I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
The original trilogy is a myth. This point has been rehashed (not the least by Lucas himself, to gain himself literary credibility) a million times, but it bears repeating: it is a new myth for a new age. The Farm Boy, the Princess, the Rogue and the Wizard must fight against the Evil Emperor and the Black Knight to end evil in the Galaxy. It's a timeless formula and it's still good, or rather still was good in the 70's when Star Wars debuted.
What makes this particular retelling of the story so compelling is its details, and there are a lot of them. The archetypes have personalities on top of them, personalities that, while closely linked with the archetypes, are distinct in their own way. Han Solo isn't just Han Solo, he's Harrison Ford playing Han Solo, which makes all the difference the in the word. The original trilogy was witty; it was charming; it was friendly. Much has been made of Star Wars' "boilerplate" aesthetic, the fact that all these super-duper future spaceships look beat the fuck up, like they've been around forever. The Milennium Falcon is the Flash Gordon equivalent of your uncle's old Camaro. The aliens are puppets, they are gritty and real it feels like you can touch them. Star Wars brings the myth alive, and that's why it's so good. BUT: it is still, at its heart, a myth. The details are just that.
The problem with the new trilogy is that the details have become the movie, and the myth has become the trappings. Yeah yeah, sure, there's the story of a man's fall from the light, but check out all those cool lightsabers! Where the original trilogy was concerned with the dynamics of a few interesting people who happen to hold the fate of the Galaxy in their hands, the new triolgy is concerned with politics, separatist groups, senates, votes of no confidence... if the original trilogy is the American myth, the new one is the American machinery. If the original is AMC, the new is C-Span.
All of that homey feel - part detail, part familiarity with the story - is gone. The new trilogy is stark, slick and foreboding. Gone are witticisms like "Your Highnessness", gone are all the believable puppet aliens, gone are the Camaro spaceships. Instead all the aliens ooze 3D elastic perfection, the ships gleam like they were all just rolled out of the factory in time for shooting, and the dialogue is like a seventh grader trying to read Antigone. Lucas' new Galaxy seems to have what scientists call the Shininess Problem, where even the disgusting skin of a blue space-Jew curmudgeon is reflective enough to shave in.
ALL of the problems people find with the new trilogy - unconvincing, overwhelming special effects, lifeless dialogue, wooden acting (crew on the set of Episode I sniggeringly called Jake Lloyd "Mannequin Skywalker"), senseless overcomplex plot - can be traced to this single principle. Lucas has forgotten what made his original trilogy so great, and he's taken the heart and soul of the thing, ripped it out, and used it to merely dress up what was only dressing to begin with. He wants to make his myth into a gleaming, beautiful monument of literary importance, an Apollinian monolith. He wants his Buck Rogers to become an Iliad, and he has killed his universe to do it.
Just look at the scrolling titles. New Hope: "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." Short. To the point. You know who is good and who is evil, and what must be done to see that the Light carries the day. Phantom Menace: "Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlaying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo." Wait - what? Can I rewind those and reread them? Blockades? Shipping routes? Taxation disputes, for fuck's sake? Is this the beginning of an epic? What happened to my myth?
What makes this particular retelling of the story so compelling is its details, and there are a lot of them. The archetypes have personalities on top of them, personalities that, while closely linked with the archetypes, are distinct in their own way. Han Solo isn't just Han Solo, he's Harrison Ford playing Han Solo, which makes all the difference the in the word. The original trilogy was witty; it was charming; it was friendly. Much has been made of Star Wars' "boilerplate" aesthetic, the fact that all these super-duper future spaceships look beat the fuck up, like they've been around forever. The Milennium Falcon is the Flash Gordon equivalent of your uncle's old Camaro. The aliens are puppets, they are gritty and real it feels like you can touch them. Star Wars brings the myth alive, and that's why it's so good. BUT: it is still, at its heart, a myth. The details are just that.
The problem with the new trilogy is that the details have become the movie, and the myth has become the trappings. Yeah yeah, sure, there's the story of a man's fall from the light, but check out all those cool lightsabers! Where the original trilogy was concerned with the dynamics of a few interesting people who happen to hold the fate of the Galaxy in their hands, the new triolgy is concerned with politics, separatist groups, senates, votes of no confidence... if the original trilogy is the American myth, the new one is the American machinery. If the original is AMC, the new is C-Span.
All of that homey feel - part detail, part familiarity with the story - is gone. The new trilogy is stark, slick and foreboding. Gone are witticisms like "Your Highnessness", gone are all the believable puppet aliens, gone are the Camaro spaceships. Instead all the aliens ooze 3D elastic perfection, the ships gleam like they were all just rolled out of the factory in time for shooting, and the dialogue is like a seventh grader trying to read Antigone. Lucas' new Galaxy seems to have what scientists call the Shininess Problem, where even the disgusting skin of a blue space-Jew curmudgeon is reflective enough to shave in.
ALL of the problems people find with the new trilogy - unconvincing, overwhelming special effects, lifeless dialogue, wooden acting (crew on the set of Episode I sniggeringly called Jake Lloyd "Mannequin Skywalker"), senseless overcomplex plot - can be traced to this single principle. Lucas has forgotten what made his original trilogy so great, and he's taken the heart and soul of the thing, ripped it out, and used it to merely dress up what was only dressing to begin with. He wants to make his myth into a gleaming, beautiful monument of literary importance, an Apollinian monolith. He wants his Buck Rogers to become an Iliad, and he has killed his universe to do it.
Just look at the scrolling titles. New Hope: "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." Short. To the point. You know who is good and who is evil, and what must be done to see that the Light carries the day. Phantom Menace: "Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlaying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo." Wait - what? Can I rewind those and reread them? Blockades? Shipping routes? Taxation disputes, for fuck's sake? Is this the beginning of an epic? What happened to my myth?