HYPER-REALITY
An Interview with Star Wars fan, “SWF”
(Interview done from June 8th to 12th, 2005)
S. St. Laurent: I understand you actually missed “Star Wars” the first time around. You actually didn't show up to the theatres back in May or June of 1977. What happened?
SWF: May 19, 1977, as you know, it was released. But I guess you refer to the fact that Nowhere, Ontario was likely not one of the thirty some theatres it was first booked into – and most of those against the will of theatre owners. But I wouldn’t have known about that.
I was eight when I first heard of it thanks to a friend bringing the Time Magazine feature to show and tell and I nine when it was released. It was deemed “Adult Entertainment,” which meant something different back then. Maybe this was before Canada adopted Parental Guidance. Either way, I wasn’t allowed to watch it. I was also ultimately not allowed to watch the series “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” as year or so later because it depicted tele-kinetics which my mother found disturbing.
My mother did however take me to “Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind” in December 1977 after “Star Wars” was apparently gone (although I did not do the detective work to check the newspapers and make sure it was gone). She also brought me to “2001” a couple of years later, but by then I had seen “Star Wars” and it was like trying pot after cocaine.
SS: What were your feelings when you finally did see it? Did you “buy it”?
SWF: By the time it made another swing through town, I knew much of “Star Wars” by heart already because for some reason I was allowed to have the “The Story of Star Wars” record with sound effects and dialogue. But since I thought I knew all the dialogue, when Darth Vader enters the Rebel Blockade Runner I made a run for the popcorn stand. When I returned to my seat I was embarrassed to hear that some dialogue was not on the record and so I would likely have to see it again.
There was no question of buying into “Star Wars”. My first impression had been from the cheap TV commercial which aired months before I officially heard about it at school. I remarked something dismissive about monsters in space, referring to what must have been Chewbacca and his one roaring shot. Commercials for “Star Wars” would improve over the years, but wither I dismissed it at first or I was overcompensating. But when I finally saw the film the screen was like a porthole into that world.
The dangerous thing for me and movies is that I generally have no problem spacing out. Each time Luke entered the trench, there was a chance he might not destroy the Death Star this time. And if I could ignore the stakes of that then I must be a very irresponsible person. But come to think of it since I was still relatively young I don’t remember who I saw “Star Wars” with that first time, other than the characters and the popcorn vendor.
I saw “Empire” right away opening weekend in Windsor with my father and I remember it was inconvenient that I happened to see the paper and know it could be seen that night. We saw it at the Center Theatre, I believe it was called, and that was my first awareness of something like surround sound, with TIE fighters apparently roaring from behind me and passing. Back home, I think I was allowed to go to the downtown theatres at least and “Empire” was there. I saw that many times, and “Popeye” a few times.
1981, however was the beginning of addiction as I felt more free to go to movies of all kinds myself, especially matinees, and stare at a little display of posters next door to the theatre for what was coming soon. I lost a lot of time there but I loved it. I seemed to have serious thoughts going on in my mind, but judging from some “letters to the editor” I started writing about movies to the local paper and the Catholic Register questioning reviewers and the ratings system, my thoughts were fairly simplistic at the time.
That all evolved in the long three years between “Empire” and “Jedi”. There was also an usher at the Capitol Theatre – a brunette named Bernice, and I actually imagined I had some kind of relationship with her because she was nice to me. When she stopped working at the Capitol, it wasn’t the same going to movies. I might have seen “Empire”, “Clash of the Titans” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” a few times more than intended because she was there.
“Back to the Future” in 1985 is the last time I remember being relatively untroubled in my movie-going and in life. But when “Jedi” came out I was 15 and that was about the peak of my movie enthusiasm. The next year was “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, “Ghostbusters”, “Beverly Hills Cop”, “Romancing the Stone”, and going to movies was taken for granted.
But when I turned 17 long about 1985 I stopped working at the church part-time and had less spending money. In 1984, I did have a summer job at a lumber mill with the objective of buying a VHS machine and when I earned enough I stayed on schedule and left the job without hesitation, bought the (then $700) VHS and had some money left over for movie rentals.
I had been getting into restricted movies since I was fifteen because I looked older, and 14-and over booby movies since I was 12 (Big leaps, it seemed like at the time), but VHS meant a new world of almost exclusive horror and R-rated viewing for me and my friends. The perversion of taking a movie into your own home had been gradual for me, since I lugged Super 8 and 16mm projectors from the library for years and large album-size video discs after that. (Good way to entice neighbourhood girls into my room and have the lights off, but I think I had more luck on the sofa in the front room watching “Hogan’s Heroes” with a neighbourhood girl beside me, or playing “Stalag 13” in the basement, but I digress.)
There was a certain thrill for a while of walking along with a VHS of “Videodrome” or something like that when I knew we were cheating the Gods and that these things belonged in a theatre – like Jesus belonged in the church and you didn’t file Him away on a shelf or a dresser. A VHS of each “Star Wars” movie would just be something to have and not be blown away by, no event, just something tangible to take away from that universe like the toys and a possession with little function except to thrust my copy at anyone who hadn’t seen “Star Wars” or “Raiders” and make sure they knew the Word, like a Bible filed away for somebody else to read.
SS: “Star Wars” was released May 19th... in about 35 theatres if I'm correct. It hit Barrie, Ontario (where I saw it at the Imperial 2) on June 3rd. I went off to see it with my buddy while the rest of my family – thinking we were nuts – all trotted off to see “The Deep”. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's the way it was. We were there: “The Deep” was the movie to “see”, of course, until the word spread... ).
Do you wish you liked “Star Wars” a little less than you do... in the sense that maybe you were a little too preoccupied with it? Do you keep things in perspective in that “Star Wars” is just a movie (certainly, you can group the films all together here, its just that the original is just that)? Or, is it all much more personal?
SWF: Though I am interested in the fact that the hypothalamus shape dictates one’s capacity for religious feeling and that fandom can take up that space, no, I don’t think life would be better or worse if I had responded to “Star Wars” less enthusiastically. I won’t use the term “obsession” either, though there is more to respond to than special effects. If “Star Wars” had not been around, I might have stuck with “The Six Million Dollar Man” or I might have warmed up to “Star Trek” before “The Wrath of Khan”. “Mork and Mindy” also appealed to me. I was age ten to fourteen when that was on.
All of the titles I’ve just now mentioned have something in common, either ideals worlds or relationships or a certain recognition of kindness and of duty, as well as the superficial energy. But whatever mischief I got into as a kid, “Star Wars” was one of the colours on the palate, or the most worn down crayon in the box. The sound tracks were often played in my room and it partially scores considerably less action packed my life with a sort of irony.
At various times of life I have felt the Irish in me stir to one degree or another if Jesus Christ or Mark Hamill are being attacked by non-believers, and I suppose that this is the final result of being raised Roman Catholic “Star Wars”. Over the years, my relationship to one institution or another has been a bit of a roller-coaster. I have worked as a sacristan (preparing the altar, lighting candles, opening and lighting the church, separating filthy wet Palm Sunday palms, and folding newspapers and bulletins as well as filling in as altar boy during service if nobody else shows up.) Five years, the longest job I have held in my life, and not unlike some security guard work I have done.
I went to Catholic elementary school, a private Catholic High School, and participated in plays with the Baptist church and other organizations, so religion was taken for granted. But two priests I can think of who I have worked with or known well indirectly have been disgraced and that causes a certain shadow on things. My “Star Wars” fandom survived “The Star Wars Holiday Special” because I just wasn’t a very discriminating nine-year old or ten-year-old when it aired.
“The Phantom Menace” in 1999 was the 9/11 of first generation “Star Wars” fandom. But that is another story, whether or not some would have us believe it is all part of the same one.
In May 1983, before Jedi finally came out, I had a stand-off with my best friend over the last comic adaptation of it resting on the Zellers magazine rack like the only copy of the Gnostic Gospel discovered by two rival archaeologists. We flipped a coin and I lost, only to randomly check a Shoppers Drug Mart on the other side of town, find a bunch, and race home to read my copy cover to cover, shocked by the revelations, and cry at the end. I teared up a bit reading the novelization, and then loved the movie and welled up a little there too at the end and when an Ewok’s mama is killed. I didn’t realize how much time the Ewoks took up back then. I just appreciated that the Ewokese word for Mama is the same as ours.
I actually paid admission for my mom and one of my sisters to see “Return of the Jedi”, and they were satisfied enough with it that they reimbursed me when they got home. That brings to time the in 1980 that my mom saw “The Empire Strikes Back” and decided to reflect on it with the comic book while introducing me to the piece of music which Darth Vader’s theme reminded her of, the “Funeral March”. In the same way that any conversation about movies between people who are interested in human affairs can branch off into any topic and then back to movies, “Star Wars” introduced me to many of its origins and sources and becomes a primer and a springboard to looking at history, art, and other films. So “Star Wars” is not a placeholder or a replacement for a fan’s life being lived.
However, there have been moments of reverie or daydreaming where the mundane problems and dramas of everyday life just didn’t seem so urgent as the problem of protecting the universe from the evil Empire.
Unfortunately, the fighting skills of the Jedi did not lead me into any athletic inclinations. And it wasn’t until 1984 at age 16 when it looked like the cozy hearth of “Star Wars” was over that I actually started drawing storyboards and roping my friends into acting in video productions of my own. I also did a TV high school report and by 17 or 18 got asked to direct a Block Parents promo for the Ontario Provincial Police. Then I went back to being mainly a couch potato only making a couple of shorts per year.
Documentaries on the making of “Star Wars” and the movies themselves were a major inspiration and introduction to my somewhat unrequited love of making movies. So I can’t speculate how my life would be if I removed that strand from my creative DNA.
If I have a weak moment, I might say that it made being shy and a little easier, and that I would not allow a child of mine to be so satisfied with “Star Wars” because considerations of dating may be more easily differed for another day. But it would be false to perpetuate the stereotype of the dateless “Star Wars” geek, hiding in Lucas land, because I did bump into girls at school and have crushes and worse. There were many fellow “Star Wars” fans, a few of them female, who had healthy happy and social teenage lives. I didn’t get into a lot of trouble as a youth, but many of my daydreams would have been about a girl and “Star Wars” wasn’t really any help escaping that. In fact, there is never any escape from life, so the designation of escapism isn’t something I apply here. Michael Moore’s films could be used as escapism by some.
SS: Johnny Williams no doubt based (heavily) his “Imperial March/Darth Vader Theme” on Frederic Chopin's “Funeral March”... but, of course, made it much more “upbeat”. As a note, the “Funeral March” was played (andante) whenever Beaver Cleaver had to confess to Ward that he did something evil. Does that mean that Beaver was on his way to the darkside? A discussion for another time.
Have any fireworks developed with lady “Star Wars” fans, or are interstellar dynamics and gymnastics not part of the Empire's plans?
SWF: If it is not part of the Empire’s plans, then it should be encouraged. The girl I went to Grad or “prom” with was a “Star Wars” fan. The girl I was after in college was also a “Star Wars” fan. But being a “Star Wars” fan is not enough. That was incidental. The former also could not swear, and at the time I was also distracted by my interest in another girl; years later I see that my prom date remains a very sane and grounded person, married and happy. The latter girl I never heard anything about after college, though she presumably works in the film industry as that was the course we were both in.
SS: Do you keep your fandom contained? Are there pictures of Luke, Leia, and Han on your wall or fridge?
SWF: Contained? I was going to say there are no pictures on my wall, but right beside my computer is a publicity still of Han with Luke on a Tauntaun. So what little is on my sparse white walls are a few family pictures and a token “Star Wars” image. It is pasted on the wall with the same substance Phillip Seymore Hoffman uses in “Happiness”.
SS: Who's your favourite character and why? Who would you most like to be?
SWF: I’m not sure that I have a favourite character anymore, but growing up they say the eternal question is do you see yourself as a Luke or a Han. It may have been Kevin Smith who said that a lot of us want to be Han but may be more of a Luke. I don’t see Luke as a whiner either, but he is very straight-ahead and altruistic which tends to look bland beside someone who has one foot out the door. If I am surrounded by a group that thinks one way, I may withdraw and this may be more of a Han mode being ready with sarcasm.
It’s like comparing Johnny Carson and David Letterman in the 1980’s, or to an extent Jay Leno and Letterman today. One might go for a more affirmative style and the other is more critical and barbed, even if this is only comparing surfaces – California versus New York. I know Letterman is not a “Star Wars” fan, and I’ve had to reconcile that, being a fan of his and “Star Wars”. Although I remember an outstanding fake making of documentary they made about his Late Night show, Chris Elliot: Television Miracle, which asserted that he was a robot and that parts of the talk show were stop-motion. This indicates that at least someone on his staff has more than a passing familiarity with “Star Wars” documentaries, right down to a make-up artist asserting that, “For wisdom and humanity, I modeled his eyes on Albert Einstein”, referring to the robot Chris Elliot.
In high school I definitely had an irony-tinged sense of humour and compulsively set my VCR to tape Letterman or I stayed up for it. The logos I would scrawl on chalkboards were Letterman’s Late Night swirl, or the bad guys’ emblem from (the television series) “V”. “Star Wars” graffiti would have to be an actual illustration of Darth Vader or TIE fighters which undermined whatever I was defacing.
The danger of being a Luke is that he must be right. Hans have more fun. If I am a Luke, then I teetered on the dark side, working in a church while not being especially good - without getting into detail. The Letterman or Han functions to point out what seems to be bullshit, though it may also come from an earnest respect for truth or justice.
I recall that after 9/11 Letterman had some of the most thoughtful discussions on TV. But the Han category of person may also turn out to be genuinely aloof and selfish. This is the pitfall of meeting brash, worldly-seeming new friends who like the stability of you as a “Luke”. In time, though, I might seem to be or become an indifferent Han depending on the context.
SS: Your encapsulated gut reaction (from today's perspective) to each of the films...
SWF: “Episode l – The Phantom Menace” : If this movie had been released first, in 1977 – even with an equivalent celebrity cast and post-”Jurassic Park” era special effects intact – we would not be talking about “Star Wars” today. We’ve gotten over this film since 1999, like the loss of a testicle. That example pretty much sums up what movie did to “Star Wars” fandom. After years of getting George Lucas’ back, we get this.
The Pod Race and the fight scenes are held up as worthwhile, as well as one or two subtle interjections from Senator Palpatine, but the core problem is that even though it contains material that only targets an audience of small children the movie fails to make peace as attractive as combat. Even the heroes at the end confront the villain two against one, which is hardly sporting or suspenseful despite the fact that the sequence is entertaining. But again, the moral aftertaste is that we respect Darth Maul much more than the undeveloped character deserves.
While we want to vicariously enjoy supernatural heroes vanquish folks of slavery and the like, something inside us screams “but.. but... BUT WAIT!” when Qui-Gon Ginn engages in business with a slave owner and is complicit in it and plays the civilized role while tolerating a potentially deadly race to decide his fate (short of borrowing someone else’s vehicles or parts) and yet Qui-Gon is dishonest enough to wave his hand over a pair of dice to cheat the Caradassian junk dealer while Watto himself in turn DOESN’T NOTICE the hand wave. And what street smart slaver would roll dice with someone who knows telekinesis?
Jar and the Gungans have a few lines that might otherwise be funny if their presence wasn’t so dominant. Lucas gave himself no escape hatch with Jar Jar Binks. I think he especially loved anything new that he introduced instead of exploring worlds we have been curious about. We have not seen the spice mines of Kessel, nor Han Solo’s planet Correl and it is only recently that we glimpse Alderaan. . . which could have easily replaced Naboo as a name which sounds less like poo and other Jar Jar baby talk.
“The Phantom Menace” confused and confounded people when clarity was the appeal of the “Star Wars” brand name. Lucas engaged small children here on a journey he knew would end in betrayal and horror that only teens and older audiences could appreciate.
The term “The Phantom Menace” is given retro-active meaning it could not have before September 11 2001 turned terrorism into a buzz word. It is not surprising that the younger generation may like it more than the “old” movies, especially if they have no interest in writing or haven’t been tormented by what could have been. I still consider it The Phantom Premise.
“Episode ll – Attack of the Clones” : Though not perfect, if this movie had been the one released in 1999 with an “Episode 1” designation Lucas would have reached his billion-dollar box office projections. It has a simple story: While Obi-Wan investigates the source of Padme’s would be assassin, Anakin is assigned as her protector despite privately being in love with her.
The film could be improved by trimming the beginnings and ends of some scenes, and footage from Padme’s family and household should be restored, but the film dares to be creepy with the centipedes and provides a suitable segue into the darkness of “Episode III”.
As we naturally fall into the trap of playing Monday Morning Quarterback to George Lucas, we might ask why the sensible Obi Wan Kenobi jumps out a window to snag a flying assassin droid instead of waving it inside using the Force, and the impulsive Anakin has to then top him in a fun flying chase over the cityscape which serves to undermine any suspense after establishing that are heroes are nor underdogs at all but invincible supermen.
The movie has baggage from the previous movie which casts the wisdom and kindness of the Jedi council into question, such as why Anakin’s mother must be left abandoned as a slave with no communication from her son while he lives in swank apartments and every other building is a cathedral.
“Episode lV – A New Hope” : Still great, though slightly hurting from revelations in 'Jedi' and the prequels. I am most vulnerable to the aesthetics of this film, the sights and sounds and certainly much of the music which has randomly scored events in my life I could never keep track of. A more extreme example is the last time I tried to watch “Bambi”; I couldn’t get past the whoosh of the opening song, “Love is a song that never ends”. It was too much. I wonder what the hell happened to me watching “Bambi”, or seeing the “Jaws” poster that blindsides me sometimes with inconsistent reactions. But for me the original “Star Wars” is like growing up in a white little city. Just as all of my friends were white, all of my bullies were too. And the sun rose and set on good and evil alike, with “Star Wars” music in the background.
The editing is terrific, the framing adds an element, and the actors do deliver each note and help build the world of “Star Wars”. It is a bright, uncontaminated film, despite some changes made in 1997 and beyond. Even with compromises, it’s optimism rings more true than the relativism that the prequels introduce. Darth Vader apparently tortures his Daughter with a mind probe in this film, without recognizing that “the force is with her” in the sense that she would have plenty of Medi-chlorians in her blood. If there is a continuity error, it’s not in this movie. This is the real story.
Joseph Campbell’s writings taught Lucas to clear away the crap and tell THE ritual story we want, and then later he could put the unused stuff back into the mix. (“Star Wars”) “A New Hope” has its charming inconsistencies, like C-3P0 lying about Princess Leia, “I believe she was a passenger on our last voyage. A person of some importance, I think.” This despite his opening line, “We’re doomed, there’ll be no escape for the princess this time”.
“Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back” : Still great, and hurting a little more from revelations in “Jedi” and the prequels. I am not sure whether this or the original is my favourite. I mentally associate it with more freedom of movement from when I was twelve and had a couple of jobs and could frequently walk downtown and take in a couple of “Empire” screenings without a pang of guilt for the free show.
The physics of “Star Wars” is not a favourite topic of conversation with me, but I have to acknowledge that though I like seeing R2-D2 slide into the open floor when he restores the Falcon’s hyper-drive, it is typical dramatic license considering that people are rarely thrown back in their chairs by the force of light speed at any other time.
At first I thought that adding the usual Emperor was tacky, as well as replacing the voice of Boba Fett with Jango’s voice all in the name of continuity “Star Wars” is so known for. But I have come to accept it.
The Serenity Prayer is handy for both co-dependant recovery programs and “Star Wars” fans. But this movie still has what I consider the most “Star Wars content” which I define as a ratio of comic relief and action tempered with philosophy. If it were looked at as more than a product and in fact an art film, it is ultimately about faith. Final images anticipate an ending and resolution to conflicts.
“Episode Vl – Return of the Jedi” : Underrated. Though the lesser of the Original Trilogy, like Siskel and Ebert said it is in good company.
Boba Fett’s death plays like an arbitrary anticlimactic joke, and Lucas fibs a bit on the DVD commentary track when he says, “If I had known he would be so popular, I might not have killed him off so quick.” (Not the exact line/ can check it out.) Boba was popular since before the release of “Empire” when his action figure was a big mail-in give-away and even in the terrible “Star Wars Holiday Special” he is an intriguing role in the animated sequence. Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan had plenty of time to canvas people. All that being said, though Fett is killed accidentally, at least it is Han Solo who does it and that is appropriate.
I understand that it might be “the Jedi Way” to let people or creatures decide for themselves the right or wrong path, and that may be why Luke offers the druids as a gift likely knowing that Jabba won’t bargain and thus allowing Luke to clear his conscience about taking the next step. The same principle might have been applied by Qui-Gon Ginn as he prefers not to simply free people by brandishing a light sabre. Again, ultimately Luke doesn’t kill Jabba but the most appropriate person does - Leia, and she manages to kill in full revenge mode without succumbing to the Dark Side. Apparently, one has to be officially registered as a Jedi in training to worry about the karmic implications of revenge.
If I want to really be a bastard, I could suggest that the moment the Jedi returns at the end of this is really not much of a turn-around nor much of a sacrifice for Darth Vader. Once your mentor blatantly urges someone to kill you, a mentor you may remember urging you to kill his previous apprentice Count DooKu, chances are that the only other options aren’t very attractive. If Vader had not redeemed himself, there would be little between him and his master.
On a broader note, looking at the Ewok factor, it is too bad that Lucas had to focus on his Vietnam illustration with a supposedly primitive culture defeating big technology. I accepted this movie fully when I was 15, and I love it as a great, fun lie. The Empire would not have dismissed the Ewoks for being mere teddy bears. They would have detected the life forms, found them unpredictable, and exterminated them with flame-throwers. There is an evil part of me that would have liked to have Han and Luke stumble upon a heap of smouldering fur-balls. Too much screen time for them and Jabba’s palace guests. But at least with the Ewoks Lucas does depict a community of sorts which can enjoy a workable peace, and perhaps it proves that – contrary to my criticism of “The Phantom Menace” – perhaps there is no fun way to depict peace outside of a porno.
SS: Okay, “Star Wars: Episode lll – Revenge of the Sith” is out. Tell me how you feel.
SWF: The Force is strong with this one. A brisk, fun opening sequence gets it off on the right foot. The dialogue didn’t bother me the first time I saw “Episode III” and the second time I saw it I felt that people prone to publish their opinions tend to overstate and generalize. I think the writing and acting are fine, but where people expect problems they will find them and nobody wants to be the only critic who dares say, “You know something, Hayden is terrific and the dialogue ain’t half bad”. There are one or two lines of dialogue which would be unnatural to you and I in conversation but I can’t say that they don’t suit “Star Wars” land. People often say what they mean here.
Even if the dialogue had been uniformly poor, that wouldn’t have been enough to dismiss the film. It is a generous production, and this time there is a more moody mise en scene, the clouds and lighting evoking specific emotions in many scenes. One critic remarked that a “MacBeth moment” of choice is simply skipped by Lucas, but I argue that a HUGE and goose-bump inducing moment is made of Anakin’s choice to disobey Mace Windu and go to participate join the arrest of the Chancellor. There is a music cue and a grace note there that has to be sat through not described. It is great.
The eye candy aspect is also hypnotic and generous, more so than in the other prequels or maybe it is just that they are along the way to unfolding a more interesting story. I rationalize a story continuity issue about a character dying who knew Leia as a little girl, but this person could have been a ghost and may have been accepted by the young Leia as a physical presence.
Because of this movie I am less uncomfortable with Hayden replacing Sabastian Shaw as the risen Anakin on the DVD of “Return of the Jedi”, because now he has also appeared in a great “Star Wars” film. The prequels are just a fact of life.
Lucas uses iconic images in his best work, and yet went to the trouble of charting this arc for Anakin Skywalker which serves only to diffuse Darth Vader as a figure of pure evil. If it is a case study, then big evil figures and megalomaniacs are at heart pouting and whining suckers. If it is ultimately a cautionary tale then the lesson is: You may be manipulated into turning evil if you are born a slave with special powers in your blood and your mentors refuse to let you visit or save your mother and would disgrace you if they knew you married a woman and they show indifference toward your prophetic nightmares despite the fact that you are the only one having them due to the Dark Side casting a fog over even the most powerful Jedi knights even when they are not on the same planet as the source of that fog. And that’s a life lesson I think we can all take to heart.
My mom took my nephew to see “Revenge of the Sith”, and she boils it down to “The Devil is the Father of Lies”. I guess that’s good enough. Hopefully she was talking about The Emperor and not George Lucas.
SS: I would have to go with what most people would say about the “Star Wars” flicks, even the best of them (“Star Wars”, “Empire”): They are great fun movies for what they are and what they are trying to do but some fans tend to put them a little “high on the list” (and we are crazy for lists, aren't we?).
Do you find these feelings to be short-changing the whole franchise in the sense that they are unnecessarily putting the brakes on the importance of these films? Or do you actually agree with this point in basic terms – its just that you realize are more of a fan, so of course, you are going to value them a little more?
SWF: I don’t agree with it. If it were the case, then I wouldn’t have any “guilty pleasures”. I would be boldly defending every season of “Mork and Mindy”. Writing a list as a sort of personality profile is one thing, and in that case “Return of the Jedi” and “Revenge of the Sith” would be comfortably included. When I see “Star Wars” or “The Empire Strikes Back” on an “official” list, I feel they have a rightful place in the full pantheon as expertly crafted films with all the beats in place.
Ultimately it is folly to suggest that there is an objective grading for art of any kind, although teachers, critics, and anyone with such a pulpit manage to pass their opinions off as such. We make due with reviewers, and either they perk our curiosity about a movie or weed something out though it is rarely because of the authority of the reviewer but only tips we have picked up. A review that says, “A sleazy excuse to show nudity”, in other words might end up on a poster.
One could argue that films nobody watches anymore, or films that belong to a cultural or historical context that is not as relatable now may not belong on a publicized “Best Films of All Time” list. I don’t even like the term “of All Time”, because that means the future too and none of my future films are on those lists.
At best, lists like the AFI (American Film Institute) do help to promote the re-release of at least a few catalogue movies, getting them back into circulation. For that reason, the lists are okay by me. In those terms, “Star Wars” needs no such promotion and though the films have been discontinued at one time or another in cycles they will continue to sell. But I think the inclusion of “Star Wars” gives a sort of credibility to such a list.
Certain popular movies earned their reputation by being vital and exciting; their success is not merely dependant upon hype, although some so-called experts would like us to believe that. As “Star Wars” disappears from such lists gradually, don’t expect it to make room for more old or foreign films. There will simply be newer “classics” crammed in.
I have no doubt that there are many cinephiles grunting and moaning that a list isn’t entirely composed of Orson Welles and Bergman and the usual suspects, which I generally consider heavy handed. But I am willing to bat the condescending remarks right back and allow that they have their place too.
SS: Don't you find that this is all one big contest? Everything today is put up on lists – especially by the media. Having said that, what are your favourite movies of all time (short list)?
SWF: The average person loves contests and games. I don’t, really. I didn’t have to root for “Star Wars” as a kid, although I delayed seeing “E.T.” when its box office first threatened “Star Wars”. Announcing box office returns wasn’t as chronic and routine as it is now, but it does at least go back to 1982 when I first heard of it as newsworthy.
As for a short list of my favourite movies of all time, see the title of this interview. Actually, I think a list would be redundant. I would like to support “Attack of the Clones” by including it, but I think that and “The Phantom Menace” have to be excused. Apart from the remaining “Star Wars” films, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (which I did find more compelling and sincere than “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”), “Back to the Future”, and maybe “Taxi Driver” just to mess with your head.
SS: Hey, you aren't messing with my head. Opinions are just that, opinions. My next question might already have been answered but is your interest in films fairly broad or narrow? Do you sometimes feel that you are expected or supposed to like a certain film or group of films?
SWF: I wish I had a longer and more “charged” answer for this but I don’t. It’s not a matter of feeling you are supposed to or expected to like a certain group of films. One of my little nephews said that he “used to” be into “Star Wars” and hasn’t seen “Sith” yet. Another nephew loved it, although the adult with him felt it was not age appropriate with all the fire.
So it isn’t like the whip can be cracked one way or another. “Taxi Driver”, I liked in my nihilistic early twenties. But even that was edited by my Marcia Lucas, so there is a connection.
SS: Its obvious to me that you are really into “Star Wars”... analytically, if not Kenner-ly. If a pharmaceutical was introduced (and, of course, it would be overpriced) that you could take to eradicate your passion for “Star Wars” flicks, would you take it?
SWF: In fact, there is a Viagra for “Star Wars” fans, Dianogra. But I refuse to take it. When you mention Kenner, I realise that I’m not much of a consumer to begin with. A friend of mine, a high school teacher my own age, told me he bought couple of action figures for the first time since 1999, an Anakin and a General Grievous. When I was about seventeen, I sold off most of my collections. But the action figures went to my Godson.
SS: Was it a good run? Did the course stay straight and narrow or were there too many storms and strong currents?
SWF: I have no idea what that means. Ask me at the end of my life. Unless you are planning to kill me now.
I have started re-reading “Heir to the Empire” today. Better than I remembered. Maybe it is receptive time for it. But there’s no escaping “Star Wars”.
In a screenwriter’s group I was making a point in favour of characters we can impose ourselves onto and the idea that they don’t have to be gritty and complicated. I said, “Like Luke in Star Wars”. Another participant got a laugh by saying, “Luke Skywalker’s like is very complicated”. Because there was a laugh, I didn’t press on at that point, but eventually the point can be made that in 1977 they didn’t know his life was complicated and his lineage has little to do with how complex he will come across at that point in his life.
I remember around 1981 the girl I liked, Tracy, who was kind of a tomboyish but pretty girl in pink track pants, hung out with me a bit one summer and I remember being shocked that she said she hopes Luke turns to the Dark Side. I guess that is about as much storm as you get, at least in relation to “Star Wars”.
My Dad stepped on my large Millennium Falcon once well drunk, and didn’t miss a beat scolding me about it being “on the floor” in my room (when it was too big for a shelf). But I have since forgiven him.
As an example of straight and narrow so far, I stayed loyal to “Star Wars” when “Grease” was the thing to like, and my first prose short story was a writing sample for English in which the content I recall established the superiority of “Star Wars” over “The Black Hole” by having the mile-long Cygnus dock within the hold of a Star Destroyer. But it’s not all about SW ultimately. Today I tried to get my nephews to watch “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”. Short of claiming the flying robots were stolen from (the 1940s Max Fleisher) “Superman” cartoons, their attention was off and on.
SS: The Emperor is a close friend of mine (makes sense). Would you like to meet him?
SWF: Too scary. Scary Force lightning. But the actor deserves a supporting actor nomination. If he doesn’t get it, I’ll chalk it up to the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) issue where apparently Lucas used some non-union people, presumably for voice work, which is why Gary Oldman backed out of “Grievous”.
Another reason he might not be recognized is because how can actors claim “Star Wars” movies have good acting? Actors, being most frequently interviewed, are the ones who help establish which movies get the respect and which are written off: Not coincidentally, as long as they are the special effect – even at the expense of the story thrust – a movie will be highly regarded. A movie with an actor squirming with a syringe in a corner for two hours will be the height of art. Working against a blue screen or green screen will be mostly thankless.
Copyright 2005
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