Admiral_Snackbar
Veni, vidi, Lionel Richie
Now as some people may know, Lucas took it out a whole new door last month with a feature film that was really just a pilot for the new TV show on Cartoon Network: Star Wars - Clone Wars. Aside from the obvious fact that George's yacht has a scuff mark and he needs a new one, ergo, more toy ideas (I will say that the quality of action figures has degraded to the point where they now look like they are held together with wall poster tack putty and painted by Chinese glaucoma sufferers, but I digress).
The overall take-home of this is what I now refer to Lucas' Law: Every Star Wars property must have a Jar-Jar. Let's face it, the comedic foil/token jester character has been a staple of fiction since forever. I mean, even Dracula had to deal with Abbott and Costello. C-3PO and RD-D2 were the comedic gestures in the original trilogy (a nod to the peasant characters Tahei and Matashichi from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress on which much of Star Wars was based), but to a degree they still were intelligently humorous. As the films evolved in the prequels, it became clear that the goal was to either racially label the character as a Stepin Fetchit clone (Jar-Jar) or in the case of Clone Wars, Ahsoka Tano--Anakin's Padawan--who becomes the annoying teenybopper with their galaxy's equivalent of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen prostitot fashion.
My only guess was that Lucas had tiny kids when he made the original trilogy, he had older kids in the later films, and thus realized (with I am sure the little Devil George on his shoulder), that you can please both your children and the hordes of other tiny consumers out there by playing to kid humor and stereotypes.
So far I have watched the first three episodes on Cartoon Network, and my conclusion is that they are ok for some kids. The third episode (spoilers) has a bunch of battle droids blowing out a window on an escape pod, and three clone commanders are sucked out to die (off camera) in the vacuum of space. This is not a Wile E. Coyote type of death. The Ahsoka character is exactly what young Anakin was in Episode II: Brash, unafraid, and definitely willing to speak out of turn. In the end, either due to Anakin's tutelage or just blind luck, her risks pay off. In the process you want to Force crush her vocal chords, since she babbles on in a going-to-Toschi-station-to-pick-up-some-power-converters waahmbulance tone that borders on chalkboard nail levels of irritation. It's the singular reason why I am glad I have two boys and not a couple of Hanna Montana worshippers.
But, inevitably you get the Star Wars geeks on one side and the Star Trek geeks on the other. There is no comparison. It's not a "you can't have your chocolate in my peanut butter!" argument, it's more of a "you got your pickle in my blueberry yogurt" persiective. Star Wars is space opera, based on a guy's love of old TV serials and mythological archetypes. Star Trek is an old WWII pilot's desire to sell a Western to episodic TV producers that just happens to be placed in a science fiction milieu, in a future utopia where all of our current societal ills were the problem of alien throwbacks we encountered every episode. It was in the right place at the right time, and it continues to be poignant because the social commentary of the show reflected that which was going on all over American during a decade known for monumental social and political upheaval.
Forget the bare knuckle fights and Vulcan stoicism. You had two guys fighting over the fact that one was black on the right side where everyone else on their planet was black on the LEFT side. You had Kirk killing a loincloth-wearing baby T. rex with a bamboo tube and some improvised gunpowder (while some supremely advanced aliens looked on dismissively from the sidelines). Star Wars was about basic good vs. evil, and why evil tends to triumph because good people often make very dumb decisions, and go all 'in for a penny, in for a pound' when the guilt drives them to do naughty things. The "fall" of Anakin Skywalker was in my personal opinion of the the absolute gobsmackingly dumb plotlines of any film, anywhere, and it made me feel less pity towards what is considered the true tragic character of the series. I sit back and realize, "yes, there's a reason WHY Yoda/Mace Windu did not give Anakin the rank of Master...he was too unrefined and freespirited--regardless of why his tactics often worked", but still had to realize why in the end it's more risky to be in the corner of someone less powerful and wise rather than siding with someone insufferably confident in their power and totally naive because they grew up as a goddamn slave on a backwater planet.
Then again, maybe I'm just thinking too much into it.
The overall take-home of this is what I now refer to Lucas' Law: Every Star Wars property must have a Jar-Jar. Let's face it, the comedic foil/token jester character has been a staple of fiction since forever. I mean, even Dracula had to deal with Abbott and Costello. C-3PO and RD-D2 were the comedic gestures in the original trilogy (a nod to the peasant characters Tahei and Matashichi from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress on which much of Star Wars was based), but to a degree they still were intelligently humorous. As the films evolved in the prequels, it became clear that the goal was to either racially label the character as a Stepin Fetchit clone (Jar-Jar) or in the case of Clone Wars, Ahsoka Tano--Anakin's Padawan--who becomes the annoying teenybopper with their galaxy's equivalent of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen prostitot fashion.
My only guess was that Lucas had tiny kids when he made the original trilogy, he had older kids in the later films, and thus realized (with I am sure the little Devil George on his shoulder), that you can please both your children and the hordes of other tiny consumers out there by playing to kid humor and stereotypes.
So far I have watched the first three episodes on Cartoon Network, and my conclusion is that they are ok for some kids. The third episode (spoilers) has a bunch of battle droids blowing out a window on an escape pod, and three clone commanders are sucked out to die (off camera) in the vacuum of space. This is not a Wile E. Coyote type of death. The Ahsoka character is exactly what young Anakin was in Episode II: Brash, unafraid, and definitely willing to speak out of turn. In the end, either due to Anakin's tutelage or just blind luck, her risks pay off. In the process you want to Force crush her vocal chords, since she babbles on in a going-to-Toschi-station-to-pick-up-some-power-converters waahmbulance tone that borders on chalkboard nail levels of irritation. It's the singular reason why I am glad I have two boys and not a couple of Hanna Montana worshippers.
But, inevitably you get the Star Wars geeks on one side and the Star Trek geeks on the other. There is no comparison. It's not a "you can't have your chocolate in my peanut butter!" argument, it's more of a "you got your pickle in my blueberry yogurt" persiective. Star Wars is space opera, based on a guy's love of old TV serials and mythological archetypes. Star Trek is an old WWII pilot's desire to sell a Western to episodic TV producers that just happens to be placed in a science fiction milieu, in a future utopia where all of our current societal ills were the problem of alien throwbacks we encountered every episode. It was in the right place at the right time, and it continues to be poignant because the social commentary of the show reflected that which was going on all over American during a decade known for monumental social and political upheaval.
Forget the bare knuckle fights and Vulcan stoicism. You had two guys fighting over the fact that one was black on the right side where everyone else on their planet was black on the LEFT side. You had Kirk killing a loincloth-wearing baby T. rex with a bamboo tube and some improvised gunpowder (while some supremely advanced aliens looked on dismissively from the sidelines). Star Wars was about basic good vs. evil, and why evil tends to triumph because good people often make very dumb decisions, and go all 'in for a penny, in for a pound' when the guilt drives them to do naughty things. The "fall" of Anakin Skywalker was in my personal opinion of the the absolute gobsmackingly dumb plotlines of any film, anywhere, and it made me feel less pity towards what is considered the true tragic character of the series. I sit back and realize, "yes, there's a reason WHY Yoda/Mace Windu did not give Anakin the rank of Master...he was too unrefined and freespirited--regardless of why his tactics often worked", but still had to realize why in the end it's more risky to be in the corner of someone less powerful and wise rather than siding with someone insufferably confident in their power and totally naive because they grew up as a goddamn slave on a backwater planet.
Then again, maybe I'm just thinking too much into it.
