Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Franchise

Tonight Sam was looking through the New Yorker review of the new Star Wars movie.

“Queen Amidala?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s in it.”

“She is?”

“Yeah. She’s Luke’s mom. She has to be in it.”

“She’s Luke’s mom?”

“Yes. She’s Luke’s mom. And Leia’s. She marries Annakin and who does he turn out to be?”

“Darth Vader.”

“Right.”

“But in the commercials they show Annakin kissing Padme.”

“Yeah. Padme is Amidala.”

Pause.

“Padme and Amidala are the same person.”

Long pause.

“Oh, I didn’t realize that.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I saw the new movie last night and it’s awful. Just awful. Poorly written dialogue, bad pacing, bad directing, poor characterization, bad acting, really bad dialogue (did I mention that already?), and a nearly incomprehensible plot.

Bad bad bad.

Oh, and everything in this movie looked like a penis. Everything. Should have been called ‘Attack of the Cocks’ because they were everywhere — buildings, spaceships, weapons, characters . . . it was like watching a movie written by Corey Feldman and directed by Sigmund Freud. A lot like that.

I swear I caught Samuel Jackson holding back a smirk on some of his lines: “Count Dooku is not one to be undermind by the . . . where’s George? George? What the fuck is this? Count Dooku? Are you serious about this? Man, even the people who understand this shit don’t understand this shit.”

Yoda: “A great darkness within you I sense.”

Mr. Jackson: “And why the fuck do I gotta be acting with this little green turd? He sounds like Grover with Alzheimer’s. After Pimp Lando and that Steppin Fetchit motherfucker Jar Jar, I expected to get a bit more to do than mouth this shit. When do I get to be a badass? I was in ‘Pulp Ficition’, I was ‘Shaft’ for crissakes. This shit sounds like you wrote it last night in your kitchen with your kids acting out the parts. Did you have any grown ups read this before today?”

There’s a ‘Mace’/’Shaft’ joke in there somewhere, and I’m disappointed I can’t find it.

Seriously. It’s a bad movie. Really bad. When we went in, they were handing out a marketing survey. About seventy-five demographic and marketing questions on who I was, why I was coming to the movie, who I was coming with . . . compelte with a section to be filled out after the movie asking me to rate my favorite (and least favorite) characters, scenes, and phallic symbols.

About halfway through filling out the survey I realized that I was writing the script for the next movie. And George wasn’t paying me for the work.

Listen. I’m not a manical fan. I don’t do the dress parade on opening night. I didn’t drink the kool-aid. I just like the movies. I grew up playing with the toys. I memorized the dialogue and sound effects like every other eitght-year-old kid at the time. I debated the subtle nuances of Luke and Leia’s relationships (“She kissed him on the bridge.” – “Yeah, but that wasn’t romance. She didn’t have her mouth open or anything.” – “But she’s his sister.” – “Sure. Don’t you ever kiss your sister?” – “No.” – “Really? Everyone else at school has.”) I have often defended Boba Fett’s legitimate status as a badass-among-badasses (at least until he got killed by a blind guy with a stick).

I’m not a nut. But I care about movies, in general and specific. I like it when they’re donewell. It makes me happy to know that someone, somewhere is doing good work.

But not George.

It was so bad that, during the climactic battle at the end, I had to make a choice: Stay for another five minutes until it was over and run the risk of dousing my pants with the three litres of Mountain Dew I’d consumed during the first five minutes of the movie (“Sure, I’ll supersize it for an extra twenty-three cents.”). Or go pee and risk coming back as the credits rolled.

I’d been holding it in for about an hour already (and believe me, the battle in the rain between Obi Wan and Jango sure didn’t help relieve the pressure slowly building on my bladder).

But, I might miss the rest of the movie.

And you know? I just didn’t care. So I went to the bathroom.

And when I came back . . . it was still going on. The same battle. I could barely tell I’d been gone. It went on for another twenty minutes. And it was terrible.

The whole movie was terrible.

One of the last questions on the survey was “Would you recommend this movie to a friend?”

I have to take Sam next week but, apart from that, I’ve already told four people not to waste their time. Four people in 24 hours.

And all of you, too.

Trust me on this.