Director Lucas or: How I Stopped Listening To Jaded Contrarians and Learned To Love Episode I
Sometimes you have to swim upstream against the tide of popular opinion to find the real truths in life.
I can't stomach individuals who hide behind groups because they can't face their own faults and shortcomings. I cannot tolerate intolerance and I often contradict contrarians. That being said, there is room in any debate for an individual to stand up and voice something different from the standard groupthink.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace landed like a bomb in theaters on May 19, 1999. I saw it at the now defunct outside-the-mall movie theater at the Sarasota Square Mall. I was excited. My Dad fell asleep about 5 minutes in. I’ve learned over the years that his snoozing is no indication of the quality of the film. I was 26 years old at the time.
To hear the multitude of opinions now, one would be forgiven for thinking that Episode I was an abject failure. With a budget of $115 million, most of it straight out of George’s own pocket, it’s pretty obvious that Lucas wanted complete control and to get it he had to front most of the cash himself. The film made $1.027 billion dollars.
Not a bad return on investment.
This despite Jar Jar and Jake Lloyd’s performance.
Let’s look closer at the reviews. Rotten Tomatoes has a 57% “Rotten” rating and Metacritic gives it a 51 out of 100. Both ratings are the lowest of any of the 6 Star Wars films. Roger Ebert gave it 3 ½ stars. Most other ratings run the center line. The chorus of extreme derision comes from so-called “fans” on internet forums, led by a triumvirate of journalists - Brent Staples (The New York Times), David Edelstein (Slate) and Eric Harrison (Los Angeles Times).
This is not to say that there aren’t legitimate things to criticize. If you have seen the documentaries “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” or “A Decade Under The Influence”, you will know that the two films that are generally believed to be the death knell of auteur cinema are “Jaws” and “Star Wars”. That was the beginning of popcorn blockbusters and the era of diminishing returns for truly artistic cinema.
Like the insipid drek that followed in the wake of Punk and Prog Rock, there was a transition in Hollywood from taking chances to safe bets. That is why you see so many remakes and sequels.
In a perfect world, you would see a healthy mixture of both. Fun, escapist films alongside deeper and more compelling art films. I’ve always felt that you need both. You need time to delve deeply and immerse yourself in certain things, but you also need time to recreate your mind. There have been many studies that have shown that students who take breaks during study groups do better than those who cram information non-stop. I have always tried to find the art in entertaining films, and the entertainment in art films.
Getting back to Episode I, let us look at the two biggest areas of criticism in the film - Jar Jar and Jake Lloyd.
Jar Jar Binks was conceived as a completely digital character. In that way, Jar Jar was a success. Even if you despise Ahmed Best’s performance, Jar Jar does look like he is present in the scene. One could argue that the work done on Jar Jar in 1999 paved the way for the portrayal of Gollum in “The Fellowship Of The Rings” 2 years later.
Okay, enough tap dancing. Let’s get to it. Jar Jar is annoying. He was designed as comic relief for children. Even at this - he fails. He’s not funny. If as much work had gone into his characterization as his digital design elements then perhaps things would have been different. Rob Coleman, a lead for the ILM team, tried to avert disaster by warning Lucas that the team thought that Jar Jar was coming across poorly. Would the film be better off without him? Watch Mike J. Nichols’ “The Phantom Edit” and see for yourself.
That is, if Disney Enterprises will let you.
Jar Jar has been parodied on South Park, The Fairly OddParents, The Simpsons and Robot Chicken. Hell, even I got in on it in this illustration for my novel “The People’s Republic of Retail”.
Here’s another take on Jar Jar.
George Lucas did not take the criticism lying down. Here’s a quote from a 1999 BBC piece.
"There is a group of fans for the films that doesn't like comic sidekicks. They want the films to be tough like Terminator, and they get very upset and opinionated about anything that has anything to do with being childlike.”
You can read the rest of the article here…
George Lucas Fights Back!
Simon Pegg has recently revised his earlier criticisms in light of the toxicity that has arisen in fan communities in the age of Trump. I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Enough Jar Jar. Let’s move on to the next bit of criticism. Jake Lloyd’s performance.
Darth Vader is one of the most iconic figures to ever grace the silver screen. Is there any way that someone could portray him without all the things that make him… him? The black suit? The voice? It would be like portraying Iron Man without the suit. It’s a prospect that is virtually doomed to failure.
I’ve watched all six films back to back in the order that they were meant to be watched. The films are about Anakin Skywalker. They are about how one person can gain too much power, turn towards evil, and eventually find redemption. There is only one way to do this. The child has to be good. No hint of evil. The journey must be a complete one. Let’s not forget that George Lucas is the bastard child of Akira Kurosawa and Joseph Campbell.
The Hero’s Journey is a circle. In order for it to proceed accordingly, the character at the beginning can bear no resemblance to the character in motion. It is only upon their return to the beginning that we can evaluate them fully. As much as I would have liked to see Jake Lloyd put a force choke on Kitster, that’s not how it works. The tragedy is not a character who is evil and then becomes more evil, no. It is a character who is good and then turns to evil. They make a choice. A real bad one. One that they cannot come back from but through the arduous path of redemption.
This is how Vader redeems himself. This is how he brings balance to the force. Not in killing the emperor, but by saving his son.
Believe it or not, Vader unmasked right before his death is closer to his younger Anakin self than at any other point along his journey. Think about this for a moment. The two different versions of the character that we seem to like least are pictured above. What does that say about so-called “fans”? We can’t accept that Anakin was once good and that he could be again? We are more titillated by the idea of a broken down half cyborg who is subservient to the bureaucratic forces above him and who in turn murders his subordinates (and unarmed prisoners) for telling him the truth? Are we stunted as a generation, unable to see and appreciate that people can and do change? Do we find evil cooler and more sexy?
Grand Moff Tarkin is Vader’s leash holder. It is known throughout the universe. Princess Leia mockingly refers to this twisted relationship when she is captured. This frail old man is literally more powerful than Darth Vader in that he can command and control him.
From a June 2, 2005 Rolling Stone interview with Lucas about Darth Vader:
“Ultimately, he's just a pathetic guy who's had a very sad life.”
“He even gets pushed around by the governors.”
“So it's even more tragic, because he's not even an all-powerful bad guy, he's kind of a flunky.”
Those are a few bits that help illustrate my point. The interview is fantastic and revealing. Click on the link above the quotes and read the whole thing. You won’t be disappointed.
Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best haunt the periphery of comic book conventions and do voice work. It’s hard not to think that their careers were cut short due to all the backlash.
Hayden Christensen seems to have fared better.
Perhaps because he got to wear the black suit.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was released on May 25, 1977. It changed cinema. It began the era of shifting away from social commentary films to big blockbusters. By all accounts, George Lucas had a miserable go at making the film. He eventually made so much money that he was able to wrest creative control away from the studio execs. He couldn’t have known that at the time. He was only 33 years old.
This is an example of Islamic art. Beautiful. Intricate. It is haram (forbidden) to create an image of man since it is believed that only Allah has that power. Quite a restriction in that virtually all of western art has to do with the depiction of figures. However, the limitations have given way to a flood of creativity. Within these borders, artists find unique ways to tell stories and to represent ideas. The limitations have not stifled the flow of art, rather they have enabled it.
This is the Mosfilm logo.
The image is the monument “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman” by Vera Mukhina.
Mosfilm was founded in 1920 and is the largest film studio in Russia. Most of the great Soviet era films came out of this studio. The Soviet government intervened a great deal with regards to issues of censorship. Russian artists, be they writers, filmmakers, painters or musicians - have all had to deal with censorship and governmental interference from the Czarist era to the modern day. The best have found ways around the censorship, and some even used it to their advantage.
The point I’m trying to make is that limitations often bring out the best in an artist. George Lucas had limitations galore on “A New Hope” and virtually none on “The Phantom Menace”.
I was thrilled when “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” came to theaters. I had grown up with Star Wars all my life. One of the fondest memories I have of a time with my mother is when we waited outside an Arizona movie theater for hours in a line that wrapped around the building to see “The Empire Strikes Back”.
Whatever criticism you may have, and a lot of it is legitimate, George Lucas kept his promise. He finished his film. At a time when I find it hard to finish a novel I’ve been working on for over four years, his achievement stands as a benchmark. I will always be grateful to him for seeing it through.
I don’t know? I find it hard to turn on an artist who has provided entertainment, broadened the borders of my imagination and provided a bit of enlightenment. He’s earned the right to make a bad call now and then. He’s earned the right to experiment without a generation of elitists throwing a tantrum.
When the smoke cleared, you had a group of jaded contrarians on one end crying about how he did not make the film that they saw in their individual minds, and you have George Lucas on the other end who did something that will last for good or ill.
With that in mind, I’ll sit through Jar Jar and Lil’ Ani…
As long as I get a little Darth Maul along the way.
And besides, there is always A New Hope for the future...
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