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Re: Re: Star Wars... It's not the hype


In a message dated 5/17/99 10:33:00 AM, trance at radiks_net wrote:

>
>
>As Lucas recently pointed out to Katie Couric, there is good violence and 
there
>is
>bad violence.  Whether or not you agree, that's something to consider.  
There is
>also the fact that Star Wars displayed a very - *very* - tame brand of 
violence
>akin to the WWII films that John Wayne had been making for years and years.  
So
>they used blue-screens instead of ketchup packets - why does it matter?  It
>doesn't.  SW didn't introduce violence to the movies.
>
You know, I just spent a VERY enjoyable evening last week watching the 
original Star Wars. I'm going back over it again, and I'm thinking: except 
fpr the Cantina scene, where we are more fully given to understand Obi-Wan's 
limits and character, I don't recall seeing any blood in that film. Am I 
wrong? And I think the word we're all looking for is "Gratuitous." As in, 
none of the violence in that movie is gratuitous.
>

>>3.) Poor scripts, written to be fully understood by 10 year olds.
>
>And what, exactly, is wrong with that?  I'm not smelling a little 
highbrowism,
>am
>I?  The deepest truths, the most touching sympathies, the most spectacular
>imaginations can be realized by ten-year-olds, and it takes a rare genius 
(Jim
>Henson comes to mind) who can pull such things off without alienating the 
adult
>audience.  Any film or book (Narnia, anyone?) that can supercede our 
culturally
>imposed distinctions of age-level focus should be lauded, not berated.
>
>
Anyone here ever read "The Uses of Enchantment" by Bruno Bettelheim? All our 
most profoundly-felt stories draw on myths and archetypes that are a 
fundamental part of our culture, our collective unconscious. Luke's journey 
in the first movie, and in the first three, is the classic Hero's Journey. 
You wouldn't call the Iliad oversimplified, and I think that's the beauty of 
the SW films: they're simple and classical and bear universal-- er, no pun 
intended-- truths


>
>>4.) Shallow characters that undergo no important development.
>
>"Shallow characters" is a fairly relative term, and I guess everyone is 
entitled
>to their opinion.  But you misspeak when you assert that the charcters 
undergo
>no
>important development.  Luke undergoes terrifying character development.  
Compare
>the whiny, cocky farmboy dreamer to the hard-edged, confident, and wary 
warrior
>who confronts the Emperor. And it's not a shake-and-bake transformation, 
either.
>We get to live through those experiences that change him, and we believe it 
when
>it's done.  Much like real-life, you don't notice it so much while it's 
happening,
>but retrospect makes it clear.
>
>
>
>Han's development is just as pronounced, if more subtle.  
*Darth-frickin-Vader*
>undergoes a fantastically subtle and powerful transformation that spans all 
three
>films.  How many movies actually take the time to not only develop their evil
>characters, but to save their wicked souls?
>
>
Sing on, brother.


Let's not forget that although in retrospect, seen through 20 years of more 
sci-fi movies, more violence, more over-the-top effects, Star Wars looks 
fairly sedate. But at the time, it blew most of us away. 

Jeez. There's no sex, all the violence makes sense, no gratuitous blood, and 
we STILL flock to it! Whazzup wit DAT? 

I'll take Star Wars and Lucas or Speilberg over "I Still Know What you Did 
Last Summer And I'm Gonna Make Sure Everyone Sees It, You Perv!" any day.