Sorry, George: Critics used to love ‘Star Wars’

Were the first two films really that much better?
Fans of “Menace” and “Clones” sometimes insist that critics are being overly nostalgic about  “Star Wars” and “Empire,” that the scripts weren’t that much better, or that the series was all about action and special effects anyway.

Yet the early films had plenty of room for humor, romantic yearning, dramatic engagement. Nothing in the recent installments matches the rowdy comedy of the Cantina sequence in “Star Wars,” or the soaring emotion of that film’s twin-sunset scene, as Luke Skywalker senses his destiny (and John Williams’ score lets us know it).

“Empire” is similarly filled with moments that transcend the Saturday-matinee “Buck Rogers” serials that inspired Lucas: the edgy love spats between Princess Leia and Han Solo; the revelation of Darth Vader’s identity; Luke’s eerie fall through space; the rather chilling transformation of Yoda from comic muppet to sage.

Dialogue from the early movies is certainly less than Shakespearean, but many phrases have entered the language. Ben Obi-wan Kenobi’s magically disorienting announcement, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” has become shorthand for bluffing your way through a difficult situation. Grand Moff Tarkin’s over-confident advice, “I think you overestimate their chances,” has replaced “famous last words” in some circles.

Other one-liners, like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back” from “The Terminator,” fall into the you-had-to-be-there category: “Leave that to me,” “I have a very bad feeling about this,” “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”  Still, nearly everyone WAS there, so these can’t really be dismissed as in-jokes.

The only one of the “Star Wars” movies to receive an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay, the original 1977 film remains a model of streamlined storytelling. “Empire” daringly carried on the franchise by flirting with Greek tragedy — and getting away with it.

Now that the series is coming to an end, there are reasons to believe that Lucas will forget about Jar-Jar and the Ewoks and find his way back to that level. “Revenge of the Sith,” which focuses on the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader, will necessarily be a darker “Star Wars” movie than any previous episode. Here’s hoping it’s more than just a downer.

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