While I’ve been back in town since Friday, this has been my first opportunity to post.

Dad appears to be on the mend, and hopes to get out of the hospital by Tuesday. It turns out that he had a gangrenous gallbladder, which is a phrase I absolutely adore saying. Try it yourself: gangrenous gallbladder, gangrenous gallbladder, gangrenous gallbladder. It’s fun!

So, he had the gallbladder removed, but not the appendix, as his doctor said that at his age (73), if he hadn’t yet had problems with it, he probably wouldn’t.

For some reason, I was amused when the doctor told me that in the twenty or so years he’d been performing surgery, that this was the most gangrenous gallbladder he’d seen. Leave it to my dad. Now, before you get up in arms about my lack of sympathy, by that time I’d already ascertained that no other organs were affected and that they didn’t anticipate long-term consequences.

When I left on Friday afternoon, he seemed perfectly okay, but as I later discovered, he had to go in for one more procedure after the fact: they had to go in endoscopically to insert a stent and allow his bile to drain properly. The doctor had warned me about this possibility, but everyone kept saying that his drainage was fine.

As of this writing, everything seems okay, and I’m greatly relieved.

So, I’m sure you’re asking at this point, what about Star Wars? After all, that is the natural progression after discussing a gangrenous gallbladder.

I did manage to get to the Lorraine Theater’s midnight show, though it was perhaps not the brightest move. Vic drove there separately, and when the movie was over, I pressed onward to NW Indiana (arriving about 4:30 am) while she went home. Shows just how much she loves me, considering all the trouble she went through just to accompany me to a flick she didn’t even care about. (For the record, she admits to enjoying it quite a bit, though, as always, she says that it “needs a good editor.”)

Furthermore, after spending Thursday at the hospital, I went to see it agin that evening, this time at the River Oaks in Calumet City, Illinois. The River Oaks is a colossal barn of a movie theater in which I first saw all of the original Star Wars films, as well as pretty much every other movie of consequence. It was the place to go for event flicks, as it had a ginormous screen which could accomodate 70mm films. Back in the day, you could sit in the front row and have to literally turn your head to see the sides of the screen.

These days, it’s rather run down. The curtains no longer open and close and the sound is muddy. But it’s still huge, and retains an incredible amount of personal nostalgia. So, I had to go while I had the chance.

As for the movie itself?

Wow. I was dumbstruck, but for the first time during the prequel years, in a good way. I honestly didn’t think George Lucas still had such a film in him. I wish that this Lucas could go back and redo Episodes I and II. I’m not certain whether it was because this one was for the future of the franchise, or because he’d just been marking time until now, but he seemed a much more confident director this time out, even if he still has a spot of bother with small things like actors and dialogue.

Since pretty much everything from this point onward is a spoiler, allow me to say that I was thoroughly satisfied by the picture, and am still trying to decide whether it fits in before or after The Empire Strikes Back.

(Stop reading now if you don’t want to know.)

Lucas wasn’t kidding when he said that this one would be dark. While it was certain that things would end quite badly for just about everyone, the manner and magnitude of the deaths was still shocking.

The sequence that affected me most–more than Padme’s death or the youngling massacre–was the “Order 66″ montage. Even though most of the Jedi Knights had been little more than background figures in the prequels, it was sad to see such a diverse, interesting cast gunned down like punks. At least Mace Windu got in his licks before being cast into the depths.

I sat through the last third of the film stunned by the intensity of the images, including the literal hellfire of the lava planet Mustafar. I particularly liked the visual metaphor of Anakin gazing up at a solar eclipse: light being snuffed out by darkness.

While the volcano duel has been part of Star Wars lore since 1977, it didn’t quite turn out as I’d always imagined. No, Anakin didn’t plunge into a lava pit; perhaps Lucas realized that even the Chosen One shouldn’t survive that. The actuality was almost worse: Obi-Wan follows the theme of amputation to its logical extreme and leaves Anakin a limbless torso (thankfully, I didn’t think of Monty Python’s Black Knight at the time), allowing him to burst into flame while pitifully attempting to escape the fiery river. Nasty stuff, but very well done.

Following that was a nightmarish hospital scene, the evil inversion of the bacta tank sequence in The Empire Stikes Back. (It even featured the evil twins of the medical droids that healed Luke Skywalker.) The point-of-view shot of Vader’s visor being lowered onto Anakin’s face felt like a premature burial. Brrrr.

The moment we’d been waiting for all these years finally arrived, the first, booming words of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. How appropriate that they turned out to be so un-Vaderish.

He’s not kidding.

Leaving aside the scary stuff for a moment, I greatly enjoyed the first 20 minutes of the movie: it was exciting, fun, silly and everything I could want from a Star Wars film. There was actual banter as well as moments of honest humor. For the first time, I found Anakin likable and sympathetic. (Especially by film’s end, once everyone including Padme has attempted to manipulate him.) He had matured (somewhat), biding his time and preaching patience. It was nice to see he and Obi-Wan working together as a team.

Nothing could be said about the opening rescue mission without mentioning the role of R2-D2. Since it’s quite likely we’ll never see him again, it was great to have him in full action-hero mode, saving the day several times in rapid succession. (Too bad that Threepio never got the same respect in the prequels; he was barely in this one at all!)

A couple of moments in Episode III cause one to reexamine the rest of the series, and one centers around Artoo. It had long been assumed that the reason the droids didn’t appear to recognize Obi-Wan in Episode IV is that their memories had been wiped. Sure enough, that was Threepio’s fate, but little did we suspect that Artoo retained his knowledge. And why not? No one but Threepio understands him anyway, and he’s always been good about playing his cards close to the barrel. We now know that little Artoo knew all along about Luke and Leia’s parentage. He even knew that he and Threepio shared a “previous life” together!

The other such moment regards the infamous midichlorians, the tiny organisms said (in Episode I) to exist within all living cells and to provide a conduit to the Force. It had been suggested that Anakin’s apparent virgin birth may have been caused by the midichlorians to satisfy the prophecy of a Chosen One.

In Episode III, Chancellor Palpatine (aka the evil Sith Lord Darth Sidious) recounts to Anakin the story of Darth Plagueis, and says that he could influence the midichlorians to create life. While the scene has been left deliberately vague, there are obvious implications.

First, it’s reasonable to assume that Plagueis was Palpatine’s mentor. While Palpatine may have been lying about knowing how to create life as part of his temptation of Anakin, the fact that he brought the midichlorians into it is intriguing. Was Anakin even aware of the theories surrounding his conception, and was Sidious playing to that? Or is he truly suggesting that either he or Plagueis was directly responsible for his existence? If so, did they do so to take advantage of the prophecy of the Chosen One? Or is that prophecy of the self-fulfilling variety?Unfortunately, there will presumably never be in-movie answers to these, but at least the scene does suggest a purpose to the introduction of the midichlorians.

Again, Ian McDiarmid stole the show as Palpatine/Sidious. Finally revealed in all of his cackling, mad glory, he cemented his position as one of the all-time screen villains.

Not faring so well was Natalie Portman as poor, stupid Padme. Not only was most of her role confined to pining in her apartment, she was left to continually remind us about Anakin’s goodness, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. I guess that it would be a bit much to have a woman who appears twelve months pregnant swinging from ropes and such, but she was really screwed (so to speak) in this film.

Much of her role hit the cutting room floor. There was an entire subplot in which she organized some of the senators into the beginnings of the Rebellion. That’s why we have an action figure of young Mon Mothma, who in the finished film appears only in an extreme long shot. I don’t think that the movie loses much, if anything, from the loss of these scenes.

One other cut involves the deceased Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, who was to have shared a dialogue scene with Yoda. (As you may recall, when Anakin slaughters the Sandpeople in Episode II, Yoda hears Qui-Gon’s voice shouting “Anakin! Noooo!”) All that’s left is an out-of-nowhere exchange between Yoda and Obi-Wan regarding Qui-Gon’s ability to return from the afterlife. I understand why it was necessary to explain how Yoda and Obi-Wan ultimately wind up as ghosts, but without the proper set up, it’s a very oddly placed bit of exposition. (It does give an additional significance to Obi-Wan’s statement in Episode IV about becoming more powerful than Vader can possibly imagine, especially given that Vader’s entire reason for existence was his obsession with cheating death.)

It’s surprising just how many of the Hasbro toy tie-ins for Episode III involve characters and creatures that were almost completely cut from the film: not just the missing senators, but a giant bug that was to have been ridden by Yoda. (The dragonfly can be seen in the far distance of one of the Wookiee planet scenes.) There were no jetpack troopers, and the proto-Scout Walkers that have featured heavily in Episode III merchandising only appeared in one shot.

Two toys that made welcome appearances in the film were General Grievous’ wheelbike and Boga the lizard. I really liked Boga, and was sorry to see it seemingly killed. (Though in my reality, Boga swims away to squawk another day.) The wheelbike was a nifty design, and I loved the ratcheting noise it made as it sped along.

For once, the CGI backgrounds and creatures were seamlessly woven into the live action footage (or is that vice-versa?), and even the beast/rider combinations which seemed so fake in previous episodes worked here.

General Grievous was a solid secondary villain, with his four-sword attack echoing Kali from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Thematically, he served as a proto-Vader, an earlier model of cyborg with an even worse breathing problem.

One thing that I felt the film lacked was an explanation of the significance of the name Vader. Since the rest of the Dark Lords had surnames with negative connotations (Maul, Tyranus, Sidious and Plagueis), Vader seemed instead to have been chosen from the Big Book of Sith Names. I was waiting for Palpatine to casually mention his great grandpappy, Joe Vader.

There is one major point in the philosophy of the Star Wars films that I confess that I don’t truly understand, and that’s too bad, as it seems central to the Anakin/Vader/Luke dynamic. That’s the question of “attachments,” which were antithetical to the Jedi Code. Anakin first turned murderous out of anger over lhis mother’s death, and became Vader because he feared losing Padme. Lucas has even suggested that it’s not that Jedi were celibate, but rather that they were selfless and did not enter into commitments. (One wonders whether Lucas feels that way about his own children?)

Yet, one can also read the fall of Anakin and the Jedi as a renunciation of this notion. The Council couldn’t truly support Anakin because his natural-occurring feelings for family were literally outside their experience. By being so inflexible, they offered no help with his spiritual crisis, leading him to seek out Lord Sidious.

Ultimately, Luke Skywalker rejected the counsel of Yoda and Obi-Wan regarding his father. They insisted that Vader must be killed, but Luke felt a hint of goodness in their familial bond. And in the end, he was right.

Moreover, Vader’s redemption, while seemingly a selfless act of sacrifice, indeed came out of this self-same inability to let go of his attachment to Luke: he ended the Sith order and restored balance to the Force to save his son.

I’ve long wondered about this Force-balancing business. In Episode I, there were thousands of Jedi and only two Sith. Seemed unbalanced to me. By the end of Episode III, there were only two of each. While it doesn’t seem as if this is the interpretation Lucas is going after, I still wonder if bringing balance to the Force meant doing away not only with the Sith, but the antiquated ways of the Jedi. At the conclusion of Episode VI, Luke appeared ready to revive the Jedi under his own terms.

Whew. There’s a lot to think about, which is one hallmark of a good movie. And that was Revenge of the Sith: at long last, a good Star Wars movie.

Dave Star Wars

First, a quick dad update: sometime this afternoon he’s having a procedure to have gall stones removed from his bile duct. It’s the sort of thing that involves some sort of scope down the throat; apparently, the throat and the bile duct are somehow connected, but I don’t care to picture how. I don’t plan on driving up for that one, as it doesn’t involve full anesthesia.

Then, sometime tomorrow, he’s going to have his gall bladder removed. And because he was told that people with gall bladder problems frequently have later trouble with the appendix, he’s getting that out too. According to the nurse, it’ll be done lapriscopically, which is apparently less invasive and risky than actual surgery. I don’t know exactly what time it will occur, but I’m still hopeful that I can make it to tonight’s Star Wars midnight madness.

And now, we return you to a galaxy that is neither temporally nor spatially nearby…

Monday night, I completed my Star Wars prequel warm-up by watching all 25 chapters of the animated series Clone Wars. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, the hip creator of such kids’ series as Dexter’s Labratory and Samurai Jack, this spin-off is a highly stylized representation of the period between Episodes II and III.

This is not the first time that Lucasfilm has attempted to extend the film franchise by launching a multi-media assault in lieu of an actual movie, but Clone Wars and its own tie-in products are vastly more successful than the previous attempt, the dire Shadows of the Empire. Perhaps that’s because Shadows had the thankless task of filling the gap between two already extant films. It’s difficult to come up with a compelling story when the audience already knows that absolutely nothing of significance can occur.

The various Clone Wars projects, developed simultaneously with Episode III, don’t have that problem. In addition, they have the benefit of a vast canvas of worlds and an enormous cast of characters.

For some reason, the initial 20 episodes of the animated series are only three minutes apiece, which means that there’s no time for anything but action. (Like Samurai Jack, most scenes play without dialogue.) While that’s a good thing in small doses, it gets a bit numbing all in one go.

That said, it is exciting to watch, and there are battles aplenty. Anakin Skywalker leads a massive aerial assault on the Banking Clan’s orbiting platform, and later fights a duel with a dark assassin on Yavin 4, a moon famed as the home of the rebel base in Episode IV. Mace Windu battles massive hordes of Super Battle Droids on Dantooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi goes jousting with speeder bikes against the villainous Durge, Yoda mounts a rescue mission in the frozen wastes of Ilum, and fan favorite (and unfortunately named) Kit Fisto kicks underwater ass on Mon Calamari.

The final five episodes (produced separately from the original 20) benefit from extended length, which means that there’s time for plot and characterization. Furthermore, they serve as a direct precursor to Episode III, and present the events which lead to the opening scene of the new film. I find them much more fulfilling than the preceding twenty.

If I have one major gripe about Clone Wars, it’s that the Jedi are presented as insanely powerful. The movies have never depicted any Jedi–even Yoda–with anything approaching the might with which Mace Windu flattens legions of Battle Droids with a single stroke. It’s hard to take the Separatist threat seriously when Yoda can cripple starships with a mere wave of his hand. To compensate, Tartakovsky fills the screen with thousands of enemies.

This has been too common in the various spin-off literature. For example, the comic book series Dark Empire gave Emperor Palpatine the ability to create planet-devouring Force storms, whereas Timothy Zahn’s novels suggested that he could simultaneously mind control thousands of clone soldiers. This escalation of power was so great that Zahn had to introduce a sort of Jedi kryptonite which could instantly render them helpless, much like the plot device invented to keep the godlike Superman at bay.

Ultimately, Clone Wars is a worthy and largely satisfying effort with many geek crowd-pleasing moments. If you don’t get a buzz out of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Clone Trooper armor, Kit Fisto smiling at the camera after flattening a Quarren weapons platform, or Mace Windu riding the back of a droid starfighter, then you are not only not a Star Wars fan, you have wasted quite a bit of time reading this article!

Tonight: a little art house release premieres. I think it’s called Return of the Sith or maybe Revenge of the Wookiees. I hope it’s good!

Dave Star Wars

First, there’s been a disruption to my plans for a Week of Star Wars: my dad called last night and told me that he was in the hospital with gall stones. Apparently, they’re going to remove his gall bladder sometime this week, but we don’t know quite when yet, as he takes blood-thinning medication and they have to wait until his blood returns to normal. So, everything’s up in the air right now, and I may (or may not) have to leave on fairly short notice. While I’m not especially worried about it, it is surgery. And it didn’t help that the premise of last night’s Everybody Loves Raymond finale was about a brief hospital scare when Ray had trouble coming out of anesthesia after a minor surgery.

And, of course, what really bugs me is that I have tickets to the midnight show at the Lorraine tomorrow evening. Darn these parents and their inability to schedule their health problems so as not to conflict with my moviegoing plans!

But, for now, it’s back to the galaxy far, far away…

The Phantom Menace was pure, undiluted George Lucas–the film he would’ve made in 1977 if he’d been unfettered by money, technology, studio interference and common sense. Many story elements harkened back to his earliest treatments for Star Wars, and goodness knows, so did the dialogue.

For the second film in the prequel trilogy, Attack of the Clones, Lucas showed a bit of wisdom, pushing Jar Jar Binks to the sidelines, and bringing in another screenwriter to punch up the script. The results are…better.

People who complain about the leaden line-readings in the prequels forget that all of the Star Wars films have had their share of clinkers:

“But I was going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”

“I know. Somehow…I’ve always known.”

So, when teen Anakin begins comparing would-be girlfriend Padme’s smooth backside to the rough sand of Tatooine, absolutely no one should be shocked. Crappy dialogue is so much a part of the series, it’s even commemorated in the form of the oft-repeated line, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

That said, it’s a bit disingenuous when Lucas blames some of the films’ problems on the 1940s style he’s attempting to emulate. It’s not as if sparkling wit was alien to the time period.

I still firmly believe that if Attack of the Clones had been Episode I, there would’ve been far less bitching about the prequels. It brought Star Wars fans more of what we expected in that it centered around the master/student relationship of Anakin and Obi-Wan. It was also a bit closer to the look and feel of the earlier films.

The production designers made a conscious decision to move incrementally nearer the style of the original trilogy, and the surroundings (with the intentional exception of the cloning facility of Kamino) are more angular and much less anticeptic. Coruscant looks like a real city rather than a series of architectural studies, and this adds a lot of energy to an extended chase through the aerial traffic lanes.

The pacing is still awkward, particularly when Anakin takes a side trip to Tatooine just as events are heating up elsewhere, but the action set-pieces are both more frequent and more evenly-distributed.

As with The Phantom Menace, there are some appealing secondary villains, most notably bounty hunter Jango Fett. While I’m not certain that we needed to see the origins of his more famous offspring Boba, nor to tie the two of them into the creation what would eventually become the Stormtroopers, I very much enjoyed Jango’s role. One of my biggest disappointments with the original trilogy was that Boba Fett was more promise than performance; despite an outfit full of death-dealing devices, he never did anything, and he died like a pud. Jango, however, had the opportunity to clear the Fett name.

In general, there’s a great deal more ass-kicking in Attack of the Clones. We finally get to see all those Jedi warriors at full power, and they face a fresh horde of marauding droids and menacing creatures, my favorite being the dinosuar/crustacean known as the Acklay.

Ian McDiarmid continues to impress as the Emperor-to-be. He is smarmy and devilishly devious. I can’t wait to see him fully revealed in Episode III.

Not so good is the romantic subplot. This is one those movies in which you know the characters are in love because they tell you so.

The meadow picnic scene is especially unfortunate. The dialogue once again rears its ugly verbiage, though there’s one good exchange in which Anakin “teasingly” speaks out in favor of dictatorship. However, the visuals are goofy and provoke unintentional laughter, with one shot bearing an unexpected resemblence to the opening of The Sound of Music, and another featuring an unconvincing creature which has been dubbed the “tick-pig.”

Still, in the end there’s a certain power to the doomed love of Padme and Anakin, if for no other reason than that we know just how badly it will turn out. The finale montage is arguably the most effective of the series to date, countering the rise of the Empire with an ill-advised, secret marriage. The preliminaries are out of the way: the Clone Wars have begun, and the fall of Anakin Skywalker will soon follow.

Dave Star Wars

I intend to take a little time each day this week to write about the Star Wars prequels. To that end, this weekend I did something I hadn’t done in a surprisingly long time: watched Episodes I and II in full. You’d think that a major geek like myself would have seen them enough by now to have memorized the dialogue, but the beauty of owning them on DVD is that I can skip straight to the “good parts.”

I was especially interested in rewatching The Phantom Menace. Had the passage of six years blunted what was, at the time of its premiere, a crushing disappointment? Would the knowledge of what was to come in Episodes II and (to a large extent) III cause me to look at it in a different light?

Eh, not so much.

In the film that has now been retroactively dubbed Episode IV: A New Hope, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi describes the lightsaber as “an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age.” The Phantom Menace sets out to portray this more civilized era, and the result is in nearly every way the furthest removed from the rest of the cinematic saga.

When the original Star Wars debuted in 1977, much was made of its design aesthetic, which replaced the familiar, gleaming corridors of 2001: A Space Odyssey with homely living quarters and cobbled-together, hot-rod starships. Later films such as Alien and Blade Runner further developed the notion of a lived-in universe.

The look of The Phantom Menace appears to be a counterpoint to the tradition begun with Star Wars: almost everything outside of Watto’s junk shop is clean, sleek and shiny. There’s a sterile beauty to the skyscrapers of Coruscant and the underwater bubbles of Otah Gunga.

That sterility, unfortunately, extends to much of the dialogue and performances. Gone is the casual banter and bickering of the weary rebels of the original trilogy. Instead, Episode I is populated by politicians, royals and knights, all of whom speak very formally, rarely cracking a joke or even a smile.

A few characters break out from the stuffy pack: Watto, the flying junk dealer, young Anakin Skywalker (yes, he’s still stilted, but it’s not entirely his fault), and everyone’s favorite Gungan, Jar Jar Binks.

Ah, Jar Jar, arguably the most-maligned character in sci-fi film history. Is he as bad as all that? Yes and no.

Jar Jar’s primary crime is that, for a comic relief character, he’s just not that funny. His difficult-to-understand pidgin English dialect doesn’t help, but I think Ahmed Best’s flat performance torpedoes any chance the character had. A really good voice actor might’ve made it work.

Charges of racism were levelled in reaction to the Jar Jar character, and while I do not accept (or, at least, choose not to accept) that this was intentional on the part of writer/director George Lucas, it was very clear from the first that Binks was designed to fill the role that Stephen Fetchit played in the 1930s: the wide-eyed, cowardly, clumsy minority. Perhaps Lucas felt that he could get away with it, given that Gungans don’t exist in our world. If so, casting a black voice actor was a major lapse in judgment.

Episode I betrays the influence of ’30s and ’40s genre flicks more than any of the other Star Wars chapters. The Trade Federation aliens speak like classic Yellow Peril villains, and I still wonder whether their addiction to technology and economic might are intended to be reflections of a certain wartime island nation. Various flourishes invoke the old-time serials; for instance, the Federation cruiser’s viewscreen uses a swirling effect that’s a direct swipe from the Flash Gordon adventures.

What works in The Phantom Menace? Lots, actually. There’s plenty of eye candy: the rolling, deadly Destroyer Droids; the massive underwater monsters of Naboo; the various podracing aliens.

The Podrace itself is a wonderful sequence, and very welcome as it breaks up what is otherwise a lengthy and deadly dull middle section. Some complain that it goes on for too long, but I think it’s an exquisitely constructed action setpiece. Lap one sets up the course and its hazards (including some redneck Sandpeople in one of the film’s few truly funny moments), lap two pits little Anakin against the pack of also-ran contenders, and lap three is, of course, the showdown between Anakin and one of the film’s best creations, the sneering, egotistical, hand-walking alien ace Sebulba.

Qui-Gon Jinn, the elder Jedi who takes Anakin under his wing, is the most interesting of the human characters. On one hand, he is compassionate and has the appearance of wisdom, yet his judgment and even his ethics are somewhat questionable. (Using the Force to cheat at dice, and, of course, defying Jedi wisdom to demand Anakin’s training.)

Also of note is the wonderful Ian McDiarmid as Senator Palpatine, who quietly schemes his way into leadership of the Republic, all the while putting up a charming facade. Although it may not have been immediately apparent to non-fans who didn’t realize that McDiarmid also played the Emperor in Episode VI, Palpatine was on his way to becoming one of the most sinister, Machiavellian villains ever.

It’s Palpatine’s schemes which prove, to me at least, the lie that claims George Lucas makes Star Wars movies solely for the money. Many people complained about the political maneuvering throughout the film, and indeed, it does at times slow the action to a crawl. It certainly doesn’t sell any toys.

There’s a creepy undercurrent to the hijinks of Episode I. While it will not become fully apparent until Revenge of the Sith, all of the heroes’ struggles, sacrifices and victories accomplish little more than setting the Phantom Menace on his path to power. It’s telling that the joyful childrens’ chorus in the closing celebration scene is singing an upbeat version of the Emperor’s Theme from Return of the Jedi. That’s pretty damned cool. And it’s what keeps the first Star Wars film from being nothing but a frivolous exercise.

Dave Star Wars

Next Wednesday–or midnight Thursday if you want to be picky–sees the premiere of the allegedly final chapter of the Star Wars film saga, Revenge of the Sith. (“Allegedly,” because even though George Lucas may be sincere in his desire not to make another movie, and powerful enough to stop anyone else from doing so while there’s breath in his body, presumably he does not share Obi-Wan’s ability to influence events from beyond the grave.)

I am in full geek mode, playing the soundtrack album almost daily, while accumulating an ever-mounting pile of candy dispensers, fast-food toys and action figures. I have my tickets to the midnight show at the Lorraine Theater, and in news that will surely shock many, my lovely wife Vicky–who generally dislikes Star Wars and famously cries that “George Lucas is a hack and a ne’er-do-well!”–is coming along for company. (It also gives her an excuse to take Thursday off, which may be the real attraction.)

It’s welcome news that the early reviews have been largely very favorable, though I note that some of those in the second wave are reacting to the first, saying “it’s not as good as you’ve heard.” Whatever; I survived Episodes I and II, and nothing I’ve read makes me believe that it’s any worse.

If nothing else, it appears set to answer most (though not all) of the questions puzzling long-time, would-be Jedi and to bridge the gap between the prequels and the original trilogy. Certainly, John Williams’ musical score suggests that there will be frequent references to the old films, going so far as to include Princess Leia’s theme and an extended version of the Throne Room march from Episode IV. (The latter is perhaps only second to Vader’s signature tune as my favorite Star Wars music.) If the spoilers I’ve read make the final cut of the flick, there may also be a couple of moments that put on a spin on the entire storyline.

Ah, the spoilers. I admit it, I peeked. And peeked again. I’m weak and impatient. While I don’t know the details, I believe that I know the general order of events and doubt that there’ll be any major surprises. No “I am your father” moments for me, though it’s worth pointing out that I was similarly weak back in 1980 when it came to The Empire Strikes Back: glancing at random pages in the novelization, I accidentally landed on Darth Vader’s big revelation! That was a moment I regret to this day, yet it didn’t keep me from the Dark Side yet again. I look at it this way: reading Lord of the Rings didn’t stop me from enjoying Peter Jackson’s trilogy. The devil (or the Sith Lord) is in the details.

I’m determined to have fun during this final, big blast of Star Wars mania. We first-generation children of the Force will never see its like again. It’s great to see the face of Yoda everywhere, and hear little kids ebulliantly shout “Darth Vader!”

That said, some of the TV commercials are perhaps a bit less than reverential. In a Cingular Wireless ad, Chewbacca is doing voice work for cell phone ring tones, but every one of his growls comes out exactly the same, despite the director’s exhortations. It’s a funny spot, particularly the final shot of various Star Wars characters waiting impatiently for their turn at the microphone, but give the “walking carpet” a bit more credit: he was never such a one-note character.

Similarly, Yoda comes off in a somewhat less-than-flattering light in a Diet Pepsi commercial, using the old Jedi Mind Trick to bogart a cheeseburger and fries from another diner patron. Hey, I thought that led to the Dark Side! Fear leads to french fries, french fries lead to suffering, and all that?

Finally, Darth Vader makes his own out-of-character appearance in a Burger King ad. A guy scratches off his game piece to find that he’s won the million dollar grand prize, only to find Vader at his front door, proclaiming “Brandon, I am your father!” Failing in this first attempt, he declares “I am your…uncle! Brandon, wait!”

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all of the spots, and the Vader one nearly gave me a spit take. I’m not geek enough to suggest that such silliness is sacreligious. I just found it a little odd that the three tie-in commercials I’ve seen incorporating Star Wars characters all have them acting against their nature.

What I don’t find odd is that I’ve yet to see one with a character who originated in the prequels. Guess Jar Jar won’t be snagging someone’s M&Ms.

Dave Star Wars

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, sci-fi scribe Orson Scott Card (author of the tremendously good Ender’s Game and a googolplex of unnecessary spin-offs) opines that “it’s about time” that Star Trek has come to an end with the cancellation of Enterprise.

In his view, the original Trek “was, with a few exceptions, bad in every way that a science fiction television show could be bad.” He adds “As science fiction, the series was trapped in the 1930s–a throwback to spaceship adventure stories with little regard for science or deeper ideas. It was sci-fi as seen by Hollywood: all spectacle, no substance.” Card contrasts this with the fertility and variety of written sci-fi during the ’60s.

There’s some truth there, but it seems to be warped beyond normal space-time. Leaving aside the “bad in every way” hyperbole, it strikes me that much of the early interest in Trek was because of its substance, relative to what else was on the air at time: Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and The Invaders.

Several well-regarded sci-fi authors contributed to the series: George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Jerome Bixby and Norman Spinrad. (David Gerrold, a first-timer when he wrote the episode The Trouble With Tribbles, went on to some literary notoriety as well.) If anything, the original Trek was the one incarnation that best incorporated literary sci-fi.

That said, I can certainly agree that Star Trek follows a direct lineage from Buck Rogers and E.E. “Doc” Smith through Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and Forbidden Planet. Some contemporary written sci-fi offered greater sophistication, and the genre has continued to mature over the ensuing decades. (Though it’s worth pointing out that there’s still plenty of crap at the bookstore.)

Furthermore, Trek eventually became a sci-fi Velveeta: a brand-name, highly-processed product resembling the real thing. In that regard, Card isn’t wrong. I primarily take exception to his opinion that it was never of value in the first place.

What struck me as odd was that in making the point that “we finally have first-rate science fiction film and television that are every bit as good as anything going on in print,” he chooses some questionable examples. Being John Malkovich? Excellent, intriguing flick, but where’s the science? Smallville? Fun take on the Superman legend, but highly formulaic and falling mostly into the spectacle-not-substance category.

What really got me was when he wrote, “Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof have created Lost, the finest television science fiction series of all time…so far.” Really? First off, it’s a bit early to judge, as we’re still in the first season and we’ve yet to see whether any of the series’ many mysteries will achieve a satisfactory pay-off. As much as I enjoy Lost, I’m not alone in fearing that it will eventually sink into the bog inhabited by Twin Peaks and The X-Files. Second, we don’t even know yet if it really is science fiction. For all we know, they’re in Purgatory (the theory favored by many, though I certainly hope not) or being dreamed up by an autistic savant (AKA, “the ol’ St. Elsewhere trick”).

I’d agree that there’s been some terrific sci-fi tubery in the past few years: Firefly, as well as the remakes of Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who. Still, I think it’s important to give Roddenberry’s brainchild its due; much of this legacy might not exist if it hadn’t been for Star Trek‘s generations.

Dave Sci-Fi

While driving home last night, I happened to hear a segment of the Canadian radio show As It Happens regarding Florida’s recent passage of the so-called Jessica Lunsford Act. Lunsford was a nine-year-old girl raped and killed by a previously-convicted sex offender, and the act, unanimously passed by the Florida Legislature and signed into law by Governor Jeb Bush, toughens penalties for sexual predators and increases monitoring of those who have been released after serving their time. Seems reasonable enough, though it is troubling that the law assumes that prison time will have done little to curb their future appetites.

During the interview segment, Florida State Representative Charles Dean, a sponsor of the act, discussed how certain offenders would be fitted with Global Positioning System devices for the rest of their lives. Not merely an anklet or bracelet: the law specifies that the latest, updated technology be employed. That may soon include subcutaneously implanted chips. Dean said, “We know it works on our dogs. My dog is registered that way; he’s got a chip in his neck.”

When asked by the interviewer whether anyone had raised concerns about the law being too tough, and not taking into account the possibility of rehabilitation, Dean replied, “I wouldn’t be opposed to any type of rehabilitative process that we have there, however, that doesn’t compensate for the fact that they’re an offender.” Citing a high rate of recidivism, he added, “We expect something bad to happen, and the way it doesn’t happen is for us to monitor them appropriately and properly.” Again, fair enough.

What caught my attention was the concept of permanently-implanted location devices–the bogeyman of paranoid schizophrenics and survivalists alike–and I’m a little surprised that there hasn’t been more attention to this point. Perhaps that’s due to the emotion involved: these are heinous crimes, perceived as doubly so due to the youth of the victims. I’m willing to concede the possibility that the nature of convicted pedophiles and the relative accessibility of vulnerable children may suggest that constant monitoring is entirely appropriate.

Still, the thought of a government tagging and tracking citizens in perpetuity disturbs me. Sure, no one is going to argue for the rights of convicted sexual offenders; even the ACLU has nothing about the Lunsford Act on its website. But it strikes me as a potential slippery slope. Once we decide it’s okay, even desirable, to “brand” certain people with electronic Scarlet Letters, why not extend the practice to other classes of criminals? Child molestation isn’t the only crime with a high rate of recidivism.

Of course, there’s little to fear for law-abiding members of a society in which no one ever goes to prison for a crime they didn’t commit and the government never persecutes anyone based on their ideology.

Dave Rant

On Saturday, Vic and I went to see the film adaptation of the sci-fi comedy classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The flick had been stuck in Development Hell for at least a decade, and I strongly suspect that the only reason it was ever completed was that Hitchhiker’s author Douglas Adams–a chronic procrastinator–died a few years ago. (I believe that this also accounts for the recent production of BBC radio series based on the third and fourth books in the series.)

The reviews for the film have given it guarded recommendations at best, and I think that’s fair. Vic enjoyed it more than I did, perhaps because she’s less familiar with the source material. (She also really, really loved the dolphin song-and-dance number that opens the film: an insanely catchy ditty entitled, “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish.” She’s been singing it for the last several days.)

Some of the reviews from the die-hard Hitchhiker’s fans would have one believe that it’s some sort of affront to Adams’ work, but that’s hardly the case. I found it to be generally quite faithful, to the point that I knew exactly what the characters would say before they said it. I found myself grateful for the odd bit of unfamiliar dialogue. Clearly, the film was intended to be an affectionate tribute, not a Hollywoodized travesty, and it largely succeeds.

That said, I found myself vaguely unamused by the proceedings. The jokes were there, but the delivery–particularly by Mos Def as Ford Prefect–seemed flat. In addition, Martin Freeman’s take on earthman Arthur Dent lacked the expected level of exasperation. It’s hard for me to tell how much this is really the fault of the performers, and how much owes to my familiarity with previous Hitchhiker’s dramatizations.

I did quite like Steven Fry’s pitch-perfect recitation as The Book, as well as Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast. Nighy has been mooted for the role of Doctor Who over the years, and I can now see why.

The design and effects work are superlative, and–in the case of the Magrathean “factory floor” sequence–wonderful in the precise sense of the word. A lot of thought went into getting the bureaucratic Vogons and their squared-off world just right.

There are some odd diversions from the original plot, and I’m not sure how much they added. First, and least necessary, is a sidetrip to the planet Viltvodle VI to meet a religious leader played by John Malkovich. His character–though created by Adams during the earlier drafts of the screenplay–seems rather sinister for the lighthearted Guide. Furthermore, while it seems as if he’s being built up to be the villain of the piece, he winds up doing little more than writing out Zaphod Beeblebrox’s second head and introducing a literal plot device that comes into play at the film’s end.

Second is the trip to the Vogon homeworld Vogsphere, which at least ties into the aliens’ increased presence in the film version, as well as showcasing the aforementioned design work. (It also results in a line which made me laugh: “I’m British, I know how to queue!”)

Ultimately, the melancholic and futile tone of the original work is undercut somewhat by a couple of Hollywood elements: an awkward love story between Arthur and fellow earthbeing Trillian (he seems rather unbelievably smitten and jealous after only one previous date), and a semi-happy ending which not only reinstates the demolished Earth but its inhabitants as well. (Granted, Adams also relented when it came to the Earth, resurrecting it in the fourth book before destroying it for good in the fifth.)

I wonder if Hitchhiker’s doesn’t simply defy big-screen adaptation. A book or radio series can afford to ramble, a movie not so much. And the humor, while clever, is very dry. At times, I felt as if someone was reciting a joke rather than telling one.

All in all, I would say that it’s worth seeing for visuals and for the honest attempt to bring much of Adams’ unique universe to life. However, in addition to a towel, you should pack diminished expectations for your trip to the theater.

Dave Sci-Fi