A Shot At Redemption

      Given the disappointing Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, Ewan McGregor's promise that Episode III of the Star Wars films will tie everything up nicely smacks of wishful thinking. It's obvious: George Lucas just isn't fundamentally interested in his characters this time around. Hell, it's obvious Lucas really isn't that interested in the parts of movie-making outside of special effects. I've said it time and time again, though, that Lucas, if he truly wants to end Episode III properly, to end it with a level of poignance or significance, there is only one thing he can do, that he really ought to do. It means raiding the archival footage from the very first Star Wars. It means ending Episode III with a shot of the late Alec Guinness, walking alone into the desert, and accepting his inevitable exile. If the series is going to make any genuine pull on the heartstrings, if it's going to have to be in resignation and defeat (and aging) of Ben Kenobi. This can probably be done fairly easily, as I'm sure there's unused footage from the first film, with Guinness carrying himself through the Tunisian sands. It would return audiences where they need to go, to 1977, to the time and place from where it all began, and only Guinness' visage can convey with sufficient dramatic force the loss of the good-guys at the end of the prequels. Picture it: the sight of the long-unseen Guinness, now gone, appearing briefly like a chimera doomed to wait for a shot at redemption; picture it, and tell me, too, that even the most cynical among you wouldn't have a shiver running down your spine at such an image.... It could be that such an image might indeed be the prequels' only shot at redemption, too, at reclaiming the heart that, when it all came down to dust, made the first three films. The first three films were all heart, something we've not seen at all in the first two of the prequels. A shame, really.