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Can the new Star Wars movie be good?

Can the new Star Wars movie be good?

Last updated on: December 18, 2015 at 10:09 am by Gene Veith

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Can the new Star Wars movie be good? 2015-12-18T10:09:08-05:00 Gene Veith

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Did you know that a new Star Wars movie is opening this weekend? I’m pretty sure you do, since I have never seen so much hype for a movie. Nor have I seen so much merchandising before a movie has even been released. As a Star Wars fan like the rest of humanity, I’m looking forward to seeing it and I hope it lives up to expectations. But there are some aesthetic and cultural reasons why it might not.Much of the anticipation comes from those of us who remember the original trilogy, either from seeing it in theaters in 1977 (38 years ago!) or from the children of those viewers who saw it on VHS tapes (another obsolete technology!). So a prominent theme in the anticipation of the new film is nostalgia, bolstered by the reappearance of the beloved original characters. I’ll set aside how it will feel to see them 38 years older. But it will be interesting to see how Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia (demoted to a “general,” I hear, but that’s OK, since Republics don’t have royalty) will fit in with the story.

A lot of viewers are anticipating what the special effects will be like. The original trilogy was so innovative in pushing what cinematic technology could do that at the time audiences were flabbergasted. Now that this technology has matured and developed even further, the effects should be even more spectacular. True, but today’s filmmakers have not exactly figured out how to use all that they can do. Many, if not most, if not all, special-effects-heavy films these days are just tedious when they are showing off their technology. We viewers are used to all of that by now. Explosions, fights, flying vehicles, shootouts, and rapid cut editing merely take up time. As Aristotle reminded us, referring to the primitive stage effects of his day, that stuff is the least important part of a drama. It has to be at the service of a good story. And that’s mostly what I’m worried about in the new Star Wars movie.

The original trilogy had a brilliant and thoroughly satisfying story arc. In the last movie, the plot was fully resolved. What is left? The Empire was defeated. Will this new upcoming trilogy keep the war between the Republic and the Empire going? Has it been going on for 38 years? In that case, that would undermine the satisfying ending of the Return of the Jedi . Maybe the Empire will have had its own revolution and taken control again, or maybe that’s what this new series will be about. A completely new and different story-line would be the best way to proceed. The point is, this will be a challenge in the all-important story-telling department to tie the newly-initiated trilogy into what has come before.

Certainly, the second trilogy, giving us the prequel to the original series, was a big disappointment. It was carried by our interest in learning the origins of Darth Vader, the birth of Luke and Leia, etc., thus depending on the original trilogy, without doing much on its own.

I am aware of the “universe” concept, that the imaginary worlds of the fantasy genre can contain multiple stories and characters, all of whom “inhabit” the same imaginative realm. Perhaps the new movie will simply draw on the “universe,” without trying to replicate the previous story lines. One possible problem, though, is that, both theologically and artistically, the creations depend on and are unified by their creators. The original imagination behind the first two trilogies, George Lucas, sold the rights to Disney, and there is a new director, J. J. Abrams. He has shown himself skilled in these kinds of movies, so we can be optimistic. But will the Star Wars “universe” really be the same?

The deepest problem is that we have a different culture than we had in the late seventies and early eighties. (The three came out in 1977, 1980, and 1983.) I have heard Star Wars being used as an example of the energy, optimism, and moral clarity of the Reagan era, which had its own struggle and eventual victory over an Evil Empire. What kind of Star Wars can we expect in the Obama era, with its moral relativism, cultural exhaustion, and political correctness?

I think part of the excited anticipation over the new movie comes from a yearning to recapture that old mood. Maybe the movie will help us do so. Or maybe it will reflect our culture today, which lacks the vitality to produce anything remotely epic.

Having said all of this, though, I hope I am wrong in my low expectations. I hope the movie achieves new levels of greatness.

I won’t be able to see it this weekend. I think I’ll wait until the hordes and the costumes will have passed. But if you see it this weekend, please comment here on how it is. Review it here. No spoilers, please, but let me know if I am right, or (as I hope) wrong.

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