Star Wars Will Always Be Awesome, Except for the Movies

The Vulture is exactly right about the new Star Wars TV shows:

Everything tangentially related to Star Wars is awesome — the toys, YouTubed trumpet performances of the theme song, etc. In fact, the only thing about Star Wars we don't like are the movies themselves, all of which suffer from the directing and/or writing of George Lucas (he was also responsible for the crappy Star Wars Holiday Special). As long as Lucas can avoid having anything to do with the series' actual production, it could even be as good as the LEGO Star Wars video games!

Star Wars has always been more fun in the hands of the fans than in the hands of Mr. Lucas. It's the Boba Fett factor: take a cool concept and a thin character sketch and let your imagination run with it. What you thought would be on the screen was always cooler than what you eventually ended up with. Even with the prequels, it was more fun to debate the spy reports and rumors than to actually watch the finished product.

In a way, it's never been Lucas and his endless licensing that's been the downfall of the movies. The toys and games and comics have been the saving grace of the whole enterprise. Merchandise makes Star Wars worthwhile.

So, whatever we get in the future will just be more fodder for the nerd imagination regardless of whether or not they are worth watching.

The Emperor

By now it's a pretty familiar story, but this Atlantic Monthly article from March 1979 is a pretty interesting take on "The Man Who Made Star Wars." It's important to remember that in 1979 there were no sequels, no Episodes, and no "A New Hope." Just Star Wars:

The iconography is bizarre. Darth Vader, the dastardly villain, is black. That is common in science fiction. In the supposedly liberal Planet of the Apes series, the wicked and stupid gorillas are the military, and they are black. The honey-colored chimpanzees are the wise, good scientists. The closer to the color of a California WASP, the better the character: it is a fair rule of thumb. But Darth Vader's forces are storm troopers armored in white. The wicked Grand Moff Tarkin lives in a gray-green world, with gray-green uniforms; he is clearly a wicked Nazi. Yet when our heroes take their just reward at the very end, there are images which parallel the finest documentary of Nazism, Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. "I can see," Kurtz says, "why people think that. I suppose it is like the moment when Hitler crosses the podium to lay the wreath." Critical confusion is not surprising when there are allusions to Nazism as both good and bad. French leftist critics thought the film was fascist; Italian rightists thought it was clearly communistic.

Nor is the vague, pantheistic deism of the film coherent. Star Wars talks much of The Force, a field of energy that permeates the universe and can be used for both good and evil. It is passed on with a sword, just as the sword Excalibur is passed on in the Arthurian romance; the influence of chivalric stories is strong. But when The Force is used by Luke Skywalker to help him destroy the monstrous Death Star, he is urged only to relax, to obey his instincts, to close his eyes and fight by feeling. The Force amounts to building a theology out of staying cool.

Star Wars has been taken with ominous seriousness. It should not be. The single strongest impression it leaves is of another great American tradition which involves lights, bells, obstacles, menace, action, technology, and thrills. It is pinball-on a cosmic scale.

This is just one interpretation. I happen to think that the first movie stands alone pretty well as a complete story. It's when Lucas had the time and money to expand on the original nugget of an idea into an epic and a franchise that his ability to tell a consistent story really fled him.

The rest of the article tells the story of THX, Francis Ford Copolla, American Grafitti, Flash Gordon, and Lucas's nearly cynical attempt to make a kid's movie.
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Listening to: Pet Shop Boys - To Speak Is A Sin
via FoxyTunes

NFL Rankings Week 2

Nerdly Star Wars Edition

The Empire Strikes Back Division
1. Pittsburgh Steelers (3)
2. New England Patriots (7)
3. Houston Texans (2)
4. Indianapolis Colts (5)
5. Green Bay Packers (13)

The Star Wars: A New Hope Division
6. Minnesota Vikings (1)
7. Dallas Cowboys (12)
8. Detroit Lions (9)
9. Washington Redskins (14)
10. Seattle Seahawks (6)

The Revenge of the Sith Division
11. Jacksonville Jaguars (22)
12. San Francisco 49ers (15)
13. Denver Broncos (16)
14. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (27)
15. Tennessee Titans (11)

The Attack of the Clones Division
16. Carolina Panthers (8)
17. Cincinnati Bengals (10)
18. Arizona Cardinals (18)
19. Baltimore Ravens (23)
20. Chicago Bears (29)

The Return of the Jedi Division
21. Cleveland Browns (30)
22. Oakland Raiders (24)
23. Philadelphia Eagles (20)
24. San Diego Chargers (4)
25. St. Louis Rams (25)
26. Miami Dolphins (19)
27. New York Giants (21)

The Phantom Menace Division
28. New York Jets (26)
29. Buffalo Bills (17)
30. New Orleans Saints (28)
31. Kansas City Chiefs (31)
32. Atlanta Falcons (32)