General grievances (random fan rants)

On this point in particular, Joe (you quoting the article):


Er... When wasn't it about shades of grey and different points of view? FFS, the Imperials dress in grey, and live in a big grey spherical city of death. And the PT shows that they replace the Jedi as the Force-wielding (or technology-wielding) bureaucrats of the OT. There is a cool, heady transition from Republic to Empire in the Lucas Saga (notice the relative similitude of the seals of the Republic and the Empire), which is delivered as nothing less than a pointed social commentary and an operatic, fire-and-brimstone warning: an all-encompassing eschatology.

Just as the back of my Penguin Classics edition of "Moby-Dick" says:

"Moby-Dick can be read as a 'disorderly elegy' to democracy, which (Herman) Melville saw threatened on many sides: by the spirit of utilitarianism, by America's accelerating pace of expansionism, and by the drive toward industrial power."

It then adds:

"Moby-Dick is a profound, poetic inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception."

If a person doesn't see similar layering in the Star Wars Saga, then, to use an apposite metaphor, they are lost at sea.

Let me put some of that into pictures (a picture is worth a thousand words 'n' all that):

By the spirit of utilitarianism:

Well, if it works...



By America's accelerating pace of expansionism:



By the drive toward industrial power:



I'll leave the more esoteric triptych of "character, faith, and the nature of perception" to your own intellect to unravel.

There's another quote I'd like to briefly unpack here. It's not really related to the above very much, so I guess this is "Part 2":



True. There was at least some in-story justification for the reuse of the Death Star in ROTJ. It was basically a trap the Emperor had laid for the rebels, reprising Obi-Wan's cockiness in the opening of ROTS: "Spring the trap." The rebels had done it once; surely, they could do it again. Moreover, we're told about the existence of the Death Star in the crawls of ANH and ROTJ, allowing the threat to be properly established. Heck, ROTJ even opens on the Death Star, preceded only by a quick fly-by. We know, this time, that something of cosmic or spiritual importance is bound to take place there; and, of course, it does: in some grand, multi-pronged finale. Even the technocratic threat of the Death Star feels believable and is well juxtaposed against the near-abstract forest greens of Endor. ROTJ is a singularly well-done culmination of six films of material. 

The problem with reusing the Death Star concept in TFA is that it's rather casually tossed into the story and the stakes aren't particularly well-managed. Now, yes, Starkiller Base manages to blow up the New Republic in a small sequence of reasonable cinematic power. There is at least some attempt here to evoke the horror of Order 66 in the music, and to visually differentiate the sudden attack from light years away compared to the "up close and personal" laser strikes performed by the prior Death Star(s). However, the sneak attack on the New Republic, Order 66 vibes aside, feels a bit too easy in its accomplishment. The scope and scale of the conflict is never established (unlike the PT and OT). It is only really alluded to in the most trite and ephemeral of terms.

Then you have the way the threat of Starkiller Base is ultimately dealt with in the final act -- rather lamely, as it turns out. "It's another Death Star" is certainly no better a line than Poe's now-notorious, "Somehow, Palpatine survived" in TROS. Now, again, there is some attempt to capture something new with the whole light-dark motif of the movie, where the light of the star that SKB is "eating" becomes gradually extinguished and the Resistance fighters are plunged into darkness, just as Ben/Kylo falls into darkness when he fatally stabs Han. But Starkiller Base itself still feels like an afterthought. Which was never the case in the Lucas films. Every world in the Lucas Saga feels like a place. But most of the locales in the sequels are forgettable and there is little good reason for any of them to exist. Even Lucas at his laziest was still bursting with creativity and made sure to imbue his choices with logic, meaning, and memorability.

natalie
i already posted it on here but i digress unfortunately some a**sholes in the comments had to ruin it
on said
i prefer Star Wars being soft science fiction rather than straight up fantasy adventure

another said
Interesting stuff,shame that the films were ruined with bad acting, lack of chemistry and poor cgi. The resulting films
have the soul of a video game unfortunately. All of the ideas involved still couldn't have bought the films to the level of
the original trilogy. Would have been nice if there were someone to reign Lucas in.


I'M SICK OF THESE PEOPLE!

Cryogenic
did you see the video i linked earlier?

Cryogenic
Thank You.

Okay, no more tonight, Joe.

The Clashing Sabers article may seem sound on paper and it might impress a screenwriting 101 professor, but in short, it misses the essence of what Star Wars is (and indeed he seems to be missing some fairly obvious points in the films) and is like saying a jazz song should've been written more like a conventional pop song.

Lucas states in almost every interview that both his desire as a filmmaker and the reason he was so successful is because he dared to break away from the mold of the conventions of the day. While of course still exploring the depths of humanity and recreating old myths in a new way.

No need for me to get into the particular points in the article here. I believe we have threads pertaining to each on this forum, which go into how and why we believe GL's choices work or not, or at least, why he chose them.

Someone already posted a response to the video

How come I didn't know about him He reminds me of Anomaly Inc

@lulumars
someone (don't remember where and if the person was a prequel hater) said that lucas should have made the sequels in the early 90s