The Chronic Curmudgeon

I don't want to like Revenge of the Sith. I don't. I think George Lucas is the worst dialogue writer in the history of film. He's simplistic. He's cliched. He writes dialogue like a thirteen year old girl writes poetry in her journal. As a kid, I loved the first Star Wars, which came out when I was 9; I loved the second one, out when I was 12; I hated the third one at 15 because even then I could see the lazy, hack cliche way out of making sure everyone ended up related or mated at the end.

And I wanted to be personally responsible for the extinction of the Ewok species. I thought then, as I do now, that cutesy characters written for nine year olds have no place in an epic storytelling. Picture C3PO showing up in Doctor Zhivago or the tribe in Dances With Wolves befriending a herd of cuddly talking bison, and you see my point.

I don't want to like this movie. I can't. I mustn't. But damn, does this trailer look cool.

The newest movies in the franchise, however, have taken my disdain for George Lucas to new levels. Lucas is a propeller-head, a tech geek so enthralled at what he can do with computers that he allows CGI to become his whole movie. Screw plot. Screw continuity. As always in a Lucas film, screw dialogue. But look at these neat-o graphics! I'm also convinced that Jar Jar Binks was a character conceived, formed, and given life by a saber-toothed, winged demon from the 9th level of Hell. Lucas has some serious time in purgatory coming for inflicting that abomination on the world.

So I don't want to like these movies. And yet, I keep going to see them. I saw the "re-mastered" (Look at the neat-o things I can do to old films with computers! And Greedo shot first after all!) re-issues of the classic Star Wars films when they came out in the mid '90s. Every time I go see one, I am disappointed; the dialogue gets more and more childish with every film -- I watch the original Star Wars now and wonder how Lucas' script wasn't laughed out of 20th Century Fox by the first intern who read it. The story and attention to actual plot evaporates with every effort. The films are the most inexplicable blockbusters this side of Titanic.

So I don't want to like Revenge of the Sith. I can't. I mustn't. It goes against everything I stand for as a moviegoer, and worse yet it galls me as a professional writer that this hack can get away with writing the dialogue he does; he makes us all look bad by mere association. I am in disbelief that a writer that pays so much attention to toys and so little attention to story can be so successful.

But damn, does this trailer look cool.

This entire movie will build up to one scene: the climactic duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin on the volcano world. This scene, because of all that has come before it since 1977, is going to be one of the most classic of all time, no matter what is done with it. But if it's done right, it will be the classic movie moment of all time. It is possible, if this scene is done right, that in 100 years of cinema no other moment will have ever come close to approaching this one. The potential is there. So please, George... let's hope you got it right for once. I'll be in the theater waiting to find out.

Because damn, does this movie look cool.