What Makes a Story Good?

There are some stories that seem to last forever: fairy tales, folk tales, Tarzan, and others. These stories are not always "packaged" shall we say, in the best of language, artwork or music. Some of them in their original forms are poorly presented, or may seem week. But they continue to be told and retold, in spite of the ineptitude of lack of skill of their original tellers. So what makes them work?

I think that inside each story that goes on in history in spite of the bad telling or words or whatever must have something that connects with people, that rings true for them. Take, for example, the difference between the first Star Wars trilogy and Star Wars I, II, III. The original trilogy did not benefit from the fancy computer animation and special effects that the latest three did. In fact, when George Lucas attempted to "improve" those films by adding computer graphics, people begged him to release versions of the films that didn't have those computer graphics added. Whereas there's limited market for the most recent three films, and people often express their dissatisfaction with them and wish that George Lucas had listened to someone who could give better feedback and tell him where the movies fell flat.

Why is this? What made the difference?

I have my own theories on why the most recent star wars movies were seen badly (For one, everyone had about thirty years to imagine up their own version of how Darth Vader became Darth Vader), but there's more to it than just that. Do you remember that race? The really long one in the first movie that got really, really boring? (I can only use examples from the first movie because I haven't seen the other two. My family told me they weren't worth seeing, and since I come from a family of born critics, I trust my family's opinion.)

Anyway, the race, as much as they tried, really did nothing to advance the plot. Sure, that was supposed to be the way that the people got off Tatooine, but can't you imagine them finding another way to do it? Have the queen sell off some of those fancy duds. She must have something hiding on the ship that's worth selling. Or sell off the big fancy ship (since it was worthy of using as "betting" material) and buy another one that is just as big, but not as pretty. Better yet, since the new ship isn't as pretty and obvious as the old one, it will allow the team to be anonymous when they head into the capital. And in the mean time, you can keep at least one of the pretty dresses, because it's obvious that that's the only way that people recognize Queen Amidala for who she actually is.

Another problem with the "great race" is that they upped the stakes just a little too much: Anakin was really too young to be a pilot in a race. I'm surprised anyone allowed him to compete. Making him just a little bit older would both have made the racing more believable, and made more believable the fact that the Jedi counsel thought him to old to receive training. Children are incredibly malleable until they reach age twelve or so--that's the time when they stop being able to pick of languages as second native languages and so on. Also, not only did you have the repairs of the ship riding on that race, you had Anakin's freedom riding on the race. and then we learn, that surprise surprise, not only hasn't Anakin ever won a race, he's never even finished. Which makes the outcome of the race not only seem unbelievable, but rigged as well.

Just for contrast, let's look at a different race, which was pulled of remarkably well. Or perhaps we could say a pair of different races. I'm talking about those done in Pixar's hit movie Cars. The races in Cars did have one goal in mind: the piston cup, but they didn't only serve that function. The first race is an introduction to the main characters of the 'racing world': Lightning McQueen, The King, Chick Hicks. We get to see how each of these characters operate, we get to see how the audience reacts to them, we get to see that our main character, while brilliant, is really something of a jerk when it comes to interacting with other people. Er, cars. And we don't see the WHOLE race. Quite a lot of the race is cut out or summarized by music. Anything that might have been boring is cut out. I don't remember any such cuts or summarizations in the Star Wars I race (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

The other Cars race, at the end, is to show us how much our hero has changed, what he's learned while he's been away from the fast stream. In a way, it's essential that Lightning McQueen give up his grand finish, so that we get show that the first place isn't the most important thing to him anymore. There' s again plenty of summarization and such, but there's also interaction between McQueen and the people in the pit crew, who are helping him out. All in all, a much better and more satisfying race than the one in Star Wars I.

But what made the difference between the initial three movies and the ones most recently put out? I would say that it would have to be story and a feeling of authenticity. The first movies were DIRTY. They had junk, dirt, they were filmed so that the colors weren't bright and happy and disney-fied (I'm referring to the supersaturated palate used by many Disney animation films). That environment made the original Star Wars movies feel like they were set in a place that we might live, in spite of their futuristic setting. The second one is, you guessed it, story. There were some story flaws in the first movie (every story has some flaws), but the things that mattered, like friendships, loyalty, the importance of what was going on, those were done really well. Everyone cheers when Han Solo shoots Darth Vader off of Luke's back. Everyone cheers when Luke blows up the hideous death star which is capable of destroying worlds. Everyone's relieved when Leia gets out of the cell where she's awaiting death. And everyone laughs when she sits up and says "Aren't you a bit short for a storm trooper?"

And Empire Strikes Back is an even BETTER movie. (I prefer it over the Return of the Jedi, where Luke goes weird.) Sure, the movie intercuts three stories, but they're each stories that matter. Han and Leia are in constant jeopardy of getting caught. Even when they think they've escaped, they are being followed by someone. The guy they go to for protection betrays them. But even that isn't simple--he has a change of heart after it, or didn't really like it from the beginning but felt that he had no choice. (But that doesn't mean he gets away with it easily. Even though I feel concerned for Lando when Chewie is strangling him, I think the movie would ahve been weaker without that point.) And then there's fun sub-plots like C3PO getting blown up and put back together. Stuff that connects on a regular level.

In the first movie of the most recent set, I felt like there were too many "stand back and look who it is" moves. There were really no surprises at all. While this is difficult to accomplish with a series of prequels, we could at least have had a number of ladies who could have been love interests for Anakin, and we could at least seen ways for Anakin to have made it out of his downward spiral (if there were any of those that appeared in the second and third movies, let me know.) But for me, there were too many things in The Phantom Menace that were Grand, and not quite enough that was on a personal level. Not a believable personal level anyway (just why would Padme care for Anakin when she's just met him. What's he done for her? Besides calling her an angel, that is. I mean, have they done anything at all together that would bring them together? It would have been much better if they started out hating each other, or at least being annoyed by each other.)

The first three Star Wars movies will be popular forever, in spite of their faults, and in spite of the lack of technology (I actually found the "force field" under Luke's speeder rather endearing). The most recent ones will probably stay around, but I doubt they'll be regarded as classics, like IV, V, and VI are. And the difference will be the quality of the stories that they show.