The "new" Star Wars trilogy: An appreciation

The Star Wars prequel movies George Lucas produced and directed in the late 1990s and early 2000s were massive money-makers but were also unevenly received by fans and critics. Many of the die-hard fans thought Lucas had monkeyed too much with his own premises and depended too heavily on CGI effects. Then there was the "wacky," universally hated and vaguely racist Jar-Jar Binks. What's clear enough, especially given how Lucas has also used CGI and other advanced digital effects to "enhance" the video releases of his earlier films, is that Lucas's "vision" has never been exactly what fans thought it was. He was hampered by the limitations of earlier film technology and didn't seem to realize how much those limitations helped him. 

The "new" films were entertaining, though. I still find myself tuning in for a while when they're on TV, which is often because of Disney's current ownership, I suppose. Here are some things (aspects of the films) I think make them worth watching. 

What's Good about the "Prequel" Trilogy:

1. Ewan McGregor

2. That weird rainy outpost where the clones are being created.

3. Yoda's fighting, especially his duel with Christopher Lee. Just watching Yoda in action is great. This is CGI at its best.

4. When Darth Vader kills the young Jedis and when he executes Count Dooku. Good work establishing Vader as especially evil. (It's always been hard to buy Lucas's retrofitted theory that the whole overarching story is about Vader's redemption, but especially after he kills the young Jedis. Sheesh, there's no coming back from that.)

5. Count Dooku generally; also his little mopedish land cruiser bike.

6. Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor. It's also cool that he's been around, more or less, for so much of the saga. 

7. Natalie Portman; even the goofy outfits have a certain bizarre charm. 

8. Samuel L. Jackson and Liam Neeson. Jackson is underused, but they both bring gravitas to the films and take their roles seriously. Of course this is the job of actors, but it must be especially difficult when you're acting with muppets and green screen so much of the time. 

9. Kiera Knightley as Amidala's double and handmaiden, because really, they do look strikingly similar. How many viewers didn't even realize the ruse when watching the first time?

10. Anakin being struck down by Obi Wan, before his scenes of transformation, which are pretty ridiculous (he looks too short, and the scene where he screams "No!" looks like it was created for the purposes of parody). His actual near-death scene, though, is pretty dramatic and gruesome and about how I imagined it as a 9-year-old. (Somehow, we were already passing around stories about Vader's prequel story, which had been fleshed out in some novel or magazine article or maybe just in Lucas's notes about the alleged nine-film saga that somehow got out to the general public.) I think as a kid I always imagined it as more of an actual volcano, but this was all pretty close.    

My with my toy Death Star, 1978. I dislike this photo, but it's a royalty-free image, and the only one related to Star Wars I could find. 

Road House: So Good It's Good

Patrick Swayze's "crowning" movie achievement, 1989's Road House, is often cited as the ultimate example of a movie "so bad it's good." It's easy to see where this comes from: This is not a movie that strives for arthouse emotional catharsis or any kind of subtlety. The plot is ridiculous, and the focus is on roundhouse kicks, raucous bar fights, car crashes, and cartoonish violence. There's even a monster truck for a true 80s feel.  

But I would argue it's actually a good movie, and not because it's "bad." This is not some cheap production with silly attempts at visual scares, like Frogs (also with Sam Elliot). The visuals are well done, as is the editing, the sound, the cinematography. The technical aspects are fine, and the film is tightly written around the central plot, with little time wasted. These actors are taking this material about as seriously as they can; Patrick Swayze doesn't seem "in" on the joke or anything. He's full of controlled rage and physical energy. The other leads, especially Sam Elliott and Ben Gazzara, are believable within this world and fun to watch. Gazzara relishes playing this implausible villain and makes an ordinary line like asking Swayze's character if he wants some breakfast humorous and threatening at the same time. Similarly, Elliott knows exactly why he was cast in this film and fleshes out his character with sardonic wit and sex appeal.

My photo from the Silver Dollar lounge in Bandera, Texas. It's a great dive bar.

There's funny dialogue, sex appeal, and violence that is somehow convincing without being grotesque or even particularly alarming (like an Old West movie). Even the sets, like the "barndominium" Dalton rents, are unique and just appealing to take in. These are filmmakers (with most of the credit presumably going to the director, Rowdy Herrington) that understand the possibilities of movies as rich entertainment, set in the "real" world (in as much as we're in a kind of gritty rural land, supposedly Kansas, with sleazy honky tonks and broken-down cars) but also creating a world of their own that we can submerge ourselves in for a couple of hours. Sure, you might say "oh, come on" at a couple of scenes (like when the monster truck destroys a local auto dealership), but mostly you just sit back and say, "Well, this is entertaining."

It's the focus on ordinary sets as interesting visuals and, especially, Herrington's excellent selection of character actors that set this film apart from "so bad it's good" movies and even the big-budget comic-book movies of today, which are supposedly redeemed by being "entertaining." (For my money, these are mostly entertaining like a video game, slick and fast-paced with very little of the interest that comes with minor characters and "slow burn" sequences.)

My favorite thing about Road House, though, is Herrington's use of minor actors, including the actors with larger speaking roles like Red the auto parts store owner and Kevin Tighe, who has been terrific in so many films and TV shows but will forever be known as "one of the guys on Emergency 51." And what about those character actors? There's the black man who Dalton gives his car to ("What do I look like, a valet?"), the used car salesman (and his sandwich), the diner owner, Dalton's landlord ("like putting an elevator in an outhouse"). Some of them don't even have lines, like the used tire salesman, but they all make quite an impression. Herrington really knew how to find these guys and how to populate a film with colorful characters to make it interesting. This isn't all you need, but it sure does help, and it brings a sense of reality to balance out the main story, which is highly entertaining but, yes, also ridiculous.