Burning Questions: Why Get Excited For More Star Wars?
Monday, April 29, 2013 at 4:00PM Hey everybody. Michael C. here.
Leia & Han will return. Will it still be TLA?Isn’t it always the way that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone? I didn’t really appreciate as it was happening, but for a hot second there wasn’t any urgent need to talk about Star Wars.
Sure there was always the dull murmur - this is the Internet, after all – but it seemed like every obsessive fan tribute had run its course from Robot Chicken to Family Guy to an entire documentary about obsessive Star Wars fandom. It even felt like folks had started to have their fill of beating up on the prequels, especially after the team over at Red Letter Media had picked all the meat off those particular bones with their epic series of takedown videos.
But it was not to be. Lucas sold off the rights, and that was that. It was like the scene in Jedi where they open the gates at Jabba’s Palace to unleash the horrible monster, only there would be nothing to stop the beast this time. Who would get his or her own spin-off franchise? Boba Fett? The Millennium Falcon? Princess Leia’s hair buns? No speculation was too crazy or unfounded.
Since this looks to be the new reality, at least until the Sun explodes destroying the Earth, and with it the Star Wars franchise, once and for all, maybe some of you can help me by explaining why the prospect of more sequels is a good thing. What is there left to say with Star Wars?
Star Wars wraps it up with tidy finales.
I can think of no incomplete story arcs left over from Episode VI Return of the Jedi. Everything looked to be tied up neat and tidy at that Ewok jamboree. “But wait!” I can here fans screaming. “The rebels only destroyed one space station. There are certain to be more clashes between the rebels and the remnants of the Empire!”
I can never get into this talk. It’s the kind of thing you hear from people who put way, way more thought into this world than Lucas ever did. I don’t think it’s controversial to point out that the Star Wars universe was never imagined with much depth. It’s not Game of Thrones where every inn and cottage holds a side character whose story affects the major plot thread. It was a blockbuster update of Captain Video. The Force, the Death Star, the Jedi Order. As the prequels proved, none of these are concepts that benefit from close examination. This isn’t a world you can get lost exploring. It’s a world where peering around any corner reveals the wooden sets held together by spit and gaffers tape.
And that’s not a bad thing!
Star Wars was Flash Gordon re-imagined with cutting edge special effects and a healthy dose of Kurosawa. It was correct to focus on the big picture adventure stuff without getting bogged down in plot minutia. The ending of Jedi should play as a total victory, not as cautious optimism heading into generations of continued warfare.
But this brings us back to the question: With no lingering character arcs, and without a detailed world left to explore, why do we need more Star Wars films? Beyond the inevitable mountains of box office dollars, that is.
The best I can come up with is the lack of the story left to tell is itself, the best reason to be excited. Everyone loved Patton Oswalt’s recent glorious Star Wars monologue where he free-associated a plot for Episode 7 for minutes on end. The video is revealing, in that, if you think about it, JJ Abrams is in essentially the same position. Without any plot threads to tie up or any detailed mythology to be faithful to, he has free reign to tell pretty much any story he wants. Add to this the fact that the prequels have set the bar so low, the bare minimum of competence behind the camera is going to have the fanboys fainting in the aisles.
So it is to this to I pin whatever glimmers of anticipation I have for more Star Wars. Abrams has a blank check to work with and after paying homage to the Star Wars aesthetic (a light saber here, an X-Wing there) he has a blank slate on which to paint. Maybe the way to get a really ambitious, big-budget sci-fi/fantasy movie to the screen is to smuggle it in under the name Star Wars?
Your thoughts? Could JJ Abrams take this as an opportunity to do something amazing on a grand scale, or will we see the more likely scenario where the demands of fanboys and studio executives lead him to play it safe?
Previous Burning Questions
You can follow Michael C. on Twitter at @SeriousFilm. Or read his blog Serious Film
Reader Comments (7)
I didn't LOVE Star Trek, but I really admired it. There was something really gorgeous and . . . stately (?) about it. I would be curious to see what JJ Abrams does with the Star Wars franchise.
Sadly, the original trilogy doesn't quite hold up for me as an adult . . . esp. since Lucas has tweaked with it (I can't look at the Yoda in Episode V). The prequels were embarrassingly bad. Hopefully Abrams can lend a sort of dignity to the stories.
I lost my love of Star Wars the franchise with the prequels. It isn't that I feel other movies won't or can't be good, but looking forward to them with the same level of excitement I have for a new episode of a television show that's occasionally enjoyable.
Michael C.: Probably something in the middle. This is J.J. Abrams, not a Terry Gilliam or a Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Rises was a complete disaster (though still keeping that odd mix of passion and dispassion in spite of it's disastrousness), for reasons I've gone into, but he's got a couple masterworks right now in Memento and The Dark Knight.) Abrams has revealed himself, at least cinematically, as a kind of bland work horse, not, currently, someone who has revealed he can be a great, masterful director like those other two. There's always hope, but I err on the side of caution.
I guess I fall into the fanboy category in saying that I'm highly anticipating these films. I do agree that ROTJ does work as a definitive ending to Star Wars but I also think exploring the post-Jedi SW universe could make for some intriguing stories and add a greater sense of weight to the Saga, overall (the prequels issue wasn't the story they were trying to tell but the way it was executed). Also, as you said, Abrams and crew aren't held to any particular story thread or end game like Lucas was with the Prequel Trilogy. There's room to take this universe in a lot of different directions.
alejandro -- i have the same problem with the original trilogy now (if they hadn't kept replacing them with do-over stuff - to me it's like colorizing black and white movies. NO) which is sad because they do hold a special place in my life like all people who were little kids when the movies first came out.
daniel -- see i think that "being held to a specific story" was the first bad decision Lucas made (among many to follow). that story would have been so much more thrilling if the main characters from the original trilogy were side characters and we didn't know how everything would turn out for the heroes as a result. It killed it for me from the get go in terms of "narrative"
Nathaniel - That actually would've been a interesting way to do things but Lucas kind of tried that with Episode I. Obi-Wan and Anakin were pretty much supporting roles, while Qui-Gon and Padme got the most screen time. Obviously fan expectations and Lucas own story interest got in the way. The fans expect to see their favorite characters front and center, while Lucas was interested in telling the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker.
The concept of Prequels in general kind of work against basic things a lot of us enjoy about narrative. Most of us like to know what will happen next. By design, however, Prequels are about the how and why (I realize that's not particulalry profound but bear with me). Those kinds of questions can work if you have the right talent behind them but Lucas was not that talent and when you mix in those other things I mentioned, it can be a bit of a creative nightmare.
Also, I have to admit that I didn't become a fan of SW until I saw the SE films in 97' (I was eleven at the time). I absolutely see why people would be upset about them - and the further changes Lucas made to the films on DVD/Blu-Ray were infuriating - but I could never hate them because they made me a fan. Hopefully, Disney will restore the original films at some point and fans - both young and old - can see the films as they were originally made.
Well I feel like the majority doubts JJ but who knows, he realizes how anticipated this movie is and must be prepared for it. While waiting get the
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