George Lucas is not One of Us
Calloo, calais! O Frabjous day! My essay about the future of STAR WARS is posted over at SfSignal. It is not the best answer of the answers listed there (that, I think came from Jeff Patterson, whose answer I really liked, or Bruce Bethke who correctly gives credit where credit is due: to Leigh Brackett, who made Han Solo memorable by making him Northwest Smith, if you catch the reference), but it is my answer, and I stick by it.
No one, I hope, will question my Star Wars fanboy credentials. I own my own lightsaber. I know the name of the jedi-knight with tentacles on his head who appears on screen for one second in Revenge of the Sith, and gets killed (Kit Fisto). I love these movies.
No, let me correct that. I love Star Wars, the idea of Star Wars; I love what Star Wars should have been. I hate the movies, precisely because they are not
what they should have been. Let me tell you (in reverse order) what they are, and what they should have been, and tell you why they are not what they should have been.
They are not what they should have been because George Lucas is not one of us. He is not a science fiction guy. He does not have a feel for space opera. He does not get it.
Read, as they say, the whole thing.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
