{"id":2811,"date":"2005-05-16T11:34:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-16T11:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/05\/more-star-wars-pre-hype\/"},"modified":"2005-05-16T11:34:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-16T11:34:00","slug":"more-star-wars-pre-hype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/05\/more-star-wars-pre-hype.html","title":{"rendered":"More Star Wars pre-hype"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

1. Just came across this article<\/a> on the upcoming Star Wars<\/a><\/i> movie, which includes this sentence:<\/span><\/p>\n

The final lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan is just one of many showstopping action sequences in Revenge of the Sith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See, that\u2019s part of the problem, right there. They keep stopping the show so much it never starts.<\/p>\n

(I am also vaguely reminded of how I once criticized the climactic duel in Episode I for being almost pompously theatrical \u2014 choreographed \u2014 and not a real fight; the fact that it had virtually nothing to do with the plot didn\u2019t help, either.)<\/p>\n

2. This blog<\/a> posts portions of an offline Entertainment Weekly<\/i> article in which George Lucas admits he was just wasting our time with at least the first two prequels. The most pertinent paragraphs:<\/p>\n

Lucas believes that his biggest gamble was starting the saga with Jake Lloyd\u2019s gee-whiz kid in Menace. Even his marketing team was skeptical. \u201cThat\u2019s a little bit why it got overhyped. People [here] were nervous if it was going to break even,\u201d says Lucas of Menace\u2019s notorious promotional push. \u201cI didn\u2019t care. I said, \u2018This is the story. I know I\u2019m going to need to use Hamburger Helper to get it to two hours, but that\u2019s what I want to do.'\u201d<\/p>\n

By Lucas\u2019 own calculation, 60 percent of the prequel plot he dreamed up decades earlier takes place in Sith. The remaining 40 percent he split evenly between Menace and Clones, meaning each film contained a lot of\u2026filler. Or, in Lucas parlance, \u201cjazz riffs\u2026 things that I enjoy\u2026 just doodle around a lot.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which, surely, is not to say that Episode III isn\u2019t being overhyped too.<\/p>\n

Indeed, some would argue that starting the prequels with the gee-whiz kid was a marketing move in and of itself. Note how, according to Box Office Mojo<\/a>, even after the figures are adjusted for inflation, the first four Star Wars<\/i> films \u2014 including Episode I \u2014 are in the all-time Top 20, whereas Episode II, supposedly an improvement on the previous episode, is currently down at #80.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen where Episode III will end up, of course.<\/p>\n

3. The Associated Press<\/a> reports that people in France like Episode III because it appears to be bashing George W. Bush and current American foreign policy. And then Lucas, who once said<\/a> \u201cthere\u2019s probably no better form of government than a good despot,\u201d goes on to prove that, as I pointed out in earlier<\/a> posts<\/a>, his political sensibilities are as muddled as his spiritual ones.<\/p>\n

His chronology seems a little off, too, inasmuch as he says that he first wrote Star Wars<\/i> back when \u201cwe were going after Iran,\u201d when in fact Iran was in America\u2019s back pocket when he finished the first film in 1977; it was not until 1979, when the pre-production on The Empire Strikes Back<\/i> was almost finished, that the revolution happened whereby the ayatollahs seized power from the Shah.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Lucas is tacitly confirming Gary Kurtz\u2019s claim that he didn\u2019t really settle on certain key parts of the Star Wars<\/i> back-story until some time between Episodes V and VI?<\/p>\n

Oh, and then there\u2019s that moronic quote from Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker who compares Bush to Palpatine because the film shows \u201ca politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, he\u2019s got that reversed \u2014 Palpatine is waging the phony war in order to increase his power. And the analogy falls apart completely unless you are prepared to argue that, just as Palpatine orchestrated the Trade Federation and Count Dooku\u2019s Separatist movement, so too Bush was the secret mastermind behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

4. I just checked and noticed that Jeffrey Overstreet<\/a> has links to some reviews up already \u2014 and my favorite line so far is one that he quotes there, from The New Yorker<\/i>\u2018s Anthony Lane:<\/p>\n

The general opinion of \u201cRevenge of the Sith\u201d seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, \u201cThe Phantom Menace\u201d and \u201cAttack of the Clones.\u201d True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yowch! (But Anthony, didn\u2019t you hear Yoda say how good and natural death is?)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Just came across this article on the upcoming Star Wars movie, which includes this sentence: The final lightsaber duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan is just one of many showstopping action sequences in Revenge of the Sith. See, that\u2019s part of the problem, right there. They keep stopping the show so much it never starts. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMore Star Wars pre-hype<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"1. 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