Star Wars Miscellany

Today is Star Wars day.  Unless you've led a severely deprived life, you'll recognize why- "May the Fourth be with you" is a slight modification of the "May the Force be with you" line repeated often in the six Star Wars flicks.  In honor of the occasion, I present the below miscellany pertaining to the Star Wars universe in general, celebrating my fondness for the movies, or personal issues resulting from them, as appropriate.

The Movies

The six movies released to date (appropriately, Episodes I-VI, though they were released in this order: IV (1977), V (1980), VI (1983), then I (1999), II (2002), III (2005)) are all phenomenally popular, though most would agree their quality in some cases is suspect.  My overall opinion of the movies: it's a great story, not always told well.  Here's how I rank them, from best to worst:

1) Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Most agree that this is the best Star Wars film.  After their victory in Episode IV, the Rebels are pursued by a vengeful Darth Vader.  Han's ship, the Millenium Falcon, is just out of warranty and breaking down all over the place, so Han spends most of the movie trying to fix it, while Leia berates him for allowing his road-side assistance membership to lapse.

2) Episode IV: A New Hope
The movie that started it all!  Here we are introduced to Luke, Leia, Han, Obi-Wan, the droids, etc. etc. as they look to evade Imperial tyranny, which threatens to dominate the galaxy with the new, all-powerful battle station.  Can our intrepid heroes destroy this horrible Death Star before it's too late?  The title of the next movie- and the fact that there's a next movie- implies that they can.

3) Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Beyond the top two, ranking the rest gets hard.  Episode VI comes next for me, because I really like Admiral Ackbar (the giant fish admiral who wears tennis sneakers and knows when something is a trap) and the space battle.  It also, unfortunately, has Ewoks (midgets in teddy bear outfits with pointy sticks), which aren't great, but Lucas showed us with Gungans in Episode I how bad it could have been.  The plot of this one is pretty much like the plot of Episode IV, only now Death Star Jr. has even bigger vulnerabilities, and for some reason, when the Rebels blow this one up, the rest of the Imperials stop fighting and all is well.

4) Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
The last of the "prequels" is decent, in my opinion, though the acting and dialogue is atrocious (which is true for Episodes I-III).  Here, Anakin Skywalker has a dream that his secret wife is going to die, so he orchestrates the destruction of every Jedi in the universe to make sure that doesn't happen.  But it does happen, because she dies of sadness, because he destroys every Jedi in the universe.  Oh, the irony!  It's all so sad.  Then he becomes Darth Vader.

5) Episode II: Attack of the Clones
The name of this one is stupid, but the story is pretty cool: a teenage Anakin flirts with a much older woman, while the Jedi find out that someone's placed an order for 1 million clones, a side of fries, and a large Coke without telling them.  Also Boba Fett's dad is in this one.

6) Episode I: The Phantom Menace
This movie is a good example why past success is no guarantee of future quality.  This is, technically, the highest-grossing Star Wars movie ever: it's also clearly the worst.  Its success is due only to anticipation- it was the first Star Wars movie released in 16 years, so everyone thought it would automatically qualify as awesome.  It didn't, and it showed us that George Lucas is not only fallible, he's also a deplorable human being, capable of unleashing a terrible pestilence known as Jar Jar Binks on humanity. Other stuff happens in the movie, too, but it's not important.

The Universe

As I said, I think the movies are good stories, not always told well.  The universe, however, really appeals to me, which is why I continue to enjoy Star Wars television, comics, books, games, spoofs, and legos.  Here are the things I enjoy the most about Star Wars Land:

1) The Starships

Star Destroyers, X-wings, A-wings, Y-wings, Mon Calamari Star Cruisers, Nebulon-B Frigates, etc: be they capital ships, mid-size vessels or starfighters, I love the starships of the Star Wars galaxy.  I hope they make an entire movie consisting only of said ships flying around fighting.  It would be awesome.

2) The Wars & Weapons
In real life, WWII is interesting to study because it involves so much of the planet- the people and the locations.  People of many cultures fought in forest, jungle, desert, ice, in the air, underwater, etc. using many different type of weapons and vehicles.  Now, expand that concept to cover an entire galaxy- and imagine beings from entire worlds engulfed in conflict of endless variety and horror.  Pretty neat, no?

3) The Locales
Star Wars takes locations we know and expands them to cover entire worlds.  The desert planet (Tatooine), the forest planet (moon of Endor), the water planet (Kamino), the smuggler's planet (Nar Shadaa, which looks mysteriously like Detroit) and so on.  It's just magnifying what we already have here, on a galactic scale, and each new type of world is enjoyable to behold.

4) The Fringe Element
Bounty Hunters, smugglers, Hutts, the Black Sun, and a variety of other fringe elements play a large part in many Star Wars stories, and are among my favorite aspects of the galaxy.  It's not always good or bad- there's a lot of gray in this world.

5) The Scope
An entire galaxy being the backdrop, Star Wars is rife with cool stories that require such scope to be interesting.  In one story, an entire fleet of starships disappear, and aren't found for decades (space is a pretty big area to search).  Many things of value are hidden in the strangest, backworld places, and more places can always be created to accommodate more coolness.

The Dreams

Being such an avid fan for so long, many of my dreams/nightmares have involved Star Wars over the years.  As a child, I remember having the recurring nightmare of Darth Vader and his Imperial Stormtroopers charging up the stairs into my bedroom.  In the dream, I'd wake to find them all standing over me, helpless before their might.  As I got older, that fear faded, but I had two dreams with Star Wars themes that have stuck with me over the years:

1) Darth Vader, my Grandparents, and North Carolina

In this dream, of which I've had several variations, Darth Vader is chasing me for hours.  In one version, we end up at my grandparent's house, where he chases me around their kitchen table for a few minutes, before stopping to declare that all he wants is for me to acknowledge him as my dad.  I do, reluctantly, and he hugs me and leaves.  In another version, I have a large-hopping/limited-flying ability (think mix between Mario and Superman), and he chases me in his Imperial Shuttle as I fly/hop all over America, until we end up at an outdoor rock concert in North Carolina.  There the dream always ends- maybe the music was really good.  I don't know what these mean, but I take them both as a sign of deep personal issues.

2) Darth Vader, the Midget, and the Pool of Cheese

Yes, in this dream, Vader features again.  Here, we're both part of a tourist group, in line for a tour of the Death Star.  The tour is similar to the ride at Hershey's Chocolate World- there are two-row cars on a track taking us through the facility.  I'm with someone I don't know in the front row of our car; Vader is the lone occupant in the back.  As we tour the station, the guy next to me is talking his head off, while I'm sitting there thinking "Dude, Vader's behind us.  Just shut up."  The car stops at a pool of cheese, beside which a little hut stands.  A tourist is out examining the pool.  Suddenly, a midget runs out of the hut, throws the tourist into the pool of cheese, and tries to drown him.  Then I wake up.  I'm thinking about having that one psycho-analyzed.

The Annoyances

Nothing is perfect- and here are some things that really bother me about the Star Wars galaxy in general:

1) The Monotony
Many of the stories can follow a familiar pattern: the Rebels are trying to win/retain the galaxy, and the Empire is about to get its hands on some super-weapon that would tilt the balance of the conflict.  Cool the first few times; gets boring after a while.

2) The Force
The Force concept is cool, but so inconsistently applied it gets annoying.  One moment, the hero(es) are invincible.  The next, some dude can sneak up on them and poison their pudding.  The ability to sense things seems to alter at author's will- keep it consistent, people!

3) The Jedi Teaching
The Jedi's ways are okay, but all this nonsense about "don't get angry" gets old fast.  There are good times to be angry- like when the Yankees win, or when your child refuses to use any toilet but that little green one back in your house, which you forgot, so now she won't go, but just screams, and then your wife gets mad at you, like it's your fault your daughter can be severely irrational.  Anger doesn't mean evil, necessarily.

4) The Lack of Instruction
Star Wars tales are almost always pure adventure stories- there's no wisdom or insight to be gained from them.  Contrast that with some other epic story arcs, like Lord of the Rings, and you see the unrealized potential there.  The best stories have adventure and wisdom.

5) The (Near) Invincibility of the Main Characters
The main characters in Star Wars almost never die.  Luke, Leia, and Han have spent most of their lives in battle, and generally get no more than a scratch.  I don't want Lucas to go all George RR Martin on the cast, but please, everyone surviving is boring. 

The Conclusion

If you've read this far, congratulations.  It means you either expected better, were fascinated by my personal issues, or have too much time on your hands.  Whatever the reason, Happy Star Wars day- May the Fourth be with you.