Of Norse gods and flannel Jedis

Friday night, the wife and I went on a long-overdue date to the local movie house. We live in a somewhat rural part of West Tennessee; yet I am happy to say that the local theater now runs 3-D movies. And while I still think the whole 3-D movie thing is a bit overblown, and in no small degree a gimmick by Hollywood to keep traffic flowing to the theaters, I think this is a good thing, in the main — mostly because I no longer have to drive to Nashville to see a film in 3-D, which was the case as recently as two years ago.

On the downside, the local theater isn’t large enough to offer 2-D offerings of the same film for those who don’t like the new format (a non-existent complaint for me — if I care enough to go to the theater at all, it will likely only be for a ‘big’ picture, which I would probably want to see in 3-D in the first place). 

A greater concern is that two tickets to the Friday night 3-D showing of Thor nearly obliterated a $20 bill, leaving only a whimpering portrait of George Washington in its place — which explains nicely why I only rarely go to the movies these days.

So the wife and I have now seen the first of the big summer movies — Thor. I am no one’s comic book geek, as a general rule, but as a fan of stories with at least some element of the fantastical (Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, ect.), I find myself following them rather regularly, and consequently, have a passing familiarity with the comic, and the Norse mythos it was based upon. Also, I’ve always been a fan of Kenneth Branagh’s work, so there’s that.

It was, in a word, fun, from start to finish. Chris Hemsworth, whom we last saw as James T. Kirk’s father, is more than up to the task of bringing the son of Odin to life; he is, in equal parts, strong and vulnerable, infuriating and likable, and heroic and flawed. Natalie Portman’s performance was a surprise; she is, for the first time, cute. Thor’s brother, whose name I will not repeat in a nod to superstition, was deftly played by an actor whose name I cannot recall, and am, at the moment, too lazy to look up. In all, it was well worth sacrificing Mr. Hamilton, and I recommend it to anyone interested in an evening’s fun.

Earlier that morning, I had a happy accident when I accidently opened the Disney Parks Blog , which happened to be running a live stream of the opening ceremonies for Star Tours 3-D. I came in just in time to see Bob Iger and George Lucas making a few remarks in front of the attraction. When I went back later (when I wasn’t working), I found a picture of Iger and George standing next to Darth Vader, holding lightsabers.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen George with a lightsaber, and I have to say, it doesn’t really suit him. To be sure, no one has earned the right to actually carry a saber more than George, but on him, it looked a bit out of place. I think what threw me off was what he was wearing; jeans and a long-sleeved button-up flannel shirt. Now I know that George has developed a rep for rocking the flannel shirt as his default daily dress, but I’m sorry — lightsabers demand to be paired with a certain look, and “I’m heading down to IKEA to pick up some bookshelves” isn’t it. 

Of course, when George gave himself a Hitchcock moment and appeared in Revenge of the Sith, he didn’t appear in Jedi regalia, but instead dressed as a barely-recognizable blue-skinned alien. So I suppose if he didn’t do it when he had the full might of the Lucasfilm costuming and makeup departments behind him, he can hardly be expected to rise to the occasion for a theme park opening. 

But I’ve got to say, I expect more from a member of the 501^st — even an honorary one.

You say it's your birthday

I was just strolling through TheForce.net, and found this cool fan commemoration of George Lucas' birthday by a fan artist named Steven Hayford. Apparently, he's known for things like this, and I intend to find out more about his work. In any case, Happy Birthday to The Maker. You can find the original story, as well as a link to the full-size image, here.

The circle is now complete

I thought that I would dash off a hasty note to acknowledge that the thing has been accomplished: After six years of talking about it, I have succeeded in watching all six Star Wars films in chronological order, in a fairly rapid period of time — six films in slightly over six days. I started Phantom last Friday, but was called away early on (before the Jedi had even landed on Naboo), and carried on with the bulk of it the next day. I finished Return of the Jedi yesterday (Thursday) afternoon around 5:45 p.m. Watching with we was my wife and daughter. So what was started with The Phantom Menace as a solitary act became, by the end of the project, a family affair.

I was surprised by how engrossing I found some films (my top three were Empire, Sith and Clones, in that order). I was equally surprised how detached I was for others; particularly the original Star Wars, which has always nipped at the heels of Empire as my all-time favorite. There's always another day, however, and I expect the next time I see Phantom, A New Hope and Jedi, I'll get more out of them.

One thing that was reassuring was how very much I enjoyed the experience overall. If you are a Star Wars fan, and you have not watched the Saga as a cohesive whole, then you owe it to yourself to do so. There are things in the prequels that seemed like mere imitations of elements from the Classic Trilogy when the prequels were first released. When placed in the context of the whole saga, they take on the feel of recurring themes and elements.

The great surprise for me was how easily I was able to accept James Earl Jones/Dave Prowse's Darth Vader and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader as the same person. While I was watching the prequels as they were released, I saw flashes of Vader in Christensen's performace, but when I would watch the Classic Trilogy, and I saw Vader, I saw what I had always seen — the shell. The black breath mask, the helmet, the cape. All of the accoutrements I've come to love, but no trace of the living being beneath.

This time, with the Prequels under my belt, I was able to imagine, in glimpses, the man trapped inside the armor. I would see Anakin in a gesture, or hear him with a line. I could almost literally see the younger Anakin's face. It was, for me, the essential piece of the puzzle I needed to meld the two trilogies together into one complete story. Before, I never quite believed that the Jedi Knight in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith was the Sith Lord from The Classic Trilogy. Now, I kind of do; or at least, I'm starting to.

Now if I could only convince myself that Jake Lloyd's Anakin could conceivably look anything like Hayden Christensen when he grows up...

We could be stuck here for a very long time

Well, I’m fresh from listening to TheForce.net’s commentary on A New Hope, which, by the way, I recommend highly. It was nothing, more or less, than four devoted Star Wars fans watching the classic trilogy together, albeit in separate living rooms, and just talking about what they love about the Saga. There was no negativity, no overt bashing of anything — just lots and lots of enthusiasm. Once again, my perceptions of TheForce.net being entirely staffed by collectors has been challenged.

I’m writing so soon after this morning’s post (nearly all of which I wrote last night) because I inadvertently passed along some false information, in the form of a bit of harmless speculation about George’s 3D plans. And I’d be a lot less depressed if it wasn’t true.

I had assumed that, given the February 2012 date of the 3D release of The Phantom Menace, that George was going to follow the same release strategy he did for the Special Editions — i.e., about one a month. Sadly, according to my new contacts at TheForce.net tell me that it will be more like one a year.

Let’s say that again: One a year.

That means that Return of the Jedi will be released in 2018. My daughter will be in college, and I’ll be uncomfortably close to the legal retirement age. This is most certainly not soon enough for my tastes, and I’m fervently hoping that their information is incorrect.

If it is true, at least I’ll have gotten my full mileage out of the Blu-ray box set. And who knows? I may even have a 3D TV by then.

Hey — it could happen.

A final note before I retire. I have just, moments ago, finished Revenge of the Sith, and by extension, the Prequel Trilogy. The tiny candle flame of detached indifference I began Phantom Menace with has grown over the three films. By the time I finished Sith, I was absolutely riveted, and it was some moments after the credits stopped before I could bring myself to speak. As I said in my last post, I'm definitely back.

I’m working tomorrow night; after that, I intend to wade into the Original Trilogy (the Special Editions, in a concession to George — we’ll let him have it his way this time). If all goes well, I hope to reach Jedi by Sunday at the latest.

I’ll keep you posted.

Well, I’m back

You’ve probably figured out by now, or soon will, that the part of me that’s a Star Wars fan has roared back into life in the past week. I have been eating, breathing and sleeping the Saga since Wednesday. That’s right, the same bit of vulgar fanbase manipulation that caused me to rip on Lucasfilm/Fox in my last post also reminded me of why I’m a fan in the first place. So, the old axiom that good can come from bad is once again proved true.

Since Tuesday, I have returned to a project I have long vowed to accomplish; a viewing of the complete saga, in order. I finished off The Phantom Menace yesterday afternoon, and finished Attack of the Clones just a few moments ago. After reacquainting myself with all six, I plan to go back and linger over each for a time — kicking the tires and so forth. 

It’s been a long time since I watched the films, and my viewing of Phantom yesterday brought home just how long it had been. I have always liked Phantom, even as I was aware of its flaws. I was surprised to find I didn’t enjoy it as much as I have in the past; I had a sense of detachment that was a little disquieting, and I didn’t get caught up in the story the way I once did. In short, I was very aware I was watching a movie, and was unable to lose myself in the story. Clearly, I have fallen far from the faith. But I found Clones to be much more engrossing than I expected, so all is not lost.

I have also returned to watching The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network. I have made the complaint in the past that the reason I don’t follow Star Wars more closely is because I don’t have new things to keep feeding the fire. Well, Clone Wars isn’t a full-blown live-action film, but it is at least something new. Thanks to the Official Site and the blessings of high-speed Internet, I can now get caught up on the second and third seasons, assuming this new interest in the saga doesn’t burn out too quickly.

I suspect that part of the reason for falling back in the habit, apart from the fact that it was simply just time, is that it is summer, or soon will be.

Most of my best memories of Star Wars take place during summer. Obviously, this is because Star Wars films get released in the summer. So when I weathered my first week away from home and family as a Boy’s State delegate, buttressed by a cassette version of The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack and the Brian Daley Han Solo novels, it was summer; when Entertainment Weekly published a cover story on the “new” Star Wars movies being made on the exact day of my daughter’s birth, it was still summer; when I drove to Virginia to see Phantom with my nephews (and fellow Jedi), it was summer again; and when I returned there six years later to attend the midnight screening of Sith in full Jedi regalia, it was, not too surprisingly, summer. In fact, for many movies — Phantom and Jedi in particular, I sort of lived in Star Wars leading up to summer, and well through it. It was, as they say, good times.

So welcome to summer a month or so early! I don’t think we’re in for as deep a journey as I’ve had in the past, but for now, I’m content to saddle up this bantha and ride it as far as it will take me. Next time, I will try to have actual Star Wars content, for you, my patient readers, and a little less about yours truly.

Wish me luck.

Forgive and forget

Well, the madness that was today has subsided, and, as predicted, my frustration has gone with it. Yes, the announcement was about the Blu-ray releases. Yes, it was both overblown, and poorly handled. And while what George has in mind isn't what I'd call a dream release, it looks like it will do nicely.

Does it have the original versions along with the Special Editions? Probably not. (And for the record, I'd like both, please — I think each has their place). Nor will it have From Star Wars to Jedi, which was a dandy little "making of" that was released back in the old VHS days, and to my knowledge, never made it to digital. There seems to be a fair amount of special features, but I won't speculate as to their quality yet. Some of the scenes are promised at Comic-Con in July; the 1976 Comic-Con was the first public promotion of Star Wars, and George is apparently still very grateful for that first public exposure. We'll just have to wait until then to see of what quality it is.

What surprises me is my reaction — despite my annoyance earlier today, I'm actually excited. I've been taking an extended sabbatical from Star Wars, and after nosing around the Official Site today, the old juices are starting to flow once more. In fact, I plan on popping at least one of the films in as soon as I get some time — it's simply been too long.

An offer you can't refuse

Well, as promised, I have been to the official Star Wars site to see what the big news is, and came away more than a little furious.

The main page shows Leia and R2 during the Tantive IV battle in A New Hope, with the title card  "On May 4th, all will be revealed. Click on that, and you're taken to a the "Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray" site, which includes a grid of bar graphs representing several countries around the world. Choose your country, and you're given a cascading slideshow of behind-the-scenes images, nearly all of which I'd already seen. The shows abruptly stops with a "Share to Reveal More" button, with the message to "come back throughout the day to see more images as they are revealed." Sure enough, I checked back after five minutes, after a similar button in the upper right had button had gone from "18 percent complete" to "25 percent complete," and I got five or six more images. To be fair, some of them were new to me.

The idea here seems to be that we, the Star Wars fan community, need to band together to show how much we stand behind this release before we can learn more about it. That we have to personally go out and take part in promoting this occasion to our friends and family — essentially becoming a tool of the marketing department in the process — before we can find out exactly what special features are coming on a collection of movies that we've all bought three times already.

I'm trying really hard not spew venom on you, the hapless reader, as I write this. I'm trying really hard not to bring everybody down with what will be, for me, a momentary annoyance until Fox, who seems to be behind this little debacle, gets the required number of free Facebook ads. By the time most people read this, it will all be over, we'll all know exactly what we have to look forward to, and even I will think back to this as merely a mild annoyance.

But brother, do these people have a lot to learn about manipulating a fan base.

As I've mentioned before, I am a big user of Apple products. Now there's a company that knows a thing or two about getting the most of their zealot-like user base. Ruminating on the capabilities and arrival dates of new Apple products is busy hobby for many (me included), and is actually a livelyhood for a chosen few. And Apple knows just how to spike interest in new products, with a very simple, and so far successful, formula.

First rule of Apple products is you do not talk about Apple products. You say nothing for long periods of time about what you're building, who will be building it, when it will be released, and why you'll want one. This means even if you've released an iPhone every year in June since you've been making iPhones, you don't confirm that you're doing it this year no matter how many people ask you.

Of course, this results in a lot of the professional rumor-mongers I just mentioned writing articles about whether or not Apple will stick to their schedule. This, in turn, generates exponentially more publicity for saidsame product than if just came out and said "We're building this, we'll tell you more about it later" — which is essentially what Fox did with this Bluray release.

Second, once you have something to show, you release a cryptic teaser about a special event you're holding. The teaser itself should reveal the nature of the event (i.e., computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads, etc.,) but not much more than that. This will cause the pundits I mentioned to go into informational overdrive, speculating even more rampantly about what we, the Apple faithful, will or will not see. Again, Fox did this — telling us when they were going to tell us more in very specific terms; at 6 a.m. PDT today, in this case.

The final, and most critical step, is when you have this special event — when you've reached the appointed day and time — you actually tell people something worth showing up for. Apple hasn't always come through in this regard; for example, it's hard to get worked up over a new version of iPhoto unless it does something really new and amazing (the last one didn't, IMHO). But generally, I find Apple special events well worth tuning into. I've watched them by livestreaming, downloading them after the fact, and once even followed one on a liveblog in my iPhone on my way to a Nashville doctor's appointment. The point is that once the event rolled around, Apple stopped jerking us around, and actually told us something.

Fox completely failed to do that today.

Instead, they jerked us around, and did the electronic equivalent of making us beg for what they'd already promised us. They made us go stand in the corner until they decided we'd been good enough for what they'd already told us we could have — some simple details on something we're going to give them money for. And since this is the company that is still trying to make money off its official website through the totally-not-worth-it Hyperspace pay site, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Well, I'm not going to pretend that I'm outraged enough about this that I'm going to boycott Fox/Lucasfilm for all time and eternity. Heck, I've checked the site twice since starting this little diatribe, and I'm still kind of excited to find out what's on the Blu-ray. To paraphrase a line from one of my favorite comedies, My Favorite Year, "With George, you forgive a lot, you know?"

I know.

Star Wars? What's That?

Welcome back! Hail and well met, all. I have returned after a long absence to throw out a few crumbs of Star Wars news, and maybe — just maybe — get out in front of a Star Wars related story. This post should be good deal shorter than my usual musings, but, I hope that it will be the first in a renewed effort at regular posts. I realize that my past performance of roughly two posts in a year probably doesn't bode well for my future efforts, but what are we if we don't try?

First, I must confess that I am fresh from watching the Royal Wedding this weekend. This was somewhat hypocritical on my part, since, like a lot of folks, I scoffed at the incessant media coverage leading up to the event. But when my wife, a veteran of the 3 a.m. brigade for Charles and Diana's wedding, expressed disappointment that she hadn't been able to watch, we found a repeat of the coverage of BBC America Friday, and gleefully made a night of it. As it happens, I enjoyed myself immensely, from a historic, Anglophilic and (gasp) fashionista standpoint, not to mention the always very great joy of being able to share an experience with my wife. Oddly enough, I still find myself trolling the internet for little informational nuggets on the occasion, and will likely continue to do so for the next week or so. In any case, the whole affair was great fun, and I shall probably look back on it fondly for some time.

All this goes to show what I have long suspected; that my opinion on any given subject cannot be trusted, since I am such an innate snob, and my tastes are so very malleable. Indeed, I have a long history of reversing myself on a number of what I had thought were strongly-held opinions, ranging from my distaste of large churches as a young man (I am currently a member of what just happens to be the largest church of its denomination in my county, which encompasses a building roughly one side of a city block long) to my musical tastes (I initially rejected several bands on first hearing which later became staples of record collection, including Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd). In short, I'm still rather a fool, but am still trying to at least become an open-minded fool.

But I promised short and sweet, didn't I? Very well; to the point. I noticed this morning that on Feb. 10, 2012, George Lucas will be releasing Star Wars: Episode 1 in the theaters — in 3-D, no less. No doubt, this will be followed by Episodes II in March and Episode III in April, leading up to the inevitable release of A New Hope on Friday, May 25 — 35 years to the day after it was originally released in theaters. If this is, in fact, George's planned schedule, then I think we can expect Episodes V-VI in June and July, respectively, which would give us arguably the three best films during the summer blockbuster season.

As a further point of conjecture, I think we can then look forward to a 3D blu-ray release of all six films in time for Christmas. If true, this will annoy me just a teensy bit since George has made rather a habit of milking re-releases of the films in new mediums; witness the multiple VHS versions (at least four different releases of the classic trilogy); two different DVD versions, Laserdisc set, and now, the upcoming Blu-ray release in September.

Before you ask, yes, I am planning on buying the full Blu-ray set when it comes out. Herein lies my problem. I am a "bonus features" junkie, and George has been very sparse with his behind-the-scenes content since hitting it out of the park with the Phantom Menace DVD. In fact, the follow up to Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, re-set the bar to an all-time low by using a collection of video press releases featuring the main actors being interviewed about the story as the core of its behind-the-scenes content. Revenge of the Sith got better marks for imagination, showing the roles of the different departments in producing one shot of the film. But the fly-on-the-wall stuff I love so much was nowhere to be seen.

When you add to this the paltry one disc of special features for the entire classic trilogy, I must admit my hopes for George to finally crack open the vaults for some top-notch bonus features are rather high. We will see if he delivers on Wednesday, May 4 (a date yielding the atrocious pun "May the fourth be with you"), when Lucasfilm promises some big news on the subject. That is the story that I have tried to get out in front of, and I will try my best to post some kind of reaction, no matter how short, on the day.

So far so good; on to my teensy problem. There is always going to need to be more stuff to for George to release, simply from a revenue standpoint. So knowing in advance that there will be a 3D version of the films, and knowing that there will inevitably be a demand from the 12 people who own 3D televisions for a home game version, will George follow the lead of films like Tron: Legacy and re-release a Blu-ray box of the 3D films? Likely. Will it have additional content to make compulsives like me need to buy it again? Ah, there's the rub — all indications (i.e. George's previous track record) say yes. Will it make me grumpy if he does? Absolutely.

Be that as it may, we will cross that bridge when we come to it; life is troublesome enough without borrowing more, and there is enough negativity in modern society without me throwing more on the fire — especially about something I purport to love. So, let me end you with the following daily affirmations: I am looking forward to the news on Wednesday, whatever it is, and I am excited about the possibility of being able to finally take my daughter to see all six Star Wars films in the theater.

That's all for this week campers. I doubt that life will allow me the time to make similarly lengthy posts in the future. But at the least, let's all meet back here Thursday — or more realistically, a week from today — and we'll sift through next week's announcement.