I am so fucking sick of people telling me that Star Wars (one of the most overrated films EVER) is the be all, end all of science fiction. Yeah it had good FX for the time but that's it. The story was stolen right from Arthurian Legend and just set in a science fiction world, the dialog was garbage and the acting at it's best points was adequate.

Why does everyone love Star Wars so damn much? Honestly, WHY? The film is devoid of characterization, virtually empty on emotion and over-raught on everything else. Hell, like I said the plot is just knights of old set in another world. When other, lesser, films do that it's called plagiarism but I guess since Lucas did it that is not the case here, huh? I mean I am getting sick of seeing any film that even remotely resembles Star Wars being called a rip-off or derivative of it. Lucas did NOT come up with this story nor does he have hold over it.

One friend of mine tried to tell me Star Wars holds up not because of the story or the characters or the FX but because it was the first science fiction film to attempt a multi-movie story. Uh, Planet Of The Apes did a 5 movie story (first mind you) and the Ape films are a HELL of alot more thought provoking and well made than the Wars movies.

I just saw "The Dark Redemption" and that is the movie Lucas SHOULD have been making instead of that 2 hour plus, excuse to gouge his audience (I mean really, did Phantom Menace have a plot? NO. Did it tell a cohesive story? Hell NO. Was it an excuse for FX and to further line Lucas' pockets? Bloody hell yes).

"The Dark Redemption" is a 20 minute short film that was made (without Lucas' knowledge or consent) after hours while Crapisode 1 was filing. It uses real costumes, sets and FX from the movie and tells the story of Episode 3.8 (it ends just before "A New Hope") and despite the terrible acting, it was SO much better than Episode 1. It can only be found in bootleg form and if Lucas has his way in court even that will be rare.

Okay back to Lucas and his lack of talent. If you look at all his films you will see that none of them have any substance really. The man is a hack just this side of Tim Burton. I mean look at the "best" Star Wars film "The Empire Strikes Back". I bet most of you don't even realize Lucas did NOT direct it, nor did he write it (to be fair he wrote the "outline" but the script was written by someone else entirely). He DID write (if that is called writing) A New Hope, Phantom Menace and Return Of The Jedi (but he didn't direct Jedi either) and I find it funny that the one most people consider the "best" of the series he only had passing influence in.

So to close I just want to say that Star Wars is not great science fiction nor is it adequate science fiction and Lucas is not the guru he is being heralded as.