[You should read the Why Star Wars rocks post first.]
The way I heard the legend, Star Wars was originally one huge story. George Lucas took his story to a few Hollywood types, and they all give him the same bits of advice. First, the story was way too big for one movie. Second, don't pitch it as a series of movies. No one will commit to a series until they know that the first movie has money in the bank.
So Lucas took his two-ton screenplay and cut out his favorite chunk. Assuming he'd only get the chance to make one movie, he started pitching Episode IV. Everybody knows how that worked out.
Three years after Star Wars came Empire, and after three more years, Jedi. Has anyone else noticed how out of place those fuzzy-assed Ewoks seemed in Jedi? Out of the entire original trilogy, the Ewoks are the only little fuzzy cute things. Supposedly (again according to those mysterious legends) Jedi was originally to be set on Chewbacca's planet, but Lucas changed it to something more appealing for little kids. Damn his money lust. Everyone I've ever talked Star Wars with agrees that Jedi would have been better without the cuddly little Ewoks changing the tone.
I can't help but wonder what else has changed since Lucas carved up his original story in the mid-70s. Jedi was turned into a hybrid story/marketing tool. Phantom Menace did the same thing, trying to suck in a new generation of kids with the poisonously cute Jar Jar Binks.
With the earliest movies, Lucas still had to rely on the real world to create his fantasies. Aliens were actors in costumes. Scapeships were miniatures on sticks. Backgrounds were painted. He squeezed everything he could out of the "primitive" tools at his disposal. The new movies are nothing like this.
Watching the new trilogy, I doubt there's a single frame that hasn't been "enhanced." Entire characters exist only in computer animations. Entire planets are digital constructs. Lucas has become so obsessed with what he can do, he's forgotten to ask what he should do. I imagine him continuously asking "how can I make this bigger?" His digital fetish has sucked the soul out of his movies.
Episode II was an absolute disaster. Most of the movie sucks. And the parts that suck least all seem to be stolen from other movies. There's the scene where Anakin and Obi Wan are chasing the assassin through Coruscant. Well, that's basically a non-cool version of the chase scene in Fifth Element. This scene is immediately followed by a carbon copy of the cantina scene from his original movie. The robot factory scene is little more than a rewrite of the pie machine in Chicken Run, only without the cleverness and fun. The clone farms of Kamino bear a suspicious resemblance to the human-powered batteries from the Matrix. The coliseum scene could have been lifted straight from any sand-and-sandals movie Hollywood's cranked out in the past fifty years or so. Gladiator, Spartacus, whatever. The list goes on, but you get the idea.
Just so you don't think I'm all gloom and doom on the new movies and all sunshine and roses on the old, let me say I have a major complaint about the original trilogy as well. I'll say it bluntly: Star Wars destroyed Hollywood.
Look at the big blockbusters Hollywood put out a just before Star Wars. Movies like Jaws and Close Encounters could never get made today. They're great movies, but they just don't cut it in the New Hollywood. And Alfred Hitchcock? Forget it. If released as a new film today, Vertigo would play in a few dozen art house theaters. There's not enough action. Not enough flash. For the past 25 years, the trend has been more pretty, less thinky. Movies keep getting bigger in scope, but smaller in spirit. With this trend, George Lucas basically created the modern action hero. Extend that to its logical end, and Lucas is responsible for the words "Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger."
When I was a boy, Star Wars filled me excitement and wonder. But that was then. Time passes. Things change. And lightning just does not strike twice.
