Tuesday, October 20, 2020

The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith by JW Rinzler

Rating: WARTY!

This was less-than-thrilling, I'm sorry to report. Let me say up front that I am not a Star Wars fan. I used to be. I thought the fourth and fifth episodes weren't bad at all. The sixth was execrable, but despite this, I watched all three prequels, and I liked the third of those. The first was marred by the little Anakin road-racing garbage and such, but it wasn't awful. The timing was off laughably such that there was a disconnect between the first three and the last three, but I was willing to let it slide.

Then came Rogue One which was forgettable, but okay. The final straw though was episode seven which was quite literally a remake of episode four. I quit watching all things Star Wars at that sorry point. By then Disney had been coming up with zero that was new. They were - and are - simply remaking their old stuff - all their tedious racist and sexist animations as live action, and all their Star Wars as clones of previous releases. It's pathetic and disgraceful. I was so disgusted with Disney's endless raking over its own ancient coals that I have given-up watching all Disney stuff altogether - with the sole exception of Marvel which to me continues to entertain and to bring new things to the screen. I recently saw and enjoyed The New Mutants for example - and in the movie theater yet!

My interest in this book then was not Star Wars, but movie-making itself: the process. How do these guys get this from concept to script to shooting script to action on the set, to creating the models costumes and CGI, and to finishing up with a movie to release? There was some of that in here, but essentially what this was, was a diary - a diary-a in fact since it was so rambling, and I quickly lost interest in the Lucas worship and how he essentially had everything laid out for him.

He's the monarch and he flicks a finger or says and word and "it shall be so!" Great. But I don't care about how lordly he was or how much power he had. That wasn't my interest. So, I skipped and skimmed and read a bit here and there, but mostly I skipped because it was tedious to read. It offered very little of what I wanted to learn - of what I'd hoped for. If you want a rambling diary, then this is for you. It wasn't for me, and I can't commend it.