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A Legend Unravels…

Twenty years ago, I liked Michael Jackson. Everyone did. Twenty years ago, I liked STAR WARS. Everyone did.

Poff Maul

Look what happened to Michael Jackson. Look what happened to STAR WARS.

Both these entities were done in NOT by lack of funding, backstabbing competitors or unbalanced advisors. Ironically, they brought their downfalls on themselves through a surfeit of funding which removed them from any competition and tipped them into insular universes within their own strangely shaped heads.

All that said, STAR WARS: EPISODE I – THE PHANTOM MENACE is simply amazing. It is absolutely astounding how much nothing this much money can buy.

Now remember, PHANTOM MENACE was birthed into the world long after the STAR WARS canon entered world vernacular, like red corpuscles in the Earth’s bloodstream. So it is all the more painful to see the cancer of The Prequels eating our childhood dreams away.

George Lucas (Mr. Insular himself) writes and directs and ruins as he goes. If he had just surrendered his chokehold on his writer’s pen and precious director’s chair, we wouldn’t have this facsimile of a movie sullying the legend that he himself brought to life 20 years ago.

an even longer time ago…

Qui-Gon Jinn Movie opens with two Jedi Knights, young “padawan” Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his “Master” Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson, with a THUNDERDOME mullet), on a diplomatic mission to resolve a Trade Federation dispute. Immediately, we are lost: not only because George Lucas thrives on cloaking the simplicity of his stories with obfuscating politics, but because no one will admit that the Jedi translation of “padawan” is “bitchboy.”

Obiwan Kenobi Qui and Obi immediately get into trouble, like a couple of intergalactic Gilligans; lightsabers sizzle, robots frizzle, and the two flat-faced aliens who sent the robots realize they are neck-deep in shizzle. This opening sequence is actually the best part of the movie, as we get to see real Jedi in action – their prowess spoken of in three films and only marginally displayed by neophyte Luke, smug Darth and doddering Alec Guinness.

Jar Jar Binks Master and Bitchboy then flee the T-Fed conference after blowing things up and land on a planet where they meet Jar Jar Binks (voiced/mo-capped by Ahmed Best). Proof positive that George Lucas hates his fans.

Queen Amidala Meanwhile, Natalie Portman is learning her lines to play Queen Amidala, reciting them without a shred of emotion, and Lucas is filming all her rehearsal takes in funny wigs. (At least, I hope those are rehearsal takes.)

Mace Windu I don’t know what Jules Winnfield is doing here…

Anakin Skywalker Qui, Obi and Jar crash-land on Tattooine (something to do with the hyperdrive that no one ever fixes properly) and meet an irritating slave boy called Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) and his virgin mother (Pernilla August). And here, ladies and gentlemen, is George’s greatest casting mistake ever, even worse than non-actor Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, even worse than non-actor Hayden Christensen as teen Darth, even worse than that non-actor Empire extra with the phony looped dialogue, “Holding her is dangerous. Word of this gets out, it could generate sympathy for the rebellion in the senate” – here is the future Darth Vader, a puling, smartmouth, blond American non-actor kid who looks like a refugee from a ’70’s sitcom, playing the icon that haunted our nightmares as we slept on our Star Wars bedsheets.

Is anyone buying this?

Invoking the Jesus myth, Anakin’s mother simply blurts to Qui one day that she “just got pregnant” with Anakin – you’d think she’d save the high maintenance girlfriend talk until after dinner and drinks, but I guess she really had the hots for Qui and his Steven Seagal ponytail and wanted to come clean with him about her divine stretchmarks.

By now, Liam Neeson is not even phoning it in – he’s faxing it, his eyes so glazed over with boredom he never once focuses on all the imaginary CGI shit around him, his inflection never rising above audition level.

Qui-Gon discovers the irritating kid is blessed with a lot of little animals living in his blood, called midi-chlorians. Rather than produce whiter whites – which is what they sound like they do – these midi-chlorians contribute to that mystical power that runs the galaxy – The Force. *I* didn’t say it. George Lucas did. George tells us that the more midi-chlorians in your bloodstream, the stronger The Force is in you. So in EPISODE V, when Yoda speaks to Luke about The Force imbuing the rocks, he was talking about the rocks’ bloodstream? And when Ben Kenobi and Yoda speak of The Force binding the Universe together, they mean billions of these little animals floating around in space? I get it now, George. Really, I do.

We could only watch in helpless horror as George Lucas takes apart his toy and tries to put it back together again, like a retarded Rain Man.

If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
— Anton Chigurh, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

At a Jedi Council, which looks more like an AA meeting for fanboys in funny masks, Qui-Gon tries to sell the midi-chlorians story about young Anakin – but no one’s buying it. They’re on a higher plane of universal consciousness – Prophesy. And we see that it really worked out well: with all their vaunted prophesies and foresight on Anakin being their “Chosen One” who would “bring balance to The Force” – he becomes DARTH VADER!

Oh, and I’m the asshole for being sarcastic?

Darth Maul Padding ensues with a pointless “pod-race,” and the Jedi win the slave boy’s freedom. Before they can leave the planet with him, they are attacked by Gene Simmons – my mistake, it wasn’t Gene, just someone from the KISS Army, Darth Maul (Ray Park). Pissed about something – maybe that KISS did that reunion tour without him. Is this guy’s red-and-black makeup meant to be his skin pigmentation? Only the Geek Squad knows for sure. We might feel sorry for Darth Vader having to intercourse his hyperbaric chamber every morning for his daily dose of breath mask – but think about this guy: every morning, waking at 3 a.m. just to “get his face on” for his badboy jeepster image. Do his co-workers snigger behind his back when he walks down the halls of Darth Center?

Chancellor Valorum Terence Stamp is Supreme Chancellor Valorum and by the looks of his fabulous robes, he’s either an intergalactic senator or a drag queen. Constant puss on his face because —

Senator Palpatine Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is allowed to act feyer than him and is plotting to take over the confused political idiotocracy that they rule over from their hovering frisbees. Political intrigue ensues, our eyes glazing over like Qui-Gon’s in front of a green screen. The Darth boy annoys the crap out of us. R2-D2 goes Action Trashcan Hero. C-3PO is naked. Samuel L. Jackson (as Jedi Mace Windu) tries to sound Shakespearean and still sounds like Jules from PULP FICTION – seems you can take the pimpmaster out of the PULP, but you can’t take the… And Yoda floats around on a hover-chair like some hedonistic Bob Dylan, quoting platitudes until we vomit like abandoned children.

Yoda Y’know, Yoda is a prick. When we met him a long time ago in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, he tells us the Way of The Jedi is asceticism, simplicity, balance… So why does he live in a giant palace floating around on a hover-chair in EPISODE I? His very tenets – the tenets of his cackling religious order – are recanted in this movie. I see all the other Jedi walking, Master Yoda – even if you are saving time with the hover-disco, wouldn’t it be more in keeping with your Holy Order for one of your Bitchboys to backpack you? Seems walking or backpacking are too good for Master Yoda – until the Empire burns his frilly palace down. Let’s face it, you little green hypocrite – you were only living in a cave in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK cos you were on the lam from the Empire which YOU tell us is “evil.” Suuure, I’d consider the people who burned down my palace as evil – but that’s only half the story. Did they burn it down in the first place because you were tyrannizing the secular folk who would not bow to your precious Midi-Chlorian Religious Rule? Hmmm…

“hokey religions and ancient weapons…”

Darth KISS versus Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan! While John Williams‘s cosmo choral music ratchets the tension, Darth Maul, who studied with Jedi Master Little John of the Sherwood Forest Star System, brings it with a double-sided lightsaber quarterstaff.

It is here that Qui-Gon must die. Not because Darth Maul’s midi-chlorian count was higher (which is obvious if he bested Qui-Gon), not because it served the plot, but because Liam Neeson’s fax machine ran out of paper. Neeson showing his utter contempt for this project by not allowing Lucas to use his spirit form in any further prequels/sequels. Kenobi and Yoda appear to Luke every time he stubs his toe, to offer sage advice on how to rub the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again, yet when Kenobi was a young man in need of spiritual guidance, Qui-Gon, a supposedly powerful Jedi Master, can’t bother to scare up the ectoplasm.

But why do Qui and Obi insist on battling Maul – an obviously superior dueler – with lightsabers when they could have just as easily used a blaster on him? The Jedi ethos seems to purvey that – as in HIGHLANDER – a Jedi should not and cannot be killed unless he is swashbuckled to death by a beam of light. Or do they insist on using this obsolete lightsaber technology due to a misplaced honor code?

Han Solo says in EPISODE IV, “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster any day.” Proven time and again throughout the series: Obi-Wan himself uses a blaster against General Grievous in REVENGE OF THE SITH (and then complains, “How uncivilized!” – that “uncivilized” blaster could have saved us ten minutes of padding with the lizard-riding and redundant quadruple-lightsaber swooshing); also in SITH, Jedi across the galaxy are brought down not by lightsabers, but by blasters. Easily. Midi-chlorians on vacation that day?

If there’s that much “honor” among Jedi, why do so many of them turn to the Dark Side? And upon turning to the Dark Side, why then bother using the “honorable, civilized” lightsaber? You’ve already turned to the genocidal, dishonorable Dark Side – d’ya think killing kids with a lightsaber is more “honorable” than with a blaster?

non-aiming robots

Meanwhile, down on the planet of wimbleys or something, a completely illogical land battle is taking place between Jar Jar Binks’s Gungan race of agrarian ostrich-riders and Imperial robots who can’t aim. Illogical because the Empire’s firepower can obliterate the Gungans and they insist on taking the battle down to Gungan level by employing ineffectual ground troops – those absolutely useless, waste-of-evil-taxpayer-dollars “battle” droids. (Like these futile drogues who never hit anything even know what “battle” is.)

These things are robots – shouldn’t they have AIMING MECHANISMS? For economic purposes, shouldn’t their guns be built into their arms, with re-loadable magazines slotted into their bodies? At least those rolling droids have built-in guns – but what’s the point if the guns are programmed for “Fire Arbitrarily in General Direction of Enemy and Hope for the Best”? (And no, I don’t know what those rolling droids are called, but I’m sure you can find out on the Star Wars Information Line at 1-800-NO-GIRLFRIENDS.)

After we realize the movie has degenerated to every single pixel onscreen being a special effect, we take a nap. When we wake up, everything has worked out fine in the end, just like a big fat family sitcom in space. With no one ever figuring out just who or what the “phantom menace” actually is.

No two synopses for PHANTOM MENACE can agree on what PHANTOM MENACE is really about, except that it introduces to cinema the most annoying kid in the world and claims he’s Darth Vader. What can really be learned from these Prequels, except that there was a lot more sky traffic – and the Empire seemed to have cleared up that problem by EPISODE IV.

Big Government. Who needs it? We do. If they can clean up sky-traffic like that, go right ahead and keep phantom menacing me, midi-chlorians, maxi-chlorians, ultra-chlorians, I don’t care – as long as I can get across town for a Hefeweisen with a buddy without busting a blood vessel stuck in the belly of a steel snake and giving the finger to ten jerks who drive as if they owned the skies like the Trade Federation…

And like Big Government, PHANTOM MENACE talks too much, dazzles with special effects, overdoses on misdirection – and says nothing.

END

CGI = Cast Grossly Inessential.

George Lucas doesn’t make book on The Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love. Flagrantly disregarding the word “budget,” Lucas feels that by throwing the baby, the bathwater, the soap AND the rubber ducky at audiences, it will buy him the love and respect he seems so desperately to be craving.

STAR WARS: EPISODE II – ATTACK OF THE CLONES is a cry for help; a glutted, ostentatious syrup of coagulative computer pixelation, which detracts from the reason why those effects are there in the first place – to lend credence to the human story which they end up overshadowing. It is obvious that no veteran director ever sat down with George as a young filmmaker – no John Huston or Milos Forman – and advised the neophyte, “Y’know, George: Less Is More.” Pile upon redundant pile of superfluous graphic imagery stuns you into almost not laughing at the hamhanded attempts at characterization and kindergarten dialogue in this vacuous corporate merchandising advertisement thinly-disguised as a movie. Nonetheless, like EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, this film will eventually be logged as “better than the first” – but still only slightly less excruciating than passing a kidney stone.

Obi-Poff Kenobi
(and imperative green screen)

That being said, on some levels, CLONES is a great movie – for reasons that Lucas’s target demographic of superfreaks and cybergeeks probably couldn’t even fathom: the actual storyline rivals that of Frank Herbert’s classic DUNE series (political intrigue set against a science fiction cyclorama), yet the manner in which the tale is imparted is witless. The imagineering of the wondrous visuals IS genius, as are the effects mavens who continue to pioneer their art form. But effects do not a movie make – this is not a catalogue for a suite of outboard tools, it is a story told in moving pictures.

Stephen King has opined many times that “It is the tale, not he who tells it,” but I have never agreed with him on this point. Consider: you can be told the same joke by two different people and while one of them loses the plot, forgets the punchline and makes you wish you had not made eye contact with them on the way to the lunchroom, the other will make you wonder why he is not plying his trade as a comedian, in the stead of despicable hacks like the Pauly Shores and Adam Sandlers of this talentless town. Ultimately, “it is NOT the tale, BUT he who tells it.” Lucas can think up The Tale, but he should leave it to his good buddy Spielberg to TELL it. It has become passé to criticize Lucas’s recent STAR WARS efforts, a major reason being that he has the clout to secure the greatest actors in the world, then abjectly ignores their interplay in the grandiose fictional worlds he has forged for them. One could say that this movie’s gaping flaw was its technical perfection – whilst all humanity suffered around that perfection…

Watching Hayden Christensen (the nascent Darth Vader) interact with Natalie Portman (as Padme) or Ewan MacGregor (reprising his Obi-Wan) makes your skin crawl with embarrassment. This is not even phone-in material – did Lucas do any second takes at all?! Every line between Darth Anakin and Padme Portman reeks of Lucas (and whoever else is responsible for the reprehensible script) rifling through teen magazine advice columns and copying the conversations verbatim. And get those two a kissing coach, George – their onscreen lip-smudges exuded all the reticent passion of a Michael Jackson public-woman-kiss. Portman’s inherent sexual heat (played upon gratuitously in her primo role as 12-year-old Mathilda in LEON, 1994) is now, at an age when it should be searing celluloid, nonexistent amidst the clutter of machinery and glutted blue-screen babble. Even those dumb, slutty outfits (ostensibly ex-queenery attire) do nothing to propel her plasticism into three-dimensionality.

dramatis personae

Christopher Lee suddenly appears in the movie, as the raging Count Doofus, having lost his way from THE LORD OF THE RINGS sound stage and figuring that no one would realize he was playing the same role. Master of the Dracule race, still undead, of all the titles he could have been bequeathed by Lucas, amusing he ended up yet again as a “Count.”

Temuera Morrison, largely unknown in these United States (except for his cataclysmic role in the New Zealand cult classic ONCE WERE WARRIORS), was another surprise, as the clone-model bounty hunter Jango Fett, whose freight-train stature lent just that subtle hint of sarcasm to his best line, “I’m just a simple man, trying to make his way in the universe.”

Anthony Daniels returns, clad once again as golden droid C-3PO. Unfortunately, in this movie, he only took over where Jar-Jar Boolum-Head left off in the last one. Lucas seems intent on inserting a staple lowbrow element in this series to keep the 3 Stooges fans wetting ’em in the aisles. Whereas Daniels’s fey English Butler/Dr. Smith routine only got better in the first three real STAR WARS movies as he became more accustomed to the character, we are now subjected to a fusillade of desperate, non-funny schtick from Daniels, his vapid repartee obviously culled from out-takes of MARY-KATE & ASHLEY and THE HOGAN FAMILY. Describing his role as “dull and clichéd” does it justice! All that was gold definitely did not glitter this time ’round.

And speaking of that computer-graphic twit, JarHead, his role has mercifully been minimized in this film, though he is involved in one of the film’s pivotal plot events: having been bequeathed ad hoc senatorial power, he casts his vote in favor of the Evil Guys (don’t ask me to outline the plot – I wasn’t really paying attention at that point), thereby making the winter last four more months when he doesn’t see his shadow… though it’s hard to buy the plot contrivance that placed him in that senatorial position in the first place. Who in their right mind would hand over senatorial duties to a marmoset with the reasoning capacity of Curly Joe Besser? Anyway, the less said about that thing, the better. My ears are hurting just thinking about trying to decipher what that thing keeps saying, “Me so hooorny! Me love you long time! Me love you… too much!”

real actors displaced in this fantasy

Samuel L. Jackson, as Yoda’s sidekick/bitch, Shaft Windu, delivering his lines like he’s chowing down on a Big Kahuna Burger;

Jimmy Smits, as the Persian-Rug-wearing senator/porn-star, Trey Orgazmo, just longing for a role where he could be as ethnic as he wants to be;

Jack Thompson, halfheartedly reading his sides, about his “wife being kidnapped or something…”;

Hayden Christensen, whose acting talents were constantly lauded in all the press junkets, yet who brought a wooden-ness to his role that Christopher Reeve could only dream of bringing to the SUPERMAN movies;

Natalie Portman, who was out-acted by her dresses;

Ian McDiarmid, as Emperor Palpatine, wearing too much makeup even for the drag-queen that he was portraying. Fortunately, he took those Vincent Price lessons by EPISODE VI and showed us how to elevate insouciance to a whole ‘nother level with his delivery of the line, “And now, young Skywalker… you will die…”;

one of the Tusken Raiders, who was leaning up against a tent as if he was “acting like a Tusken Raider leaning up against a tent”; and finally,

Liam Neeson, whose presence in this episode was as powerful as his presence in the last one…

interminable scenes that may kill you

Chasing Padme’s would-be assassin through crowded flying traffic: Trying to secure a deal with Universal Studios for a tie-in rollercoaster ride, are we, George?

Jango Fett battling Obi-Wan Kenobi: Knowing that Obi is not going to die until EPISODE IV (and even then, Luke can’t get the stank of Obi’s Force out of his head, as he crops up contractually during X-Wing battles, Ewok celebrations and comic-book tie-ins), is there really any tension in this scene?

Any scene where Anakin and Padme are alone: What could I have possibly done in my wretched life to deserve this?

The arena lightsaber battle between the Compleat Jedi Book Club and Count Doofus’s misprogrammed robots: How can I be so sure they’re misprogrammed? Well, when a human aims a blaster, their human imperfections don’t allow them to target a point perfectly every time; but if a robot is programmed to fire a blaster at a target, it isn’t thinking about whether it left the oven on – without any mental distractions, it is targeting its objective with pure mathematics and (possibly) sonar or radar alignment. How then could this army of robots, this veritable Phil Spector Wall Of Blasters POSSIBLY fire so many shots into the ground and into the surrounding edifices when ALL their shots should be finding their marks or, at the very least, deflected by Jedi lightsabers? And Padme does not even have a defense weapon! – she only has a blaster, firing arbitrarily into the surrounding blue-screen, hoping that no one will notice the conceptual flaw due to her bare midriff. If I was Count Dookie, I’d be getting my money back on these pieces of trash – typical Fry’s Electronics garbage.

Any scene with Jarjar Binks in it: Don’t get me started. Poor Ahmed Best.

Notwithstanding Lucas’s ineptitude, three unstoppable real-life actors rose above the morass of CGI fartwork: Christopher Lee (playing a role he has commandeered since time immemorial); Ewan MacGregor (holding his own in the dwarfing shadow of Sir Alec Guinness, whose young counterpart he plays), and Yoda (who was directed by Clint Eastwood). A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) a master of puppets (Frank Oz) created and voiced Yoda, in the role of comic relief and crippled, enigmatic, green sidekick – but an even longer time ago (this EPISODE – ATTACK OF THE CLONES), a Jedi UberMeister proved he ain’t no Muppet, throwing down against the mighty Count Doobie; as lightsabers clash and burn between Count Vlad and the High Plains Jedi, it is obvious that the only way out for Christopher Lee is to cheat and then run like a girly… More sequels on the way…

Or should I say “PREquels”? The trend of the sequel has arguably been overrun by the last few years’ trend of prequels. As Lucas wrapped production on the first of his Star babies (PHANTOM MENACE), the prequel to the Superman saga, SMALLVILLE, was already on the small screen; we have seen the YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES, the YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERIES, MUPPET BABIES, BEFORE THEY WERE ROCK STARS, MOVIE STARS’ HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOKS; we have even been subjected to THE THORN BIRDS: THE MISSING YEARS (did anyone even know or care?)… Now here comes the prequel-to-the-sequel of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS – RED DRAGON, which is itself a remake (?!?!) of MANHUNTER…

Like Eddie van Halen before him (who did not invent fingertap, but brought it to the masses), Lucas did not invent the “prequel”, but he will be the person at whose feet will ultimately be laid the blame for the rash of impostors and wannabes that keep us rolling our eyes.

As Yoda’s last words in this film portend, “The attack of the clones… has begun!…”

END