I think it’s time I shared my thoughts on George Lucas. I was reading an article on msn about the biggest winners and losers of the summer and (not unexpectedly) they labeled Indiana Jones a loser (the latest one). What I love about this article, and the people that wrote in to argue, is that critics predicted exactly as both Lucas and Spielberg said they would, but acted as if their reactions were a surprise. The majority of movie-goers accepted the change in tone and enjoyed the movie. Both the article and the people that replied represent these two extremes beautifully.

But this got me thinking, I’ve spent a lot of time defending Episode 3 and qualifying Episodes 1 & 2, but I’ve never done so here (I don’t think). I think it’s time.

First let’s get the obvious weakness out of the way so we can all be on the same page:

1. George Lucas, bless his heart, had a hard-on for special effects. They were overused in the first two movies and he forgot to keep it simple. It’s understandable when one considers that he’s spent his life making movies that weren’t quite capable of looking like he imagined, but still a poor choice artistically.

2. We could have forgiven the abuse of special effects if the writing had been better. The dialogue was just plain painful in places and while I personally think there were reasons for that at times, it doesn’t change the need for a little revision.

These were the major complaints made at the time of the release and, I think, what most people still complain about when discussing the movie.

This is why I think the movie was doomed to failure regardless of how good it was:

1. We all wanted Episodes 4-6 the way we had them when we were four. We wanted to believe, we wanted to be blown away, and, most of all, we wanted to escape into the fantasy. However, we’ve all grown more cynical and unforgiving in our old age and forgot that when we watch episodes 4-6 we laugh about how cheesy they are…but we forgive them because we love them. Unable to be a child, unwilling to acknowledge we are adults everyone sat in the theatre and complained.

2. We all had a preconceived notion about Darth Vader’s origin story. The books, the fanfiction, the graphic novels, the conversations with friends at three in the morning over coffee—no one wanted to accept a story that was different from what was imagined. No one wanted to reimagine a world that wasn’t technically theirs to begin with. The story, by dent of being mostly original, would never be accepted. I acknowledge that the plotting could and should have been done better, but I still maintain nothing would have been enough.

3. This one is most important: Well adjusted teenagers don’t turn into cosmic serial killers. Everybody loves Darth Vader because he’s the biggest badass on the market. Everybody wanted to see Darth Vader be a badass prelava. What we got was a whiny, overdramatic teenager that couldn’t accept reality or deal with the pressures of life. Could Episode 2 have been better written? Absolutely. Could Anakin Skywalker, realistically, been an ass-kicking James Bond like teenager? Of course not. Darth Vader is, was, always has been inherently weak. His emotions were his doom. That means when he was fifteen, in love, and his mom dies he whines and goes crazy. Nothing else works.

Very few people wanted to accept these things about the story Lucas was telling. Furthermore, because Episode 2 was pretty bad (even I cringe when Anakin compares Padme’s skin to sand) everyone writes off Episode 3. Episode 3 was a masterpiece of tragedy—honestly, I don’t know how you could argue against that, even if personally you don’t like it. The only real weakness I saw was that Anakin shifted from good to evil too quickly. There needed to be a little more attention paid to his fanaticism and how the Emperor played into that. But overall, his passion as his undoing, the slaughtering of the jedi, the Emperor and Yoda fighting, Obi-Won and Anakin fighting…it was all heartbreaking. Oh, there was the “NO!” at the end which was a bad choice—I know what Lucas was going for there, but a show of silent fury would have been a much better option I think.

Going back to Episode 2 for a minute, has anyone ever spent any time with a teenage boy? Have you ever heard a teenage boy try to hit on a girl? It’s painful people. There are bad comparisons, cheesy pick-up lines, and a whole lot of awkward longing looks that translate to “I really wanna touch your boob.” Real life doesn’t always translate to writing well and Lucas erred on the side of too realistic here, but the failure wasn’t because it wouldn’t really be like that. People cringed because how does an intergalactic badass tell a girl he likes her skin because it’s so smooth, not coarse like sand? People forget that even intergalactic badasses are 15 once with too many hormones and not enough game.

And that brings me to my final point—Vader wasn’t evil, not wholly, he was weak. He was too weak to resist the dark side, and he was too weak to embrace evil all the way. That’s why he chooses the Emperor in Episode 3 and is saved by Luke in 6. He loved his family more than anything and that allows for the Rebellion to win before it’s all said and done, but it also means that Darth Vader won’t ever be the biggest, the baddest, or the most evil. It also means that, like all other passionate, out of control teenagers, seeing him in his teen years makes you die a little inside.

And as for Episode 1, it tried to be too much like Jedi. It was fun, it was easy, it was everything it was supposed to be. I was really excited after I saw it in the theatre. But then everyone started hating on it because, frankly, it’s cooler to hate than to love. Us silly cretins just didn’t realize how bad it was. It wasn’t perfect, none of them were, but it was better than a crapload of other movies people say are great (think Titanic) and no worse then many more.

Most importantly, though, they were all Star Wars, and for better or worse that’s all they ever aspired to be. You can love ‘em or hate ‘em, but you can’t deny them their place in the world George Lucas created.