This brings me to my next point, where for me media distortion gets personal.  "Fanboy" also implies that well, there are no "fangirls."  Or that there shouldn't be.  I'm sure many of you read Newsweek's article back in January about SW fans and TPM mania.  What really set my teeth on edge was the article describing fandom as "mostly male."  What made me start cursing and throwing stuff was that the only women mentioned in the article were beleaguered "widows" who don't understand all of this SW stuff and don't care.  Annoying me even further was some "inside" info on how a female web staffer who had been interviewed and photographed for the article was excised from the final version.  Now I'm not what you'd call a feminist.  I have never belonged to NOW, I have never picked up a copy of Ms. in my life, I don't hate Barbie, and I think Bettie Page is way cooler than Betty Friedan.  But I'll be darned if I'm going to let the folks at home reading Newsweek believe that this portrayal of fandom as a men's club is accurate!  So I fired off a letter and they printed it.  But alas, I may have been too late...within weeks of the article I saw a number of rather sexist posts on various message boards about female fans.  Stuff like "No wonder you like 'Titanic,' you're a girl!!" or "girls just aren't as fanatical as we are" or "girls just don't seem to know as much about SW."  There were posts from teenage girls who complained they ran into sexism from guys their age all of the time.  To me that's crazy; nobody in 22 years has ever expressed disbelief that I'm a "chick" and yet a SW fan. Then I start seeing other articles describing SW fandom as "male-dominated."  Worst of all, a certain editor of an official SW publication recently claimed 80% of the fan club's membership is male.  I wanted to strangle this one guy on a mailing list who kept insisting, "even if we assume that 51% of SW fandom is male, that STILL makes it mostly male."  I felt like I was personally under siege.  I worried that people wouldn't let their little girls see TPM, or would take them to shrinks if they started pretending they were Darth Maul or something.  Why, all of a sudden, is a fan scene once proud of SW's universal appeal trying to push me out the back door because of my plumbing, never mind the two decades I've dedicated to the "cause."  I don't believe for a minute that I'm out-of-the-ordinary; the very first group of SW fans I came across, the fan fiction crowd, was almost entirely female.  Over half of the volunteers at the SW exhibit and half of the visitors were female.  BH manages to have a sizeable female readership. I know distorted views of fandom aren't always intentional.  I was once (still am??) in the journalism business and I can tell you that many reporters don't have a clue about what they're assigned to cover and with tight deadlines, there's only so much they can learn.  The Internet has been a very useful tool for reporters, but I also think it has made them lazy.  Why get off your duff and drive around town, making phone calls, waiting for the next con to come to town, and so forth trying to find a cross-section of the local SW contingent when you can get your quotes zapped to you via e-mail?  It's no big secret most of the fans behind the big-name web sites are guys...but those web sites cover TPM specifically, which interests journalists more than the kind of sites women fans put on, like fanfix.com or the Luke Skywalker Estrogen Brigade. There are also journalists out there who honestly are trying to avoid stereotyping fandom and want to talk to different types of fans.  Those people I'm more than happy to help out. In the end, it's up to us to keep media coverage of fandom honest.  No one fan can speak for everyone, but if something makes you say, "Hey, that's not true!" don't just sit there and grouse about it.  Let the media know and let the world know the truth. ©1999 Blue Harvest / Tydirium Multimedia

James Addams is a Total Geek
by James Addams

I’ve been exhibiting some strange behavior lately and it’s a little bit scary.  Actually, strange behavior is the norm for me, so my current actions are doubly frightening.  By way of illustrating exactly how weird this situation is, let me illustrate some strange behavior I did NOT participate in. 

The line.

While being interviewed for Millennium's End: The Fandom Menace, I told Jeff Cioletti that I wasn’t going to see TPM until the lines died down a little bit.  I figured that I had waited 16 years for this film, so another two weeks weren’t going to kill me.  I really do have an abby-normally hectic and busy schedule, and waiting in a line for a movie (or for anything else) is a really dull and unproductive way to spend one’s time.  Besides, I still have an undisputed claim that I was the first person in the greater Cleveland area to purchase a ticket for Return of the Jedi  in 1983, so I have already ‘been there, done that’ on the Star Wars line heading trip.  So I decided to wait for a while.  I stubbornly insisted all through the spring of ‘99 that I would not be seen camping out on any sidewalk, anywhere, for a darned movie.

On a whim, I called MoviePhone three days before TPM opened, and I was surprised to find that there were still tickets left for the first showing of TPM, four days after they had gone on sale.  Not only that, but matinee prices were in effect, so even after the $1.25 per ticket surcharge, I was still getting them at less than the normal evening price.  I rethought my plan. What could I have been thinking?  This is a new Star Wars movie!  How can I wait?  So I showed up about 90 minutes before the show, and there was no one there.  I got my tickets, and went over to Taco Bell.  I found a game token for their Defeat The Dark Side Game in the parking lot (remember this, it’s important), and I bought a drink inside, scoring a cup and a second token.  I goofed off a little too long, and ended up sixth in line, 45 minutes before show time.

My thoughts were of all of those poor suckers who had lined up days or weeks in advance (at some other theatre, I guess).  I made one phone call, and got in line 45 minutes before the show.  I got a perfect seat, and saw the first show, just like all of those people who spent a week in line to see the film at the same time I did.  Maybe I didn’t see it at the ‘hip’ theatre where all of the ‘real’ fans might have gone, or the one that some of those ‘lining-up.com’ web sites had advised me to go to, but I still saw the first show, with a minimal effort, and had a great time!

Jeff’s response: “I had a feeling...”

So what’s so weird?  It may sound to you like this was perfectly sensible behavior.

And it was.  But the seeds of oddity were sown that morning when I went to get that drink.  I was a little geeked at how Taco Hell, KFC, and Pizza the Hutt all had a different and staggeringly large array of TPM promos.  With all of the toys, the various cups, the game tokens, and the almighty holy grail of in-store display items, this was going to cost anyone who wanted to collect it all quite a bundle.  Plus, let’s face it: all three of these restaurants suck.  Their food is processed, artificial, unhealthy crapola.  There is nothing redeeming about it.  Bluntly, it will kill you, after making you fat and lazy.  The obsession with fast food in this country is a part of the reason that the far too many of our kids are overweight, sluggish, and aren’t learning anything in school.  Have you ever tried to use your brain after some greasy ol’ KFC chicken?  You can’t, because the lard is making you want to fall asleep.

So it really stinks that this license couldn’t have gone to a restaurant chain just as visible, but one who’s food doesn’t make you want to puke.  Like Subway, perhaps.

But I digress. I wanted the toys, the game tokens, the cups, and even the carryout bags.  But I am pretty broke right now, being back to a single income after sharing one with someone for the past 5 years. So here’s where things get surreal.  A few days after TPM opened, I was walking by a Pizza the Hutt.  I remembered finding that token in the parking lot of Taco Hell, so I wandered across the parking lot of the Hutt, and found a cup.  A plastic cup with Sebulba on it.  Score!  That very night, a friend gave me another copy of the same cup, and told me she had found it on the ground also. At this juncture, a little light bulb goes on in my head. Chicago is a pretty dirty town.  Not so bad as New York, but let’s just say that I have always admired Canadians for their pride in keeping their cities clean, even big ones like Toronto or Montreal.  A few days later I was driving south on Western Ave., and I saw a Darth Maul Mountain Dew bottle in the gutter.  I pulled over, and it was in perfect condition.  I now had a total of two cups, a bottle, and a game token, all for free!  It occurred to me that 99.9% of the population could care less about TPM collectibles, and even a lot of fans don’t care about these sorts of items.  All I had to do was pay attention to the refuse, and I’d have all 24 Pepsi cans in no time flat! Things came to a head when I was near a KFC, and nonchalantly glancing around the parking lot, I failed to score anything. I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and then I carefully and quickly peeked into the trash can, as casual as can be.  I didn’t see anything there but trash and flies.  Then I had a serious reality check.  “I am digging through the trash cans looking for paper cups with robots on them!” I thought to myself.  “What the hell  is wrong with me?”.  I wandered back to the sidewalk, nervous about being seen, and feeling like a bum, or some sort of pervert.  “Thank the force no women saw that!”, I thought.  This is definitely not behavior I want to make a habit out of. I envisioned the next time I actually had a date: “oh excuse me, sweetheart, I’m going to go look in that trash bin for empty Pepsi cans”. No, I don’t think that’s anyone’s idea of romance. So I decided that I seriously had to mellow out a little, and wait for more casual and more sanitary options to present themselves. This started to happen one night while doing a recording session.  The producer brought in a 12-pack of diet Pepsi for the band and I, and all of ‘em had Amidala on them (the cans, not the musicians).  After everyone left, I cleaned up the studio and harvested a handful of Amidala cans.  More than I needed, really.  And as the summer grows hotter just as the TPM marketing program builds in intensity, I am seeing TPM trash on the streets continually.  Most of it is crushed, dirty, stepped on, and is truly trash, but just today I found a KFC cup with Qui Gon and Obi Wan on it, in perfect shape, right across the street from my house.  It is weird, surreal, and ultimately kind of cool to see Star Wars on all of the trash, all over the place. So just remember: money doesn’t grow on trees, but in the summer of ‘99, you can get all the free Star Wars collectibles you want just by walking down the street in any major city and picking them up off the ground.  If that isn’t the coolest thing you ever heard of, I don’t know what is. Life is good! Just make sure no one sees you, or you will make the “those people need to get a life” line campers look about as normal as can be! ©1999 Blue Harvest / Tydirium Multimedia

Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
film review by James Addams

Before

Approaching this review was more difficult than you can possibly imagine.  Let me go into a little background to help you understand why.

There’s this guy who does movie reviews for the Chicago Reader who doesn’t seem to be able to sense the intent of a film maker while watching any given movie.  Therefore, he reviews every film as though it was intended to be a masterpiece in the art of cinema.  If the movie in question fails to live up to this expectation, he slams it.  He doesn’t seem to realize that not every film aspires to be something that is to be remembered in the company of the great works by Kubrick, Kurosawa, or Cocteau.  He reviewed The Rocky Horror Picture Show  as though it was serious cinema, and of course he hated it. He didn’t “get” Army of Darkness, either.  The guy has no sense of humor, no appreciation for camp, and apparently, no inner child.

As much as I loathe that term, “Inner Child”, it is that concept that keeps most of the adults who are reading this magazine doing so.  Face it, the Star Wars movies are for kids.  I often wonder how I would react to the Classic Trilogy if I was seeing it for the first time right now.  I seriously doubt that I would ever form the relationship with it that I have thus far maintained for more than two-thirds of my life.  Sure, they’re fun movies, but there isn’t much intellectual appeal to them, and I often have to admit that a lot of the criticisms that have been leveled at these films by serious critics are valid ones.  The key to the staying power of the Star Wars Trilogy, and the impact it has had on our lives, is that it found us when we were at an age at which we were young enough to be captured by the magic contained on that celluloid.

But now we’re older, wiser, and maybe a bit jaded.  We love the Trilogy because we grew up with it, because it is a fun part of our culture, and because it is a link to more innocent times.  We don’t necessarily love it because it is something that challenges us or furthers the art of cinema, however.  Perhaps these films further the art of Special Effects, and are testing the boundaries of how much hype one film can possibly generate, but screen the Star Wars films alongside the best work by Truffaut, or anything Bergman did in the 1950’s, and ol’ George starts to look a little bit like a hack.  Even modern indie film makers like Hal Hartley have George beat hands down when it comes to great dialogue that is both witty and thought provoking.

That’s the point though - Star Wars is just meant to be fun, and it doesn’t want, or try, to live up to any intellectual expectations. Reviewing it as a “serious” film would be folly - it simply isn’t meant to be seen in that capacity.  My goal then is to experience it as “a Star Wars film”, and as “a Star Wars film” only.  But still, the question remains: “what if it sucks?”, not as high art, but what if it sucks as simply a Star Wars Film?  I’ll know in a few days...

After Well, I liked it.  This came as something of a relief.  My biggest fear was that it would simply be dumb.  And although there were a few bits that made me cringe, It was good.  Maybe not brilliant, but more than good enough. Read on, padawan. The beginning is perfect.  The blue-on-black “a long time ago...” is as mandatory to the opening of a SW film as that gun barrel business is to the opening of a James Bond film.  I’m so glad they didn’t try to update it.  The SW logo moves into the distance as John Williams’ Main Title  kicks in on the surround speakers.  The familiar crawl confirms that this isn’t another dream as the words  “Episode I - The Phantom Menace” creep into view.  I am sitting in the theatre, and I am watching a new Star Wars movie  for the first time.  Finally.  This day is here.  All of the reporting we’ve done in BH for the past four years, all of the hype, the speculation, the mystery.  It all lead to this point in time, this moment in history.  This is too cool. I was a bit surprised that I didn’t get all choked up like I did at the ANH SpEd!  Rather, I leaned forward in my seat, and absorbed everything I could. The first scenes are of Qui Gon and Obi Wan waiting for the Neimoidians.  Just as we are sitting around, waiting for something to happen, so are they.  Is this to tease us a little, or is this a pacing problem?  We don’t have much time to think about it.  Their ship (the Radiant VII) goes kablooey, and the Jedi spring into action. Qui-Gon Jinn is the strongest character in the film.  Liam Neeson’s paycheck was money well spent.  He is strong, wise, and not someone to be trifled with.  He is also kind and warm, someone you feel you can trust.  This is a man who can calm a heated situation with his gentle presence and his vast wisdom, and who uses his wits and knowledge to get out of trouble long before he resorts to pulling out his lightsaber.  Neeson manages to convey all of this wordlessly, and given how dull so many of the other actors in the film are, it is Neeson’s Jinn that reminds us that there are indeed some feeling humans in the movie.  Neeson subtly imbued Qui Gon with many nuances that the script denied him.  Jinn also has the two best gags in the film: his failed (on purpose?) “Jedi Mind Trick” against Watto, and when he grabs Jar Jar’s tongue with a stern “Don’t do that again”. Why is it that Jinn, a very serious character, has two gags (both great), while Jar Jar has a hundred gags but only maybe two that stand up to the stoic Jinn’s subtle wit?  Is it the humanity missing from Jar Jar’s ‘performance’?  There is a level of subtlety and wit that a computer just can’t recreate.  This may be the mistake in the decision to create a digital actor.  A computer programmer will never understand what it takes to be funny the way an actor will. All of Jar Jar’s gags are heavy handed and obvious.  He belches, steps in “pudu”, and ends up on the wrong end of a farting Eopie.  Didn’t George Lucas learn his lesson about potty humor after hearing people complain about all of the belch gags in ROJ for the past 16 years?  We don’t need any more! Ewan McGregor’s is awesome as Obi-Wan Kenobi.  McGregor obviously enjoyed the role, but there is really nothing for him to do in the film.  Aside from following Jinn around (calling him “master” every thirty seconds like some sort of weird I Dream Of Jeanie  rerun), Kenobi’s only purpose is simply to exist, so that Jinn will have a successor present to train Anakin after Jinn’s death.  I strongly suspect that Lucas will give McGregor a meatier role in Episodes II and III.  I will look forward to this, because he really fits the role very well. Look at his muddy collar and wet hair as he meets Jar Jar for the first time.  A scene (preserved in The Illustrated Screenplay, [or TIS]) was cut from the final film in which Obi Wan had to hide underwater in the swamp.  He went under without turning his lightsaber off, which temporarily shorted it out.  That is why he was running from the STAP, not fighting it, when we first see him on Naboo.  Jinn reprimands him for his forgetfulness “again”.  TIS reads better than the film plays, and is notable for revealing many, many short snips of dialogue that were cut from the film.  Adding a half dozen of these short snips would have only increased the running time by a minute or two, and would have made the story make far more sense, as we shall see. Natalie Portman is great as Queen Amidala.  She is strong, regal, wise beyond her years, and will grow into a legendary leader.  As handmaiden Padme, she just stands around.  But as Amidala disguised as Padme, she lets some youthful warmth creep in.  Her scenes with Anakin have some real chemistry.  When Anakin speaks with Amidala (back in her queenly garb) on Coruscant, and asks to see Padme (whom he still thinks is the girl he met in Mos Espa), you can see the conflict within Amidala, as the queen of Naboo wishes she could let the cold exterior go, and let her new friend in on the secret that he has in fact said good-bye in person. Things do get a little confusing after this point.  It is apparent that Amidala and Padme once again pull a switcheroo, but exactly when this happens is unclear.  It took me three viewings of the film to really get a grip on when Amidala is Amidala, and when Amidala is pretending to be Padme.  When they confront Boss Nass in the Naboo swamp, one isn’t sure whether to believe the woman who comes forward when she says that she is Amidala, and that the woman in the royal get-up behind her is Padme.  A look at The Illustrated Screenplay  only confuses the issue further; even when it is clearly Amidala in the Padme garb, her lines are attributed to Padme, and vice versa, until near the end, when TIS becomes as ambiguous as the film on this point.  Later, Padme (in royal costume) disappears completely while the battle is being planned, and while Amidala and company are storming the castle.  Then she appears out of nowhere just in time to save the queen’s neck.  How did she get into the castle when Amidala, Panaka, and the Jedi had to blast their way in?  This is another of the many editing or continuity problems in the film. Coruscant.  They did a great job rendering it, and the fact that it remains true to the way it was described in Expanded Universe fiction is really cool.  It is dissapointing that Adrian Dunbar's scenes as Leia's future stepfather Bail Organa were all cut from the film.  As TIS reveals, there weren't many of them, but an appearance by the character would have been important groundwork for the future.  Later in the film he is mentioned, but Captain Panaka calls him Bail Antilles.  Huh???? Chancellor Valorum also had some scenes cut, and while these weren’t some of the aforementioned scenes that really needed to stay, it would really have strengthened the picture to use these scenes instead of some of Jar Jar’s slapstick routines. Ian McDiarmid’s Senator Palpatine is one seriously evil dude.  Darth Maul may have had the cool costume and the fearsome appearance, but Palpatine is by far the more malevolent.  This is a man who, on one hand, has a warm smile for the Queen he serves, but on the other hand is willing to sell his home planet out just so he can gain personal power in the senate.  As the story progresses, we cringe as Palpatine whispers ‘good advice’ into Amidala’s ear, advice that will only further his own selfish plans.  The man is a twisted and evil genius. In his Sidious guise, he plays the cowardly Nimoudians like a kloo horn.  With their accents wavering between French and Chinese, these guys are just a bunch of saps taking orders from the big guy.  At the very end of the film, they walk right past Palpatine, oblivious to who he is (since they are used to him in his Sidious guise).  Palpatine must be overjoyed at seeing his patsies being taken away to face the Senate, ready to take the fall for the crimes he has committed against his own people, the people he is warmly greeting at that very moment.  When he finds Amidala, he is all fervor and joy, almost childlike in his glee at having won the position of Chancellor.  Compare that to he perpetual grimace of Sidious.  Ian McDiarmid’s performances in the next two episodes ought to be stunning. As Sidious, Palpatine surreptitiously ordered an invasion of his own planet.  Unfortunately for us, this invasion is unconvincing.  We don’t get to see nearly enough of it.  We see the ships land, we see the machines of war disembark and rip through the forest, and we see the army marching towards the city of Theed.  After that, all we get are reports from The Nimoudians.  Are they reporting to Sidious, or to us?  They tell us “Everyone is in camps”, they tell us “We’ve captured the Queen”, and they tell us “We have located the hidden underwater cities”.  But we don’t see any of it, and it is therefore hard to empathize with the Queen or her phantom subjects.  As a matter of fact, we never see a street scene on Naboo, and we never see Naboo citizens (except in one single long shot).  Inserting some shots of battle droids taking the common folk into custody, maybe shooting up a few homes and generally making things rough for the Theed people, would go a long way towards making us care a little more about this conflict.  When Amidala returns to Theed, all of the buildings are intact, and there are no signs that any fighting or suffering has taken place.  We never see any shots of the city, except from the air.  From this removed perspective, we cannot feel for these people, because we never see them or their suffering.  The invasion itself may be the phantom menace this film is named after! In the battles we do see (Amidala busting into her castle, and the ground battle between Gungans and droids another flashback to Return of the Jedi) almost no good guys die.  Remember the Blockade Runner in ANH?  Rebel corpses everywhere.  The battle of Hoth?  Trenches filled with troopers, and snowspeeder getting shot down all over the place.  In TPM, the good guys all have lightning reflexes that keep the battle droids from hitting more than a few of them.  These Battle Droids are even more inept than Stormtroopers... but the scene in which they are unloaded from the MTT is coolness beyond all coolness. The Jedi Council was interesting, but I would have liked to see interaction from more than just Yoda, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Mace Windu.  The other nine just sit there.  (Fun TPM viewing tip: Next time you see TPM, try saying “Motherfucker” after each of Mace Windu’s lines).  I do want to see more of Depa Billaba.  Three seconds of screen time, and I’m in love!  The girls get to drool over Ewan and Liam for two hours and ten minutes, but Shmi is too old and Amidala is too young, so us guys get nothin’.  Nothin’ but the hope of seeing this Jedi babe swingin’ sabers in Episode II!  Adi Gallia is a Corellian Jedi, described as ‘beautiful’ in the TPM Scrapbook, but I didn’t get a good look at her because Anakin was in the way. So let’s talk about Anakin.  I didn’t have a problem with Jake Lloyd’s acting, he was pretty good in fact, but the dialogue he was given is pathetic.  Witness multiple “yippeee!”s, and his banter with R2-D2 while flying the Naboo Fighter.  As a matter of fact, the whole (obligatory) space battle was miserable.  It is complete chaos - there is no real dog fighting or any planning to the scenes at all.  It’s just random ships flying all over the place.  We don’t get a feel for any of the pilots, we can’t track any of them getting into or out of trouble, and the only reason we have an inkling as to what is going on is because the pilots tell us what is going on.  It’s a complete mess.  Compare this to the brilliant original Death Star battle in ANH, and the new battle looks even worse.  Thankfully, it is short!    The enemy Trade Federation Droid Fighters (TFDF) are barely visible.  We see one in it’s silly “walking mode” early in the film, but after that we are given no information to clue us in as to who or what the Naboo pilots are fighting.  Anakin’s convenient accidental destruction of the main generators is the last straw of retardedness in the lamest space battle ever filmed. I did like the way the Trade Federation ship failed to completely explode, though.  I was dreading a big Death Star-like explosion (complete with shock-wave ring), and was pleased when only the middle part blew up, and a big chunk of one of the “arms” went drifting off into space.  This chunk will doubtlessly fall into the atmosphere of Naboo, hit the water, and cause a huge tidal wave that will wipe out some Naboo port town, and then it will sink into the depths and crush a Gungan city.  Revenge of the Trade Federation, a new one-shot from Dark Horse. One other problem, earlier in the film.  When Amidala and her entourage are leaving Naboo, they have to outrun the Trade Federation blockade.  When they return, the blockade is gone, and they zoom right home.  What is this about?  The Illustrated Screenplay  contains a few lines of dialogue that explain this.  Since the planet below been successfully occupied by the Trade Federation, there is no need for the space blockade any more.  It was a very bad idea to remove these few lines from the final cut of the film.  This creates a huge plot hole! A few other interesting things crop up in TIS that are worth mentioning,  The term “Lightsaber” doesn’t occur in TIS at all.  It is referred to, dozens and dozens of times, as a “Laser Sword” instead.  In the film, Anakin says “Laser Sword” on Tatooine, but I figured this was just because he was a kid on a backwater planet who didn’t know the correct term.  Reflecting further, this is the only  time the weapon is mentioned by name in the final film.  “Lightsaber” is never said.  But “Laser Sword” is all over TIS. What gives, George? Many critics have panned the dialogue from the Classic Trilogy, but if we think back, there are dozens of great and memorable quotes in each film.  Steve Sansweet even published a small book of nothing but dialogue quotes from the Trilogy.  Where are the memorable lines this time?  Where is the sharp banter between characters (reference Han and Leia, for example)?  Where are the classic phrases that pop culture will be quoting for two decades?  There don’t seem to be many, if any.  A lack of “Don’t call me a mindless philosopher you overweight glob of grease”, “Someone get this walking carpet out of my way”, “Uh, everything under control... situation normal...”, “That’s impossible! Even for a computer!”, and “You don’t need to see his identification” is what I missed the most about TPM. There are some great lines - “There’s always a bigger fish” is a favorite of mine, but then we are subjected to crap like “That’s gotta hurt no matter what universe you’re from”.  Another brief cut that should’ve remained in the film (that again remains in the comics and TIS) was the very end of Jinn’s first battle with Darth Maul.  After Jinn leaps onto the Queen’s ship, Maul follows, and Jinn kicks him off.  Why cut this?  It seems odd that Maul lets Jinn go so easily in the current cut.  Also, Jinn tells Anakin to “tell them to take of”, but Anakin just runs into the ship and stands there; it is Obi-Wan who commands Ric Olie to take off.  Also, the editing at the start of this battle is weird.  Maul flies up behind Anakin, and Jinn shouts at Anakin to duck.  This is fine, but the timing of it all just feels wrong to me.  And what happens to Maul’s speeder when he jumps off?  Does it just crash or what?  We don’t ever see it in the background during the fight.  That really bugged me all three times I saw the flick!  This scene is also the victim of a short cut that really would have helped, that being Jinn and Anakin discovering one of Maul’s probe droids.  This explains why they are running in the first place - they know Dath Maul is on to them.  So now we come to Darth Maul, the biggest disappointment of them all.  The guy has about 10 minutes of screen time.  Basically, he’s a tool for Darth Sidious, and he has no personality whatsoever.  Let this be a lesson to those of you who geeked out over Ray Park at the Star Wars Celebration in Denver.  Character-wise, there is no Darth Maul; he’s a costume and some karate who’s only purpose in the film is to give Jinn and Kenobi someone to fight at the climax.  Even just a few more scenes of his quest to find Amidala and the Jedi would have been welcome, anything to expand the character just a little bit!  That said, the lightsaber battle at the end kicked butt.  Easily the coolest saber battle in a SW film yet.  This is some serious stuff, especially when Kenobi goes one on one with Maul, chopping his saber in half, then chopping Maul himself in half, exactly as Vader will do to Kenobi 32 years later.  But what is up with those energy shields in the room they end up fighting in?  We aren’t clued in as to what they are or why they’re cutting on and off. And come on George, does every Star Wars movie have to have a big air shaft to fall into?  So far, all four of ‘em do, and three of them are the sight of Lightsaber battles.  Enough!  Don’t the Naboo believe in hand rails over their bottomless pits?  C-3PO’s appearance was short, and that is good.  He has no purpose in the film, and although it was good to  witness his first meeting with R2-D2, I was relieved when Anakin left him behind (and so casually!  That was funny!).  It seems obvious that in Episode II, Anakin will return to Tatooine to try to save his mom, and I suspect that we’ll see Threepio again then.  Hopefully, he’ll have something important to do at that point in the story.  R2-D2, on the other hand, has some great moments.  His introduction is totally in character, the brave little droid dutifully doing his repair work while other droids get blown away.  Too cool.  Watch for a continuity error involving R2: When Qui-Gon is telling Anakin about the Midi-Chlorians, R2 can be seen at the edge of the platform, behind them.  Then he disappears for a few shots, and is finally visible again in the final long shot of the scene.  In TIS, we learn that he falls over the edge, and uses his built-in rockets to jet back up.  Mercifully, this was cut.  It would have distracted from what Qui-Gon and Anakin were saying, and besides that, since when does R2-D2 have built in rockets???  Let’s go back to Tatooine.  Shmi is a complex character, and Pernilla August gives a believable performance.  Unfortunately (and I don’t want to shoot the messenger here), August was given the task of delivering the worst part  of the movie.  I’m talking about the mystery of Anakin’s dad, of course.  How could they do this to us?  When Qui-Gon asked Shmi about Anakin’s pappy, the whole theatre went silent.  Everyone wanted to hear about Darth Vader’s dad.  Before Shmi had even finished telling him her tale, the whole place was laughing.  And that’s one thing I noticed all through the film.  People were laughing at the wrong parts.  This Midi-Chlorian business too.  What are you doing, George?  The Force was just fine the way it was, without all of this B.S. about microorganisms in our cells helping us feel it.  The great thing about Star Wars is that you are meant to just believe in what you are seeing, and no explanation is offered or needed as to how droids work, how Hyperspace exists, how a lightsaber works, or why The Force is what it is.  Explaining it, especially in a really lame way, just ruins it.  Let’s hope this midi chlorian concept gets dropped in Episodes II and III.   Two days before TPM opened, I saw Ben Hur for the first time. I must admit that the Pod Race was pretty much swiped from Ben Hur  intact.  But it is still a great action sequence, and it remids us of the speeder bike chase in ROJ.  It also reminds us that George has always been seriously into drag racing.  Remember that he was almost killed in a car wreck while racing as a teenager.  Some of the coolest little moments in the film happen here: check out the Tusken Raiders taking pot shots at the pods, the Jawa screaming “Utinni!”, and the cool little village built into the canyon walls. There are lame bits too: the announcer is the fourth worst part of TPM (after the Maul disappointment, Midi Chlorians, and the Immaculate Conception), but hey, the newest version of CG Jabba is a huge improvement over the ANH SpEd version.  Scope the credits: Jabba is played by “himself”!  Out of all of the digital aliens, I like Watto the best.  He seems to have the most personality, and he sure looks more real than the poorly rendered Boss Nass.  Nass looks like The Grinch’s fat digital cousin mxed with the mayor from Nightmare Before Christmas.  And why the hell doesn’t he look like the rest of the Gungans???  The best part about the Gungans is the attention paid to detail when they are on the battle field.  Try to ignore Jar Jar’s antics during the final battle, and pay attention to the little battles going on in the background.  In each shot, quickly focus on a background Gungan, and stay on him for the whole scene.  Every one of those background Gungans is doing his own thing.  Be it grappling with a Battle Droid, or perhaps running away from one, the animators put a lot of effort into the background.  They knew we’d be looking!  One other thing: Are Gungans aesexual?  I don’t remember any females...  maybe that is why all these false rumors popped up that Jar Jar is gay!  Reading The Illustrated Screenplay, what I see is a very good script marred by a few bad editing choices.  The storyboard illustrations are great, and the insight into what this film could have been, with the most subtle of changes in the editing room, is fascinating.   Ben Burtt is one of my biggest career influences, and his work with sound in this film (and many, many others) is beyond reproach.  However, as an editor, he leaves something to be desired (I guess I can forget about sending him a resume now). The reinsertion of several key shots would have added only a minute or two to the running time, if that, and would have clarified a lot of things.  Additionally, certain other scenes just didn’t flow well, due to the work of an unintuitive editor.  I enjoyed this movie.  As you have read, there are ways it could have been improved, but that can be said about all of the Star Wars films.  The story (on paper) is very solid, but translated to the screen, it suffered.  This is perhaps my biggest dissapointment, becasue TPM did have the potential to be great.  Almost all of my negative comments are things that could have been fixed in the editing room.  It is already being rumored that there will be new material on the home video release, and it would take so little tinkering to make this film great that they almost have no excuse not to do so.  My best advice to Lucas would be to get a different editor and a new director for Episodes II and III. Lucas is at his best when he is coming up with the plot, writing the script, and then overseeing things like special effects while someone with a better grip on relating to actors takes over the directing chores.  The Empire Strikes Back.  Need I say more?

& <>

Way after

I have now seen TPM four times.  It is almost a certanty that the version we are now seeing in theatres is not the final version.  George Lucas is notorious for tinkering with his films.  THX-1138 was made twice, and perhaps you have all heard the fairly solid rumors that there will be a “Final Edition” of ANH on the DVD release, with 17 more new or upgraded shots.  Almost every theatrical or video release of ANH has had subtle differernces as well.  After two weeks of reflection, here is how I would fix the five worst problems in TPM.  Some of them involve changes to the film as we know it, and some involve things that could be added to Episodes II and III.

5.   Editing.  reinsert a few snipped lines, recut a few scenes (Anakin and Qui Gon running from Maul, the battle that follows, the space battle, and one or two others) and we’re there.  Cut in some additional elucidation on a few other points (Naboo invasion, When is Amidala really Amidala), and all will be well.

4.   Jar Jar.  No, I don’t really mind the character, just the abundance of poopy jokes.  Wipe them out.  All of them.

3.   Pod Race announcer.  They added aliens to ANH, they can take ‘em away in TPM.  Most of what he announces is clear to us without his help, so he can go.  If one or two lines of clarity are required, they can just stick a different alien (and voice) in his place.

2.   Midichlorians.  The best way to deal with this is just to forget it.  It has been explained, we know they exist, and now let’s just drop it.  The scenes that deal with them could be cut, but replacing them with other stuff would be unrealistic.  So we’re stuck with them.  So let’s just hope George doesn’t even mention them in Episodes II and III.  That would be better than trying to cover up their lameness in Episode I with further exposition that will just make things worse.

1.   “Virgin Birth” of Anakin.  We could very well find out that Shmi is lying or trying to hide something.  Or, perhaps something far more sinister is going on.  She says she can’t explain what happened, but that doesn’t mean that the magic midichlorians conceived Anakin.  There could be other explainations.  Someone could be playing some major mind tricks on her.  I seriously doubt that Lucas would ever, ever do something this intense and controversial, but suppose Shmi was tampered (let's say, delicately, tampered with in a medical sense) and is blocking it out of her mind, refusing to admit that it happened.  After all, she is a slave, and doesn’t exactly have the civil rights that others may have.  Slaves in our own country were routinely taken advantage of by their masters. Sad but true.  Wouldn’t it be almost fitting that Darth Vader would be the result of such a vile act against his mother?  No, I am not suggesting that this sort of thing be shown or glorified in a any capacity, and I know it is far too intense for SW, but a better explaination than what we are given, and it wouldn’t contradict anything we are told in Episode I.  On a milder note, perhaps Anakin, or even Shmi, is the result of some weird cloning experimant gone awry.  But I don’t expect George to get this intense on us.  Still, any situations in Episode II or III in which Shmi’s statements to Qui Gon are proved wrong (but not actually contradicted) will be welcome ones.

 Yeah, I know I’m gonna catch hell for some of the more controversial aspects of this, and I‘m certainly not suggesting they show it, but it makes sense.  Delicately handled, and perhaps just subtley implied, it would add a weighty sense of tragedy to things, plus it would give Annie a really serious reason to be severely pissed off, which as we all know, leads to the dark side...

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