Round 6: Princess Leia vs. Princess Leia The technical crew is filling the ring with Jello for our grand finale, the Alderaanian Princess Jello Wrestling competition.  The guys are hooting and hollering and the girls are rooting for their favorite incarnation of the Princess.  This is going to be some brawl!  Wait - I’ve just had word from our sponsors at Tydirium Multimedia that the Vintage team are being awarded one extra point for nostalgia value, and an additional extra point as recognition that the technology required to create action figures has come a long way in the past 21 years.  The score is now 5 to 4, and in this double-value final round, either side could emerge the final victor!  Okay, folks, the Jello is in place and the Princesses are entering the ring! “Ding!” Vintage Leia, with her little toothpick gun, seems to be no match for POTF2 Leia. POTF2 Leia is molded in a wrestling stance anyway, and it’s true that she is just about as ugly as a pro wrestler.  After removing her plastic cape, POTF2 Leia looks like some sort of ape.  Vintage Leia takes the lead in her vinyl poncho, but it’s soon clear that neither girl is leaving this ring without some help!  Homely Vintage Leia calls in her Hoth and Bespin counterparts, but POTF2 Leia can’t seem to get any assistance whatsoever.  The trio of Vintage heroines is soon joined by their cammo-clad Endor teammate and the bounty hunter Boushh, and the five she-figures are pounding the POTF2 Leia into the Jello!  Someone from Kenner wakes up at this point, and quickly gets a POTF2 Endor Leia into the ring on a Speeder Bike.  A veritable flood of POTF2  Leias then comes pouring into the ring with ass-kickin’ Endor Dress Leia leading the pack.  Whoa Nellie!  Here comes Leia in her Jabba’s Palace Slave Girl disguise, and the crowd is out of control!  The roar is deafening!  Slave Leia leaps into the Jello and pounds all Vintage incarnations to petroleum pulp.  Four Leia two-packs with cloth clothing show up and complete the utter slaughter.  POTF2 Leia wins by a landslide after an embarrassingly long hesitation in getting started. The crowd hushes. The lights dim. Something is happening. A new sculpt of POTF2 ANH Leia enters the building.  The old POTF2 ANH Leia gracefully retires, and the new POTF2 ANH Leia leads a pack of angry action figures into decimating their Vintage sisters. “Ding! Ding!” The crowd goes wild!  POTF2: 7  Vintage: 4 Well, folks it’s been an exciting evening of Action Figure Wrestling.  It seems as though for all their flaws, the POTF2 line still beats the Vintage line by a fair margin.  Were it not for bad plastic cloaks, a lack of legs, inconsistencies in scale, and a tendency on Kenner’s part to make the same character as many as 25 times, the superior technology, better sculpting, and better paint jobs of the POTF2 line would beat the vintage in every way but for nostalgia value.  Be here in Summer of 1999 as the Episode I figures take on the Classic line in hand-to-hand ninja fu action.

Several years ago, the big debate in SW fandom was “Who was The Other?”  Ever since Yoda uttered that mysterious line in TESB, fans wracked their brains trying to speculate on who the heck he was talking about.  Some of it got quite serious.  A fanzine from the early 1980s featured an article called “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?”  It was a very long and detailed piece going over just about every possible SW character, even “minor” players like Boba Fett, Wedge, and Lando.  After careful analysis, the author narrowed it down to two characters:  Leia and Han.  She weighed the evidence, and decided that the most logical choice was...Han.      We know now she was wrong.      Which brings me to the point of this article.  Yes, I’m going to be speculating on the new movie.  Even though I’m only going to refer to “officially”-released information and not to any rumored “spoilers,” I know the squeamish among you won’t want to read any further.  But remember:  1) speculation is part of the fun 2) even with all of the spoilers out there, absolutely no one knows even half the plot and 3) I could still be completely wrong.      We know that Episode One takes place 35-40 years before ANH and everyone we know from the SW saga is either yet-to-be-born or a lot younger.  We know who the major players are, and we know what eventually happens to some of them, but not all.      I think if you’re looking for the best predictor of what happens in Episode I, you won’t do any better than taking a look at ANH.  I have a very strong hunch this trilogy’s storyline will parallel the existing one’s; all myths are cyclical in nature anyway.  I’d also expect to find many parallels between the characters from each trilogy:  Anakin will probably remind you of Luke, the young queen will likely remind you of Leia, and maybe even the young Obi-Wan was a little bit of a scoundrel himself.  Liam Neeson’s Jedi Master will probably mirror the older Ben Kenobi we know-n-love already.  Of course, Artoo will be Artoo, Palpatine will be just as evil as ever, and Yoda will still be talking funny.      Even though the Republic, not the Empire, is in charge at this point, the galaxy will be caught up in political turmoil.  The prologue to the ANH novelization, an “entry” from the fabled “Journal of the Whills,” states that the Republic was rotting away from the inside, with rampant corruption in its ruling body, the Senate.  Apparently the Senate has a President, a position that will eventually be claimed by Palpatine on his climb up to Emperor.  I think this is a presidency more akin to a prime minister elected from the ranks of the ruling body (as in a parliamentary system) rather the American system of the public electing a president separate from the ruling body.  I think Mr. Prez here is little more than a weak figurehead who hangs around to break the occasional tie.  If the Senate is corrupt and losing the people’s confidence, and the president is too weak to do anything about it, this leaves it wide open for a guy like then-Senator Palpatine.  No doubt Palpatine will prove himself to be a charismatic, strong, take-charge leader (and perhaps a demagogue as well) who the people will find as the perfect man for the presidency.      But there will be those who don’t trust him and those who will be obstacles in his rise to power.  I think this will somehow put the young queen (aka the future Mrs. Skywalker) in jeopardy.  Based on a few hints dropped here and there, I have reason to guess Palpatine represents the queen’s home planet in the Senate.  Perhaps with her gone or under his control, there will be no one at home to put a check on his ambitions.  Or maybe there are other forces at work, and Palpatine is waiting to see how to best use the situation to his advantage.      Whatever the case may be, the queen will either be kidnapped or be forced to go into hiding.  In ANH, Princess Leia had to protect the Death Star plans--I’d imagine the queen will be forced to protect some other object or bit of information the same way.  Since the rescue thing has been done before, maybe this time the queen will go into hiding, let’s say with the protection of some Jedi Knights (i.e. Ben Kenobi and the “venerable Jedi Master.”)  And what’s a better place to hide than some crappy backwater I’d-never-heard-of-it planet called Tatooine?  This would be an excellent way to get everyone together to meet this trilogy’s main player, Anakin Skywalker.

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    Anakin at this point is just a tyke, age nine.  From what I’ve seen and read so far, he lives only with his mom Shmi in a burg called Mos Espa.  Pa Skywalker seems to be out of the picture.  This begs the question, what happened to him?  Did he die?  Did he leave his wife or vice versa?  Or were he and Shmi never married?  I doubt that Lucas will want to explore potentially controversial issues like unwed motherhood or even divorce, so I think it’s a safe bet to assume Anakin’s father has long since gone off to Valhalla.
     The official web site described the Skywalker family as “simple,” which I guess translates into “po’ folks,” mirroring Luke’s own humble beginnings.  I see Anakin as basically a nice, normal kid with a little bit of an edge gained through experience.  I wouldn’t expect him to be like Damian from those “Omen” movies.  I would imagine Anakin’s abilities with the Force have manifested themselves to some degree; Ben says in ROTJ when he met Anakin, he was already a great pilot.  Any kid who can pilot like a hot shot must certainly have the Force in him.
     Anakin’s destiny obviously will be tied in with those who come to Mos Espa.  He and the young queen will have an instantaneous connection that leads to love later on.  His meeting with the Jedi Knights--especially Ben--leads to his “first step into a larger world.”  Kenobi and Co. will recognize the young boy’s potential and will be more than eager to take him on as an apprentice.  But in order to do that, Anakin must leave his old life behind.  What mom is going to let her nine-year-old son play with lightsabres?  Geez, a kid could poke his eye out with those things.  So I think something is going to happen to Shmi, leaving Anakin with no choice but to become Ben’s apprentice.  Not to mention instilling a deep anger within him that leads to trouble years later.
     Those who are pursuing the young queen and her pals (the Sith maybe??) will catch up with them at some point, forcing all to flee.  Somehow they’ll rally the Republic forces and/or the other Jedi Knights to fight a big ol’ battle, defeating (for the moment) the baddies.  What would be a nice ironic twist is if the good guys’ victory somehow ends up benefitting Palpatine.  Hmm...
     It’ll be interesting to see how the Jedi Knights do their thing.  I see them as warriors/administrators of justice/diplomats/negotiators.  Apparently there is a Jedi Council building on Coruscant.  I view it as something similar to The Hall of Justice from the Superfriends cartoon of yore.  There the Jedi hang out, mull over the issues of the day, and plan their course of action.  I think the political division within the galaxy will affect the knighthood as well, pitting factions against each other.
     I’m sure there are plenty of plot twists and subplots thrown into the mix as well, but I think that’ll be the basic gist of Episode I.  Before I conclude this, there are two things I sincerely hope do NOT occur in this film.  First, I hope they refrain from trying to make the film “90s.”  This is what made the “Lost in Space” movie so annoying.  Instead of sticking to what made people like the original, the filmmakers felt compelled to “update” it, resulting in a dysfunctional Robinson family, a punker Penny, and a Don who actually propositions Judy.  And wasn’t Mimi Rogers the most unmotherly mom you’d ever seen?  She may be a decent actress, but she’s no June Lockhart!  Okay, I’m digressing.  But please, George, resist the evil forces telling you to make it “hip” and “up-to-date.”  Second...please, no hit songs!  I know this has become a(n irritating) trend in recent years to help soundtrack sales, but we don’t need “modern rock” tunes, gushy love ballads, or catchy raps to get us to see a SW movie.  We like a traditional score for SW, an it’s not as though we have a slouch doing it!  Just let Johnny Williams do his thing, all right?
     I hope you’ve enjoyed my speculative rant.  Be sure to look back at this a year from now and laugh your butt off at how far off the mark I am.

©1998 Blue Harvest