I am a massive fan of Star Wars, always have been, always will. It is the movie series nearest and dearest to my geeky heart. So it really grinds my gears when I see ignorant opinions gain traction, and a mob-mentality starts forming around an opinion that’s fundamentally flawed and off-base. I would argue that no franchise has more of this than Star Wars, too many people have strong opinions because of sentimental attachments instead of real critique. Ya think the prequels sucked because Jar-Jar and Midi-Chlorians and CGI Yoda and stuff? THINK AGAIN FANBOYS. It’s time for a crash-course lesson in why Star Wars is really great, and why the prequels really sucked.
Star Wars is great because it created a massive epic universe that’s as multi-faceted and diverse as our own. It isn’t great because it IS a western, it’s great because it CAN BE a western, or a pirate movie, or a political thriller, or so many things. George Lucas didn’t establish such a massive sandbox of worlds and cultures just to distill the entire thing into a grimy looking western. What these guys are describing in their video is a sure-fire way to make a creatively dead fan-service fest.
The Star Wars prequels failed for one reason and one reason alone: they were bad movies. It’s not because they took place is cities, or because they explained The Force. The prequels sucked because the writing sucked and the casting sucked and the directing sucked. But it seems like fanboys can’t just blame the poor writing, EVERY LAST THING in the prequels has become tainted in their minds by mere association.
JJ Abrams and Michael Arndt have been gifted with a thousand different characters, species and planets to construct any kind of story from, and to say that A. They can’t have cities, governments or libraries, B. Everything must look like it rolled in garbage, C. The Force CANNOT be explained, needlessly restricts the storytelling potential for them. To say that Star Wars is great because of its superficial ascetic elements is absurd, and completely misses the potential for great film-making. Wanna know how to make Star Wars great again? WRITE A GOOD MOVIE. That’s it. That’s all it takes. Whether it takes place in the streets of Coruscant or the deserts of Tatooine, or even the icy wastes of Ren Var, it doesn’t matter. It just needs to be good filmmaking.
May The Force be with You, J.J. Abrams. Let’s bring Star Wars back with a vengeance.
Andrew Allen is a television (and occasionally film) writer for Action A Go Go. He is an aspiring screenwriter and director who is currently studying at the University of Miami. You can check out him on Tumblr @andrewballen and follow him on Twitter @A_B_Allen.