Taste Triangle 1: Star Wars / Trying the Triangle

Let's start this off right, with a media franchise that will probably dominate this blog as much as, if not more than, it does the rest of the world. I will write more about Star Wars, and this is as much a mini-review of it as it is a test-run for my Taste Triangle review concept.
As such these are not my complete thoughts on the series, and it will entirely steer clear of breaking down the collected universe into individual films. That might be something I do in later posts (EDIT: And then I did), but this is supposed to be a short test of the Taste Triangle, so let's get to it.

My History / Where do I even start?

Star Wars is a big deal to me. I grew up with VHS copies of the original trilogy (the Enhanced Edition of New Hope and the original versions of Empire and Jedi, including awkwardly cut out commercial blocks), and watched each of them dozens upon dozens of times.

I don't remember if I saw Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones in theatres, but I definitely saw Revenge of the Sith (even slightly earlier than friends and siblings, which I childishly lorded over them). After that (and the subsequent long pause) I saw every Star Wars film in theatres, including the (at time of writing) two spin-off films.

Outside of the big screen my primary exposure to Star Wars was videogames, with Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire (a full FMV action game) and the original X-Wing (space dogfighting) taking center stage. Didn't grow up with the books or the comics, although at least with the books I've been making a valiant effort to catch up. I caught Clone Wars a few years after it started airing and Rebels as it came out.

I still haven't dared to watch the Holiday Special or the other old tv films.

Plot summary / Really?!

Do we really need this? It's Star Wars! People know Star Wars, right? Alright, fine.
Star Wars is a sprawling universe of films, tv series, books and videogames. It started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... or rather, 1977. There are three core film trilogies, the rest is considered ancillary.

I'm not going to summarise the whole thing, but they boil down to space operas where quasi-religious magic monks called jedi try to protect the universe from evil, usually by allying themselves with a side in a galactic conflict (or Star War, and no they are never actually called that). It's about cool spaceships, plucky heroes, good versus evil and lightsabers. Now can we get to the corners already?!

Corner 1: Adventure 10/10 / "We can enter the city using the secret passages."

This corner was given shape explicitly with Star Wars in mind, so it should surprise nobody that it is getting full marks here. Let's give it some bullet points though, to pad this out a bit:

• 🚀 A huge universe, literally, filled with weird aliens, factions and environments.
• 🚀 Sweeping space plots where the fate of that huge universe tends to be at stake.
• 🚀 Outnumbered underdogs trying to overcome huge odds.

Corner 2: Smart 6/10 / "Only now, at the end, do you understand."

Not really what it's aiming for, Star Wars never claimed to be a mystery series. The large reveals that are there aren't presented as mysteries, the things that are presented as mysteries don't get large reveals. What is there isn't necessarily dumb, but it's not really standing out for its smartness either.

• 💡 Consistently presented universe, especially in terms of mechanical design and worldbuilding. Even if a parsec isn't a measure of time.
• 💡 Palpatine does some solid scheming and planning, even if it's mostly off-screen.
• 💤 Zero buildup or foreshadowing for the Vader reveal.

Corner 3: Heart 7.5/10 / "Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love."

The poorly defined corner... it doesn't care about statements about sand or siblings kissing, it cares about how it made me, the viewer, feel. And it made me feel pretty awesome then and no less great now.

• 💖 Amazing soundtrack by John Williams
• 💖 The heroes win and save the day, most of the time.
• 💖 Varied colourful aliens with their own languages and cultures.
• 💔 Except most of the core cast is still made up of humans.
• 💔 Prequel era jedi aren't allowed to form attachments or fall in love.

This means we reach a final triangle of:

Not bad at all! That was to be expected though, what with me loving Star Wars.

Let's see if we can use some finicky trigonometry to calculate the surface of that triangle and come up with a numerical score...

77.94

That looks suspiciously close to a score out of a hundred... do try not to treat it as such.

A 'normal' numerical score from me for Star Wars would probably be in the 9/10 range.

This is an indicator of how the media I review matches my self-defined criteria of what I enjoy.

I fully expect there will be things that come around that beat Star Wars' surface score, we'll have to wait and see.
First I want to see how a film that I expect to get very low scores does though...

EDIT: I've also gone back and separate reviewed all the Star Wars films, the first three can be found here.