a fun flick that spawned too many dire imitators

Rating: 7/10 (8 October 2004)

Though I like "Star Wars" in isolation, I'm angry about what it did to science fiction and to movies as a whole.
Let's be honest; although this is great entertainment, it does lack depth and sensitivity. The characters are all archetypes: the roguish Han, the sagely Kenobi, the brash youngster Luke. And let's not forget Darth Vader ("Dark Invader"?), who seems to have stepped right out of a 1950s pulp magazine. I like these folks - I grew up with them - but fascinating people they ain't.
The film only works because it plays to very basic emotions and themes. Luke wants to leave home and see the universe. The Empire is evil - just evil, who needs an explanation? And though there's hardware and technology on display everywhere, it's ultimately faith and spiritualism (in the form of the Force) that saves the day. It's a very positive flick, but what is really the message? If you have a moment of Zen in the cockpit of your X-Wing, you'll be able to guide your torpedoes right down the throat of that evil space station? Strange that this moment means so much to so many people.
Don't get me wrong; I love good sci-fi. But I was actually raised on the more cerebral stuff - the sci-fi that discusses issues instead of wages wars. "Star Wars" is firmly in the latter camp; it has great combat, but not great drama. And it has inspired so many feeble imitators (pick one, there's a million of them) and forced the advancement of special effects so far that movies have been forever changed, for the worse, because of it. After this, movies were all about faster paces and bigger bangs. The 1970s, a very meaningful decade for cinema, gave way to the shallow sci-fi spectacle of the 80s...and this is the movie that's responsible for that regrettable shift in emphasis.