A NEW HOPE
I'd never seen 'McClunky'.
I realised what was about to happen about twenty seconds before it actually did and was braced for it. Well, I thought I was braced for it. When it actually happened I involuntarily blurted out "what the fuck was that?!?" and then had to pause the film to explain the whole thing to my wife.
Please stop fucking with this film. Can we agree on that, at least?
But it all started here with a film that practically rewrote what it meant to be a box office success. Watching A New Hope 45 years later I think it's really hard to appreciate just how revolutionary it was and so I have to review the film that's in front of me and, unfortunately, I have a couple of bones to pick with A New Hope:
1) All the junk that George Lucas added to Mos Eisley is an abomination. All the stupid characters that have 'hilarious' pratfalls and do their best to distract you from the film you're supposed to be watching. The incredibly ugly way that a bad CGI Jabba is forced into the film, complete with Han standing on his tail and the fourth wall breaking cameo from Boba Fett. The endless and tedious debates over who shot first. None of it fits in this film and it rips you out of the flow of the story.
2) Even the original cut of A New Hope sagged a whole lot in the middle (and isn't helped by all the extra bits that George added). After the iconic and breathless introduction there must be a good 45 minutes of back-to-back scenes of various people just talking to each other. Then the heroes break into the cell block on the Death Star and then the film doesn't stop again until the credits roll. I think modern storyboarding wouldn't allow without something to gee it all along in the middle.
All the rest of A New Hope is, rightly, a cinematic icon. Luke, Han and Leia landed on our screens as fully-formed characters we believed in. Darth Vader, the ultimate bad guy. All the great concepts of Ralph McQuarrie brought to life. The action. The great one-liners in the dialogue. The vision of rediscovering a pure balance of entertainment for all and simple tales of right and wrong.
Oh yeah, X-Wings. Heard of them?
But I would rarely choose to sit down and watch A New Hope. I'm sure that's partly because I must easily have watched it 50 times or more, and counting, but it's also because I really just want to jam my finger onto the fast-forward for half the film to get to the good bits. And these days you also can't avoid all the shit that George Lucas jammed into it just because he had a new toy to play with.
Force Rating: 8/10 (it would be 9/10 for the original cut)
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Now this is podracing.
The Empire Strikes Back is a masterpiece, adding so much emotional depth and worldbuilding to the Star Wars universe that really wasn't there in the self-contained A New Hope. We see more of the might and organisation of the Empire and are introduced to the Emperor, we see the heroes' friendship strengthen, we learn about the Force and the Jedi, and ultimately we learn about the Skywalker saga properly in a moment and revelation that echoes through nine films.
Somehow The Empire Strikes Back is both bigger than the first film and more personal. Somehow the film is focused on two individual relationships - Luke & Vader, Han & Leia - while also giving so much more to the supporting cast. In this lockdown rewatch I realised how little Chewbacca actually did in A New Hope contrasted with how important he in this film, and there's still plenty of time for C3-PO to snipe at R2-D2 even when he's reassembled ass-backwards.
And Lando. And Yoda. And tropes that we now understand as part of every Star Wars movies like the exotic and dangerous creatures.
And we got our first real lightsaber duel. As a kid growing up in the early 1980's I can assure you that none of us were waving our torches around pretending to be Obi Wan Kenobi... we were Luke Skywalker because this was a lightsaber duel that we could really believe in and be excited by. In the operating system in my brain there is a large folder marked 'Star Wars'. This is the thumbnail image for that folder....
The Empire Strikes Back is Star Wars. Not just the most exciting film of the original trilogy but also by far the best. I have a confession to make: it's not my favourite Star Wars film but I also recognise that it's so clearly the best. I tried to find reasons to possibly mark it down so that I could give a bigger score to my favourite Star Wars film than I did to Empire. I came up blank.
Force Rating: 10/10
THE RETURN OF THE JEDI
We need to tackle this one up front: Ewoks are mostly rubbish and the first signs of Star Wars heading towards toys and the kids market that would ultimately be where The Phantom Menace would emerge from over a decade later. But they aren't enough to sink this film.
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| I'm getting PTSD from Jar Jar's antics seven films ago... |
Return of the Jedi eschews the typical three-act structure to essentially put two final acts back-to-back. You could even argue that with the epic space battle and emotional lightsaber duel happening concurrently it's even three final acts in one film!
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| Oh god, make it stop. |
I enjoyed almost everything that happened in Jabba's palace (with the exception of yet another completely unwarranted CGI song & dance number being crowbarred in afterwards) and it plays an important part in the story. We left Luke as a rookie Jedi who had blundered into his showdown with Vader too quickly and here we see his final form of a Jedi Knight who can wander unarmed into a crimelord's palace and bring his organisation tumbling down. It sets the scene for the rematch that is to come, and ultimately for Luke to go the step beyond what either Anakin or Obi Wan could achieve.
Those of us who play X-Wing tend to enjoy our space battles and as much as the Cloud City duel was the defining lightsaber battle, Endor is arguably still the defining space battle of the whole saga. Interwoven with scenes from the moon's surface and the throne room, the moments we see from battle are always a pure shot of adrenaline.
I think it's churlish to deny all the good things that are in The Return of the Jedi and focus on the Ewoks. I'm not going to do it, but I am going to recognise that it's a clear marker that after the triumph of The Empire Strikes Back the franchise was heading in the wrong direction by the end of the original trilogy.
Force Rating: 7/10
It's so hard to objectively review the original trilogy, it was my whole damn childhood after all. Perhaps the best testament I can pay them is just how well they stand up 40+ years later. They're all very different films, though: A New Hope was a breezy space adventure which The Empire Strikes Back then retconned into being part of a more epic storyline of good and evil while fleshing out the lead characters to the point where watching their story reach a conclusion just about drags Return of the Jedi across the line in a satisfying manner.
There's a deftness of touch that's missing from the prequel trilogy, and a sense of humour that was desperately missing too. We look back on Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan Kenobi with such fondness precisely because he was the only one who really got to carry on that Star Wars tradition of being funny, while everyone else in the prequels is so swept up by just how serious and important everything has to be the whole time.
The original trilogy set up the recipe for what Star Wars was: epic adventure, yes, but it's also about the relationships between characters who feel like rounded people rather than vehicles for exposition. It's a balance of action and humour which also fuelled the likes of the Indiana Jones movies but was lost by the time prequel trilogy was being made.
Yes there's big battles and tremendous lightsaber duels, but I think Star Wars is remembered ultimately for the dialogue and the characters, without which it would never have found the wide audience it did.
They're just three bloody great films about three bloody great characters.
Next Time: The Sequel Trilogy (including my favourite Star Wars film)
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