Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy (2004)

Director: Kevin Burns, Edith Becker

Cast: George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher

Have I Seen it Before: I’m almost positive that I have watched it before. By all indications, it as the main feature included in the initial DVD release of the original trilogy in 2004, and I was there the day it came out, my copy long-since reserved*.

Did I Like It: The documentary is fine. it’s professionally made, and it has access to its subjects, and a thoroughness in its exploration of the topic.

But let me take a moment from another piece of recent documentary filmmaking to illustrate this film’s weakness.

After Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) was released, George Lucas never gave an interview that wasn’t at least on some level about selling one of his movies or businesses. He has controlled the narrative of the story of how his films, just as closely as he controlled the story of the saga itself.

Now that he has retired from big-budget moviemaking and the Lucasfilm family of companies, he doesn’t need to have that same control anymore. In Disney+’s docuseries on Industrial Light and Magic, Light and Magic I finally saw Lucas be interviewed and have the filmmaker push back. In the talking head, he looked like someone had farted, but the truth of the moment was at least at least illuminated, if not fully explored.

There are no moments like that in this film. It’s a fully-approved exploration of the party line. Vader was always going to be Luke’s father**, Leia was always going to be Luke’s sister***, and Jabba was always in A New Hope****. It’s not hard to figure out that the truth is more complicated. The truly great documentary about Star Wars hasn’t been made yet, but the possibility exists now, and I’m waiting to see it. Not, a polemic like The People vs. George Lucas (2010) but a more concerted effort to illuminate the man who made those films and the process he took to get it done. A film version of Michael Kaminski’s The Secret History of Star Wars: The Art of Storytelling and the Making of a Modern Epic would be really something.

*I remember it so well because some girl had turned me down that night, and I remember watching the trilogy and by about the midway point of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), I had gotten over the unpleasantness earlier in the evening.

**Was never written down before the second draft of Empire.

***Wasn’t decided until well into the production of Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) when Lucas was drowning in what he wrought and decided he never wanted to make the sequel trilogy that would have introduced “the other.”

****Still doesn’t fit into the movie. It introduces the Millennium Falcon right before the scene that actually introduces the ship. Fight me about it.

American Graffiti (1973)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah, a couple of times.

Did I Like It: It’s another odd duck from Lucas before he reached his true destiny. With THX 1138 (1971), he embraced every nihilistic impulse he must have had as a film student, and here he takes a completely left turn and manages to sing-handedly create the teen comedy genre that John Hughes would continue to perfect in the following decade.

He’s still trying to create interesting soundscapes in his films. THX is a cacophony of an evil future, and this a similarly overwhelming wave of adolescent noise. That instinct started to disappear with Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) and was all but gone by the time Star Wars – Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) rolled around, that had disappeared.

Is it possible between the dourness of THX and the crowd-pleasing qualities of Star Wars, this is the kind of film we could have expected from Lucas when he was happy? I suppose not, as he also later made More American Graffiti (1979). It was not a success and continued to haunt him almost twenty years later when he made an off-hand comment about it during the making-of documentary of Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). 

Lucas so thoroughly nails this movie that even though I was a teenager forty years after these Modesto teens moved on to their adult lives, I am filled with nostalgia for my own days. Why doesn’t someone make the film about a bunch of kids running around trying to make a film themselves without any actual resources to back them up.

Guess I should probably make something like that myself.

God, this filmmaker has an ability to make me want to do things outside of my comfort zone. Usually it’s trying to find a heated-plasma sword and hoard religious artifacts. Is there any higher sign of a great filmmaker? Good on ya, Lucas.

THX 1138 (1971)*

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah, a couple of times. Hell, I’ve owned it on DVD a couple of times, just like any cineaste of sufficient stuffiness.

Did I Like It: It’s a trip, to be sure.

It’s sort of fun to imagine what kind of filmmaker George Lucas might have become, had he enjoyed any measure of commercial success earlier than he did. This film feels like the kind of movie he has really wanted to make this whole time. He may be still be producing “tone-poems” like this in some fashion after his retirement from big-budget blockbuster, if his interviews post-Disney takeover of Lucasfilm are to be believed. 

I can see why people didn’t like it when it was initially released. It is dour and aloof in a near-monolithic way. Lucas might have refined his film school sensibilities further had the studio system not so thoroughly kicked the crap out of him during the early goings. But, I got a lot of neat action figures over the years, so I guess that’s nice, too.

It should be mentioned that the ending of the film sticks with me long after the film is over. It’s the strongest, most coherent part of the film, and that’s no surprise as it is largely a remake of Lucas’ previous student Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967). While the feature tries to go through the milieu of Orwell’s 1984, things take a turn when the almost happy-ish ending where THX (Duvall) escapes society, largely because the authorities don’t have the budget to keep chasing him. Something about that gives me hope. We’re all too expensive for tyranny to truly break us.

Anyway, it’s a strange film, and the Lucas we all came to know is almost undetectable in the movie. Could you imagine if George Lucas kept going along this path? Can you imagine what he might be working on now that he has totally divorced himself from the audience? It boggles the mind, or at least the mind’s eye. The mind’s ear might be able to keep up. His early films almost sound like radio plays.

*Unlike with the original Star Wars movies, I had to watch the final George Lucas directors cut, complete with additional CGI effects. The augments are clearly less obtrusive than they became in his other, more famous movies, but it would have been something to see the film in its original form.

Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness

Have I Seen it Before: I mean, what would I have been doing with my life up until this point if I hadn’t? 

Did I Like It: It’s… Well, hell, at the risk of reading as needlessly melodramatic, it may, in fact be a perfect film.

And a perfect film the way that it was originally presented (see the footnote). Here’s some food for thought: Legend has it that the reason Lucas didn’t include the scene where Han (Ford) encounters Jabba the Hutt in the Mos Eisley Spaceport. 

It’s also the movie I point to when I needed an example of why widescreen was always better than full screen. Kids, ask your parents, as it’s not a debate that needs 

But all of that doesn’t matter when you see the twin suns of Tatooine and dream of a life beyond the one you’ve always known, and when Han return to the Death Star when he is needed the most, and when our heroes (sans Chewbacca [Peter Mayhew], #dontevergetoverthisone) get their reward at the throne room of the Great Massassi Temple on Yavin IV. This movie is simplicity itself, and even The Empire Strikes Back (1980) can’t hold a candle to that.

*I watched the original, completely unaltered version of the film (and will be doing so for the rest of the original trilogy). This was so unaltered that not only is Jabba the Hutt nowhere in sight, but the film isn’t even labeled as Episode IV or A New Hope at this point. That title was added on a later VHS release after The Empire Strikes Back hit theaters. The un-fiddled versions of the film are available in a limited edition from 2006 that is long-since out-of-print but are available on Amazon for about $60.00 per film. The original versions are technically a bonus feature on a second disc on each set and are what appear to be copies from even more antiquated laserdisc copies. Widescreen editions are available, but Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox went slight on the presentation features. It’s not anamorphic and your modern TV is going to find it a little befuddling, but if you’re in the market for looking at Sebastian Shaw as opposed to Hayden Christensen, this is the only way to go (more on that during my review of Return of the Jedi(1983).

Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid

Have I Seen it Before: I mean, we came this far. Why wouldn’t we “finish” things?

Did I Like It: You know, it’s an odd thing…

I want to say that anyone who believes this film isn’t the best entry in the prequel trilogy is being disingenuous, at best. I also want to say that anyone who thinks this movie is better than any entry in the original trilogy, is also being disingenuous. And finally, anyone who puts The Last Jedi (2017)* above any of the prequel trilogy are turning what used to be fun movies about space wizards with laser swords into a real chore. Thanks, guys.

Sigh.

Criticism of the Star Wars saga can be thoroughly exhausting, and yet I continue…

In my reviews of the other entries of the prequel trilogy, I lamented that the one element that might have recommended the films previously—the largely computer-generated special effects—tragically age the film beyond anything that Lucas might have originally hoped for. In this final Lucas-directed film, matters have improved slightly. It may not be entirely that there was a quantum leap forward in the effects, but there are more instances of digital characters interacting with one another, and fewer occasions where such creations awkwardly share a frame with an actual human.

That is not to say that the film is without its flaws, but this film’s deepest flaws are with its inherent design, not necessarily its execution. The tendency of prequels to depict scenes that previously lived in the collective imagination of backstory makes those resultant scenes a little less special. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) had a similar problem. In my mind, the particulars of how Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian was one of the greatest cons that ever transpired in this galaxy or the other. As depicted in the film, it’s just a well-played game of Sabacc. So, too, the duel on Mustafar between Vader (Christensen) and Obi-Wan (McGregor) always seemed sadder, and maybe a bit more minimalist as I imagined it. It wasn’t the huge, frenetic action sequence that Lucas ended up producing. It’s a minor nitpick, I suppose. Lucas was hell-bent on making the prequels one way or another; this was bound to happen.

Then there’s the real problem with Lucas’ contributions to cinema in the first few years of our new millennium. An advocate—nay, zealot—for shooting and projecting digitally, Lucas opened the century by insisting that if theater wanted to exhibit any of the new Star Wars movies he had coming off the line, that theater had to exhibit digitally. Most theaters acquiesced at least a little bit, and then realized digital projection was far cheaper across the board, and now here we are. Good luck finding a movie exhibited in 35mm. I can count on one hand the amount of movies I’ve actually seen on film in the last ten years. 

There’s a part of me that thinks the reel breaking during a screening of the special edition for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) in 1997 got back to Skywalker ranch, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and now we can’t have nice things anymore.

Do you miss those cigarette holes at the end of each reel? Do you miss the quietly insistent fear that the movie unspooling in front of you might just completely tear itself apart at any moment? Miss seeing the art of cinema displayed on the canvas for which it was intended? I sure do.

We shouldn’t blame Lucas for some fun adventure movies with some rough patches. We should blame him for film not being film anymore.

*That review of Episode VIII is going to be doozy, fam…

Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Christopher Lee

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. But, strangely, I’m thinking I may have not caught it until it had already been out in theaters for a few weeks, which may be the only instance of that during the Skywalker saga. Speaks to the state of Star Wars immediately post-Phantom Menace.

Did I Like It: Here’s a better question: What is the point in saying one likes or dislikes a Star Wars movie anymore? I say this is the worst Star Wars film, I’m just inviting a migraine inducing lecture about how The Last Jedi (2017) is the worst film in the series, which is fundamentally and objectively not true. I say this is actually the best—or at the very least most narratively consistent—of the prequels, the contrarians.

But this is a review, so I might as well go for broke.

Here’s where I land: this is not the worst Star Wars movie. The Phantom Menace (1999) is far harder to watch. Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) in a solo Jedi detective story? Who honestly has a problem with that?

Now, is the romance between Anakin (Christensen) and Padmé (Portman) filled with a palpable awkwardness? Sure, but aren’t most romances that are doomed to absolute failure. He’s a rageaholic and she’s a classic enabler. Embrace the tragedy; this was the story the prequels—along with the rise of the Empire playing out mostly in the background—were destined to tell.

Now did the story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker ever really need to be told? I’m reasonably sure that it didn’t, but this is a laser sword movie with spaceships (and Yoda [Frank Oz] actually putting his lightsaber skills to use!) if we keep sticking our collective heads up our asses, Lucasfilm is going to start making the long-fabled sequel trilogy, and we’re going to inexplicably complain about those movies, too. Even if they’re good. 

So, you can kind of tell where my review of The Last Jedi is going to go already, right?

Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd

Have I Seen It Before?: I mean, c’mon. I was alive in May of 1999. How would’ve I managed to avoid it?

Did I like it?: When confronted with that question, all I can do is sigh.

As time has gone on, the prequels—and especially this film—have enjoyed a modicum of critical re-evaluation.

That kinder eye is, unfortunately, completely unearned. 

I could go through all of the things wrong with the movie. Every performance outside of Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor is leaden to the point of legally being classified as a sedative by the FDA. One might want to write off the performers as unequal to the task, although it feels like punching down to continue to dump on Jake Lloyd, to say nothing of the fact that the rest of the cast have done extraordinary work outside of the saga.

Time has somehow been less kind to the film. Expectation may have eroded away, but there is a reality that Lucas didn’t bargain for that cannot be overcome. If Lucas had known how then state-of-the-art CGI would fair over time, he may have waited even longer before embarking on the production of the prequels. Each CGI creation is fairly impressive in and of itself but loses any credibility as part of a real movie when it has to interact with real actors. It’s why Andy and the rest of the humans in the Toy Story films weren’t played by real humans. It wouldn’t have worked.

I could also drag the plotline for being unfocused at best, and willfully uninteresting at worst. However, try tearing away the C-SPAN in space and the half-baked children’s story about a vacant-eyed boy meeting a racist’s idea of a salamander. The Kurosawa for the 21st century, Space Samurai epic is a pretty watchable movie. Too bad that only accounts for—at best a third of the film. Sometime in the last year, I saw a section of the film with all color removed, and played with the Japanese dub. Someone really should put the whole film through that process. I’d watch it. I suppose it really wouldn’t take that much work to do that, but who really wants to spend any more time thinking about Episode I than they really have to?

There is one thing you can’t take away from this film. For better or worse, it is a George Lucas film. Completely unmoored from the restrictions of budget, the need to collaborate, or the question of success, he was allowed to make a film uniquely his own. Not since Welles was given carte blanche over RKO has someone singularly willed a major motion picture into existence. Take that, those that question the auteur theory!