Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Waiting

Last time I’ll type this: I’m going to see the new Star Wars.

It is a thing both dreaded and anticipated. You wait three years for a movie to premiere, you kinda want to see it. I missed the first trilogy, having been otherwise occupied with breeding and racing my stellar stable of My Little Ponies and waiting for third grade to come to a merciful end. Now I grow up with the prequels, having just exited The Womb when Episode I opened, leaving for Florida the night after Episode II appeared, and now, less than four hours before Episode III is unveiled, I’m choosing which pictures to hang in my big-girl professor office at a real live university. Long road. Badly paying road.

They say that this movie will answer a great many questions about the Star Wars universe. I certainly hope so. I want to know what’s going on, for instance, with the fact that ever single other Jedi needed an entire lifetime of training, from birth, to become even barely proficient with a lightsaber, while Luke Skywalker somehow manages to attain full Knight status after a day and a half of hanging around with Obi-Wan Kenobi and a week at Club Yoda.

And yet: Dread. It’s going to be ugly. It’s going to be dark. People will die. People will want to die, if the love scenes are anything to go by. (“Anakin. You’re breaking. My heart.” The aforementioned dialogue appeared in a commercial, a commercial designed to entice people to see the movie, which means… that is the best an army of writers, actors, editors, marketers, stunt doubles, best boys, grips, casting agents, and producers could do. Because subtlety? Is not George Lucas’ friend. In George’s mind, all the world is a Movie Cliché Speak ‘n’ Say.)

I’ve never been so prepared to be disappointed by a movie. George has addressed criticisms of Episodes I and II by very carefully explaining that nobody liked them because: People didn’t want to see Darth Vader as a young, innocent child. That's absolutely right, George. We didn’t come out of the first two prequels with blood pouring out of our eyes because of the for-crap plot structure, the cartoon storm troopers, the whining, the farting, the smirking, and the politicking! No! We just can’t handle the fact that the world’s most famous Sith Lord once had a Dorothy Hamill haircut!

Is it the larger problem his Plots By CGI? I was listening to George’s commentary on the DVD version of Return of the Jedi, and as he watched his eighty million Ewoks dance around, he was sad. He was sad because… he couldn't digitize them the first time around. George has never met a midget he didn’t want to put out of work. I imagine George now sits in front of his tape of The Godfather, all, “This would have been so much better if they had just digitized the horse head. They could have made it talk! Or solve quadratic equations!"

And yet, I remain a member of the galaxy. I’ve prepared for this only slightly less meticulously than for my entire college education. Pop consumption stopped an hour ago to prevent potential trips to the Little Jedi’s Room. Since the air conditioning in Florida theatres are set year-round at absolute zero, I’m wearing jeans and bringing a jacket so as to avoid a potential chill. Nothing must interfere! Nothing! I shan't miss a clunky, hurl-inducing word of it!

People have actually changed sleep patterns for this; Flipper is at this moment sleeping on the Official Guest Futon here in the Blonde Bachelorette Pad, Northern Edition, resting for the two-thirty AM end time. It’s like that scene in Gone With the Wind where all the Southern belles have to take a naaaaaaaaap before the grand ball at the Wilkes’. We even et our vittles beforehand, having just returned from Booger Fling, which was tastefully accented by a gigantic inflatable Darth Vader—always an excellent choice of roof décor in a place where hurricanes roll through with the irregularity of your average sunrise—and they were handing out special limited-edition crowns featuring various Star Wars characters. We took fourteen. You know we’re wearing them tonight.

The tie-ins are becoming crass. In the background I have on a Discovery Channel special, The Science of Star Wars, which is featuring an American soldier, who is exactly like Luke Skywalker because… he lost his arm in battle too! Cool! Let me know if you start kissing your sister, Private.

The show also prominently featured a group of monks which trains little kids to be chi warriors, and they showed a seven-year-old doing all these amazing acrobatics: back-to-back flips, standing on his fingertips, nine thousand pushups in like four seconds. But the Jedi have spoiled me now, because I sat there watching this with my arms folded, all, Well, yeah, but—can he pick up a rock? With his mind?

The saga is now complete. And all the world is waiting, for in space… no one can hear you suck.

digitize THIS at: blondechampagne@hotmail.com

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