A friend of mine sent me an interesting article that I just had to respond to: The Complex and Terrifying Reality of Star Wars Fandom
I admit that I’m one of the fans the author describes in his article, however I do know what I like about Star Wars and why it’s important to me. I love what Star Wars did for movies, especially in the field of special effects. There are things about the story and characters I didn’t like, but that can be true for any movie.
Inconsistencies can be found in any movie and especially multi-part movie franchises. One thing I feel that Star Wars fans don’t realize is that Star Wars is not science fiction, it’s space fantasy. With it being fantasy there are a lot of things that just won’t ever make sense. Here are some examples:
1. The Jedi are magic, with a bunch more chlorinated midis or whatever. It’s just a quick way of saying look, I have proof this kid is strong in the force.
2. Mesa thanka thata Jar Jar wasa justa therea fora slapa sticka. George just trying to get an even bigger fan base. I can’t blame him for that… I would have done the same thing. Any character could have moved the plot along, it just happended to be the first fully CG main character.
3. The special editions should have the ability to mark which scene upgrades you want to watch. Many of them were quite neat and well worth the effort. Some were unnecessary.
4. Whiny actors? At least they are whining on screen instead of just off screen. Look at what they are whining about on screen, “I can’t grow up fast enough.” Doesn’t everyone whine about that when they are in their teens?
5. Boba Fetts death, sometimes you just die with no fanfare.
6. An entire legion of the Emperor’s best troops can’t shoot worth a darn since they are laughing so hard at the Ewoks that are attacking them.
7. Darth Vadar’s harmonica… we don’t know what sort of medical devices they had to put in place for him…. it’s a completely different universe. Heck, I don’t see why they didn’t have something like nanites repair his body and he wore the suit just to be scary.
8. Flawed pacing. Heck you can’t make the movie 3.5 hours long… well maybe you can, but not on a budget… ok, so there was a limited budget for the first one. This isn’t Lord of the Rings after all.
The movie industry was evolving in the 70s and 80s. If it had already developed computer based special effects, we would have laughed “Star Wars:A New Hope” out of the theater and the other 5 would have never been made. But this was the first big special effect movie that made you almost believe that this universe was real. That’s why we love it, that’s why we defend our love of Star Wars yet still hate some/many of the details.