May the Force be strong again in Star Wars

There are two types of people, writes Rob Long, and this month will sort one from the other

The force is strong in this one. (Hopefully.) (David James / Lucasfilm / Disney)

If this is news to you, then you really do have to get out of the house more: the new Star Wars movie opens in the UAE on December 17, less than two weeks away.

The world is a complex and hard to fathom place, but in many ways it can be neatly divided into two camps: people for whom this information is important and people for whom it really, really isn’t.

I'm in the former category. Since being dragged by my brother to the first Star Wars film in 1977 – I wasn't a fan of science fiction and wasn't into spaceships and ray guns – I've been hooked. Not – and this is an important distinction – hooked like some kind of nerdy fanboy, but that first experience was so breathtaking and powerful that, as much as I'd like to claim to be too cool for Star Wars, too detached and hip for its goofy philosophy and talking robots, I can't. I'm all in. I'm a grown man and I still sometimes make the light-sabre sound effect when I'm holding a torch.

But if you're in the latter group, if any discussion of Star Wars and its constellation of characters and episodes inspires eye-watering yawns, well, you have a point.

There have been six Star Wars pictures, but it's a widely held understanding that only the first three were good. And when you add to that understanding the irritation of having to clarify that the good ones were the first three to be made but not the first three of the story – that the 1977 movie that inspired the series is called, idiotically, Episode IV – a big fat yawn and an indifferent shrug are probably the most rational reactions to the Star Wars hysteria that's headed our way over the next fortnight.

The first three Star Wars pictures are about – as all great movies are – good and evil. You can argue, as some wags in the press have recently, that when you think about it, the Empire isn't all that evil and the Rebel Alliance – guided by the Force and the heroic trio of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo – has some problematic issues to deal with, but what makes those arguments possible (and fun) to have is the simplicity and directness of the movies themselves. Bad guys wear black cloaks and have Death Stars. Good guys are attractive young people in drapey tunics flying rattletrap spaceships.

The most recent movies, though – the ones annoyingly called Episodes One, Two and Three – are pretty much a muddle of terrible dialogue and confusing storylines. Whereas the original three are about elemental human struggles, the latter three are about, more than anything else, a complicated trade dispute. This may be the result of the time and historical moment when each was produced. The early movies are infused, some have said, with a Cold War mentality, when the world is divided into two sides, polar opposites, good and evil – even if who, exactly, was "good" and who was "evil" remains debatable.

The latter three are distinctly post-Cold War – produced at time when, here on Earth, the old order had collapsed and the world was divided into a kaleidoscope of factions and treaties and murky alliances. These days, geopolitically speaking, it’s sometimes hard to know whose side you’re on. The result? The movies made during this era have muddled and overly-wrought storylines about false-flag operations, trade disputes and UN-style governing bodies. Sound familiar? It’s about as fun as watching CNN!

It gets worse. The later three movies also introduced perhaps the most objectionable creature ever to appear in a major motion picture: Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar is a floppy-eared irritant, a patois-mumbling quasi-racist character dreamt up by the creator of the entire series, George Lucas, in an effort to add a cute and cuddly character to the Star Wars universe – and, probably, to sell billions of plush-toy Jar Jar replicas to credulous and easily-swindled children around the world. Talk about an Evil Empire.

When the most recent three Star Wars movies weren't being pretentious and overly complicated, they were being cutesy and saccharine. Again, a little too much like real life, if you ask me.

Those of you who checked out of the entire Star Wars experience after the last three pictures made what can only be considered a rational and thoughtful decision about how to spend your leisure time.

Until now.

Well, less than two weeks from now. The Star Wars universe, it seems, has been reinvigorated and reborn under the direction of action movie genius J J Abrams. The trailers that have been released onto YouTube – along with the inside-Hollywood rumours – all point to a movie about (you guessed it) the struggle between good and evil and not a movie about trade politics and Jar Jar Binks.

Star Wars – especially for those of us who have loved the series and suffered for it – looks likely to return to its former simple greatness. George Lucas, who as recently as last month averred that Jar Jar Binks was his favourite character of the series, has been relegated to an advisory role.

If only the world, as it is today, could be as fixed. The Star Wars universe isn't the only place that needs a reboot.

Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood

On Twitter: @rcbl