bilditup1 said:
Trooperman said:
bilditup1 said:
LOL dude. I'm glad you figured it out, but I think I'll always be puzzled by people who think that Star Wars could possibly be considered a work of science fiction.
Well, you have laser swords and laser guns and space stations, new worlds, alien creatures...etc. So I don't think sci-fi is completely off base considering that there is so much technology/creatures/bizarre stuff in every frame.
But up until now I considered it more of an adventure like an Errol Flynn movie. When Luke throws the cable up and the two of them swing across the chasm with the fanfare and then those beautiful, soaring, strings- that just sums up the whole movie for me and gives it away as being a complete homage to the Golden Age.
I hope I'm not starting to sound pretentious;)
EDIT: And then with Empire Strikes Back it becomes an homage to a Wagner opera. The music reflects this.
And then with Return of the Jedi, it gets this really deep, Shakespeare, father/son kind of feel which is much more serious and less tongue in cheek than anything that came before it. These two sequences:
-Vader vs. Luke in ESB
-The throne room sequence in ROTJ
gave a huge, epic feel to Star Wars- and the prequels were based on these two scenes, not on the vast majority of the OT which was adventure and fantasy and paying tribute to Western culture of the past...whether as recently as Errol Flynn or as far back as Wagner.
Sorry for rambling and for hijacking this thread. Thanks again harmy for an outstanding job on this.
Not pretentious at all. OK, maybe, but I thought it was well-said. If you haven't already read it, you should get zombie84's book (now available, apparently, in Kindle format!):
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+secret+history+of+star+wars
But as to the laserswords/space stations and all that: I am reminded of an old saying from the Mishnah - don't look at the jar, but at what is inside it. I think you seem to get it now, what with your references to Errol Flynn and such...but I'm also thinking of this review, which called the 2009 Star Trek 'the best Star Wars since 'The Empire Strikes Back'', and I think explicates pretty well how to avoid the 'lasersword' trap you fell into.
http://rosslangager.com/2011/06/18/film-review-star-trek-2009/
Thanks for your response. I'll check out those links. That is very true...it's not the jar, but what's inside it. Don't look at the cover, but at the words in the book. Sci-fi is just a way to disguise the Errol Flynn/fantasy story.