Bold and Beautiful Post-Apocalypse: The 100

I didn't expect to get hooked by a CW show. When the program was first mentioned to me, I thought it sounded like a post-apocalyptic 90210 (Or whatever constitutes teenage melodrama these days. I'm afraid 90210 is long in the tooth now and the actors will be collecting their pensions soon. Sigh. Nobody under 20 will have any idea what I'm talking about… never mind).

The 100 is based on a series of books by Kass Morgan. So what's the premise? Get this:

It is 97 years after the world was destroyed in a devastating nuclear war. Only a small number of human beings are left. They live in an ad hoc space station cobbled together from dozens of smaller habitations that were in orbit when disaster struck. Now they are running out of air and water, and everyone will soon perish unless they get more supplies.

So they decide to send 100 juvenile delinquents down to the earth, unsupervised and in secret, to see if the radiation has abated enough for the world to be repopulated. The teenagers are tagged like gazelle and their life signs are monitored by the adults far above.

The teenagers are given no survival training whatsoever. They're just chucked in and forced to find a way. It's sink or swim.

If that doesn't sound like a setup for a teen show, I don't know what would.

Remove adult supervision? Check. 

Dangerous conflict laden environment? Check. 

No pre-established hierarchy so teens must fight for dominance? Check. 

Teens must create a new society, free of fuddy-duddy adult rules? Check. 

High stakes? Check. 

Hot, dashing young guys and beautiful babes? Check. 

Heaving bosoms? Check.

Requisite bad boy? Check. 

Teenagers who are smarter and wiser than all the adults put together? Check.

My God, man—they've created the ultimate teen drama!

You'd think it'd be awful, right?

Cheesy, superficial, overwrought melodrama with a preposterous premise.

It's AWESOME.

It's tight and transcends the tropes.

Yes, boiling teenage hormones do run amok, but they never quite take centre stage. There are too many rolling death clouds, mutants, subterranean vampires and falling satellites in the way. Sappiness is kept at bay, because this show isn't afraid to get dark. Really, really, little-kid-jabbing-guy-in-neck dark. It doesn't dodge issues or take the easy way out.

You don't get quite what you expect. And I love subverted expectations. Don't you?

Save me, strong and silent mutant man!

The show builds nicely, and is based around seasonal arcs, with what appears to be a larger multi-season story chugging along in the background. It feels coherent and directed. There have been two seasons so far, and both have escalated to thoroughly compelling climaxes. At the very end of each, The 100 throws in a new element to set up the next season. I called the new element for Season Three (yay!), and I'm looking forward to what the writers do with it. Because showrunner Jason Rothenberg knows what he's doing and it'll be awesome.

Tons happens each season, and there is enough resolution to feel satisfying. Some shows just leave you hanging, and offer no resolution whatsoever. Helix, for example, I found particularly bad this way. And Lost. You just get more questions. Game of Thrones, God help me, sometimes feel like mostly filler: characters spend eight episodes traveling, finally meet up for one episode in which all hell breaks lose, and then have a wrap up episode in the aftermath, along with a cigarette. That's an unfair caricature of what is, really, an awesome show, but it doesn't stop me thinking it every now and then. The 100 doles out events in a more even handed manner.

Bad boy beefcake Bellamy. I bet he works out. No, seriously. I bet he does.

What I have enjoyed most about the program are the endless, devilishly tough choices the characters are forced to make. And believe me, there are some doozies. These poor, post-apocalypse types don't get softballs, like choosing between good and evil, or Coke and battery acid. They're presented with only the choice between evils (okay that probably describes soda options, too), and have to figure out which is the lesser one. There's moral nuance and sophistication to the show that takes it to the next level. Characters you think are slimy bureaucratic swine are redeemed, dashing young heroes fall from grace, goody-two-shoes condemn innocents to death, and wise leaders go batsh*t crazy.

Which brings me to the cast: up above, you have the spiritually tormented commander Thelonious Jaha (Isiah Washington), the strict second in command Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick), and concerned mom Abby (Paige Turco). Down on the surface, you've got earnest young doctor Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), bad boy Bellamy Blake (Bobby Morley), sociopathic John Murphy (Richard Harmon), and the put upon rebel Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos).

Most of the characters either are obvious archetypes, which is typical for a genre show, but often with a twist, and the program doesn't do with them what you'd expect. Not by a long shot.

Suspiciously sexy mutant leader. I just want to know where the mutants are getting their teeth and hair done.

Thelonius Jaha turns into something I certainly wasn't expecting, and while I'm not sure if it's entirely consistent with his character, it's interesting. To be fair, he does go through some dreadful things to get there.

John Murphy I expected to be one note and written out right quick, but the writers had other ideas. Same goes for heartthrob Finn Collins (Thomas McDonell), who zigs when you think he's gonna zag.

The emotional connections and conflicts between the characters have been handled extremely well. The relationships build in a manner that feels natural, and the occasional betrayal is set up elegantly enough you can buy it when it happens. This isn't always the case on TV. 12 Monkeys, for example, has a betrayal that I didn't buy into at all.

They all have competing and frequently conflicting interests. Conflict, of course, is where drama comes from, so characters should be designed to clash. Viewpoints are laid out, so when characters do things, you understand (eventually) why. So it makes sense. People often do bad things for good reasons. The show lays out understandable motivations, making it a great example of action from character.

More powerful bonding with bound beefcake

It has 4 way character opposition, where each node has 1 point in common with the next, but none with the primary opposite. That makes for really rich and nuanced conflict, with an ebb and flow as people argue and are pulled towards different nodes.

And as they say, sh*t happens. If you want a program where you feel like the status quo is different at the end of every episode, this is the show. The show kills off its picture-perfect young cast with the wild abandon you'd expect of G.R.R. Martin.

The entire third season of House of Cards would be one or two episodes of The 100. 

Eliza Taylor plays Clarke Griffin, a born leader and budding doctor, is the lead character and primary point of connection for the viewers. She's got balls, and is preternaturally wise for one so young. She's always showing up her elders, which is a typical teenage show trope.

But she makes mistakes, and that humanizes her. She may not be terribly compelling personally (which allows greater viewer identification), but the choices she's faced with are.

Clarke and her powerful friends. Also, some old dude.

And she's got great cleavage, too.

Hey, it's CW.

Sometimes ya just gotta embrace genre tropes.

Because entertainment!

Screenwriter Rollercoaster with Scott Beggs

Over at Filmschoolrejects, Scott Beggs has an interesting article about his first couple years as a screenwriter. It's a great look at the ups and downs that are an intrinsic part of the industry's nature.

His conclusion?

"What’s been my biggest lesson over the first ‘official’ two years of my career? Be great to work with. Be collaborative. Be open. Fight for your vision, but don’t be an ass. Listen to your instincts. Do the right thing. Don’t always take the advice of your reps. Do right by people. Keep reading screenplays. Keep watching movies. Spend time with your family."

Read the whole thing.

Barbarella, baby!

Silly psychedelic inspiration for Magnum Thrax. Barbarella is a surreal, European space dream with hot babes, alien angels, and nonsensical vistas. It's so over the top as to be satirical, but I'm not sure that was the original intent. Flash Gordon (1980) takes it to the next level and is far funnier but not as much of a drug trip.

Thumps up: Antman

 

Every now and then, I see a movie and have little to say afterwards. I enjoy it, or I don't, but that's it. Kind of counter to Tarantino's idea of what a good movie is (one that makes you want to have a piece of pie and a conversation afterwards discussing the picture), but there you go.

Antman is such a movie.

I enjoyed it. It was fun. Beyond that, I don't have much.

Sometimes, a thumbs up or down will do.

Negatives:

Villain was kinda bland and uninspiring. This is not much of a problem as it's an origins picture,  so the main focus is on the hero and how he acquires, and deals with, his new powers.

Some things in the script didn't make sense (naturally, it's a superhero flick) and character motivation wasn't always proportional to action taken. But none of these problems threw me completely out of the story.

It had a training sequence, which I am allergic to (sick of 'em), but it was funny and thankfully brief.

The plot is a bit meh, but the it moves so fast you don't really mind, and it's a genre picture, so they have to have all those comic book elements you expect. And they use many in a fresh way.

Positives:

Film is two hours long but felt much shorter. I was never bored and never looked at my watch. Not once.

They had great fun with the changing scale of the hero, and the setting for the ending is awesome.

Balance between character, humor, plot and punching was really good. Much better than in Avengers I and II.

The action sequences I could follow. Unlike in Age of Ultron, which had such quick cuts it was like being hit with a whiffle bat plastered with pictures of bad CGI for two hours.

Nice, lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek tone.

Wasn't bloated. See Age of Ultron.

All the actors were good. Even very good.

Cool set pieces, fun foreshadowing.

A minor character doesn't do what you think he's going to do, which was refreshing.

It's funny and clever.

There are wonderful call-outs, and obscure references, to things like Zoolander, SNL, and the history of the Antman character. This sort of thing, which most people will never notice, shows that the people who made the picture actually cared about, and enjoyed working on, the material.

So there you go. A good, or even great, summer time picture.

All in all, one of the best of Marvel Universe pictures (for me).

The nature of story: why sequels suck but we want them anyway.

I'm as guilty as the next person of wanting great stories and characters to, well, keep going. And going and going, like the Energizer Bunny. After all, it's so good, why stop? I wanted a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Arc. I wanted a Star Wars sequel, and a Matrix sequel, and a sequel to Batman.

And, God help me, I've wanted sequels to the sequels.

Be careful what you wish for, because you may just get it. Sequels infest the theaters: Ted II, Avengers II, Spiderman v2 II, Mad Max IV, Terminator V, and Jurassic Park IV to name a few. Heck, sequels are reviving Roman numerals.

And if isn't a sequel, it's a reboot. It's less about story and more about the franchise, and this is changing the nature of film.

Blockbusters are expensive and such risky undertakings, after all. Film execs are reluctant to stick out their neck and back an unknown property when they can green light a sequel instead. Batman worked before, it can work again. It's got an established track record, which is very reassuring when you're about to spend $120 million bucks. Hits in other mediums are also grist for the movie mill: Harry Potter, comic books, TV shows, games, anything with name recognition that can cut through the noise. Studios go big now or stay home, so we get micro budget indie projects for the Oscars and megabudget sequels for the bank account, and not much in between.

The film industry is becoming 'franchisified', and more like episodic television. Meanwhile, cable is becoming… more like the movies used to be.

With film, you start with the ending and work your way backward to the beginning. You push your characters as far away from the climax as you need to so they have a decent dramatic arc. They need space for their emotional, physical and spiritual journey. 

If a character must learn to be responsible, you start them out on their best buddies' couch playing video games all day. That establishes distance between who the character is and who they have to become. They need a flaw, like video game addiction, that must be overcome. And the flaw is  determined by the ending of the story and the challenge they must face in the film's climax.

Everything is tied in together. It's holistic.

The ending dictates the beginning, and the nature of the challenge dictates the problems the protagonist has, which are inextricably linked to the climax. Supporting characters are inversions and/or reflections of the main character, and exist to flesh out the protagonist and throw the hero's personality and values into sharper relief.

Take Star Wars. Luke is the naive farm boy who needs schooling in the ways of the world, so up pops Obi Wan Kenobi as the wise old man. Luke's earnestness and youthful enthusiasm is thrown into sharp relief by Han Solo, the cynical rogue. Princess Leia's pragmatism contrasts with Luke's idealism.

Characters bounce off of each other. They reflect. In Game of Thrones (which does this sort of thing extremely well) Varys is Order and is opposed by Littlefinger, who represents Chaos. Edard Stark is honor and principle, and he's played off against Robert, debauchery and indulgence, and Cersei, who's Machiavellian corruption.

G.R.R. Martin, an excellent writer with a background in television (Beauty and the Beast) constructs his characters not in isolation, but specifically in relation to the people they are in proximity to. The Onion Knight and Melissandra, for example, are externalizations of the struggle going on inside Stannis. We better understand them because the person next to them is an opposite in at least one personality trait or value.

Stories are delicately balanced webs of characters, events, and meanings. Nothing exists in isolation, and all the elements must relate to each other and make sense in all the ways real life doesn't. Even the environment is a reflection of internal struggle.

And there must be an emotional payoff at the end: we want to see characters who change profoundly after enduring terrible ordeals, emerging on the other side all the better for it. Why? Because this is dramatically satisfying. We all want to know that if we go through hell, there's a point to it.

Even if it's anti-story and the point is to know, and accept, that there is no point.

The bigger the change in the character, the greater the obstacles they overcome. The farther they fall, the higher they can rise, the more satisfied we are when the curtain goes up. Each story is, in a sense, a step towards enlightenment and meaning.

Everything in the film is a balanced part of a whole, and it works because it is part of a whole.

And this is why so many sequels suck: if the first film did its job right, everything has been resolved and the story is over. The main character has solved their crippling issue(s) and grown as a person. Which means there's nothing for them to fix in the sequel.

As movies are incredibly lean story telling machines, a good screenwriter is not going to waste time putting in extraneous problems that have no bearing on the plot, as they need that precious time for issues that are actually relevant.

In addition, when you plot backward from the sequel's ending, you can't just push the character anywhere you want. You need to take into account the ending of the first film, or the audience will be confused.

Which leaves you with characters who have no compelling issues, living happily ever after in peaceful places. So writers must shoe horn the character into a new conflict. This can feel unnatural and forced. Because it is.

A film is a story. It has a beginning, middle and end.

Or it did.

Our franchise saturated age has changed all this, which is why films are becoming more like television.

Writers and marketers now plan ahead and include extraneous material in movies specifically to set up sequels. Loads of sequels.

I'm looking at you, Marvel Universe.

They're embedding trailers inside the movie itself rather than running them beforehand. That's not all bad, as I rather like trailers. It's an art form in and of itself. But it should never be at the expense of the primary story. Sequel seed planting can slow down and hampers the main narrative. In addition, these hoped for spinoffs (unless they're Marvel) often don't happen because the film didn't do as well as expected.

So a film that's been made as a stand alone, such as the original Star Wars (George Lucas made it self contained because he never expected to be able to make the sequels, but still left threads untied to exploit in case he could… which just made it better), is inevitably a more satisfying emotional experience by its very nature. It has a self-contained, complete story, with meaningful arcs for the characters, and a satisfying conclusion. Sure, Vader gets away, which was a serial trope. But it doesn't take away from the fullness of the film's resolution. It's a real, solid ending, which can be a tough trick to pull off: create something self-contained and fulfilling which is also a stepping stone to a new narrative.

Any film with a cliffhanger is not a full story. It can't be, by its very nature. The journey is not completed, and so it is dependent, in part, on the other films in the series. If one of them fails, it diminishes the whole.

This is why so many 'grand arc' television series fall apart. They start out strong, filled with intriguing ideas and mysteries and twists. But they lead nowhere. Shows are all premise and no conclusion. Why? Because the writers do not start at the ending and they don't work their way back to the beginning.

They don't come up with an ending at all.

Why not? Studio executives don't want one. They want TV series to go on and on and on, forever, because they have yachts and summer homes and bills to pay (so do the actors and the crew), and they want to, understandably, keep their jobs. Who wouldn't?

The perverse thing is that the more satisfying a movie is, the more we want a sequel. Yet what makes a movie satisfying is that it tells a full, complete story. With resolution and character transformation.

So what do you do? The answer is to go for one of the two.

The focus is now on either high concept stories, where the characters are secondary, or they're built around characters who are themselves high concept. Self-contradicting archetypes who don't evolve but are so interesting, we don't care that they don't. Nihilists with hearts of gold, moral serial killers, cruel doctors, OCD detectives, sentimental assassins, and cannibal gourmands are the order of the day. Character flaws remain. Any flaw the protagonist has that's related to the climax is minor, so small and piddly that if it is resolved, it really changes nothing and can be forgotten in the next installment.

Welcome to The Franchise Era!

It started way back when Victorians demanded Sir Arthur Conan Doyle produce more Sherlock Holmes stories. Doyle tried to kill the deductive detective off by throwing him over a waterfall, but it wasn't enough. Later the public clamored for John Carter and Tarzan and Solomon Kane to return, and then Buck Rogers and Philip Marlowe and Batman and Superman. High concept characters like Frankenstein, Dracula and more flooded into Penny Dreadfuls and later comic books and public consciousness.

They don't change, they don't evolve, they don't learn, and they've never gone away, God bless 'em.

Franchise characters, like most TV characters, remain static, frozen in time at the height of their entertainment value, frozen in cinematic amber, with at most only minor changes from season to season. Why? Because if they changed in any meaningful way, the adventures would naturally change along with them, because character and climax are inextricably linked. Change one, and you have to change the other to fit.

And if you fundamentally change the character, then they no longer fit with their supporting cast (who reflect old traits), or with the established challenges and villains (who opposed who the protagonist was, not who they are now).

Everything has to be revamped as a unit, or it becomes unbalanced, senseless, and unstructured.

And if you change the nature of the conflict, you change the premise of the show, the franchise itself, which changes the appeal of the show, which changes the audience, which changes the advertisers, which changes the budget, which changes the cast and the writers and the viewing time and so on.

Sure, our lovable archetypes are refreshed from time to time, but never fundamentally altered. At most, they are just changed into a new, updated form that will remain frozen until the next refresh. There will be no organic growth. Periodic updates are hyped like crazy but are more like someone applying a coat of contemporary paint than anything else. 

As a writer once told me, people watch movies for plot and arcs, and they watch TV for reassuring archetypes.

Episodic TV leads cannot have meaningful character arcs, as that would ultimately evolve the character out of the franchise, destroying it. Instead, we get static but compelling high concept characters going through the same sort of challenges, over and over again.

Which is much more like episodic television than what we once knew as cinema.

Meanwhile, cable shows are making limited length series that allow for complex character development precisely because they are not locked into the perpetual motion narration machine of the franchise model.

Cable is now producing more interesting, nuanced material than what we typically see on the silver screen.

Along with all the sex and violence, that is.

The franchises have their place, but so does film that illuminates the human condition.

Franchises provide magnificent thrill rides at the cost of deeper meaning and emotional impact. Those threads in the story web have been cut for the sake of…

Sky Captain and the Unjustness of Tomorrow

This is madness. I loved Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It was magnificent retro-fun and the look was stylish and classy. It had giant robots, flying air craft carriers, ray guns, and miniature elephants. What's not to love?

I don't know why it tanked at the box office. I did my part and saw it in the theatre. Sadly it seems to have killed the chances of the Conran brothers in Hollywood, which is a real shame.

They deserve to be there.

And we deserve to see their films, no?

There's more good will out there towards Sky Captain than they might think. Going indie and getting funds via Kickstarter is a possibility. Surely someone would back them if they came up with another project.

Flying air craft carriers are awesome. Aren't they, Avengers?

At any rate, I hope I can one day see more movies by the ubercreative Conran brothers.

Why Star Wars is better than Empire Strikes Back

By Star Wars of course I mean the original film that screened in 1977, which is now known as 'Star Wars: A New Hope'.

I saw it long before the colon and second clause. My dad drove me around the city to see it, over and over again when I was little, God bless him. I don't think there's any film I've seen as many times as the original Star Wars.

Now, just about everyone out there believes Empire is a superior film to Star Wars. They've been saying this for, oh, decades.

It's simply taken as objective fact.

Well, I'd like to offer an opposing viewpoint, one that rejects popular opinion and opposes reality as you know it.

I assert that Star Wars is the better film. It isn't perfect (nothing is), but it's better than all the other films in the series.

Here's why:

1) Relatable characters



Mark Hamill has been endlessly mocked for his "But I wanted to pick up some power conveeerters!"line, and general whiny demeanor in Star Wars in general, but I think he played the part perfectly.

Look at his performance with the Biggs character in the cut footage: Hamill is his character, while Biggs is stiff and artificial. Hamill inhabits the role in every scene. Think about it: do you think Hayden Christiansen would have been able to pull it off? I don't think so: he'd have been whiny and artificial and I wouldn't buy into his character for a second.

Not so with Hamill, whose performance in Star Wars I bought into completely. His acting choices were spot on, either because that's who he was, or because he was able to find and identify with the character of Luke Skywalker. Maybe he'd worked in a dead end job as a teenager and had dreams of seeing the world… talk about material young people (the target audience) can relate to!

In Empire, as the aspiring Jedi Knight, he's just not as good. At the film's climax, when he delivers the line, "That's not true. That's impossible!" it comes across as (ahem) forced, as scenery chewing. I didn't believe it. Now, there's no question it was a very difficult scene to pull off. The actor and the director might have had conflicting ideas how to deliver the lines.

Speaking of which, some of the dialogue in Return of the Jedi is so hackneyed it'd tax the most accomplished thespian.

Don't get me started on his preposterously convoluted scheme to rescue Han from Jabba. That has to be the most unnecessarily ad hoc, messed up, badly planned rescue in cinema history. Honestly, did he consult Inspector Clouseau or Mr. Bean? And this guy is supposed to save the galaxy? Seriously? He can't competently plan a simple rescue operation!

But back to the relatable characters: we've got the feisty Princess Leia, who won't take no crap from nobody, and the lovable rogue, Han Solo, who everyone wants to either be or be with. People aren't identifying with their jobs (princess and smuggler), of course, but with their personality types.

Can you identify a personality type in the prequels?

No.

Didn't think so.

See Red Letter Media's famed take down for more.

As for Empire, Lando Calrissian is fun and entertaining, but just a mirror image of Han (and maybe a little more of a lothario), so nothing really new.

Yoda's a great character, but even with all the Frank Oz wizardry behind him, is not relatable. He's just not. I'll bet you know some whiny teenagers, back talking riot girlz, and lovable rogues, but I'll bet you don't know any midget sensei who speak in broken syntax.

2) Fresh take on the genre



When the first Star Wars hit the screen it was like a hurricane of fresh air. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. Well. Okay: except Flash Gordon. But this was such a huge leap forward, such a refreshing take on the earlier space pulp material that it transcended its point of inspiration and became something else entirely. It became a phenomenon. People went to the theatre over and over again to see it, and cinema has never been the same since. It was the beginning of a four billion dollar franchise, and it was still unhindered by mounds of marketing crap weighing down the original creativity.

I recently heard some of the music from the first film, out of the blue, and out of context. And I was struck by the feelings it dredged up. It felt fresh, hopeful, wistful, like a beautiful lost dream. Just without all the additional hackneyed crap that got stuffed into the franchise over time by dozens and dozens of different, disconnected creators, marketers, writers, artists, and toy and game manufacturers.

As Jonathan Price's High Sparrow might say–if I may mix my franchises–there was something clean and pure about the original 1977 film. Strip away all the bells and whistles and CGI and toy tie ins, and you're back to the first film and something that might even be described as edgy. Daring. Hopeful. It was made by dreamers, invented on the fly, innovated while it was being shot with whatever could be found. No one was saying 'no, you can't do that,' and 'no, you can't do this'.

It was pulp art, but it was art.

A joyous flight of imagination.

Now it's a bloated, multibillion dollar behemoth, and some of that lithe, elegant purity was lost along the way.

It was probably sold off in a value meal.

3) Powerful character arc



Luke goes from being the aforementioned discontented teenager whining about power converters to a can-do man of action who saves the galaxy from The Death Star. At the beginning of the film, he believes himself to be powerless, unable to effect a vast and indifferent universe. Over the course of the picture, he learns he must take responsibility for his own life. He has to stand up and be counted and participate.

And he does.

Big time.

Is that not a great arc? Whiner to winner? From being helpless and outside the system to being a key part of a galaxy spanning adventure?

His outlook changes, his position changes, and he realizes his dreams.

What's his arc in Empire?

He hunkers down with Yoda and must learn to temper his teenage ambitions ("Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless."), and he begins to do so. Then he runs off to save his friends and have more adventure and excitement.

Whatever.

He grew as a character.

But is it as dramatic as in the first film?

Is it as exhilarating? 

First time round, he goes from zero to hero. Second time out, he goes from hero to… somewhat more tempered hero.

Just not as powerful a journey.

But wait, you say. That's not fair: what about the revelation at the end, that Vader is his father? That's a great twist, right? Yes, it sure is! But it does come with a price: first, it damages Obi Wan Kenobi as a character. It contradicts the first film. And, secondly, it makes the universe smaller and more contrived. As great a twist as it is, it reeks of the soap opera, where people are forever running in to their evil twin, he's are really she's, and lovers discover they're (ew) siblings.

Star Wars (of Our Bold and Beautiful Lives) was just done with a bigger budget, better score and more heavy breathing.

Yes, true, that's why it's called Space Opera.

But there's good opera, and then there's bad opera.

Empire begins the 'shrinkage' of the galaxy when it reveals Luke's the son of Vader. By the third film, Leia is his sister. In the Prequels, it is revealed C3PO was built by Vader.

Buddhists like to say 'everything changes, everything is connected, pay attention.'

It's all holistic.

And it's standard practice to emphasize this in film, to connect characters and tie them in tightly together in a meaningful way, far more so than in real life, but here? It just makes the galaxy seem small and creepily inbred.

Honestly, couldn't they find a love interest for Luke that wasn't his sister?

4) Epic ending and a sense of scale



We begin with a farm boy, a couple of fleeing droids and some stolen plans. We end with a space station the size of a small moon blowing up just before it was about to vaporize another planet.

Talk about stakes! Talk about tension!

Will Luke save the rebel base and all his friends, or will the Empire be triumphant, destroying not only the Rebellion HQ, but the stolen plans along with it?

The villain here isn't just Tarkin and Vader, but the Death Star itself. It's a menace to the entire galaxy, a mobile doomsday machine. And it's already killed a planet full of people!

And what do they attack this planet sized peril with?

Teeny, tiny fighters.

Drama is about conflict and contrast, right? Scale makes things epic. Well, here we have the greatest, most dramatic difference in scale in pretty much the entire history of cinema: man vs. planet.

Goliath has nothing on the Death Star.

Seriously, how much bigger was he than David? Twice his size, perhaps? Maybe even three or four times if we want to be really dramatic.

Have you ever noticed that? When we tell a story, we naturally want to up the stakes. It wasn't two guys fighting us, it was four. And we had to go to school uphill, both ways.

Storytellers make villains bigger and more powerful, the cost of defeat more dire, and the hero's disadvantage greater, all in order to make victory sweeter.

How much larger is the Death Star compared to the hero? We're talking single seat fighters vs. a freaking planetoid.

You can't get a more dramatic, more epic difference in scale than that.

Except maybe my ten year old nephew, who'd have the hero fight an anthropomorphized galaxy.

But never mind him.

Finally, and somewhat controversially, there's the sexual subtext. Lots of people say this isn't there, at all, and only a sick perverted mind would even allege it. Sorry. They're in denial. The art direction gives the game away.

What am I talking about? The final attack on the Death Star is analogous to impregnation. Tiny sperm (the fighters) attack the massive egg (the Death Star) which then explodes (in orgasm).

Which just adds to the thrill of the climax.

What does Empire offer us?

Han is captured and put in carbonite (which is pretty inspired, really). Luke learns the truth about his father and gets a hand chopped off to boot, putting him one step closer to being a cyborg like his dear old dad.

It's a cliffhanger.

There's no real resolution.

No payoff.

No real ending.

No adrenaline rush.

True, you can argue that this is a more mature, more nuanced, and more thoughtful film. At least, as thoughtful as a movie with laser guns and a green Buddhist puppet can be.

And yet… is thoughtfulness what you want from Space Opera?

A better argument is that the series is a cinematic version of the old serials from the thirties and forties, each ending with a compelling cliffhanger that makes you want to come back.

Now that I can agree with, and in that sense, the soap opera/serial aspect of Empire makes it great. Yet there is a price to be paid for this approach: the quality of the film ultimately becomes dependent on the next in the series, as Empire is not self-contained to the degree Star Wars was, and requires Jedi to provide the ending.

By making it part of a greater whole, each part must support the others, and if one fails, it reduces the sum of the total.

And unfortunately Jedi is not anywhere near as good a film as the first two in the original trilogy.

True, the character of the Emperor was inspired and played with cackling, divine malevolence. He's the best part of the picture. But much of the rest of it doesn't measure up.

5) Unencumbered possibility



As more detail and baggage was added to the Star Wars universe, possibilities were defined out of existence. What was in the realm of the audience's imagination was turned into products, and the elegance of the original narrative thread became convoluted and contradictory.

It began with Empire ('He betrayed and murdered your father' to 'No, Luke, I am your father) and only got worse from there.

Marketing concerns loomed ever larger, trumping story telling. For example, Han Solo was to be killed off in Jedi, but was spared because Lucas was afraid it would hurt toy sales.

At least in Empire, story was still king.

In the prequels, it got to play court jester.