Star Wars Essays

My basic criticisms of Star Wars are poor storytelling. I haven't had the time to write down all my problems with the movies, but luckily David Brin has. Check out his excellent discussion of the problems with Star Wars.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Tina and I went to see Episode III this morning. The special effects were incredible. The sound was great. The action scenes were fast and furious. The climax of the movie was entirely unbelievable. You might argue that a lightsaber battle in the middle of a lava flow is completely believable in a science fiction movie. Before you play the "suspend your disbelief" card, I would respond by pointing out that the fight isn't the climax. In terms of story structure, the climax is the point beyond which nothing can remain the same. I would argue that the climax is the moment when Anakin falls to the dark side.

It's supposed to be a huge emotional moment. He's choosing to turn from the path of everything he's believed to be good in life to everything he's thought to be evil. I'm left asking why he made the choice. I don't think that the storytellers created enough of a character for me to understand why he made the decision. If I don't understand why he made the decision, then what do I take away from the movie? The purpose of fiction is to allow the audience to learn from the experieces of characters without having to live through the events themselves. When the storytellers fail to create characters that you can believe and identify with, they have failed the audience.

So, I have no trouble suspending my disbelief for a light saber battle between two men who fling things around with hand gestures within instant ignition distance of molten lava. But if you allow the flashy special effects to persuade you to suspend your disbelief of the reality of the characters then the dark side will forever dominate the destiny of science fiction.

Star Wars

I grew up in the 70's. Which is another way of saying that I grew up with Star Wars. The new movies may be lame. Revenge of the Jedi might have been a little more satisfying that Return of the Jedi. Nobody likes the Ewoks or Jar Jar Binks. But, throughout it all, anyone who has seen any of the movies will admit, lightsabers are cool.

I recently came across some great tutorials about doing lightsaber effects. My first effort is shown below. I'm pretty pleased with it. John Morgan pointed out that the saber throws a shadow. I'd noticed that as well and I originally tried to remove it from the picture, but if you follow the lightsaber link above, you can see that lightsabers throw shadows in the movies too. So, it actually turns out to be accurate.

My saber is made from a 3/4 inch dowel, some PVC pipe, a few PVC pipe fixtures, and electrical tape. The rest was done in photoshop.