How George Lucas Ruined Star Wars

Part 1: The Phantom Menace

Ah, Star Wars.  The original Star Wars trilogy rekindles some of the fondest memories of my early childhood.  When I was younger I was obsessed with these movies.  I used to marvel at the various posters, toys and video games for hours.  I had all of the Super Nintendo games and at one point played through them on a daily basis (I believe that phase lasted for about a month).  I had comic books and novels which enriched the universe.  The fact of the matter is none of this extraneous material was never produced by George Lucas himself, but all these things were so fascinating it really didn’t deter my love for Star Wars at all.  And then there was the Phantom Menace.

When it's good it's good

I saw the film on opening day and I was so excited.  I just couldn’t believe there was a new Star Wars movie.  To be more precise I was excited that George Lucas was directing a new Star Wars movie.  I remember the chill as the words Star Wars: Episode I appeared, bolstered by the lush crescendo of John Williams’ musical score.  And then the movie began.  I would say I was upset, but I fell asleep about halfway through so I’m really not sure what happened the first time I saw it.  There was something about a Republic and a kid with a racecar.  I don’t think the original trilogy spoon fed me politics, but I’m pretty sure that’s what this movie was doing.  But I’m not going to wax about why I disliked this movie; rather, I’m going to discuss why the prequels ruined the original trilogy (I still love episodes IV – VI, but now there are an overwhelming amount of plot holes I have to deal with).

But when it's bad...

Here’s a little psychological fact for you, and it’s only going to apply to people who saw episode IV before the prequels, but the fact is age is relative.  OK, so there is some pretty lengthy discussion about Luke’s father in A New Hope.  Naturally people are going to try to imagine what his father would have looked like.  Since Luke is in his twenties, most people will generally imagine the father to be at least slightly older even though he “died” several years ago.  It’s just a circumstance of the brain, even though it’s really not that logical.  When most people think of Anakin as a pilot in relation to the first movie, they are actually going to picture Anakin as more akin to Han Solo, rather than a whiny farm boy.  Remember, Luke doesn’t show off his piloting skills until the very end, and he only practices with the light saber, so the audience generally wouldn't imagine Anakin to be anything like Luke.  The audience would most likely picture Anakin as a father figure, something we sadly never see in the prequels.

Unfortunately, Episode I begins with a very young Anakin Skywalker.  This was the movie’s first flaw.  We had three movies to take in Luke’s character arc, and it worked itself within a very small time frame (probably no more than ten years).  Seeing a young Anakin means that the films are going to move more sporadically in a much larger time frame.  The audience won’t have a chance to believe in a character’s transformation as much as they did (for all the characters) in the original trilogy.  Let me illustrate this point (and this will be very crude):

We’ll start with Luke –

Ep. IV – Starry eyed, wants to learn about the force, not very experienced.

Ep. V – Comfortable with his position in life, learning about the force, experienced but still naïve.

Ep. VI – Much darker perhaps even cynical, knows a lot about the force, one step away from becoming a full Jedi.

Now Anakin –

Ep. I – Just a kid but seems to know everything, no motivation except to be nice to others, has Jedi reflexes but doesn’t know about the force.

Ep. II – In love, very moody, knows a lot about the force (Jedi Knight).

Ep. III – Scared, still very moody, wants to learn even more about the force.

So as you can see the prequels are much more obscure in character development.  In the original trilogy, Luke wanted to bring down the Empire and Darth Vader.  This fact never changed throughout three movies.  His motivation was always the same.  It was complicated by the revelation that Vader was his father, but his end goal was always to restore peace to the galaxy.  Anakin seems to be motivated by something different in each movie.  It obfuscates character development, and the audience can’t really become emotionally attached to a character like that.  Look at Anakin in Episode II.  He claims he hasn’t stop thinking about Padme, but why?  The Phantom Menace gave no allusions that Anakin was smitten with Padme.  Basically, George Lucas is asking that the audience just accept this.  When a director does something like this, then he feels that his audience is stupid – a bunch of rubes he can sucker punch for precious dollar bills.  I thought he may have been right when I sat through two hours of this wasted celluloid only to see the morons around me start to cheer when Yoda did his little sword dance at the end.

Bruce Spence: making movies slightly less awful since 1982

George Lucas is quite the thinker though.  He must have known the characters were incredibly underdeveloped, so he came up with the most uninspired solution in movie history: the bad guy hair cut.  I’m sure one of the meetings went something like this:

Studio Exec:  George, the audience will never believe this whiny kid from Episode II is going to become Darth Vader.

George Lucas:  Hmm.  Give him long hair and put some scars on his face then.

Studio Exec:  Long hair?  Scars?  How is that going to –

George Lucas:  Yes (tapping the tips of his fingers together sinisterly) long hair.  I will call it the bad guy hair cut, Mwa haa haa.

Studio Exec:  OK, but what about Obi Wan?  He really doesn’t seem mature enough to be a Jedi Master.

George Lucas:  A beard.  A beard I say.  A special beard – a grizzly beard.  A mighty, mighty beard.  Ahh ha ha ha (continues laughing maniacally.  Studio Executive joins in maniacal laughter).  Come; let us raise Don Knotts from the grave.

That's pure evil folks

See, you don’t need good dialogue, just good makeup.  Hell, that’s the entire concept in the Indiana Jones movies.

I will conclude for now, as it seems I’ve already delved more into Episode II than I would have liked.  Our next segment will look at Attack of the Clones and how pretty scenery doesn’t make a pretty movie.

Article Keywords: George Lucas, Star Wars, Luke, Anakin, Episode I

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