succumbed to the Dark Side
--------------------
for those who were expecting some kind of Homerian epic or Shakespearean poetic dialogue, get over it! it's Star Wars, after all... i fully enjoyed the movie, precisely because it did what it was supposed to do -- entertain me... the plot was incredibly satisfying, tying together everything from the prequels and the original trilogy into a great melodrama...
Anakin's succumbing to the Dark Side is a truly haunting transformation...
and, of course, Yoda's philosophy gives one pause to think:
"Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.
Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."
--------------------
The ecstatic reception for director George Lucas and his new "Star Wars" film in Cannes this week reminded us of other creative people who have had to look to France to find the respect they were missing at home. One was Alfred Hitchcock, who was elevated from thrillmeister to true artiste only when his work was blessed by director Francois Truffaut and other French arbiters of culture. Now Mr. Lucas, apparently due in part to an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War message detected in "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," finds himself a sudden darling of the Cannes intelligentsia.
What's got some people cheering and others frowning about Mr. Lucas's latest movie is the assumption that it is an indictment of the Bush administration for allegedly abusing power in order to wage war and persuade the American people to abandon central tenets of democracy. One supposed tipoff is a scene where the villainous Chancellor assumes emergency powers. When a compliant senate applauds him, a character laments: "So this is how democracy dies -- to thunderous applause."
Then there is the moment when the character who will become the dreadful Darth Vader says that those who are not with him "are my enemy." That line is being read as a disparaging echo of President Bush's post-9/11 comment that "you're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."
Asked at Cannes about the meaning of his movie, Mr. Lucas has been rather coy. Perhaps reluctant for commercial reasons to let the Bush-administration analogy be taken too seriously, the director keeps insisting that he wrote the basic "Star Wars" saga decades ago. He was thinking of Hitler, Vietnam, Watergate and Nixon, he has said at various times; and if recent events have proved him prescient, that just shows that history keeps repeating itself. Though he couldn't resist adding in Cannes that "the parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."
In truth, the themes of "Star Wars" are so universal, and so familiar (like Darth Vader, Satan is a former good guy gone over to the dark side), that they can be read any way one likes. The message that freedom and democracy must be vigilantly protected is always worth repeating. The only question is whether America today fits the description of a corrupt empire led by a dictator; and even if Mr. Lucas does believe that, "Sith" is not going to change any more minds than "Fahrenheit 9/11" did.
Meanwhile, why not let the master entertainer and merchandiser of the "Star Wars" franchise enjoy the rare taste of haute acclaim?
for those who were expecting some kind of Homerian epic or Shakespearean poetic dialogue, get over it! it's Star Wars, after all... i fully enjoyed the movie, precisely because it did what it was supposed to do -- entertain me... the plot was incredibly satisfying, tying together everything from the prequels and the original trilogy into a great melodrama...
Anakin's succumbing to the Dark Side is a truly haunting transformation...
and, of course, Yoda's philosophy gives one pause to think:
"Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.
Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."
--------------------
The ecstatic reception for director George Lucas and his new "Star Wars" film in Cannes this week reminded us of other creative people who have had to look to France to find the respect they were missing at home. One was Alfred Hitchcock, who was elevated from thrillmeister to true artiste only when his work was blessed by director Francois Truffaut and other French arbiters of culture. Now Mr. Lucas, apparently due in part to an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War message detected in "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," finds himself a sudden darling of the Cannes intelligentsia.
What's got some people cheering and others frowning about Mr. Lucas's latest movie is the assumption that it is an indictment of the Bush administration for allegedly abusing power in order to wage war and persuade the American people to abandon central tenets of democracy. One supposed tipoff is a scene where the villainous Chancellor assumes emergency powers. When a compliant senate applauds him, a character laments: "So this is how democracy dies -- to thunderous applause."
Then there is the moment when the character who will become the dreadful Darth Vader says that those who are not with him "are my enemy." That line is being read as a disparaging echo of President Bush's post-9/11 comment that "you're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."
Asked at Cannes about the meaning of his movie, Mr. Lucas has been rather coy. Perhaps reluctant for commercial reasons to let the Bush-administration analogy be taken too seriously, the director keeps insisting that he wrote the basic "Star Wars" saga decades ago. He was thinking of Hitler, Vietnam, Watergate and Nixon, he has said at various times; and if recent events have proved him prescient, that just shows that history keeps repeating itself. Though he couldn't resist adding in Cannes that "the parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."
In truth, the themes of "Star Wars" are so universal, and so familiar (like Darth Vader, Satan is a former good guy gone over to the dark side), that they can be read any way one likes. The message that freedom and democracy must be vigilantly protected is always worth repeating. The only question is whether America today fits the description of a corrupt empire led by a dictator; and even if Mr. Lucas does believe that, "Sith" is not going to change any more minds than "Fahrenheit 9/11" did.
Meanwhile, why not let the master entertainer and merchandiser of the "Star Wars" franchise enjoy the rare taste of haute acclaim?
--------------------
posted by þΛųL jØŋαŦhΛŋ @ 11:45
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