Director: George Lucas
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid
Have I Seen it Before: I mean, we came this far. Why wouldn’t we “finish” things?
Did I Like It: You know, it’s an odd thing…
I want to say that anyone who believes this film isn’t the best entry in the prequel trilogy is being disingenuous, at best. I also want to say that anyone who thinks this movie is better than any entry in the original trilogy, is also being disingenuous. And finally, anyone who puts The Last Jedi (2017)* above any of the prequel trilogy are turning what used to be fun movies about space wizards with laser swords into a real chore. Thanks, guys.
Sigh.
Criticism of the Star Wars saga can be thoroughly exhausting, and yet I continue…
In my reviews of the other entries of the prequel trilogy, I lamented that the one element that might have recommended the films previously—the largely computer-generated special effects—tragically age the film beyond anything that Lucas might have originally hoped for. In this final Lucas-directed film, matters have improved slightly. It may not be entirely that there was a quantum leap forward in the effects, but there are more instances of digital characters interacting with one another, and fewer occasions where such creations awkwardly share a frame with an actual human.
That is not to say that the film is without its flaws, but this film’s deepest flaws are with its inherent design, not necessarily its execution. The tendency of prequels to depict scenes that previously lived in the collective imagination of backstory makes those resultant scenes a little less special. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) had a similar problem. In my mind, the particulars of how Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian was one of the greatest cons that ever transpired in this galaxy or the other. As depicted in the film, it’s just a well-played game of Sabacc. So, too, the duel on Mustafar between Vader (Christensen) and Obi-Wan (McGregor) always seemed sadder, and maybe a bit more minimalist as I imagined it. It wasn’t the huge, frenetic action sequence that Lucas ended up producing. It’s a minor nitpick, I suppose. Lucas was hell-bent on making the prequels one way or another; this was bound to happen.
Then there’s the real problem with Lucas’ contributions to cinema in the first few years of our new millennium. An advocate—nay, zealot—for shooting and projecting digitally, Lucas opened the century by insisting that if theater wanted to exhibit any of the new Star Wars movies he had coming off the line, that theater had to exhibit digitally. Most theaters acquiesced at least a little bit, and then realized digital projection was far cheaper across the board, and now here we are. Good luck finding a movie exhibited in 35mm. I can count on one hand the amount of movies I’ve actually seen on film in the last ten years.
There’s a part of me that thinks the reel breaking during a screening of the special edition for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) in 1997 got back to Skywalker ranch, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and now we can’t have nice things anymore.
Do you miss those cigarette holes at the end of each reel? Do you miss the quietly insistent fear that the movie unspooling in front of you might just completely tear itself apart at any moment? Miss seeing the art of cinema displayed on the canvas for which it was intended? I sure do.
We shouldn’t blame Lucas for some fun adventure movies with some rough patches. We should blame him for film not being film anymore.
*That review of Episode VIII is going to be doozy, fam…