
new movies turn out to be. (No doubt the
massive built in audience for anything bearing the Star Wars logo is why Disney happily shelled out the $4 billion for
the franchise. It’s a no-brainer for
them.)
I do
wonder, however, how many stories are left to be told in the Star Wars
universe.
The
original trilogy was only structured to tell one story. Now that the princess has been saved, the
Empire defeated, and bad guy redeemed, and freedom obtained, there’s not really
a lot left to tell.
Star Wars
is not Star Trek. It’s not
designed to be a space exploration show, or a new alien of the week. It’s a fantasy set in space and the fantasy story
seems to have reached its logical conclusion with Return of the Jedi.
It is always
possible to send our heroes out on a new quest, but it’s going to be hard
making up a new story that has the same stakes as the first one. And (if Disney keeps releasing Star Wars
films indefinitely, like they say they’re planning to do) at some point they’re
going to run out of good ideas.
That being
said….let’s see what happens. There’s
always that faint glimmer of hope that this time it won’t suck, and we’ll all
hang onto that for the next 3 years.
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky: "The Emerging World Order: its roots, our legacy"
5 comments:
Have you watched The Clone Wars TV series at all? It took me a couple of episodes before I got into it, but when I did I realized the writing for those shows was better than it had been for the last four movies. I tend to think positively of the purchase. You don't have to be a good writer to do great Star Wars stories: you just have to be better than Lucas.
Actually just started watching the Clone Wars this past week--partly inspired by your recommendations, (and partly just by Star Wars is in the news again, so I was in the mood). It's premature now to give my verdict on it though. Maybe once I've absorbed a couple seasons I'll have some thoughts. (DVDs are dirt cheap here in Cambodia. I pay about $4 for an entire season, so it makes it all too easy to binge on stuff. But that's another topic).
Interesting Salon article as well. Enjoyed the link.
Actually well we're linking to old Salon articles about Star Wars, I thought this review from all the way back in 1999 does an excellent job of dissecting exactly the problems with the Phantom Menace. It took me several years and multiple viewings before I reluctantly came to the same conclusion, so I find it impressive that this reviewer nailed it so well right away.
http://www.salon.com/1999/05/19/star_wars_2/
http://www.salon.com/1999/05/19/star_wars_2/
I remember reading that, back in the day (my friend Scott made sure of it). That same year Salon also did this take-down of the Berman-Braga Trek franchise.
I think I might have mentioned that our family watched SW eps 1-3 this summer. The girls were so put-off with the first two instalments, I had to insist on watching the third. What I noticed, watching them this time around, was how static the camera usually was. None of these hand-held shots that you had in the very first movie (R2 being stalked by Jawas, for instance). I could nit-pick some more, but I think that's indicator enough of how far the quality of these things has fallen.
Actually, since I'm already stewing, I think I might throw together a blog-post on the matter. More anon, I'm sure.
Thanks again for another article. I stopped watching Trek in 1996, so when that article was written in 1999 I had been 3 years Trek free by that time. Largely for the reasons that article mentioned. Trek had just gotten SO bland by that point.
I'll be looking for your blog post.
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