A Revelation of Sorts

Just a short post to let you all know I am still alive. Finals time is always busy, so I likely won't make substantial posts for awhile, though I have some good ones planned for my return, including a review of the Derek Webb cd Mockingbird and a post on the arrogance of historians.

Today I would just like to state that upon waking this morning I realized I had solved the Star Wars problem. That is to say, why the new trilogy is such a piece of crap. The theories range far and wide on this one, but I think my solution has at least some merit. It isn't the acting, the dialogue, or the direction that make the new movies lackluster, it is the absence of an overawed imagination.

Think about it- the acting in the original movies wasn't exactly Shakespearean (with a few exceptions), and oftentimes the dialogue bordered on the ridiculous. What is it about those movies, so pulpy in many ways, that fires the passion of young boys everywhere? It is the awe and wonder of it all. I'm not talking about spectacle- the new movies have that in spades. But in the new trilogy it all seems so perfunctory it is hard to care. In a sense technology and success hurt the series; wondrous sights and epic battles are expected and not earth shattering. There was an overwhelming sense in the old movies of "Isn't this cool?!!" Recall the scene in A New Hope when Luke and Han fight off the TIE fighters. By today's standards the effects are clunky, but you can still feel the energy pulsing through them, the boyish excitement as they blast the Imperials out of the sky.

The space opera plot sure helped matters too. Instead of the dull political intrigue of the new trilogy, the old movies had the classic good and evil struggle, replete with underdogs, secret identities, and the like. Simple stuff, but good.

I want to wrap this up, so I will conclude by saying that imagination is one of the greatest gifts given to mankind. The first three Star Wars movies had it coming out the wazoo, and what's more, they encouraged others to have the same thirst for adventure and fertile imagination. That is why, 30 years from now, young boys will be discovering them and, despite the dated look, still be saying (along with their fathers) "Isn't that cool?!!"