Last night I watched Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. As you’re probably aware, it’s built up quite the reputation for being one of the worst episodes, and stirred up quite a bit of controversy upon its release, something I, like many people my age, jumped on the bandwagon for. Is it really all that bad though? And are we only hurting our own creativity by bashing it?
This eventually all comes down to our own subjective opinions, but last night I watched it again for the first time in a while and I watched it unbiased. I accepted it as a new branch of George Lucas’ own vision of the story that captured an entire generation and to be honest, I actually enjoyed it! I still find Jar Jar to be a little overly annoying at times, there are a few scenes that could be eliminated for consistency and speed and then there’s also a bit of bad acting, but then, the original trilogy certainly had its share of bad acting as well.
I wound up saying a similar statement on my Facebook profile, to which an old college friend pointed me toward an in-depth video review of why The Phantom Menace is such a terrible movie. I didn’t watch it all, in fact I only watched enough to get the understanding that he hated it and he was very upset with George Lucas for “screwing up the backstory.”
Did George Lucas really screw up the backstory though? Not at all. It’s his universe, and thus, his story. He can make the story do whatever he wants. He was never required to check with his fans before shooting each prequel to make sure everyone approved. As a result, he took his story in what he thought was an interesting direction, deciding to show the downfall of Anakin Skywalker rather than the failing of Obi-Wan Kenobi as an instructor. With that, people outright rejected Episode I as Star Wars, as well as for other reasons. From what I’ve heard, read and watch over the years, that’s one of the primary reasons.
But why? It’s not their story after all. It’s someone else’s. Why would people completely reject someone else’s vision so fervently? What happened was people, over the nearly two decades between the releases of Episodes VI and I, created their own story of what should happen. They created in their mind what should be the appropriate backstory and just about every single Star Wars fans’ story was going to differ not only from George Lucas’ story, but also each other’s. Unfortunately for George Lucas, they found a common enemy in him for not writing Star Wars the way they wanted.
The interesting thing about all of this though which finally brings me to my point, is that each one of these people made up their own story. They built up in their mind their own movie, their own branch of a well-developed universe, that with a little tweaking, could be made into their own unique vision completely free of the Star Wars universe. The problem is all these people, even over ten years after the release of The Phantom Menace, are still using George Lucas as their excuse not to exercise their own creativity because he chose to bring his story to life rather than theirs. The only thing stopping each one of these people from writing their own novel or comic book, or shooting their own movie, is that they’re still, to this day, blaming George Lucas for not bringing their creative vision to life when all this time, they have just as much opportunity and resources as he had when he first made American Graffiti, if not more so thanks to current technology. Some of these people could probably even make something more technically advanced than the original Star Wars on a fraction of the budget given the technology available.
If you do any kind of creative work, it’s essential to not block your own creative vision by putting your blame on someone else or even something else. Did another photographer get the shot that you were wanting? Don’t be upset with them. Go to that same spot and find the angle that they didn’t. Are you on a vacation and not having ideal weather in the spot you’ve been dreaming about photographing? Don’t blame the weather for impeding your photography, use the weather to do more photography, or at the very least, challenge yourself with it. If you’re constantly blaming other factors for not helping your creativity come to life, your skills are eventually going to diminish as a result. Take the challenges when they’re presented to you and when the door opens, don’t just slam it shut because someone else opened it for you, run through it enthusiastically! When you let go of the resistance that blocks creativity, in this case blame, you’ll open yourself up to allow it to flow like a river.