Star Wars Criticism Discussions Disclaimer : I was 7 when the original Star Wars came out — I was obsessed. I could not get enough of it or of any science fiction from pretty much that moment on.
I’m not a hater, but neither am I a fan girl; I’m just calling it as I see it here.
And yes, A New Hope was 43 years ago; Phantom Menace (Ep 1) was 20 years ago. I know I’m digging up old stuff; but recent interest in The Mandalorian has, for me and many friends, rekindled interest in / and discussions of the Star Wars universe. I’m looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly; including past current problems in terms of narrative consistency and also with Disney, and its unwillingness to address its horrible history of LGBTQIA+ and racial inclusion/representation and recent issues with certain actors and very problematic public statements and actions related to LGBTQIA+ issues. (I’ll discuss those in a different article)
A friend of mine recently mentioned that he and his wife had never seen Star Wars, Episode III, and because of the rekindled interest in the franchise from watching the Mandalorian, they decided not only to watch III but to re-watch I and II (phrased it as torturing themselves, and I agree — read on).
They pointed out that the writing was not good and that as much as they thought the bar could not be lower. They also talked about their disappointment that Padmé went from such a strong character to a fragile plot device.
This got me thinking. I’ve ended up watching all the movies in the franchise — Loved the original 3, Though Return of the Jedi suffered from Ewoks …
I mean, come on — as per the discussion between Tim and Bilbo in Spaced:
Bilbo Bagshot: “What about the Ewoks eh? They were rubbish. You don’t complain about them.”
Tim Bisley: “Yeah but Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like… fuckin’… Shaft.”
~https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Spaced
So, yeah. If I really look back critically, I think that A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back and (a bit surprisingly) Rogue One were the strongest stories in the whole franchise (Note that in this article; I am talking about the feature length movies and not really delving into the expanded universe, books, and animated series or Mandalorian)
Phantom Menace (Ep 1) suffered from many problems, but (aside from being an “Upward spiral of increasingly offensive coiffure” (stolen from a friend)), the very racist overtones of the Trade Federation (The tired trope of how the bad guys can be easily identified by their caricature-like faux Asian accents. Seriously; this is the voice acting equivalent of “yellow face”) and the inanity of “Happy meal alien” (another stolen from a friend — for creatures explicitly designed to sell merch instead of propel narrative) JarJar Binks and more racism there and with the Gungans. However, possibly the worst crimes against narrative were the whole “midi-chlorians” thing.
Seriously: Never ever write a scene where you have dialogue along the lines of “Well, you see Timmy,… [followed by long detailed boring explanation of what we would have just accepted as magic/super future tech]”. (see also: “The Architect Scene” in The Matrix, Reloaded)
Midi-chlorians are just absolutely painful. Not that actual scientific explanations of genuine phenomena automatically destroy all sense of wonder.
“We all have a thirst for wonder. It’s a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I’m saying is, you don’t have to make stories up, you don’t have to exaggerate. There’s wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature’s a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.”
~Carl Sagan, Contact
So yes, there’s the whole philosophical discussion on how knowing the how/why/science behind a phenomenon does not take away from its wonder, but here, in this science fiction / fantasy setting, the whole attempt at explanation is a liability. It impedes the narrative, and I think it absolutely distracts from the sense of wonder. More than often, this is a total narrative “halt and catch fire”. It is unnecessary, and since the thing they’re explaining is very often not actually based on even the most optimistic stretches of known physics and science, they more than often just serve to further break the narrative magic.
For me, the original Star Wars with its mystical history of the Long ago Jedi and their spiritual connection to the force as this magical thing that pervades the universe — was FINE.. I was FINE with “It’s space magic, I ain’t gotta explain shit”
By trying to “technospeak” it, introducing “midi-chlorians”, they took any deep meaning out of it and just kind of turned it into a resource to be exploited. (Semi-spoiler: Lots of the animated series and extended universe and the Mandalorian dig into that more though it feels more like an attempt to retcon the poor decision to introduce them in Ep 1)
I am an atheist — I have zero spirituality or belief in supernatural or magic — but I am fine with my escapist science fantasy having space magic and impossible faster than light travel, etc..
It’s fiction, and so long as it’s self consistent, I’m fine with it — I do not need to have it painfully described and broken down into “science” when said science is just as implausible as “it’s space magic, deal with it” — at least the latter is a more honest approach.
Then, we get to Attack of the Clones (Ep 2) and Revenge of the Sith (Ep 3).
And to my friend’s point, yeah, wow Padmé goes from an incredibly mature and strong woman, to being a mere plot device.
I mean, in Ep 1, she’s self assured, mature, capable, and strong. Truly worthy of praise as a strong female role model. However, in Ep 2 and Ep 3, she’s reduced a love interest / unwitting pawn in Anakin’s fall — she loses nearly all of what made her such an outstanding role model in Ep 1.
The worst of it being the story of her death. Here she is in this super technologically and medically advanced galactic civilization and she ends up dying from what amounts to “pregnant sad”.
I should pause for a moment and say this clearly: I do not mean to dismiss the genuine dangers of death in childbirth and the very real issues surrounding postpartum depression. These are important women's health and reproductive issues and I am not trying to trivialize them in any way — my comment is about how these specific film narratives do so: read on.
Let’s be honest, Padmé’s death was such a shallow mansplained caricature of death in/around child birth and postpartum depression, explained away as “lost the will to live” And given the nearly miraculous technology and medical advances, the whole thing is so logically inconsistent within the world. It reduces the whole thing to a trigger for Anikan’s fall. Honestly, in a narrative sense I’d have felt a hell of a lot better if they showed Palpatine force-choking the shit out of her then claiming something went wrong… I’d be OK with Anakin’s grief not seeing through the lie, but as the viewer, that was a case where the ball was just totally dropped — so it’s just this odd, unbelievable thing. No, I also would not have wanted some “architect scene” / midi-chlorine level explanation either — just not this sad caricature.
