There seems a conspiracy amongst reviewers to be kind to the new “Star Wars.” Is it out of nostalgia for the generation-and-a-half-old original, respect for an ancient icon? Who knows.
In any case, I was unprepared by reviews for the movie. (Had I been properly prepared I wouldn’t have gone at all.) The movie feels equal parts silly (the story) and abusive (the special effects, now exacerbated by 3-D). The new one is necessarily missing the freshness and fun of the original—the ingenious, comical variety of denizens of space, for instance, when they were never-seen-before. The new one comes up with a new crittur or two but they are just an extension of the 40 year-old humor.
The special effects are of course more effective, which only makes the movie worse by taking it over. We are thrust into the middle of battle scene after scene. The good vs. evil story, such as it is, has since been told more interestingly in Harry Potter or Tolkien. The whole thing feels as old as Harrison Ford’s Han Solo.
We went with our almost-six grandson and could only wonder what over two hours being pounded by this vicious, hard, lightspeed universe was doing to his vulnerable soul.
No doubt this is an old person’s reaction; our son, 28, also part of our Star Wars outing, spent his youth immersed in video games, which perhaps inure him to special effects mayhem.
What does it mean that our culture has exalted this silly stuff and made it the must-see cultural event of the season? Why we would waste our time when we could watch “Brooklyn” or any one of a couple of dozen TV series with meaningful stories which don’t depend on abusive special effects for 99% of their effect?
The emperor of seasonal blockbusters has no clothes.
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