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Star Wars

Midnight in the galaxy of good and evil

By STEVE PERSALL
Published May 17, 2005

A long time ago, in a movie industry far, far away . . .

The term blockbuster meant something in 1977, when a city block typically had only one theater, and that theater likely had only one screen. When ticket prices were half of what they are today and the best of information was still word of mouth.

Sidewalks practically cracked under the weight of hundreds, perhaps thousands of moviegoers awaiting their turn at box offices, then for the next show to begin. No online or telephone ticket sales, no staggered starting times; just delicious anticipation, and relief when"sold out" wasn't taped to the window before your turn.

Earlier in the decade, The Godfather, Love Story and The Exorcist redefined what Hollywood used to call "event pictures," setting box-office records surpassed today in a single opening weekend of megaplex saturation and unbridled hype for inferior films. The phenomenon of Jaws raised the blockbuster to an imperative art; after that, anything less than packed theaters would be considered a failure.

And for one shining moment, before the franchise would become a moneymaking machine, there was Star Wars. Not the Star Wars of toy merchandising and fast-food tie-ins - the dark side of George Lucas' success story - but the 1977 Star Wars that thrilled moviegoers so unexpectedly, so completely, that the concept of filmmaking was changed forever, not always for the best.

I remember sitting in the old Clearwater Mall multiplex - one of those shoe boxes with seats constructed for convenience, not comfort - and seeing a teaser preview of Lucas' movie. I'd never heard the title before. Even without many details, there was an undeniable sense that something very special was coming soon.

How many times do you remember seeing a preview trailer with the clarity of where you were when JFK and John Lennon died?

Something like Star Wars had never happened before. Decades passed before Titanic and the Lord of the Rings trilogy approached that success again, with the head starts afforded by modern exhibition practices.

Twenty-eight years and billions of dollars after that first Star Wars, Lucas finishes his Skywalker family saga with Thursday's international release of the sixth film, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. For some moviegoers, it's about time. Others may consider it a duty to attend, rather than a must-see experience. Many people - more than anyone 20 years ago could have expected - simply don't care.

Lucas shoulders most of the blame for that.

It's his fault - and his genius - that so many lunch boxes, trading cards, action figures and soft-drink glasses turned the Force into a commercial farce. How do you recognize overkill when nobody has seen it before?

Audiences didn't mind since the first movies - Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of the elaborate forward-and-backward serial - were excellent. The promise of seeing another trilogy, perhaps a third (since Lucas initially envisioned nine episodes) was ripe.

But by 1999, when Episode 1, The Phantom Menace, was released, imitators had ruined the magic. Every special effects bonanza such as Willow, Battlestar Galactica and The Black Hole that didn't equal Star Wars diminished its value. Then filmmakers dumped the spaceships and kept the explosions, training an entire generation to believe if something doesn't blow up, the movie's no good.

Lucas pumped Star Wars profits into research and development. His in-house special effects lab, Industrial Light & Magic, paved the way for more realistic screen fantasies. We owe him some gratitude for that.

But in paying so much attention to what moviegoers see and hear, he forgot what it takes to make audiences feel.

The Phantom Menace was high-tech and low thrills. Characters seemed to have been developed with toy stores in mind, and scenes were primed for video games. Episode II - Attack of the Clones brought us closer, but not all the way to Vader, with Lucas geekier than ever in terms of political intrigue and puppy love.

I'll confess now that anticipation made The Phantom Menace look better on first viewing than it deserved. I'll still say Attack of the Clones has some good things going for it. But those two films could be edited into one, or perhaps incorporated into Revenge of the Sith for a grand four-hour epic.

In 1977, Star Wars was incomparable. Watch the action in Revenge of the Sith and you'll be reminded of The Matrix and Lord of the Rings, for how they use the filmmaking toys Lucas invented.

The original Star Wars would have been a classic even without the sequels. Certainly the prequels didn't add anything to its posterity. But Revenge of the Sith, especially its final hour, links us to the future of the Skywalker clan, when the evil empire strikes back and Jedis return. Lucas leaves us wanting more and, blessedly, we've already seen it.

-- Steve Persall can be reached at 727 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 16, 2005, 16:29:02]