|
No Star Wars Review
I suppose it's inevitable that every critic goes over Star Wars at some point. For me, it's no different. It's a great coincidence that, not long after I started writing, Star Wars was revived with the release of Episode 1. The sheer popularity of the series as a whole assures that it'll be on every critic's mind. But it's not just the popularity. This cheesy space opera is actually pretty damn good.
And that's why I'm not going to review it.
What's the point? I'm going to give great reviews to all 4 of them; there's no denying they're well made films. If I were to write a review on any of the Star Wars movies, or the series as a whole, I'd just be regurgitating the same old thing that every other critic has ever said about them.
This doesn't mean I swear off the series as a whole. I recently watched "The Phantom Menace" again, on home video this time, and after viewing it I did put a few things down. But that's when I came to the conclusion that's it's pointless for me to review any one of the movies. They're just not meant to be taken in and of themselves.
I recently said that, to compare any movie with any other movie is largely pointless. I stand by that claim. But the main thing to realize is that Star Wars is more than just the sum of its parts. It's really not just 4 (eventually 6) movies that are just sequels or prequels to the original 1977 film. Rather, the series is one movie. A lot of detractors to Episode one pointed out that it left more questions than anything else, characterizations were sort of lame, etc. But that just proves that you can't take any one of the movies. While I will agree with all the things said about it, I also must remind you that this is just part one of a large story. When you're seeing Hamlet, you don't want everything given to you in Act 1. You want the story to spread throughout the play, with a culmination at the end. That's exactly what this is.
When Episode 3 is out, I'll probably watch it a few times, taking strict notes, and then i'll begin putting something on paper. It's here that I'll review Star Wars. But I won't go over each film. I'll mention each film as evidence for the strength of the overall piece. And that's the end of that.
True, conventional filmmaking is not quite like this. But Lucas is not a conventional filmmaker. Everything from his scripts to his methods of cutting from scene to scene will tell you that. From a man who has such an extraordinary visual imagination, can we expect anything less than a grandiose story?
To answer the anticipated question: yes, it has been done before. If memory serves me correctly, Lucas was the first one to initiate this film serial in such a grand form, but weekly serials have long been a part of cinema. Furthermore, the 3 Colors Trilogy is a series of film that really aren't all that great when by themselves. Again, you have to look at the whole. Really, the second one isn't very good by itself at all. But when you place it in the context of the middle part of a larger story, it holds up extraordinarily well.
And so, in conclusion, I will only say that the Star Wars movies are all fine films.