Posted by Jim Beaver on 07/21/07 22:22

<zaryzary2003@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1185050532.969466.26120@n60g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 21, 11:28 am, Alric Knebel <alric@[cableone.net]> wrote:
>
>> I couldn't agree more. I saw all three of the earlier ones in the
>> theater, because they were these BIG movies, with cutting-edge sound and
>> so forth. But they're boring beyond special effects. The relationships
>> are so childish, especially the one between the princess and Hans. They
>> behaved like two elementary school children making faces and sticking
>> their tongues out at one another.
>
>
> Ok, I'll stick up for the Star Wars films. Yes, the first ones came
> out when I was an impressionable kid, so I certainly can't pretend to
> be objective about the whole thing. But even as an adult I've enjoyed
> re-watching them for both the whiz-bang fun, and because Lucas knew
> what mythic archetypes to use to draw us in. It's been said so much
> as to seem cliche now, but he really did try and set up the whole
> thing as a space-age myth with the associated quests, princesses,
> heroes, old wizards, magic, and pirates to go along with it.
>
> Which is part of the reason why the character relationships aren't
> complex on the surface. In other words, of course you're not supposed
> to evaluate Luke Skywalker and Han Solo's actions in a modern,
> "realistic" way, any more then you're supposed to think about how
> illogical it is for Achilles to refuse to go to war just becaues
> Agamemnon stole his girlfriend, or complain about the somewhat
> illogical fact that Dido threw herself on the funeral pyre when Aeneas
> left. Now, I'm not trying to imply that people will be watching "Star
> Wars" in several thousand years the way we still read "The Iliad" and
> "The Aeneid," but it's certainly fun to watch it now - at least for a
> lot of us.

Then why would I enjoy Jason and the Argonauts or even (shudder) Clash of
the Titans about a thousand times more than the Star Wars pictures, which
bore the bejabbers out of me? Because it isn't JUST about the mythic stuff.
I've got to believe (within the context of a fantastic world) AND care.
Most Kerwin Mathews movies pulled that off. Lucas didn't, for me.

Jim Beaver

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