The Jar Jar Binks Hatchet Job
I don't post to LJ very often anymore, but there are a few folks here who might find this amusing:
While Beth was out of town over the weekend William insisted that we “watch Star Wars music,” which I interpreted to mean “the prequels.” After all, I remember these movies being, in essence, special effects set to John Williams compositions. This resulted in a quite accidental father-son May the Fourth Be with You celebration. Mostly he just likes having the music on in the background and will do other things, occasionally stopping to be entranced by, say, the “Why Flyer” chase in Episode II.
It has been several years since I last watched the (Rifftrax-accompanied) prequels. I remember going to the midnight show of Episode I with a bunch of college friends during finals week. I recall more or less enjoying it for its portrayal of Jedi combat that didn’t involve a crippled cyborg, an old man well past his fightin’ days, and/or a half-trained novice, because despite their other sins the prequels made the Jedi look like complete bad asses. I also remember, however, the criticism my peers leveled against the too-long pod race, the cringeworthy midi-clorian virgin birth, and, of course, fucking Jar Jar Binks. I saw a matinee of Episode II when I worked 3rd shift and so was pretty sleep-deprived at the time. Episode III was another midnight showing, but that was when going to bed at 4am was perfectly normal for me. However, in all cases that was a very long time ago.
As I watched them again with William I found them less awful than I remembered them being. Don’t get me wrong. I still think midi-chlorian virgin birth is silly, and the love story makes Fifty Shades of Grey look like The Lay of Leithien. But as an account of Palpatine’s rise to power and the transformation of the Republic into the Empire it is actually quite well-thought-out. Maybe it was just the lack of grown-up conversation and a desperate effort by my brain to save itself by chewing off its proverbial leg, but I had a realization about Jar Jar Binks that actually made more sense and eased the pain of watching him bumble and blather his way from disaster to disaster.
It all comes down to a historiographic approach to the Star Wars movies. In essence, I found myself looking at them as a history of the rise and fall of the Emperor as written by the rebels after their victory in Return of the Jedi. I found myself asking specifically who is writing this history? What are their prejudices? What is their agenda? This is the same sort of discussion that theologians and Biblical scholars use to come to a better understanding of the context in which each text was written. It attempts to peel back the layers of artistic license, censorship, and flat out propaganda to get closer to the truth of the events the historical record describes.
Read the Rest Here
While Beth was out of town over the weekend William insisted that we “watch Star Wars music,” which I interpreted to mean “the prequels.” After all, I remember these movies being, in essence, special effects set to John Williams compositions. This resulted in a quite accidental father-son May the Fourth Be with You celebration. Mostly he just likes having the music on in the background and will do other things, occasionally stopping to be entranced by, say, the “Why Flyer” chase in Episode II.
It has been several years since I last watched the (Rifftrax-accompanied) prequels. I remember going to the midnight show of Episode I with a bunch of college friends during finals week. I recall more or less enjoying it for its portrayal of Jedi combat that didn’t involve a crippled cyborg, an old man well past his fightin’ days, and/or a half-trained novice, because despite their other sins the prequels made the Jedi look like complete bad asses. I also remember, however, the criticism my peers leveled against the too-long pod race, the cringeworthy midi-clorian virgin birth, and, of course, fucking Jar Jar Binks. I saw a matinee of Episode II when I worked 3rd shift and so was pretty sleep-deprived at the time. Episode III was another midnight showing, but that was when going to bed at 4am was perfectly normal for me. However, in all cases that was a very long time ago.
As I watched them again with William I found them less awful than I remembered them being. Don’t get me wrong. I still think midi-chlorian virgin birth is silly, and the love story makes Fifty Shades of Grey look like The Lay of Leithien. But as an account of Palpatine’s rise to power and the transformation of the Republic into the Empire it is actually quite well-thought-out. Maybe it was just the lack of grown-up conversation and a desperate effort by my brain to save itself by chewing off its proverbial leg, but I had a realization about Jar Jar Binks that actually made more sense and eased the pain of watching him bumble and blather his way from disaster to disaster.
It all comes down to a historiographic approach to the Star Wars movies. In essence, I found myself looking at them as a history of the rise and fall of the Emperor as written by the rebels after their victory in Return of the Jedi. I found myself asking specifically who is writing this history? What are their prejudices? What is their agenda? This is the same sort of discussion that theologians and Biblical scholars use to come to a better understanding of the context in which each text was written. It attempts to peel back the layers of artistic license, censorship, and flat out propaganda to get closer to the truth of the events the historical record describes.
Read the Rest Here