With their dubious science and fable like approach to storytelling, the three original films in the Star Wars trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) were never quite science fiction in the truest sense. Any story which features a variation on the Princess who requires rescuing from a dark tower by a farmer turned hero and his mentor, (a wizard) from an evil cloaked knight owes far more to the Brothers Grimm than Philip K. Dick or Christopher Priest.
Arriving at exactly the right time for the early 1980s boom in home video made the original films accessible for repeat viewing. Something about the simplicity of the story, the quotable dialogue and stunning, visceral landscapes and special effects (as well as an extensive range of merchandise) meant that the films have stayed in the public consciousness ever since. When you consider how totally it has seeped into popular culture from sitcom references to Hip Hop music, it seems Star Wars not only captured everybody’s imagination but it stayed there.
The original film was a story simply but effectively told. Deriving from sources as diverse as Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress and Leni Reifensatl’s Triumph of the Will , the narrative followed a simple structure, a journey that literally picks up characters as the plot progresses. There is very little in A New Hope that does not further the story, and when the narrative slows, it is generally to provide colourful tales of worlds outside of the central narrative. These references to worlds and events that we never see such as “The spice mines of Kessel” and Darth Vader’s assertion that “There’ll be no one to stop us this time!” illustrate a broader world of unseen discovery and adventure. The fact that the film was subtitled ‘Episode 4′ drove home the idea that Lucas was hitting the ground running in a narrative sense, eliminating much of the exposition that would usually appear in the first act.
Obi Wan Kenobi’s initial monologue about Luke Skywalker’s father which sparked the prequel back-story is a blatant piece of imagination firing that conjures wonderful images of a young Alec Guinness and his protégé on various daring adventures. For all his skill at showing us wondrous worlds and thrilling action, Lucas is equally skilled at hinting at the picture beyond the frame. The fact that the novelisation of the film (credited to Lucas but actually an adaptation of his original script by Alan Dean Foster) suggested how Vader came to be (plunging into a giant volcano after a frenzied battle with his former friend and mentor) allowed the audience to interactively fill in the blanks in the story. This is of course, partially thanks to Lucas’ script but much credit must be given to Guinness who delivers the scene in a superbly judged, understated style, merely hinting at the tragedy in his past.
The sequel to A New Hope , The Empire Strikes Back defied expectation by avoiding the pitfalls of many sequels and rather than a rehash of ideas, rearranged the structure of the original. Therefore instead of the traditional beginning, middle and end, The Empire Strikes Back begins with what would otherwise be a climatic battle which is followed by exposition and then the daring escape from the enemy fortress. By this point Lucas had brought veteran writer Leigh Brackett, whose numerous credits included The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo , in order to shape his ideas. Lawrence Kasdan in turn shaped her first draft after her death.
The films biggest gamble was Yoda, a puppet voiced and operated by Frank Oz, the man behind many of the Muppet voices, which much to Lucas’s relief paid off. This is largely due to Oz’s performance but much of the credit must also go to Mark Hamill who shares the screen with Yoda on a one to one basis for the entire second act and never once looks like he doesn’t believe in the shrivelled creature he is interacting with.
It is telling though, that the finest line in the film was one improvised off the cuff by Harrison Ford. When Princess Leia in a moment of high emotion blurts out ‘I love you,’ it is Ford who coolly improvised ‘I know.’ This kind of improvisation, the human element, would be sorely missing in the prequels.
Return of the Jedi , the final part of the saga is generally deemed the weakest of the films. After the gloomy and often oppressive feel of The Empire Strikes Back , Jedi tries to contrast dark themes (Luke Skywalker confronting his father in a deadly duel) with light hearted whimsy (the overbearingly cute Ewoks). The threat of the Empire is toned down and the whole film feels like a terrible anticlimax.
Repeated ideas from the previous films include another daring attack on another Death Star, a return visit to Yoda on Dagobah and another visit to Tattooine as well as scenes in Jabba The Hutt’s palace which feature enough exotic creatures to appear to be an attempt to top the classic Cantina from the original film. The Redwood forest which was used as the Moon of Endor feels too earth bound, lacking the otherworldliness of the planets used in the first two films.
Return of the Jedi feels more like a sequel in the way Empire so carefully avoided and despite the usual plethora of excellent special effects and a genuinely frightening performance from Ian McDiarmid as The Emperor, the imagination that made the first two films so compelling seems absent.
Star Wars Returns
The 20 th anniversary release of the Special Editions of the original trilogy did not bode well for the forthcoming prequels. The films were largely perfect to begin with, so why try to change them and risk upsetting the work of Lucas on the original but also the sequels which were directed by Irvin Kershener and the late Richard Marquand respectively?
Special effects where added which detracted badly from the story and characters. Han Solo, originally portrayed as a ruthless mercenary who guns a bounty hunter down in cold blood now fires after the bounty hunter has missed in one clumsy alteration which was then changed to both gunslingers firing at once for the DVD release. The original version still works the best.
In another new scene Jabba The Hutt, a gangster, who is later described as all powerful, squeals in a comedic fashion when Solo deliberately walks on his tail in a scene of exposition that features plot points already established in the previous scene! The whole scene makes the audience think more about the technology involved in the creating the effect rather than the actual narrative benefit of the scene itself. Not only is the addition unnecessary but it undermines a character who is otherwise deemed ruthless and powerful enough to attempt to put our heroes to the death and is even seen to be strong willed enough to resist the Jedi.
An effective addition to the film sees Biggs and Luke (childhood friends from back home) reunited prior to the final battle. It’s the one addition that is in keeping with the original and adds character and even more emotion into the climatic battle. Tellingly it is a scene with no special effects or excessive background business, simply a quite moment before the denouement.
It seemed that many of the scenes that were added showcase the technology that Lucas had available rather than to enhance the already excellent story. Sadly, the original versions of the original trilogy have been erased from existence with the undated versions updated once again for their DVD release.
Every Saga Has A Beginning
Any film as keenly anticipated as Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace is guaranteed to displease some of its fans. Although in the long run up to its release there was a sense of fan made hype fuelled by a huge wave of optimism and excitement about the film. An extensive marketing campaign meant that many of the plot revealing toys, games and books made it to the shops long before the film hit cinemas.
Websites which simply had not existed when the last film was released some 16 years earlier, reported in detail on all aspects of the film, giving fans a mixture of inaccurate speculation and detailed insight into the plot some two years before the film hit the screens.
When the film was finally released in May 1999, it met with an initial wave of goodwill (some hardened fans had queued for weeks to be first in the cinema) followed by a swift critical revaluation which seemed to indicate that the film was a crashing disappointment. Message boards on sites like the extremely popular aintitcoolnews.com hosted fans comments which included raging, irrational proclamations such as ‘George Lucas raped my childhood’ and ‘I wasted my life waiting for this?’ It seemed that the fun space opera that never took itself too seriously had unwittingly upset some of its hardcore fans.
Even the twenty something sitcom Spaced devoted much time to attacking the film and some fans took to the internet and presented their own version of the film, entitled ‘The Phantom Edit’ which removed much of the offensive material such as the more slapstick pratfalls of Jar Jar Binks and Anakin Skywalker’s cries of ‘Yippee!’
Despite the fact that its takings propelled it comfortably into the top ten highest grossing films of all time, The Matrix , with its slicker package of stunts, extended gun and kung fu battles and philosophical musings stole much of its thunder, perhaps catering for an older age group than Star Wars core audiences.
The first of the prequels is an introduction to characters and universe that will appear over the course of six films yet many of its best ideas are buried under laboured plotting and a dull, back and forth narrative. There is a sense throughout the film that Lucas is unsure as to who his audience is; children or the older viewer who grew up with the Star Wars films? At times he seems to play it for both crowds, resulting in talk of taxation in the opening text crawl and some sharp political intrigue midway through the film juxtaposed with comedy antics from Jar Jar Binks and the young Anakin who provides an identification point for the youngest possible audience members. A brief reference to the virgin birth of Anakin tips the film uncomfortably and unnecessarily towards biblical analogy.
Having created a vast universe with a thousand different worlds (as the initial trailer for A New Hope told us) there seemed to be a change of agenda. The universe seems to shrink until characters who shouldn’t really have a connection seem to be linked. Could C3-PO the camp, scatterbrained droid really have been created by the future Darth Vader? Would Obi Wan Kenobi really not remember the droids with their distinctive look and mannerisms by the time we arrive at A New Hope ? With even Chewbacca due to put in an appearance in Episode 3, it seems that the vast universe of Star Wars is getting smaller by the moment.
Far more alarming is the change of explanation of The Force. We were originally told that The Force is a mystical energy field that penetrates every living thing, a concept used throughout the original trilogy. By the time we get to The Phantom Menace , The Force is less to do with mystical energy (or magic) and has mutated into the less poetic Midi-Chlorians, which are described as living creatures. Not only does this rob us of some of the wonder of the films, having more in common with science than the fantasy of what has gone before, but as the film is designed as the first of the series, it seems a shame that the mysticism is given an explanation, essentially the pulling back of the wizards curtain to see how the magic works, so early on.
Casting the already well known Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor in the prequels perhaps added publicity but shows that Lucas forgot that Star Wars was never a star vehicle. Although audiences might look back on Harrison Ford now as being the big star of the film, at the time he was leading a principal cast of unknowns while the likes of Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness lend weight in support.
The follow up, Attack of The Clones takes up the story ten years later as the universe plunges further into turmoil. The target audience seemed higher and the juxtaposition between silliness and dull seemed more tempered. The film however suffered from bad performances and curious misjudgement. Anakin Skywalker, recast with Hayden Christianson as Darth Vader in waiting, comes across as a whiney teenager. Surely this softens the drama of his fall from grace so that instead of being a dramatic twist it becomes an inevitable, lengthy stumble.
Many of Lucas’ choices compromise the drama. C3-PO’s asides (virtually to camera) during the films climatic battle, violently shatter the Fourth Wall and it is difficult to imagine his comedic business in these scenes having a place during similar high tension sequences in A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back.
In interviews Lucas has stated that part of the overall structure of the films is to use poetic form with repeating stanzas. Therefore repetition is used which unfortunately destroys the element of surprise. The underdog winning battles reoccur so that the Gungans in The Phantom Menace echoes the Ewoks turning the tide of battle in Return of the Jedi . Anakin Skywalker destroys the droid control ship in The Phantom Menace and later, his son Luke does the same to the first Death Star. He even gets his hand cut off in a duel with a similar moment appearing towards the climax of The Empire Strikes Back
Episode 3 is reportedly the darkest of the films, with Anakin’s fall from grace, the Jedi’s extermination, the fall of the Republic and subsequent rise of the Empire all to be covered in the 2 hour plus running time. Efforts have allegedly been made to ensure that the mise-en-scene ties in with what we will see in A New Hope onwards with sets, spaceships and even hairstyles deliberately fashioned so that the two trilogys seem part of a whole.
Although the narrative shouldn’t feature too many surprises it will be interesting to see if the writing of the film can match stylistically with what will in the future be regarded as the sequels. With a promising trailer and Lucas labelling the film ‘Titanic in Space’ one can only hope that the film will be a triumph of narrative over digital.
There are literally scores of books dealing with the special effects, alien creatures and space craft in the Star Wars saga. However the only book which provides a guide to the writing process involved in making the original trilogy is the excellent Star Wars : The Annotated Scripts by Laurent Bouzerau and is therefore recommended.
Special thanks to Owen Thomas for his assistance in writing this article.
Jonathan Wilkins
