Gapers Block
October 1, 2004
Star Wars Trilogy DVD box set
Overall:
Star Wars
Directed by George Lucas.
Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness.
The Empire Strikes Back
Directed by Irvin Kershner.
Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and Anthony
Daniels.
Return of the Jedi
Directed by Richard Marquand.
Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee
Williams and Anthony Daniels.
Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy
Directed by Edith Becker and Ken Burns.
If you haven't already seen the Star Wars films, you
probably won't like them -- especially if you're not a kid. With
the ungodly hype surrounding these films,
there's really no way they can live up to expectations. Since the first
film's initial release in 1977, its uniqueness has also been greatly
diminished by weak
knockoffs like Independence Day or The Last Starfighter and
the lackluster prequels. On top of that, the first film is really not
as good as a lot of people remember,
at least not standing on its own. While the original Star Wars is
an amazingly innovative piece of filmmaking from a technical standpoint;
its story is very
nearly as cartoonish and silly as Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.
While the elements of mythology that Lucas worked into it add some resonance
to the cardboard cut-out
characters, there is little depth to its paint-by-numbers plot.
The first
film still holds up as an immensely enjoyable children's movie, of
course, but it is only with the brilliant, downbeat, character-driven
second
installment, The Empire Strikes Back, that the first retroactively
becomes
a great film on a somewhat more adult level. In Empire of Dreams,
the two-and-a-half hour documentary that is the centerpiece of the
box
set's bonus disc, Empire
Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner explains, "I thought
of the film as the second movement of a symphony. That's why I wanted
some of
the things slower,
and it ends in a way that you can't wait to see -- to hear -- the vivace,
the next movement, the allegretto. I didn't have a climax at the end;
I had an emotional
climax." In exactly the opposite way, the wretched Matrix sequels
turned a terrific first chapter into nothing more than a visually stunning
waste
of time and money. I'm living in denial about the ramifications that
this hypothesis
has on the original Star Wars trilogy in light of the prequels.
While
Return of the Jedi wraps up all the loose ends effectively
enough, it does so with the least visual flair of any of the three
chapters
and so proves
to
be somewhat of a disappointment. Additionally, the recycled "we
gotta blow up the Death Star" plot and the less-than-otherworldly
setting of the forests of northern California lend a slightly earthbound
feel to
what should
have been
the most exciting, if not the deepest, of the three films.
George
Lucas, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects coordinator Dennis
Muren and Carrie Fisher handle the commentary tracks for the
first and last films,
with Kershner joining them for his installment. Throughout the
trilogy, Lucas mostly comments on the mythology of the stories
and the original
version of the
larger story that he wrote before filming the first chapter. Burtt
chimes in with fascinating stories about where many of the instantly
recognizable Star
Wars sounds came from, and Dennis Muren pitches in an anecdote
or two about the creature and spaceship effects. On Empire,
Kershner eats
up much of the film's
running time by repeatedly pointing out the numerous amusing, but
old-as-sin running gags and over-explaining such less-than-state-of-the-art
special
effects as rocking the camera back and forth and telling the actors
to pretend the Millennium
Falcon is shaking. For her part, Carrie Fisher seems to have
little to say, but she adds a story about her own experience as
part of
the cast now and then. Though
Harrison Ford's vocal ambivalence towards Star Wars makes
his participation in a commentary track unlikely to happen, one
bizarre omission is
Mark Hamill, considering
his passion for the original Star Wars films, to say nothing
of the science fiction genre.
For what was probably the most anticipated
DVD release since the popularization of the format, the Star
Wars set contains a disappointing
number of
special features. Aside from the commentaries, all of the extras
are contained
on the bonus disc
that includes Empire of Dreams as well as a few shorter
featurettes (The Birth of the Lightsaber, The Force
is With Them: The Legacy of Star Wars and The
Characters of Star Wars), which provide terrific insight into
the making of the films, their
historical context and their influence on an entire generation
of filmmakers. Additional features revolving around the upcoming
Revenge
of the Sith (a.k.a. Episode III) and the video
game based on it are going to be dated by next
summer. It's interesting to see the posters, trailers and TV spots
for the initial
release and the re-releases, as well as a large number of production
photos, but there
are no deleted scenes anywhere, which is a shame. Widely known
but little-seen scenes involving Luke, Biggs and other friends
of his
on Tattooine in
the first Star Wars and an entire subplot involving Wampas
attacking the Rebel
base on
Hoth in Empire were understandably excised for pacing
and tonal concerns, but such scenes should have been no-brainers
to
include
on the
DVD release.
Lastly, a
hidden blooper
reel from all three films, intercut with the DVD credits, can be
found by hitting "11" "3" and "8" in
the "Video Games and Still Galleries" section.
In
short, this is not the archival edition of the Star Wars trilogy
for your DVD library -- that edition still does not exist. And
given that Lucas is such
a technophile, undoubtedly there will be another edition in HD-DVD
or BluRay or whichever format eventually becomes the next standard,
perhaps for the 30th
anniversary in 2007. All but the most die-hard fans should wait
until then.
The Star Wars Trilogy DVD box set lists for $70 but seems
to be available everywhere in the galaxy for roughly $45 --
Amazon
sells it for $42. Greedo still shoots first. Cry about it.
