When I was eight years old, I spent what I remember as a full year but was probably like a week watching Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi two movies a day. I'd start with New Hope and Empire, then do Jedi and New Hope the next day, then Empire and Jedi the next day. Repeat. Thankfully, they were on LaserDisc (we were the ones who had that) so there was no danger of wearing our copies out.
I was kinda into Star Wars.
Now I'm far from unique in this regard. Star Wars is the kind of movie that has inspired generations of filmmakers and it really stood as one of those quantum leaps in showing what you could do on the big screen. The first movie came out nine years before I was even born, but the lasting cultural impact can certainly be felt.
Star Wars was designed to home in on a monomyth as described by Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces (Campbell was a consultant.) The original movie is actually very simple - it hints at a larger world where the action takes place, but everything's somewhat sketched in - you know there's an Empire, but there's little sense of just what that entails, or even where Darth Vader ranks on the Empire's totem pole (he seems to be subordinate to Grand Moff Tarkin, which seems unlikely in retrospect.) The movie only takes us to two planets (ok, one is a moon) and we get a fleeting glimpse of Luke's home life before his uncle and aunt are murdered by a death squad. We get a little sense of the lawless Tatooine (which has to have taken some inspiration from Arrakis from Dune.) But we spend the rest of the movie on spaceships or in military bases (or a combination of the two - the Death Star.)
But the vagueness allows Star Wars to become iconic. I'm not sure I've mentioned it on this blog, but I have a kind of halfway-formulated theory that American culture in particular is obsessed with creating the quintessential, or perhaps the epitome, of a type of story. Star Wars set out to be the heroic fantasy, blending the trappings of science fiction (Asimov's Foundation and Frank Herbert's Dune were clearly both influences) with Arthurian-influenced fantasy (and some Samurai stuff as well.) Jaws might have been the first to start the rise of the blockbuster (and sadly bring about the demise of New American Cinema - was there not room in Hollywood for both?!) but Star Wars, I think, created the idea of the blockbuster film series (though that really started with Empire. Star Wars was expected to be a failure, but I'm pretty certain Empire and Jedi were greenlit in one fell swoop.)
The original theatrical version of Star Wars (I'm given to understand - I was merely a gleam in my parents' eyes when it came out and Lucas was pretty draconic in fully replacing earlier versions of the film, which is why I don't own the original trilogy on DVD) actually said nothing of an "Episode IV," but Lucas threw this in and made Empire and Jedi V and VI, respectively, as a reference to the old serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon that Lucas had been trying to mimic (similar to what he and Spielberg would do with 30's and 40s adventure films with Indiana Jones and what Tarantino would do with Spaghetti Westerns, Kung Fu movies, Samurai flicks, and Exploitation films in... basically his entire career.)
But with the original trilogy being episodes 4-6, that clearly implied a 1-3 (and even before the prequels, Lucas did mention that he'd like to see a 7-9 as well.)
I could go on a long diatribe about the prequels and the myriad ways that they failed, but this is the internet, so this has been done already (though perhaps never as comprehensively as by the venerable Mr. Plinkett from Red Letter Media.) Short story is that Lucas, being the owner of the franchise and technically its creator, had gotten to be such a powerful force in Hollywood that no one was able to rein in his bad choices, and that Lucas was always more of an ideas man than an actual film director.
What I'd be more interested in talking about was how the prequels taught me to be cynical about movies.
Episode One came out when I was twelve years old. I had discovered Star Wars four years previously, and I remained a true-believer. And when I went to see the Phantom Menace, I came out of the theater pleased. Now, you could argue that that means I shouldn't be critical of the film. Well, first off, you should know something about me: I have a huge positive response bias. And when the movie I saw was a Star Wars movie, I was primed to like it no matter what was on screen. There were people fighting with laser-swords and there were spaceships blowing up.
But not long after, I started to look back at the movie and see its flaws. I began to realize how the story was stuffed with ham-fisted attempts at intrigue that only wound up robbing Star Wars of its iconic hero's journey heart. (Even though I walked out of the movie happy like the stupid, stupid twelve-year-old I was, I was deeply upset about the midichlorian bullshit from the moment that scene ended.) I defended both of the subsequent prequels, thankful that they ditched the "cute precocious kid" angle, but each time, I spent less time trying to convince myself that the given movie was good.
The prequels taught me a harsh lesson about getting my hopes up. Thankfully, they overlapped with the Lord of the Rings, which in stark contrast, did live up to the hype. I remember that before Fellowship came out John Rhys-Davies said something at a premiere about the films being "bigger than Star Wars," which I scoffed at, because that seemed arrogant, almost blasphemous. But then, the Lord of the Rings films really did become the "New Star Wars" in terms of scale and adoration.
But I went into those movies a bit wary. And it has been really hard to get excited about a big new cinematic event since then. Of course, the past few years has seen Hollywood pouring all of its resources (apparently there isn't actually room in Hollywood for more than one type of movie) into reboots, remakes, prequels and sequels. Even Lord of the Rings has gotten its own version of the Star Wars prequels in the Hobbit movies (though they're not quite as reviled, given that at least Jackson had material to work from - albeit only enough for one movie.) These films are all attempts to get people excited - using nostalgia as a way of making an implicit promise that "you will feel just as you felt when you saw the original the first time." But it can't, because you've already had that experience.
Abrams rebooted Star Trek - opting to keep the brand recognition of the original series' crew and making a far more action-oriented version of the story. Now, to be fair, the Star Trek movies have always been more action-driven. Weird, cerebral sci-fi is easier to justify on a TV show when you can always have the space battle next episode. But one of the critiques the Star Trek reboot got was that it was more Star Wars than Star Trek.
Abrams is now king of the nerds, and so he is now in charge of Star Wars, after Lucas sold the rights to Disney.
And today we got a new trailer for The Force Awakens. Facebook has, of course, been exploding with celebrations. But there's a... I apologize if this is hyperbolic here, because ultimately it's just a movie, but there's almost like a PTSD flashback to 1999. We were so incredibly excited for the prequels - there's footage of people falling to their knees in gratitude to simply being allowed into the theater at the premiere.
All this excitement... it worries me.
And that's sad, because I would love to be able to give in and be eight years old again, or twelve (before May 19th, 1999.) But the prequels robbed me of that.
On the bright(ish) side, my expectations are a lot lower than I think most peoples' are, which means that I could be in for a pleasant surprise. I saw Star Trek Into Darkness, so I know Abrams is far from perfect, but if he doesn't get too convoluted (and that's really more in the hands of the screenwriter, Lawrence Kasdan, who penned Empire) he could pull it off. Do I think the trailer looks good? Yes, absolutely (the fallen Star Destroyer that's so far away that atmospheric effects shade it is breathtaking.) Am I going to see it? Obviously.
But I won't allow myself to expect too much. I want a solid story, some good action, some fun banter between the characters, and if I get that, I'll be satisfied.
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