1.) No idea is ever “played out” in science fiction. You may be sicjk of it, but that’s a different thi ng
2.) Lucas introduced the term “clone wars” back in the first film in 1977. Whether he intended it to be what it developed into or not, I don’t know, but the fact is that he was using it in 1977 and building it integrally into his “mythology” then. At that time it wasn’t “played out”, by anyone’s standards. It predates Parts: The Clonus Horror and The Boys from Brazil by two years. In fact, the only movie I’m aware of to use the term before is 1973’s The Clones Lucas was playing out an idea he’d started long before. Criticizing him for using clones in his science fantasy opus is a bit like criticizing James Bond films for using the played-out idea of Secret Agents.
Since it was mentioned between Luke and Obi in ep IV, that was always one of the big questions: “You fought in the Clone Wars?!”
For myself it made sense that it be some proto-version of the stormtroopers, but the particulars of it all that went down in AotC was lame.
Boba Fett’s dad? Cloned by an alien race on planet El Camino?..
“Oh, Hello Jango Fett.” Why, Good morning Jango Fett." “a’Howdy do to you too, Jango Fett and Jango Fett.” “Oh, Jango Fett, Jango and I didn’t see you Jango Fett. And Howdy to you too. Shall we all go to the mess hall to eat some applesauce?” In unison, a thousand Jango Fetts reply, “Boy Howdy!”
I’d just like to add the following : Star Wars was my childhood - I grew up watching Luke, Han and Leia battle the Empire and I felt like I was growing up with them. When you’re 7 years old and this movie comes at you, followed by toys and games, you’re mesmerized. I think that’s why it was so successful - the merchandising and it’s appeal to kids.
Now then, given that the first three releases only spoke of the past (the clone wars, Anakin before Darth) it gave you visions of what you thought it should be. When the prequels were released, they were never going to match what you saw in your head as a child. This is why they suffered.
It never ceases to amaze me that people keep trotting this out even after it’s been addressed several times.
I mean, if you, personally, liked it because you were a kid and now that you’re grown-up the movies have lost their appeal, that’s fine. That’s your tastes. But don’t tell others that’s why they remember it so fondly.
It’s worth pointing out that the week Star Wars opened there was a blurb on the cover of Time magazine “Best Movie of the Year!” On the Cover. Before it opened. How many movies get that sort of treatment? Star Wars was a bona fide phenomenon with “kids of all ages”, so you can’t just say this was a flick that appealed to you when you were little and have that explain it all. I loved Seventh Voyage of Sinbad as a kid, but it never got that kind of treatment.
When Empire Strikes Back first came out, Darth Vader got the Entire Cover of Time.
I’ve given that some thought, and I don’t think that’s what Lucas meant. I think he was referring to “the Academe”, used as an exotic word to apply to their version of college/university. Luke wants to leave the farm and run off to college to be with his friends, but he has to stay and work another semester or two until the farm gets over the next hump and he can afford it. I think that makes much more sense than Luke is all gung ho to run off to the military academy when he already has the provincial distaste for the Empire. Sure, murdering his Aunt and Uncle didn’t help, but that didn’t start his dislike of the Empire.
I envisioned a situation where some sort of clone machine could manufacture clones of anyone. Ergo, you might find your Jedi friend turn out to be an evil clone, or something. Ergo, you never know who is who. I don’t think I’m the only one who got this opinion. I seem to recall Timothy Zahn uses a clone machine in one of his three SW books that he wrote prior to the prequels.
Alternately, there could be clone soldiers of various types, but I would imagine clones of various types. Such as clones fighting for recognition (now that’s a bit overdone).
That’s certainly an element of its success and popularity, but hardly the full story. As mentioned, plenty of adults watched and loved those movies, so it wasn’t just the kids who made it popular. The toys certainly helped capitalize on the thrill of the movies and ensure the popularity grew, but they didn’t create the excitement to begin with.
Although, as a personal data point, I actually didn’t see Star Wars (you know, the first one later dubbed “A New Hope”) in the movie theaters until the rerelease in the '90s. My first encounter with Star Wars was picking up a couple of action figures at a neighbor’s garage sale. Started getting into the toys, then saw The Empire Strikes Back. I didn’t see the first movie until a couple years later, on betamax. So for me, the toys were actually the starting point, but Empire really was my first SW movie.
There is some truth to the idea that the backstory hinted in the movies created ideas of possibilities, and having them nailed down had to compete with people’s imaginations. But that really doesn’t fully explain the hate, which comes from the actual product delivered being so lame. If Lucas had tamed his desire to see everything intertwined, if he had created a story that showed the friendship between Obi-wan and Anikan grow and then turn to a tragic end, if he had made Anikan a likeable fun character, if he had avoided the stereotypes as alien sources, if he had not forced the horrid Jar-Jar on us, if he had not forced the acting and dialogue to such stiffness, then I think many of us would be able to look past our preconceptions and enjoy what he offered. There might have been some grumbling, but it wouldn’t be nearly the same thing as we currently have.
Of course, the genius of this scene is not just inthe mastery and effort put into the special effects. What you’re talking about is actual skill in cinema. Real filmmaking.
The opening scene MEANS something. The fact that the Rebel ship is running away means something. The general movement of things from right to left implies menace and danger. The angle of view places the star destroyer in a position of superiority; its gray, flat color suggests a lack of humanity. It consumes the Rebel corvette, again implying menace and evil.
The opening scene is an example of Lucas et al. doing more than just making it look like stuff in in space; they are actually engaging in mise en scene with spaceships to tell the audience things. It’s actual film art.
There are all kinds of scenes like that in the first two movies, especially. I mentioned upthread the scene of Tarkin ordering the destruction of the Rebel base, but there’s lots of others. The RLM review notes the brilliant scene of Vader in his pod speaking to Veers, with the pod occluding the camera’s view of both characters, implying a separation between a real man and something that is not entirely human. Or the droid’s view of the ship from inside the escape pod. Or note how many times Yoda, despite being two feet tall, is shown as being ABOVE Luke Skywalker’s head - it happens over and over, and it’s not an accident. Luke being above a yawning chasm when he learns the truth about Vader…
I just didn’t see a lot of that in the prequels. Aside from the confusing, illogical characters and absolutely imbecilic stories, there just wasn’t a lot of filmmaking artistry to them. There were, basically, three kinds of scenes:
A scene where two people, almost always shot at a level angle, talk to each other in soap opera style.
Incredibly busy, confusing battle scenes where the screen was so full of stuff it was hard to tell just whatthe fuck was going on, and
Light saber fights.
I can’t really think of a single memorable scene where I can look back and say “now that is some film art right there.”
I’m not anti-CGI, but the use of practical effects in Star Wars makes a huge difference for me. Even though you know everything is fake, you also know you could reach out and touch it. I know Mos Eisley Cantina is a bunch of guys in rubber masks, but I also know that, when the actors were walking through it, the actors were walking through it.
It’s hard to explain, but when I notice CGI, my brain immediately knows I couldn’t possibly touch it. If I couldn’t possibly touch it, it’s not real. Even if the CGI looks more realistic, it’s less “believable.”
Even for things like the spaceships – you know the scale is fake, but you still know that what you’re looking at exists. Somewhere, somebody made an awesome, awesome model that you’re looking at.
Extremely well-done, subtle CGI doesn’t cause the problem, but the obviously-not-there sets and ships from the prequel trilogy were a huge turn-off.
There’s a lot of reasons I love the original trilogy more than most other scifi, but the touchability factor was the most visceral, immediate turn-off of the prequels.
Well, you can’t touch love, either, but a good love story works.
I’m not sure I share the same concern about CGI; I don’t mind CGI any more than I mind what is obviously a rubber mask.
I think one of the problems with the prequels is the sense of laziness. As much money as they poured into making them they feel like lazily thought out films. There wasn’t any effort beyond “put the actors in front of some CGI stuff.”
If you think about effects-heavy movies that actually WORK, it’s often not that it’s CGI or not but that the effects are chosen to move the story along in the best fashion possible. “Jurassic Park,” for instance, uses a lot of CGI, but in places where it makes sense to do so and best suits the shot Spielberg’s looking for. But sometimes he uses puppets, sometimes models; it depends on the specific shot he’s trying to create.
In the prequels basically everything is CGI. Sometimes that’s fine. In the arena scene I can understand using CGI to simulate the thousands of bugs cheering for the monsters; that technique works for that shot. But it just doesn’t work when they’re CGI’ing clone troopers STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO THE PRINCIPAL ACTORS. They could have put actors in uniforms, but, nah, let’s just Photoshop some soldiers in there, that’s just as good. Except it’s not. There’s hardly a scene in the film that couldn’t have been created entirely with a green screen and a computer, but sometimes you really are better off using actors, or muppets, or rubber masks, or location shots - does anyone really think the CGI’d Tatooine is even remotely as convincing as the Tunisian location shots?
And while I think you could make a great movie with just computers - Pixar, anyone? - in this case I think it made Lucas lazy, and believe he could make a movie without really putting much thought or effort into it.
I find a big problem with the prequels, as has probably been stated by others in the thread, is that they are trying to fill in the back story. They had to try and bring together all of the characters from the original series. Gredo, boba fett, r2d2 and c3po it is just stupid to have all of them come from some small town that nobody has heard of. The explanation of the force as as something you can test with a portable medical device. It is all just dumb and lazy. It just really makes the prequels seem like a money grabbing exorcise that taints the enjoyment of the films.
Agreed. One of the hardest aspects of sci-fi IMO is all the effort you have to invest in setting up your imaginary world. It was brilliant for Lucas to have a 2-minute text crawl at the beginning of the film, getting 90% of the exposition out of the way, and then just draw on the familiarity of recycled archetypes from mythology, westerns, serials, what-have-you. This allows the plot to snap and pop with action and one-liners instead of using contrived bits of dialogue to construct the world from scratch. Then he knocked it out of the park by putting amazing special effects on top of that tight story.
Agreed. Why did that have to happen? We can only assume that he thought “man, if I hit it that big with so little effort, just think what I could do if I go all out!” He doesn’t understand why his first works were so great.
A big deal was made of the special effects, such as the lasers, which were very advanced for the time, and ushered in the modern film-making era. People were ripe for some epic science fiction on the big screen.
Yeah, but going back to the recent “wow” film, Avatar, shows you that jaw-dropping effects alone don’t cut it. Avatar was half of a great film. With a stronger story, it could have been fucking awesome. Instead, it was just decent — or pretty but slightly crappy if you couldn’t turn your brain off.
