Star Wars on Trial (48 page)

Once you consider the premise that Episodes I through III are not live-action movies with extensive special effects, but rather animated features with a few living actors rotoscoped in, many of the more common critical objections to the movies simply wither away. Yes, of course space warships in the ancient future will resemble World War II surface vessels, right down to the turrets and superstructures, and will maneuver as if they're floating on the plane of the ecliptic: didn't you ever watch Yoshinobu Nishizaki's Space Cruiser Yamato? Yes, of course space fighters will routinely sprout folding wings and maneuver as if they're in an atmosphere, and any missiles they launch will follow gracefully looping trajectories: didn't you ever watch Super Dimension Fortress Macross? Yes, what better way is there to defend your flagship against attack than with four-legged vulture droids that leap into the sky and morph into sleek and deadly combat craft: haven't you at least watched Transformers?

Yes, of course the human'
characters are dwarfed by their surroundings, and their voices are nearly drowned out by the background noise, and Mace Windu will strike a dramatic pose and deliver a speech instead of the one sword stroke that would settle the whole mess right here and now. Because, when you get down to it, in the universe of the new Star Wars movies, the human characters are not important.

What is important in Episodes I through III? While it's tempting to identify raging mechaphilia as the key trait, and a strong case can be made that it's actually ornate costumes and ludicrous hairstyles-the Queen of Naboo may be called in witness-the critical distinguishing trait seems to be the same one that is at work behind the scenes in most anime, and it is this: that fully realized characters are hard to do, and full-motion character animation in the style of the classic Disney cartoons is expensive. Ergo, the best way to deliver a commercially successful product without driving yourself nuts or breaking the budget is by making the background paintings as absolutely gorgeous as possible, then restricting your human characters to a few dramatic poses and some long-winded speeches, in between the full-motion battle scenes, which are what the paying customers are really coming to see, anyway.

And make no mistake: Star Wars, Episodes I, II and III are three of the most eye-poppingly beautiful and enthralling movies you could ever want to watch. The water world of Kamino, the lush pastoral landscapes of Naboo and Kashyyyk, and the massive palaces that seem to crop up everywhere look like sorts of things Hayao Miyazaki could do if he had an infinite amount of time and money. The sterile, endless cityscape of Coruscant would fit right into Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, while Coruscant's grubby and cluttered underworld echoes Otomo's Old Tokyo or Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell. The hellish worlds of Geonosis and Mustafar, with their incomprehensible foundries and rivers of fire, evoke Now and Then, Here and There, while the massive battle scenes that slaughter clones, Gungans and robots alike with cheerful abandon pay homage to generations of mecha-based manga, movies and TV series.

But as for expecting to find a fully realized and engaging human story in the center of all this noise, beauty and excitement?

Forget it, Jake. It's Toontown.

Bruce Bethke works, writes, and when time permits, lives, in the frozen northern reaches of Minnesota. In some circles he is best known for his 1980 short story, "Cyberpunk." In others, he is better known for his Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel, Headcrash. What very few people in either circle have known until recently is that he actually works in supercomputer software development, and all of his best science fiction gets turned into design specifications for future products.

Bethke can be contacted via his Web site, http://www.BruceBethke. com.

THE COURTROOM

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Damn, he's good.

DROID JUDGE: Mr. Stover? Your cross-examination?

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Uh. Okay. Urn-all right, Mr. Bethke. When, exactly, did you sell out to the Sith?

DAVID BRIN: (tiredly) Objection....

DROID JUDGE: Mr. Stover, behave yourself.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Do I have to?

DROID JUDGE: Mr. Stover-

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Your Honor, I've got nothing. Nothing. This man, by his own testimony, couldn't see the human element in Star Wars; should I question a blind man on the colors in somebody else's garden?

DAVID BRIN: Objection.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Withdrawn. Your Honor, I must beg the Court's indulgence: I need another witness on this charge.

DROID JUDGE: Oh, please....

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: The Defense must be allowed a rebuttal witness. Someone who understands humanity. Someone who sees the truth of all of us ... and laughs at it.

DROID JUDGE: (resignedly) Whom do you have in mind?

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: The Defense calls science fiction writer, philosopher and humorist Adam Roberts, who will demonstrate that Star Wars falls plainly in the grand tradition of comic science fiction.

DROID JUDGE: Oh, very well. The witness may be seated.

HE CHARGE IS THAT Star Wars is fantasy masquerading as SF?

Have the Prosecution even seen these films?

Let me try to understand here. Why would somebody think such a thing?

Well, perhaps because they have an unusually narrow sense of what SF is. Sure:

If we are looking for a rigidly and technically exact transfer of "science" into "fiction," then Star Wars doesn't fit the bill terribly well. If we want an example of a "literature of ideas," then we'll find slim pickings. If our fetishes are seriousness of purpose or emotional maturity then we'd better look elsewhere. But who says that these are the true benchmarks of SF?

There are other forms of SF than the dull and the weighty, the serious and profound; Star Wars belongs to one of those other forms-a specific, joyous and enduring sort. But that doesn't make it fantasy. (Uh-excuse me-spaceships? robots? a whole planet converted into a giant hi-tech city? Fantasy? Puh-lease!)

Actually I'd better rein in my outrage. Now that I come to think of it, there is something interesting in the charge that Star Wars is fantasy: it reveals something important both about the Prosecution's preconceptions about the genre, and their shortsightedness about Lucas's six-piece masterwork. They're missing the point, and I hope to explain how.