Participating in a Star Wars movie seems to be quite the liberating experience — after the fact. If there is one actor associated with any portion of this enormous franchise who has not, once all the receipts have been tallied, talked trash about their installation into the franchise firmament I’ve yet to make their acquaintance.1
And I don’t mean to make that sound like a bad thing — it’s just remarkable, is all. Any of these principals walking off any other fished project will smile and deliver the Entertainment Tonight talking points: “Such an incredible experience!” “I think what we did here was unique.” “It was a dream to work with these people!” etc. With Star Wars we get Carrie Fisher saying things like, “George Lucas ruined my life,” and we still feel like she’s holding back.2
Over at Mel Magazine Tim Grierson surveys the post-production fallout and flat-out declares what seems to be the niggling thought in the brain of every Star Wars fan: The New ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy Wasn’t Worth It.
He makes a compelling case — and I am 100% in that group of viewers disappointed by the sidelining of every single POC character, putting the emphasis on a Rey and Ren storyline of dubious value. But does it render the entire exercise null and void?
Here’s an alternative possibility — since we’re still talking about it four years later, maybe people will come around on The Last Jedi. And maybe that will generate storylines people want to see.
Though, honestly, what do I know? At this point I am forced to admit I am completely out-of-step with what Kids These Days expect from the SWU. For instance, it seems universally accepted that Solo was a well-deserved failure. I disagree. It had its weaknesses — binning the entire first act would have improved the film immeasurably — but to my eyes it still rates as the most entertaining SWU flick since The Empire Strikes Back. But I repeat myself.
In other SWU related reveries, I bought J.W. Rinzler’s The Making Of The Empire Strikes Back.
Why, you wonder? And why so late? Well ... the Kindle version had been on my Amazon wishlist since its release. (Long pause.) If I had had the remotest inkling that the window would close on the Kindle purchase ... well, I now have my regrets.
I don’t exactly regret purchasing the book, however. It is a pleasure to read, narratively taut, gossipy where it needs to be, and super-informative. Lovely pictures, of course. But wow it’s a monster. And I don’t need that.
Anyway, it will be a snap to finish. And already it has disabused me of a conviction I’ve held for decades: that pulp writer extraordinaire Leigh Brackett was almost solely responsible for what worked in the story. Rinzler makes it very clear, with physical evidence, that Brackett’s influence on the final script of TESB could best be quantified in the negative. She wrote the first draft, which Lucas then utterly covered with red ink. Lucas definitely knew what he did not want to see, and this script was largely it. Indeed, reading the pages provided I wondered if she’d even seen the earlier movie. An unlikely possibility — and an uncharitable thought. Unbeknownst to the Lucasfilm bunch Brackett was in an advanced state of Stage 4. That she was able to hammer out a cogent script at all indicates a heroic intensity of focus.
When she died before rewrite, Lucas took over. And what we see is a remarkable convergence of his script with director Irvin Kershner’s invitational attitude toward his actors’ ideas — aided by uncountable others who threw in their best to make the film be what Lucas, and we, needed it to be.
1 Although, now that I think of it, Ewan McGregor has been a remarkably magnanimous statesman for the SWU.↩
2 My favourite response from the current principals is Oscar Isaac, saying the only way he’ll ever re-enter the SWU is “if I need to buy another house or something.”↩
6 comments:
Your post (and the article you linked to) have set off a ton of different thoughts in my head. But since I can't possibly write them all down at once, I'll try to go slow and just do one point by one point.
First point: I think I may have recommended this video series to you once before, but if you haven't watched it yet, I recommend it again. This is where I've gotten most (or rather all) of my information about the making of The Empire Strikes Back. I suspect it would be an interesting supplement to your book:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP7v2GoLok34LUKvz1LL2cl-gNKFYg77n
Oooh! So far Rinzler's book is proving to be similar to the last one -- exhaustive and exhausting. But I'll definitely give those videos a look.
My main take away from those videos is that it's a miracle Empire Strikes Back turned out as good as it did. It's also a miracle Star Wars was as good as it was, but after Star Wars, no one had any coherent plans as to what the follow up should be, and the sequel, by all rights, should have been a disappointment, but they somehow came up with an idea that was even better than the original movie.
...but, you can't possibly expect this success every time. Sooner or later they were bound to run out of good ideas, or the creative energy was bound to flag, if even a little bit.
...which is why I don't have a lot of truck with "the sequel trilogy ruined Star Wars" crowd. You just can't expect every movie to be as good as the original or as good as Empire Strikes Back. Once Disney decided they were going to start cranking out Star Wars movies, we should have resigned ourselves to the fact that some of them weren't going to be as good as the originals.
...which is my main critique of the Tim Grierson article.
What is remarkable to me is how much more popular this most recent trilogy was, box-office wise, than were the two stand-alone movies. Disney must be puzzling over this big-time. Grierson makes brief mention of the rocky start the independents got off to, but even so both movies have relatively tight stories that, in contrast to the trilogy, cohere. People would sooner pay money to see complete nonsense. Is it really just the presence of the original cast that's putting bums in theatre seats?
Television, OTOH, is treating the franchise well. Kids (and parents like me) like The Clone Wars. The Mandalorian is a hit. And further spin-offs seem promising. Which, too bad for me. Unless these get a DVD release, I probably won't be tuning in.
On the stand alone movies: so, when I first heard they were doing a Han Solo prequel, I thought that was the laziest, worst idea ever. And I think a lot of other people did. Now, as it happened, that Solo movie turned out much better than I was expecting. (I gave it a positive review, as you know). But I think a lot of people just got turned off by the idea of another unnecessary prequel movie that no one had asked for, and a lot of people stayed home.
On the Sequel trilogy: So, this brings me to another point of disagreement Grierson. I didn't think the sequel trilogy was that bad. By my count, it was at least two really good movies, and one on disappointing movie. Granted, it ended badly. But I'm hesitant to say the whole thing was a waste of time.
I think I may have mis-framed what Grierson means by "not worth it." On his twitter feed he sums up his article, "Financially, the 'Star Wars' trilogy was successful, but given the treatment the cast and crew endured, it wasn't worth it." So maybe a better way to position Grierson is to say between the trolls on social media and the suits from Disney, the cast and crew endured unimaginable pressure to make this trilogy sing, only to have their best efforts smeared into just another Great White Savior narrative.
Or maybe that doesn't quite get what Grierson is on about either. I'm looking at his photo and it's hard for me to discern what his age might be, but I'm guessing he's closer to your age than mine. Were he a bit older he'd have no difficulty recalling what a bitter disappointment the The Return Of The Jedi was. My buddies and I left the theatre in a frothing rage. But, you know, it did nothing to dampen our love for the first two movies. And we always held out hope that someone might come along and keep the ball rolling in a direction that once again satisfied young and old alike, and not just the pre-adolescents in the audience. We're still there, but now we have consistently good product on a variety of media. It still strikes me as a promising platform. But who knows if we'll ever see another movie?
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