Good Friday == Star Wars

I was watching TV the yesterday when what should I see? A commercial advertising the fact that the Space channel is going to be playing all 6 Star Wars movies back to back starting at 8:00AM on April 10. To me this takes a simple day off and turns it into a reason to get up early.

Which actually brings us to my point, I, like every other normal human being on the planet, concede the fact that the pre-trilogy fell way short of the mark, at least in comparison to the original trilogy. However, I did enjoy them, yes it's true I freely admit this and am not ashamed of it. The problem comes in the fact that there was too much plot being conveyed for the story; ok, the real problem was George Lucas' ego, but that's how it manifested itself.

In order to convey the full themes of the movie it is necessary to understand many fundamental facts about the Jedi/Sith that the original movies didn't even approach, you can only understand this if you've done some outside reading. The movies were long, often boring and, at many times, childish simply because that is what was necessary to set up the plot. If he had stuck to a space opera with lots of explosions and spacecraft the majority of viewers would have been happier, but it wouldn't have given his vision the light of day. Still, how cool was the opening battle in Revenge of the Sith? That's why people go to see Star Wars.

Yes there could have been a big shortcut through everything and not needed the whole clone war aspect, but that would have left major holes in the plot that the true dedicated fans would have ripped to shreds. We needed to watch Anakins development from child to adult in order to grasp how a savior could be corrupted into a destroyer; we needed to see the subplots of Palatines power struggle to understand how someone so inherently evil could rule the galaxy and have people welcome him with open arms; finally, we needed to understand how the Jedi could be destroyed, how this group of powerful and inherently good beings could be wiped out and no one regret their being gone. These are the reasons the movies suffered, but they are also the reason that the stories worked.

I stated that the Lucas ego was the big downfall of the movies but I think I have to backpedal slightly here, Hayden Christensen is the most obvious reason these movies sucked. I understand the motivation of the character and why it was necessary to have him sullen and brooding, but why did he have to come off as sulking and whiny? I can't begin to describe how bad this actor is, he's just horrible; at least Jake Lloyd was a necessary evil and not all that bad considering his age. I don't pretend to know what Lucas was thinking with this one and I won't even try to justify or rationalize it, it was just a bad idea. Oh well, maybe if he's lucky he can end up like Mark Hamil, I'm pretty sure video games and cartoons will still need hammy voice actors 20 years from now.