Sure, but sometimes you have to step back and say, “Wow, I’m spending countless hours looking for deeper meaning in family space fantasy movies. Maybe I’m no better than the nerds who memorize wikis.”
I think you absolutely can ascribe deeper meaning to Star Wars movies, even the prequels and sequels. The Star Wars fandom wouldn’t be so passionate if this weren’t the case. Star Wars isn’t indie arthouse kino and George Lucas isn’t Francis Ford Coppola, but he was a friend and close colleague of his. Star Wars isn’t Marvel either and Lucas isn’t Michael Bay.
That said, and I truly do mean no disrespect to Stardust1138 (because this is all an internet argument over above average space movies after all)…
Mental gymnastics and insane stretches have always been required by Prequel fans when in discussion with others who did not enjoy these films or point out the discrepancies between the two trilogies. I am surprised many Prequel fans themselves rarely seem to question why Lucas’ poor writing for the later Trilogy created so many needless plot-holes and contradictions, and still look to use such gymnastics and stretches instead.
This is spot on. I almost feel like it’s a culture within the prequel fandom, because prequel fans talking about the basic plot of the prequels is full of more headcanon than what’s actually shown on screen.
All I’ll say is there’s always another side to every story. Everyone gets something different from what they see as we each have different experiences that shape us. We can choose to view something from a more personal perspective or we can view it from a more artistic perspective. I tend to view it from both but I recognise not everyone cares to go down that rabbit hole. That’s there choice but in my humble opinion especially with something as profoundly moving as Star Wars can be I question why you wouldn’t want to understand George Lucas and his point of view but in life you can’t always understand why people think as they do. I don’t know anymore in life if we truly ever understand each other but it’s human sympathy that is more valuable than ideologies, beliefs, and thought processes.
I also do think Star Wars under George shares many aspects of arthouse cinema but they’re also designed to be entertainment films for kids. They’re the mixture of when you get both as he’s an auteur and they’re independently made. They also deal with themes and issues often found in art films. The really key difference with typical art house cinema and what George did with Star Wars is he made the movies for kids to introduce to them something more than purely a means to entertain. Art films also tend to be for adults. His biggest pure cinema project of this kind was THX 1138 but both Star Wars and American Graffiti were for young people yet do have roots in arthouse cinema.
I would also counter that by saying I think it’s more to do with the perception of how you view the films. Some view them as I-VI but others as IV-VI, I-III. How we experience something first does inform our outlook and way of making connections. Take my friend. She’s watching the Prequels first right now. She loves the series so far and is very excited for Episode III. She loves Jar Jar and was sad when Qui-Gon died. Her favourite scene was him making Obi-Wan promise to train Anakin. She especially loves Anakin and Padme falling in love as she saw they had a connection in The Phantom Menace but didn’t recognise they were so close in age. It didn’t bother her in the slightest. She’s not been influenced by me or the years of baggage we as a fandom have with it. She’s taking the story as it’s given to her in the order George wanted her and everyone to see it. Perhaps in general that’s a lesson we can all learn from on both sides that we shouldn’t project but share as the author intended versus what is personal to us until after we give the newbie a chance to form their own thoughts.