STAR WARS III: REVENGE OF THE SITH
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With all the talk about these movies, it's been hard to find something unique to say, but I think I've figured it out. I mean, more opinions and observations have been written about these movies than there are planets in the Federation; what can I add to the discussion? Critics have gone on about how the series has been the flagship for the advancing use of computer effects in cinema, how Episodes I and II sucked, how III makes up for a lot of that, why Lucas shouldn't have changed the earlier episodes, etc., etc. I'm left with only one thing that I've realized that seems to have been missed:
The people in "Star Wars" are tiny. I'd say about two inches tall. The movies tell us that all the action takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, so they're not from here. Why assume that Luke is actually 5' 9"? This theory explains a lot, like why these people are able to fall great distances without getting hurt. You see, their mass-to-surface-area ratio is such that air resistance keeps them from falling very fast. And think of the impossibly "huge" sea creatures in Episode II. If they were indeed hundreds of feet long, their tremendous mass would make them slow and lumbering, not spry and quick. They're probably actually about the size of large sharks. And those "massive" Imperial space dreadnoughts? About the size of our submarines. They're still an impressive engineering feat for people 2" tall, but less prone to be torn apart by the forces of going to hyperspace than if they had to be scaled for our size. And remember how Yoda lifted Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp? Well, the ship was probably two feet long, so a lot easier to heft with one's mind than it looks. Think about this when you watch this film (or any of the others in the series). Sure, everybody looks like they're our size, but that's just because it's all to scale. Come to think of it, those collectible miniatures all my friends have may be closer to "actual size" that we realized. As you may have gathered, I'm really not going to review this film. Comparing it to other summer movies is like pitting the 5' 9" Mark Hamill against a 2" Luke Skywalker; they operate in completely different orbits. I mean, it's STAR WARS. I suppose the generation being born today will watch these movies from Episode I to VI, and wonder why everything suddenly looks so low-budget around IV. They won't understand what it was like to wait almost thirty years for the circle to complete. They'll probably enjoy the series, but will it have the palpable magic that drove us to wave sticks around going "vvvvvvvvmmmmmm, vvvvvvvvmmmmmm!", wishing that we could be Jedi too? Will "Star Wars" fade into just another bit of popular culture from an earlier generation? Perhaps. But for now, it's our modern mythology. Not everyone gets it, most people like it, some embrace it a bit too much, but we all know it! We've all shared it for decades. So on one level, this is just another movie. But on another, it's a landmark. The series is done. Future generations will learn the story, but they'll never fully understand what it meant to grow up with it as it unfolded. May the Force Be With You.
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