Movie 666

EPISODE I: BEN KENOBI BLEACHES HIS BEARD

Some time late in 1998 I read that George Lucas was once again going to make Star Wars movies. These movies would step back in time from the original series and cover the early adventures of its greying heroes, folks like Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader. (article continues after ads)

The original Star Wars (1977) was always a little curious because it opened with the title, EPISODE IV, and made reference to past events like the glory days of the Jedi Knights and the budding evil of Anakin (Darth Vader) Skywalker.

Mining the Star Wars backstory seemed like a good idea at the time. But who would have guessed that this seemingly rich soil would be as drossy as the sands of Tatooine?

EPISODE II: THE EVIL EMPIRE COLLECTS ITS FORCES

Around April 15, 1999, folks began camping in the streets outside of theaters in Hollywood and Westwood in order to purchase tickets and get in line for the big event, Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

These were not primitives, but acolytes of a space age cult, a veritable empire of disposable income, underoo nostalgia, and self-congratulatory consumerism. Out of doors, they slept under unseen stars, since all stellar light was obscured by halogen and neon. They brought with them Sony PlayStations and internet access, DVD and Darth Maul drag. They didn’t slaughter lambs and cook on spits, like any self-respecting pilgrim of yore, but took turns guarding the curb and hunting fast food.

While Columbine cooled down, Star Wars warmed up. While the media questioned the values that would drive teenage kids to mass homicide, it conversely celebrated the joyful fanaticism of street camping for space war tickets.

EPISODE III: SPACE JUNK OF THE BASTARDIZED MEXICAN PLANET

My ticket was for the 10:30 p.m. screening, but the movie started the second I entered the door of Taco Bell. About noon. Friday. First week of show. In Los Angeles alone, the movie had already played round the clock on dozens of theaters for the last 48 hours.

The movie soundtrack accelerated my burrito. My drinking cup gave me a chance to Destroy the Dark Side. Had I succeeded, I might have won big prizes, like a personal watercraft or an SUV, the modern corollaries of the speeders and spacecraft in the movie itself.

I couldn’t help but think that — environmentally speaking — pound for pound, a personal watercraft is perhaps the most destructive vehicle on our planet, dumping a routinely large amount of oil into the ocean and lake waters it petrols (sic). It seems fitting to couple the personal watercraft with the space age technology of Star Wars, a movie series that takes place in a galaxy far, far away where planetary destruction (not to mention race war, colonialism, and fascism) can be safely explored and enjoyed. The original Star Wars, after all, brought us the concept of the Death Star and its fearsome capacity to annihilate an entire planet with one flick of the switch.

Of course, planetary destruction does not take place in a galaxy far, far away when one fatal drinking cup will put you on the seat of a jetski in your own local ecosystem. And this is only the most assertively destructive piece of Star Wars space junk — never mind the plastic soldiers and spaceships, Sprite and Coke two litre billboards, and Taco Bell burrito bags, artifacts that will outlive all of us in landfills and lakebottoms.

Star Wars, of course, has always had a genuinely simplistic notion of planetary diversity, reducing planets to singular elements (the “snow world” of Hoth, the “desert world” of Tatooine and the swamp world” of Dagobah, not to mention the “city world” of the newest film) and generally forgetting to invent imaginable ecosystems for these planets (no vegetation on Tatooine or Hoth — I guess digital Creosote is too expensive).

Perhaps all this comes with the science fiction genre. Desert worlds and water worlds are science fiction shorthand for clearly demarcated location and setting. But the genre in this case is not science fiction. Science is completely disregarded in this series. Of course, Star Wars is not pure fantasy either. Star Wars is too contingent on consumer experience to be dismissed in this way.

I pulled the tab on my drink cup, but did not win. No water warrior or land crusher today. I consider myself lucky. The Dark Side got the better of me. I chucked the cup in the trash. Say, who is this Dark Side anyway?

EPISODE IV: REBELS NOT FOUND IN WESTWOOD

One hour before showtime. The line in Westwood was long. It wrapped the block and terminated in a gas station parking lot. I joined the line. A security guard asked me if I was there to see the film.

“I don’t just wait in line for the hell of it.”

The line, he instructed me, continued on the other side of the parking lot and down the next block. I looked down the block in disbelief. Sure enough, two Bruin shirts were fighting with light sabres.

“I am here from Movie 666.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Are there enough seats?”

“About 1200, and nobody has complained so far.”

“Not a single voice of dissent, in the whole theater?”

“Not a single one.”

EPISODE V: JEDI BEHEADED OVER SPILT RAISINETTES

We entered in waves, about 100 at a time. The pace was just right to get popcorn, take a piss, and find a seat. Efficient and effective, like a Vader Death Star blasting planets or a Tyson farm debeaking chickens.

EPISODE VI: TITANIC SUNK NOW I LOVE LUCAS

The crowd boos at Leonardo DiCaprio. Titanic is long rusted, discounted and bargain binned, previously viewed for sale and under popular reconsideration. Mixed reviews to Brad Pitt, some kind of creepy spy, assassin movie. Silence for Jodie Foster. Some Westwood cult cheer for Chow Yun Fat.

The THX Trailer, Lucasfilm Ltd., brings out the big noise. The Twentieth Century Fox title gets everyone wild. Finally, the words STAR WARS, and the followers are downright frothy.

EPISODE VII: REBUILD THE DEATH STAR

The original Star Wars is taught in film school as an example of how to tell a story. Episode I: The Phantom Menace shall now accompany it as an example of how not to tell one (see article that follows for analysis of the movie itself).

EPISODE VIII: THE EMPIRE TRIUMPHANT

I left Episode I feeling washed up and used. I felt disgusted that I patronized Taco Bell, sitting in their architectural commercial, drinking from their hand held advertisement. I felt flooded and overfed with unavoidable hype — weeklong, monthlong, since I was seven years old, I suppose. My only consolation after seeing the film was that the mindless mob finally got what they deserved for their foolish, relentless consumerism: a really terrible movie.

But I was wrong.

The possibility for rupture was there. When Thulsa Doom is decapitated in Conan the Barbarian, his devoted followers extinguish their candles and meander home, their dedication broken, the illusion dispelled. Episode I should have had this effect. Walking from the theater, folks should have called into question the supermarket plastic assault, the Barnes and Borders bombardment, the every channel but Benny Hinn hyperactive fusilade, the ubiquitous internet adverts and banners, the dewey-eyed aliens pasted and printed on anything paper or plastic, and of course the flannel-frocked digital populist high tech Lucas peppered on the covers of May magazines and beyond.

Episode I should have been rejected by a thinking public. And the plastic and electronic immersion should have been resisted. Rejected and resisted through complaint, through sentiment, through control, through sacrifice, and most of all, through not spending, the only true force in the consumer arsenal. Somehow.

But rupture did not occur. Instead, the cult embraced the film.

And I remembered, this was not just a movie, this was a experience. Yoda is not just a character, but a philosopher. Lucas is not just a capitalist, but a shepherd providing direction, meaning, and audiovisual sustenance to a gaggle of lowing banthas.

And I wondered, might there be somewhere right now in a galaxy far, far away a place where free trade was threatened and blood runs thick with the force and mighty armies meet with laser gun and light sabre and midgetized hominids battle robot clones and fascist military parades are regarded not with fear but celebrated every two hours and seen as fun for family and all? Might these fanatics somehow be sent to this galaxy far, far away? And their children too, so they don’t grow up scary like their parents did, sleeping in the streets and dreaming of glorious deaths and restored monarchies and orientalist muppets?

Because I am fully convinced, after seeing Episode I: The Phantom Menace — not just in the theater, but on the street, on the internet, in the grocery store, on the television, in the newspaper, and on the Planet Taco Bell — that the phantom menace is here, and the empire is among us.

Related posts:

1. Return of the Jedi Loses Status in Star Wars Sextet
2. Star Wars Number Two
3. The Future a Long Time Ago: Attack of the Clones
4. Entertaining the Crew of the Death Star
5. An Epic of iMac Proportions: Gladiator

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