I just finished watching the original Star Wars trilogy. No really, I'd never seen it before. Space has never interested me; I'm the kind of person who is scared shitless by alien movies because heck, most of the beings on Earth scare me and really, I'll never get to see most of what's on my own planet, so why concern myself with someone else's? But I figured it was about time I emerged from my cave and familiarized myself with this icon of pop culture and cinema. Now I have a short list of observations I made while watching A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi. Ready? ok. (Be warned, here there be spoilers).
First thing's first. The Imperial troops and generals and such look like Nazis. I'm assuming that is because it would force people to conclude that the Empire is bad. I mean, anyone that you can link to the Nazis is evil to his very core, right? On the subject of costume, I always thought Darth Vader looked pretty imposing. All in black, big flowy cape, helmet with badass James Earl Jones voice modulator. But then, seeing him surrounded by stormtroopers, I realized, he's just a black storm trooper with a cape. He's the Batman of stormtroopers. You can imagine how crushed I was to find that in the end, Darth wasn't really the Big Bad, nor was he even irredeemably bad. He had the badass helmet removed and that was it, he became uncle Fester.
Many Star Wars characters reminded me of other movie characters. Yoda, for example, is like a little green Mr. Myagi. He seems a bit odd and eccentric when we first meet him, he has odd teaching methods, a he's a wrinkly squinty-eyed fighting master. Daniel Larusso must have been like "Whoa, I've seen this movie before, I have to use the Force to beat the Cobra-Kai". Another character who reminded me of someone else was C3po. He reminded me of Abraham Sapien, the fish-man from Hellboy (yes, I explained Abe Sapien but not Mr. Myagi because really, if you don't know who Mr. Myagi is, shame on you). They spoke the same, had similar gestures, and similar mannerisms (the awkwardness for example). The difference of course was that I actually like Abe Sapien, whereas C3po irritated the shite out of me. He was pretty useless except for the fact that he cut down on subtitles by translating for a couple of characters, including R2d2, who wasn't much more useful except as an occasional plot advancer and multipurpose tool.
Another character I didn't like: Jabba the Hut. First of all, what the hell is a Hut? And is he the only one? He's probably the fattest one. I find it ridiculous/hilarious how, in fantasy films that include strange species previously unseen, the most humanoid will always be the hero, and the least, the villain. For example, Jabba is an evil bastard, and thus sluglike and vile beyond all reason. The very innocent dancer that he condemns to be eaten in an underground pit, is obviously a green human with head trunks, but really mostly human. But I digress. The worst thing about Jabba and his sequence (in Return of the Jedi) is his creepy little den of sexual exploitation. it's a slightly disturbing scene to me because a) an obese slug and sex should NEVER go together, b) half of his sexy dancers and singers aren't humans, but odd alien creatures bearing no human resemblance; it was like sexualizing a bug (which is one of the creepiest fucking things imaginable). And really, Jabba seemed to me to be a greater evil than the Emperor. I mean, what did we really see the emperor do? We were told he is a follower of the Dark side of the Force, but does he really do anything wrong besides try to recruit Luke to his baddie team? There don't seem to be many examples of oppression or poverty in the empire, everyone seems relatively chill with their lives. but Jabba? He's a gangster/slave trader/creepy sex fucker. That, in my mind, is way worse than the government trying to keep rebels from rebelling and trying to get the most (potentially) powerful guy on their team. I mean that, Luke is space Hercules. He's destined to overthrow or destroy his dad and everyone treats him like demigod royalty. And he has all these tasks!
But overall, my greatest observation was that space adventuring is a lot like sea adventuring was back in the day (early 1500s). Exploring new lands with a trusted crew, defeating the bad guys ie smugglers (or smuggling yourself eh Han Solo?), and trading with the different planets and systems you come in contact with. I think Disney's Treasure Planet really sends this one home, but films like Star Wars and Star Trek started the notion I think. And maybe that's why people are so intrigued with space travel. I mean, who doesn't want to explore new lands and experience adventure with a group of stalwart buddies on your team? So George Lucas, I think you've got a new spacer on your team. Maybe I didn't used to like space fantasy, but there are so many interesting worlds to explore. How could I resist?
So goodnight everyone in cyberspace. I hope you enjoy your dream adventures.
