The Star Wars movies are a form of what Michael Moorcock, himself a notable practitioner of the genre, called “heroic fantasy” — a term that usefully spans science fiction and classic fantasy of the Lord of the Rings kind. In Wizardry and Wild Romance, Moorcock’s critical book on that kind of literature, he gets a bit despairing about the state of the genre. Alluding no doubt to Watership Down, he says that British fantasy appears to be about rabbits, by rabbits and for rabbits; American heroic fantasy, however, is worse: it is about robots, by robots and for robots.
Moorcock’s description applies perfectly to the biggest heroic fantasy of all time (if you discount the Bible) — the Star Wars series of movies now reaching its climax with Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. This episode, giving us the story leading up to the 1977 Star Wars (now called Episode IV — A New Hope), is much like the other two in this second prequel-sequel trilogy: loud, visually impressive, and entirely lacking in life. Even the good action sequences, such as the opening of Revenge of the Sith, are over quickly. All the emphasis is on grand, computer-generated tableaux, and everything else must be got out of the way as soon as possible to get to the next eye-popping panorama.
That means that human presence and motivation are reduced to the jerking of man-nequins, and not very interesting jerking either. That is the fault of George Lucas, who has written and directed this trilogy all on his own. One way of entertaining yourself through Revenge of the Sith is to count the clichés as they turn up. With such a script, the actors haven’t a hope.
To recap the story, in case anyone cares: that galaxy of so long, long ago and far, far away is at war with itself. Something about trade and taxes (yawn), as Episode I informed us. On the surface, it’s the Cold War pattern of democracy versus an evil empire, but that opposition is delineated only in the most schematic fashion — it has the depth of a computer game. (When one character murmurs, at a key moment, “So democracy dies!”, there were only laughs from the audience.) At any rate, there has been war between the Jedi knights (good guys) and the Sith and their clone army (bad guys) for a while; now the final battle is upon us.
The final battle is due, too, for the soul of Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). He, as we all know by now, is the father of Luke Skywalker, the hero of episodes four to six; Anakin was a Jedi but went over to “the dark side”. At last, we are to find out exactly why and how he went over to the dark side and became the heavy-breathing half-machine baddie Darth Vader.
But if you thought that at last there was going to be some compelling human drama on offer, you would be mistaken. Anakin’s reasons for crossing the floor in the direction of evil are truly dull, partly because they feel so hackneyed and partly because they are given no emotional space in which to function. One is more riveted by the fact that his love interest, Padmé (Natalie Portman), seems willing to go to sleep with more hair extensions than your average R&B diva, and wearing a negligée wreathed in strings of pearls and apparently held together by a brooch as big as a child’s fist. How can she sleep? Perhaps only the audience can.
What’s truly piquant about Revenge of the Sith, though, is that Darth Vader has essentially become the protagonist of the series. Yes, we’re supposed to now move on to episodes four to six, when good finally triumphs over evil. But the timing is wrong: we’ve already seen those movies, and they feel like a long, long time ago and far, far away (especially in their hokey charm and relative lack of pretension). In real time, we’re stuck at the end of Episode III and how Anakin became Vader.
As I say, the reasons aren’t very engrossing, but it is undeniable that in these movies the most gripping idea is the transition of one character from good to evil, from fully human (though that’s not saying a lot in Lucas’s universe) to mostly mechanised. Darth Vader is certainly the most interesting character in the movies; he is their centre, their tragic hero. Obi-Wan Kenobi, as played by Alec Guinness, the sole occasion he was really interesting, appears only in one movie; Han Solo is drained of interest by the end of Episode IV. Princess Leia isn’t given much to do; she’s a girl, after all. Yoda? A frog in a smock. And Luke Skywalker? A mere sketch of an old-fashioned hero, like the guy in a western whom you have to assume is a hero because he’s got a white hat on. The only characters who really have personalities are the robots C-3PO and R2-D2.
Lucas would surely deny it, but Revenge of the Sith proves that he is of the devil’s party without knowing it. We can’t really feel the tragedy of Darth Vader, but we can see it, and he’s the one who haunts the imagination when all the other shades have faded. Lucas’s real fascination lies with Vader, whose ultimate motivation, like Lucas’s, is world domination. Lucas can only really understand or sympathise with somenone who disposes of his humanity to become a robot.
Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith opens on Friday May 20