Yes, you're spot on there. Excellent point about Yoda as well. And it's notable that the prequels don't do the thing that Star Wars does of drawing on all the different genres of cinema--there isn't an equivalent of the Western moment in the Mos Eisley cantina. They're entirely based in their own iconography. I think that's why they feel so familiar and so different at the same time.
Yes, I'd say there are at least two deliberate visual references to A New Hope, and plenty of other bits and pieces that get tied together. Plus, of course, someone gets to say "I've got a bad feeling about this." :)
it's all sort of the pictures in Lucas's brain, which must be lovely but don't have that cultural resonance
Actually, I think what's interesting is that some of them almost do. The shape of a star destroyer, the scream of a TIE-fighter, the hum of a lightsaber, that sort of thing. I will admit to a feeling a little thrill when someone said "Lock S-foils in attack position"! And it's not like Lucas isn't stealing liberally (even sometimes offensively) from other cultures, present and past, in creating his world. It's more that it doesn't give anything back in the presentation of them. It's far more concerned with resonances within its own story than with resonances elsewhere in art or history.
George Lucas in making pig's ear out of a silk purse shocker! It's a shame, because the story of Anakin's fall should not just be good, it should be SUPER GOOD and full of death and angst and darkness and cool bits, and I bet it won't be. I'm gonna go watch it anyway though.
it is a case of so close, and yet so far, far away.
Back in 1980, I thought it was a shame that Lucas hadn't written and direct Empire Strikes Back - after all, the whole thing was his vision, and shouldn't he be allowed complete control? I was fifteen then. Lucas was thirty-six, and knew better. If he'd wanted to, he could easily have written and directed the next two films, but he knew that his skills were in coming up with stories, not in screenwriting or directing. So, as soon as he could afford to, he hired skilled technicians to bring his stories to life.
As I grew up, and came to realize how bad the dialogue is in Star Wars, a film that gets worse the more you watch it (whilst Return of the Jedi, for all its faults, gets better, though Empire is still the best), I understood that Lucas was right. Unfortunately, for the last two decades, people who never progressed beyond the fifteen year-old fanboy mentality have been telling him what a shame it was he didn't direct 5 and 6
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Yes, you're spot on there. Excellent point about Yoda as well. And it's notable that the prequels don't do the thing that Star Wars does of drawing on all the different genres of cinema--there isn't an equivalent of the Western moment in the Mos Eisley cantina. They're entirely based in their own iconography. I think that's why they feel so familiar and so different at the same time.
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it's all sort of the pictures in Lucas's brain, which must be lovely but don't have that cultural resonance
Actually, I think what's interesting is that some of them almost do. The shape of a star destroyer, the scream of a TIE-fighter, the hum of a lightsaber, that sort of thing. I will admit to a feeling a little thrill when someone said "Lock S-foils in attack position"! And it's not like Lucas isn't stealing liberally (even sometimes offensively) from other cultures, present and past, in creating his world. It's more that it doesn't give anything back in the presentation of them. It's far more concerned with resonances within its own story than with resonances elsewhere in art or history.
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it is a case of so close, and yet so far, far away.
I bet you've been planning that line for ages.
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As I grew up, and came to realize how bad the dialogue is in Star Wars, a film that gets worse the more you watch it (whilst Return of the Jedi, for all its faults, gets better, though Empire is still the best), I understood that Lucas was right. Unfortunately, for the last two decades, people who never progressed beyond the fifteen year-old fanboy mentality have been telling him what a shame it was he didn't direct 5 and 6 ( ... )
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(And it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. It just could have been so much better ...)
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Of _course_ it is. Look at the way he acts in 4-6 - every time someone annoys him even a teeny bit he kills them on the spot (if not reigned in).
Evil _isn't_ cool and calm and controlled. It's violent and demanding and a pain in the ass.
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