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We proudly bring you the Star Wars Movie Forum, a home away from home for fans of George Lucas' Star Wars movies around the world. |
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Operated by |
We proudly bring you the Star Wars Movie Forum, a home away from home for fans of George Lucas' Star Wars movies around the world. |
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
Those words have ignited millions of imaginary adventures around the world, drawing generations of fans together in a festive celebration of George Lucas' history-making series of movies. Star Wars has left a cultural imprint on modern society which will doubtless be with us for generations to come. With a sixteen year hiatus, the movie project has spanned three decades of work, dedication, and productive creativity. Lucas is not without his critics. All of the Star Wars films have been brutally denounced for different reasons. Even the late Sir Alec Guinness, who played the original (and aged) Obi-Wan Kenobi, developed a scathing hatred for the movies. But the movies have also been largely credited for re-igniting the science fiction and fantasy film genres, which had all but come to a grinding halt in the mid-1970s. Science fiction projects had become such low-budget priorities that no one enjoyed seeing them any more. In 1977, with the summer release of "Star Wars", Lucas changed all that. He reminded older movie-goers of how much fun they had when they were kids, watching serialized stories and pulp action movies throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Younger audience members awoke to the realization that not all science fiction film-making had to rely on cheap models, bad sets, and bad acting. More importantly, the epic motion picture tradition took a giant leap forward. The "Planet of the Apes" movies had proven in the late 1960s and early 1970s that audiences wanted to return to familiar characters and storylines, but the "Apes" pictures became less and less imaginative and more and more lackluster. The series died out after five films. Lucas unleashed a single movie in "Star Wars" which obviously drew upon a much larger story. The opening shot of the movie consists of the classic serial crawler which recaps action in previous episodes. Audiences immediately grasped that "Star Wars" was just a footnote in an immense history, and they were captivated by the stunning special effects which realistic portrayed a distant, forgotten, ancient world in another galaxy. Instead of crude trash-barrel robots, Lucas introduced the film-viewing world to sleek humanoid C3-P0 (whose sidekick R2-D2 still resembled a waste basket on wheels). Space ships were no longer simply extended tubes with things hanging off of them. They were immense vessels with specific, functional designs. The Star Destroyers of the evil Empire whisked millions of minds away to the realm of an authoritarian regime capable of suppressing all but the most determined rebellion. Lucas has long claimed he had wanted to make three movies instead of one, but that in the 1970s he wasn't sure the idea would be well received. So he compressed his story into one two-hour adventure which left audiences demanding more. In order to keep the momentum going, he had to expand the imaginary universe he had created to allow for new conflicts and new challenges. He also had to cope with the fact that his heroes were growing older. Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, no longer looked like a kid. He was maturing and needed to play a more consistent character. On the other hand, Harrison Ford was on the verge of breaking out into his own dynamic stardom. He nearly stole every scene he appeared in for the first movie. In 1980, "The Empire Strikes Back" added new dimensions to the space opera by increasing the number of "over-the-shoulder" shots for the audience when space and atomospheric craft were deployed in action sequences. The fast pace of the movie's combat and chase scenes set the tone for future Star Wars movies. But the storyline proved to be disappointing to many viewers because it ended on too much of a cliff-hanger. The good guys had been defeated. Han Solo was a prisoner. Luke had lost a hand and discovered that Darth Vader was really his father. None of the positive, upbeat vibes we felt at the end of the first movie were with us when we left the theaters. How was Lucas going to fix this? By 1983, six years had passed since "Star Wars" (by now renamed to "Episode IV: A New Hope") had been unleashed on the world of cinema. Movie audiences were used to zippy new spaceships and rayguns. The Star Wars knockoff, Battlestar Galactica, had come and gone and people had been introduced to the character of Indiana Jones (unquestionably Harrison Ford's best-known role) in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981). The anticipation had mounted to a frenzy. Fans wanted to know if Luke was really Darth Vader's son, if Luke and Leia would end up like Luke and Laura (on the television daytime drama General Hospital), and if Han Solo would be able to get out of the carbonite prison. And then we got to see "The Return of the Jedi". The critics couldn't wait for the movie, though. They took early peaks at the production and they found plenty to criticize. The cute and cuddly Ewoks were immediately blamed for stupefying Star Wars. Suddenly, all the past "mistakes" became inconsequential. "Empire Strikes Back" was no longer "unfaithful to the original work". "A New Hope" was proclaimed a "false hope". Was THAT really what a Hutt looked like? And who was this Admiral Akbar anyway? He looked like a bug-eyed goldfish in a space suit. Despite all the objections to babbling Ewoks (who were featured in two television specials), "The Return of the Jedi" resolved all the hanging plot threads and ended on a very happy note, except that Luke was Leia's brother and Han Solo was really just rebel scum, not just a scruffy-looking nurf-herder (or whatever Leia had called him in "Empire Strikes Back"). And then...nothing. Or, nothing really of interest. There were Star Wars novels and Star Wars comics and Star Wars action figures and an Ewoks animated series, but Lucas put Star Wars aside for thirteen years. During that time, fans learned that there might be six more movies. Or three more movies. Or, no movies. Or maybe six, but really three, but.... In 1996, Lucas began looking at the technology available to him and he was pleased. So, he put together "Episode I: The Phantom Menace". With three exceptions, an entirely new cast was drummed up: fan favorites Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker would reprise their roles from the first three movies as C3-P0 and R2-D2. Suddenly, the fans were excited. Things were happening again. Critics warmed up to the first three films like long-missed, beloved old friends (miraculously, everyone behaved as if nothing bad had ever been said of the first three movies). But when "The Phantom Menace" broke loose in 1999, despite record box-office sales, it encounted The Fandom Grimace. Despite the fact that people saw the movie repeatedly -- despite the fact that the DvD release was a huge financial success -- despite the appearance of numerous Phantom-inspired costumes appearing at conventions around the world -- VOCAL Star Wars fans proclaimed their hatred for the movie. The silent masses only spoke (and kept on speaking) with their wallets. What happened? Was it the complexity of the plot? Unlike the first three movies, there were five plot lines in "The Phantom Menace": The conflict between Naboo and the Trade Federation; the conflict between the Sith and the Jedi; the coming-of-age story for Obi-Wan Kenobi (faithfully portrayed by Ewan MacGregor); the discovery of Anakin Skywalker (who would become Darth Vader); and the introduction of the Amidala storyline (destined to marry Anakin and bear his children, Luke and Leia). Or was it the extensive reliance upon CGI imagery? The cityscapes were stunning but many people complained that the landscape looked too fake. In the first three movies, extensive location filming had been used to depict forest moons, a desert worlds, and an ice planet. Matte paintings, meticulously crafted by hand, had been used to create backdrops. In this new movie, computers were used to generate landscape and depth...and characters. Particularly one character, Jar Jar Binks. Although people had reviled the Ewoks for speaking some sort of pidgin-wackabee language ("Eat you, mama!", "That guy's wise!"), Jar Jar's Jamaican-style English just grated many VOCAL fans (the silent masses stayed in the theaters in droves, apparently less unnerved by Jar Jar than his critics). Jar Jar's ears were too long and floppy. He jumped funny. His shadow didn't look right. His clothes never wrinkled. All the Gungans looked like Jar Jar (not true: Boss Nass and Captain Tarpals had their own distinctive features). And what was the point of Jar Jar anyway? (Well, technically, he saved Naboo by mentioning the Gungan army to Queen Amidala -- but his critics may have disliked the lighting in that scene). The front-line villains of the movie, the Neimoidians of the Trade Federation, also spoke funny. If one could not find fault with Lucas for intricate plotting, one could always jump on his accents. The Neimoidians were accused of portraying stereotypes of the French, Germans, Chinese, Jews, Dutch, and Spanky and Our Gang. Watto, a side character in the Anakin story, was assumed by some people to be a fishy parody of an Arab merchant -- or was that Italian -- maybe Greek? No one knew for sure who these guys were supposed to be insulting and ridiculing, but a lot of people simply knew that Lucas had it in for some ethnic group. On the brighter side of things, people loved Darth Maul, Lord Sidious' sidekick. Maul almost made it to the end of the movie. He could have been a contender were it not for that darned Obi-Wan Kenobi and his pesky dog--er, Light Saber (technically, it was Qui-Gon Jinn's Light Saber). People also thought Ian McDiarmid was great as Senator Palpatine, the conniving, dirty, rotten, no-good Sidious in disguise. Ian had played the evil emperor in "The Return of the Jedi", oozing vile corruption and despicability as if they were leaking from open sores. The spaceships also looked cool, as did the giant underwater monsters. And the first couple of minutes of the podrace...looked like the next ten to twelve minutes. Some people have called "The Phantom Menace" a two-hour podrace, because it zips all over the landscape basically setting up Anakin Skywalker as the Miracle Kid Who Will Save The Galaxy. Okay, "The Phantom Menace" didn't seem to be so much about a mysterious power behind the Trade Federation as it was about how Anakin escaped from slavery and didn't have to do his homework for a whole summer. But along the way, we got to see that Natalie Portman had grown up to be really cute and sweet (and could, at times, talk like someone had taped two boards to the sides of her head). The CGI droids also looked pretty cool, but their voices could have used a little oiling. And what was with the "Roger, roger?" Was Lucas secretly paying homage to "Airplane?" The movie's climactic battle included CGI renderings of four thousand droids facing four thousand Gungans. Until the release of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", this was the largest CGI army scene in film history (and it remains the most complex deployment of CGI armies). Despite all the fan complaints, "The Phantom Menace" kept raking in the dollars at the box office. Its DvD sales certainly didn't generate any complaints, either. But Internet fans exonerated their hypocrisy by loudly and frequently demanding changes and fixes in the next movie. Lucas, uncharacteristically obedient to fan demands, stepped aside and brought in Jonathan Hales to help write the script. Suddenly, some of us had a bad feeling.... 2002 brought out "Attack of the Clowns"...er, "Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones". This was Anakin Skywalker's swan song...er, wuss parade. What a drippy kid he turned out to be. Why in the galaxy did Amidala fall in love with him? Was it because he was scaring all the quality males away? Something went totally wrong with Star Wars in this movie. It's hard to find anything good to say about it, although the bugs on Geonosis were a nice homage to "Antz". Well, Natalie Portman is all grown up and she looked GREAT. But that's a guy thing. Liam Neeson, who did such a fantastic job as Qui-Gon Jinn in "The Phantom Menace", was given a single voiceover in "Attack of the Clones". Yoda became the new star of this movie. Lucas' much-reviled CGI depictions were about the place where he held his ground. Frank Oz and his ratty old puppet were sent off stage where he could practice his looping skills for a limping Yoda who can miraculously whip out an itty-bitty Light Saber and take on the deadliest of Dark Jedi. He looked good when he caught the dark Force lightning Count Dooku tried to zap him with. He looked silly when he was dancing around like a whirling Dervish. Even the most ardent Yoda fans in the universe were heard to scream out, "What? Aaaargghhh!" Or maybe that was an homage to the old Charlie Brown television specials. So, here we are, waiting on the third chapter, the final installment of the Star Wars saga. We'll possibly get to see baby Luke and Leia by the end. We may get to see Anakin turn evil (but first Obi-Wan needs to make a man out of him). Palpatine will finally choose Anakin/Darth as his One True Apprentice, sweeping aside all the other Dark Jedi and Sith perpetrators so the movie audience can return to "A New Hope" with renewed vigor and finally understand all those quaint little expressions in the original movie like, "When last we met, old man, you were the master and I was the pupil. Now I am the master" and "I find your lack of faith disturbing". In the mean time, feel free to join us in our Star Wars forum. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the various movies. 
Star Wars Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones 27 in. x 40 in. Buy this Original Poster at AllPosters.com Framed Mounted So what are you waiting for?
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Buck Rogers, the character who launched futuristic space opera science fiction in the classic spaceship-and-raygun motif -- first appeared as a 25,000 word story in the August, 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. The story, "Armageddon-2419", is credited with including accurate predictions of the development of weapons such as the bazooka, the jet plane, and the infrared raygun, as well as the walkie-talkie. The Star Wars movies launched a technological revolution in the film-making industry, spearheaded by Lucas' own Industrial Light and Magic special effects company.