DOES anyone have a more abusive relationship with his fans than George Lucas? Having seduced so many so young with his joyous Star Wars/Indiana Jones double whammy, the intervening years have seen him wield that power in such a way that his once-sm
itten followers have become the audience equivalent of battered wives, kidding themselves on that, despite being punished with substandard spin-offs, pointless "improvements" and memory-tarnishing prequels, maybe, just maybe, things will once again be as sweet as they were in the beginning.
This may seem like a harsh analogy, but how else do you explain Lucas's ability to survive the vitriolic backlash to The Phantom Menace (remember all those "George Lucas raped my childhood" internet posts)? Besides, I'm writing from experience here.
Reviewing the atrocious Revenge of the Sith in 2005, I vowed that I was done with Lucas, yet not three months ago I found myself stumbling out of the lamentable Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trying to convince myself there were some good things about it. As painful as that memory now is, it's the arrival in cinemas of Star Wars: The Clone Wars that is going to demonstrate how much hold Lucas really has over his fans.
Sort of a feature-length advert for the forthcoming Star Wars television series, this animated adventure film is his most shameless spin-off yet (and that includes the Ewok movie, Caravan of Courage).
Set after Episode II and before Episode III – making this what… an "inbetwequel"? – Lucas (who has passed directing duties on to Dave Filoni) follows the template of his risible prequels by taking something from the original trilogy and showing its origins in far too much mind-numbing detail. Thus Princess Leia's reference to the titular clone wars in Star Wars has been spun into a dreary, mostly gibberish adventure in which petulant Annie Skywalker (here re-nicknamed Sky Guy and voiced by Matt Lanter) is reluctantly teamed up with his own Jedi trainee to rescue Jabba the Hutt's baby son, Rotta the Huttlet (yes, really!). He's been kidnapped by the evil Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) as part of an overly complicated plan to set the Jedi up.
Needless to say, it's as awful as it sounds. The introduction of Jabba's son is a bit Muppet Babies, but it's not as bad as the bizarre cameo from Jabba's nefarious uncle, Zero the Hutt, a devious, flamboyant slug who talks like Truman Capote. Predictably Lucas's dismal dialogue style is rife throughout, with an unwise reprise for Episode III's much-mocked "younglings" and new character names sounding like they were compiled from a Japanese take-away menu. The blocky, 3D animation meanwhile is, apparently, a deliberate homage to Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds – though perhaps that's a subconscious admission by Lucas that he knows his characters are wooden.
Of course the remaining faithful will probably justify all this with the standard fanboy defence that "it's supposed to be for kids!" but it's time to practice zero tolerance. There really is no excuse for this.
The full article contains 538 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
