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krpalmerI managed to see a notice of a sizeable YouTube video from Rick Worley, who I’ve kept track of since being pointed to an essay by him that I’ll admit checked several boxes for me in terms of Star Wars in these later days. That he was transferring those sentiments into visual format did get past my usual thoughts that it’s hard to find time to just watch lengthy videos, even if part of that difficulty could come from frittering my time away with shorter distractions. With all the contemptuous and dismissive “anti-prequel” video takes out there and proclamations those screeds settled matters for all time, something positive in that format might be late in the day and yet still “better than never.”
The “saga-positive” people I’ve managed to associate with most often seem to analyze characters while taking excursions off to theme and symbolism; I understood this video was focusing on the images and editing of cinema. Despite occasional plays of ostentation, I can’t suppose my awareness of “cinema as cinema, especially as expressed in time-tested movies” is very deep, and yet the thought of knowing more about that does interest me. Too, I’m conscious of not having missed “the expanded Star Wars story as told in novels” once I’d stopped reading them (what with certain undertones of “the movies” winding up just some vague initial inspiration to be brushed up on in “targeted to your grown-up demographic” prose), and can wonder a bit too about how I don’t read fanfiction in general the way I once did even if I still seem capable of moving back from “visual adaptations” to prose works they were adapted from.
The video established its points bit by bit and made them work for me. It began with a square focus on “auteur theory,” pointing out how George Lucas went from his film school years to edit movies together as if working with documentary footage and how this shapes camera movements in that footage, then mentioning how Irvin Kershner used some fancier, more obviously staged shots in The Empire Strikes Back. That did have me wondering whether that just might have something, perhaps even half-conscious, to do with certain elevated judgements of that particular movie. After that introduction, a longer section showed “visual quotes” of other movies in Star Wars and the way the movies establish repeated visual motifs of their own. Some discussion of colour schemes throughout the saga included things I hadn’t noticed before; it just might be some changes over the years aren’t as “blatant and therefore instantly to be rejected” as complaints might have it.
There had been a whole sub-section on Bob Dylan and quotes in his lyrics, as if to head off one potential dismissal of “oh, that’s just derivative,” and the concluding section of the video referenced “Dylan going electric” (so far as I understand, not being as familiar with Dylan as Worley) to lead into some pretty clear examples of just how inane at least some of the “complaints to be found everywhere” in negative videos can get. Inspired by a joking cartoon I saw early on, I’d just thought “it’s a good thing Jango Fett’s severed head is somehow stuck in his helmet when Boba picks it up”; someone, though, made a complaint out of that; Worley then pointed out that those willing to pay attention can see a shadow falling out of the helmet as it plummets towards the sand. Other complaints just seem to be copied from early and infamous videos to later ones just perhaps chosen at random. Perhaps, too, in some certain way I grew to appreciate how Worley provided narration to his video but didn’t appear on-screen in it.
With all of that said, I am conscious someone might still say that just because it can be suggested the six first Star Wars movies might not be so easily divided into “competent” and “incompetent” they still have their own personal reactions to counter pretentious structural claims. Too, I can contemplate being challenged with insistences The Last Jedi, at least, is “challenging” and “rich with significance,” even if it can sometimes seem that where I can suppose The Phantom Menace still grating on someone with even some awareness of its own references and setting them up for trouble ahead, arguments for the later movie can feel smugger and there’s a good deal less in the way of exciting action to ease me towards taking anything else in. I have already seen some suggestions Rick Worley is going to make the “Part One” in the title of his video more meaningful with follow-ups, and I will try and keep track of them.
The “saga-positive” people I’ve managed to associate with most often seem to analyze characters while taking excursions off to theme and symbolism; I understood this video was focusing on the images and editing of cinema. Despite occasional plays of ostentation, I can’t suppose my awareness of “cinema as cinema, especially as expressed in time-tested movies” is very deep, and yet the thought of knowing more about that does interest me. Too, I’m conscious of not having missed “the expanded Star Wars story as told in novels” once I’d stopped reading them (what with certain undertones of “the movies” winding up just some vague initial inspiration to be brushed up on in “targeted to your grown-up demographic” prose), and can wonder a bit too about how I don’t read fanfiction in general the way I once did even if I still seem capable of moving back from “visual adaptations” to prose works they were adapted from.
The video established its points bit by bit and made them work for me. It began with a square focus on “auteur theory,” pointing out how George Lucas went from his film school years to edit movies together as if working with documentary footage and how this shapes camera movements in that footage, then mentioning how Irvin Kershner used some fancier, more obviously staged shots in The Empire Strikes Back. That did have me wondering whether that just might have something, perhaps even half-conscious, to do with certain elevated judgements of that particular movie. After that introduction, a longer section showed “visual quotes” of other movies in Star Wars and the way the movies establish repeated visual motifs of their own. Some discussion of colour schemes throughout the saga included things I hadn’t noticed before; it just might be some changes over the years aren’t as “blatant and therefore instantly to be rejected” as complaints might have it.
There had been a whole sub-section on Bob Dylan and quotes in his lyrics, as if to head off one potential dismissal of “oh, that’s just derivative,” and the concluding section of the video referenced “Dylan going electric” (so far as I understand, not being as familiar with Dylan as Worley) to lead into some pretty clear examples of just how inane at least some of the “complaints to be found everywhere” in negative videos can get. Inspired by a joking cartoon I saw early on, I’d just thought “it’s a good thing Jango Fett’s severed head is somehow stuck in his helmet when Boba picks it up”; someone, though, made a complaint out of that; Worley then pointed out that those willing to pay attention can see a shadow falling out of the helmet as it plummets towards the sand. Other complaints just seem to be copied from early and infamous videos to later ones just perhaps chosen at random. Perhaps, too, in some certain way I grew to appreciate how Worley provided narration to his video but didn’t appear on-screen in it.
With all of that said, I am conscious someone might still say that just because it can be suggested the six first Star Wars movies might not be so easily divided into “competent” and “incompetent” they still have their own personal reactions to counter pretentious structural claims. Too, I can contemplate being challenged with insistences The Last Jedi, at least, is “challenging” and “rich with significance,” even if it can sometimes seem that where I can suppose The Phantom Menace still grating on someone with even some awareness of its own references and setting them up for trouble ahead, arguments for the later movie can feel smugger and there’s a good deal less in the way of exciting action to ease me towards taking anything else in. I have already seen some suggestions Rick Worley is going to make the “Part One” in the title of his video more meaningful with follow-ups, and I will try and keep track of them.