"Star Wars" documentary reveals nothing

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-05-25 14:18

LOS ANGELES - Only a "please-come-see-my-action-figure-collection" fan could sit through this uncritical and not-terribly-informative two-hour tribute to the "Star Wars" franchise and its creator, George Lucas.

In interview after interview, punctuated with film clip after film clip, one "Star Wars" authority after another compares the stories in the films to great epics and classical mythology. Over two hours, experts (an assortment that includes anchor Dan Rather, director

Peter Jackson, journalist Linda Ellerbee, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and political satirist

Stephen Colbert) find parallels to "The Iliad," "The Odyssey," "The Lord of the Rings," "Paradise Lost," "Jason and the Argonauts," "Hamlet" and the story of Christianity, among others. Rarely has so much time been spent on elaborating the obvious.

On this, the 30th anniversary of the first "Star Wars" film, it would have been more interesting to assess how well Lucas fulfilled his vision, but there is not a syllable of criticism uttered. Not even about JarJar Binks. And, although Lucas' production company helped make the special, there isn't a single frame of Lucas discussing the underlying philosophy of "Star Wars," how it evolved and how well, in retrospect, it was reflected in the films. Was he off in some galaxy far away?