Great article. This author not only understands, he remembers. He remembers how it was and sees through the miasma that has since surrounded the original. I was there, 17 years old in 1977--in many ways, the Ur-Viewer for this movie. And this is the first thing I've read in many years that isn't fan non-sense and which actually appreciates the original creation with proper insight and proportion.
54
One more thought if I may. When the final Indiana Jones film (...Crystal Skull) opened up, I went to see it on a Saturday afternoon at the Criterion Theater and froze in my tracks as I saw Paul McCartney and his room-to-be-wife Nancy Shevell on line for popcorn. Together in the auditorium, we sat through that interminable film, and as the credits rolled by, I yelled out: "And THAT'S why it's a good thing that The Beatles got back for a reunion!" I can only imagine the grin on his face, 6 rows behind me.
4
I never lost the abity to see all the Star Wars movies as just really campy, low-brow entertainment, which is what they are.
The mindset that turns their dime store mysticism into a religion is in essence juvenile, in all the connotations of that term.
A long time ago, a literary critic, Leslie Fiedler, wrote a seminal work about the Americanness of a world view seemingly locked forever in teenhood. His benchmark novel for his study — which is richly if somewhat anachronistically flavored with traditional Freudian thinking, as if it partakes in the limitations it describes — is Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
Star Wars is colored intermittently with the characteristic refusal to grow up, to accept “civilization” as it was defined in the Victorian Era in England, and an insistence on the artifice and emblems of natural innocence in its stead — a position developed by Rousseau in Europe, and Thoreau in the US.
However, over time, as the world and the writer of this op-ed have come to see, that guise of fresh innocence can be used for the mystification of an even more systematic totalitarianism and neo-Fascism, as oppressive in its regular hypostatization of the trope of “rebellion,” writ large to drain off any revolutionary potential, as any previous kind of dictatorship.
The officialization of The Rebel is the death of real rebellion; and Star Wars serves that propagandist purpose to this day. It has proven supremely effective.
8
I thought Star Wars defined wonder, for many young and old.
8
The movie Star Wars was the first and best of it's kind. It was the first to depict the SciFi realm in realistic imagery. Saw it 12 times and can still watch it with great pleasure. Guess I'm a SciFi geek.
9
It doesn't matter as long as Disney is making money. Iger wins!
5
It's now, simply a worn out "classic" being milked forever...and forever...and forever...same old same old.
So what?
I also went to USC. So what?
2
I was never that impressed with "Star Wars". When it came out I resolved not to see it until a bunch of my high school friends all went as a group. It was fun, and cute, and kind of stupid, but it was a spectacle of special effects - I liked it.
I liked "Empire Strikes Back" too, probably more, but from there my interest flagged as the whole world's interest did the opposite. All my friends and relatives with kids had rooms full of action figures and toys and games.
Now, after seeing the other movies, and hearing about this one, I have to agree, the wonder of those times is gone. Is the movies or the world that changed?
5
i was 10 when i saw "star wars" the year it was released. it was transportative, and resonated not just viscerally, but in that deep cellular way that i wouldn't comprehend until i began to learn about myth, fairy tale and the importance of story telling. it's stuck deep within me to this day, in much the same way "black orpheus" is after having seen it on pbs as kid. great films, great books, they all work us over and stick for a reason. joseph campbell/bill moyers helped explain all this and called out the essential resonance of "star wars" in thier popularized book/tv series the "power of myth". i agree with the author that all subsequent franchise fillers are but footnotes to the original, and there are myriad ways to analyze that popopular cultural numbing agent. in my opinion though, there is nothing new under the sun (human condition), just new ways of telling the same old story. "star wars" did just that, created an imaginitive and innovative way of telling a very, very old story - something you can't do as well by attempting to tell a new story in the same old way.
11
The sense of wonder is what is missing in just about all franchise sequels.
They visual spectacle of a starship, a living dinosaur, a flying man are taken for granted by the newer film makers, rotely replaced by 3D, Top 40 music, and people walking away from explosions taking place behind them without even turning around!
Ah well. The comic books are better anyway.
3
Ok. Probably the best piece I’ve ever read about Star Wars. Thnx
14
Tim, is this a parallel example of your reference to the simple “sketch”:
The U.S. flag has stars in it.
The Soviet flag had a star in it.
The PRChina flag has stars in it.
So title relevance is achieved?
I agree with the author. We are Star Warized to "death". I can't help thinking that this is a "for profit" only franchise. Well, of course, it is! It seems that everything that has a little charm, is beaten to death. Aren't there any new writers in Hollywood or anywhere else for that matter, that can bring us something new and exciting? I for one, am tired of the reboots, the remakes and the old. Bring on the new!
3
Great piece. Never a big fan of Star Wars it was clear to me anything that gained such mass attention, touched such a deep nerve, was important. It seemed to me at the time Lucas was channeling his own deep love of movies, combing his childhood enthusiasm for cheesy serials (and replicating their cheesy esthetic) with his later immersion in the masters of the form, most notably Kurosawa. More than anything it was meant to be “fun.” The ponderous theological debates and fan toxicity that now accompany each iteration strike me as an hysteria born of deep emptiness. The unwelcome news that Jediism is now yet another official religion leaves me wondering when their Suni/Shia schism will emerge and the violence commence. These cartoon franchises now flourish in the world of surveillance capitalism we’ve allowed to engulf is. No longer consumers, we are the consumed. A world where it is increasingly difficult to discern the good from the bad from the meaningless.
11
Star Wars, as it was in 1977, was for us. And by “us” I mean those of us who where 15 or younger when it first came out. It defined our childhoods.
The dumb prequels and the latest trilogy are not meant for us. They are for my kids. I sit there amused and entertained but with none of the innocent magic and wonder I felt when I was their age. I’ve seen too many movies, experienced too much of the real world. Am I jaded? Perhaps. A curmudgeon? Definitely. Or maybe I just grew up.
6
And how about what they’ve done to the Muppets! Watching manually animated green felt doesn’t seem to have nearly the same emotional punch it did when I was ten. How dare the film industry keep making things that people line up for, paying billions to watch!
3
Ha! I went to high school in Modesto and currently reside here (again). Always good to see our illustrious version of Kansas mentioned in the big boys' rag.
5
I was 11 or 12 when I saw the original. Dad took me. What fun. Over the next year or two, I went back to see it 9 or 10 times. Loved it. Adults really enjoyed it too.
There were lots of things that made the original special. I think a big part of the original film's appeal was the humor in it and the chemistry among the cast. Great casting indeed. Lines like "Get that walking carpet out of my way", "Yes, your highness", "Close the blast bay doors....open the blast bay doors", "You better let the Wookie win (the chess game)" etc etc. The lovable robots... a bit of Laurel and Hardy? C3PO and R2 running through all the laser fire of the opening sequence while squabbling and not being hit!!! Everyone laughed at that. The rivalry between Han and Luke... both flirting with Lea. Good guy or the bad boy? I wasn't even sure if Darth was a robot or a human. The force was a big mystery. Princess Leia a real feminist. Han's attitude. Fun. Character development. The great sound score and editing.
After that first film, it started going downhill for me. I liked the original film better because there were so many unknowns. There was mystery and not every detail of backstory was filled in. I never needed to find out Darth is Luke's dad. That Luke and Leia are brother and sister. Whatever. To me the original film had charm which was largely lost in many of the subsequent films. Ah well. C'est la vie.
10
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a film that you knew, from those very first words, was going to be dreadful. Special effects could not overcome the burden of its totally predictable screenplay, juvenile dialogue and amateur acting (Mark Hamill? C’mon, he’s the Jar Jar Binks of movie casting.... banished forever to Scooby Do supporting cast voice overs.) As Space Opera it is indeed vacuous. It’s not that some bad movies can’t be fun, like the campy Plan 9, but Star Wars tries so hard and fails so miserably, our last hope is that Obi-Wan will finally say: “These aren’t the movies you’re looking for.”
3
Star Trek is so much better than Star Wars. QED.
1
The first Star Wars was a hoot. Fun. The rest? Meh.
3
A wonderful article, and though I agree with much of what you said, I must disagree on one point, and that is effectively the point made by the title of your article: We Can't See 'Star Wars' Anymore.
My rebuttal to this assertion?
The Mandalorian.
3
" ... the fun of watching the film for the first time, now forever inaccessible to us ... " I saw the original at the theater when it first came out, having dragged my wife who was not eager about another space ship movie. It all changed in the first minute or so (for her, too) when that big honkin' ship came down from the top of the screen. And it just got better after that. I still consider that first one the best by far, and stopped watching sequels/prequels long ago. The icing on the cake is the short, "George Lucas In Love" (free at YouTube), which gives the "real" backstory ... B-}
2
I stopped watching SW movies long ago because they spawn essays exactly like this one (which I stopped reading after the second paragraph).
2
Star Wars was created prior to the fascist/Reagan/Powell Memorandum takeover of the United States; it has an anti-fascist energy. Since the takeover we've been under enemy occupation (the 'Empire' won). I was a teen and very much into science fiction at the time and enjoyed it greatly. I was happy that President Carter was in charge. I produced a research paper on solar energy in junior high, and he had solar panels installed on the White House. There was A New Hope in the land.
8
Perhaps it is just time to move on.
1
"Like Sauron, he can’t be destroyed, only driven out. "
You're thinking of Morgoth, who was banished from Arda by The Powers at the end of the First Age of Middle Earth.
Sauron was merely the servant of Morgoth, although he was " ... only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself."
Sauron put all his power into the Ring and when that was destroyed so was he. When the Ring was cut from his hand in the Last Battle at the end of the Second Age, it was not destroyed, so he was able to return, and fashion a shape in which he could arise to evil again. It was when the Ring was cast into the Fire of Orodruin, and thus unmade, that Sauron ceased to be.
4
But the "whose side are you on” question is complicated. People see Avatar and assume they're the good guys. But aren't the Trumpistas more like the rebels, and the so-called sophisticated people in NY and LA more like the Queen who direct the Hunger Games?
2
"You could imagine Al Qaeda or Timothy McVeigh identifying with Luke blowing up the Death Star — "
I read an interview with a young man who was setting IED in Iraq and doing his best to kill Americans during the invasion or soon after. When asked what, more than anything, inspired him, he said, the movie BRAVEHEART.
8
Terrific essay.
4
Is it true that J.J. Abrams uses only initials because his parents named him Jar Jar?
9
The first time I saw Star Wars I was 11 years old. My parents, my sister and I were on Long Island for a doctor's appointment for my sister. Dad had the wrong time for the appointment, so we walked around looking for some way to kill a few hours.
There was a movie theater advertising Star Wars, and my mom, big sci-fi fan, went to inquire. We watched as she crossed the street to find out the times for the movie. None would be in time. But as my mom walked away, someone from the theater told my mom they were doing a sneak preview. She got tickets and we went inside.
Crazy thing was that we were four of about twenty people in the theater. And we waited for close to half an hour for the thing to start.
Oh, but then it did. Nothing says mind blown like gigantic space battleships shooting ten million gigawatt lasers. Then Darth, then, heck, Star Wars...
When we left the theater, there was a line four wide wrapped around the block.
There were only a few dozen theaters debuting the movie that day. My family and I were likely among the first few hundred people to see it.
May the Force be with you.
11
Red Tails is a WWII Star Wars. Star Wars is just a war movie.
Is Star Wars still a thing?
1
Bingo!
Star Wars is now Star Whiz!
It's just a movie.
1
Beautifully written.
3
It is hard to believe that the author takes this film seriously.
It was a media event ... nothing more. Take away the light sabres and you got nuthin'.
This should come as no surprise to anyone capable of critical thought.
I was a freshman in college when the first "Star Wars" film was released, thought it was brilliant, really enjoyed the next two (as I did the original "Rocky" and "Rocky II" -- wow, those were more innocent times, eh?).
But I was bored to tears by the fourth SW film, and walked out of the stultifying fifth. You couldn't pay me to sit through another one -- the same goes for "Star Trek," which as far as I'm concerned ended with the original TV series in 1969.
There, I've turned into a grumpy older woman who expects genuine narrative development in cinema and not a cash cow of commercial tie-ins.
3
Just watched the trailer... might as well go see the movie Up or Toy story again... Nothing like crying in the movie theater along with sniffling adult men for the holidays, gotta love Disney ;-p
2
All I know is that the most recent trilogy are hot garbage. Unwatchable dreck. Created by committee and populated with characters that don't take anything seriously. Moving on!
1
Ummm, can everyone settle down?
It’s Star Wars. Get some popcorn, maybe some raisinets, and watch the movie. It’s very fun.
3
What if ‘Star Wars’ Was Just a Movie? Op-Ed writers would still manage to take the fun out of it.
1
"True this is."
- Baby Yoda (sipping tea)
1
Disney! Enough said.
1
So is the Force that is to be with you, is that supposed to be God?
I did a stupid thing. I went to the theater without knowledge of what Star Wars was other than the title. Sat back and played the audience role. Let the film wash over me. Lost myself in the dark for awhile and escaped for a couple of hours.
2
What would H. L. Mencken write? Something like this....
I can't wait for this entire set of insipid movies to end.
I saw the original in 1977 and was appalled to see it was just a western movie in a wacky future setting. IMO it was as much a send-up of the formulaic western as it was anything else.
There was Harrison Ford, dressed like a cowboy with boots, a vest and six shooter strapped to his waist; the requisite bar scene straight out of Gunsmoke or a hundred other oaters; good guys; bad guys; a pretty girl; and a contrived conflict for good guys to eventually win to ride off into the sunset with stirring music.
Light sabres with cheesy humming sound effects. Is this all it takes to wow the public? Are we that easy?
Total ripoff of classic westerns ... C-3PO and R2-D2 are the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Hero and wing man. How standard. How obvious.
Cynical Hollywood types who produce this stuff laugh all the way to the bank and sneer in contempt at a movie-going public who line up to see these gimmicks.
Goodbye. Good riddance. Good grief.
3
Whenever I see this argument I always wonder what people would think of the classic "The Wizard of Oz" if there had been a bunch of cheesy sequels like "The Wizard Strikes Back" or "Revenge of the Munchkins" or "Oz--The Winkie Wars" or "The Rise of Dorothy"
7
"A Bigfoot who co-pilots a spaceship" ... I can't believe I never consciously put the 70's Bigfoot mania and Chewbacca together. I feel both enlightened and stupid. Thank you.
5
Star Wars always was and remains a vehicle to sell toys to children.
Hackneyed and derivative story line, with painfully obvious imagery… Nazi helmets on the bad guys, really? What stretch.
Lucas is the poor man’s Kurosawa.
4
Han shot first.
4
All wrong. It was eye candy. A spaghetti westerns in space. Anti-Vietnam? It’s not even a good analogy. We weren’t invading or trying to conquer Vietnam. We were in South Vietnam fighting against communist forces trained and equipped by Russia, China and the North Vietnamese, who were trying to overthrow the country. Later, we fought against NVA, who actually did invade South Vietnam for the purpose of conquering it. It makes far more sense to pretend the rebels were patriots or Minutemen, and the Empire was the, er, British Empire. A religious movie? If every Kung Fu movie made in Hollywood that uses Confucius-sounding phrases were religious movies. These movies were so formulaic that two of the three needed a death star to make the movies about anything at all. Boring!
1
The best Starwars is "Spaceballs".
Considere the character Barf (short for Barfthowomu). Part man, part dog, thus Barf is his own best friend.
5
So long, good riddance. All the films are schlock
1
Family Guy has a devastating spoof of Star Wars, wth Peter calling Leia "....the only chick in the Univere..." an Stewie speculating whether all the electrical wiring being attached to the ice is "...up to Code...".
As to the movies? the first one was great. Empire took long to follow up but "...I am your Father, and Han getting frozen are culturally iconic moments. Return? mehh.
Second three? Awful beyond words.
Current batch? First one was ok.Second makes no sense was plot wise and was interesting only for the returns of han and Chwie.
2
Just read a great review about "Cats," which I'm gonna sum up as, "Just shut up and enjoy it." I've always been skeptical about reading meaning into stories, and I'm talking about "The Scarlet Letter," "Moby Dick," that one about the traveling salesman. What was that called, "The Odyssey" or something? Point being, Just suppose that the author (of a book) or maker of a film were just trying to tell a good story or just entertain us. Then we analyze it. I really mean "over analyze." It's kinda a thing humans do. And when going through the entire series of Star Wars movies, to try and put severe meaning into plots that resemble "hastily manufactured hamburgers," we're gonna end up with "analysis holes" that have been provided by the plot holes. My basic cable TV plan has served up every edition of the previous films lately (minus one) and at the same time ... where I find them annoying, I realize part of the problem with the films is me. I ain't watching them correctly. "Be the Cat. Be the Force." Or something like that.
2
This excellent piece gives perfect historical context as to how a five-year-old yours truly was in the right place at the right time to be drawn into a trilogy of films so rich in construction yet simple in storytelling. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the prequels and just-concluded sequel trilogy can’t help but be convoluted and reactive.
1
Everything that comes out of Hollywood, every young adult novel, and just about every story that gets retold follows the repeated patterns in Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" or the Monomyth; however, what the Star Wars franchise reminds is that we are emotional beings whose greatest powers are our feelings. "Reach out with your feelings..." is how every Jedi learns to be one with the Force.
If technology divorces us from our feelings yet empowers us, there is no advancement of the human condition because power--in and of itself--becomes meaningless without connection and redemption to and for humans, and for Star Wars, androids, aliens, and 'dark fathers.'
2
I was in 7th grade when Star Wars came out. I remember the excitement, the awe, the imagination run wild with possibilities (like the space programs!).
When I see it at 55, I travel back to a time long ago remembering when these were new experiences. As we get older, those novel experiences are harder to replicate and evolve in their form.
I’m looking forward to the conclusion of this long arc of films, but I hold no illusions that this 9th act in the space opera will hold the same imaginative wonder that the first (trilogy) had. Instead, I’ look forward to enjoying watching my young son’s reactions and our discussion after the film.
11
I do wish analysis of Star Wars would acknowledge that Lucas very nearly ruined the first movie with a bloated nonsensical story, horrible pacing, over written dialogue, and no sense of tension or drama.... before his editing team saved it. Spielberg and DePalma both saw early screenings and found it aggressively mediocre. But the editing team worked tirelessly to cut and recut the chaos into a coherent film. If Lucas had been in charge, as he was for the abysmal prequels, we likely never would have heard of Star Wars.
The point is, we need to stop revering Lucas, except for his ability, at one point, to assemble a team with the ability to save him from himself.
7
Space stuff was never my genre back in the 60s and 70s. But few experiences in my life remain more memorable than my first exposure to Star Wars the week it opened. Slipping into the back of a theater at the beach halfway through the film on its opening week --not knowing what I was walking into with my older brother, who simply pushed me into the theater halfway through the movie and said, "Look at this."
The sounds and sights and action. Nothing else compares to how "the experience" of the first Star Wars movie in its first run in theaters.
11
Beautiful Essay!
A+ if you submitted it in my Senior English Comp class.
6
The first three were epic. Everything since has been a testament to the dark side, where art and run-amuck capitalism collide. Guess which one emerged from that death star.
5
Beautiful piece, as always, from Tim Kreider. Though I also have to posit the much more simplistic theory that the original trilogy was so popular because Hans Solo, as embodied by young Harrison Ford, is simply the coolest, most swaggering fantasy character of the scoundrel with a heart of gold, ever seen portrayed on screen.
Without Han/Harrison, it wouldn't have been a blockbuster.
5
We are creatures of our continuum-moment.
Me, I was twenty-two when I saw Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 1968. I left the theater disoriented and speechless, mainly because of the shock of the final sequence
after Bowman has been pulled through the Star-gate into the artificial-light-filled, old-fashioned rooms where he finally meets and is transformed by the power contained in and conveyed by the monolith.
The cumulative power of the combined images, words, sounds, music from the Dawn of Man opening sequence through the Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite sequence with the final transformation of Bowman the astronaut into the reborn Star-Child infused me with a comprehensive work of art the likes of which I'd never experienced.
Having left the theater, after an hour of our mutual stunned silence, my friend opened his mouth to speak; I held up my hand to stop him. Three contemplative hours later, as we stared up at the star-filled night sky, I was finally able to try to begin to articulate what I had just been through and been made to think about.
Fifty-one years later, I still put it at the top of my list of all-time favorites.
At the age of thirty-one in 1977, as I sat in the theater watching "Star Wars" unfold, I thought: what a lot of Flash Gordon-movie- serial, Cowboys & Indians in Space, War Picture, Cartoon hooey. The hooey I'd grown out of years before I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey.
We are creatures of our continuum-moments.
6
@Paul Connah - Excellent, putting those two experiences side by side. When I was younger and had more working brain cells I always waited a "period of time" before making any comment on a movie; letting things mull over in my mind. Did it with "2001 ..." I bought and enjoyed all the spectacle and hokeyness of the "Star Wars" until the big ceremony at the end. Kinda a 'roll your eyes' moment for me. When I get off a ride at the amusement park, I don't gotta wait to go "Wow' or shrug.
Thanks for making me think.
1
I will confess to having seen the original movie when it was first in theaters, a pleasant enough summer diversion, but missed the rest of the series. I don't know that anyone in 1977 would have predicted the level of interest for that sort of product being sustained over so many decades. Of course it was of it's time, like any other cultural artifact. It has always seemed to me a perhaps more sinister indicator of how adults have now become the most avid consumers of children's stories
4
Wasn't Star Wars something of an homage to the 1930's movie serials like Flash Gordon?
I suspect people are reading FAR too much into these movies - and maybe those making the later ones are trying to put too much into them.
I recall the original trilogy as entertaining adventure tales with somewhat formulaic casts - very much like the old movies my parents would have seen growing up (but with much better special effects). Frankly, I still mix in the parody 'Hardware Wars' with scenes of the original.
2
My first awareness of Star Wars was the insanely long lines of people outside a movie theatre in San Francisco in 1977 when it first came out. The lines (and the excitement) kept growing week after week.
I didn’t see it myself until later that summer, at a drive-in theater on Cape Cod, under actual stars.
Both the movie and the setting was unforgettable (unlike the guy I saw it with, who turned out to be a jerk).
Like a lot of people, I think Empire is the best of the lot, with the original a close second. I loved Force Awakens, and was dismayed but intrigued by Last Jedi.
For all the think pieces and arguments generated by these stories, there is the undeniable fact that these characters and their struggles mean a lot to us.
I’m looking forward to seeing this (supposedly) last chapter.
4
I know our society has moved to the point of needing an explanation for EVERY. SINGLE. THING, but to me, there was no need for anything after that original Star Wars movie. No need to explain, no reason to fill in some imagined time line, no sense in updating the technology just because we can.
To me, the rest of them are just money grubbing commercials for the movie studio executives who have become so risk averse as to avoid anything that might not immediately sell a billion tickets.
4
Corvette summer was a way better B-grade movie, why can't they make Corvette summer II? I'd definitely go watch it.
In my script idea Hamill will be the shop teacher and wistfully remember his RHD corvette adventures. I'd love to see Annie Potts again too!
And he was right to do so, otherwise he wouldn’t have been in future episodes.
To sum up what went wrong, I'll just offer up the fact that in the original version, Han shot first.
5
@uwteacher
I think this controversy is more of a guy thing - but I agree.
At least that’s how I remember it.
But apparently even JJ Abrams can’t get Disney to release the original theatrical version.
2
There's research I've done with about 20-30 people over the years. I ask them to tell me what they think about the following concept: an ancient power that characters tap into called "The Source" and it's evil equivalent called "Anti-Life". A world with characters who have laser swords and names like "Mark Moonrider". A lead heroic character who struggles with his dark nature *because* he's really the son of the big bad villain and was taken from him at birth and raised by a mentor character with a white beard and a robe- and literally I could go on and on, but the result of this research is always the same- people go, "that is the biggest and most obvious rip-off of Star Wars I've ever heard!" and chuckle. Some say it's amazing anything that blatant could be published- one guy asked if it was a cheap Turkish mockbuster that was available for his enjoyment.
But it's not. It's the Fourth World Saga, created by Jack Kirby and initially published in comic book form in March 1971. Jack Kirby, who was also the main architect for the Marvel Universe as well and whose concepts and characters power one of the most successful film franchises in history, was *also* ripped off for the Star Wars saga. It's high time people started discussing this and giving him credit for Lucas's rather obvious re-writings.
3
It went from being a B-movie to a 42 year-long toy commercial.
6
Your own fault, folks. Take a lesson from Steinbeck's Lenny and the baby chicks: it's all too possible to love something to death.
I saw the first "Star Wars" on cable in 1982, thought it was cute, and figured that was enough. I haven't seen any of the sequels or prequels or whatever (I'll even throw in that I've NEVER seen "E.T."), and somehow I don't think I've missed much. But hey, that's me. If Baby Yoda gives your life fresh meaning, more power to...oh, for God's sake, get out more!
3
Lenny and the baby mice, you mean?
Or alternatively, as Mr. Lucas said at the time, he just liked the western serials before films during his childhood and he wanted to make one in space.
Star Wars was a visual feast. Otherwise it was a pretty mediocre film with even worse acting. A fun chase on a Saturday afternoon.
And illusion to any sort of depth or hidden meaning in the originals, I'm quite sure, was sheer random chance.
Monkeys...typewriters...
2
"Star Wars" came from "Holly Wood". So what's in a name?
Disney hid it away like the Ark of the Covenant in "Raiders of the lost ark".
I could go on and on about who was cast as real who but why bother?
"Star Wars" came from "Holly Wood".
Yet another war movie is now coming out at a time we celebrate the Prince of Peace.
In May of 1977, when I was 11, my dad took me to see Star Wars. No one knew what it was. We sat in the empty Plitt Century City Plaza, a grand old theater, and this kid who was raised on Herbie the Love Bug and the Apple Dumpling Gang watched the curtain go up. I was one of the first people to see the iconic words, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”, and then the blast of horns blew away everything I ever knew. From then on, my life was Before Star Wars and After Star Wars. I never really left that theater.
But I left Star Wars a long time ago. She broke my heart—she started wearing makeup, stilettos, fishnets. She got tattoos, lipo, collagen, the works. I don’t recognize her anymore. She used to tell me tales of raw wonder, innocence and heroism. But she went to the dark side of digital narcissism, endless egotism, and mega merchandizing.
Thanks, Mr. Kreider, from one of the Old Republic. The end of this debacle is my only hope.
5
I'm sorry Mr. Kreider but I had to stop reading when you got to Saturday morning shows made by "people on drugs."
Alcohol is a drug. And anyone who goes drinking at night is still "on drugs" the next morning.
Unless you're reviewing the work of teetotalers or people in recovery, all the work you review has been made by people "on drugs."
1
“Sequels and tie-ins, afraid to stray too far off-brand, stick to variations on familiar designs and revive old characters, so there’s nothing new to discover.”
Nice one, Tim — letting the buyer beware of retro Star Wars, again.
Didn’t Yoda have some comments about fear anyway?
As for Lucas, he can be applauded for basing production work in Northern California and caused a blockbuster power shift from Hollywood to the Bay Area which continues...
1
The first movie I remember seeing as a young child was Star Wars IV at a drive-in when it was released.
Much has changed since that time except maybe merchandising.
Did Santa bring me Star Wars theme bed sheets for Xmas that year? Yes and I was stoke-ed.
2
Or the spontaneous applause that roared out to meet the rolling narrative of each flashing brilliance.
2
I took my sons to see the 1st movie 5 times. As with Cameron's Avatar, Lucas's Star Wars was and is Dances with Wolves set in a galaxy far far away: more technological universe, serious special effects, same white hat/black hat story, same moral of successful resistance to the evil invader. This story line goes back centuries. I enjoyed it then and still enjoy it now.
1
Hollywood has run out of ideas 3 decades ago. It is nothing more than a money machine.
1
It’s boring anyway. I don’t understand what all the hullabaloo is about. I see a boring boring movie in the clips I am forced to see in ads before I have time to change the channel or website!! Can’t imagine paying to sit and watch the whole thing!
George Lucas was right to sell the whole idea to Disney and laugh all the way to the bank. I wonder what he's up to now?
I saw the 1st one at Century City when it came out. Massive screen at the time, now tv sets are almost as big.
But I was impressed partly because we had to wait in line for two hours so taking turns to smoke a joint a couple of blocks away helped. What I remember most was going to a phone booth (remember those?) to roll a joint and finding a huge pile of expensive pot on the shelf. Much better than the stuff I had. You know the rest.
The new ones are warmed over corned-beef hash. Formulaic and vacuous. And Disneyfied. I'm surprised Tinkerbell hasn't made a guest appearance.
The result - we now have a President who resembles a cartoon a character and a third of the nation thinks he's great. The farce is with him.
I didn't mind that Lucas stole from every good science-fiction and fantasy story ever told but why do they keep repeating the same old thing over and over? Dull.
3
Look at it this way - Frank Herbert wrote six Dune books. Whatever other Dune books were written after his death, we still have those original six.
George Lucas made six Star Wars movies. Whatever other moves made elsewhere, nothing takes away those six.
Unlike Frank Herbert, George is still with us and does have his own 7,8,9 scripts. He thought Disney was going to use them!
I hope someday we get to see how he, the original auteur, thought his stories should end. I mean... he could take 1.5 billion of the four billion he got from Disney and make them on the sly with Pixar or some other animation studio then just give them away for free on YouTube. Allow no ads so he's not making any money on them.
The ultimate fan-made film!
1
Sometimes a movie is just a movie. This over analyzing stuff to fit the era can go hog wild. Sure it had meaning but give us a break. These commentators just love to hear themselves talk.
I thought he was going to say he wouldn’t see Star Wars anymore because The Last Jedi was so bad. That would’ve been convincing.
3
The most excited I have ever been to see a movie in my life was when I sat in a theater one day and the trailer for the new movie "The Empire Strikes Back" came on the screen. I was 15. Holy cow! After the phenomenon of the original, a new one! Seeing those AT-TE "elephant" walking war machines come over the frozen horizon for the first time in that trailer is a feeling I will never forget. And Yoda! It remains one of my favorite movies ever, and it was a highlight of my adolescence. The good guys lost that one. For me, the franchise went down from there and was never as good. Now it is just a parody of itself.
6
Excellent, excellent article! I had the pleasure of viewing the original Star Wars on its opening night in San Francisco at The large Geary Blvd Theater. The lines extended around the block, and no one really knew what to expect. I still remember the applause when the main theme - following the 20th Century Fox theme - burst forth. It did not merely announce the film. It heralded the arrival of Dolby Digital sound. And then, when the opening shot revealed what appeared to be the never ending length of the star destroyers; well, the audience just about lost it. My how we - and the movie industry, and the world itself - have changed.
3
The year before George Lucas changed history saw the release of "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and "Fellini's Casanova," two films comparatively low-tech but nevertheless sumptuous, lofty endeavors each featuring fascinating performances and deconstructive missions. We will probably never see films like that or the directors who made them again. Millennials and their heirs have no idea what cinema really was.
3
For GenX Original Trilogy Kids, there were/are/always will be only 2 Real Star Wars films:
Star Wars - 1977
(a.k.a. The Old Testament)
The Empire Strikes Back - 1980
(a.k.a. The New Testament)
Accept no Deep Fake Substitutes.
And May The Schwartz Be With You.
Always.
15
@Evan Durst Kreeger
From one original trilogy kid to another, I love this analogy.
3
@Evan Durst Kreeger
Gen X here and I agree. It was fun in the 70s playing with the "merch", the toy Tigh Fighters (sp?). (Was this one of the first movies that came out with a line of toys?)
I stopped watching or taking it seriously when the ewok puppets came onscreen. I have never gotten through that awful movie or bothered watching any more of them.
A great documentary, "the people vs George Lucas" documents how Lucas started his career as a scrappy Luke Skywalker and now he's just a money grubbing Darth Vader.
If people are super into the series and the sequels, who cares, good for them. People are obsessed with Tolkien, Harry Potter, Star Trek, professional sports. To each their own.
I watch an episode of Arrested Development every night during dinner. I dont obsess over the characters' back stories, because its entertainment. Maybe it's generational. Most Gen Xers I know are shruggers and eye rollers, God bless em. Let the millenials have their fun and do the intense deep dives on their shows and movies. Again, who cares. Peace and may the force etc etc!
1
My brother was 15 and I was 11 when we went to see Star Wars in mid-may of 1977, maybe a week after it had opened in Lawrence, Kansas. It changed my life, inspiring me to draw and create characters, then write about them. The floodgates to a more sophisticated level of imagination were blown open. I still rely on those skills today, as do millions of creative people. That said, the only way to enjoy a Star Wars movie beyond the pre-teen years is to be thoroughly involved with it while you're watching it and then never think about it again. They're empty calories with no nutritional value for adults. Star Wars is just for fun.
5
I saw it at the same time, at the same place as you. I was a grad student at KU then.
2
I have only seen one Star Wars movie and I found it to be forgettable, to say the least. A juville cartoon book plot, for one.
A more appropriate comparison would be to compare the original Star Wars to The Wizard of Oz. When Oz opened in the magical year of 1939 it was overshadowed by some of the greatest cinematic masterpieces in the American Cinema. Oz was just a curiosity that was largely forgotten until it saw a major resurgence in the era of Television in the 1950s.
Yes, Star Wars has been done to death. The first three films had a certain magic of time and place that is lost on all other entries since. Yes the effects were cutting edge, but the effects of 2001 A Space Odyssey released nine years earlier, were far superior.
What grabbed everyone and held their attention through two sequels, were the characters. The story was basically an inflated "road trip buddy" movie, with fun special effects and action sequences, but it was the chemistry between man and woman, men and machine and man and Wookie , that we went home with.
When my kids were little we collected as much of the Star Wars merchandise we could get our hands on. And the move was release four years before my oldest was born.
I can still enjoy the trilogy as much as I still enjoy an occasional visit to the Emerald City, but with the franchise having gone into hyperdirve, some of the joy has gone out of it. The focus has shifted from relationships to action and pizazz. I yearn for the peace, quite and simplicity of Tatooine.
3
Thank you for this piece, which collects and organizes and perfectly captures my thoughts and feelings on this ostensibly trivial but strangely engaging topic.
3
As many Star Wars fans know, the first assemblage cut of the movie was an over-cluttered mess: Only through sheer chutzpah via an interventionist editing tour-de-force did this movie become the relatively streamlined cultural touchstone it deserves to be...but this was hardly ordained from the beginning. It's all too telling that Lucas's post-release bowdlerizing of that key Han Solo cantina scene and his added overtly superfluous CGI were harbingers of the cinematic destructive powers of both PC run amok and cutesy-pooing to fairweather fans, respectively.
5
Star Wars?
You can make the case that the Star Wars saga demonstrates the major things wrong with not just film today but in its example reflects a pattern across much of society. First of all if Star Wars had been confined to one film or at best a trilogy in which the same level of aesthetics had been applied across the whole it would have stood as a decent film or triptych. The first rule of aesthetics is to create a stylistically consistent whole within a frame and the more you break that rule the more awkward parts sit within frame; in fact a work of beauty is beautiful and strange because it is something, even sometimes awkwardly, apart of everything around it. But in itself it must be relatively consistent.
Now of course Star Wars broke this cardinal rule of aesthetics because it went on from film to film and tried evermore to alter by technology visual effect so the films taken together to a medieval triptych painter would appear a hodgepodge of panels which do not sit pleasingly together. Furthermore the original story was not that great, was worked to death, and the whole franchise has hogged up space in popular culture and the most irritating thing about not only it but the entire bloated film industry is why for all money poured into film they can't drastically lower the price of making a film so anyone can realize a vision...and of course these latter reflections touch deeply on what's wrong with all of society: Raising/lowering prices on all the wrong things.
3
Been saying it for the last few years. The Series has become serialized to the point of becoming pedestrian. I can't watch it anymore either and haven't seen the last two films.
6
Star Wars, Marvel “movies”, etc are kids movies and to think that any adult would lavish praise on it as some sort of masterpiece or as mystical storytelling is an indictment on modern education
6
@Stefan
I wouldn't lavish those superlatives on these films either, but the idea that something doesn't deserve to be praised as a masterpiece simply because it is intended as "kids" entertainment tells us nothing about modern education, but it does tell us something about your very narrow cultural views. There are many classics intended for children in both movies and literature that absolutely deserve to be seen as masterpieces. Two that immediately come to mind are Lewis Carroll's Alice books and The Wizard of Oz, books and movie. Some of the great Disney cartoons such as Snow White and Pinocchio can absolutely be considered masterpieces. I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
5
A lot of people in the comments are insisting that "it's just a movie". Well, no. It may have started out as "just a movie", but it became a highly influential cultural and marketing phenomenon that, along with "Jaws", totally changed the movie business and the expectations of the mass audience. It pretty much brought to an end what may have been the most audacious and exciting period in American movie making history. The period that started approximately with "Bonnie and Clyde" and featured the rise of great directors like Altman, Scorsese and Coppola. It nearly obliterated the mainstream market for smaller, challenging movies and brought in the era of the blockbuster. I enjoyed the original trilogy, but I grew to hate what they came to represent and the effect they had on our culture.
8
mass produced movies are pretty but dull. i'd rater read a book or spend a couple hours birding than than squander money on sitting passively for two hours.
4
I have laser discs of the original theater releases of “Star Wars” in their unaltered forms. Sometimes keeping obsolete technology around pays off. I can watch them in all of their analog, 480p glory!
2
I was delighted when a child who had only seen the prequels responded to a scene from Empire Strikes Back with "it looks so real!"
5
I saw the original 5 times in the theater over a period of two or three months when it first came out. Granted, I was still in my twenties and not looking to pick at the films "weaknesses". I found it fascinating and endlessly entertaining. It was everything I was looking for at that time … fantasy, diversion, an alternate reality and a film that centered on a small group of idealists chasing something much bigger than themselves that they really didn't understand. It was FUN. The first time I saw it I was sitting under the balcony in a theater with a great surround sound system. After that wonderful opening introductory crawl there was a low body vibrating hum and the battle ship seemed to emerge from the balcony. It worked and there was nothing that followed that disappointed.
3
The original Star Wars deserves a huge amount of credit as a breakthrough movie in celebration of the space geek in all of us. But really, its much bigger than this and most educated folks get that in 2019.
First of all, we now know there are more than likely billions if not trillions of habitable planets in our galaxy alone, with due respect to Drake's Equation or the Fermi Paradox.
Second of all, we now have some sense that we may actually be living in a multi-verse with an infinite amount of big bangs and dimensions.
Further, we almost certainly are a form of "simulation" living in a vast hologram among an infinite amount of holograms and on and on.
So, yes, George Lucas performed an essential function by diving headlong into other full realities that may or may not be playing out somewhere over the cosmic horizon.
I'm an architect. I've always loved speculation and possibility. Its one of the many reasons I find our current administration in the United States intolerable. Trump fundamentally lacks imagination, along with the Evangelical sycophants and the Republican Party in general. At best, they lack the right kind of imagination.
I am watching "The Expanse" on Netflix these days, which fantasizes a time when humanity has fully colonized the Solar System. Imagine.
4
For general audiences, these movies were wildly entertaining with their "newness" and technical accomplishments. But on another level, for serious fans of science fiction novels like Asimov, Clark, Herbert, etc. there was something more- a huge step forward in expressing one's imagination, and even of mind expansion. The stories never caught up to the visual excellence you were guaranteed to see. Beginning with the 1st prequel "The Phantom Menace", it was all completely digitized and was a visual feast you could immediately see, but the script and the acting was painfully bad. They "should" have gone back to the drawing board after that, but masses of people still paid to see it anyway. As crude as the effects in Jaws were widely acknowledged, the story and the acting makes it watchable even to this day. My apologies to the poor sharks who make up an essential part of the ecosystem, but that represents a popular film that's also really good. Star Wars might have been more about outer space and all of its wonders, and less about battles. Save the big battle towards the end- introduce your ideas and your people to the audience, and let it sink in that some of them might actually die in order that others might survive. In any case without some actual drama you don't have a movie anymore- just an elaborate light show.
2
I think what was essential about early Star Wars episodes is that they touched on what it is to be human, to have hopes, dreams, and connect with something bigger than ourselves. And that, at its fundamental core, is the story of life.
2
Don't overthink this. People need to remember that this movie was nothing more than a modern-day Technicolor, Dolby sound revival of the old B&W Flash Gordon/Crash Corrigan/Buck Rogers serials of the 1930s - right from the opening credits no less! (Otherwise, why else would a "Flash Gordon" movie and a "Buck Rogers" TV show appeared in its wake???) My parents saw it and were like "It didn't really seem all that different except that it's in color". It was never meant as a "children's film" - it was targeted at all the older teenagers and young adults who were seeking some form of escapism. Alas, it has become something else and a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. While George Lucas may have since removed himself from the Star Chamber, let's not forget that, although he thought up the whole saga, there's a reason he (literally) cut to the chase and produced Episode 4 first. All the buildup to Episode 4 was finally played out in Episodes 1, 2 and 3 - and the verdict on those movies is in: they've been generally panned, even detested by Star Wars fans. So - the real "What if?" is: "What if George Lucas had decided to produce his saga in numerical order and released "The Phantom Menace" first?" If so, I doubt we'd be here discussing any of this...
3
I remember when Star Wars first came out and the battleship came over head, and my mouth literally fell open. At the end of this article the author correctly points out some of the most powerful aspects of Star Wars. The occasional scenes that gave emotive and substantial meaning to the body of the movie. Not unlike the "pillow shots" of Ozu.
Now that I am older, I suppose I do find some political irony in the film, but probably not in the way the author does. Rebellion, led by royalty? These movies have spanned the most active years of my life: From Reagan to Trump. And the films, just like my life and the trajectory of this country has been, if not expected, so disappointing.
4
I love Star Wars and I even got to see the original film before it was released ( I live near San Francisco)..
Makes you more impressed with how the Broccoli family has mostly successfully shepherd James Bond 007 over the years with about a 70% success rate..
3
Star Wars 1977 is a big screen primal study of good versus evil with lots of action and just enough romance, heroes, heroines and witty dialogue to make it one of the most entertaining movies ever made.
If a person doesn't get that then that's why some people are satisfied with watching tv.
A movie like Star Wars was a culture changing event...especially for those of us who had seen ufos. For me, it was an affirming experience. Yes, George Lucas dreamed about real space adventures. However, I had seen real extraterrestrial space craft and watching Star Wars helped me emotionally and mentally.
1
Remind me not to read Mr. Kreider's books. This over-intellectualizing of what was a simply joyous film is pure critical hogwash, and seeing in it all kinds of Nazi-related, Vietnam-related, and 1960/1970's political- and culture-related intentions is pure hyperbolic meandering badly masquerading as legitimate criticism. I wish I'd seen STAR WARS as a kid; I can't even imagine what the experience would have been like. But when it came out I was close to 40, and when I saw it back then, I stayed to see it again, and then went back a few more times for more double-viewings. Why? Because it took me back as no other film ever had to those wonderful afternoons I spent with other late 1940s kids, simply thrilling to the serials being shown on weekend afternoons at most of our local theaters. Amazingly, Kreider ignores those serials, instead equating the film with the ubiquitous Westerns of the day - white hats vs. black hats - which was never Mr. Lucas's intention. Indeed, I seem to recall that he spoke over and over again of having been inspired by those serials. One feels that Mr. Kreider loves STAR WARS only to justify his hatred of what followed. Film criticism started going down even before James Agee left the building (although Agee didn't help, since he provided beautiful prose for second-rate criticism). Just check out many books written on Hitchcock's films for proof of just how wrong critics with over-inflated egos can be when over-intellectualizing their subjects.
10
Star Wars was astonishing back in 1977. There had never been a movie like it.
But I disagree with the author's concept of it as ultimately a religious movie.
It you don't meditate, don't have visions, don't have precognitive experiences, don't experience telepathy....then it does seem like a religious movie.
But Star Wars was ultimately a mystical movie. Many of the amazing moments in the first three movies were normal mystical occurrences...though exaggerated. For instance, Obi-Wan leaving his body was the well-known phenomenon mahasamadhi...the intentional abandonment of the body.
One more example. What they called the Force was similar to Shakti, which is a very real energy. Goes by various names.
I think many people responded to that in the movie, the fact there is a hidden reality behind the one we know in daily life, because we are all inherently psychic. They just never knew it consciously when they watched.
5
It was in the spring of my first year at USC film school when the entire department was invited to a "secret" screening at Fox Studios. We had no idea of what it was or what it was about. Imagine the surprise and joy on the faces of a couple of hundred film students when the lights came up that night. A simple story that celebrated everything we loved about the medium from the effects and visuals to John Williams symphonic score.
Yes, the latest installment is state-of-the-art in every way, the plot more dense and deeper in meaning, the music more thunderous. But somewhere along the way, what made Star Wars special has been lost in time along with "gee whiz" and awe and wonder.
6
Impressive, large-scale special effects had been around at least since Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", but the imaginary worlds of '70s science fiction movies had never seemed to be lived in by the characters until Star Wars came along.
While Kubrick's creations never showed so much as a speck of dust (and Lucas kept to the formula in "THX 1138"), "Star Wars" gave us entire planetloads of dust, and most of the rebels' high-tech hardware was old, dirty, and dented. No rust or dust on the Death Star - it was the rebels who lived in the messy, real world, and Lucas created a wonderful (and somewhat subliminal) impact with the contrast. The lived-in aesthetic greatly informed later works like "Blade Runner" and "The Fifth Element", and we tend to take it for granted today.
9
I believe Lucas called his astonishingly original concept the “used future.” Or somebody did...
1
The 9-part Star Wars Saga is truly a monumental achievement. It paints a rosy picture of a future that might turn out quite differently.
Why not have movies that present a more likely future, a world that warms by 3.7 to 4.8 degrees C by 2100?
What would such a film portray?
The American democracy is gone, replaced by an autocracy ruled by a Trump clone. The Chinese bought up much of the real estate of Siberia and their one-belt one-road initiative now provides high speed rail service to Norilsk, a thriving city in the much warmer North.
The US and the China-Russia League are in constant wars over real estate around the Arctic Ocean, now free of ice year round.
In contrast, the equatorial region of earth is now uninhabitable. Much of India-Pakistan has been destroyed in nuclear war. The population of Africa doubled by 2050 causing famine and political disintegrating, and unleashing a torrent of boat people to cross the Mediterranean. Europe fractured into its constituent countries, some enacting martial law, others extending health benefits to all immigrants only to have people die in hospitals because there weren't enough doctors.
New Orleans and Miami were abandoned long ago. New York built huge sea walls which protect Manhattan but California burned down.
Ending on a positive note: As an homage to times past, the Revolutionary Guard keeps the Louvre open for free, offering tours of the Mona Lisa to those who can stand in line without dying of heat stroke.
6
I was 14 when Star Wars came out. I had seen a tease on one of the morning news shows a year before and thought it looked horrible in comparison with Star Trek.
I saw the movie over 6 times in the first year.
Awestruck, infatuated, and completely bought in. The perfect mash up of comic book sensibility and plotting with a new level of special effects. The soundtrack didn't hurt either!
I couldn't wait for the rest of the episodes but the second trilogy did not have the same punch. But I wasn't a teen anymore either.
Nowadays I hate the various scene transitions used. The characters are not developed well and the story always tilts to action. So, in the final analysis, I still find it wanting in comparison to Star Trek. If only JJ could do an authentic Star Trek movie that truly breathed and didn't just rush to the explosions.
5
For years I wondered why the original trilogy looked so washed-out and degraded on video. Each new version was a little less well-told (with the additions) and a lot less visually appealing.
About eight years ago, by pure luck, I stumbled on the "Despecialized Edition" of Star Wars. Now extended to the original trilogy, the Despecialized Edition is as close to a restoration of the original theatrical release as possible. The colors have been corrected. The added material removed. The image sharpened. It's visually magnificent.
How to find it? Not sure. But the YouTube video explaining the process (and showing the stunning difference in quality) will give you a sense of what the movie once was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=274&v=dHfLX_TMduY&feature=emb_title
10
I was born in 1980 and so Star Wars dominated my childhood. It wasn't just my fascination with space. Yoda captured my budding humanism with his beautiful line, "luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."
Maybe that's why it upsets me so much that George Lucas has taken his original work away from us, replaced by a facsimile no one wanted or liked.
At a certain point, a work of art becomes part of our cultural patrimony, and allowing it to be butchered or sequestered away in the name of "intellectual property" defeats the purpose of that very concept. IP protection exists to incentivize the _creation_ of art and invention, not its destruction.
7
Mr. Kreider has brilliantly essayed the long agonizing fall from grace the poetry of Star Wars suffered as it petrified into prose.
5
Quantum energy can only move from one Planck volume to the next at the speed of light. "Warp drive" is a pipe dream.
Much as I loved the first couple Star Wars movies, the similarity to the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials was so pronounced, it seemed like copyright infringement. Of course the Star Wars films were vastly superior, but with an astonishing lack of originality, from that first moment when you see the words of the synopsis vanishing in the distance.
And those were the classic, suspenseful Star Wars movies. After that, the franchise seemed like a rock supergroup who had one or two breakthough albums before things became routine.
3
I saw it in the theater in 77, before it became huge. People were giggling at “may the force be with you.” It’s not biblical. I like the Disney material just fine. It’s Star Wars and it’s a fun bit of entertainment. Just enjoy it for what it is: souped up Buck Rogers.
3
The author should take it one step further; the ubiquitous branding of Star Wars everywhere we turn. Billboards, store posters, toy displays for adults and children alike. The analogies and metaphors are clogging our culture. Heroes and heroines reduced to little action figures. More like talisman.
I guess it's just another variation of the escapism that we need to help us avoid the reality of our own Death Star, better known as the Sun. As we stumble around the planet burning whatever fuel that is handy and cheap, our planet heats up. In twenty years I can imagine football-stadium sized theaters where we can plug into our seats, pull down the visor and head out to that galaxy far far away...
Science fiction has already written that script (years ago), we just have to wait for the time continuum when the fictitious plot moves over to the non-fiction aisle.
May the Farce be with you. Enjoy it while you can...
7
I disagree. I still find it charming. A time capsule bringing me back to my teen years, and the first movie I saw multiple times.
3
@X says I don't enjoy SW films anymore because I'm not 8 or 16 or whatever. I disagree. I enjoy complex, original sci-fi more than ever now (59 this year). And I'll bet lots of 50 and 60 somethings back in 1977 thrilled when SW premiered as well. Because it was original and new, even if not complex in plot.
But Hollywood's rinse and repeat formula ruins that magic. Now, to mix cinematic metaphors, SW, having been assimilated by the Borg, will live forever as a barely recognizable husk of its original self. -- Borg quote: "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
Hollywood and certainly Disney doesn't care what film-snobs like me think. Their ear is tuned to the ding made by the cash register. On that score, they're doing pretty well.
4
Thank you, Mr. Kreider, for coining the phrase "dismal crudscape" and introducing it to my vocabulary. I'll be using it a lot from now on. And yes, loved the original triology, especially the first film. Haven't wanted to see any of the others.
4
All I see when I watch Star Wars now is how the left is the Evil Empire or First Order, trying to make common people give up their rights, freedom, and sovereignty. Conservatives, independents, and Libertarians make up the rebel alliance.
5
Can anyone tell me that doesn't sound like an alternate universe?
2
Rorschach.
1
@JOSEPH I think you have just proven Tim Kreider's point. I was thinking how Trump and his Orwellian propaganda is the purest example of evil. Turmp even looks like a cross between Jaba the Hut and Palpatine - a grotesque vision of an old man. His inner core is so devoid of a soul, morality or honor -- filled up with pure greed and self-absorption. But, that's just falling into the same trap that you are in!
The point of this piece was to make you think a little deeper and avoid cliches - not engage in them. Perhaps, if you articulate what you mean by "rights" and "freedom", juxtapose it with this awful president, you will find that your simple metaphor falls apart - for both sides.
2
A big fan of science fiction, I went to see the original Star Wars movie in 1977. My reaction - this is a comic book movie meant for kids, not adults.
I never understood why this became a “cultural phenomenon”. It’s largely contributed to the dumbing down of the entire culture.
11
Magnificent analysis. The movie seems to be an allegory of my Boomer generation - we started with a New Hope, only to let our ideals fade as we embrace the Empire.
May the Force be with us!
5
If Disney cared about wonder and cared about - dare I say it - cinema, they'd put a hiatus on Star Wars for a while.
I don't have to expand on the cultural significance of Star Wars; the author and many commenters have already done so quite eloquently. But I just watched the latest installment, and it was....fine? I mean, it's a dazzling spectacle of technical competence, just as we've grown accustomed to expect from studio franchises, especially Disney. But in a sense that's the problem. It's all pretty same-y. Satisfying and full of thrills to be sure, but there's not really much of what we used to call "movie magic."
And that's lamentable.
2
Just saw the new release. Good enough. Enjoyed it.
4
I enjoyed the first one when it came out. Went to see the second one, and got bored. That was all for me.
2
I was one of those irritating little brats who went to see it every weekend in '77 over and over and over. I could quote the whole thing. I could tell you the whole story. I was 10.
What makes the first three films so special, and particularly the first, is that they unfold like classic myths. Archetypal characters, classic plot lines and the kind of storytelling that has remained a constant for thousands of years. For me, the backstories to these characters, as well as their future stories as seen in the spin-off films, can only be a disappointment. If you're going to tall the backstory of the great villain in the black helmet, he better be more than an annoying little kid with a bowl cut to drive your story. The characters in the original film all appear at just the right moment in their "lives" to serve the story being told, and to this day, they contain a magic that is unmatched by any additions to the franchise. An added charm comes from limitations of filmmaking techniques of the time, compelling the makers to be very creative in achieving the vision. Lucas for all his brilliance was saved by editors, a composer, fx men, and the advocacy of Alan Ladd Jr. But when unfettered by money concerns, the first thing to get chucked under the bus is usually the story, and time again, that's what keeps people coming back to any film that is historically and culturally significant.
See the pre '97 recuts if you can. They are magical.
19
to Brian L:
Totally agree. Saw "A New Beginning" in WA DC--afterward, all 4 of us (in our 30s) ran down the streets playing light sabers, w/ sound effects. A masterpiece. And what a score! Enjoyed next two, but haven't seen another one yet--and don't want to.
When I read re fire at the Universal Warehouse (thousands of film reels and music masters lost; company never admitted blame or bothered to tell artists--who have started a class action lawsuit.)
Europeans consider film & music works of art. The Beatles catalogue, all of ECM (100 y o & still in biz--has great jazz/Classical)--and other major works are stored in temperature controlled vaults.
Ca. 2003, went on the Universal tour. When we passed the "Jaws" lake, I knew what to expect--Still, like everyone on the bus, screamed my head off when the animatronic shark jumped out.
According to NYT report about the fire, FOX/Disney Co. tore down the back lot & installed a ride--A RIDE!!
As a child, adored Disney--only later discovered he was a vicious Anti-Semite. Loved the original Disneyland (visited in 1958), Mickey Mouse club, all the classic cell (hand drawn) animations. Have never warmed to Pixar--like the difference between 35 mm film & early (bad) video.
In the 1980s Roger Ebert said (I'm paraphrasing from memory)--"In the Hollywood Golden Age [ca 1910-1980] studios made films to show teenagers how grownups behave. Now, studios make films based on comic books to show adults how teens behave."
3
One “gets” Star Wars, or one does not. No fault either way, but criticism from those who don’t get it means little to fans. Some critics seem to have thought that Star Wars should build to the point where screenplays would be winning the Nobel for literature. Best that group stick with their local art cinema.
5
It was always a good kids' movie.
Never understood why adults got so over excited about it.
6
Don't underestimate the charm and charisma of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. For me the movie would have been a yawn if Han Solo hadn't been so cool.
8
Some comments dismiss Mr. Kreider as just a bitter old viewer, someone incapable of recognizing that his age is the real reason he is dissatisfied with Star Wars. And I don't doubt that kids go to see Star Wars--as dark and dreary as it's become--and love it. I remember seeing Phantom Menace as a child with my mom at least four times in the theaters (God bless her). But while I've rewatched the original trilogy, I never revisited the Phantom Menace as I grew older. There is, as Mr. Kreider suggests, something timeless in the older film's pastiche and stripped-down storytelling. I don't expect that Rey will last as iconic a figure as Luke Skywalker.
But I suspect there is a larger problem with the film and media industry than just Star Wars. Modern blockbusters just do not have any heart. It is as though JJ Abrams watched Spielberg growing up and decided that what made his films work were the special effects and suggestions of mystery. Superhero films, the new Star Treks, and all the other products overseen as part of a carefully planned "universe" cop elements of what made their predecessors succesful. But they have little heart, creativity, or lasting impact. They are timid, boring forays into classic stories, meant to commodify nostalgia. So many of them are all flash, just one special effect, emotional outburst, and act of violence after another. The people in them don't even seem real.
19
“Timid, boring forays...meant to commodify nostalgia.” Spot on! I’ve had this thought since the new Disney SW films came out, but couldn’t elucidate it like this. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
8
I agree with the author. Star Wars brought fresh charm and beauty to the sci-fi genre, and elevated it to art without taking itself too seriously. But a glut of more of the same has destroyed any remaining sense of wonder for the world it created.
4
A single scene from all the Star Wars film stays with me like no other -- the scene in the 1977 original when Luke Skywalker emerges from his desert home to watch the setting of Tatooine's binary suns. He is alone. He says nothing. There are no light sabres or space battles, there is just an evocative, private moment of a young man longing to begin his future.
20
I must be one of the very few people who has never seen this film and apparently never will. (I have seen various short clips of course). It's odd because while not a cinema rat, at 16 years old I did see many contemporary films--blockbusters, low-budget and proto-indie/underground films alike. Not sure how it happened but it may have been due to an incipient feeling that if everyone was saying I had to see or do something, I was determined not to do it. Weird.
6
@Art Don’t feel bad. While I’ve seen & loved SW, I’ve never seen nor read Harry Potter, ET, Forrest Gump nor numerous other blockbusters I forget not having seen at the moment. And I’m a filmmaker myself! It’s dreadfully embarrassing. Some of these I just haven’t caught up with; others looked too sappy to hold my interest...
3
While I have quibbles with some things the author states, I wholeheartedly agree from a personal and historical point-of-view that there was and still is nothing like the filmmaking genius and groundbreaking impact of Star Wars in 1977. I was blown away and fell in love. Like any good story, when you’re hooked you want to know more. Hence the desire for prequels and sequels to the Skywalker story.
Then I discovered and gravitated toward others who shared those feelings, including in my own family. We began gathering together for the opening nights in Hollywood of each anticipated chapter, a communal ritual repeated for 30 years that moved beyond simple love of Star Wars to a real community of friends. How is this any different than the insanely fevered, lifelong devotion of fans to grown men in tights fighting over a ball?
The franchise is now a behemoth far removed in space and time from the magic of 1977 and that does deserve analysis and critique. But those of you disparaging us fans, turn your withering disdain to sports fanatics or fans of vapid reality TV stars and leave us Star Wars fans in peace.
5
Sigh... as I've said so many times to people who want to tear down these movies, the original Star Wars, and the films that followed, "are for FUN". Has everyone lost their sense of fun? Doesn't anyone go to the movies to 'escape' the drudgery of our current reality?
For me, my family and my friends, the Star Wars films are just as fun now as they were when they came out, when we were kids. None of us are close to being kids anymore. Please, if you can't approach things with wonderment anymore, at least stop beating them up. UGH!
7
Great movies are a quest. I can't really tell you what the quest is anymore, though someone can.
We really wanted to live in outer space. Turns out it is such a hostile place in reality it is only a place for robots.
Getting so earth itself is becoming only tolerable for robots.
Smart people like Elon Musk in wanting to merge with robots are an indicator of that quest.
When the first movie came out in 1977, I was away in rural Maine for the entire summer. I came back to my friends raving about this amazing movie (I was 12) and I hurried to see it in the theater. I went to see it 6 days in a row, spending every cent of my allowance savings at the time. I know I will never be able to recapture that feeling of magical rapture that I felt watching Han Solo pilot the Millennium Falcon. It is hard to deconstruct and analyze, but I do know that I am sad that my children today will never experience the pure bliss, escapism, and joy I felt watching Star Wars in the theater when it first came out.
4
@John M ...or have to watch it all on their phones...
1
A year or so ago I watched what was then the most recent installment. Like "Who's on First" its title was "I Can't Remember" and the plot was "More of the Same". And this was, seriously, a week after watching it. I wish film people (writers, actors, crew, and for that matter all creative artists in all fields) could make a living being original, but that isn't the case. Never was, except for a few lucky ones.
3
As Kreider expertly demontrates, anti-intellection intellection can tell us precisely what we can no longer feel, and thus deliver us to a biting, but also sweet poignancy. English has no word for this emotion, but German does: weltschmerz. Just to add to Kreider's expert inspiration of that pain we feel at the world's inability to live up to our righteous vision of it, there is an urge in much 70s cinema to evoke the still moment of the Hollywood past by failing to do so, a message for which the medium, all fleeting images of what once was, is perfectly suited. What is normally termed nostalgia was a much exploited aesthetic goal, a vein of pain/pleasure that Lucas also successfully mined in AMERICAN GRAFFITI.
1
Of course Disney ruined the Star Wars franchise with poorly written and predictable scripts and overexposure. Sometimes I get the feeling that the creators of any Star Wars product - film, t-shirts, and other commodities -- are not thinking about their audience. They act as if they are just printing money.
Anyone who argues that the thrill of watching Star Wars the first time for its "high-tech" qualities in film making obviously never saw Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," a far superior film in every way.
I'd like to think that George Lucas would have disapproved of the way Star Wars has been cheapened, but by selling his franchise to Disney it's now apparent that he didn't really care.
3
@PeterW
Contrasting and comparing "2001" and "Star Wars" is, to be polite, a fool's errand. They are intended for completely different audiences and experiences.
Kubrick's focus was thinking, specifically about being and nothingness, whereas Lucas was focused on the discovery of emotions by young males. Let's stipulate that Princess Leia wasn't a heroine in the first film. During the creation of the screenplay Lucas discovered Joseph Campbell and "Hero of a Thousand Faces" analysis of mythology and culture. He started with the idea of a serial for teens just discovering the world.
The sterile and emotionless universe of Kubrick contained humans as a necessary MacGuffin, but the story could have been told without them. For Lucas the various beings provided single embodiments for human emotions making it easy for pre-teens to comprehend.
The artifacts and effects work of the two films is also day and night different. Kubrick's universe is engineered, spotless and new. Lucas's universe is worn, second-hand and most likely a kludge.
Dykstra's motion control camera system was made possible by mating mini-computer controlled stepper motors to precision-machined camera booms and a rails for precision repeatability. More than an decade earlier, Kubrick's team was all mechanical, having pre-dated the microprocessor when a small computer was a mainframe the size of a couple refrigerators.
Both are memorable and imaginative Sci-Fi movies that broke the boundaries of their era.
1
@Capt. Penny
“Contrasting and comparing “2001" and "Star Wars" is, to be polite, a fool's errand. They are intended for completely different audiences and experiences.”
Hear! Hear!
“Kubrick's focus was thinking, specifically about being and nothingness . . .”
As both Johann and Richard Strauss waltz and modern-dance with Khatchaturian and Ligeti in and on Kubrick’s soundtrack, let us make that Sartrean solo at least a pas de deux for Sartre and Nietzsche.
But, really, the dance of philosophy demands that we, most immediately and connectingly, also pull Heidegger out on the floor for an all-join-hands that will ultimately, I suppose, have encouraging elders Plato and Aristotle clapping their hands, stomping their feet and waving their fists at each other on the outskirts as their progeny’s ever-expanding,
ever-repeating, twirling circle threatens to curve ever further and fly out beyond the dance hall’s
collapsing wall of comprehension into the big blank eyes of Star-Child Fetus.
1
@Capt. Penny
“Contrasting and comparing "2001" and "Star Wars" is, to be polite, a fool's errand. They are intended for completely different audiences and experiences.”
Hear! Hear!
“Kubrick's focus was thinking, specifically about being and nothingness . . .”
As both Johann and Richard Strauss waltz and modern-dance with Khatchaturian and Ligeti in and on Kubrick’s soundtrack, let us make that Sartrean solo at least a pas de deux for Sartre and Nietzsche.
But, really, the dance of philosophy demands that we, most immediately and connectingly, also pull Heidegger out on the floor for an all-join-hands that will ultimately, I suppose, have encouraging elders Plato and Aristotle clapping their hands, stomping their feet and waving their fists at each other on the outskirts as their progeny’s ever-expanding, ever-repeating, twirling circle threatens to curve ever further and fly out beyond the dance hall’s collapsing wall of comprehension into the big blank eyes of the Star-Child Fetus.
I saw Star Wars multiple times, in 1977, and loved it’s beautifully designed look, the lavish orchestral music, via Korngold, North and the like, it’s instantly likable band of stock heroes we cheered, and sleek villains we appropriately hissed at, and the beautiful, completely convincing, special effects. Outer space, with its heavenly bodies and space craft had not looked that dazzling, since 2001, which still looks dazzling, along with the original Star Wars. 4, 5, and 6 have an epic unity, both mythically classic and borne of the times in which they were made. 7, 8 and 9, while firmly codifying the ‘legend,’ over all these years, also, for me, retain as much ‘gee whiz’ awe as is possible (in today’s more jaundiced times), in story, character and effects. 1, 2, and 3. I tried. Of course we can’t go back to the moment that we felt, when we saw the holographic Leia appear, along with the other ‘firsts’ in the penultimate Star Wars, which magically transported children and adults alike. What we can also not go back to is going to a cinema multiple times to see it, as that was the only option available at the time. There’s some nostalgia. How did we ever manage?
2
There was never any ‘charm and wonder’ involved as far as I’m concerned, other than wondering what the fuss and fandom is all about.
As has been the case with many of these manufactured ‘cultural phenomena,’ I’ll get along just fine without the entire Star Wars thing.
5
I was 21 when I saw it and what really impressed me was the quality of the special effects not the story. I could see that science fiction movies were going to get better and I liked that. It would be nice to be able to see science fiction movies that weren’t made just to sell toys or video games.
3
Why are we even picking this all apart? The only question is, did you enjoy the movie? If you didn’t move on and let those who did revel in it.
Movies (particularly in theaters) are group experiences. The original Star Wars did that and the effect was magnified by the fact that almost all critics at the time panned it making the people and kids who loved it part of the club and extended it well beyond the theater doors. Who are we to tear it all apart just so we can feel superior to those who enjoy the ride.
Does it even matter that Lucas borrowed from other films as do all artists? Personally the analysis of how and whom he borrowed from only encouraged me to go watch those movies.
Lucas’s job was the create a movie to entertain and he did that marvelously and in the process invented the modern VFX.
The only point I agree with is that Lucas should have left the original trilogy alone, Han Shot First.
10
It was bad from the start. Walked out about halfway through the first film and never looked back.
3
What I do find uncanny about the persistence of Star Wars is just how long the arms of 70s culture extend. So much of the music, the movies, even the tv shows of the era are still so vividly remembered. Consider: would much from the 20s be remembered in the 70s, or from the 30s in the 80s? But here we are, entering the 2020s, and we still bask in the cultural legacy of the 70s, entranced as ever by the cultural products of that era. As I look around in the present and find stasis, polarization and breakdown, I can't help wondering if we're no longer up to the task of reinventing ourselves.
7
Thanks, Mr. Kreider, for this poetic, elegiac essay.
5
I was the perfect age when I saw Star Wars, 13 years old. It was unlike anything I’d ever known before; a complete sensory experience that overwhelmed me. Yet it was also very familiar to me because it seemed to have been pulled right from my own imagination and the imaginations of my friends. And everybody applauded at the end, something else I’d never experienced. Star Wars is one of my most fondest memories and no one will ever be able to take that from me.
9
@Thomas
I'd forgotten about that, but even at the first-run NYC theater I saw it in (more than once), the audience invariably erupted in applause at the end, even my dad, who was of voting age before silent films ended.
Another thing I'd forgotten about is that I do believe the original STAR WARS was the film that started the practice of absolutely full credit scrolling at its conclusion, which is now standard practice on every film made in America and (probably) elsewhere, no matter how cheap or insignificant that film may be. Before then, if you were lucky you might get a list of the actors at the end, but that was usually it. The STAR WARS credits must have rolled on for 5 or 6 minutes, and we all stayed and read them just to hear parts of the John Williams score accompanying them again. Compare this with even the greatest blockbuster epics - QUO VADIS, THE ROBE, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, BEN HUR - and you'll be amazed at how quickly the screen went dark on those earlier epics after the words "The End" appeared on the screen.
1
I loved Star Wars. I was a big fan of classic Sci Fi at the time, and I was transported by the high-production-values and cheesy acting and story line (and no, you can't hear explosions or rocket engines in space). The cheeky humor and sense of fun were backed up by a deep appreciation of the genre. The subsequent films became progressively more self-conscious and ponderous, and I stopped watching after Return of the Jedi. It's too bad that Lucas lost his sense of fun with the rest of the story.
2
I've always wondered why Lucas kept coming back to Star Wars. He made American Graffiti, a wonderful film. It would be interesting to see Lucas direct something on a much smaller scale again, something without lots of special effects and spectacle.
2
I watched the original Star Wars with a high school film class I was teaching back around 2010. That group of teens, who were diverse in their tastes and many of whom liked popular Hollywood hits, found it sadly cheesy, especially in terms of plot and characters. It had not aged well. I explained to those students its impact at the time of its original release, and how the special effects (now, and even a decade ago, long outmoded) were such an exciting novelty to the original cinema audiences. But that kind of cultural anthropology was not enough to make them want to dwell on the original Star Wars as a movie, so we let it drop and moved on.
By the way, given how this article tries to connect Star Wars to various historical films, I'm surprised there's no specific mention in this article of Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" as that was clearly the source for much of the story. These days that sort of plot borrowing would surely lead to an intellectual property lawsuit, as it goes way beyond homage, visual quotation, etc.
Last, but perhaps not least for some, legend has it that the original laserdisk version of Star Wars preserves the original theatrical release of the film before Mr. Lucas fiddled with various changes in later versions as released on DVD, bluray, theatrically, etc. If you can find one of those laserdisks, and a laserdisk player (another futuristic technology now dead as the dodo), I guess that's your best chance to see the original version of the film.
4
@V.B. Zarr Plot borrowing is normal. It has been going on for centuries. In more recent times, we have stark examples such as Romeo and Juliet vs West Side story.
It is probably not legally possible to copyright a plot.
3
@Biji Basi
You're quite right about plot-borrowing having gone on for centuries, and the example of West Side Story borrowing from Romeo and Juliet is correct. But in that case the author was long dead and the play was out of copyright. Under today's law most countries around the world extend copyright to 70 years after the death of the author. Plot can in theory be subject to copyright protection unless there is significant creative reinvention, so it's a case by case call on that.
However, to restate things another way, I've heard George Lucas say (in person at an event I attended) that he took a great deal from Kurosawa, especially The Hidden Fortress, in terms of the Star Wars plot. And he's been frank about that at other times too, so I'm surprised the article doesn't refer to that, given how many other historical films it links to Star Wars.
Another example: the long pod race scene in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was very much taken from Ben Hur's famous chariot race. On one level it's exciting and works great, but on another level watching it I felt almost embarrassed by how obviously unoriginal it was. The Star Wars films were incredibly creative and influential in what they achieved with special effects, visual and audio, but script-wise it seems George Lucas didn't have a whole lot of original ideas and wasn't very productive as a writer, quantity-wise.
1
The double sunset that Luke watches in A New Hope is George Lucas' David Lean moment, paying homage to the match/sunrise scene in Lawrence of Arabia. For me, it's the only moment in the entire series that rises to true grandeur in filmmaking, but then I'm more into poetry than whiz-bangery.
And while we were all awed by the technological innovations when the first movie came out, it's the human and humorous moments between the characters that everyone still remembers fondly and quotes from. It's notable that the most endearing characters are the non-human mechanicals that Lucas invented -- C3PO and R2D2 brought great humanity to the screen, more than most human characters in the recent action/adventure movies.
5
Thanks, an almost poetic tribute and critique.
2
My sister and I went to the first Star Wars movie in 1977 to see if it was too scary for her 7 year old son. We both loved it, as did the theatre full of children (mostly boys,I seem to remember). It was imaginative and witty, and just fun. The most recent movies in the franchise are unfortunately unwatchable, filled mostly with explosions. Too bad.
6
I saw the original in 1977 in Times Square at Loews Astor Plaza. It was the first movie with the digital effects we are now so accustomed to. But at the time, we had never, ever seen anything like it and that's what set it apart. I remember hearing people talk after the show about that far more than anything else. Stop-action and a mix of miniatures and puppetry were the state of the art craft up until then.
The move itself? Basic Hero's Quest movie, entertaining, better than many but certainly wasn't ground breaking in that sense.
Thanks for so eloquently and insightfully articulating my own feelings about post-20th century Star Wars pictures. I saw the original movie opening day at the Chinese Theater, and it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It’s impossible to overstate what a uniquely appealing spell Star Wars cast back in `77. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Lucas used the phrase “effervescent giddiness” to describe the feeling he was going for, and it remains an apt description. “Charm” is not a word we typically associate with contemporary tentpole spectacles but the original Star Wars had it in spades. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away indeed.
2
I rarely see Hollywood movies anymore. When I see the previews for them, there are too many superhero or space opera movies that seem to consist entirely of special effects.
6
Star Wars?
I only liked the first one. There were better SF films both immediately before and after Star Wars: Rollerball, Logan's Run, Alien, Quest for Fire, Bladerunner. The pattern of Star Wars is the same pattern you see in so many areas of society: Rotten monopoly, a sheer hogging of cultural space which more often than not deservedly should go to better minds, better productions.
The very thing the film was politically and economically about, the underdog against tyranny, is the very thing the whole franchise became against, which is to say the entire franchise resembles more empire than rebel unit. The entirety of it is even more disgusting if you actually read SF novels. There must be hundreds, probably thousands of stories sitting on bookstore shelves waiting to be turned into film, but instead you have all these advances in film technology/special effects used to update what was an average story line in the first place.
I'm not even sure George Lucas can be said to know anything about aesthetics. It was apparent in the first three Star Wars films that advances in technology/special effects destroyed any aesthetic continuity between the films. The first film was charming in its effect, then you had for the next two films and forever after the same old story but with updated effects which just made it seem as if a constant process of trying to fix something which was beautiful in its own right in first place.
Lesson: unless you're a genius never do sequels.
3
I write this comment as a Star Trek fan, though I have seen all the iterations of Star Wars and have found something to enjoy in most of them. Yes, there is something to be said for the original. Throughout most of the run of ST:TNG I refused to watch, because it couldn't possibly be as good as the original. I finally saw an episode during the final season--and it was very good. It wasn't the same, but there was something to enjoy in it. That taught me something about giving sequels a chance.
I've also read fan fiction more recently, mostly from BBC Sherlock. While most of it is not quality literature, there is something delightful about seeing people take and idea and run with it, making it theirs, and changing the cannon to their own liking.
Star Wars has changed. The original came out when I was 11 and I enjoyed it. Not all the films have been great, and the dialog in most of the films has been cheesy and over-the-top. But there is still something to enjoy in each film. I don't see the films the same way as when I was 11, but that's ok. I count myself as lucky to have been a child when the first Star Wars movie came out, but I also move on.
6
I feel the same way about the Mad Max series. The original Mad Max and Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2) were among the most brilliantly creative and influential films of our times. Distinguished by unique idiosyncracies of concept, story, characters, dialogue, sets, costumery and infused with sly humor, Road Warrior was a veritable masterpiece of quirky creativity.
The recent sequel, "Mad Max: Fury Road" was just a long boring generic action film chase, bereft of every charming quirk that made Road Warrior unforgettable. I'm convinced Fury Road's Academy Award nomination was a belated attempt to honor George Miller for Road Warrior.
6
@gw
Exactly!
Any movie—even “action/adventure “ —to be worthwhile has to have a clever plot and a few memorable quotes. Also, for the stunts to be exciting, to be performed by real people.
Nothing this century has any of it.
(Maybe some of your readers could point to something I’ve forgotten.)
3
The NYT opinion writer wants Star Wars to be perfect but of course it's not. Different generations have their own take on what it is. But beyond question it is undisputedly entertaining. It was ahead of its time in imagining new worlds filled with fresh characters. This included robots with actual personalities like R2-D2, C-3PO and later on K-2SO and BB-8. And it had an inspiring film score. In the summer of 1977 I had just graduated from High School. I sat in the theatre mesmerized. I went back 3 or 4 times that summer. My children were born in the 90s and they watched the originals and the prequels on DVD and loved them. There is much criticism I could offer about The Force Awakens. But what's the point. All I would be saying is it's not groundbreaking like the original was. If the originals had not been made and The Force Awakens or Revenge of the Sith or Rise of Skywalker came out of the blue for filmgoers and film critics I wonder what people would say? I imagine they would have been well received. People leaving the theatre would say it was fun and entertaining.
2
The 70s culture of small is beautiful and breaking up big too powerful corporations was the rage.
3
Stars Wars, one of the movies that may be considered to have ushered in a whole new era of movie making. Predicting the future of a movie industry come to be dominated by the production of block buster superhero extravaganzas showcasing the panorama of fantastical worlds and their inhabitants. By the time Star Wars was released the Golden Age of Hollywood was just a memory. To be accessed, by those inclined, when offered wide screen at film festivals or broadcast on the TV screen, venues where these movies of glorious entertainment could be nostalgically revisited or newly discovered. They don’t make them like they used to. But then, with few exceptions, they haven’t been making them like they used to for the last some 50 years.
3
I don't think it is the cultural industry, way too easy a conclusion. Sort of a victim feeding, plays with big bad corporations, etc. etc.
What you can't do is step back into 1977 is the main problem, as far as I'm concerned.
You can't go back to a time when nothing like Star Wars had ever been done before. You can't go back to a time where if you wanted to see Star Wars, you HAD to go to a movie theater. You had to stand on lines that wrapped around the block. You didn't have any way to directly share what you saw other than by talking to people about it, by phone or in person.
These are the things people miss. The phenomena was time based. Anything that is timeless about Star Wars, and there is plenty that is, comes from those original 3 films (I'd argue 2, because I still think Return of the Jedi is over hyped).
Take that into account and people should start enjoying what Disney is producing. There is a dedication to the past at least, a worthwhile production value. I'd argue all, and every single one, of the modern films that Disney has done is actually fine if people would stop complaining about trying to recreate the original experience. You can't, you never will, it's okay, you can get over it now. Start enjoying what's out there for what it is, instead of constantly comparing and judging something against that which can't have any peer anyway.
2
They should have stopped after the third one, "Return of the Jedi," in 1983. But, of course, the usual imperatives kicked in and mediocrity soon followed. The best that can be said is that the latest batch of Star Wars product is an improvement over the sad trio in between ("Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"). But any measure of real fun, originality or creative vigor have long ago (and "far, far away") leaked out of this tired franchise.
7
I once owned all three orginal films on VHS but lost them years ago. Hopefully some day they will be rerelased on Blu-ray. Regardless I look forward to experiencing the end this weekend just like I experienced the begining back in the summer of 1977...with both wonder and awe for seeing my friends one last time. It has been quite the ride to say the least.
This author completely misses the point. Star Wars was a major breakthrough in special effects and Dolby sound.
In the 1970's, we all knew the plot was a classic white hats/back hats western remake of no particular importance. We knew the characters were shallow and poorly developed, even as we watched the film for the first time.
But we also knew we were seeing an awesome and fundamental change in cinema production. Right from the now iconic opening story line scene, it was thrilling to say the least.
150
@Biji Basi
I waited in line to see it the week it came out. I was a senior in high school.
Although I did think the special effects were pretty cool and groundbreaking. The rest of the movie was pretty dull. Like one of those TV movies with the second rate Love Boat actors. Not awful but certainly not a great movie. I never did understand what all the fuss was about.
10
@William I disagree. As a college student I wondered what the hype was about but my friends and I went to see it. The only seats we could get were right in the front row. Imagine our shock and awe as the iconic theme blasted out and the story line rolled out...we had never seen anything like it. After the first one, I never quite got the hype about the sequels. The first one will always hold a place in my heart - simple, yes but it was special. This year when I went to a symphony orchestra where those songs that are known by their first note were played - the conductor played the opening of Star Wars. I literally felt as if I was sitting in the front row watching Star Wars for the first time decades ago.
21
@Biji Basi If Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader constitute "shallow and poorly developed" characters then perhaps those qualities are underrated. Do you really think the original Star Wars would be a more satisfying experience if the characters were more emotionally complex? The "deepest" and most psychologically conflicted character in the Star Wars canon is probably Anakin Skywalker, and we all know how well that turned out. For the original Star Wars, Lucas wisely strove for well-cast archetypes and in the process created some of the most beloved and enduring characters in cinema history. Certainly the FX were part of the appeal, but the real magic of the original Star Wars derives from its timeless and iconic characters.
27
The Star Wars of '77 was special, not just because we were all kids.
The prequels were painful for many reasons, especially because we were no longer kids.
These Disney films are beyond awful, mostly because, well... our whole culture sucks.
That's about as simply as I can put it, because I just can't think about it any more.
Watching the new one was like going to the dentist. I feel I need to do it, it hurts a bit, and then I'm glad it's over.
16
What overblown piffle. It’s cerebral enough, but misses the thing that draws Star Wars fans.
It’s a story of family, friends, the triumph of good over evil, and a Force that binds all things together. Especially in polarized times, there’s a reason it touches so many millions of people.
It isn’t about making you feel like a kid again. It’s about making your adult self connect with your childhood self in a way it wouldn’t have otherwise, and giving kids that same sense of wonder we older fans remember.
Let the entertainment industry entertain. It isn’t called the satisfaction industry. Walking on air as one leaves the cinema is special enough.
Both directors of this trilogy did a wonderful job. The Skywalker story is over after 42 years. It was strong enough to pull the ears off a Gundark.
4
So sad this is your opinion Mr. Kreider. Take a chill pill and stop trying to over think this. It is just a movie whose aim it is to make big bucks and entertain. Star Wars was and is a ground breaking reach into a new realm of sci-fi. Gone are the white formica countertops of 2001 Space Odyssey and bring on the dirty, gritty robots and space ships. I really don't understand the point of your essay, and the reason for the title is only revealed at the end and to that I say yawn, so what.
1
That may be what draws some fans.
As for this fan, Krieder is seeing what I see in the movies—not enough irony to be campy, not serious enough to be silly. It’s just a delicious home made ice cream sundae of a movie: not highbrow but not poorly done.
I enjoy the newest films because they seem to be done with the same spirit, even if I miss the innocence of the first trilogy.
1
Oh, brother.
Everyone thinks Stars Wars belongs only to them.
3
Come on now, the movies were always about making money, and the new trilogy is pretty good. X's comment is spot on.
2
Welcome to the inescapable world of Disney! Now that Disney owns Marvel and ABC, the entire network, from local and national news, to shows like Jimmy Kimmel, have been reduced into stooges whose only task is to promote some aspect of the Disney universe. In 1998, Disney, with the cooperation of other studios, pushed through the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, that extended copyright protection to 95 years. Try finding a complete Warner Brothers or Disney cartoon on YouTube that was made after 1930; if they're there, it's because they've been shortened or degraded in some way to escape the relentless cartoon police.
In this society, it is almost de rigueur for a lazy parent to equate childhood with Disney, turning their child into yet another empty vessel for life, all while filling the corporate coffers. From generation to generation, Disney has finally managed to infantilize the entire culture.
190
@stan continople
This is parallel to how Disney has corrupted its own theme parks. World Showcase was supposed to show you foreign countries' now they're Disney marketing. Donald Duck has taken over Mexico, Frozen has taken over Norway, and I hear that Mary Poppins is taking over the UK exhibit. Meanwhile some cartoon about fish has taken over the Aquarium, and the Great Movie Ride has gotten rid of everything but Mickey Mouse. I'm sure that I've left out other examples.
34
@stan continople Better known to those in the know as the Mickey Mouse Copyright Term Extension Act (the 1930 cut-off was not an arbitrary choice), the 1998 legislation disastrously turned copyright law on its head. Originally intended to protect the rights of artists against predatory producers, it now protects the income streams of massive entertainment juggernauts like Disney, and stifles artists who might want to make derivative works by imposing massive statutory damages. (When your hilarious 60-second riff on Donald Duck could cost you $125,000 -whether you made a dime on it or not- are you going to exercise your talent, or let the idea die before it's born?) It's one of the worst examples of corporate ownership of Congress.
14
@stan continople Yes, Disney is the real evil empire.
7
Let's not forget how Princess Leia Organa modeled courage and independence for star struck little girls. A generation later, I enjoyed watching my daughter fall in love with Leia and play with a light saber! She made a fantastic Leia for Halloween, with tightly rolled buns and a flowing white dress I was happy to create.
When she was eight, we moved to Northern California and her first two best friends were named: Luke and Layah. Coincidence? I think not. The Force was strong with this one!
14
Nice article. It highlights the difference between the world when Star Wars was created and the one we live in now. Lucas did three movies then stopped, the way an artist (auteur?) used to do things. Hitchcock didn't cross promote with Mattel to make Marnie Barbie. It just wasn't done. In fact, "cross-promotion" wasn't even a word until the 1980s. After the 80s began, though, and "franchise" became a business model, Lucas sold the brand and it became a commodity, not an artist's work. So, trying to pull meaning out of any of the prequels or new universe of Star Wars products -- or Marvel universe comic-book movies for that matter -- is like trying to get nutrition out of a glass of high-fructose corn syrup. It's just a commodity to make someone money, it's not a real thing. It's sad that young people seeing this retrofitted Star Wars world cannot experience the original thrill of it being solely what it was, and a genuine expression of an artist's work.
7
To everyone here that has eschewed all sequels and prequels, look past your disdain and try them. Granted NOTHING can compare to the magic industrial light (pun intended) that the original had. View them as individual stories that live in the same universe as New Hope.
If anything, watch Rogue One. It’s undoubtedly the best of the collection, with Empire Strikes Back in third place
2
A great essay about a great movie trilogy. I was 17 when the first Star Wars came out, and have never been interested in seeing any beyond the trilogy, as I suspected that Hollywood would destroy it. I did attempt to watch one of the original trilogy recently, but I was appalled by the violence and turned it off in the middle. Hollywood has always been consistent in selling violence as entertainment, and in holding the line of empire that asserts violence is always justified as long as you're on the right side.
5
Completely agree. At this point, I view anything beyond the original trilogy as fan fiction made with the sole purpose of taking people's money. The era of ad nauseum sequels coincides with humanities decreasing ability to let things go (whether through feeling the need to 'stay in touch' with a random name from 9th grade who never actually meant anything to you or through never letting a fictional world live on in an undocumented trajectory). We are turning ourselves into a species with poor coping skills for the natural and inevitable losses that will face us all.
126
@AD
The trilogy itself was fan fiction as well... all from the imaginative mind of George Lucas.
And remember.. the core scripts for each of the 9 episodes orginate from the mind of George Lucas. It was originally one huge screenplay he hammered out largely in one long sitting in front of a type writer (this was before PCs and word processors).. and then realized it would be a 20 hour movie to do it justice.. so he broke it up into episode bites and refined each from there. He even postponed the prequel and sequel trilogies for decades because he lacke the film and special effects technology to do them justice (in his opinion).
2
@AD
Until people you know from 9th grade start dying. That began for me around 15. I actually enjoy keeping at least a distant tab on people who informed various stages in my psychological development. We spent an awful lot of time together for a handful of random children thrown into a classroom together. Why do you 'stay in touch' with a sibling? You have common experiences you can share.
I think there are elements of the Star Wars universe that deserved expansion. I don't think I really enjoyed the originals until I encountered Dark Forces the video game. Still a classic even these many years later and part of a youthful lexicon similar to Fortnite or Halo. However, Dark Forces is most definitely fan fiction by your definition. There simply weren't many good Star Wars games for a very, very long time.
If you talked to any boy in 5th grade though, they knew about Dark Forces. We'd still be playing it now if Lucas Arts had bothered programming a decent vertical axis into the game. The story has virtually nothing to do with the original trilogy though.
In the same way you might imagine what you would do with a real life Millennium Falcon, there's room to think beyond the cinematic and narrative aspects of the original trilogy. It's called imagination for a reason. Just rest assured, quality is not guaranteed.
2
What struck me when I watched the original in 1977 was the special effects. They were ground-breaking to say the least. I was awe-struck. Up to that point, special effects in sci-fi movies were just plain corny. Lucas made it look real, which helped you buy into the fiction of the story. There had been nothing like that before.
I think that the revolution in special effects is what Star Wars will be best remembered for.
Then there is William's score. Perhaps not as revolutionary as the special effects, but truly a work of art: an orchestral score worthy of comparison with the operas and symphonies of the masters. (True too of some of his other scores.)
The two sequels are worth watching, but everything after that is just pablum for the masses: made for profit, not for art.
103
@Bill White There is a lot of truth in this. You can see there's a quantum leap from 1976's Logan's Run, which was awarded a Special Achievement Oscar for visual effects as well as a nomination for Best Cinematography, and Lucas' Star Wars which was released just a few months after that year's Oscars. It's almost like the industry didn't see it coming at all.
9
@Bill White
Exactly.
The actual story lines were pretty classic weekly space opera style that George Luca grew up watching each week at the movie theaters.
What made the movie standout was the outstanding innovations in special effects that Geoge and his team created in order to portray the movie in what at the time was a level of special effects sophistication Hollywood had never before experienced.
If Lucas has filmed his first episode using classic special effects of the day.... it likely would have been ho-hum with viewers at the theaters.. and may have prevented future episodes from ever being green-lighted.
3
@Bill White I'd say the first movie with truly breakthrough effects about space travel was 2001: A Space Odyssey, released a decade earlier. That really set the bar for anything which came afterword.
11
Imagine a Star Wars without cynical well read weary adults who can no longer see fun for what it is when it's right in front of them. I grew up right during the original trilogy as a child and pre-teen and these movies were amazing for me as a kid. As an adult, with the new trilogy, I love them just as much. As a person of color, I LOVE the diversity. As a classical musician, I LOVE the soundtrack. As an again Gen X'er, I LOVE the entertainment value of this last Skywalker film. Not everything has to be esoteric ponderings of an adult nature to be understood. Let's hear what kids have to say, whether at heart or of age.
204
@Marisol
Both children and adults can enjoy a movie without consciously understanding what made that movie work. But why not think about what made the original movie so effective? A lot of what makes visuals effective lies in what is NOT shown. That space allows viewers to use their imaginations, to be participants rather than passive viewers. The more this "universe" is filled in, the less engaging it becomes.
4
@Marisol
Your position is part of the problem. It doesn't even matter to many people whether the movies are good or not.
4
@Marisol Bravo!!!!
3
The short version? The first three were fun. The rest are rather ponderously over aware product. My brother and I were sci fi geeks back in the sixties when that particular life choice meant that your odds of breeding or living a normal life were discouraging low. The initial thrill of seeing our genre become mainstream was rapidly replaced by the revulsion of watching popular culture chew up and consume something that you love and expel something unrecognisable but easily digestible, a soylent green for the masses. If forced to take my grandson to the new star wars, or a marvel universe product, I will cleanse my pallet by watching"Fire Maidens from Outer Space."
78
@runaway Sorry, I happen to love most everything Disney has done, I think they're great films. I haven't seen the latest, I though Solo was only okay, but the rest have been mostly brilliant.
The only films I have little love for are the prequels.
1
@runaway
What actually happened is you and your brother outgrew the genre.
Seriously.. this many years later, when I pull out a DVD of the first episode that hit the theaters... it's pretty hokey compared to when I viewed it first as a young adult. Overall.. the later episodes are more entertaining.... except for the actual acting.. which in my view has ALWAYS been subpar compared to the norms in Hollywood.
2
Not quite true: You can still find The Despecialized Edition for the original 1977 experience.
2
I love this piece. I actually watched Star Wars (#4, New Hope - whatever we call it now) night before last with my two neighbors, ages 6 and 8. They had never seen it before and knew nothing. It was wonderful to see it through their eyes and hear all their questions.
I was almost 7 when it came out, and I made my father take me to see it multiple times that summer. He kind of grumbled about the repetition, but I knew he loved it almost as much as I. He passed away yesterday.
So this piece is extremely timely for me for many reasons.
244
@EMH Sorry for your loss. Thanks for sharing a nice memory you have of your Dad and glad you got to see the original with kids that rekindled your love of it. May other fun memories of your Dad bring you smiles among your grief.
19
May your father RIP.
4
@EMH
Sorry for your loss.
3
When it comes to Star Wars, I am an originalist. I refuse to watch any of the films post Return of the Jedi, and detest the digital additions. As with the absurd reboots of Comic Book films, I feel the magic has been destroyed.
116
@Jasmine Armstrong
But Matthew, Mark and Luke leaves out John.. plus the Book of Revelations?
1
@Jasmine Armstrong
What? The core plots, themes, and even draft screen plays all came from the mind of George Lucas. In fact.. he wrote them all at the same time in one giant screenplay and then had to break them up into pieces and put six of the episodes on the shelf for more than 20 years.
4
Perhaps my friend Jay and I were the only people in the world who were disappointed by the original Star Wars. I was a undergrad student in St. Louis and a fan of Kubrick among others. I found Star Wars to be a tad cheesy and cutesy. Recently, inspired by two work mates who love Marvel films, I tried to watch Captain America. I lasted less than ten minutes, through a hyperactive opening sequence totally dependent on CGI yet still comically unbelievable. This is the Star Wars legacy to me - over-inflated action sequences ad nauseam, with tacked on nods to whatever cultural identity symbol is current.
9
Strangely enough, the high point of the entire franchise, for me, was the very first scene of the first film, when the small ship crosses the screen and then the larger ship appears, chasing it. And the second ship just gets larger and larger and larger as it move ahead, until it fills the entire screen. Is there a metaphor here?
12
The last paragraph sums up the success and meaning of the original Star Wars...Luke contemplating his existence while staring into the double sun....Like Ron Howard's character in American Graffiti yearning to split from Modesto... Forget all the special effects - it boils down to hope....Something sadly lost in all the new versions of Star Wars..(But I'll watch anyway!)
78
@PeterK I saw the movie when I was 19. That was my favourite scene. My sister took me - she had seen it with friends (The big complaint was that "there's no sound in space!"). Had to see it again to really appreciate it. For a time, "Empire Strikes Back" was my favorite - but I'd go back to the original as the best, as it feels like a "complete" movie. I've made it through the first 8, so I will go see #9, but it won't have the wonder of the first. For better or worse, you can't recapture that feeling. Now, it's all about the product.
36
@PeterK Lucas himself has pointed out that all his movies share a basic theme: The fear of leaving home for the unknown. It's even there in THX.
4
@PeterK
Actually.. all nine episodes..and most movie screen plays... follow the same exact Hero's Journey" flow and plot lines. This actually goes all the way back to the way stories of mythology were created and have endured since the golde age of Greece.
I encourage you to read the book The Heros Journey, which explains how mythology as story telling works so well with the human mind... and how departing from it.. generally fails to engage the human mind in many cases.
4
An excellent assessment of and appreciation for the original Star Wars. I was a high-schooler with a subscription to Rolling Stone, and I still remember seeing a full-page ad for the movie in it, still months away from being in theaters, and thinking (just looking at the ad), "wow, that looks really …. different. I want to see that."
6
George Lucas must be the luckiest guy alive. Not really a talented director (his oft quoted direction to Carrie Fisher was, "Say it faster.") he managed to essentially do one movie over and over and over again. All the while, creating a childish myth about "what it all means." It means squat.
Compare this to his contemporary, Steven Spielberg, who went to grow and expand to directorial excellence, while Lucas languished, then nearly managed to drown his own "baby."
Dancing teddy bears and Jar Jar binks, indeed....
15
The worst part of these movies, and at the time I loved them, simply because they were so very different from all the Sci-fi before them...is the quasi religious beliefs they impart. Based on the most basic aspects of many Mythologies, that Lucas drew upon, that in the West and esp. in the US is mostly of a predominately Xtian religious source.
One, that there is some messiah like character who will save us. And two, the enemy has a distinct although small and often hard to locate weakness, that can be exploited and used to destroy him/them. And the messiah will be the one to do it.
And when you look at the crop of children (Gen X/Millennials) who really bought in and swallowed these stories like they were from on high (Lucas was a demi-god for many SW-heads for some time) and their attitudes about life and society and you can see the problems all around.
They are obsessed with all sorts of myths and promises that there are saviors and that the Enemy has a distinct, exploitable weakness. When the reality is there are no messiahs, and the Enemy is defeated by efforts across all fronts. No Achilles heels exist.
3
@Boregard
You clearly don’t actually know any Gen-X Star Wars fans. Many of us are “spiritual” but not at all messianically religious. Many of us are also atheists in the tradition of Carl Sagan who could still have powerful spiritual-like experiences while simply encountering the natural universe in all its glory. The two are not mutually exclusive and that’s the mistake people make when taking fans’ easy mix of knowing irony and human spirituality way too seriously.
The message of Star Wars is that we are all connected by simply being alive and any one of us can make a difference for the better whether we are a scion of a powerful Jedi, worker fixing droids, or gambling scoundrel for whom love changes his life. It’s the simplicity of the message of interconnection as a force for good that appeals to so many of us force-fed a violent religion of bigotry, domination, and moral control. We are totally aware of the strangeness and, ultimately, humor in the strange spiritual paths we’ve taken. An oft-quoted line is C3PO’s “Thank the Maker!” which we quote in laughing irony instead of the sanctimonious and equally ridiculous “thank God”.
And you clearly haven’t watched the movies. Yes, there are powerful fighters who seem to save the day but it’s made plainly clear by all the other subplots and characters that it is the interconnectedness of everyone working together in resistance that wins the war. I suggest “Rogue One” for an excellent example of this philosophy.
1
I think the bigger issue is Hollywood/Disney needing to make everything an action movie. Sure, there can be action, but it doesn't have to follow the action genre formula. Give us magic and worlds we've never seen before. Give us deeper plots and actual love interest. At this point, the only difference between Star Wars and The Fast and the Furious is a Chewbacca.
9
Yawn. I am soo tired of the Star Wars nonsense, it is just marketing--not really very good storytelling at all in my book. All the fun of the first two films have been drained away over the years. Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back were great adventure sci-fi pieces, that is how I viewed them at the time of their original release and my opinion has not changed--and all the critics have done thru the years is too load up the whole Star Wars saga with all sorts of philosophical and cultural mumbo jumbo, jut like Tim Kreider does here. I don't need any of that, just as we do not need yet another re-make or sequel to the original film.
6
Cultural and film criticism would lead to this article. But this old guy recently got out his video cassette (!) and played the movie on what must be one of the VCRs in the world. The Force Awakens is glitzy and fun to watch, and it simply did not ruin Star Wars for me. Pass the popcorn.
2
I love Star Wars ....but after the crowds die down. I like to see it in an empty ( semi) theater...no people yakking. I need to be able to concentrate...
1
With the timing of the new movie coming out, I suppose it's not terribly coincidental that I was just thinking about how all the extra stuff ("cultural detritus" -- good one) around Star Wars obscures what a great movie it was. I saw it in 1977, as a teenager, with no expectations. In fact, I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it since I wasn't really in to science fiction and (trigger warning: heresy ahead) I didn't like Star Trek. But a bunch of my friends were going and I didn't have anything else to do.
But I fell in love with it. Instantly. It sucked me into a couple of hours of soaring delight and kind of like that weightlessness you feel at the top of a carnival ride. Bonus that it was about Good vs Evil and the good guys were the rag tag rebels fighting against The Man.
Inevitably, our economy does what it does and harnesses something successful and turns it into a factory in its own right. And we have to keep making these movies because someone will pay to see them. Then it's about selling stuff and no longer about the joy of a great story well told.
3
"The cultural industry that the 1977 film spawned have ground its original charm and wonder out of existence."
"have ground" --> "has ground"
5
Am I the only one who doesn’t worship Star Wars? I like the movies to a point, especially through the lens of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, but I can’t stand the often terrible acting, the cringey stupid characters (Jabba the Hutt) and grating character voices. The movies are annoying (even if the themes are interesting) — and, dare I say, focus too much on the Dark Side, ie, the psychopathic mindset as a “fascinating” omnipresent malignant force. We don’t need to be fascinated by the dark side of humanity.
On the other hand, Star Trek, as a SciFi movie franchise, has done a better job of exploring and reflecting humanity within a more optimistic framework, humanity as it could and should be — a community of humans who are intellectual, enlightened, egalitarian, optimistic, ethical, empathetic — a collective of individuals where the Dark Side is not indulged or tolerated, but overcome and eliminated.
I think Star Wars celebrates and gives energy to the Dark Side (psychopathy) where Star Trek celebrates and gives energy to the Light (health). In context to our current world reality, I think real-life members of the Dark Side (Trump, McConnell, Barr, Putin, Corporate leaders, billionaires, countless high- and low-level criminals) have shown us that they want a world where they are free to create chaos and destruction for their personal gain and pleasure. We need to stop normalizing and celebrating that mindset. More Picard, less Darth Psycho.
5
Thank you for sketching the underpinnings of the Bernie Warren phenomena and Democrate's lean to the left, full monty
Ah, but the ragtags won and overthrew the Evil Empire, something that was sorely needed, and even more so today!
1
Scorsese is good friends with George Lucas, so don’t expect him to criticize the Star War franchise as “not really cinema”
1
Star Wars can still be experienced as intended. Just watch a little kid watch it for the first time.
3
I have a theory that George Lucas the trickster is still concealing a wonderful bit of movie trivia that dates back to the first Star Wars film. My theory is that Obi-Wan Kenobi's name is based on Nobe Kawano, the longtime equipment manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I met Nobe in the 1980s, around the time he retired, and several years ago, when I was trying to recall his name, I came up with Obi-Wan Kenobi instead. That's when it occurred to me that the vowel sounds and syllables are all the same, just scrambled. We know that Lucas went to USC in the 1960s, so if he was a Dodgers fan he would have heard Vin Scully occasionally tell anecdotes about Nobe. We also know that Lucas originally based Kenobi on a character in a Japanese movie from the 1950s. And a baseball bat looks a lot like a lightsaber, and is held in the same manner. And of course know that Lucas the trickster has embedded little tricks like this in almost all of his movies. So, George Lucas, if you're reading this, please confirm whether or not my theory is correct. Unfortunately, Nobe died a couple of years ago.
3
The franchise churn and burn has become comical on its face. I don't like to denigrate something people enjoy, but what about the rest of us? We're out there. It's nice to have money makers, but originality has been stifled in the process. Regarding the dark turns in the prequels - that reminded me of one of the Pirates movies where Disney had a child being hanged at the beginning and the mother in front of me had to cover her children's eyes. The need to appeal to all ages is another form of the producer greed and creative condescension that have a choke hold on franchise films. Like everything else film as an art form has become rare and these movies are mostly churned out to make money for investors. It's sad because these studios can afford to take more risks and be more discerning. I rarely go to see "Hollywood" films, but I will go from time to time to support the arts. I mostly see indie and foreign films now. The only Star Wars film I liked was The Empire Strikes Back. I don't consider any of them to be true science fiction - just fantasy. That being said - I'm glad they employ people, and support your local movie theater!
1
Just before the release of Star Wars: New Hope, the original, 20th Century Fox produced a series of radio spots which featured R2-D2's computerized tweeting and chirping. That is how this midwestern boy discovered the film. It was a stroke of advertising genius. There has never been a film in the history of the motion picture industry quite like Star Wars. Grown adults and children alike__I was in my 20s at the time__stood in line all day to watch the original film seeing it four or five times in succession. Let us not make Star Wars more than it really is, though I agree with all of the cultural baggage Tim Kreider writes about. And no doubt George Lucas found the touchstones for his ideas in philosophy especially Zorastrian religion. It is what it is: fantasy escapism which stimulates the imaginations of adults and children alike. That is what Star Wars did for me. It enabled my imagination to travel to a place, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, that gives it its timeless quality. It is incomparable to any film I have ever seen.
3
Star Wars ruined science fiction. Before Star Wars science fiction were stories. People enjoyed TV shows like the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits and Star Trek. There were also those cheesy movies from the fifties and sixties some of which turned into classics. Star Wars wasn't a story it was a place to live. An endless franchise some people spend their entire lives waiting for the next meaningless installment they can complain about it.
Science fiction usually had meaning. It could be a cautionary tales or just glimpses into the future. Star wars never had meaning. It promoted a quasi-religion only a few benefited from, royalty, where only a handful of people counted and even showed acts of terrorism were acceptable to achieve an end.
Stories should have a beginning, middle and end but today's science fiction just go's on forever. Look at the shows on Netflix, An ancient race of Mermaids living in Margaritaville or the dozens of shows where dead people show up alive for no reason. The Witcher is the newest one. I looked at it for ten minutes and saw there would be nothing there. A lot like Star Wars
2
A fun and a very different type of movie that I saw as teenager on a date in 1977. Didn't make me think of rebellion, religion or a robotic future. It was just fun and we all got a kick out of saying May the Force (whoever that may be) Be With You for about 2 weeks. Saw it again last year for only the 2nd time but with a symphony orchestra playing the soundtrack. A fun evening and saw the humor (not just the laugh lines) in this go around. Never had a desire to see the many sequels or buy any merchandise. I think all the sequels and prequels are unnecessary unless you are the cookie cutter movie studio or toy merchandiser only out to make money. Make more art, instead. Please.
1
Yes, if only to forget and see it fresh again! I was eight years old when my parents made a rare decision to actually take my sister and me to the movies for Star Wars. I'd seen the previews and thought it looked scary, so I was already on edge when we found our seats. What an experience! "The Empire..." was also impressive, but after that my interest waned.
There of course have been musical gems which have also suffered from too much exposure, but enough time has now passed to where one can enjoy them again. Take the album "Synchronicity" by The Police, for example. Once so overplayed that every bass note from Sting was as familiar as the contours of one's own bathroom, it is, 36 years later, brilliant again.
2
I love Star Wars, and so does my 10 year old. He has loved it since he was 3 and the affection shows no signs of dimming. We see it as a story about adventures, and journeys, and quests, and wars, a sci-fi, an action film, a Homeric epic, and a Shakespearean comi-tragedy, with its wise fools, and evil kings, and mischievous spirits and sages, and fantastical creatures, etc. etc. The beauty is that it encompasses so many genres. Even now I think with each new version that is released, the magical range of the saga has not dimmed. Epics were meant to be handed down generations, adapted and adopted, even changed completely, taken over by the educated and the uneducated; they were open to interpretations and fit the age. If ours be the age, then so be it. The epic dimensions of this story will fit whatever age we impose on it.
5
Always interesting to look back...I drove from Mendocino County to register for college and saw Star Wars and loved it...great effects, reading funny, tongue in cheek funny. Not anything science fiction so much as social science...Ursula Leguin-ish, in a Buck Rogers wrapper. I came away smiling, chatting, the new special effects shots were cool...never thinking there would be more, let alone eight. Of course critics have to reference other’s thoughts but I would really leave at that...no movies could or would replace this experience for me...the one prior was 2001, that was real science fiction...and didn’t require any analysis either to get it.Lin fact thinking too hard ruined the film. Baby is born, a god...sort of like looking Doctor Who for deeper meanings, we’ll there are some for sure, pain, loss, doing good...companionship. It’s the 50’s vibe rite large...what makes American Graffiti so wonderful, childhood awe!
3
I couldn't even finish the episodes with Pernilla August or Felicity Jones, and that's saying a lot.
Too bad. “Rogue One” is a terrific movie.
2
@Grunt
I couldn't finish this article, either. If Star Wars is the minor film this essayist thinks it is, why go on about it at such esoteric length?
@Grunt I like the one with Felicity Jones.
Makes you think, which is why it is really, really good criticism.
I always thought the last, live happily ever after (they didn't) scene in the third movie was corny and jarringly pretentious. Did Lucas mean it as a warning. I hope so but he'll never tell us if he was prescient.
Followers of Kurosawa and Ford recognized the mythic quality of the first trilogy owed a lot to previous masters. That was good, not a weakness. It took genius to "transmogrify" (Twain) those visions into science fiction so the denigration of Lucas in this essay is unwarranted. It also took genius to direct a collection of young actors and turn them into fortunately unpolished professionals.
Sure Lucas should let us see the originals which are cleaner than the gussied up versions. Can you imagine the havoc if Goya came back to life and repainted his canvases? The work of old masters is old by definition. Do us, and you, a favor Mr. Lucas. Free the originals.
8
Loved this article. It’s an interesting think-piece attempting to re-engage with the movie, without all cultural baggage. It helped me reassess with new eyes. I’m surprised how many people here seemed to miss that and either just slammed the movie, or accuse it of an example of crass consumerism. Just a reminder — Disney was not ready to merchandise this movie. There were not enough toys to meet demand. They hastily pushed out toys and then had to sell empty boxes to cover the rest.
6
A good article would be to dissect how all of us who were in elementary school and high school and who identified with the rebellion would now gladly join up with the Empire to be a part of something greater then the new "I" whatever, the next first person shooter on some gaming platform or some small batch reinvented from etsy or a car that seems to look very similar to all other. We long for the adventure. So absent that, well I do have Disney +.
5
My first husband and I drove 60 miles one way to see Star Wars in a theatre. I still remember the anticipation as the opening credits filled the screen and we heard the impressive score for the first time.
But in the end, it was the bar scene that really blew us, and everyone else away.
9
I had an Aha! moment when I read these comments: Star Wars has changed, and so have I. And perhaps neither one of us for the better. I thought the first one was a wonderful allegory and refreshing, original art. I loved spotting the deliberate call-outs to the classics.
As we both grew older, we grew apart. I became more jaded and critical of our commoditized culture while Star Wars became more formulaic and exploitative. All the backfilling episodes left me cold. I sometimes daydreamed waiting for an episode to end.
But I will go see the current episode Christmas Day with my wife for whom Star Wars will never grow old.
6
I saw the first movie a few days after it came out (I had seen a theatre preview and was looking forward to it). There were at most 20 people in the theater. No lines. Thoroughly enjoyable experience. Btw the essay here is great. I think some of the commenters missed the point.
7
@Dra
But where did you see it? In NYC there were lines around the block at some theaters.
I remember the anticipation I had back when it first came out. I read the Time magazine article about the film numerous times. Over the span of 2 weeks, I must have seen it 5 times. As a 19 year old sci-fi enthusiast, I was enthralled. I watched the next two with equal anticipation to see how it all spun out. Then, when the "earlier" ones made the scene, I watched one and was sorely disappointed. For me, the magic was gone. I saw the one with the "big reveal" of Mark Hamill returning and was again disappointed. Nothing new, and for me, completely predictable start to finish. Oh well. I still hang on the magic from 1977 when the original came out.
4
As a young mom, I was thinking that afternoon, how little interest I had in seeing a kids’ science fiction flic with my family that evening. But oh, how bowled over I was, as I sat in that theater and watched a beautiful film spool out a saga full of universal truths! Forty years ago and I still remember.
5
The original plan was for Lucas to direct the first film then other excellent directors would each direct one sequel. The Empire Strikes Back, a very fine film, was directed by Irwin Kirchner, one of Lucas's teachers at film school. But then Lucas junked the plan when no good director would let him do the special effects in the third film but they would do the acting parts. So Lucas found a British TV director who would let him share the directing. And that's when things began to go wrong.
7
Just a movie?
We just saw Star Wars at the Sydney Opera House. The original holds up. Yes, somewhat seventies, but the interplay of the movie and the soundtrack is enough for it to hold a place in the canon.
Who cares it the original trilogy is a product of the seventies? So am I.
5
There was great anticipation as I waited in line to view the original in a small town theater that hadn't been so packed in years. I took less than a instant for me to be surprised and hooked into the tale as I read the opening scroll about a futuristic society "a long time ago..."
3
Star Wars is Sci Fi and like much of its genre led to reality - robots, space travel and wars, life in other planets, 3D projection screens, holograms... loved every minute of them - one more to go!
2
Thanks for ruining it for me! Just kidding, I will continue to like this movie no matter what anyone says; I mean, all these years later, we are still talking about it and I'm certain Mr. Lucas likes that!
5
I was quite young enough to have joined my many friends waiting hours on line, but I didn't, and I recuse myself from any real criticism, because I don't think it's kind to take the the wonder from people who feel it. Whatever captures the zeitgeist can not be argued, one way or the other.
My opinion of the films was set in stone when I saw the famous Bar Band scene, with a blue Elephant on keyboard, if I remember right. It was so ridiculous and plastic looking, I felt sad and empty at the lack of magic; magic which I find in 'Oz' or 'The Thief of Baghdad'. But, as a wise man once said: "Life is never wrong".
There is a sad footnote to this however, in that one of the greatest decades of film came to a screeching halt after the success of this 'franchise', and if Scorsese's recent rant against super-hero films is any proof, cinema has not yet recovered.
Could "The Godfather" be made today? Not unless you can sell Fredo, Sonny, and Michael, action figures at MacDonald's.
4
I was in my twenties when I saw the first film. I purchased the sound track and played it often. I saw the film more than once at the theater (I had never done that before). I have enjoyed all of the films (less though, the three in the middle). But they are films and a welcome escape. They all remind me of the wonder I felt when I watched the first one.
Sorry but you need to have some fun and lighten up! Star Wars is a welcome escape in these dark times and I look forward to seeing the new episode.
May the force be with you!
5
Sometimes, a movie is just a movie. The article makes some interesting points, but I'm glad I'm not a movie critic, so I can just sit back and enjoy the good romp.
8
I'm a member of the original "Star Wars generation" (in my late teens when the first one came out), and I'd had quite enough of the whole shtick by the third one.
I was standing in line at the old Loew's 86th Street theater to see it, and I got into a conversation with a young mother who had two sons with her, one about twelve years old and the other one eight or nine.
"Do you like these things?" she asked me. I replied, "I'm not a huge fan, but they're entertaining enough to be worth seeing."
Then she said, "You know what they're REALLY about? Toys! Every time another one comes out, these two want more toys! We live in Harlem and we don't have much money, and I have to put up with them whining for more toys when I can hardly even pay the rent!"
She nailed it, and I've never forgotten that. It's the world's most lucrative toy franchise other than Disney (and is now a PART of Disney).
Never mind all the religious and mythical implications (courtesy of Joseph Campbell), merchandising is the true "Force" here.
12
What gets me is when Disney gets its' hands on something, the saturation and overkill is just too much to bear. Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and even ESPN all are heavily promoted. And now that Disney+ is up and running, there seems to be no escape.
8
Clearly, Star Wars demonstrates that Americans have an insatiable appetite for "corny". And yes, one wonders how George Lucas can be the father of the block buster, but then one remembers American Graffiti.
1
This piece absolutely jibes with my feelings about this franchise. I was a nerdy 13 year old boy in 1977 and loved this movie. But over time you could tell no one was having fun anymore, except maybe Lucas and no one old him “bad idea,” because he was rich and powerful.
So the fourth movie (“Phantom Menace”) is horrifyingly terrible. It’s racist tropes and stupid plot. It was so bad I refused to see the two that followed. And apparently missed little.
This kind of movie should be fun. If it’s not, what’s the point?
4
I remember goi g to see "Star Wars" in 1977 and walking out wondering what all thr fuss was about. For my husband and I it has always been just a movie.
4
After the first two movies, the rest lost their sense of humor--and their sense of wonder. There was no one to identify with in quite the same way as with that green young kid, searching for adventure, and who got a whole lot more than he bargained for.
4
The beginning of the very first Star Wars movie was enchanting. A dual solar landscape in a desert. Mother, father, and son, in BC Jerusalem clothing. Next stop, space war.
It was nothing to me. The laser swords.
It was the beginning of CGI in movies, and the end of "on location" filming. For me, it was the beginning of the death of great film.
1
Is that a Coke or a Pepsi I see R2D2 drinking?
5
I feel lucky to have been 13 when Star Wars first hit theaters. I remember being taken to see it on the upper east side by my parents as a surprise (without my sister). If you search the internet for “Star Wars, despecialized” version you can find it in as close to original theatrical release version as possible.
4
I saw only the first film and my overwhelming opinion of it was j"eez could they have made it any louder?" And I was in my mid 20's at the time, not an old codger. I have never had the desire to see any of the others. Even though I am an old codger now, I will watch the Harry Potter movies over and over (even if they can't hold a candle to the books).
5
It turns out that in America, if anything makes a lot of money, it's a phenomenon! Over-analysis and intellectualizing aside, you know, it's still just movies, making lots of money.
8
You hit the nail on the head. I could not agree more, and your headline is perfect. The original studio, producer(s) and all else involved have completely squeezed the lemon dry. There are scores of people who have no idea who or what the 2 characters in the main photo truly represent: Wonder, excitement, and pure fun. A long time (adult) friend of mine saw "Frozen 2" recently. She said (I am paraphrasing), "After the movie, walking out behind me were groups of teens who "were amazed by the incredibly beautiful score". That says it all. I know my generation (born in the 1950's) could say the same about the entertainment industry during the Roarin' Twenties and the Great Depression era; which my parents grew up in. However, it was different; even from what (for me) is the greatest decade of filmdom: The 1970's. That was the era of films which truly were outstanding, in so many ways. Today, when you have a hit, it (invariably) will be followed by another with a number next to it. The first I recall was Charles Bronson in "Death Wish"; soon to be followed by DW 2, DW 3, DW 4, and now even DW 5. This is precisely why Martin Scorcese recently derided (perhaps too harsh a word) the main studio industry of today. The dissapearance of independent theaters. Unless you live in a large urban center, you are out of luck as far as "indies" are concerned. The only saving grace is straight to digital, but that is not the same as seeing "2001: A Space Odyssey" at the Ziegfeld (now closed)
8
@Easy Goer For me, it was Film Noir, and French Film New Wave and many Japanese film that are the great films of the past.
2
It is just a movie for me.
I saw the first one on DVD a few years ago with a child.
I saw The Last Jedi in the theater because I had visited the amazing Skellig Michael and wanted to see it on the big screen.
That's it for my Star Wars experience.
I am representative of a significant population that has no obsession with Star Wars. Neither am I obsessed with Star Trek or the Godfather movies. They're just movies.
3
I see the point about "Darth Vader" and "Triumph des Willens." However, as noted, "Star Wars" was fundamentally a religious film. "Triumph of the Will" was absolutely buried in religious symbolism. The "cross" of Hitler's plane is photographed descending into Nuremberg.
Moreover, the film was a very successful use of realistic formalism despite the subject matter. I'm guessing Lucas was mostly ripping off powerful and effective shots with less consideration of foreshadowing. No one expected there to be a sequel, remember? "Triumph" was way ahead of its time in terms of technique. Lucas borrowed generously.
Speaking of rip offs. Lucas was a rip off master. The very first scene in the movie was stolen from Douglas Trumbull's 1972 classic "Silent Running" using techniques Trumbull developed as DP on Kubrick's "Space Odyssey: 2001. "Even the droids in "Star Wars" are revitalized versions of characters used in Trumbull's story. One appears basically verbatim in "Return of the Jedi" (getting tortured no less) but R2-D2 in general is a knock-off.
Lucas is best defined as a plagiarist who "borrows" rather than "steals." He was simply well connected thanks to Coppola and later Spielberg. Money doesn't hurt either.
Personally though, I digitized my theatrical copies long ago. I have a backup remotely too. I won't watch the remastered versions at all if I can possibly avoid them. The "origin" trilogy is dead to me as well. I have mixed feelings about the new stuff. Better? Maybe?
3
What charm and wonder? I have been a science fiction fan for decades and I've always hated Star Wars. Real science-fiction writers know science. Star Wars was full of scientific bloopers.
9
@Charlesbalpha Yes Star Wars takes scientific short cuts. And cop shows take shortcuts so they can neatly wrap things up in 1 hour. And employees of the real MI- 6 aren't given amazing super gadgets days before they need it to save their butts. Science fiction books are generally long and tell us stories that span long stretches of time, i.e, Asimov's Foundation or Clarke's Garden of Rama series. If Star Wars was scientifically accurate in every way it would be unwatchable. Enjoy it because it imagines interesting new worlds and gives you a chance to root for good prevailing over evil.
3
@Charlesbalpha I will never forget the opening scene. We were is space and there was this awesome low bass roar. I was completely, immediately aware that it was stupid. There is no sound in space.
However, my heart was pounding with excitement. This scene by passed the mind and went straight for the body.
It was the first good science fiction film. Believe me, I almost didn't go to see it because all science fiction films of the day were appallingly bad.
2
@Charlesbalpha I don't believe Star Wars is meant to be 'real' science-fiction. It's a romp a la the old movie serials, with dastardly villains and fair maidens and a golly gee main hero - lightly re-imagined through the lens of Campbell's Hero's Journey.
1
Nice, good to remember.
And, of course, the original trilogy is out there if you know where to look.
1
I saw the first Star Wars movie the night it opened in 1977. We were asked to stick around after the movie to fill out a survey. For our trouble we were all given five dollars, a poster, and a pin saying, "May the Force Be with You." At the time I thought it was an entertaining movie, I thought the robots were the best part of the film, the "jump to light speed" was cool, and that was about it. Indeed, on my way out of the theater I pocketed the five dollars, gave the pin to a kid, and tossed the poster in the trash. Frankly, I wondered what all the fuss was about. Well, clearly my skills as a film critic were limited at best. I've probably seen that same film half a dozen times since 1977 I've seen the next two installments three or four times, and all of the subsequent films once. However, despite my obvious lack of complete surrender to the Star Wars universe, I've found the philosophy behind it not only fascinating, but comforting. Having rejected religions, (far too dogmatic and certain of their own salvation.) but also having embraced a rather nebulous sense of faith, I do find the enigmatic "force" comforting. As they said on the X-Files, "something is out there" (or something like that.) I refuse to think light sabers and silly men in costumes are anything more than special effects and a big budget, but I do have a sense of something beyond all of us. I also like to be entertained, and in these heavy times, I believe strongly in the philosophy, "Lighten up, folks."
8
Thanks, now that you mention it I think I did see that movie years ago but had completely forgotten about it. Luckily no great loss.
3
I saw the first Star Wars in the summer of '77 and thought it was fantastic. The special effects were so much more spectacular than the cheesy Star Trek re-runs that I had been used to for the prior 10 or 11 years. However, by the end of the first trilogy, I thought the magic was gone. This was confirmed when I took my kids 20+ years later to see the next group of episodes. I thought the first two episodes of the latest group were fairly interesting (thanks to Daisy Ridley and Jon Boyega) and like many in the theatre I gasped when Rey found Luke Skywalker on the edge of the cliff. I'll go see #9 to complete the series. I'm sure it will be a technical masterpiece and well-acted but the thrill is gone, so to speak.
1
I was 9 years old in 1977 and Star Wars was one of the things that awakened me into, well, life. This article is brilliantly written.
8
I loved the original and the first and most of the third sequel. But Star Wars is a story that seems diminished with each sequel. The more the story is told the lest room for the viewer to be in that world and draw meaning.
6
Is it OK to admit that I've never seen any of the Star Wars franchises? Not that there was any kind of nefarious plan to avoid them, I just never got around to seeing #1 so when #2 came out I didn't see it because I hadn't seen the original. Then #3 was released and because I hadn't seen #2...
7
@PhilipB Fine to admit. I never saw an episode of Game of Thrones. However, you're in the enviable position of being able to watch the movie with fresh eyes. So, enjoy! You're never too old to be entertained by movie magic. And it is....magical.
4
@PhilipB
To paraphrase a couple of movie-related book titles, STAR WARS is a film you should see before you die, while most of the related films which followed it are ones you should die before you see!
Sorry to be picky, but the author's reference to Asimov's Foundation is a bit misleading. The political leaders of the Foundation did not cloak science, or, more accurately, technology, in religion because they wanted to get people to accept science. They used religion as a means to control the the planets they were taking over; advanced technology's role was to provide convincing "miracles" to impress the converts. The Foundation missionaries carefully controlled access to scientific education and did everything they could to limit the spread of scientific knowledge among their subject populations.
We fans take this kind of thing seriously.
53
@Kaleberg
The Galactic Spirit!
2
Or to put it more succinctly: Bah, humbug.
2
Unlike the latest Star Wars trilogy, this ended super well.
2
Ummm. I thought "Star Wars" WAS just a movie. And for all I know, it still is. I saw it the summer it came out and was vastly entertained. I was going into my senior year in University, and I thought it was a hoot. It reminded me of an old-fashioned 'oater,' but one tricked out with fancy costumes and special effects John Ford never imagined possible. I saw it again a few years ago, with some kids two generations down from mine. We ate popcorn and oohed and ahhed and cheered for Obi Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia and the Millennium Falcon crew. And it was still a hoot. And still -- just a movie.
10
My luv of Star Wars back in the day was as strong as my belief in the promise in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The first died on the vine at the four Star War and the second started withering away well before Trump announced his campaign. However, I am holding out for a really good satire about the franchise from a really good director with a Marty Python sense of things.
4
Disney destroys and commoditizes everything it touches.
The author accurately describes why the originals were great and the subsequent three were disasters and the next group were a slog through repetitive unimaginative by-the-numbers film making.
So when the recently converted woke fan-boys haters and their ilk defend the latest SW Disneyfied movie tropes from the defenders of the original trio - you have my sympathies - you will never understand nor truly appreciate what made Star wars into Star Wars.
5
I lost interest in space-based science fiction after dropping the model I made of the Starship Enterprise in front of the class during show and tell. To be honest I must have gotten over that, since I enjoyed Star Wars as much as Star Trek reruns as a kid.
1
Great essay, some sharp insights. I can still "see" Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi very clearly, just like I still love the old Bond films, Adam West's Batman, Star Trek the Original Series, and a bunch of other 60s and 70s era adventure, sci fi, and fantasy franchises. They all had a sense of humor and "innocent fun," something this country and our pop culture seem to have lost post-9/11.
4
The criticism of the expanded universe is completely off the mark. The fleshing out of side stories is exactly what makes the world of Star Wars so fascinating and endless. Just to give one example, the Clone Wars series was an anthology of various incidents during the period between the second and third movies. We got to learn more about the motivations and exploits of various characters on various planets doing various things. This is the strength and beauty of the franchise. It is a galaxy filled with trillions of stories waiting to be told. And it is why Star Wars has become a lifelong obsession for people like me.
3
Oh, come on. Lighten up and just enjoy it.
I loved it in 1977 and I can't wait to see Episode 9 with my family now.
15
@Chris
Episode 9 is beautiful. Don't let the cynics get you down.
@Nadia Just saw it and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Agree completely. The first movie was wondrous fun, the second was pretty great. Third became a tired. What's to gain from diluting and stretching the ideas out is unreasonable for the story. Try making nine films out of Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, that's essentially what Hollywood is trying to do. Lucas himself lost the essential mythology Joseph Campbell got so excited about in his prequels. The new stuff is a catalog of nostalgia for selling things.
9
The reviewer makes some multi-generational valid observations, indeed, the whole series became overly dissected, and the prequels were all terrible. The three prequels are what should be wiped away, not the original movie in its original form. I pulled an old VHS version of the original movie, which I will always call 'Star Wars,' it didn't have the original title, but I hoping hopelessly that it had left in some of the original movie that Lucas foolishly hid away in his overly digitized remake titled 'new hope.' No such luck, even the VHS version is mucked up with new stuff, and parts of the original taken away.
Oh well, at least the the Harrison Ford 'the force awakens' is very good, with characters that interact well once again, with some of the old humor. Unfortunately 'the last Jedi' started to slip back into the over done battle scenes with bodies piling up, but the characters were still better than those 'wish we could forget them' prequels. As this reviewer says so well, I have hope that the original movie will some day see a movie screen again.
3
Star Wars movies are "movies". They never aspired to be "films". Like beach reading novels,"movies" are entertainment. Their reason-for being is forget about everything else for a while, quit thinking about the human condition, and just enjoy. Films tend to have messages about the human condition and to ask you to think about those messages, which are often difficult.
Thank goodness for both forms. But excoriating later Star Wars movies for failing to live up to some original Star Wars ethos is to overthink the whole thing. Enjoy or not. Go or not.
2
@larry bennett - George Lucas was very serious about being a film maker, part of "cinema".
2
Star Wars has been trivial from the beginning. It had and has all the charm and wonder of a Coca Cola commercial.
7
Tim Kreider gets much correct, but misses that ancient Roman history and the Knights Templar also inspired George Lucas - https://www.history.com/news/the-real-history-that-inspired-star-wars
2
“Quick! To the time-machine!”
1
What if a movie review was just a movie review?
4
May the farce be with you! Nanoo Nanoo!
1
What if sex was just a feeling? Existential crisis would no longer ensue. What if feminists are really just hegemonic aggressors in pursuit of special privileges, power and revenge? The NYTimes, and many in the real world, could take a breath and stop looking for narratives rather than truth. What if R2D2 and C-3PO are sentient beings and the other characters are the programmed? Sometimes Socratic method really elicits nothing.
2
A culture that refuses to imagine new stories but keeps re-hashing the same old one by making up empty sequels and prequels, takes and re-takes is a dried-up culture indeed It's like the remake of "Psycho" a few years back. What on earth for?
18
It is all about the Benjamins!
It is after primarily the movie business.
Not the message and art metaphor business.
There was only one ' Birth of a Nation', one ' Citizen Kane' and one ' Wizard of Oz'.
Now there is movie whatever pick a number above three for as long as it sells.
6
@Blackmamba
Actually, that happened with Tarzan, The Thin Man, Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, the Mexican Spitfire, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Sherlock Holmes, Francis the Talking Mule, Ma and Pa Kettle, Hammer's Dracula, and James Bond - just to name the first dozen series I can think of that followed an initial very successful first film entry, and that preceded STAR WARS. There was no great art in almost any of these (we may except Frankenstein), nor was there intended to be, but they provided great entertainment to untold millions of people, and still do. James Bond has now been wowing them on the screen for 57 years!
1
Star Wars spoke to all of us reared on SF and comic books and kind of wishing it was true. The Force is magical and we so want it to be real. This is the effect of Star Wars; probably Lucas had no idea what he had birthed, but this does not take anything away. Some wonderful things are not planned, but happen.
3
@Jean louis LONNE
Star War was actually anti-science-fiction. Isaac Asimov denounced the scene where Luke turned off the technology-based detector on his spaceship, preferring to use the magic power of "the Force". Of course "the Force" was never explained. Science fiction stories traditionally to provide pseudo-scientific rationalizations when they used things like time machines and faster-than-light starships.
Like almost everything beautiful, enjoyable, and rare, most things are done to death by red eyed consumers, making those things common and worthless. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Pretty sad. This country has too much of all the wrong things.
127
@ChesBay Good point, though I wouldn't blame consumers. I was done with Star Wars after the very first one. I didn't realize it at the time, but the more profit enters into it, the worse the quality of the commodity. I checked the plot summaries on Wiki. A New Hope was about a paragraph. The latest movies are at least a page. Enough said.
3
@ChesBay Thank you ChesBay for your perfect encapsulation. The puzzling thing about the Forever Star Wars phenomenon is that people still line-up to see the movies and buy the merchandise. Even this page one NYTimes opinion piece perpetuates the time worn enterprise. What has to happen before there is a new, new?
1
I loved the first 3 movies, was sorry that I watched the next 3, and now I won't even consider watching the Disney ones. It was cute once, now it and the Avenger movies are everything wrong with the industry.
210
@Todd I've heard that Robert Iger is thinking about an Avengers-X-Men-Star Wars crossover.
2
@Todd
forgive me for asking, but if you refuse to see the current 3 movies, how can you assess that they, like "the Avengers movies are everything wrong with this industry"?
11
@Todd
As I've often said to many friends, just because you love it, doesn't make it good.
I love films with Vin Diesel...
5
I found the original cute and formulaic. The others just got worse.
3
Star Wars always allowed so many of us to escape the housing projects ,dead end jobs, racism all of society’s ills, gave us emotional support when loved ones went off to war and some never returned.
We become part of a wonderful world for a few hours. John William musical score , I don’t know about the rest of you . Some of us enjoyed the series flaws and all,
Star Wars is a triumph and the rest of us won’t forget where we were and when.
Don’t like the concept see something else but don’t knock the movie ,
12
@Tony
Did you watch these movies or simply let them play as distraction? What helped you escape? Seeing the weak and powerless being attacked by the Powerful and heavily armed? Kinda sounds like a housing project tome. Kinda sounds like what creates them...
Ive never understood how people find escape in these Mythology based story lines (albeit poorly) that do nothing but play to prejudices and culturally enforced archetypes. Even if they are robots or droids they play to certain cliches and character archetypes. Their appearances only allow the makers to get away with it.
C-3PO if a human would be an effete, well dressed dandy man/boy. Likely gay, or ambiguous...
Pay more attention. Look past the costumes, sets and now all the CGI.
1
The last Star Wars film I really cared about was The Empire Strikes Back and coincidently it was the first Star Wars film I actually cared about. The original was solid and technically remarkable and Return of the Jedi were solid if a bit sentimental.
But since then it's like, meh, not a big fan.
I wished they weren't as important to people as let's say, our government, or fighting Global Warming or a myriad of other things. They are all just "product" now.
And this coming from somebody that works in the industry.
11
I once saw Bill Moyers attempt an in-depth interview with Lucas on the mythology of StarcWars and it’s relationship to American culture. It became painfully obvious that there was absolutely, positively nothing to explore as far as Lucas was concerned
51
@Steve B.
I wonder if that was the same interview I remember, when Lucas couldn't explain how, in Return of the Jedi, Luke, as a peace-loving Jedi, could attack Vader, but *I* could explain it (Luke was defending his sister, which is okay by Jedi rules). I was disappointed in Lucas, but then understood how ideas can grow beyond what their creator intended.
Anyway, it's an interesting and thoughtful piece, but also interesting to read so many comments from people for whom the first viewing of the first film is still vibrant in their minds. Just like me, which is why I cried at the last scene of the final film.
4
@Steve B. Lucas is not a deep thinker.
2
To echos others, Tim, Star Wars may not have been just a movie for me, it was three. The second one was pretty good too. Trilogy over, I was done.
I do recall audiences laughing at the previews for the first one in movie theaters. It did look silly at first.
The only time I've thought about those three films since was when Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell around '87 or so. I had not viewed them in any larger context until then. Clearly there was one but I'd lost interest in movies by the time any of the subsequent films were made and released.
That's the larger issue here for me - movies themselves. And I doubt I was anywhere close to alone in feeling the medium itself had lost its magic by the time the '90s rolled around.
3
@Jonathan Baron Through the numerous "adjustments" in re-issues, my understanding is that Lucas' regard was for Star Wars episodes as artworks, not as living pieces with a universe, lore, etc.
1
i've seen them all but i couldn't tell you which was which. i've always felt it was basically the same movie over and over.
6
@LPR You must be referring to the latest trilogy, considering many cinema lists regard The Empire Strikes Back as cinema's greatest sequel - over Godfather 2, for example.
2
@David H
I would be interested to know what "lists" you are referring to because absolutely no one who can be taken seriously has ever considered "Empire" a greater sequel than "Godfather II".
"Empire" might be some individual's favorite, but that's a different thing entirely from being the greatest.
Nothing like the first Star Wars movie, although the next 2 were great too.
That summer of 1977 I was in Seattle and as word quickly spread, the lines for the movie were several blocks long for many weeks. It was shown at only one theater.
Never forget it. A fabulous, inspiring movie. So glad Lucas made it the way he did. Since then to each their own as they say.
14
Not "what if?" but, it's just a movie. Yes, the original probably wore more of Joseph Campbell's take on mythology on it's sleeve than other takes on the Hero's Journey. But that doesn't make it more than it is. A movie. A fictional telling of a familiar narrative turned into a juggernaut of a licensing cash-cow. From the second version of the first, these "movies" became 90-minute toy commercials.
One was more than enough.
6
Re: 90-minute toy commercials .... "May the Schwartz be with you."
1
I've seen and enjoyed several episodes and stopped, just like I stopped at Rocky II, the second or third Godfather movies, and I'll probably stop after the next Avatar. I'm a fan for awhile, then it's not the same. I think the only exception is Star Trek, I've seen just about every iteration.
12
@Tom J Godfather 2 is as good or even better than 1 and 3 is vastly underrated. Don't even mention them in the same sentence as Rocky 2.
7
@Tom J
I will only offer this, although I agree with you hugely. Watch Creed. It's a remarkable and appropriate film that really should have been the only and last follow up to Rocky II.
It really is remarkable.
3
@MK
Agreed that G2 is so good. Like the best wine you ever had.
G3 is embarrassing.
1
"Star Wars," in 1977, was a visual marvel to me at age 8. The opening shot of that enormous space ship was breathtaking. "Star Wars" was truly new and movies were still magical.
By 1983 when "Return of the Jedi" was released and I was 14, movie magic had declined and I was old enough to notice the poor acting.
There's no way to recapture that movie magic 40 years later. The only purpose of these movies is greed.
24
@Passing Shot Once Lucas had announced his plan to bring us a trilogy, the influence of greed was made obvious and tantamount. As Tim says, we can't relive the joy and relief that the first (and only) Star Wars (yes, I saw it when there was no Episode IV underneath) gave to us, who had been hoping for some light in the science fiction cinema universe, which had grown rather dark. I walked out of Empire and have kept walking.
11
@X
I went out to see bands when I was in high school. I went out to see bands when I was in college.
Just turned 60 and I still go out to see bands and musicians at least two or three times a month. Most of the people at the clubs I frequent are in their 50's and 60's too. Going tonight in fact.
39
@X
I went out to see bands when I was in high school. I went out to see bands when I was in college.
Just turned 60 and I still go out to see bands and musicians at least two or three times a month. Most of the people at the clubs I frequent are in their 50's and 60's too. Going tonight in fact.
6
The movies get wildly strange after the Empire Strikes Back. (A child in a space ship takes down a Death Star?) Furthermore there are numerous Star Wars references in the Indiana Jones movies. There can only be one conclusion.
Everything since the second movie, everything Lucan has produced since then, are just the hallucinogenic dreams of Han Solo frozen in carbonate.
18
@Ray
Not a bad way to compartmentalize a trauma we all know. This is my own position going forward.
Is it hard to imagine Lucas internalizing a certain disappointment seeing it become "the thing he fought against".
I still enjoy nearly all the films, but I don't talk about them much anymore - the joy and awe replaced by rages about 'canon', 'shipping' and apropos representation...
Can we get a better of the destructive nature of rampant consumer culture? Remember, Darth wanted to "end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy' - perhaps this hubris is the most dangerous of all.
1
Great article. I feel lucky to have seen Star Wars through the eyes of a 12 year old. I had never stood in line to see a movie before, never seen a movie at the cinema more than once yet alone 4 times and never seen an audience give a standing ovation during the end credits. Star Wars stayed on the WI Brookfield Square Cinema's marque for over a year. Wonderful memories.
26
Isaac Azimov observed, if one takes a Western, changes "Native American" to "alien", "stagecoach" to "star ship", "small town" to "planet", "six gun" to "blaster"... the horse opera becomes a space opera.
Star Wars is fun, and entertaining - but that's all.
13
It WAS just a movie.
37
@tom
Sure, just like the American Revolution WAS just a war.
4
@GW -Absolutely. Like that cup of coffee I just had was just a cup of coffee.
@tom
Sorry that you don't understand....
....and chagrined that nothing I say will ever make you understand.
1
Talk about turgid analysis-paralysis!
I have, on Betamax tape no less, early commercial releases of the first 3 films, before Lucas started re-editing them (like replacing the ghost of Anakin at the end of "Return").
When in the spring of '77, getting ready to graduate from college, a friend said "you gotta see this, it's like Buck Rogers!" My freshman and sophomore years, people would gather at 5pm to watch chopped-up Star Trek reruns (to allow for more commercials) and Monday nights to watch "M*A*S*H".
So going to see "Star Wars" for the first time was mind-blowing fun! You didn't need a fancy film critic to tell you it was kaleidoscopic collage of other movies, from broad space-scape images borrowed from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to WWII fighter pilot movies, Errol Flynn costume duels, and Westerns--I started laughing when Han walked off into the sunset like "Shane" or something.
What it was, was FUN! The one thing the author nails is that the experience in 1977 of "Star Wars" (just "Star Wars", not "Episode IV, A New Hope") was the total escapism, and its distancing from us "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away".
"2001" took us from "space" being foggy and cheesy to being clear, cold, silent, and deadly. "Star Wars" did most of that (except the silent part) and made it approachable and fun. Fun!
69
@Dadof2 I was 27 and I had the same reaction. I didn't "notice" the bad acting until I rewatched it years later, I was too enthralled by the plain fun of the movie. And yes, I will go see the final installment, in about 2 weeks when the crowds have thinned, and I can get into an early show at the IMAX (these movies are made for the largest screen you can find it on) and I'm 70.
6
@LesISmore
I noticed the bad, over-emoting ham acting and dreadfully comic-book dialogue, but I didn't care as that was part of the fun! I still have a functioning BetaMax HiFi, although I don't know if any of the VHS machines still run. LOL!
I'll probably wait to download it on Amazon Prime and watch it from the comfort of home on a big-screen TV that didn't exist in 1977.
4
I was 13 in 1977. Star Wars showed nonstop for months at our local theatre. I recall enjoying it and found it fun and interesting. It was a cowboys and Indians film, just set in space. Not a bad thing, but nothing I needed to enjoy on a repeat basis. I never went to another film in the series. I am baffled & a bit offended when I mention Star Wars and people, usually youngsters, ask me, "Which one?" How I wish Lucas had gone on to other things. 2019 was okay until this mini ogre named Baby Yoda arrived.
5
“”Star Wars” is ultimately a religious film”
Absolutely, The Force is the impersonal god that transcends beyond all the religions on Earth.
It certainly is more believable than let’s say Scientology and its Thetans.
And while the Dark Side, similar to the Upside Down, currently controls the USA, it is my belief and hope that The Force, the giver of life, will return us to a brighter and better future.
The Resistance shall prevail.
40
@GW Indeed! In one way the film shows what many are experiencing now- we live in a time of intensely angry young people trying to save their world even as they know the exercise may be futile. I celebrate the saga, and am not snobbish about skipping the next movie. I shall go and allow my son to make what he will of the new one. Yes Disney has commercialized it, captured it and turned it into something crass like Leia chained by Jabba, but one can always hope. Stories allow us that. Hope is belief in the divine, and in a better future.
3
There are only two stories in Hollywood: “A young man sets out on a journey”, “A stranger comes to town”.
Stars Wars tells them both, over and over again .
39
@David Mechlin I have always felt that the original Star Wars was influenced by Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey.” Has
4
@David Mechlin Well, except for the "man" thing. The protagonist of some of the Star Wars films is a woman.
2
@David Mechlin Those are two western themes. The most common theme now, at least for films targeting a predominantly male audience, is the average guy facing a challenge and responding with extraordinary powers. This is the basis of most of the comic book-based films, think Superman, or Die Hard, but really any movie where the average Joe rises to the occasion and proves himself to the wife, kids, society.
3
Here's a quote from a letter to Alec Guinness from his friend & sometime director Peter Glenville after having seen the original STAR WARS film: "...the picture is a delight. Thrilling, innocent, spectacular, engaging, original, & the effects are astounding...a zippy BOYS OWN humor which manages to be both seraphic & sophisticated."
Nails it. And without benefit of hindsight.
122
@MAKSQUIBS
I had read that Guinness, who only played Obi Wan, because of a hefty paycheck, thought that his Jedi wisdom was silly claptrap.
2
What if Shakespeare were just a writer?
14
It's an interesting opinion and can be compared to the current wave of "Fandom Menace," which refers to people highly critical especially of the final trilogy. Also, OK, I'll bite: It was a big risk to refer that way to Al Qaeda or Timothy McVeigh. It's been said that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter (they're usually men, and the saying can be the other way around). But those people are/were murderers, plain and simple. A lot of other people may be unequivocally regarded as freedom fighters. (P.S.: I have an old cassette tape of the first movie, so I'm wondering what Mr. Kreider means by not being able to see that film now.)
4
Hé doesn't mean the movie is inaccessible. just the original experience.
1
I was 14 when it came out. I watched it and enjoyed it. I just don't remember it being huge cultural thing. Younger kids played with the toys a bit, and for us the theme song was a hit for a while on AM radio. It just wasn't that big a deal.
3
I think why Tolkien Movies fared better. They couldn't obviate alot of its original virtues because the movies were based on books. The script was already laid out and success couldn't convolute the storyline.
8
I watched the original Star Wars the week it came out. I was about 13. I'll never forget the sense of awe and excitement. I've never seen a sequel. Perhaps I'm one of the few lucky ones?
38
@Adan Schwartz You are. As someone whose friends associate me with my love of Star Wars, it has only recently occurred to me that what I love is the very first movie and the awe it inspired in my five year old self. The rest has been peripheral or dispiriting. I honestly wish I could have had your experience of savoring the first and never having seen another.
7
The charm and wonder are lost because Star Wars is trapped in a box of expectations for how it is supposed to feel, which means that directors are given very little freedom to make their own movie, lest the online troll army destroy it like just another Death Star.
Look at how the initial directors of "Solo" and "The Rise of Skywalker" were fired when Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, thought they were straying too far. Lucasfilm, with help from its ever-protective Disney parent, is playing it as safe as can be, all the more so given how the trolls savaged "The Last Jedi" and "Solo". If there is going to be a movie that replicates the charm and wonder of the first Star Wars film, it is going to have to be a brand-new creation, and one not made by Disney.
58
@Mark Lebow Then there's the opinion of many in the "Fandom Menace" who criticize the Disney movies from the opposite perspective! They believe that certain people, including a certain director, have actually been given too much "freedom to make their own movie." Also, Kennedy herself has be excoriated for already "straying too far." So, with opposites coming around to the same point, they would entirely agree with your last sentence.
5