Revenge of the Myth

All right, so I still haven't blogged about Paris (as I was definitively reminded by folks at hOME last night) however there are more pressing things to discuss, such as Star Wars.

My schedule yesterday was this:

8:30am - Alarm clock goes off
9:30am - Queueing to see 10am showing of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
10:30am - After half a FREAKING hour of adverts and trailers, the film finally starts
12:45pm - I cross the street to work, already wearing my uniform, arriving 45 minutes late (although I had cleared it with my manager the day before, so he was ok with it)
8pm - Close up the coffee shop and head to hOME
10:30pm - Arrive back at my room at collapse into bed


On a side note, I was in London on Monday visiting my cousin Greg on his stopover to South Africa. He had to leave around 5pm to catch his flight, so I decided to wander down to Leicester Square where Star Wars happened to be premiering that night...I saw George Lucas, Hayden Christiansen, Anthony Daniels (C3PO), Kenny Baker (R2D2) and the giant of a man who plays Chewbacca (Peter something-or-other I think...I forget his name)...kinda cool.

So anyhow, I saw the actual movie for the first time yesterday morning, and I had somewhat of a mini-revelation...it suddenly all made sense to me. First of all I should say though, that once you come to terms with the facts that George Lucas simply can't direct, and Hayden Christiansen can't act, then you should be free to enjoy the film. If you get hung up on either of these aspects however, you're likely to miss out. As far as the prequels go, I think this would have been the hardest one to screw up...after all, George had to get from the end of Attack of the Clones to the beginning of A New Hope, and really, his hand was pretty much forced (as opposed to Episode I, where it was virtually open to his imagination...unfortunately)

But my revelation was this: ...actually, (like everything else) I don't really know how to put it succinctly...

George Lucas is an excellent story-teller but a rather shitty filmmaker. He is an extremely creative individual, and good at creating characters and over-arching stories, but really, he should leave the details to other folks. This is most clear when you compare Empire and Jedi (where he left the screenplay and directing to other people) to Phantom Menance and AOTC, where he did both himself.

The other thing that struck me was the content of the original trilogy vs. the prequel trilogy. I remember learning about Joseph Campbell's theory of myth in one of my university religion classes...this guy studied myths from every culture and every time period and came up with a sort of universal formula for myths to become successful with the masses - basically, it was a young, scrappy hero fighting an oppressive evil with help from the supernatural, overcoming great odds to prevail. This is a gross-simplification of an extremely complex study, but for this purpose (my crappy little blog), it will do. Anyway, apparently Lucas studied Campbell and was somewhat of an apprentice of his, applying his theory to the creation of the original trilogy. Not surprisingly, these ancient, tried-and-tested devices resounded with audiences who fell in love with the films (myself included).

What struck me yesterday however, especially during the first half of the film, was how he did away with that structure this time around. The prequels are focused more on the overall political manoeuvrings of the Senate and the Jedi Council rather than the story of a single protagonist who, with his group of friends, grows up to eventually bring down the evil empire. Now this could have been extremely cool, and in fact I really enjoy political dramas, however they are clearly not Lucas' strong point. I suppose it could be argued that George was trying to expand and didn't want to just recreate the original trilogy, however part of the theory of the 'universal myth formula' is that it never really gets old, so long as it is retold in new and interesting ways. Now this is by no means the only problem with the prequels, there were certainly many details that screwed them up along the way as well, however structurally speaking, I think George built on the wrong cornerstone...or perhaps the problem was that he didn't have a cornerstone at all this time around...

All that being said, Ep III was definitely the best of the prequels, and worth seeing if only for the lightsaber battles. There are a few scenes toward the end of the film where the wonder and the intrigue of the original 3 are hinted at, and I must say that it did stir the nostalgia inside of me.