There is an understandable degree of buzz and hype surrounding the new Star Wars trailer, but personally, I cannot yet be swayed to form an opinion on the matter. I, like many others, suffered a great deal of disappointment at the last take on the fictional universe. Its gimmicky reliance on an annoying, computer-generated intergalactic interpretation of an Urkel-esque came across as sour, and in many harder-to-define ways, those movies lacked the sense of epic adventure that the original trilogy contained.
The Star Wars media brand was so huge for so long as to become a transcendental in the collected lore of fantasy and science fiction. Its artwork and imagery have been inspirational and iconic; scarcely do I meet people who would not immediately know what I was talking about if I were to use the series’ jargon casually for metaphoric purposes. Terrible cliches like an over-emphasized “Luke, I am your father..” are nearly universally understood and often tolerated.
I was in love with the Star Wars universe through most of my childhood. The characters were compelling, it was high drama with fantastical scenery and the special effects set a bar so ahead of their time that modern movie watchers could sit through it all over again and hardly bat an eye at what was accomplished with miniature models and physical manipulation of the film nearly 40 years ago. Then, a series of questionable executive decisions and poor treatment of the series struck and left me forgetting what was so magical about the Star Wars mythos.
I am not going to engage in the blanket derision of a movie for something as petty as featuring a child actor, but The Phantom Menace likely overplayed its hand in an effort to appeal as a more family-friendly movie. A big problem with that treatment is that the kids who grew up with the original movies were expected to enjoy a version that came across as much less serious and mature than what they remembered. It would be hard to seriously think that what the more modern trilogy ended up as would fulfill the longing that people are looking to fulfill when they pursue the consumption of sequels. The added panache, in terms of computer graphics instead of the old manual approach, was not sufficient to make up for the sense of a loss of the gravity that Star Wars had commanded.
The new Star Wars movies have a chance to reclaim, or though I dread to admit it, redefine the perception of the brand. It is a huge responsibility to attempt it, and also a risk, considering what happened the last time. Another source of skepticism was the monetization scheme of a game known as Star Wars: The Old Republic, a claustrophobic failure of an open-world, multi-player online game. I was going to end on a positive note with some flattery of Director J.J. Abrams, saying something like “if anyone can do it, he can!” but I realize that would be fluff. I have been burnt before getting my hopes up, so I currently do not care how awesome the trailer was. I am just going to wait and see.
Blog by Brian Whittemore
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Photo by Si Longworth – Flickr License
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4 Responses
The prequels were terrible. If there was any possible way to completely erase them from history I would ransom George Lucas’ soul to do it. There is not ONE single character from those films worth remembering. Hell, I can’t even remember the plots of those disastrous films. But I’ll tell you what…after 35 years, I still know the story lines of Star Wars IV, V, and VI.
I don’t know about Abrams. But the guy who services my AC unit would do a better job than Lucas. So at this point, I’m hopeful.
My opinions represent the life cycle of getting old enough to find fault with everything. In a matter of months, I’ll be chasing people with my can raised.
loved the prequel tired of the flack theyvand lucas get from cry baby fan boys whos “childhood was ruined” stop whining go make your own move but pkease shut up about your unimportamt opinion on the star wars saga.
I liked the prequels. Badly scripted here and there but Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid were stellar. Story was good too. I much preferred Episode III to Episode VI as a conclusion to the prequels than the aforementioned to the sequels