may the farce be with you
Have you ever been leaving your apartment late for work only to realize that after your shower you forgot to dry yourself off from the waist down? You walk outside and the wind picks up and a thrilling draft curls up your pant leg. You know you will be a little uncomfortable and clammy for half the day but, on the other hand, you can’t help but feel a little tingly surge of delight. And besides, there is nothing you can do about it now.That’s exactly how I feel about Tuesday’s release of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. (Well, not really exactly “exactly” but that actually happened to me this morning and I wanted to work it in.) You will not find a greater Star Wars fan than me. And, even though I am not one of those fans that try to make a Honda motorcycle into a speeder bike or ruin a perfectly good conversation about morality by talking all backwards and junk like Yoda, it doesn’t mean that I am not one of the militant devoted. Just because I don’t make my girl call my wang “Boba Fat,” it doesn’t mean I don’t care. And so what if I know all the real names of all the creatures in the Mos Eisley Cantina? I’m not going to name any of my children after them. As far as my kid’s names are concerned, I’m going to go for something elegant like famous Scottish outlaws or models of cars I’ve owned. “Skylark stop touching Rob Roy and Braveheart, if you don’t put Lumina down this second, I swear, I WILL take your life AND your freedom.” I do admit; I have tried to use The Force many times to retrieve remote controls and once on a police officer in New Orleans. Take it from me…“These aren’t the drugs you’re looking for,” sounds better in your head.
Still, I greet the new DVDs with both joy and the resigned apathy for which I am known. I have waited too long to get those precious elements of my childhood on DVD but they are the Special Editions with certain added stuff that Mad King George felt could be fixed or tweaked.
Some stuff is an improvement; matters like removing the white rectangles that ghost many of the ships in space or cleaning up some of the grainy footage are awesome. But there are also blasphemous superfluities, like making Greedo blast first or planting Hayden Christensen as the spectre of Vader in the final ghost scene beside Yoda and the old Ben Kenobi.Now, I’m not the kind of guy that says,
“My childhood is ruined. I’m going to kill Ahmed Best and shave off George Lucas’ beard and use it for voodoo to bring Alec Guinness back from the dead to strike him down.”
But there’s a lot of animosity out there. To borrow a euphemism; there are Mynocks chewing on the power cables. Some fans are angry and I can dig it.
I haven’t made it to the store yet but I have heard that those despised aquatic boobs, the Gungans, have finally penetrated what is referred to by the hardcore as “The Canon.” Apparently they added yet another celebration scene to the end of “Return of the Jedi” in which Jar Jar’s bros can be seen dancing on the rooftops. I am firmly of the opinion that adding those imbeciles to anything makes it worse. Put a picture of Jar Jar on tabs of X and just see if you can give it away at a rave. I’ll probably get fired for mentioning them in this article and I get paid in movie passes. One reviewer on Amazon facetiously suggested that Scorsese should turn “Taxi Driver” into “Fast and the Furious” because the technology is now available and they have started spelling the maker’s name: Luca$. One person was mad that they removed the “Ewok song,” and that was hated by the same kind of people the first time around.People say it’s a joke.
”Space Balls” was great at the time but in retrospect I think its Mel Brooks poorest film ever. If you’re looking for a good “Star Wars” parody check out “The Phantom Menace.” Why was Darth Vader played by Charlie Brown?
It’s hard for younger people to get a feel for what it was like once. If you combined “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of The Rings” into one phenomenon it would seem like an creepy, secret society of perverts compared to the total saturation of Star Wars from ’80 to ’85. Those first three films ARE Star Wars to many of us and I think people would complain if you moved a vine on Dagobah. For many, the only improvement that could be made is removing Slave Leia’s metal bikini altogether.
I’m not even close to finished on this subject. I could write every column about Star Wars.
But, in conclusion, the guy that keyed the dirty word on my car last night better watch his ass because I’m totally gonna go all Death Star on it.
Still, I greet the new DVDs with both joy and the resigned apathy for which I am known. I have waited too long to get those precious elements of my childhood on DVD but they are the Special Editions with certain added stuff that Mad King George felt could be fixed or tweaked.
Some stuff is an improvement; matters like removing the white rectangles that ghost many of the ships in space or cleaning up some of the grainy footage are awesome. But there are also blasphemous superfluities, like making Greedo blast first or planting Hayden Christensen as the spectre of Vader in the final ghost scene beside Yoda and the old Ben Kenobi.Now, I’m not the kind of guy that says,
“My childhood is ruined. I’m going to kill Ahmed Best and shave off George Lucas’ beard and use it for voodoo to bring Alec Guinness back from the dead to strike him down.”
But there’s a lot of animosity out there. To borrow a euphemism; there are Mynocks chewing on the power cables. Some fans are angry and I can dig it.
I haven’t made it to the store yet but I have heard that those despised aquatic boobs, the Gungans, have finally penetrated what is referred to by the hardcore as “The Canon.” Apparently they added yet another celebration scene to the end of “Return of the Jedi” in which Jar Jar’s bros can be seen dancing on the rooftops. I am firmly of the opinion that adding those imbeciles to anything makes it worse. Put a picture of Jar Jar on tabs of X and just see if you can give it away at a rave. I’ll probably get fired for mentioning them in this article and I get paid in movie passes. One reviewer on Amazon facetiously suggested that Scorsese should turn “Taxi Driver” into “Fast and the Furious” because the technology is now available and they have started spelling the maker’s name: Luca$. One person was mad that they removed the “Ewok song,” and that was hated by the same kind of people the first time around.People say it’s a joke.
”Space Balls” was great at the time but in retrospect I think its Mel Brooks poorest film ever. If you’re looking for a good “Star Wars” parody check out “The Phantom Menace.” Why was Darth Vader played by Charlie Brown?
It’s hard for younger people to get a feel for what it was like once. If you combined “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of The Rings” into one phenomenon it would seem like an creepy, secret society of perverts compared to the total saturation of Star Wars from ’80 to ’85. Those first three films ARE Star Wars to many of us and I think people would complain if you moved a vine on Dagobah. For many, the only improvement that could be made is removing Slave Leia’s metal bikini altogether.
I’m not even close to finished on this subject. I could write every column about Star Wars.
But, in conclusion, the guy that keyed the dirty word on my car last night better watch his ass because I’m totally gonna go all Death Star on it.
posted by S.K. Akin at 9/30/2004 01:16:00 AM
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