Star Wars I-VI

That’s right, one through six. All the films. The entire series.

Let me explain.

Yes, I see the flaws in continuity and logic (hiding a kid in his uncle’s farm and not changing his name?) just as readily as the next person. Also I understand the complaints about the acting. For the record, I think the older actors and actresses did a splendid job, but the younger folk, who are strong at their craft but needed more direction, had a difficult time. To defend Mr. Lucas (not that he needs it), as I have done before, every director has strengths and weaknesses, which are commented on and argued over relentlessly. Mr. Lucas is the same. He has areas he’s better at than others. Consider, however, what you see on the screen, the sheer imagination it takes to put all that stuff in (literally a kitchen sink in one “Revenge of the Sith” scene) is breathtaking. Is there any movie like a Star Wars movie?

I am a child of the 70s (alas) and I remember sitting in the theatre (and drive-in) and seeing the films and loving them. The Darth Vader of the original episodes, IV through VI, was a terrifying superman: the ultimate villain, because he was not intrinsically weak or flawed beyond the obvious ass-kicking he had gotten as a younger man that put him in his metal suit in the first place. This, we imagined (since there was no backstory to look up), made him stronger and more terrifying, because he attained enough skill and resolve to drive his former teachers into hiding…and we could only guess at what he did to the ‘lesser’ Jedi. He was power incarnate, a dangerous nightmare who consciously chose a path of destruction, mayhem, death.

Now, we know (thanks to the earlier- later?- films) that he was maneuvered. Before Darth Vader was DARTH VADER he was a young slave taken from his mother and told not to look back, ripped straight from a hot, smelly spaceport to be raised by a bunch of esoteric mystics. Anakin Skywalker was immensely gifted but also prone to errors in judgment, lapses in reason. He had the tendency to get lost and be confused. That, to me, is more terrifying than anything, and what makes the series especially poignant. His gifts were not always enough to see him through. He was not superman, he was a man puzzling his way through difficult options, not sure where to go or who to turn to. He was, in short, like the rest of us. We needed six films to see how far he could fall, and what it took to get him to rise back up.

We are all angels and monsters. You think there are lines you would not cross, it could be you just have not been pushed far enough. The journey to being an extraordinary human being is not an easy one. It is long, painful, uncertain path and we make a lot of mistakes on it. But redemption is possible, even if it’s with our dying breath. That’s something we like to- have to- believe, isn’t it?