There is a certain responsibility that comes with handling a
cinematic myth. At some point, the myth takes on an enormity that makes it
impenetrable. You can’t change it, or at least, you shouldn’t change it. Like the idea of Citizen Kane II, a sequel to the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, or Oedipus Rex II: Daddy’s Home. Such ideas would likely die a quick
death either before or after execution. The further adventures of such mythological characters would be discarded and not afforded a place in pop
culture history.
The reason for this is time. As characters and stories are
repeated within our culture, they take on a certain permanence. What start as
frivolous tales and sometimes cheap or even critically admonished movies, over
time, become “classics” thanks to the collective culture that holds more sway
than a journalist for Variety.
The essential question, then, is how much time is required for a myth to take on this permanence? At
what point does a movie become so ingrained in our culture that it cannot or
should not be changed or altered?
I would put the figure right around 30 years.
This might seem to be an arbitrary number mostly based on
the case at hand, but there is logic to it. After thirty years, most actors
have aged beyond the point at which they can conceivably recreate their
original role. Also, our society and culture has changed after 30 years to the
point at which revisiting a character from so long ago might feel
anachronistic. Imagine Jimmy Stewart trying to do a sequel to It’s a Wonderful Life in the mid 70s in
which George Bailey, now in his twilight years, is frustrated by the Watergate
scandal, the Vietnam War, and the general direction of America as he struggles
to find his place in it once again. While it might sound interesting or even a fresh reimagining, it’s likely that
audiences (and probably Stewart, too) would reject such an idea. George Bailey,
by that time, had taken on mythological proportions, especially with the
repeated showings of Frank Capra’s classic on network television. And we don’t
mess around with myths.
Today, there don’t seem to be any guidelines or protocols
concerning remakes and sequels. If a studio thinks it can make money, it will
gamble and make the second Total Recall,
Point Break or the long awaited sequel to Indiana Jones, Mission
Impossible, and now…Star Wars.
I should state at this point that I have been just as
excited about these new movies as anyone. In the capable hands of J.J. Abrams,
I anticipated (and continue to anticipate) a new trilogy that helps us shake
off the gag reflex of the prequels and move forward with new characters within
a universe we all enjoy.
But Abrams, and those on the creative side, are walking a
fine line with these classic, nay, these mythological
characters, which have existed in the American consciousness for over thirty
years. Perhaps more than any other series of the 20th Century, the
Star Wars characters have become entrenched in our minds as real people, even
if they only existed a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Scenes that
were at one time filmed in an inspired and perhaps even improvised way have now
been endlessly recited and memorized, becoming unchanging and reliable. We know
the endings, the one-liners, the subtle changes in John Williams’ score – and
all of this brings us comfort. Like George Bailey, they need to be treated with
respect. Like a surgeon, the first priority in revisiting this wonderful,
magical place, should be to “do no harm.”
As such, after thirty years of impenetrability, the new
movie is greeted by audiences with both unending excitement and also a dire
fear: what are you going to do to Star
Wars?
This short piece is about the death
of Han Solo, and what that does to the myth of Star Wars. While it might give the new trilogy a jump start (the
old trilogy is past – we look forward
to the future) it also disrupts the
closure of a storyline that was settled in 1983 very admirably, with dancing
Ewoks and the picture of all our favorite characters together, living happily ever after.
Now it turns out they didn’t live happily ever after. Now it
turns out that Han Solo was run through by his own son a few decades later, his
lifeless body discarded, his faithful sidekick screaming in dismay. In short,
despite the brilliance of the new movie, it has altered the previous trilogy in
a way that cannot be undone, or perhaps forgiven.
This inconvenience has been met before in other movie
sequels, when filmmakers decided to think outside the box and surprise
audiences with the death of a character that had taken on a certain
invulnerability. I remember being terribly let down in the first few minutes of
Alien 3 when we discovered that the
young girl, Newt, whom Ripley had spent the entirety of the previous film
defending and ultimately saving from a fate worse than death, died off screen
by choking on her own vomit in hyper sleep.
Are you kidding me
David Fincher? (to be fair, I don’t think he wrote the script)
Rewatching Aliens
then became a bit unsettling and disappointing, knowing that even after Ripley
and company got away, they were all going to die in the next movie anyway.
But the Alien films
had not come near the mythological status that the Star Wars trilogy has (in fact, it might be argued that Alien would not have existed without the
popularity of Lucas’ film two years before). The character of Newt, adorable as
she might have been, did not approach the pop culture weight afforded Harrison Ford
and Han Solo. From his introduction in greasing Greedo (yes, he did shoot
first) to his juvenile chiding of Princess Leia, his reluctant but ultimately
committed romance to her, and his third act maturity as General Solo in the Rebellion,
we saw the character complete his arc and were satisfied with the conclusion –
Han Solo helps defeat the Empire and marries Princess Leia – lives happily ever
after.
Apparently not.
Now we have a new story, a continuation of the films that
have become myth, and thereby the myth has been changed. Things did not, in
fact, work out, and Han Solo was murdered by his own son.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels a little betrayed by
this somewhat predictable but still disappointing plot twist. Sure, people can
say that an artist has the right to create whatever story or narrative he or
she wishes, that it’s only a movie. But I think my point is that it is, in
fact, not only a movie. Most people
would agree that the Star Wars
franchise, especially the original trilogy, have become much, much more than
only movies. They have become myths.
And J.J. Abrahms has murdered one of our myths.
Of course, it might not have been his call. Ford himself
wanted the character killed off in Return
of the Jedi decades ago; but he wasn’t, and over three decades the more optimistic and crowd pleasing ending
took on a solid place in our public consciousness.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying things have to always
work out. For example, it was a bit refreshing to see that Han and Leia, like
so many couples since the 70s, just weren’t able to keep it together, that
their son turned out to be a future Vader, that Han had to go back to his
smuggling roots. We like those twists and turns. We like that rich kind of
history. Things didn’t work out happily ever after, but they worked out
somehow.
But now we know that things didn’t work out – for Han they
didn’t work out at all.
Can we be upset about this? It’s difficult to condemn the
new movie, especially when it is so damn good, so well executed. But I think there
is room for a minor plea from an innocent fan boy now grown up:
Don’t mess with my
myths.
Go ahead, make sequels. Please try to make them good. But
don’t undo what has already been done just to score dramatic points. Don’t
coast on the tailcoats of your predecessors and then murder their children
after they’ve left them in your protection. Treat them with respect. Treat them
with care.
They’ve earned it.
