Just in time for consequently- called” Pride Month”, Disney’s fresh Star Wars episode,” The Acolyte”, is” the sweetest ever”, according to its authors. While repetitive as a Star Wars plot, many liberals complained, Disney has ruined muh Star Wars.
A long, long time ago, I did had agreed.
But now, after rewatching “Episode 4” with my children this weekend, I do n’t believe Disney ruined Star Wars. It has always been sad.
I could not see the charming space epic from my childhood, but instead saw a silly plot based on silly characters in a dumb universe. I felt bad for having been duped by the Hollywood buzz machine for the majority of my life. The success of the film financially has always depended on the campaign’s ability to turn normally healthy young child men into die-hard dweebs.
Science-fiction architect Harlan Ellison, one of the film’s early critics, has been known to have his car keyed by teens after publicly expressing his disapproval of the movie. In his funny terrible 1977 review, Ellison excoriates the movie as a” unlawful act of imaginative prostitution” being nothing but “mindless shoot- em- up and hardware” whose” characters are comic strip stereotypes”, so much so that the” Poor Guy]wears ] certainly only a black hat but dark body- armor and a dark death- mask”.
Ellison explains that science fiction is intended to examine the condition of people in the face of recent developments in technology and technology. He detests how mindless special effects were synonymous with the Star Wars era. Without any intelligence, Star Wars is to blame for our world of entertainment.
I must admit that Ellison is correct from my most recent viewing of “Episode 4.” What is really nothing more than what Roger Ebert refers to as an “idiot plot,” which is “any plot that would be resolved in five minutes if everyone in the story were not an idiot,” is obscured by the aliens, blasters, mythology, and music.
A good plot, in contrast, comes naturally from characters making wise judgments in their circumstances. Even if we as viewers can see the limitations of his context and the ultimate unreasonableness of his choices, a character who makes unreasonable choices will make those choices in a way that makes them reasonable to him. Because we see characters making choices that we, reasonable creatures ourselves, could very well make in the same situation, we find them relatable, making the drama real. The drama’s conclusion is uncertain because it depends on the complexity and ambiguity of the human condition, just like life does.
Now consider the Star Wars Idiot Plot. Seven minutes into the movie, C3P0 and R2D2, equipped with the secrets of the Death Star, evade Darth Vader’s invasion of the Rebel’s starship in an escape pod. The pod is being sped away by two Imperial stooges, laser cannons in hand, and flying objects.
” Hold your fire”, one tells the other. ” There’s no life forms — It must have short circuited”, he explains. What’s the cost- benefit analysis governing his choice? Do laser blasts have such high price tags that the Empire can only afford to destroy life-like Rebel escape pods? No bother. The story must continue.
Other instances abound, but the most egregious might be the heroes ‘ escape from the Death Star, which is made possible by the idiocy of Imperial Stormtroopers rather than their cunning and courage. They conveniently leave their posts while watching the saber fight between Vader and Kenobi just in time for Luke and the rest of the crew to board the Millennium Falcon. Luke screams in response to Kenobi’s being struck down in the Idiot Plot to warn the illiterate Stormtroopers of his presence. Then he stands motionless as the five Stormtroopers wildly miss a stationary object. Luke’s Idiot Plot stupor is broken by the disembodied voice of Kenobi by directing him to the most obvious course of action:” Run!”
Worse still, the movie takes the audience for idiots. The Stormtroopers ‘ bad aim is undeniable. No one is even grazed by a missed shot. Ben Kenobi comes to the conclusion that the “blast points are too accurate for sandpeople” when he examines the massacre of the Jawas earlier in the film. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise”.
It’s tempting to shrug and say,” So what? Let the people have their entertainment”. Ellison, too, was blasted with this banality. He responds by saying that stupid movies make people stupid. Similarly, in Plato’s Republic, Socrates argues that our souls are shaped by the poems we hear. Socrates advises excluding all poets from the ideal city, lest the young be led astray from virtue because of how powerful poetry can be on the souls of the young. Without endorsing total censorship, we can agree with the general sentiment. Our interpretation of the world is influenced by the experiences we have. In other words, what we see influences how we see.
The result of a generation rife with one-dimensional characters and Idiot Plot films ( not just Star Wars, of course ) is that the original Star Wars does not openly celebrate vice like more recent films like” Trolls” and” The Shape of Water.”
The left is unable to grasp that Trump is a serious political figure who addresses the working class’s real economic and cultural concerns. In their worldview, he is nothing more than some vulgar version of an on- screen supervillain, whether it be Emperor Palpatine, Thanos, or Voldemort.
Vladimir Putin is not a well-known leader who oversees a period of relative calm and stability in Russia, but he is also Palpatine and, to add insults, has his own Vader. Zelensky is a member of the Rebel Alliance fighting the Evil Empire, not a morally dubious president facing the consequences of the U.S. and NATO’s foolish provocations against Russia.  , Fighting off Russia’s invasion is harder than expected. Russians have better aim than Stormtroopers.
Entertainment can never just be entertainment. Bad stories impair our perceptions of reality and our souls. Good stories ennoble and enchant them. From the start, Star Wars had no intention of ennobling or edifying anything. Its intention was laid bare in the satirical” Spaceballs”, when Lone Star asks Yogurt ( sparkly green Mel Brooks spoofing Yoda ) what he’s up to, besides guarding the secret of” the schwartz” (” the force” ). Yogurt exclaims,” Merchandising! We put the picture’s name on everything! The real money behind the movie is made in this place”!
Clearly, from the lazy Idiot Plot screenplay, Star Wars is not a serious movie. Lucas ‘ vision was always more economic than artistic. Alan Dean Foster, the author of the Star Wars novelization sequel, explained to George Lucas that no sound exists in space, perpetuating scientific illiteracy, and Allison relates this to George Lucas. Foster even suggested two “workable alternatives”. What was Lucas ‘ response? In paraphrase:” People expect to hear a boom when something blows up, so I’ll give them the boom”.
The customer is always right, even if the customer is scientifically illiterate. If the audience wants BOOM, it will get BOOM. If it wants a fire in space, it will get a fire in space. Similarly, if the audience wants gay, it will get gay. And evidently, the audience wants gay. During its first five days of streaming” The Acolyte” received 11.1 million views, the most successful Disney Plus launch this year.
Disney did not end Star Wars. It is proud to carry the original torch.
S. A. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Dance teaches English to high school students. He has also taught freshman composition at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA and at Indiana University, Bloomington.
