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May 20, 2002 - DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE



The Unprecedented Happens
It's been four days, yet I'm still trying to get over the mind-boggling events of May 16. After a nice fluke of processing on Fandango.com, I somehow scored tickets for myself and some coworkers to the digital projection screening of the latest installment of Star Wars on opening day. As luck would have it, I happen to work across the street from the only theatre in Silicon Valley showing the movie in digital.

Armed only with shades and cell phones (sorry, we're too cool for plastic light sabers or Darth Vader masks), a pair of us abandoned work a bit early to begin the wait among the great (literally) unwashed to witness the cultural phenomenon known as Episode II. It wasn't long after we got in line that we geeks - that is my fellow web nerd co-worker and I - realized that we don't deserve the label anymore. We weren't the ones dueling with light sabers between rows of parked cars. We weren't the ones dressed up in robes. And we certainly weren't the ones dressed as a Tauntaun. (You know, those bipedal creatures from the ice planet of Hoth that Han Solo thought smelled bad on the outside.) Sure, I was in the chess club and the sci-fi club early in high school, but for once, I did not resemble the term "geek." (This goes well beyond the whole "Library Loser" thing, as well - see link on left.)

By the time the line started moving and people were taking their seats, I suddenly felt as though I were in Pamplona, Spain, directly in the path of the Running of the Bulls. My life flashed before my eyes as I was nearly trampled by a rushing crowd of mouth-breathing geeks. Never before had I seen the morbidly obese run so fast. At the moment, I couldn't appreciate the wonder of this spectacle, too busy fearing for my life. Carl Lewis couldn't have beaten these behemoths to a good seat. If George Lucas released a new movie every week, there'd be no obesity problem in America. I kid you not.

Shortly thereafter, I saved some seats, yapped with my colleagues, and then the truly unprecedented happened: I thoroughly enjoyed an overhyped movie.

It's Not All Good
Unlike it's Gungan-filled predecessor, Attack of the Clones won't be in the running for a Golden Raspberry. But truth be told, it's no Oscar contender, either.

Natalie Portman and her romantic lead Hayden Christensen share all the chemistry of oil and vinegar, without the kick of balsamic. Their performances are so flat, Parisian runway models are protesting in jealousy. While they may be the "it"-girl and "it"-boy for the next few months, it's hard to believe it was their torrid romance that spawned future heroes Luke and Leia.

The primary baddie in this installment, Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), is so cheesily melodramatic, one could confuse him with Christopher Guest's "Man with Six Fingers" in The Princess Bride. Even bad-ass Samuel L. Jackson couldn't do anything for the Lucas-penned dialogue. The only noteworthy performance was turned in by Ewan McGregor, and that's to be expected: he wowed us as a likeable junkie in Trainspotting, made kidnapping fun in A Life Less Ordinary, and even made it cool for guys to do musicals again in Moulin Rouge. If anyone could save a Lucas-penned script, it's this guy.

If you haven't bothered to notice already, Georgie isn't exactly the finest writer. (Yeah, yeah, who am I to criticize?) First off, his dialogue is stiffer than Robert Blake's wife. Secondly, he recycles the same phrases repeatedly (e.g. "delusions of grandeur," "be mindful"). Third, he couldn't write romance if Harlequin fronted him $500m for his next story. No, I'm afraid he can't write anything more complex than a dirty limerick.

So if he can't write, he can direct, right? If you look back at the series thus far, you'll see that Lucas directed only the original Star Wars and the less-than-inspiring Phantom Menace. Other highlights on his directorial resumé include film masterpieces like Howard the Duck. The point? Lucas is not a great director. The best film in the series (do I even need to mention that it's Empire?) was directed by Irvin Kirschner, and he wisely left the direction of his Indiana Jones franchise to buddy Steven Spielberg.

What George Lucas can do, however, is transpose his simple boyhood fantasies into a galaxy far, far away, and more than that, he can make it cool enough that a tiny part in all of us - geek or not - wishes it was real.

Making Fantasies Come True
Forget what those late night ads for 900-numbers say. No one will make your fantasies seem a reality unless their name is Walt Disney or George Lucas. Disney's frozen in carbonite somewhere now, and his amusement parks - while great expressions of fantasy - are too expensive or too far to be an escape for everybody. Lucas - despite his physiological challenge of having no chin whatsoever - is still alive and well and from his home office in Marin County, he's cranking out fantasies that can be played out for about $9 a pop at the local multiplex.

No, watching a fantastical movie doesn't make it any more real than the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. (I hope I didn't burst anyone's bubble there - newsflash: they're non-existent.) But by using the latest technology, Lucas makes it look real. Furthermore, by basing his stories on very simple desires, frustrations and ideals that are practically universal, the chinless one taps into the feelings and hopes of just about everybody but the biggest stick-in-the-mud curmudgeons. Forget all the writers' comparisons to Wagnerian opera cycles or eastern philosophy or gun-slinging westerns. While all those references may be accurate, the part of the Star Wars universe that appeals to so many millions of people is that no matter how out-of-this-world everything may be, we relate to them.

At some point, we've lived the same moment as one of the protagonists. Perhaps you know of someone who wants to better his situation by escaping his current life on the farm. Maybe you've wanted to resolve the dysfunctional relationship with your father. You may well know a girl who was annoyingly pursued by some brash guy, only to find he has a good heart. At one time or another, you've probably felt you knew more about something than the person who was teaching you. And while you'll probably never levitate a pear-like fruit and feed it to a senator from Naboo, you probably fantasize about such powers and such dalliances.

Cheese on the Side
Since the commercially successful concept of taking over Imperial forest moon bases with teddy bears, George Lucas has been unafraid of using some of the most juvenile drivel to fill time in his stories. Through Episode I, we suffered through the insufferable Gungans, the cartoonish creatures of the Pod Race, and even cameos by E.T. the Extra-terrestrial in the Galactic Senate chambers.

Thanks to a fan uproar, Episode II was not graced by N'Sync (a similar blunder did occur in Spider-Man, where flash-in-the-pan recording artist Macy Gray's appearance will date the movie permanently). But we still had to suffer through several minutes of Jar Jar Binks, the awfully juvenile anti-smoking message via the solicitation of "Death Sticks" by a character named "Elan Sleazebaggano" (hey Lucas, did the check from Truth.com go through yet?) and a scene in a diner straight out of Earth in the 1950's. Wasn't that done in Spaceballs? Oops.

Despite a few groans here and there, me and a thousand of my closest geek friends roared and cheered and applauded throughout the film, and the same was happening simultaneously at several thousand theatres elsewhere. For two hours and fifteen minutes, it didn't matter whether someone was hygenically challenged, too fat for a single seat, chewing popcorn with their mouth open, reciting lines from THX-1138 or simply too cool to admit they know who played C-3PO (Anthony Daniels). For 135 minutes, millions communed as one to see a boy start to become Darth Vader. And to see Yoda open up a can of whoop-ass.

Omid is planning on watching Episode II: Attack of the Clones again, if only to see Yoda lead the Jedis into battle again. He has a particular fondness for the little green one, because he reminds him of his maternal grandmother. (Ewwwwwwwwww or Awwwwwwwww?)