The Star Wars

I do not plan on seeing the latest Star Wars film that everyone is so excited about.

I was intensely devoted to the series as a youth--so much so that I have, to this day, most of the dialogue of the original three films memorized. The films completely dominated my childhood imagination and toy-collecting. Later, I read the novelizations, some of the comic books, and listened to the (surprisingly good) radio adaptation of the film.

This great well of enthusiasm for The Star Wars was steadily diminished, and then actually transmuted into an equally intense revulsion, through the strange alchemy of the Star Wars prequels.

I have no doubt that Disney and J. J. Abrams have succeeded in producing cinematic fare that is less infuriatingly awful than Episodes I to III of the Star Wars saga. However, what the latest film appears to have in common with the prequels (by all accounts) is the absence of any shred (howsoever slender) of authentic human interest or emotion. Instead, all of these films are skillfully but cynically created vehicles for Disney's Galactic Empire of merchandising and tie-ins.

It's true that the Star Wars films were intended as vehicles for merchandising from the beginning. However, the first three films (Episodes IV to VI) at least managed to combine their frenetic action, obsession with sound and visual effects, and barrage of space vehicles and other sci-fi hoo-ha with well-drawn (if simple) characters, genuinely interesting (if occasionally choppy) plot arcs, and dialogue that was at least not uniformly wooden and terrible.

The first Star Wars film (1977) was also genuinely innovative with respect to the wider world of cinema. To wit: the aforementioned sound and visual effects were at the time revolutionary and ushered in a cascade of technical innovations; the pacing and editing of the films set a new standard for action films; and George Lucas' deliriously bizarre but somehow deeply coherent mash-up of the space opera, samurai, Western, and war film genres was genuinely inspired.

So here is a fistful of links to solemnly mark this week's epoch-making cinematic event (ahem). Enjoy!

1. Original Star Wars concept art.

2. Cracked's David Wong on "5 Things 'Star Wars' Fans Don't Understand about 'Star Wars'."

3. George Lucas' Star Wars Rough Draft from 1974.

4. Prescient but spoiler-free review of "The Force Awakens."

5. Thoughts on the issue of race in "The Force Awakens."

Are Science Fiction and Fantasy Shockingly Offensive?

Liz Lutgendorff criticizes NPR's list of top 100 science fiction and fantasy novels for being "shockingly offensive" due to their misogyny.

I actually agree with Lutgendorff that there's a lot of sexism in the science fiction and fantasy genres. But is not aesthetically sound to judge an entire genre using a single moral or political principle. I also agree with Lutgendorff's implicit assumption that morality is relevant to aesthetic evaluation, but her article seems to imply that it is the only or the most important principle of aesthetic evaluation, which is false. 

Perhaps Lutgendorff is not making an aesthetic argument at all, but rather a moral or political argument about the badness of the science fiction and fantasy genres. In that case, her argument still seems rather tone-deaf to the aesthetic merit of some of the works she discusses (Terry Brooks' Shannara novels excluded, inter alia). This seems to be an example of a larger social trend to reduce all of moral, aesthetic, and spiritual evaluation to gender politics or to some other narrow (if nonetheless important) political principle.

Not from a Pulp Magazine: Indian Temple Gold Edition

1. An ancient temple in India has treasure vaults filled with gold and gems, and is popularly believed to be protected by snakes and a god's curse.

2. The government in India is encouraging temples to deposit their gold in banks, so that it can be lent out at interest and help the economy by expanding credit.

3. Unfortunately, the rumored snake guardians and divine protection were not enough to prevent the theft of 266 kg of gold from Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala.

Addendum: Video with pictures of some of the treasures housed in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Flash Gordon (1980)

On the one hand, I appreciate the film's retro-future look, inspired by the Golden Age of science fiction, together with its fantastic and gaudy design, seemingly inspired by 70s rock album covers. But the writing, direction, and production are terrible.

It turns out the director is Mike Hodges of "Get Carter" (1971) fame. This is a shocker, since "Get Carter" is one of the best British gangster films ever.

The Wikipedia entry for "Flash Gordon" does contain an exculpatory quote from Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (the writer of the picture): a lot of the film's problems were caused by the fact that both he and producer Dino de Laurentis dithered between whether they wanted to make a humorous, campy film or a more "serious" action film (it ended up doing neither well, of course).

Surprisingly, the film was profitable, making more than twice its budget.

Here is the hawkmen battle scene:

The infamous football fight scene:

More on Patrick Stuart's Ships-Only Analysis of the Star Trek Feature Films

In an earlier links post, I noted that Patrick Stuart has given a systematic analysis of the first ten Star Trek feature films based solely on shots containing spaceships. (He covers the fifth through the tenth films in part two, here.)

On a certain social network which shall not be named, my dear childhood friend Mike Spasoff rankled at the following claim made by Stuart towards the beginning of his two-part analysis:

It was interesting to see the seismic effect that CGI had on the storytelling of the series. 

Short version - it fucked it up.

I agree with Mike that it is foolish to criticize all CGI as inferior to all practical effects (for such I take to be the substance of his cavil). However, there are three qualifications which Stuart makes to his claim about CGI, which considerably limit the scope of his claim, but which also make his claim more interesting thereby: (1) He says this is the "short version." :) (2) He is talking about the effect of CGI on "storytelling" specifically. (3) He is talking about the effect of CGI on storytelling "in this series" specifically.

On the other hand, after reading through the rest of Stuart's two-part review, it does seem that his main critique of the CGI versions of the space ships is that they simply don't look as real or convincing as the practical models (for example, he refers to the CGI renderings as having a "plastic" look to them). And he's right. But in his in-depth analysis, Stuart doesn't really explicitly clarify the effect that the shoddy CGI had on the storytelling. Still, I think he is on to something.

In general, I especially appreciated Stuart's discussion of (1) the difference between the scale of the space shots in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and the later films, and (2) the use of "azteking" (a kind of techno-patina) in the shots of the Enterprise in the later films. Regarding (1), his point is that the later films go for a less accurate and "lazier" medium scale, rather than for shots in which things are far away and small or close up and huge, which (he argues) is more representative of what things would actually be like given interstellar travel (ahem).

Solaris (1972)

I finally watched Andrei Tarkovsky's masterpiece "Solaris" in its entirety. When it was initially released, the film was widely compared to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). Tarkovsky's future echoes some of the modernist design which can be found in "2001," but overall the future is less sterile in Tarkovsky's film; there are many shots which linger on the earth's countryside and sundry natural vignettes (as is typical of Tarkovsky), which are later echoed by the more exotic natural scenes from the planet Solaris, and Tarkovsky's future contains more remnants from mankind's past, which reminds us that the future is not only the new, but also the accumulation of history and culture.

The shot of the library shown above represents the most deliberately archaic aspect of the film; the space station's library seems to represent the inheritance of the past and human culture which has been brought into space, and which humans use to try to make sense of the new and the unknown. The most audacious example of Tarkovsky's deliberate archaism is the candelabra with lit candles that makes several appearances in this scene:

Because of its links to the past and to nature, Tarkovsky's imagined future feels grounded and real, despite the primitive special effects employed. The effects are primitive even by the standards of the day; the film's production seems hearkens back to the golden age of cinema, which is probably a reflection of the limited budgets and technical skill of the Mosfilm studio. While at least partly unintended, this actually contributes to the film's timeless feel.

The entirety of the film is available on the internet for free, but I watched the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray edition. Here is a clip which shows the famous levitation scene in the library:

Under the Skin (2013)

A mysterious, stunning, haunting film. One of the best of 2013.

Sequel Madness

This post is pretty late to the party. I hope it is fashionably late, rather than rudely so. In any event, perhaps timeliness is the enemy of judiciousness; if so, the timing seems perfect.

To wit: I asked a former student of mine, who is a fan of the Star Wars saga, the following question about the upcoming sequels: While some people are discussing the possibility that there will be female stormtroopers in the films, why are there going to be stormtroopers of any kind, granted that the Galactic Empire was defeated at the end of Episode VI?

My student's guess, which had also occurred to me, is that the writers will postulate the continued existence of other, undefeated Imperial commanders and forces, who will then furnish suitably Imperial foes (stormtroopers included) for our still plucky (?) rebels to struggle with. This, of course, would follow the precedent set by some of the Expanded Universe material generated in the wake of Episodes IV-VI.

My underlying concern is that the new films are just going to have the protagonists re-fight the same fights as in Episodes I-VI in an unconvincing and ultimately uninteresting fashion. Why can't the new films explore something genuinely new in this interesting and rich universe? Does it always have to be about stormtroopers and Darth Vader?

Imagine, for instance, the new problems and conflicts that could emerge when the Rebels become the new establishment, and when they attempt to establish a New Republic with a new constitution, new laws, and new policies. Granted, given the mythology of the setting, one would suspect some role to be played by the Dark Side in whichever conflicts become salient, but this by no means entails continued struggle against the Empire and its minions.

(Sigh.)