I took my kids out the see the new Star Wars movie. And it was fun. I had a great time with the Kids. They loved it.
Lucas has definitely taken the franchise to a new level: Kid Entertainment. He did it with Phantom, but put in on back burner for Attack of the Clones. He revisited it again for a short while when he did the cartoons for Cartoon Network (also called Clone Wars), but then Revenge of the Sith was back to darkness.
I believe that he was happy making cartoon shorts (and probably found it profitable), because he has another 100 or so half hour episodes lined up for the next couple of years. And if the movie is any indication to the new series, they will definitely be more kid friendly.
The movie had a simple plot, shallow character development, and a bunch of silly jokes and situations. For instance: Anikin now has a Padawan, who happens to be a Youngling trying to make in the grown up world of Jedi’s (a concept that a kid can relate to… well not the Jedi part, but growing up).
That’s where all the bad reviews come from. I think some people were expecting too much. I think they were expecting something like Attack of the Clones, or Revenge of the Sith. And they were disappointed. Because it’s not a movie. It’s a cartoon. It was an afterthought. Lucas was watching the half hour episodes on a huge screen and thought “This would be great in a movie theater… lets do it!”. So you end up with a cartoon meant for TV, meant for KIDS, put on a huge screen, with an expensive price tag. Unfortunately, the large screen really shows the poor production value in the show, because it was never meant to me a movie, like Attack of the Clones.
But what it does do is it keeps the IDEA, the DREAM, of Star Wars alive for a whole new generation. I was 7 years old when I first saw Star War in a drive thru theater. Ever since then, the passion has never died. It is part of who I am. And Lucas has managed to keep it alive long enough for my kids to feel that same passion. And because of that, we have a special bond. Especially with Max. He loves Star Wars. He lives and breathes Star Wars. I haven’t let him watch Revenge of the Sith, yet, because of the dark content, but I told him that we can watch it on his birthday. He can hardly wait. And the timing is perfect with the new movie and the original cartoon series already being viewed. So the passion is still alive. I can relate to his excitement, I was there.
And for those reasons, the new Star Wars movie is the best movie of the year! Dark Knight was awesome, as well. But it’s not appropriate for the kids yet, so it’s only second best for now.