Anthony Lane’s review lost me from the beginning:
Sith. What kind of a word is that? Sith. It sounds to me like the noise that emerges when you block one nostril and blow through the other, but to George Lucas it is a name that trumpets evil.
Of all of the silly names that Lucas comes up with, this is the one that Lane chooses to mock in the opening of this diatribe? Lane’s not idiot. He knows perfectly well that Sith almost certainly alludes to Set.
What a petty little middlebrow takedown Lane’s piece is. It would be great as a kneejerk blog entry, but Lane’s review is not a good review. It’s a space opera for fuck’s sake. Those middlebrows ought to understand that. The plots of operas are lifted from other sources, and very few who go to see operas, particularly in America, understand the languages in which they are sung. It’s about the music, baby. In space opera, it’s all flash and bang, special effects and outlandish props, replacing the music. Don’t fucking whinge about the plot and dialogue not being solid enough too, trite, too cataclysmic. Analyze it like opera, middlebrow scum. Don’t make references to “John Martin, the Victorian painter,” and pretend that you are anything other than a preening ass with an axe to grind.
“We get the films we deserve.” Whatever, ponce. I suspect the true reason that Lane hates Yoda’s smugness (a trait i see too,) is that Yoda manages to accomplish it with less words. Zen smug is just so enviable.
Yeah, i just watched it.
It has its faults, but my expectations were still so low that i was easily impressed. It helped that the kid that comes into the bookstore every so often to talk about fantasy and sc-fi (the one that Bill turned onto Elric of Melniboné,) came in to tell me the other night that he absolutely hated the film. I asked about the dialogue, the plot, the flatness of the effects, the sterility of the whole damned thing…. all he could answer was, in shocked outrage, “Everyone dies….”
As if that’s a complete surprise.
Damn it to hell. Late for work.