by JohnnyHarpoon Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:40 am
Well, at least part of it I'd say is that Lucas himself didn't direct them. I'm not a big fan of any of the 'first three' (episodes 1-3), so don't get me wrong, but I'm definitely not denying the potential coexistence of art and camp...in fact, using American Graffiti or even Francis Ford Coppola's film Tucker (which was highly influenced by Lucas, starring Jeff Bridges, and campy as hell) as examples, I'd say that Lucas just understood how to execute his own campy ideas the best. Coppola, a quite capable director and friend of Lucas, definitely understood them as well and thus produced a solid piece of camp, too (albeit biographical instead of science-fiction). In Empire and Jedi, though, I question the true accuracy of the directors' interpretations of Lucas' ideas...like, whereas I truly believe that Princess Leia programs her last and only hope onto two droids, Luke feels like he spends half of Empire talking to a puppet. There's just something missing in the fundamentals for me, and whether it's the director or whatever, the bottom line is that I find myself getting bored watching Empire and Jedi at times (particularly the middle of both) and I am really never bored during A New Hope.
Story-wise, I feel things could have been expanded upon. For instance, there was really never a point where I thought Luke would go to the dark side. Now, I'm not saying that the dark side never temps him...but that there's never a moment where he really seems truly tempted by the dark side. From a writing perspective, that is definitely something that could have upped the stakes in my mind. Luke, an orphan, discovers that his father, whom he presumed to be dead his entire life, is actually still alive, and he isn't even ****ing tempted to go to the dark side and toss the pigskin with ol' Dad? It's true, if Palpatine were there telling me to come to the dark side and stuff, regardless of my father being there or not, I probably wouldn't, either...that guy's creepy...but like I can't have one goddamn minute where I'm worried that the protagonist will make a bad decision?
I'm mostly looking at what I perceive as Luke's goal, to be come a Jedi like his father (I believe that a pretty solid paraphrasing of his exact words). Yes, his goal is to become a Jedi...but in becoming a Jedi, he is really looking for his father...which is why we as humans can relate to the story. Then, there's this whole scene where he finds his own face in Vader's helmet on Dagobah...alright, weird, let's hope that never happens...back to becoming a badass Jedi like my father. Then, boom! He actually finds the guy at the end of Empire. Everything he had believed before is shattered...including his goal. His goal is now split into two - he can't become a Jedi like his father - he can either become a Jedi, or become like his father. Whoa, that cave scene was crazy foreshadowing...I guess. If Luke had actually ever seemed like, for a second, that he was going to turn to the dark side, yeah, definitely. But it went how it went, and to me, there could have been a whole new layer to the story that was just set up and set up but never quite paid off.
And yeah, there's more to it than that, but that's a pretty solid tasting of the menu for now. And yeah, I'm being a nitpicky prick, but it's important in my book to be able to separate personal affections from critical opinions, at least when it comes to films. Obviously, often they coincide...but sometimes they don't. So don't get me wrong - I love the **** out of Empire and Jedi. If it weren't for Hoth, or Dagobah, or Cloud City, my imagination wouldn't be what it is today. If it weren't for Leia all Jabba-slaved out, who knows when I'd have realized that cooties are actually something I may be into. If it weren't for Ewoks, I'd have never learned that you can coerce tiny forest-folk to aid in your war against The Man. So yeah, I'll go on worshipping my Boba Fett pez dispenser as a false idol just to break real-God's commandment and align myself with Star-Wars-God...but in the end, A New Hope is really the goodest one.