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Aug. 1st, 2006
The last word on Star Wars On Trial
Aug. 1st, 2006 07:44 pmAfter closing arguments, the book leaves it up to readers to go to some website (http://www.starwarsontrial.com) to yap about it. Though I imagine people would probably feel one way or the other depending on their opinions of SW beforehand, rather than the case made in the book.
In short, SWOT is an interesting read though it's not likely to change your mind. If you're a fan beforehand, you'll be a fan at the end, though I think you're likely to be disappointed by the defense. If you never liked SW, you still won't like it.
The "prosecution"'s case consists mostly of misinterpreting and misrepresenting the films or blaming them for things they were never at fault for doing, at least not intentionally. SW makes for a convenient target because of its popularity. After all, no one has yet written Blake's 7 On Trial or Farscape On Trial. Brin seems to hint that something shouldn't be that popular, that it's necessary to send Toto over to rip the curtain open because we can't let "them" get away with it. This is the basis of a lot of grring and growling at the saga, whether it's some crazed basher fanboy or a professional like Brin: SW doesn't deserve what it got. So the naysayers will do anything to make their point, whether it's trying to twist a character's every action into "weakness" or whether it's someone with a lot of degrees completing missing the point of movies 7-year-olds understand. But some folks for the prosecution pick and choose their targets; TESB is rarely criticized while Jar Jar gets knocked a lot (almost as much as The Matrix movies in fact). Why is that? They're aware of how fandom has changed. It's easier now to rake the prequels over the coals just as it would have been easier to rake all of the OT over the coals in say, 1986. But people revere TESB now and therefore few of the essayists have the guts to take it on.
As for the defense, some do a better job than others. Some of them are backhanded and half-hearted in their essays and that kind of defense wouldn't cut it on the debate circuit, much less a real courtroom! As wrong as Brin is, I can tell from this book and what he wrote years ago, he hasn't backed down. We deserve better. SW deserves better. There are fans out there who could have written things with far more eloquence and heart…like this guy who wrote a response to Brin's original 1999 piece for Salon: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/HateMail/Brin.html.
Though I will stipulate that Kevin Costner's The Postman movie wasn't Brin's fault.
In short, SWOT is an interesting read though it's not likely to change your mind. If you're a fan beforehand, you'll be a fan at the end, though I think you're likely to be disappointed by the defense. If you never liked SW, you still won't like it.
The "prosecution"'s case consists mostly of misinterpreting and misrepresenting the films or blaming them for things they were never at fault for doing, at least not intentionally. SW makes for a convenient target because of its popularity. After all, no one has yet written Blake's 7 On Trial or Farscape On Trial. Brin seems to hint that something shouldn't be that popular, that it's necessary to send Toto over to rip the curtain open because we can't let "them" get away with it. This is the basis of a lot of grring and growling at the saga, whether it's some crazed basher fanboy or a professional like Brin: SW doesn't deserve what it got. So the naysayers will do anything to make their point, whether it's trying to twist a character's every action into "weakness" or whether it's someone with a lot of degrees completing missing the point of movies 7-year-olds understand. But some folks for the prosecution pick and choose their targets; TESB is rarely criticized while Jar Jar gets knocked a lot (almost as much as The Matrix movies in fact). Why is that? They're aware of how fandom has changed. It's easier now to rake the prequels over the coals just as it would have been easier to rake all of the OT over the coals in say, 1986. But people revere TESB now and therefore few of the essayists have the guts to take it on.
As for the defense, some do a better job than others. Some of them are backhanded and half-hearted in their essays and that kind of defense wouldn't cut it on the debate circuit, much less a real courtroom! As wrong as Brin is, I can tell from this book and what he wrote years ago, he hasn't backed down. We deserve better. SW deserves better. There are fans out there who could have written things with far more eloquence and heart…like this guy who wrote a response to Brin's original 1999 piece for Salon: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/HateMail/Brin.html.
Though I will stipulate that Kevin Costner's The Postman movie wasn't Brin's fault.