why do people level these charges at star wars?

[Eleas]

Eleas, in mitigation I'd say that science fiction is such a good tool for social commentary that it's reasonable to expect its leading lights to supply it.

Good points, all. Simon, you bring up an interesting distinction, and I agree. If I seemed as if I dismissed social commentary and scientific acumen among SF/F writing, that wasn't my meaning.

I'm not dismissing Sci-Fi as a tool of commentary or critique; there's been a long and successful tradition of this dating back to the days of Jonathan Swift, and I wouldn't want it gone. It only becomes a problem when authors feel they have to employ such devices as a justification for writing in the first place, as if there was some deep shame inherent to "mere" fantastic escapism. Incongruously, more than one Fantasy writer has been quick to voice his disdain for "fairy tale nonsense," as if by doing so he elevates his own work beyond Childish Things.

I prefer Havok's position. Escapism can be fun and rewarding, and as long as it's reasonably clever, why should we need to apologize?

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I think you see really good escape literature when it's escaping to something. The escapism isn't a comment on the society in which you live; it becomes a comment on how people ought to live.

Tolkein set a gold standard there, I think. With his work you see a strong promotion of awareness of nature, the corrupting potential of absolute power over nature, and the role of personal nobility in human affairs. And those themes had, to an extent, become submerged with the rise of Mass Man in the post-Taylorism, post-Lenin, post-Gatling era in which Tolkein grew to manhood and wrote the books.

EDIT: I choose that description for the era because I'm trying to get at the fact that the early 20th century was, perhaps more than any other period in human history, a period in which large institutions encroached on the personal ability of individuals to build unique, distinctive lives for themselves. In war, men were sent to die as conscripted cannon fodder by practically all nations; in political affairs, many of the prevailing movements of the time were those which disdained the idea of individual rights and initiative in favor of 'vanguard party' or 'national will' schemes; in daily work, the trend was toward scientific management at the expense of both craftsmanship and the simple human freedom to take a break.

[Drooling Iguana]

The complaint pitched against Star Wars here comes from something else- the observation that while other people may play large roles in the galaxy, so much of its history comes about at the hands of a few specially empowered individuals, most of whom obtained their power by birth. Palpatine took over the galaxy thanks in large part to his magic powers; Anakin delivered the galaxy into his hands, a job he could do only because of his magic powers; Luke took the galaxy out of Palpatine's hands because, in turn, he had magic powers. In each case, they were born with the magic powers.

Actually, that's not really how things went. Luke played an important role for the Rebellion at the battles of Yavin and (less so) Hoth, but by the time he started seriously becoming a Jedi his actions became less and less relevant to the galaxy at large. After all, it ultimately didn't matter that he ended up redeeming Vader and contributing to the death of the Emperor - he would've been dead regardless when the Death Star was blown up (due to the actions of Han, Leia, Lando and Ackbar, not Luke.)

Likewise, Vader was just a henchman in the first movie and only gained a measure of his own authority when commanding the squadron tasked with hunting down Luke in ESB. The drama between the Force-users was certainly important to its participants, but it was largely irrelevant to the actual outcome of the Galactic Civil War. It was the regular, non-powered people who were the real movers and shakers on that front.

[Knife]

Thematically, it took the coming of the magic person to bring together and inspire the 'normal' people, who in turn did the actual heavy lifting in defeating the Emperor. Sure, Luke redeemed Anakin, which in turn caused Anakin to kill Palpatine, but only minutes before the normal folk blew up the Deathstar. Even in ANH, it took the normal folk to protect Luke as he too the fateful shot to kill the first Deathstar.

So as a theme, it takes a special person to get the ball running, but destiny can't be fulfilled without normal folk doing their job too. In a way, the Force-users act as catalysts to fate.

[Darth Yan]

not necissarily. luke kept vader and palpy focused on the family squabble. what would have happened if either guy could wreck havok on the rebel soldiers (Palpy with his powers in space, Vader on the ground). It also shattered the empire's battle coordination

[Eleas]

Well, I think you see really good escape literature when it's escaping to something. The escapism isn't a comment on the society in which you live; it becomes a comment on how people ought to live.

I do not disagree. I only take issue with the notion that it is the only permissible form of escapism. I'm aware that this isn't something you contend yourself, but the tradition of chiding fantastic escapism dates back to the Victorian era.

[Elfdart]

People cough up furballs of this sort for the same reason people thought they were being cute in 2001 by typing "All Your Base Are Belong To Us!" They are smugly stupid twerps who can't form an opinion of their own and can't think for themselves. So they let Charles Taylor or his many fatuous impersonators like David Brin or Steven Hart or other members of the Salon coven handle the job for them. Deciding for yourself whether you like something or hate it can be tiresome, so why not let others do it and save you the trouble?

On top of that, if you piss all over an artist whose works are popular and well-liked, you can affect an edgy and irreverent tone and be like, cool or something.



As someone who is old enough to remember what movies were like in the 1970s before Star Wars came along, I can say with certitude that if these writers sampled in the OP were any more full of shit they'd explode like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life:

http://youtu.be/9pf3hR0_LUo

So Hollywood was backing personal films by true artists who were oh-so-earnestly trying to create true expressions of the...

ah fuck it, I can't write this bullshit even in a sarcastic tone. The point is that in the age of Google, all one has to do is search for "most popular movies by decade" or "top-grossing movies by decade" and it becomes pretty clear to anyone who is NOT severely retarded that the studios pretty much churn out what they've always churned out:

1 Big-budget spectacles
2 Action shoot-'em-ups
3 Horror/Thrillers/Crime Drama
4 Musicals
5 Comedies
6 Disney Cartoons


Yes, they did back the family drama or the weepy romance or the sci-fi film or the period costume drama or the western (though westerns were an endangered species), but those were usually low-budget affairs paid for out of the studios' equivalent of petty cash or made by indies. The budgets were kept low, so expectations were also kept low. If one of these films hit it big, so much the better. It was also preferable to let new filmmakers prove themselves with one of these movies than to give them the keys to the Rolls-Royce. That doesn't change the fact that the studios put their money for the most part into movies that fall into categories 1-6.

For example, let's take a look at 1970 -part of this "Golden Era George Lucas Ruined In 1977". Here are the top-grossing films of that year:

Love Story
Airport 1
M*A*S*H 5
Patton 1
The Aristocats 6

The only film that doesn't fall into categories 1-6 is Love Story, a weepy romance based on a popular novel. The film gained notoriety because the executive producer and prime mover behind the film (Robert Evans) was carrying on an affair with Ali McGraw, the leading lady of the picture. So the idea that Love Story was some sort of "personal, artistic filmmaking" is a joke unless by "artistic" you mean the work of a conniving bullshit artist like Evans, and by "personal" you mean his efforts (successful) to personally boink Ali McGraw.



Can't fault Evans here, folks.

At this site you can go through year by year and see the top movies in terms of budgets (showing how much the studios invested in them) and box office take (showing how well the public liked them). Pick any year from the "Golden Age Lucas Ruined In 1977" and you'll see the same results. Then examine the years after Star Wars came out. Notice something?

Aside from a temporary spike in science fiction movies in the wake of Star Wars (Alien, Star Trek, Close Encounters, E.T., Blade Runner, The Terminator), improvements in special effects and sound, and animated Disney films flopping one after the other until The Little Mermaid in 1988, NOTHING CHANGED!

The most idiotic attack on Lucas has to be the idea that Star Wars ushered in the age of sequels. For someone to make such a claim shows that at best they are an imbecile. Maybe they never heard of the Nick & Nora Charles movies (6 of them) or the Billy Jack series (3) or The Godfather (2 when Star Wars came out) or Planet of the Apes (five films). But are they really so goddamned stupid that they've never heard of the multiple James Bond movies? This is beyond stupidity, it shows that the person has such a deranged hate-on for George Lucas that they're willing to tell such a preposterous lie in order to attack the man.

[Batman]

The Magnificent Seven or Jaws, anyone? I'd excempt the James Bond movies because they're not really sequels (at least not in the 'continuation of an ongoing narrative' sense), but ANH decidedly did NOT usher in 'the age of sequels', Hollywood was happily trying to make money off those long before Star Wars ever came around.

[aussiemuscle308]

very much a commentary on social trends,

Yes, and we know how George's commentary on social trends turned out: THX1138. zzzzzzzzz

[Simon_Jester]

What does that have to do with anything I said?

[Bakustra]

What does that have to do with anything I said?

George Lucas being the Antichrist and a horrible filmmaker besides has been challenged, so it needs to be reinforced even in seemingly irrelevant places.

[Havok]

very much a commentary on social trends,

Yes, and we know how George's commentary on social trends turned out: THX1138. zzzzzzzzz

You mean his commentary on future humans being controlled by machines and drugs? Yeah he was really far off there.

[Darth Yan]

here's another interesting charge; that it ripped off dune

http://scytale.name/files/doc/essays/du ... arwars.pdf

the only difference seems to be that he isn't overly hostile to wars

[Bakustra]

That's not really a charge- it deliberately took inspiration from Flash Gordon, Dune, Asimov- but I think that he overstates the similarities between the characters and the plotlines except in the broadest outline, which itself falls apart at the end. Not to mention that there's not Jessica or Alia equivalent, no real Fremen equivalent despite what he says about the Jedi being one, and ultimately, the antagonists are hardly equivalent to the antagonists of Dune. I've also read the earlier drafts, and I'm pretty sure that it was similarities of names- Jedi-Bendu, etc. that would have allowed Herbert to sue 20th Century Fox, more than similarities of plot.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I once saw someone argue that Star Wars was a pro-Nazi piece. His argument was that the Millenium Falcon flying over a Star Destroyer represented the 'falcon' (He means the Reichsadler I think) signified the thousand years of the Third Reich. It was... weird.

[Darth Yan]

here are some other links that confused me

http://www.poffysmoviemania.com/StarWar ... eJedi.html
http://www.poffysmoviemania.com/StarWarsANewHope.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/may/14/1

the final one says it retarded growth and encouraged a conservative view, and the others bring up nitpicks which while partially accurate also get some things wrong.

[Darth Tedious]

here are some other links that confused me

http://www.poffysmoviemania.com/StarWar ... eJedi.html
http://www.poffysmoviemania.com/StarWarsANewHope.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/may/14/1

the final one says it retarded growth and encouraged a conservative view, and the others bring up nitpicks which while partially accurate also get some things wrong.

Those reviews are absolutely hilarious! (though sometimes highly misinformed- "...the Empire only lasted about thirty years, from EPISODE I to EPISODE VI."- ) Honestly, if RLM had done reviews like that of the OT, I would have some respect for him, instead of thinking he's an idiot and a hypocrite.

At least the last one explains why he doesn't like them, rather than trying to justify them being horrid movies- something most SW haters fail to do. That said, he still claims that they 'ruined 70's cinema'.

[Samuel]

Another error is when he refers to the lack of evil done by the Empire (aside from Alderan). This is horribly wrong- they commit three atrocities at the start of Episode 4
-killing the prisoners
-killing the Jawas
-killing Luke's foster parents

That really isn't good guy behavior. People who consider them good guys generally use the insane incompetance of the New Republic. However, the review itself was funny and accurate-

"Watch for the uber-cliche of the frazzled pilot ejaculating, “There’s too many of them!” and immediately being blown up. If I was your wingman, that’s the absolute LAST thing I want to hear from a supposedly expert pilot. The same thing happens in INDEPENDENCE DAY, with the exact same words: some defeatist pilot exclaims, "There's too many of them!" and is immediately vaporized.

"

[Darth Yan]

one thing i want to know is how simplistic were the morality of films prior to star wars? the proportions more specifically.

[Elfdart]

The complaint pitched against Star Wars here comes from something else- the observation that while other people may play large roles in the galaxy, so much of its history comes about at the hands of a few specially empowered individuals, most of whom obtained their power by birth. Palpatine took over the galaxy thanks in large part to his magic powers; Anakin delivered the galaxy into his hands, a job he could do only because of his magic powers; Luke took the galaxy out of Palpatine's hands because, in turn, he had magic powers. In each case, they were born with the magic powers.

Actually, that's not really how things went. Luke played an important role for the Rebellion at the battles of Yavin and (less so) Hoth, but by the time he started seriously becoming a Jedi his actions became less and less relevant to the galaxy at large. After all, it ultimately didn't matter that he ended up redeeming Vader and contributing to the death of the Emperor - he would've been dead regardless when the Death Star was blown up (due to the actions of Han, Leia, Lando and Ackbar, not Luke.)

Likewise, Vader was just a henchman in the first movie and only gained a measure of his own authority when commanding the squadron tasked with hunting down Luke in ESB. The drama between the Force-users was certainly important to its participants, but it was largely irrelevant to the actual outcome of the Galactic Civil War. It was the regular, non-powered people who were the real movers and shakers on that front.

The story of Star Wars is about the Skywalker family -it just happens to take place in the GFFA during periods of civil war. It's not about those wars. Casablanca is not about WW2, it's about Rick Blaine, Capt. Renault, Ilsa Lund and their story. Think for a minute just how fatuous it would be for someone to bitch about how Casablanca doesn't focus on the average soldier or sailor or partisan fighting against Hitler. It would be flattery to call that someone an imbecile.

[Elfdart]

one thing i want to know is how simplistic were the morality of films prior to star wars? the proportions more specifically.

Depends on the kind of movie. Kids' matinee movies (which is what SW is) usually have much less moral complexity than Star Wars. Go watch a typical Errol Flynn movie and you'll see. In terms of being morally complicated, Star Wars has always been somewhere between swashbucklers of the 30s and 40s, and westerns made before 1960.