May
13
Bring Our Clone Wars Troops Home Now!
Filed Under Movies, Summer Blockbusters, TV
There’s another Star Wars movie coming out. “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” an all-CGI installment in the unkillable franchise, opens on August 15th. The movie is a sequel to Episode II and a prequel to Episode III, giving it pretty much the dramatic weight of any one of the umpteen “Land Before Time” DTV films. It’s also a theatrically-released pilot to a proposed 100-episode television series. 100 episodes?! Is John McCain secretly pulling George Lucas’ strings? Personally, I don’t think the Clone Wars are worth the investment of blood and treasure spread out over five seasons.
I’m pretty much done with Star Wars. I didn’t grow up on the movies, having been born too late to see the first one in the theater. I was a child of the ’80s. I was into He-Man and Transformers and the Ninja Turtles — all the franchises that Star Wars spawned, according to the hardcore fans anyway.
Star Wars fans are a myopic breed. They act as though George Lucas not only invented the blockbuster, but the film camera and storytelling as well. To suggest this is to ignore the 80 years of filmmaking that came before the first — or fourth — Star Wars film’s release in ‘77. Star Wars is a cocktail of genres and archetypes that were wowing audiences for decades before Lucas repurposed them for his original trilogy. That they connected with audiences in the late-’70s and early-’80s, thus beating back any degree of artistry or independent spirit that had prevailed in the Me Decade, should only come as a surprise to people who may have never seen a movie before.
Lucas has spent much of his career of late proving that whatever creative genius he’d once possessed has since been replaced with a sense of bitterness and disconnect. He’s not entirely sure what his fans want from him, nor does he really seem to care when he egregiously disappoints them. Filmmaking for him has become something that’s perfunctory, an exercise in pushing the limits of technology, not storytelling. I imagine it’s not emotionally rewarding for him, either. He admittedly dislikes the writing process, but powered through each of the scripts (with help from Tom Stoppard on Episode II) for the prequel trilogy. Why doesn’t he stop torturing himself? Better yet, why don’t the fans do the same?
I’m going to pass on “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” The movie looks like a series of cutscenes from a Star Wars video game, not another must-see chapter in a saga that’s already gone on for three films too many. I think it’s time for the die-hard fans — even the lost causes who think that Episode I is the best of the prequels — as well as George Lucas to move on to something else. To paraphrase John Lennon, Star Wars is over…if you want it.
-Brad Lohan
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