Revenge

OK, OK, it was my destiny to see this film. I saw and liked very much the first Star Wars film in 1977, when I was in grad school, so that's a kind of generational commitment. I buy into the consensus that The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the lot, as it keeps the sense of fun from the first one, and adds some depth, emotional coloration, and interest. Like others, I found Return of the Jedi a disappointment: for some reason, Mark Hamill was instructed not to act (not that he was wonderful before), Princess Leia was tricked out in a Fatima costume next to the enormous puppet lech Jabba the Hutt (what in the world is a Hutt, and are there more than one? How could there be?), and Harrison Ford, by now a renowned actor, has to smirk and roll his eyes a lot. But word was out by then that there would be a series of nine films, the next three being "prequels" (the sort of nonce word I hate), and while I didn't like the direction things were going, and certainly didn't sign on to Lucas as a visionary storyteller, I was on board.

Problems with the first three, beyond the downward arc described above: 1) pseudo-theology. Attentive friends had called attention to problems with the Force in the first film (later retitled "Episode IV"), but they became more problematic with The Empire Strikes Back. Yoda speaks cryptic nonsense in fractured grammar, and we're supposed to take it as wisdom? If he can understand everyone else's syntax, why can't he imitate it? The Force is the kind of non-sectarian, New Age crap that represents '60s comic book fantasy: imagine if you could give in to your feelings and move small or even large objects around and anticipate when those glowing energy pulses were about to hit you, and block them with this sword device that a) is about 2 inches across and b) slices through things. Only the Jedi know about the Force, but everyone mumbles "may the Force be with you"? Why do no women have access to the Force (in spite of the revelation that she's Luke's sister in Jedi)? Then there's 2) the Dark Side. You're supposed to get in touch with your feelings, but only if they're the positive sort? Fear and hate lead to the dark side, which gives you more power, but which you're not supposed to indulge? No wonder the Jedi were wiped out. 3) Planetary geography. On Earth there are lots of climates, but in Lucas' world everything is one climate. Tatooine is all desert, the ice planet [not geeky enough to remember the names from this point] is all ice, the forest moon where the teddy bears live is all forest, etc. Other science problems are borrowed from other films, such as how gravity works when you're on a ship in space, how you can have fighter sounds for a dogfight in a vacuum, how you can have energetic explosions when there's no oxygen to combine with flammable materials (all nukes, I suppose), and the big ones, how communication works across the speed of light, and how that barrier is surpassed to allow interstellar travel.

So the prequels. I'm going to keep this short, as I don't want to spend all morning with this, and there will be spoilers, so stop reading if you care about that. The first one was mostly OK. I liked the kid and having some origin for the robots (he makes C3-P0 from a kit of some kind, although how he became fluent in 2 million languages is a good question). The race was kind of fun, and there were a few interesting digital characters brought in. The characterizations were overtly racist--the floating Jewish merchant who owns Anakin's mom, the Mr. Moto separatists causing the trouble, and the pidgin-English Jar Jar Binks, the most egregious abomination in the film. Why in the world would evolution permit a creature with eyes on stalks? Acting again followed the limitations of whatever they did with Return of the Jedi, as Natalie Portman and the Jedi [with apologies to Dorothy Parker] run the emotional gamut from A to B. The next film gives us the acting talents of Hayden Christensen, a gift that the world probably could have done without. There's not discussion of the fact that Padme is 8-10 years older than Anakin, which isn't all that problematic for moi, but if the kids reflect on it, Ew! In this version, there's already too much of the plot's being determined by what has to come in order to convert Anakin into Darth Vader (DV).

But that is one of the key problems in the latest film. You know that Anakin has to give to the dark side, that the Emperor has to emerge from Palpatine (who everyone in the audience knew was the slimeball and chief mover of all the evil). But it happens too easily. Perhaps because the limitations of Hayden Christensen were evident by now, his temptation doesn't require all that much change: should I help Samuel L. Jackson, or Ian McDiarmid? OK, I'll go with the hooded guy. Then there are no conflicts after that, not in lying to his pregnant wife, not in dealing with other Jedi, including his mentor, Obi-Wan, and not in offing the egregiously silly-titled Younglings. Please. Younglings? Wasn't that a '60s rock group? The spunky Padme now is reduced to largely a baby factory. And she dies because she's Lost the Will to Live? Please. Anakin has doubled in his Force force, but we have to take his and others' word for it. What's this about his being the Chosen One? Have we stumbled into The Matrix? If he's so Chosen, why is he so easily influenced by liars like Palpatine? Why doesn't the Force him with understanding reality?

And if Jedi are such shrewd politicians and seers, why are they so easily wiped out with a word from Palpatine to his soldiers? Back to that confrontation with the Mace man--if Palpatine / Sidious can shoot lightning from his fingers, why doesn't Vader do that in the later / earlier films?

I'm going to come back to this topic, probably to this post, as more things suggest themselves than I have time and patience for.

No more cold turkey

Well, I didn't make it quite 48 hrs. I was messing around with dinner while the other occupant of the house had Bravo's West Wing week on, near the end of year two, with some really good bits, and I succumbed. So that was about 43 hrs. I'm OK with that--I was getting tired of playing early Beatles songs in my head. I was going to knock off a little early anyway to watch the Pistons game.

Doing this activity once is valuable, but there are diminishing returns.

Cold turkey

I don't know why cold turkey gets a bad rap. Especially if it's smoked and sliced thin, it's not bad . . .

For anyone who may stumble onto this weblog who is not in my spring Engl 212 class (Writing About Popular Culture), I've asked them to pick a 48-hr. period and go without mediated popular culture (TV, film, popular music, print media, internet sites that aren't principally between individuals). It's an assignment I always do myself, in order to experience what I'm asking for.

This semester, I decided to take my two-day period in the middle of the week, and distract myself from the unaccustomed silence by class prep and exercise. I just got back from skating on the local rail trail, which gets harder every year (i.e., I get older). As far as doing without media, that hasn't been too hard so far. I find myself with a lot of music in my head, and I can remember, say, "Lola" by the Kinks or the first movement of Dvorak's Seventh Symphony and not miss much. (OK, I miss a lot, but I get the melody and harmonic structure.) That's an illustration perhaps of how much music (popular or classical) gets into our heads.

So far I've encountered media a couple of times. CNN was playing on the TV in the snack bar on campus. I've had long experience ignoring CNN, so that's no problem. And without thinking much about it I picked up a Calvin and Hobbes book when in the restroom. If I were to include advertising as something to be avoided, the whole exercise would be pointless. Driving to campus I pass perhaps 30 billboards; there's likely to be a big Doritos truck; cars come with model names and brand names right on them; restaurant signs and such get into our consciousness, if only briefly. Does that matter?