EMPIRE STRIKES AGAIN
About a year ago, Empire Magazine published its list of the Greatest 301 Movies of All Time. It was a wild, weird, and woolly list that I blogged about here: http://mattstarr28.blogspot.com/2014/08/empire-magazine-strikes-back-ok-here.html
Well, now they have come out with a new list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time and I thought the list was interesting for a very particular reason.
On this list, Han Solo was ranked #3 (behind Indiana Jones at #1 and James Bond at #2) and Darth Vader was ranked at #9 but Luke Skywalker was ranked at #50. Wait. What?
Luke Skywalker at #50? I wouldn't have a problem with Luke at #50 if it wasn't for Han Solo being ranked at #3. To me, this reveals a deep misunderstanding of the Star Wars saga. If you are not a Luke Skywalker fan, then why are you watching Star Wars at all. Everyone else in the original trilogy is a side character (including Han and Leia) and their stories are secondary when compared with the epic journey of Luke Skywalker. I remember when I saw Return of the Jedi in 1983, I came out of the movie loving it but also thinking that the best part of the movie was the conclusion of the Luke story while the conclusion of Han and Leia's story felt a bit forced (I also thought the rescue of Han from Jabba's palace was a bit long and most of the time when I watch the movie today, I skip this entire beginning part and go right to Luke returning to Dagobah for the big reveal about Darth Vader from Yoda).
Coincidentally, I saw another magazine which ranked the top 50 sci-fi characters of all time and at #1 was - yep, you guessed it - Han Solo. Luke ranked at #24 on this list.
It's also interesting that in the trailer for the new Star Wars movie - The Force Awakens, Han Solo is in the trailer but Luke is nowhere to be found. For me, this set off some warning signals beyond my trepidation about the movie due to the involvement of JJ Abrams (I'll never stop saying it - Abrams destroyed Star Trek for me!!! If he destroys Star Wars... )
Luke Skywalker is what the original trilogy is all about (while the prequel trilogy is about Anakin) and in my opinion the sequel trilogy should, naturally, be about Luke's son but that is another discussion that I have blogged about here:
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