Posted on 12/20/2015 12:35:06 AM PST by Rummyfan
Stabilize your rear deflectors! From a galaxy far far away - the summer of 1977 - Star Wars is back, rebooted for the 21st century and in hopes that after a decade's time-out the series has shaken off its turn-of-the-century "prequels", agreed even by hardcore fans to have been disappointing.
Not that it made any difference to the grosses: One of the remarkable features of the franchise is its resistance to quality control. Sci-fi wasn't boffo before Star Wars - if anything, rather the opposite: It was regarded as the upmarket intellectual end of genre fiction. Then George Lucas came along, and hijacked the entire field, with little more than a guy with a bucket on his head, a dog with a stick-on moustache, a talking garbage can and a princess wearing two cinnamon rolls on her ears.
But what do I know? Star Wars is the most successful movie ever. It's supposed to be "epic" and "primal", but, if so, it beats me. A film such as, say, High Noon, which takes place in real time — 90 minutes — on one dusty monochrome main street lined with plywood house fronts and whose only special effect is Tex Ritter's plaintive rendition of the title song, is truly primal: it's big at its core. Star Wars, it seems to me, is epic only in the sense that the telephone book is epic.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
See it, I will, when to Netflix it comes.
And “The Searchers” is better than either of them.
CC
Mark Stein is the Force!
Steyn!
The force is based on the duality that is often found in east Asian religions. Y’know, “yin” and “yang”. It should be instructive of Lucas’ worldview that Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was one of his biggest influences. So, I’ll admit that insofar that “Star Wars” espouses eastern religious themes it is indeed “anti Christian”. But, not perhaps as many others use that particular phrase.
CC
One of my pet peeves with Star Wars — and something which tells me that Lucas is a classic Liberal — is the desperate need to “bring balance to the Force”.
Let’s see: the Jedi help maintain the Galactic Republic and they work closely with the Senators who control the galaxy, through their Jedi Council. There is a system of Jedi Masters and their up-and-coming Padawans. There is a massive Jedi Library, and an academy for many “younglings”. That’s the Jedi side of things.
Then there are the Sith. Everyone thought the Sith were eliminated. Gone. No more. Wiped out. Turns out that one of them shows up. And, as Yoda knows, “there are always two”.
So the task is to “bring balance to the Force” by making sure that the Jedi are once again the only game in town.
Sounds like the approach Leftists take to the discussion of politics. They side needs 100% domination because Conservatives are pure evil. You need to wipe out your opponents if you want a balanced world.
Huh?
“Han Solo’s strangely Onanistic moniker..”
Yowsa, have to say that never occurred to me. Steyn is brilliant.
LOL!!!
Agree I must.
“The Searchers” is better than anything except “Lawrence of Arabia.”
The Steyn it is.
“Lucas was by now a director without peer when it comes to getting bad performances out of great actors.”
Great line.
By the way, I just picked up Mr. Steyn’s latest album:
Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin’ Cats
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017SCLL32?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
Merry Christmas!
Is highway safety really the right place to be making sci-fi references and bad puns, using public service billboards to call aggressive drivers wookiees? Has the Department of Transportation been hijacked by preteen otakus? Please keep our interstates professional and keep the jokes to Twitter or Facebook.
Steyn is a fabulous film and theater critic. I first read him in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight - excellent theater criticism.
Steyn is correct and nails it. I was wondering why I could never EVER watch those last Lucas’ episodes. I tried for a few minutes once because I had sons-—but that Jar Jar character ended all desires to ever watch anything “Star Wars” again. I just couldn’t make myself do it.
One of the things I recall about the 1977 release is how welcome it seemed at the time. The whole grand and clear-cut good versus evil, tied to old-time, b-movie and serialesque adventure. For roughly a decade before this, there had been a real dearth of such upbeat, envigorating fare. The movie theaters seemed to bounce back-and-forth between a sort of adult bleakness with things like “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” and the occasional handful of forgettable Disney live-action slapstick comedies like “Gus” and “One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing.”
There wasn’t anything “fun” for the escapist crowd, akin to the old swashbuckling films with Fairbanks Jr. or Louis Hayward, or good-guy western heroes, or Jungle Jim heroes battling escaped Nazis on dangerous cliffsides... that whole kind of gut-level, crowd-cheering, fantasy hokum that had really been around since the beginning of film, going back to Pearl White and Rin-Tin-Tin. Somehow, in the 1970s, that had really, really disappeared, and I think there was a sort of deep cultural longing for it, which “Star Wars” tended to come along and tap, out of the blue.
So, mainly I just remember how extremely ‘welcome’ it seemed at the time. Which was great. Unfortunately, it also led to the whole blockbuster trend in the film industry, which ultimately served up a lot more negatives than positives.
“Plus, these 2-Disc DVD’s will feature a bonus disc that includes, for the first time ever on DVD, the original films as seen in theaters in 1977, 1980 and 1983.”
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-IV-Limited-Edition/dp/B000FQJAIW
Yes! It s one of the rare movies that transcends its genre, like "Vertigo."
Haven't seen them in years and it's a decent experience to watch one a night - will see 4 tonight unless football lures me into it's arena...then 4 gets held off until tomorrow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.