QUOTE MARTIAL
MAKING WAVES
REVIEWS
SHORT TAKES
SOUTHERN SPICE
ROUGH CUTS
MEMORIES
ARCHIVES
MOVIES CHAT

The universe that George built

Zaki Ansari

Okay. Nobody wants to hear another word on Star Wars. And that is good. Because, despite a deadline, I cannot think of anything to say that has not already been said about the films.

But today is different. I must talk. Episode I: The Phantom Menace opens in India. And the world’s "most awaited film" is in the danger of being largely ignored! There are no mile-long queues, no public frenzy, no merchandising juggernauts and no media hysteria. Next to nothing when compared to what news reports from the West have been saying.

So I must take upon myself to save that famous galaxy… far, far away. And you must pardon this yet another article on Star Wars.

The lost generation

In the case you never heard of Star Wars, you obviously must have just thawed out of carbonite. Shake your head twice and click here for a recap.

Three teens that I met on the train could not tell the difference between a Wookiee and an Ewok. If these guys are going to watch Episode I, I bet my soul their reasons would range from plain curiosity to the fear of being left out of an experience that is supposed to be ultra cool… just as is the case with Jimi Hendrix. (People on Bombay’s campuses still talk of him. But for all my life in the city, I have met exactly four people who actually listen to Hendrix).

The tragedy of Hendrix can be excused. After all, most of my contemporaries were either not born or were in diapers when Hendrix shredded The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock.

The point is Hendrix cannot live again but the Jedi knights and the Skywalker clan are immortal. Last year, they were resurrected in a Special Edition of the trilogy as a thoughtful recap before the release of the prequel, Episode I.

Hendrix at Woodstock is gone forever but the legend of Star Wars can return. Bigger, brighter, better, time and again, as many times as creator George Lucas wishes.

The Special Edition, I guess, was a clever ploy to win a new generation of believers in the Force. But, in Bombay, I could walk into a Saturday evening show of The Return Of The Jedi without buying tickets in advance!

As Episode I opens today, I predict that, after a few days of full house, it is going to meet a fate worse than that of the Special Edition trilogy.

And this is the reason: It is very likely that many young and old people in India might have never seen a Star Wars movie. For them, Episode I will be more alien than the Dune Sea desert of planet Tatooine. To enjoy The Phantom Menace fully, one has to be well versed in the urban mythology that Star Wars is.

Example. In Episode I, Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn kneels next to a child and presents him to his apprentice: "Anakin, meet Obi–Wan." The perceptible pause that follows the cheerful introduction underscores the historic meeting. The first contact between a famous Jedi master and his even more famous pupil, Darth Vader. The significance of that pause is lost on all but Star Wars devotees.

Another example. Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi visit the Trade Federation’s blockade of Planet Naboo. As they enter a waiting chamber, Qui-Gon tells Obi-Wan, "I have a bad feeling about this." If half the theatre laughs, you know you are in good company. The "bad feeling" dialogue is an insider joke among the devotees. It has been used several times through all the Star Wars films. I know of one guy who has actually counted all the scenes in which "I have a bad feeling about this" happens and put up the tally on his site! Episode I almost deliberately opens with the bad-feeling dialogue.

Yet another example. In Episode I, one more famous introduction whose significance will be missed by the newbies is the meeting between Astromech Droid R2-D2 and the yet unfinished Cybot Galactica Protocol Droid Model C-3PO. Actually, the initiated are bound to miss a heartbeat and swallow a lump when Anakin lovingly clicks down an eye into C-3PO’s empty socket…

Just one more example. Devotees cannot help become nostalgic when the venerable Jedi Master Yoda calls Anakin, "young Skywalker." They know that decades from now, evil Emperor Palpatine will push Anakin and his son Luke into a death duel in the hope of turning Luke to the dark side. This time it is Luke, who is the "young Skywalker" and who must face his destiny, a fatal light sabre combat with his father.

I could go on and on. But the point is Episode I: The Phantom Menace has little in it to make it stand on its own.

The Force is strong

When the first Star Wars film Episode IV: A New Hope was made, nobody wanted to touch it. Major studios had rejected the script and the final film in the can was considered to be low on plot and acting. In fact, even as it was being filmed in England, technicians thought poorly of it and constantly poked fun at George Lucas and his dialogues that were difficult to mouth.

In fact, after a private screening, director Brian de Palma said that it was the worst thing that he had ever seen!

Only Steven Spielberg thought differently. He predicted: "You are all wrong. This film will make a hundred million."

But neither Spielberg nor Lucas were prepared for what actually happened. Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return Of The Jedi together earned $1.8 billion in box office sales and another $ 4 billion in merchandising!

Unfortunately, the Star Wars trilogy had an adverse effect on Hollywood. Harper’s Bazaar film critic Richard Rayner sums up the bad influence the saga has had on other films:

‘The message that they drew from Star Wars had nothing to do with innocence and wonder. Rather, it was that limitless wealth lay beyond the twin doors of thematic shallowness and technical virtuosity, and that the simplest way to get through the doors was with visual thrills.

‘The types of movies made, and the way they were released, steadily began to change: Hollywood slowly became geared solely towards the so-called ‘event’ picture. The strategy was simple: make it loud, make it different and exciting, make it faster and faster, and get it in as many theatres as you can.

‘Star Wars simultaneously revolutionised and infantilised the American film industry and spawned endless movie merchandising… Before Star Wars, film studios would actually pay hamburger chains, or toy manufacturers, to carry film images on their products.’

Director Martin Scorcese once remarked: "Movies like this are smothering everything… The person who has something to say in a movie has got to make it for $50."

Ironically, Episode I: The Phantom Menace has become a victim of the Star Wars influence on Hollywood.

Fiction versus fantasy

When it comes to science fiction, you can only work at two extremes. The deep philosophical highbrow flick like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or a noisy adrenalin shot like Star Wars. There is no in-between. Intellectual fulfilment or an outright roller coaster ride with no time for Boolean algebra. That is the only choice.

I must have been 10 or 11 when I first saw Star Wars. Till then, my only exposure to sci-fi films was Fireball XL5, a puppet animation series on black-and-white, single-channel Doordarshan.

From the tacky Steve Zodiac and Venus to the real-life adventures of Luke Skywalker and Captain Han Solo, the jump was too big to reconcile with and Star Wars became a religion.

One year after that, my friends and I discovered Asimov and Buck Rogers. A few years later there were Sagan and Clarke, waiting on a library shelf.

After Clarke, most of us renounced our religions. It became fashionable to loudly differentiate between science fiction and fantasy.

While talking of Star Wars, we now made fun of fireball explosions in the vacuum of space where there is no oxygen to fuel such fireworks. We made fun of the thundering Millennium Falcon and the zipping X-Wing fighters that should not be ideally heard in the airless void of the Universe. Suddenly, Kubrick’s vision was our favourite: An astronaut can only hear his own thumping heart. R2-D2 was juvenile compared to HAL. And C-3PO was no match for the androids of Blade Runner.

But we were living a lie. Though the Sagans and Clarkes were the most profound influence in developing a sense of wonder, our hearts never let go of Star Wars.

Actually, now that I think of it, rediscovering respect for what Star Wars really is must have been the point when we grew up!

Instead of dismissing Star Wars with physics formulae, take a look at what it really is. Lucas had to invent every life form, character, landscape, machine, building, plant, weapon, vehicle and ship and cockpit, right out of his mind.

There is little in any of the Star Wars films that exists in everyday life. Imagine the burden of thinking up all the details, frame by frame, and shooting it into an entertaining and convincing whole. That is making an entire universe out of one mind!

It reminds me of a Japanese short story about a painter who is dying, hungry and cold in his small room in a poor neighbourhood. He draws food on his wall and it becomes real. Next he draws, clothes, sweets, a woman, anything he desires and it becomes real. After regaining his strength he decides to get out, but can’t find the door. So he draws one. But soon he realises that once he opens the door he will have to paint his way out into the world. The task of catching reality on his palette is so daunting that he accepts death.

Perhaps George Lucas has succeeded where the Japanese artist failed. By trading the brush for the cursor, he has built his own universe, populated it with all kinds of creatures and legends and joys and sorrows and evils and goodness and he is now making a fortune by taking us on trips to it.

Star Wars films have been so popular that director Francis Ford Coppola once seriously suggested to Lucas that he build a religion on the frenzy surrounding the movies. Coppola recommended that the central text of the new religion could be based on the ‘Philosophy of the Force.’ "Religion is where the real power is, George," he said.

I have a favourite definition for classics. I maintain that anything classical has to score in three departments. It should win acclaim from (1) critics, (2) peers and (3) the public.

Star Wars has put me to shame. (1) It is critic-proof. No matter what the ivory tower decrees, the cash register is not going to stop ringing. (2) Peers hum and haw with ifs and buts. But can they stop discussing the phenomena? No. (3) The public just loves it.

That’s little more than one out of three. Hardly a winning score. Nevertheless, Star Wars is undeniably a modern classic.

Memories

The movie has done strange things to people. Whenever I look upon a ‘twin ion engine’ or a TIE fighter, the Empire’s deadliest and fastest ship, I am reminded of a painful tetanus shot.

It was weeks after we had seen Episode IV when we decided that a flyable TIE model could be built on the terrace of our building with parts cut out from aluminium foil. It was my brilliant idea that a hidden propeller made out of used shaving blades and a tiny electric motor would be the ideal drive mechanism. But the torque of the first test put the model out of control and my left palm in a bandaged sling.

Star Wars has hopelessly rewired me. Even if I live to be a 100, a flashlight in my hand will always become a light sabre, the ultimate Jedi weapon. I will turn on the switch, a beam, a blade of energy, will shoot out and the deep hum of its energy field will begin playing in my head ;-))