Saturday, May 21, 2005

Good Man, Bad Decisions

One reviewer said that Anakin Skywalker comes across as a really good man, a really passionate man, who makes some really dumb and misguided decisions. After seeing the "last" of the films last night, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, I think that's spot on, and I'm amazed at how well George Lucas has told a story with a few huge sweeping twists.



Someone at work was saying that it's a really weird to "end" the story with this episode: why leave it on this last horrific note? I've come to think of it as brilliant. Where the first three movies (IV, V and VI) appear to be about Luke's quest to overthrow Darth Vader, we also saw Vader move from very bad to redeemed in those movies. Now in the second trilogy (I, II and III), we watch Vader go from good-hearted and precocious to hateful and dark. And in the midst of this second set of movies, played as they are after the first set, we find that this story from I to VI is centered around Anakin/Vader, and not as much about Luke & Leia.

That's a major sweeping development in a work of storytelling. It's a parable, telling one story and smacking the unsuspecting hearer with an unexpected punchline. And where we all identify with Luke or Han or Leia in those first movies - wanting to save the galaxy and defeat evil - we find in these last chapters that we are probably more like Anakin, more like Padme, more like ObiWan - just living life, making choices, living with the consequences the best we can.

Except Yoda. Nobody's like Yoda. He's definitely the man.




SEMI-SPOILER ALERT: Don't read further if you haven't seen the movie - you've been warned.

I'm not going to give much away, but there was one more technique that I caught: Lucas copied Disney Channel plotlines to tell his story! Every week on That's So Raven, the same things happens. Raven has a vision of the future, does something to change that vision, and ends up making it come about. It took two hours in SW3, but it only takes thirty minutes and a laugh track in Raven. Just thought I'd share - I saw that, George!

2 Comments:

Blogger Mike L. said...

Hollywood is official gone to crap. If burn all computers as a sacrifice can we get back a few good movies with acutal dialogue and decent acting? Movies like that make me sad to work in the computer industry.

23/5/05 8:00 AM  
Blogger Rick said...

naah - spelling and grammar is official gone to crap :)

and there's plenty of movies out there with good dialogue and decent acting. but they come out in december, right before the oscar nominations.

23/5/05 8:16 AM  

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