George Lucas sucks
So I didn’t have time to see another movie the weekend, and won’t see one tomorrow as I actually have a date with a woman (??!), but I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind a lot with regards to the Star Wars franchise. I admit a lot of this has been inspired by watching the Harry Plinkett reviews on Red Letter Media (I highly recommend you check them out), but this has been something that thought of years ago when I first saw Episode III, Revenge of the Sith.
See, the thing is, I am a huge Darth Vader fan. I love the guy. Big, scary, intimidating, ruthless, clever, and has mysterious powers and a laser sword. How can you not love him? So when I first heard that the Episode I-III prequils were going to be about his origin, I was totally excited. I dreamed of watching him fight in the Clone Wars, tearing ass through Jedi and enemy troopers while all around him despaired. More than anything I wanted to see more of Darth Vader in all his cool badness. What I didn’t expect was the whole incoherant, disjointed, amaturish mess that Lucas excreted and should have flushed. (Vader image courtesy of the sci fi t shirt category)
First we had Episode I, the Phantom Menace. I, like most folks, was confused about the title and what it was supposed to mean. To be perfectly honest, this was my state of mind even after having watched it. There was no real story, tension, or drama on any level. The robot army fell to the Jedi with little to no effort and posed absolutely no real threat. Even if they did pose a threat, I wouldn’t have cared as none of the good guys gave me the slightest reason to care one bit about them (actually, a lot of them gave me reason to hate them and hope they died **cough cough Jar Jar Binks and the entire Gungan race cough cough**). The Jedi’s were lame, Padme was hot but lame, and young Anakin Skywalker made me want to push a kid out of an emergency exit on a moving bus. The only character I even remotely cared about died. No, not Qui Gon Jinn. I spent most of the movie hoping he would die. It was Darth Maul, the only character with even the slightest tinge of coolness and the only character who didn’t act like there were taking double doses of Prozium (that’s an Equilibrium joke, if you care).
Anyway, the point here is that this movie had absolutely none of Darth Vader. Instead we got to see a kid who couldn’t act spout out trite and stupid dialog (yes, George, this is all pointed at you) and generally make me want to set fire to the screen. By the way, George, how did an eight year old Anakin find a child sized helmet in the cockpit of a Naboo fighter supposedly piloted by an adult? So Episode I Darth Vader content = 0.0.
Then came Episode II, Attack of the Clones. I prayed for Darth Vader in this one. I thought, “This has to be the part where Obi Won pushes Anakin into an acid jacuzzi and he gets into the cool suit.” Or at least have him enjoy some preminition vision of the mask, the suit, or something about him joining the Dark Side. Remember when Luke had a vision of himself in the mask during The Empire Strikes Back? Something like that. Instead we are subjected to the lamest romance in the history of the human race, much less cinema. Seriously, there was more chemistry in the romance in Lars and the Real Girl. How does a girl fall in love with a guy who murders an entire village, including women and children? We also get to see some really stupid plot developments. Did Obi Won or anyone ever think to maybe ask where the order or money for all the clones came from? We also get to see young Boba Fett and early Stormtroopers, which should have been cool, but kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe it was all the giant bugs at the end.
Anyway, instead of seeing Darth Vader in all his glory we are subjected to a whiny teenager who just made me want to punch Hayden Christensen so hard his mother would feel it, and his cradle robbing cougar girlfriend (did no one else remember she met him when he was eight and she was a fully grown woman? No creepy factor there at all). Episode II Darth Vader content = 0.0.
Then we get into the finale of this debacle, Episode III, Revenge of the Sith (anyone else ever wonder about revenge for what? What exactly did the Jedi do to the Sith that made a guy who wasn’t even alive when whatever happened want revenge?). I heard early on that they actually signed James Earl Jones to do the Vader voice, and I couldn’t have been more excited. “OK,” I thought. “This is where Anakin Skywalker goes full evil. If Lucas has any kind of dignity, respect, and understanding of his audience he will have Anakin take his molten lava bath in the first 30 minutes and then spend an hour and a half vivisecting Jedi.” Nnnnnnnnope. Instead we get more inane romance, everyone in the movie except Palpatine acting like they ate an exclusive diet of lead paint chips, and completely pointless and stupid CGI action. Anakin finally gets off his ass and goes Dark Side, but does it still as whiny metrosexual Anakin Skywalker. The final fight scene goes on so long that when he at last lands in the hot lava I didn’t really care anymore. Then, in the last few minutes, we get a look at the “great” Darth Vader. However, he is not walking around delivering chilling dialog and thinly veiled threats while force choking disbelievers who doubt the power of the force. No. We get him acting like a stupid cry baby. By the way, I really mean stupid. He knows Palpatine is Dark Side and tends towards evil. Did it never occur to him to ask to see Padme’s body before becoming the Emperor’s towel boy? Did he really think that the man who just got him to betray everything he ever stood for and kill all his friends in a megalomaniacal bid for total galactic power might have just bent the truth even a little? Not only would I want to see the body, I’d want to be present for the autopsy. Also, did he also really not think to ask about the kids she was about to drop? At that late a stage in pregnancy it is very possible for an unborn child to survive the death of the mother. Maybe his helmet was just one size too small.
So final Darth Vader content for Episode III = 0.02 in one sense, but in the sense of what I really wanted to see 0.0 again. And that’s it for the whole series. George, you sold out a cherished childhood memory of mine in order to make a ton of money on toys and other crap, and honestly didn’t even do a tolerable job of it. It’s is now obvious to me that you had some talented people working for you (or overriding you in some ways) for A New Hope, the Empire Strikes Back, and to a lesser extent Return of the Jedi (remember the Ewoks). You must have fired them for disagreeing with you and instead surrounded yourself with talentless yes men (Rick McCallum, that last comment was directed at you). What was the problem? Weren’t you already rich enough? Couldn’t you have taken a chance on not making quite as much money in order to retain some form of artistic integrity? Or is this really as good as you can do? In either case, you suck. Don’t ever make another movie again, please.
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