On the Late to the Party scale, I have to concede that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has been a major blind spot for me. After all, I love Star Wars (before Disney got their claws into it, at least), and if you mention Star Wars and videogames in the same sentence then KoTOR inevitably comes up (probably just after I’ve thrown Jedi Knight II into the ring myself).
So here we are!
The Force Hits Snooze. This should have been a rollicking finale to Close, But No Star Wars, but we’ve said pretty much all that we need to about The Force Awakens throughout our rambling examination of the Star Wars films, usually as a counterpoint to what the other ones got right. So here we put a few final nails in the coffin and… move on with our lives?
Bah. I only get angry because I care. My answer, of course, is to bear in mind all of this as I work on my own fiction. I will have giant death lasers, yes — but mine will have the narrative framework to support them, and give them due weight when they arrive. I will not be afraid to extrapolate my universe, I will not endlessly recycle the same set-pieces, and I will not let old characters completely smush new ones… I hope. (But rebellions are built on hope, right?)
Since I don’t really want us to end on a downer, remembering only the pain of bad Star Wars rather than the heights of good Star Wars, I’m going to part with this fantastic 15-minute disco medley of the Star Wars theme(s) by Meco. May the force be with us!
Starkiller Base is such a massive, critical failure of writing. Handed the keys to Star Wars, they did not carry the torch forward and instead sat still to make the same thing again but bigger. If you can’t remember, Disney, we already did that in the original trilogy and only barely got away with it. The galaxy’s biggest ever super-weapon, a footnote barely present for half a film and destroyed as perfunctorily — in the first part of a trilogy!
I don’t see a way that they can escalate beyond this, but neither can I see an Empire Strikes Back-stlye de-escalation that wouldn’t render the thing more meaningless than it already is.
First film in the new age, such promise, such hope — and the ball was thoroughly dropped. Dropped so thoroughly that the best we can do in subsequent things is to sweep it under the carpet… But it’s too big for that. Aaargh! Listen as we outline better ideas.
And so we come to the original trilogy, the sequence that so very much got the biscuit. The truth is that early exposure to Star Wars defined everything I’ve ever wanted from sci-fi and fantasy in the days hence, and that’s why the lacklustre prequel trilogy and the travesty of The Force Awakens both hurt so much — because the things they tried to build on were fucking brilliant.
Yes, the original trilogy got enough biscuits for everyone, even in those brief moments when it really shouldn’t have. Star Wars is awsome, and though you can try to convince me otherwise by appending crud over the top of it, you’ll never take away the parts that are truly beautiful. (And let’s face it, as a Star Wars fan I’ve spent all my life selectively ignoring parts of the Expanded Universe and elevating others — I wonder if any two people alive have a consistent personal Star Wars headcanon?)
Too many characters spoil the broth? Maybe Rouge One could have been improved with some streamlining and focus — collapse some too-similar characters together and spend more time developing a smaller cast. I know I don’t really do characters as anything more than plot devices, but even on that scale there are a few too many plot devices with not much to offer the film.
No additional thoughts this time. Am I actually getting better at articulating myself during live chat-time? Heaven forbid!
To me, it will always be Rouge One. I grew up in Warcraft III forums awash with quick-typing teenagers spouting about fantasy archetypes, and the word “rogue” always, always, always came out as “rouge”.
So, yes, much as I enjoyed Rouge One at the cinema I can concede in the light of deeper analysis that it’s rather wobbly in places. In the spirit of this stand-alone film really not being stand-alone, then, we’ve folded it into our mainline analysis of the Star Wars core cinematic sequence.
I have some things to add about characters and plots because I don’t think that what I said about “Star Wars not really being about characters” came out very well in the mix. Let’s face it, I’m a writer, not a speaker. (Not that ruminating on the thought for a bit longer will necessarily make my argument any more valid, but it might at least clarify my position.)
Continue reading “Blog 713: Close, But No Biscuit – Star Wars – Part 8”
After the attack of the interstitial film where nothing really happens, Revenge of the Sith has far too much going on in it. Suddenly we have to complete Darth Vader’s origin story and cement the rise of the Empire by ending the Clone Wars. Our conclusion is that it has far overstretched itself to have both, and our money is on the rise of the Empire plot as the more interesting one.
Let Darth Vader’s origins remain spoken of in hushed tones — it’s the galaxy-spanning double-sided Sith-puppetted civil war conspiracy plot that delivers the proper goods. After all, the original trilogy wasn’t about the death of Darth Vader, it was about the rebellion and the fall of the Empire. (Although the final battle between Obi Wan and Anakin is a stonker of a fight sequence. Could we have had that with General Grievous instead? :>)
No transcripts this time, and no additional thoughts either because we’ve pretty much covered all of it.
Villains are critical to the success of any fantasy adventure. I mean, without some suitably bad-ass villain (bad ass-villain), what have we got to rail against? Needless to say, the prequel trilogy’s problem is that we don’t get a consistent antagonist throughout — although it’s Palpatine’s story, he’s only revealed to our heroes as the true villain at the end of the line.
In the mean time, the three films chew though a succession of minibosses who are not actually given enough time to breathe before they’re unceremoniously murdered — including one of my favourite character designs of all time, let alone of Star Wars, General Grievous.
We blast all over the three prequels here in this ostensibly Episode II-based chat so, once again, apologies for melting our own continuity.
No transcripts this time, and no additional thoughts either. We… er… recorded this one a while ago…
Rao Dao Zao 