George, please hire me as a story editor!

Rating: 3/10 (1 June 1999)

"It didn't suck outright."
That was my sigh of relief as I left the theater today.
I was highly worried, reading all I did prior to entering the movie, Was I going to be so severely let-down I would not want to see Episodes II or III when they release?
In 1977, I was one of those star-struck young fans who, after watching an amazing event -- it was not just a movie, it was an event, like a supernova or a moon landing -- it was unlike anything we had ever seen before. Suddenly, for my generation, we no longer wanted to be astronauts when we grew up.
We wanted to be Jedi Knights.
However, after seeing Episode I, it is not clear why there would be a new generation of spunky, creative kids that spend their summers dreaming of archetypes of good and evil, or making the noises of starships in pitched battle, as we had made noises of X-wings and TIE fighters.
The new movie is, in a word, flawed. It is visually engaging, but after our matinee, and over a tasty late lunch, the real philosophizing and criticizing began. There were so many loose plot threads at the end of the movie that I found myself scratching my head.
View the original film again, and note was great barbs of humor. The whole "prison block" escape sequence from the Death Star had jewels of wit, interwoven with blaster shots, dramatic music, and drama evoking interest in the character's fate.
In this movie, I was squinching my face at parts, wondering why they chose such flat, bad dialogue. Where was the humor? Where was the mystery of The Force? In this movie, it seemed like all the mysticism was boiled down to a high "beta carotene" count. (Purposeful malapropism.)
The plot has holes you could drive a Star Destroyer through, and much of it suffered from "GSFX" -- "Gratuitous Special Effects". This is what we have seen in other movies when, for lack of real engaging character dialogue, plot furtherance or thematic development, something just explodes or flips around for comic effect.
Luke, Han, even Leia, grew in maturity before our eyes even in the first movie. Luke found his aunt and uncle butchered, and his mentor Obi-Wan slain before his eyes; he grows into the part of the hero as the movie proceeds. Leia lost her foster parents along with all of Alderan; she is stubborn and impetuous, and learns to trust the others by the end. Han had a change of heart for the good, which turns certain death into surprising victory, and turns this stranger and loner into a close friend.
In the latest episode, there are no major developments of character. Everything is in stasis. Even the young Anakin only goes through the "little separation" of leaving his home. He also wins a race and fires a gun in combat. But he blows up toys, not people. For him, this struggle is not the ultimate risk, a war between good and evil, but the ultimate video game. He leaves Tatooine not for Rebel boot camp, but for summer camp on Lake Naboo.
There are many ultimately useless acts on many people's parts, and many obvious actions or paths seemingly not taken only because "it's not in the script." Why George took the choices in story path he did is between him and his higher power.
Argh! That's not true... It's between him and us -- his true fans!
[Alert! spoiler/hint/example!]
George, in this movie, the bad guys aren't really bad -- they are being manipulated by bad people. In fact, why they wouldn't just turn on their manipulators at the end of the film, and bring this Trilogy to an early end (and kind of take the whole Empire down a peg, and likely avoid the second trilogy too) is beyond me. Traders do what is profitable, and nothing smells of more certain return to profitability than a plea bargain.
Ask yourself, when the movie is over: Why wouldn't the Trade Federation turn over their "galactic phone records" in a plea-bargain to expose the mastermind behind the attack on Naboo...? Maybe they take a major hit, but it's better than taking the whole enterprise down the tubes! If the bad guys could use this to track the location of the good guys, of course, the good guys could have used it to get to the bad guy in reverse?
Unless there are no private eyes in the Star Wars Universe? Bring back Harrison Ford as "Decker", from "Blade Runner" and put him on this case. There are clues laying all over the place like spent ammunition casing...!
Even Austin Power's "Doctor Evil" exhibits more smarts than the main villain in this film.
Over lunch, my friends agreed there were five or seven things which could be fixed with this movie to have made it an excellent one. George Lucas, if you are reading this, I suggest you contact me as a story editor for Episode II and III, to really make your movies -- once again -- amazing.