An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 2

Episode II: Why Are They Fighting?
So, with everyone safely assured that the films would get better, we pressed on.  The opening text of this film was not encouraging and Cat asked me to pause and rewind it so she could read it again.  They were mostly confused about Amidala's sudden demotion from Queen to Senator, but also asked about Count Dooku, "Was he the guy in the cloak?"  I noticed they completely glazed over the bit about the Separatists as they had no visual to go with it and there's no real explanation for them in the text or otherwise.  Anyway, so Padme's decoy gets blown up ("That's not Keira Knightly!") and when Obi-wan and Anakin enter the scene, I heard, "Wait, who's that?"  Neither myself or Lucas bothered to tell them this film takes place ten years after its predecessor, so Hayden Christensen threw them a bit (he does that).  Surprisingly, once they got over this, they actually seemed to enjoy the dynamic between the two characters.  I guess without Alec Guiness's description to fall back on, the rebellious Anakin and the controlling Obi-wan were much funnier. Of course, once Anakin started talking to Padme, the snickering never stopped (so awkward).  Indeed, all the romantic scenes seemed to be good for were cheap laughs.  When I told them that my screenwriting professor showed me the water kissing scene as an example of terrible dialogue, they had no trouble believing it.  As for the Obi-wan mystery story, they had some trouble keeping up with the weird twists and turns.  They understood that someone was building a clone army for the Republic, but didn't connect that as a prelude to war, since the motivations for the conflict were never explained.  They also had a lot of trouble identifying the villains.  I had to point out Count Dooku to them because he's nearly unidentifiable during the meeting of the Separatist leaders.  As for Jango Fett, all they could really tell was that he was a bad guy, but his place in the grand scheme wasn't really established.  (For instance, after giving his DNA for cloning and receiving payment, there's no real reason why he sticks around).  Anyway, we get to the thrilling climax, Anakin and Padme profess their love ("Say what?") and everyone and their mother's clone shows up at the arena to fight.  Berri immediately asked, "How did this turn into a battle?"  How indeed?  As I said, there's no explanation for the Separatist movement, and as such, the battle is just a rescue mission that gets way out of hand.  Curiously, no one asked about the Death Star which was shoehorned in there, again with no explanation or foreshadowing.  Anyway, Anakin must have done something right to get the girls on his side, because when he loses his arm, there was just a stunned silence.  "Did his arm really just get cut off?" asked Cat.  Anyway, the effect lasted for a moment, then Yoda showed up and, of course, was a big hit.  Bear in mind, at this point, he was just a minor supporting character that talked funny.  His pulling out a lightsaber and going all Mexican Jumping bean was a huge surprise.  When the movie closed, there was supposed to be a sense of coming dark times as the war begun, but instead the girls were confused.  They didn't quite understand what had just happened, what the stakes were, or what was supposed to happen next.  Berri didn't understand why Anakin and Padme were getting married and the film ended with very mixed feelings.

Final Thoughts
After this one, I think it finally sank in that the films were more about special effects that anything else.  And, after a fashion, that holds true for most of the series.  As the real story arc of the prequel trilogy begins here, the girls didn't have a certain anticipation about how things were going to play out, but I think after this film, they started to turn their brains off and just watch the mindless action.  Regardless, the feeble attempt at romance and the ill directed mystery were enough to keep them interested as we proceeded onto the next film.

Next
"I don't know if I can watch anymore."

An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 1

Intro
While visiting my family over Christmas, I discovered a few of my little cousins, hereby known as Cat (17), Berri (15), and Valise (11), had never ever seen a Star Wars movie.  I resolved to rectify that.  As I reached for my dad's Episode IV DVD, I remembered something Lucas had done.  The general release DVDs had the special edition on them which included material from the prequels (*cough *cough, Hayden Christensen).  I would have to show them the whole series chronologically in order for it to make the most sense.  Kicking myself for not bringing my Limited Edition Theatrical Cut DVDs, I showed them the entire series, front to back.  It was difficult working around family activities and healthy outdoor activity, but we finally finished just six hours before they were scheduled to leave.  Here's what they thought.  

Episode I: What's the Name of This One Again?
I warned them before we even started that the first three were the bad ones that we just had to get through before we got to the original trilogy, and this film proved me right very quickly.  As we watched, I was asked to pause the movie every ten minutes or so to explain what was going on.  The film failed to properly ground them in the new and exotic universe and the story seemed to simply involve the characters dashing from one action sequence to the next.  Cat noticed very quickly how ineffective the battle droids were and seemed to get bored of them fighting the Jedi.  Scenes like the bongo trip and the pod race were more interesting to them.  Surprisingly (or not) Jar Jar got very few laughs, except out of my dad.  I didn't sense that they found him annoying, they just noticed that there wasn't much to him.  One thing I did to make the screening more interesting was to tell them that "The Queen" was played by Keira Knightly and "Padme" was played by Natalie Portman, leaving them to debate who was actually on screen at any given time.  Berri wasn't fooled and when the Queen revealed herself, she declared "I told you!" to everyone who believed me.  Throughout the film, I got several questions along the lines of, "What is the Force?  What exactly do the Jedi do?  What are Hutts?  Are they bad?"  Fair questions which are completely glossed over in this film and and aren't even touched upon until the Original Trilogy.  They were forced to take the mishmash of it in stride and put the confusion to the back of their minds.  I tried not to fill in too many gaps because I wanted to see how much information the film gave.

Final Thoughts
Their journey into the Star Wars universe almost ended right after starting.  Valise declared that "Star Wars is stupid" and only agreed to keep watching when my little sister, who had seen them all, talked her into it.  Berri astutely asked why "that guy with the beard" (i.e. Qui-Gon) was in the story so much when all he did was die at the end.  Why indeed?  It's been said before, but I say it again.  This film failed on all counts.  It failed to properly introduce new viewers to Star Wars, it failed to tell a good SW story (or a good regular story for that matter), and it failed to be an effective start to the prequel trilogy.  All in all, FAIL.

Next
Awkward dialogue and a lot of "Wait, what?"