Why the Original “Star Wars” Trilogy is Overrated.

Wow, that title is an impeccable example of whorish clickbait, isn’t it? Add only a number, and the words “that will blow your mind,” and it’s downright Buzzfeed worthy. So before I take an ouroboros adventure up my own ass, let me put this on record:

I love “Star Wars.”

I loved “Star wars” before I ever saw “Star Wars,” with fond adolescent memories of collapsible plastic lightsaber duels that left welts for days. And by adolescent, of course I mean from the age of five, to two weeks ago.

I view bitching about midi-chlorians as a respectable vocation, and “Knights of the Old Republic” ushered me into the tar-pit that is western RPG gaming, a pastime that is far-and-away the most time-exhaustive leisure activity of my life, with the second being sleeping.

And now that we’re all good and sad about my aversion to standing, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of why I think the original trilogy is a Rancor of an overhyped beast, an opinion that brings me no self-gratification.

Yet it won’t go away.

First, I’d like to change my previous statement from “I loved ‘Star wars’ before I ever saw it” to “I saw ‘Star Wars’ before I ever saw it.” According to IMDB, “A New Hope” is the most referenced film of all time, so it’s no wonder why essentially every scene was spoiled for me by the time I got around to putting those botched Special Editions into our family’s lone VCR. I remember the “Luke, I am your father” twist being spoiled during “Toy Story 2,” Mel Brooks’s “Space Balls” lampooned away most of the other mysteries, and everything else about the film I inferred from dialogue in Kevin Smith movies and episodes of “South Park” (my parents weren’t the most attentive).

It was inescapable. “Star Wars” was like air, lingering in every conceivable corner of pop-culture.

Forget about the series’ uber fanaticism (although I’ll get to that later), this is the apex film franchise of two entire generations, perhaps only recently usurped by “Harry Potter” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It’s too massive of a pop-culture cornerstone to not be overrated. At some point, you have to look at all of the countless toys, shirts, and assorted baubles and trinkets plastered with Darth Vader’s mug shot and ask yourself, is any strip of celluloid worthy of a $30 billion empire?

And the fact that Lucasfilm was swallowed by Disney doesn’t help either. That company has approved business practices so evil they’d turn Lex Luther’s pubes grey.

This blizzard of merchandising means that “Star Wars” no longer belongs to any single niche group. And at this point, the real weirdos are those who don’t consider themselves fans of the franchise.

“When I meet people my age, men especially, less so women, there’s this sense we share that those movies shaped our childhoods,” said Stephen Rust, an English and film instructor at the University of Oregon. “For some reason, things like comics, and “Star Trek,” and even “Harry Potter” have been viewed slightly more in terms of nerd-culture. While you can admit to being a “Star Wars” fan without falling into any nerd-grouping.”

“Star Wars” has an accessibility that is unmatched by any of its nerd-culture contemporaries, stemming from the elegance and simplicity of its narrative. So many elements of the original trilogy are timeless, drawing on ancient mythological storytelling as way to create something enjoyable regardless of age or upbringing.

And there lies the problem

“Star Wars” is nowhere near the be-all and end-all of filmmaking; it’s the foundation on which understanding of storytelling can be built.

And yet still, the American Film Institute lists “A New Hope” at #13 on their 100 greatest American films ever made, surpassing such arty darlings as Stanley Kubrick’s “2001 A Space Odyssey” (at 15) and F.W. Murnau’s “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” (at an astonishingly low 82).

I know it’s futile to complain about the order of a movie list. AFI has created it with the help of 1,500 film experts, all who are far more knowledgeable than myself, but there seems to be a disconnect here. “Star Wars” is the rudiments that should lead to more complex work, and I feel like I just watched “Chopsticks” edge out “The Rite of Spring.”

But really, the AFI list is an anomaly, as the scholarly perception of “Star Wars” has always placed somewhere between mindless entertainment, and the impetus for the decline of films-as-art. Contrarian critic Pauline Kael dismissed it entirely, describing its absence of beauty and lyricism (whatever the hell that means), while film historians cite the trilogy as the birth of popcorn intensive summer blockbusters. 

If cynical cinephiles ruled the world, the release of “Star Wars” would be remembered as an historical event akin to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Worse in fact, because at least that led to “Take Me Out.” Until recently, the most recognizable canonical aspect of the “Star Wars” legacy was a Jamaican CGI comic relief character.

So when I write “’Star Wars’ is overrated” I’m speaking strictly on a blue collar level. About the accumulation of love over filmmaking history, and when comparing quality against cultural impact, the original trilogy is almost inarguably overrated.

But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The saving grace of its overexposure actually comes from those fanatics I mentioned earlier, devoting years of their lives to creating fan-fiction, costumes, and other creative works in devotion to the series.

When considering the expanded universe, with its volumes upon volumes of story arcs encapsulating thousands of years of fictional history, it isn’t out of bounds to say that the blind admiration this franchise inspires has resulted in more creativity than any other.

Then Disney came along and etch-a-sketched the shit out of it, but no matter.

 Along with “Star Trek,” “Star Wars” is the dawn of fandom, and a niche phenomenon that has evolved into something much more.