Star Wars

A long time ago (actually not so long), in a place far, far away (well, not that far either) there was a boy in a struggling battle with tediousness and boredom...

When Star Wars was released in 1977 -I think it was until 1978 in Mexico- I was too little to see it. A few years later I saw The Empire Strikes Back, the second -or so we tought- movie in the saga and, for a boy with a love for tales of fantasy and adventure it was a life-changing experience. Not only it was an epic adventure in a far away galaxy, but it was one where evil won!

But the original movie still seemed to elude me. It was re-released sometime in the early eighties, maybe 82 or 83, but for a number of reasons (including a weird confussion that led to me developing a sudden interest in boxing) I wasn't able to catch it. It was until a few weeks before the release of Return of the Jedi when some cinemas re-released the first two films that I finally got to see it. Spaceships, wizard knights armed with awesome swords, a rescue mission, a damsel -a princess!- in distress, a galactic empire ruled by an evil sorcerer and the most amazing special effects ever. What else can one ask for?

One of the best Christmas presents I ever got it was a series of 12" action figures from the original movie. I'm not sure how many figures I got and now they're just a good memory. I know they would be worth serious money among the collector's market. I remember I had Princess Leia -yeah, I had a doll, so what?-, a jawa and a Tusken Raider and all of them had fabric clothes, same material in Vader's cape, as opposed to later editions of the same figures which were dressed in plastic. Sometimes I regret what became of many of my toys, but I'd rather say that I had all kind of cool and wonderful toys that I used til wear'em off than think that I could have had a collection of unused toys worth a fortune among collectors.

But I digress.

I must say that at the time I didn't care much about the Jedi. Actually I was a fan of Han Solo, not of Luke. Maybe it was because of my liking for pirates and adventurers, but it wasn't until later years that I started to appreciate the role of Jedi Knights in Star Wars. I guess external factors had something to do with it. Watching Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress and thus making the connection between Jedi and samurai at a time when I was enthralled with ancient japanese culture and particularly interested in samurai warriors. Then would come the sequels as comic books and novels where sometimes the stories were even better than the source material. There we were shown the real importance of the Jedi in the Star Wars Universe. These stories came out in the early nineties and they spearheaded a renewed interest in the franchise after several years of absence from any media. Bantam Books published a trilogy of novels by awarded sf writer Timothy Zahn. Almost at the same time, Dark Horse Comics acquired the license to publish Star Wars comics and started with a miniseries called Dark Empire. In both cases the story took place a few years later than Return of the Jedi, both represented a commercial success and prepared the way to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the release of the original movie. The celebration started out the Lucas Way: by selling something. A digitally audio-remastered version of the original trilogy was released in video and a Special Edition of the movies was announced. Aditional footage and corrected visual effects were the features added to these editions. The box office was soaring and Star Wars was again a hot property. Lucas took advantage of the spotlight to make the announcement. It was time to do the prequels. As thousands of fans around the world I was anxious to see the new movies.

When the wait was finally over I went to see Episode I surrounded by friends and acquantances in a special midnight screening. And I enjoyed the movie. A few days later I saw it again but the feeling was different. The movie was not as good as I had thought the first time. The plot was very thin, the acting unconvincing, and even the vissual effects seemed unfinished and patched up. I guess my original response was due to the excitement over seeing something new after so many years. Besides, well, Lucas had been out of it for too many years, so maybe it would take him a little while to pick up steam. Sure, that had to be the reason. So, while I waited for Episode II to hit the screens I gave up to the temptation and started buying the electronic lightsabers. Some of my friends did the same and soon we took as a hobby looking out cool places, like parks or parking lots, to play out coreographed battles. Yeah, we were -are- a bunch of geeks.

When Episode II opened we went through the ritualistic midnight screening. A couple of lines back I mentioned our geekness and I think I need to make a point. Yeah, we are geeks, but we have enough sense to draw the line. We never got down to freak levels like going out in costumes or stand in line for weeks. Now than that is out of the way, let's go back to Episode II. This time around the inner fanboy wasn't fooled. The movie wasn't bad. It was worse than bad. A simplistic yet confusing and twisted storyline, a bad script, worse acting -except for Samuel L. Jackson and Ewan McGregor, who compensated with attitude and enthusiasm to try to inject a little life to the cardboard cutouts written for them, and Christopher Lee, who portrays an archetypical villain like so many he has played over the years with presence and attitude- and a direction and editing that would shame any film student anywhere in the world. So I decided to hide my disappointment in a shopping spree. I got more lightsabers, even when our coreographies were no more and they wouldn´t be used. And I decided not to play completist and got only those I really liked.

To fill the gap between episodes II and III, Lucas announced an agreement with Cartoon Network to co-produce an animated series under the title Star Wars: Clone Wars. The animation was directed by Gendy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Lab and Samurai Jack creator), and if you've had the chance to check it out you must agree with me that they have narrative qualities galaxies above anything done by Lucas himself. Despite being segmented into two minutes episodes, Clone Wars offers great character developement and entertaining stories, sometimes even without words. Without any doubt, Clone Wars it´s the best Star Wars-related material in quite some time.

And thus we get to Episode III, but that it´s something I´ll deal with in my next post.