Monday 10 May 2010

May the farce be with you

I never really 'got' Star Wars. I've seen most of the original three films, but I've never sat through them from beginning to end. The only one I've seen all the way through was the first of the 'new' prequels because a 'friend' made us go to Rhyl on the opening day. It was one of the worst cinematic experiences I've ever had. A plot to rival Balamory (seriously guys, if you're stealing the basic outline of the fall of the Roman Republic and birth of the Roman Empire, surely you can make it interesting) and graphics reminiscent of Civilization II, which I was playing a lot then.

There are two anecdotes about the films which spring to mind: Spielberg or Lucas telling whoever played Leia that 'there are no breasts in Star Wars' as they bound her tightly, and Harrison telling Lucas that 'you can type this shit George, but we sure as hell can't say it'.

So if you've never seen Star Wars, here's a two-minute synopsis of the originals. In Lego. I'm not sure if they're fans or not.

8 comments:

Ewarwoowar said...

How very strange - my brother and I were watching that EXACT same video yesterday!

A few things though:

1) You're wrong about Leia, as every red-blooded male who's seen her in that metal bikini will testify. And any fool knows its Carrie Fisher who played Leia!

Harrison Ford certainly did say that however - its one of my favourite quotes.

2) You really should watch the original three. The prequels are desperately awful - greed driven, populist bullshit, with Episode II being the... (thinks) 3rd(?) worst film of all time in my opinion. But the older films are fabulous, and are essentially a classic morality tale of good vs evil (with supposed evil eventually reverting back to good). They should show the films in schools, no joke.

3) There's a slight mistake in that video regarding how Luke first meets up with Obi-Wan/Ben Kenobi.

4) I desperately need to get a life.

The Plashing Vole said...

I don't remember said bikini. I've seen most of each of the original films - they're alway son TV, but I'm never motivated to actually decide to watch them. I'd probably have remembered her name in time.

4. Yes, you do!

Benjamin. said...

I also never grasped or cared for the concept regarding Star Wars but I was surprised at your disdain considering you referred to Star Trek in a Vietnam War Studies presentation. It’ll be no great shock to you both to hear that I despise that series too. In fact, all sci-fi novels and films are pretentious rabble that never realistically will happen, there is no great big mystery behind life and all alien species are, a fragment of our delusion.

Star Wars seemed to me, to be a fad that geeks and outsiders of the last generation caught up in and never a masterpiece as such but as Ewar said the original trilogy is universally known as the finest of the lot.

The best of all time is a stalemate between Rambo and Terminator (another mad concept).

Ewarwoowar said...

I don't agree Ben. I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi per se, but to criticise it for not being realistic is wrong and missing the point I think. What is interesting about all these examples mentioned is not that they could happen, but what they stand for.

Star Wars - good vs evil
Star Trek - the American dream
Rambo - Propaganda
Terminator and Robocop - Dystopian warnings

I don't like Dr Who, and have never enjoyed it when I've watched it, but I'm sure it has an agenda like the examples shown above.

Dan said...

Let's just get it out in the open. Star Wars is rubbish.

Threadsmash.

(I am completely prepared for someone to 'own' me with several well thought out points on the saga which thoroughly diminish my personal taste).

Benjamin. said...

That's true, Ewar. It's ideological foundations and agendas as you say, are clear but the medium it's portrayed is a bloody piss-take.

Rambo was following the bandwagon of fictional heroic American soldiers who fought in Vietnam (a war they created) yet when you watch it, you couldn't care less about its relevance, the action precedes the moral dilemma as it does with sci-fi. Hollywood is bullshit as we know but surely there could be a more accurate science fictional tale that adopts moral rather than theatrical emphasis.

Doctor Who's saving grace is that leggy redhead. Anyhow, shouldn't we be doing our revision? Well, if truth be told, I should be at work but an afternoon teaching Year 7s after a weekend on the beer, drowning sorrows of our title defeat didn't appeal to me

The Plashing Vole said...

Where to start. I'm not disdaining Star Wars totally - it's just rather passed me by. The point about Star Trek is fair - I am a fan - though I've always thought of the original series as culturally interesting. It deals, for example, with the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement in explicit terms.

Which leads me to: science fiction as a genre. It's too easy to dismiss it, especially if you use TV/film as examples. The best science fiction extrapolates from the present to consider pressing social affairs through a (sometimes) futuristic prism. Silent Running appeared as eco-consciousness was born, Soylent Green reflected a fear of overpopulation, Star Wars recuperated America as the Rebels (back to 1776) after having become the Empire in Vietnam.

Mostly, 'sf' (the term doesn't really cover much now) literature does better. I'd recommend Gwyneth Jones on anything from national politics (Band of Gypsys [sic], feminism (Kairos) and postcolonialism (the Buonarotti novels), M. John Harrison on psychology and hard physics (Light is stunning), Ken MacLeod for Trotskyist/anarchist/Scottish science fiction, Jeff Noon on social change (I know Ben's a Noon fan) and Gibson of course on future hypercapitalism.

That's just for starters… A lot of SF is just dross of course, but so is a lot of any genre. My pet hate is bookshops putting the 'fantasy' in with the 'sf'. Category error.

Oh and Rambo = Hollywood BS. But 'First Blood' is a very subtle and interesting take on the alienation felt by returning veterans to a country hugely changed in their absence. For an SF version of this, try Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, which uses relativity to depict veterans returning from an interminable war across the galaxy - the physics of space travel means that centuries pass on Earth while only months have passed for the soldiers.

Benjamin. said...

Well, stone me. That is quite a list there, Vole. Jesus! Jeff Noon is quite crazy, huh? The theory of 'willing to kill yourself' and how it could happen, if the body had an 'off button' closing it down. Damn!

'First Blood' was a masterpiece, the lonely walk back into a quiet rural town and the victimization of the police is akin to my suffering when I return home. All I did was go to the polling office without any clothes on! No wonder I got turned away.