(EDITED BY AUTHOR: 11/4/2004 - 10:36 p.m.)
the stop action puppet Christmas Special called Santa Claus is Coming to Town where Fred Astair plays the mailman who explains all the Santa myths. Why he delivers toys on X-mas eve, why he wears red, why the whiskers etc. Do we really need an explanation? No. No we don't. That is why Rudolph is better.
Now you take Star Wars. The original Episodes (now labeled IV, V and VI and wtf is up with that--do they use Roman Numerals in that galaxy? They haven't invented the zero?) had a mythos. Now if you had asked me sometime before the story "the Phantom Menance" came out about how the empire came to be the empire, I would have replied that it arose gradually over time, like the empire of Rome or the Empire in Issac Asimov's Foundation series. And that is the impression that is given in the movies and the radio plays (which are great, I reccomend them highly). That there was a gradual hunting down and destroying of the Jedi that took generations.
But the two pre-quels instead are like Santa Claus ---- "oh so that's Luke's mom, oh that's how Luke got on Tatoonie or what ever the desert world is called at the edge of the galaxy..." Just like the Santa Claus puppet special. Pat answers (although the puppet movie ends in 50 minutes instead of 14 hours).
But WTF--Vader was born on that desert world? And he doesn't mention it? Or doesn't know it. And the empire leaps fully grown from the brow of the Republic? That C3PO was built by Darth Vader? Why didn't he mention it? Do we need a 3 part 13 hour trilogy to know that Darth Vader went bad somewhere? Its not just that the story line is horrible and the plot bad and the acting worse, the entire mythos underlying the the first three episodes undercuts 4, 5 and 6.
I wish I had never seen Episode I & II. It ruined IV , V and VI for me.
Oh, but I will go see Episode IV with my 9 year old son. He loves Star Wars. He also likes Dragon Ball Z and Teen Titans.
