21
May
Lucas needs to cast more women…
21
May
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Who was the best Star Wars hero?
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21
May
First in a series of Star Wars Polls. Start with the obvious. Those selecting Episode II may be shot. Unlike Greedo, I do shoot first.
Two five word reviews of Revenge of the Sith, which I saw on its first full day of release last night.
In the style of Yoda: Suck, the movie did not.
Me: Can I go again tomorrow?
I won’t go quite as far as the Courier-Journal did and proclaim this the best Star Wars film ever (The Empire Strikes Back is still better, though not by much), but it’s certainly the best since Empire, and I thought it superior to 1977’s original. As a rabid fan of all things Star Wars, it did what it had to do, and adequately explained the rise of the Empire, Anakin’s descent into the Dark Side and transformation into Darth Vader, the annihilation of the Jedi (save Ben Kenobi on Tattooine and Yoda in his swamp in the Dagobah system), the separation of the twins to Bail Organa’s Alderaan and Uncle Owen’s Tattooine. As a fan of fun movies, it served well there also, providing nearly three hours of action and adventure. For the bulk of the movie, it was the closest in spirit to the adventure serials Lucas has always claimed to have been channeling.
The news is not all good, of course. The love scenes remain awkward and sterile. Lucas has never done romance well, not between Leia and the boys in the first trilogy, not between Padme and Anakin here. The dialogue is often cliched (points off for actually using "I have a bad feeling about this", which was fresh when Han Solo did it, but oh so tired now). Hayden Christensen still can’t act, although he does glower well. This is not a great film standing alone. It’s not The Return of the King.
But in the end, Lucas was just setting us up. Episode I was mediocre and Episode II was horrid, Episode III is outstanding. It has the spirit, soul and warmth so missing from the first two. It even redeems in large measure the first two films, as it becomes apparent just why Lucas spent so much time dwelling on Anakin’s mother and their lives as slaves, on the Trade Federation, on the separatists. What seemed a disconnected and half-hearted melange of plots and subplots comes together in the end in a grand conspiracy, some of which was obvious, some of it not so much. That Lucas could redeem the first two prequels and create a coherent whole is perhaps the most astounding part of an astounding film.
I was skeptical when the first two prequels appeared to suggest that Anakin became Vader merely because the Jedi disapproved of his relationship with Padme and his secret marriage. Obviously, the third film would bring the twins. But why reject the Jedi Order and join with the Emperor, why build the Death Star(s), why become a tyrant and enforcer merely because the Jedi disapproved? A simple lust for power seemed a more likely scenario than love lost. In RotS it becomes clear, and I for one found the answer satisfying. The more obvious back story would have left unanswered the question of why Vader killed the Emperor to save Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi. Vader had to be more conflicted and complicated than he first appeared, and the setup here is a good one.
RotS is full of small moments of humor and joy, tragedy and not a small bit of horror. Some of the things Anakin does after changing allegiance to the Sith are horrible, although Lucas spares much of the gore. All in all, it’s not a masterpiece. George Lucas does not have it in him to create a masterpiece. It is, however, a fitting prelude to the original Star Wars films, and that is no small thing.
19
May
As of this writing, it’s T-minus 5:07:00 and counting until Revenge of the Sith. And I’m starting to get pumped. Yesterday’s stomach bug couldn’t dissuade me, and I dragged myself to work this morning because this isn’t May 1999 and I can’t justify going to see a Star Wars film on a weekday that I don’t also go to work.
I’m excited almost despite myself. It’s cliched to say it, but The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones were bad. In the latter case, almost unwatchably bad. George Lucas gave into his own dark side a bit too much, and let his fancy new FX toys overwhelm what is great about the Star Wars universe. Because let’s face it, George Lucas is neither a scriptwriter nor a director. He’s a reverse alchemist who can take good actors and make them look bad. Think about what he had to work with this time around: Samuel Jackson, Liam Neeson, Ewan MacGregor, Natalie Portman. He took this quartet of talented actors and made them look wooden and lifeless. Watch Portman in Garden State or Closer and then watch Clones again. I dare you. So it’s not the writing or directing or acting that draws us in, the usual trio of filmmaking. It’s something else.
In Star Wars, Lucas created a universe that we wanted to live in, that some of us did live in in our less-connected-to-reality moments. He singlehandedly created the action figure industry, because we wanted to lie on the family room rug in 1978 and be Luke or Leia or Darth Vader. If we were lucky, we had an X-Wing or a TIE Fighter to battle with. If you were blessed by God, you had the Millennium Falcon. He created a mythology that we wanted to know more about, places that we wanted to visit, people we wanted to meet. Yes, he largely cribbed the mythological framework from Joseph Campbell and the basic plotlines from the serials he remembered from his own youth. No, there’s nothing particularly original about a band of hardy rebels standing against the might of an empire. After all, those most into the Star Wars universe were already exposed to the same themes through the Lord of the Rings.
Don’t forget that Lucas’ worst impulses were present even in the 1980s originals. The Empire Strikes Backs was a classic, yes, but the execrable Jar-Jar Binks is the direct descendant of the revelers in Star Wars’ cantina scene and the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi. The acting in the originals was uneven, the dialogue was wooden, and Lucas managed to make even the inestimable Harrison Ford less than he was in virtually every other film in his career. Nevertheless, we loved the Star Wars universe. And we wanted more. When the credits rolled in 1983, we wanted to know what happened next - after Vader and Palpatine, what happened? More importantly, we wanted to know what happened first? How could the Jedi have been destroyed? What really is the dark side? How could the father of Luke and Leia have gone so bad so quickly? How did Palpatine come to power and where did he recruit all those Stormtroopers? The original films hinted at an elaborate backstory but told almost none of it.
So we’ve been waiting decades to find out, those of us who came of age in the late 1970s. It’s been 28 years since I sat in the darkened confines of a theater at Chapel Hill Mall in Akron, Ohio and my view of movies changed forever. It’s been 25 years of wondering how Luke’s father came to chop his son’s hand off with a light saber. A quarter-century of lightsaber fights with tree branches, of a man in a mask with breathing problems as the personification of evil, of the black vest as the personification of cool.
That’s why I was so excited to see the first prequel. It’s why I’m excited to see this one. As an example of moviemaking, Batman Begins will almost certainly be better. But that’s not what Star Wars is really about, not anymore, at least not for me. It’s about one last chance to see Wookiees and droids, Tattooine and Alderaan, Luke and Leia. And a chance to see Vader for the first time. Tomorrow you can tell me how bad it was or how I should have seen Sideways or Napoleon Dynamite or the new Herbie movie instead. For a few hours tonight, I’m going to be 8 years old again.
More geekspasms here.
So Revenge of the Sith has political subtext?
Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between “Revenge of the Sith” the story of Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering to President Bush’s war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.
Two lines from the movie especially resonated:
“This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause,” bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.
“If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy,” Hayden Christensen’s Anakin soon to become villain Darth Vader tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The line echoes Bush’s international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
“That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush,” said Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. “Plus, you’ve got a politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war.”
Though the plot was written years ago, “the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly there,” Engle said.
Put me firmly in the “and I’m supposed to care, why exactly?” camp. Does Sith show that Lucas is secretly a Bush-hater who thinks the President is trying to turn a democracy into a fascist state? Don’t know and don’t care. Does making the Trade Federation a bad guy in the prior movies show that Lucas is anticapitalist (a ludicrous notion, given the existence of Dark Side M&Ms, but I digress)? Don’t know, and don’t care. At its best, the Star Wars saga tells an interesting story using bits and pieces of universal archetypes (that Lucas stole from Joseph Campbell). The rise of dictatorship and empire is among them. So what?
I’ll be in the theater on Thursday evening with bells on. So stop trying to tell me it’s all a liberal diatribe that I must avoid. Or that it’s bound to be disappointing. Or that I’m an incurable geek for being excited. I know you think all of these things, and I just don’t care. It’s a movie. If I’m entertained, I’ll praise Lucas on Friday. If I’m not, I’ll criticize him.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot ban the interstate delivery of wine if they allow in-state shipment of wine from local wineries.
USATODAY.com - Wineries that sell vino via the Internet stand to gain
[T]he challengers, vintners from California and Virginia, said that the 21st Amendment cannot override the Constitution’s commerce clause, which protects the interstate flow of goods.
In a majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court agreed. It said the 21st Amendment, adopted in 1933, did not allow bias against out-of-state liquor producers. “States may not enact laws that burden out-of-state producers … simply to give a competitive advantage to in-state businesses,” Kennedy wrote.
The decision is likely to end the current patchwork of laws, under which some states ban direct shipments altogether, others do so only for out-of-state wines, and still others require reciprocity.
The states and wholesalers argued that the restrictions were legal under the 21st Amendment and kept minors from obtaining alcohol illegally and ensured states could collect excise taxes. Both of those arguments are, of course, red herrings. These laws and their underlying regulatory regimes have always been about protecting politically-connected wholesalers from competition. As the decision noted, the states that allow direct shipment have experienced no problem with minors obtaining access to alcohol – is a minor really more likely to order a $100 case of wine from a small vineyard in California rather than picking up a six pack of Bud Light down the street?
States now have to decide how to respond. Those that have actually bought the “it’s for the children” line spun by the wholesalers, like Michigan, are likely to try to eliminate direct shipment for all wine, especially if they don’t have much of a domestic wine industry to harm by such action. Other states, like New York and Virginia and Ohio are likely to allow adult customers access to the sorts of wine that big state-licensed wholesalers have no interest in stocking.
Wineries and the Institute for Justice, which represented winery owners from Virginia and California were jubilant:
“This is the best day for wine-lovers since the invention of the corkscrew,” said Clint Bolick, the strategic litigation counsel for the Institute for Justice. “This landmark ruling is a victory for consumers and small businesses and a defeat for economic protectionism. It demonstrates that in the era of the Internet, the Court will vindicate the principles of free trade that made this country great.”
Bolick said, “Now wine lovers all across the nation can obtain their favorite wines without having to commit an act of civil disobedience.”
David Lucas, founder of the Lucas Winery in Lodi, Calif., and a client of the Institute for Justice, said, “This is great news for adult consumers who are looking for unique wines—for wines that don’t appear on the local shelf. We all know that economic discrimination doesn’t work and this decision will increase the market for everyone interested in wine—for wholesalers, for small wineries, for everyone. This decision will grow the pie, not divide it. Thank goodness for the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and for the court that has seen through the smoke screen of temperance and taxation that the wholesalers have tried to throw up.”
Responding to Michigan’s threat to end in-state direct shipment rather than allow access by out of state wineries to Michigan consumers, the IJ remembered the other big event scheduled for this week:
“This is a vile suggestion on their part and not very wise,” said Clint Bolick, the strategic litigation counsel for the Institute for Justice. “A bureaucrat standing between consumers and their favorite wine in the wake of today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision is in a very hazardous spot. Unfortunately, however, as Star Wars teaches us, the Empire always strikes back and Samona’s response only underscores that point. But you can’t keep freedom corked up. In the end, we’re sure the economics of expanding the economic liberty of vintners and the choice of consumers will win the day.”
More from CNet here. The Supreme Court ruling is here.
Good to know government is looking out for the consumer.
Maryland Hits Brakes on Fleeting Gasoline Price War
A gasoline price war erupted in St. Mary’s County last week after one station slashed its price for regular to $1.999 a gallon and spurred three others to follow suit, giving drivers some hope of relief at the pump.
But the price dip proved fleeting.
Maryland regulators quickly stepped in and told the stations that their prices were too low. They needed to go up by 5 cents.
The law, of course, has nothing to do with protecting consumers, and everything to do with protecting “independent service station operators” from competition, primarily from national chains that don’t have the overhead of mechanics and auto repair and do have sales from higher-margin convenience store items. If all the service stations went away tomorrow, there would still be competition between BJ’s and Sheetz and Wawa. The only valid purpose for regulation is to protect competition, not individual competitors.
Via The Agitator
