When the story just stops

I had been waiting for the sequel so long, re-watching Episode IV and V with my young eyes, and when I finally was sitting in front of the screen I could barely hold it together with the level of excitement. I think my suspicions that something was wrong crept upon me for the first time when I saw that blue elephant thingy playing some intergalactic keyboard at Jabba the Hutt's court. All other aliens before it had looked serious, adult and organic (Chewbacca being my favorite, but also the cantina band, Greedo, the taun-tauns, Yoda, the pig-guards, Bib Fortuna, etc etc)...but in that scene in Jabbas court room a terrible feeling started to dawn on me, the same kind of feeling as when you realize that Santa is wearing the same shoes as your least favorite uncle, or that your favorite professor is secretly a scientologist and groped another student.
The feeling didn't dissipate, but instead grew stronger when I watched the Chiuaua-rat creature cackling around Jabba's tail in a clearly Jim Henson tutored manner. I tried to pull it together..after all, Luke facing Vader again, and the Emperor, was kind of cool in a Greek-tragedy drama way, but...The Ewoks???. This is where I lost it. I hated them so much, I hated their fake beady too-large eyes, their clumsy bodies, never meant to climb trees (who believed they really built those tree huts themselves anyway?), and their ridiculous voices and ugly language.
I was the only one cheering when an Ewok got shot by the stormtroopers.
O well. I kept defending the movies a while longer, but inside I knew. Just like you know at a certain point that you will eventually break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, even though you carry on and try for quite a bit yet.

For me Star Wars will always end just before Leia and the rebels reach the Moon of Endor and meet the Ewoks. Nothing of consequence happened after that, we are still waiting for the epic conclusion.

I had vague hopes that maybe George Lucas had been temporary demented by Leigh Bracket's death, she was after all an excellent writer, probably to thank for the good parts of the first two movies..but after seeing episode I-III, I knew that those shoes belonged to my least favorite uncle, and that there was no Santa.

If you believe in Santa, please take away the scrip writing function from Lucas. Make him a producer, nothing more. I believe talented fanfic writers could do a better job nowadays.

Sometimes a story just stops at a certain point..and everything that comes after is just not good enough to qualify as a conclusion. Not every example is as brazen as Star Wars, for instance Alien III was a very good movie. Very dark, gloomy, no hope, excellent setting on that Prison planet. We got our first real glimpse of a young Bitch monster running, and it was delicious. And yet...somewhere for me, the Alien Saga will always end after Aliens. All marines except one are dead, Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop are all traveling home after successfully bombing the site from orbit. You just know that they will stay in touch and also nail that pesky Company for putting profit before security.
But Alien III had enough charisma and brilliant gloom to qualify as an alternate reality ending at least...anything coming after it, be it directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet or not, simply wouldn't do. (even if we did catch some awesome glimpses of swimming Aliens). It was just a daring echo from a truly golden era.

In the same manner, Terminator will always end with Sarah Connors voice over, narrating on the empty highway; The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.
To make another movie was simply cheating, and it wasn't worth seeing, even for free. The tv-series (Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles) is managing to justify its existence by injecting itself into the story line in a fairly believable way, according to the logic of the second movie, and Summer Glau from Firefly makes a refreshing protective Terminator to a sulky teenage John Connor, but still...nothing beats that voice over in Judgment day. The story stopped there, everything else is just fanfiction at its best.

I guess I'm in a rut and therefor thinking about these things. I could go on, Indiana Jones, Babylon Five, etc etc. What if my life reached it's peak around 2004, and everything that happens after will just be lamer, weaker, echoing my childhood dreams without ever reaching even a fraction of their potential?

Yeah, I know. Lame. Life isn't like that. Just get a better script-writer for fuck's sake.

So how about you? Did the story stop for you at any point, because it just wouldn't get any truer than it was?