“Once upon a time, as my own half-formed thoughts about Star Wars met those of others, I found myself with the feeling the three movies were the three movies and there was something unpleasant to all the noise about not liking the way they had ended, even if I couldn’t articulate why I felt that. Then, when there were four Star Wars movies and then five, I found myself convinced there was something even more unpleasant about not liking the way they were beginning… and even as I wondered if I was just choosing to be positive and stay interested in these new visions of “a galaxy far, far away” because the alternative didn’t seem to be making anyone else any happier, pieces were coming together and not just in their own story of “the fall of the Republic,” as intriguing as that stayed in itself to me. Seeing where Anakin Skywalker had come from, that he was his own character among other characters I chose to find interesting, and that his connections to and even love for those other characters had been an important part in the tragedy of his becoming Darth Vader, began to make it clear to me that Luke Skywalker choosing to save his father and Darth Vader choosing to save his son wasn’t something that had just happened to happen in that old story of the Rebellion versus the Empire. Some were noisy about not liking the way it had ended. It was the story, and there were resonances to it much more interesting than what had seemed to me the old focus of others on machines and minor characters and at least the battles where both sides were “cool.” I know there were people who understood this back when there were just three Star Wars movies and can respect them for that, but six of them do make a richer, clearer, more compelling whole for me.”
January 21, 2011 at 7:41 am |
“six of them do make a richer, clearer, more compelling whole”
Well said! Six films….one story!