It’s been three decades since Star Wars changed the face of filmed science fiction. Back then, sci-fi was a joke; Star Wars made it cool. Now sci-fi is cool, and the Star Wars saga – thanks largely to the three preposterous prequels – is the joke. So what does Star Wars have to say to today’s audiences?
The problems that Star Wars seems to have, I think, melt away when you look at them closely. Star Wars is still on my list of must-see science fiction films because it is just as revolutionary today, and just as needed, as it was thirty years ago.
Problem: Sci-Fi Has Gotten Darker
Star Wars, in its basic outline, is classic space opera: a green but predestined hero and his wizened mentor are set against an experienced, all-powerful villain in an epic struggle. The story is simple: good versus evil. The ending is not only happy – it’s wrapped up in a big red bow. The abiding impression of Star Wars is that it is soaring, romantic, and lighthearted.
Science fiction in film, however, has moved on. Blade Runner, also starring Harrison Ford, established a benchmark for dystopian science fiction which seems to be the opposite of Star Wars optimism, continued by Terminator and Alien and their sequels. Then The Matrix came along and completely revolutionized sci-fi movies, welding science fiction together with the need for spellbinding computer effects.
There are two problems with this premise. The first is that dystopia is not the required format of science fiction now, nor did it ever become so. The most uplifting science fiction movie ever made, Back to the Future, came out after Blade Runner and Terminator. The all-time top grossing science fiction films are still Star Wars, E.T., Episode III, and Jurassic Park.
The second problem is that Star Wars isn’t all that light-hearted or wide-eyed. The society Luke emerges into is unpleasant and cynical. All the arrayed forces of good have been mopped up by a single man, Vader; the only surviving Jedi we see, Obi-Wan, is in hiding and inactive. These two facts together strongly imply the superiority of evil over good. The dark side of the force is presented as alluring, the pathway to strength.
Most importantly, the plot does not tidily dispose of evil. After that final battle, neither the empire not Darth Vader has been defeated, Alderaan has been destroyed, and Obi-Wan has apparently been killed. The dark side has destroyed everything of value to Luke, including his family and friends; only the battle is left to him – hardly an uplifting thought. The contrast with the kid who itched to escape the mundanity of Tatooine is deliberately muted by the shiny medal-giving scene at the end of the film.
Problem: Special Effects Have Been Transformed
Special effects have certainly changed a great deal since 1977; the absolute revolution in computer graphics, in part brought about by George Lucas’s ILM, make a thirty-year gap seem unbridgeable. Films like The Matrix have so altered what people expect to see when they watch science fiction that earlier, pre-computer films are at a distinct handicap.
Anyone who believes this bromide diminishes the watchability of Star Wars hasn’t seen it lately. Star Wars shares with Blade Runner an invisibility of effects: effects serve the story and create atmosphere but don’t attract attention to themselves. Contrast The Matrix, where half of the fun is watching the cool special effects; but the fact that the later films fizzled proves that special effects cannot be the central draw.
The Special Edition of Star Wars helps illustrate this point. Many of the additions – particularly and especially those in Mos Eisley – are not only extraneous but completely distracting from the story. When, in the Special Edition, we see the creatures called dewbacks walking, after being stationary in the original, we’re not thinking, “Those stormtroopers are bound to find something.” We’re thinking, “Look, the dewbacks are walking!” In the original version, the camera panned off of a stationary dewback, and no thought was spared for it: the narrative progressed directly to the search for the droids.
The question would be moot if the film couldn’t take you into Luke’s world and make it believable. But one of the reasons that Star Wars works is that from the first frame it sells the spaceship, the battle, and the droids as utterly believable, and then establishes them as background for the human drama that begins to unfold with the introduction of Vader and Leia. In many modern films I find myself watching the effects (good or bad), and only an amazing story can redeem that. With Star Wars, the effects are perfect because they aid the story without intruding on it.
Problem: Oh Dear, The Acting
Even given that the story’s darker than it looks and the effects are spot-on, some people are willing to demote Star Wars because the quality of the acting and the script are not ideal.
In many ways this perception is a bleed-over from the prequels, where both the writing and the acting were inferior (I cringe every time I think of Hayden Christensen expressing his love to Padme in Episode III, a scene that creates a mesmerizing vortex of bad writing, bad direction, and bad acting), and the widely held opinion that George Lucas’s talent is as a visionary and not as a writer or director.
The directing on Star Wars is strong, clear, and confident, and so is the writing. The droid banter that becomes intrusive later is here relatively restrained, and the rest of the dialog is filled with lines that are still quoted today.
The acting? At one end of the scale the acting is serviceable and underrated (Hamill). At the other end, Star Wars contains outstanding performances from Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, and Peter Cushing. Add the excellent combination of David Prowse and James Earl Jones and you have a film that in other genres would be worth seeing for the acting alone.
Star Wars Today
Today, Star Wars is a well told, involving tale of a group of people who fight overwhelming evil and carve out for themselves a small victory, knowing that more suffering is yet to come. The day that stops being a useful message to pass on to the next generation is the day they should stop making movies.
