The Force Awakens Review

*****THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FORCE AWAKENS*****

I never thought I would see the day when a Star Wars movie had boring design and interesting characters. It's definitely a different animal from its predecessors and doesn't suffer the classic Star Wars flaws: stilted performances and bad dialogue. Overall, it  is a satisfying movie that will not only please hardcore Star Wars original trilogy fundamentalists but in its compelling new characters and some thrilling action sequences will be fresh and entertaining for new viewers as well. For a movie series that has been so intertwined with its creator who has been involved as a writer, director, or producer on each of the six prior movies it is interesting to see a completely Lucas-free Star Wars movie.  For better and for worse, The Force Awakens proves that J. J. Abrams is no George Lucas.

Abrams has a track record of directing big Hollywood blockbusters that have an emphasis on character and relationships, most evident in his two Star Trek movies.  The Force Awakens has that same emphasis on its characters and their relationships and this is without a doubt the best thing about the movie.  Newcomers Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac (and the insanely adorable BB-8) are all excellently cast and give the movie a sense of joy and vitality. This is the first Star Wars movie I have seen where there is not a single bad performance (although Domhnall Gleeson's foray into Imperial bitchiness comes close as does Carrie Fisher's understated and weirdly lock jawed performance.)  Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, in particular have terrific chemistry and form a sweet and tender friendship over the course of the movie.

It is a notable that this movie features a strikingly diverse cast for a blockbuster movie featuring a woman and an actor of color as its leads who are all well-developed three dimensional characters. While this shouldn't be a big deal, Star Wars is an important and beloved piece of popular culture so it is nice to see it finally reflecting the diversity of the world in which we live.  Hopefully this movie's phenomenal success will serve as proof that audiences want to see more diverse casting in their movies.



The strength of its new characters and the excitement of returning characters such as Han Solo, Leia, and Chewbacca in solid supporting supporting roles makes The Force Awakens a uniquely satisfying Star Wars movie,  It has a warmth and a looseness that were missing from the prequels.  The movie is dramatically sound, sometimes funny, and it really "works" in a way that none of the previous movies have.  It lacks the awkward goofiness of the original trilogy and the stiff formality of the prequels.

As good as the movie is, I do feel that it has one fatal flaw in that it relies far too heavily on nostalgia and essentially replays story beats from movies in the original trilogy.  We start with another character on a desert planet.  There is another Death Star (this being the third one in four movies).  There is another trench run to destroy the Death Star. The First Order is run by a mysterious, scarred, and shadowy figure who is apparently a master of the dark side of the Force. Unfortunately, for every new and unique element that the movie brings to the table, it recycles three things as an act of obsessive fan wankery.

In the trade-off of J. J. Abrams for George Lucas, we thankfully lose a lot of Lucas' maddening bad habits but we also lose that hard-to-define quality that Lucas brought to Star Wars that made it so special.  We lose his genius at creating a coherent and compelling visual world and we lose his facility for purely cinematic storytelling. The Force Awakens is certainly a good-looking movie but it does look and feel a bit generic at times. Strangely for a Star Wars movie, it has very unimaginative design. With the exception of BB-8 and Rey's speeder, there is not a single memorable original design element in this movie.  And both of those two are essentially twists on iconic Star Wars designs. Other than the redesigns of original trilogy vehicles, every ship in the movie is bland and slab-like.



That carries over to some really unimaginative locations.  Even in the prequel trilogy for which a lot of fans have an irrational hatred, there are a half a dozen really unique and memorable locales such the baroque splendor of the Naboo capital, the futuristic urban sprawl of Coruscant, the sleek and rainy clone facility on Kamino, the volcanic Hell of Mustafar, and plenty of others.  The closest that The Force Awakens has to a memorable location is Jakku, which is essentially Tattooine with some crashed starships,  The other locations are ill-defined and mundane.

Starkiller Base, in particular, is problematic.  We are to assume it is some sort of pre-existing planet that has been converted into a Death Star-like weapon.  So, it has a combination of a tech interior with a snowy forested exterior.  It feeds off a nearby star which, apparently it will exhaust to power its weapon, at which point, who knows what happens.  Can it travel like the Death Star?  If so, what happens to the people who presumably live on its surface?   Its poor design raises a lot of awkward questions.  Compare that with the Death Star which after a few short scenes, tells you all you need to know about how it works, mostly in a purely visual way.  Good design works without distracting you with questions.

Instead of the vast and diverse galaxy of the Lucas movies, the galaxy of The Force Awakens seems strangely compact, as though the events of the movie are taking place in one solar system.  Once Rey and Finn escape Jakku they are almost immediately met by Han and Chewie, who are then met by other characters.  The Starkiller weapon fires a laser that hits another planet which is an indeterminate distance away but feels like it must be nearby.  What worse, Han is able to see the planet destroyed from Maz Kanata's planet.  Instead of feeling like the story is happening on an epic and vast canvas, it feels small and inconsequential.  This was also an issue with the director's two Star Trek movies, which seemed to shrink the cosmos and bend the rules of the established universe to expedite and facilitate the story.



Lastly, for a movie that seems intent on delivering fan service it seems to stubbornly insist on reinventing things that don't need to be reinvented.  For example, it is weird that the movie creates a desert planet for Rey to live on  when perhaps the most iconic world in Star Wars is the desert planet of Tattooine.  It seems like the choice was to either use Tattoine or use an original planet but not to create a planet that is exactly like Tattooine down to having its own version of Jawas and moisture vaporators.  Instead of using the already established Coruscant, the movie creates another urban planet as the capital of the Republic. The Resistance is based on a planet that looks a lot like the jungle planet Yavin IV from A New Hope but apparently is a different world.  The Force Awakens does a lot of things like this.  Instead of using any of the hundreds of classic Star Wars aliens that have appeared on screen, the movie insists on featuring its own original creature designs, most of which are pretty forgettable and look like they could come from an episode of Doctor Who.  Abrams also did this on the Star Trek movies and it was a missed opportunity there as well.

For all the complaints about the prequels being mired in "politics" you at least had a good understanding of the different organizations and entities at play.  The Force Awakens has a difficult job of at least giving a basic picture of the state of the galaxy post-Return of the Jedi and it doesn't succeed at helping you understand how these different factions work.  Instead of the Empire, there is now a First Order, which is essentially the Empire with a new name. Why not just call it the Empire? The Rebellion is now the Resistance which apparently has some relation to a new Republic that is also a thing.  While Star Wars has always been about dropping you into an existing world, this just feels like sloppy and overly complicated storytelling.



So, I have a lot of nerdy gripes about The Force Awakens but they are mostly small ways that the movie doesn't capture that sense of Star Wars despite the fact that it has a lot of superficial fan service.  All that said, I mostly enjoyed the film which was filled with some really terrific moments. The movie also features some great new characters and performances which feels like a revelation in a Star Wars movie. I am excited to such a talented and charismatic cast carrying on the story.  I feel very good about the next installment which I hold will go in a bold and original direction.

Patrick Garone
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A Star Wars Retrospective: Return of the Jedi

While The Empire Strikes Back was my first Star Wars movie, I was an eight year old boy when Return of the Jedi  hit theaters and was exactly the right age to lose my mind over it.  I'm not exaggerating when I say I saw it at the theater twenty times during its run.  It was my primary babysitter during the summer of 1983. Even before the movie was released I remember sitting with my best friend and studying the Kenner action figure card backs with the upcoming figures in order to parse out story clues.  What was a Gammorrean and why did it need to be guarded?  It was the most toyetic of all the OT movies with more creatures, aliens, vehicles and more of just everything Star Wars.

The movie, however, leaves quite a bit to be desired.  While it starts out strong with a fun section revolving around the rescue of Han Solo and is enjoyable for carrying both trilogies through to a satisfying ending, a lot of the movie feels lazy and uninspired.  Much of the problem with the movie is in the fact that it rehashes elements of its predecessors.  Jabba's Palace is an opportunity to do a bigger and better version of the Cantina scene.  The movie's climax involves an attack on another Death Star but faster and with more ships.  The movie feels a little samey.

And then there's the Ewoks.  While the Stormtroopers have never been terribly effective, to see the Emperor's "best troops" easily dispatched by a bunch of teddy bears armed  with rocks and sticks kind of ruins them and diminishes the Empire as a force for evil. The whole sequence-which is pivotal to the movie and trilogy-is silly when it needs to be serious.  

The combination of a weak script which seems confused about what to do with its characters and a lot of actors phoning in their performances hobbles the movie.  Ford and Fisher have traded in their great Empire Strikes Back chemistry for a vague romantic relationship which veers into a truly dumb and adolescent love triangle with Luke.  I don't know how the carbonite affected Han Solo but he is really dopey in this movie.  The two share a scene in the Ewok village that nears Attack of the Clones levels of melodrama.

However, like any Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi is more than the sum of its flaws.  There is a lot to like about the movie and it still holds up as a rousing space opera adventure.  While very derivative of Star Wars, the space battle at the end of the movie is truly spectacular.  The Endor speeder bike chase also holds up as a terrific sequence which makes me sad that the movie has yet to make its way to a 3D presentation.

Perhaps Jedi's greatest contribution to the Star Wars mythos is Jabba the Hutt, a character who is among the series' most iconic.  I am certainly not a practical effects fetishist (I wouldn't be sad to see the Yoda Muppet replaced) but the giant puppet that brought Jabba to life is one of cinema's greatest and most successful creatures.  It holds up astonishingly well and could hardly be improved upon.

In terms of its connections to the larger saga, Return of the Jedi ties up storylines from all five of its predecessors and particularly connects to and reflects The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith (Ring Theory!), where Luke and Anakin's journeys strongly parallel one another.  Most noticeably, Anakin's encounter with Dooku at the beginning of Sith on Grievous' ship strongly mirrors Luke and Vader's duel on the Death Star with Palpatine presiding over both.

Jedi also brings back prequel mainstay Palpatine in the flesh.  He has lured Luke to him to test him against Vader and also caught the Rebels in a trap by feeding them bad information.  Classic Palapatine!  It's good to see that he is still doing what he loves.

Jedi has some of the more controversial Special Edition changes.  Jabba's palace gets a new musical number which replaces "Lapti Nek," which is not bad but some of the ostentatious CG could have been toned down.  The   The Sarlacc gets CGI tentacles and a beak which is cool and makes it a little more active than just a toothy hole.   The horrible There are some nice subtle touches added to the Blurays, such as a Dug skulking around Jabba's palace and blinking eyes on the Ewoks.

The movie's finale gets perhaps the biggest changes.  The music on the Endor celebration has changed to a more somber and epic song befitting the conclusion of the saga and no takes us to the Empire's fall on several locations we have visited in the saga.



Perhaps the most controversial change is the swap of the original actor who played Anakin's ghost with Hayden Christensen which, on some level, is a hilarious troll to the original trilogy fundamentalist crowd.  The argument against this is usually something like "How dare they replace that guy who was in the movie for two minutes with the guy who played that character in two movies!  I loved what's his face!  Childhood!  Ruined!"

Patrick Garone
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A Star Wars Restrospective: The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Strikes Back was my first Star Wars movie.  I was only five but I remember it vividly and the parts of the movie are burned in my imagination; the dark and snowy imagery, the spooky duel in the Dagobah cave, the dramatic reveal of Vader's identity.  It made a huge impression on me and I have been obsessed with Star Wars ever since.

Empire is widely considered the best of the Star Wars movies and is tonally a much different movie than its "gee whiz!" predecessor.  It is the prototypical "dark sequel" and is slower, moodier, and more character-driven than Star Wars.  It famously ends with a dark and traumatic twist.

After their rousing victory in destroying the Death Star, the Rebels are now on the run and hiding out on the inhospitable ice planet of Hoth.  We learn in the opening crawl that Vader has become obsessed with locating Luke Skywalker after apparently learning his identity at some point off screen and he soon learns the base location and leads a memorable land assault in one of Star Wars most memorable sequences, the Battle of Hoth (later to become fodder for many many video games.)

Han, Leia, Chewie and 3PO escape on the Falcon (which is strangely unreliable in this movie) and Luke and Artoo head for Dagobah where a ghostly Obi-Wan has instructed him to find Yoda and complete his training. Meanwhile, after avoiding the Empire in an asteroid field the Falcon and her crew limps to Bespin where Han's friend Lando Calrissian runs Cloud City-one of Star Wars' most awesome and iconic locations.  Han is betrayed and frozen in carbonite and turned over to the bounty hunter Boba Fett to be delivered to Jabba the Hutt on Tattooine.  

When he senses his friends in danger, Luke heads to Bespin to rescue them only to face Vader in the series' most dramatic duel and  Luke finally learns the truth about his father's identity.  Battered and defeated, he is rescued by Leia in the Falcon as she makes her escape with Chewie, Lando and the droids..

Compared to the original movie The Empire Strikes Back is surprisingly heavy and features an ending that can be charitably described as a "bummer" and there are fans that prefer the more light-hearted entries in the series but Empire goes a long way towards enriching the world and (to an extent) developing its characters.  That said, it still suffers the same flaw as all the Lucas produced Star Wars movies: god awful dialogue.  This is mitigated somewhat by director Irving Kirshner's steadier hand directing actors but it is still an issue.

Where the movie really resonates is in developing a deeper mythology of the Star Wars universe and its mysterious Force.  The chunk of the movie on Dagobah with Luke and Yoda really develop the Force idea from what was a sort of vague spiritual concept in Star Wars and speaks to a definitely Eastern philosophy with some profound implications.

Like the best parts of Star Wars, the most powerful sequence in the movie is a purely visual sequence: Luke's mysterious encounter with "Darth Vader" in the Dagobah cave. In this brief sequence Luke is drawn to a strange cave and is warned by Yoda that it is a place strong with the Dark Side.  When Luke asks him what is inside, Yoda cryptically warns him "Only what you bring with you."  When Yoda warns Luke that he will not need his weapons, Luke ignores him and ventures in where he encounters...Darth Vader.  Luke beheads him in fear and anger.  When he looks down at Vader's head he sees his own face  beneath the mask.

As a five-year-old boy, I remember being simultaneously scared, confused by and in awe of this scene.  While on the surface it was confusing to me, I think that I understood it in my gut what it meant.  It's an example of the really powerful visual storytelling for which the series is known. The best thing is that no one ever talks about it, except Yoda referring to it obliquely as Luke's "failure in the cave." A lesser movie would spend time analyzing it or telling the audience what it means but Empire leaves it

In the context of the larger six film saga, Empire connects to the prequels in a number of ways.  We finally see Palpatine and Yoda after a long absence. Since we have already spent a lot of time with Yoda, our introduction to him plays different than it did in 1980.  Instead of asking "Who is this weird little creature?" now it is "OMG Yoda went nuts!" 

In this movie, Boba Fett plays his most important role and production-wise this was his first live-action appearance (although he actually debuted in the Holiday special and also in some live appearances.)  So began the weird cult of Boba Fett, a character with little screen time and importance.  Oh, Star Wars fans, you are an intense bunch.





If you are familiar with the wonderful "Star Wars Ring Theory" which describes how movies in both trilogies "rhyme" with one another and allude to one another in very specific ways, you can see how Empire  connects in a lot of ways to Attack of the Clones.  Both movies feature Fetts, chases through asteroid fields, a ship attaching itself to a larger body to hide, a Skywalker getting his hand cut off, giant ground battles featuring walkers, romance subplots, Skywalkers abandoning their missions to rescue loved ones, etc.  If you haven't already, check it out.  It is a good read.

At the very least, both trilogies compare and contrast the journeys of both Skywalkers and the choices they make.  It's hard for us old school Star Wars fans to see it fresh but watching the movies sequentially and seeing Luke begin to replicate his father's choices should fill the viewer with trepidation.  In retrospect, Hayden Christensen does a good job of subtly channeling some of Mark Hamil's vocal and speech patterns. The two really do seem to be credible as father and son and when Luke takes off because he is compelled to go after his friends, it should bring up some red flags.

In terms of Special Edition changes, Empire was the least affected.  The majority of changes expand and enhance to Bespin scenes to great effect.  Other changes include alteration of Boba Fett's voice to match the prequels and a puzzling and unnecessary scene of Darth Vader walking to and from his shuttle.  Perhaps the best change is replacing the original "Monkey Eye" Emperor hologram with Revenge of the Sith Ian McDiarmid.  While his is a welcome addition I do wish the make-up was more in the style of Return of the Jedi rather than the Mrs. Doubtfire-looking Sith make-up.

Patrick Garone
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A Star Wars Retrospective: Star Wars: A New Hope

What can you say about the original Star Wars movie?  It's a film that is so beloved and was such a phenomenon upon its release and is such a classic with an amazing legacy that it is easy to forget George Lucas' somewhat quaint movie amidst a host of trilogies and spin offs.  But, at the time of its release, Star Wars nestled itself into world consciousness and the imaginations of a generation of people. It's easy for people to forget that there is a movie in the middle of the maelstrom that is the larger Star Wars phenomenon.

One of the remarkable things about Lucas' first trip to the Galaxy Far, Far Away is how it succeeds as an effortless bit of world building. Modern movies tend to feature clunky world building in service to profitable "shared universes" and "connected franchises" but the universe of Star Wars seems to have sprung out of George Lucas' weird preoccupations and unexpected genre mash-ups and the result is visionary and compelling and unlike anything before it (despite its clear debts to other movies).  It's a movie that starts in the middle of a larger story, throws you into a credible pre-existing world and trusts you to understand what is going on in a universe that is much more complex and rich than the simple narrative that unfolds.

Of course, much of the uniqueness of Star Wars rests with its bold and unexpected design thanks in large part to people like Ralph McQuarrie who were largely responsible for the movie's look.  We are so used to the imagery now but so much of the Star Wars visual style was just completely weird and unprecedented in 1977.  Ships like the Millennium Falcon, Imperial Star Destroyer or TIE Fighter would not have even been recognizable as spaceships.  Darth Vader is a bizarre asthmatic samurai robot thing who fights with a laser sword.  R2D2?  A trash can robot on wheels,  Jawas? Sandpeople? Space apes? It's no wonder they had a hard time getting this made.  It's a really weird movie with an iconography that is almost completely fresh.  Very few movies achieve this level of clear visual originality.

So it's no wonder that people went crazy for Star Wars when it was released.  It was completely different and therefore compelling.  And the story was fun and fast-paced and sweetly good-natured. Like Rocky the year before, it was the perfect remedy for late 1970's malaise and a contrast to the dark complex movies that dominated the decade. 

How does it hold up now, almost forty years and five movies later?  I'd say pretty well.  It still presents a unique world and for the most part the 1990's Special Edition changes have added to the movie's visual world through opening up some environments and subtly fixing some effects issues. The only addition I find objectionable is the added Jabba scene which presents a weirdly fatherly and mellow Jabba the Hutt.  

Now, the movie has its characteristic George Lucas flaws: poorly directed actors and painful dialogue.  While fans are quick to point these out in the prequel movies they are all over the original trilogy as well.   People tend to look at these movies with nostalgia blinders.  They are classics and wonderful movies but not perfect by any means.

For example, the character of Han Solo has not improved with age.  While many fans are Solo cultists, the character is grating to modern sensibilities.  It's kind of like going back and watching Friends and realizing that Chandler is kind of an awful person.  Han definitely comes off as kind of a douche.  He's basically rude to everyone around him and disrespectful and dismissive.  I mean, he literally refers to Obi Wan as an "old fossil."  He's blatantly sexist to Leia and treats C-3PO with vaguely homophobic disdain.  His wishie-washiness about participating in the Death Star attack also causes Biggs and a bunch of Rebel pilots to be killed. So, yeah, douche.

In terms of its place in the now six-film narrative, A New Hope jumps ahead twenty years after Revenge of the Sith.  The Empire is now ascendant and we hear the the Senate which was such a big part of the prequels has now been disbanded.  While the Emperor is given a shout out, this is the only Star Wars movie in which he does not appear.  

The now-adult daughter of Padme and Anakin, Princess Leia has been dispatched by her father Bail Organa to Tattooine to find Obi Wan Kenobi, who is hiding out there and watching over Luke Skywalker.  Upon her capture, Leia sends R2D2 and 3PO to find Kenobi, who has aged A LOT in twenty years (those suns, though) and doesn't seem to remember either droid despite having important interactions with both of them (although he does give R2 a rather knowing look.) Obi-wan's character is one that I feel is enriched by the prequels.  Watching the movies sequentially it almost seems that Alec Guiness has some of MacGregor's twinkle in his eyes, although obviously it is the other way around.  Anyway, Obi gives Luke a cursory Jedi training aboard the Falcon which is interrupted but their capture at the Death Star, last seen at the end of Sith under construction.  I guess it takes twenty years to build a Death Star.

Leia is rescued and Obi-Wan and Vader engage in what is a strangely low-energy lightsaber duel during which Obi-Wan is killed and vanishes into thin air, the trick to which Yoda referred right at the end of Sith.  Luke and the rebels attack the Death Star, blow it up and Vader escapes.  Chewbacca doesn't get a damn medal.

I was just a baby when Star Wars came out and didn't actually see it until years later on home video after having already seen at least The Empire Strikes Back and possibly Jedi (back before VHS really caught on, you had to see movies in the theater or catch them when they ran on TV).  I didn't have the experience of seeing the movie in the theaters until the Special Edition came out in 1997 but I definitely caught a lot of the Star Wars mania in the ensuing years, I just didn't have any context for it until I saw Empire but like many people my age, Star Wars was a huge part of my childhood even if it took me a while to catch up to the actual movie.

Patrick Garone
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A Star Wars Retrospective: Attack of the Clones

Attack of the Clones is the most schizophrenic of all the Star Wars movies and the one whose flaws most negatively affect its viewing.  While the movie has some really fun and thrilling sequences-the Obi-Wan/Jango fight, Anakin's search for his mother, the Yoda versus Dooku showdown, and the insanely action-packed Geonosis battle, to name a few, it also has a handful of scenes that are astonishingly, jaw-droppingly bad.  These scenes are much worse than anything else in Star Wars including all Jar Jar and Ewok scenes and mar what is otherwise a really fun movie which gleefully embraces its Space Opera elements and which amps up the action and adventure factor considerably from the slower and more plotty Episode I.

Of course, the objectionable scenes I am referring to are the "love story" scenes between Anakin and Padme which are tortuously melodramatic and overwritten. A lot of the blame for this gets placed on Hayden Christensen and he gets unfairly accused of being a bad actor but the real problem is with the script and direction.  That these scenes are even watchable is a testament to Christensen and Natalie Portman's heroic efforts. Christensen seems to have been directed into playing Anakin as some sort of James Dean-in-Space kind of character and it makes Anakin a little goofy at times.  He does however have some really nice moments (mostly when he isn't forced to mouth George Lucas' word salad) particularly when the story takes him and Padme back to Tattooine.  His discovery of his mother and subsequent slaughter of the Sand People is very effective and firmly puts him on the path to Vader-dom.  Unfortunately for Portman, without the stylized character and fun identity switch in The Phantom Menace, she has little to do in this movie other than be an ambivalent love interest.  She also straddles things.  She really straddles a lot of things in this movie.

Despite the awfulness of most of their sceenes, Anakin and Padme do share a couple of worthwhile moments in the movie.  First,  as the two are carted out into the Geonosis area, they share a silent silhouetted kiss.that really tells you all the things about them that a half dozen interminable dialogue scenes could not.  It's odd that a visual maestro like Lucas could not tone back the dialogue and tell more of this story in a purely visual way. Secondly, in the otherwise unwatchable series of Naboo romance scenes, Anakin and Padme talk briefly about politics and Anakin lets it slip that his ideal political system is a kind of dictatorship, which gives Padme a moment's pause while she figures out if he's kidding or not (he's not.)  This is one of the rare scenes between them that is skillfully written and illustrates their points of view and future conflict.  It is very revealing about Anakin and the fact that one of his greatest character flaws is that he sees things in a simplistic way. Our hero is not very bright, and that's okay.

In fact, people are quick to point out all sorts of things about Anakin in the prequels such as his whininess, the fact that he is arrogant, his creepiness, the fact that he's a mama's boy, as though these are problems with the movies.  Those are not problems, those are character traits that doom Anakin Skywalker to his fate. He's not really supposed to be a likable character.  It is more important that you feel for him and understand his downfall than that you like him.

The other half of the movie deals with Obi-Wan's attempts to investigate the attempted murder of Padme and plays like a detective story, which is a new and interesting genre for Star Wars.  This is the more fun half of the movie and takes Obi-Wan (and his space mullet) from the gritty underbelly of the urban world Coruscant, to a mysterious cloning operation on rainy Kamino, to Geonosis where he stumbles upon a plot that threatens to kickstart the Clone Wars.  One thing I will say about these scenes is that perhaps we see a little too much of the Star Wars galaxy which starts to look a little mundane when you are spending time in libraries, sports bars, and diners.  There's a fine line between Star Wars and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Once we get to Geonosis, though,  the movie moves into high gear and Attack of the Clones ends with a half hour of straight action as we witness the first battle of the Clone Wars.  First, we see something that we desperately wanted to see in the Prequels: a full on Jedi Power Battle as Mace Windu leads a squad of Jedi in an all out assault on Geonosis.  The movie keep layering cool stuff  on top of this: Yoda coming to the rescue with an army of clone troopers, Jango Fett battling Mace Windu, an EPIC ground and air assault, Anakin and Obi-Wan teaming up to duel Dooku, and ultimately, we get to see Yoda finally engage in not only a battle of force powers but a lightsaber (!) duel as well in a sequence that was so awesome that essentially the whole after release marketing plant resting on it (Yo-da man!)  While people like to snigger about Yoda's acrobatic lightsaber moves, I remember people watching the movie in the theater went NUTS during the scene when I watched it.

With all of the Star Wars movies there is a distinct brilliant to crappy ratio with which to contend and Attack of the Clones is the most dramatic example of this.  With Clones, one has to wonder if it would have been possible to make it a better movie with some selective editing.  For example, would drastically cutting down the Anakin and Padme Naboo scenes and selectively pruning dialogue throughout, make this a better movie?  It might be worth tracking down one of those turn-of-the-century fan edits to find out.

Join me next time for Episode IV (I had already recently recapped Revenge of the Sith here.)

Patrick Garone
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Westeros Community College: The Secret Targaryens

Spoiler Warning:  This post contains spoilers for all broadcast seasons of HBO's Game of Thrones, all published volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, references to interviews, set reports, informed by wild speculation, and both fire and greenseer visions. 

Did you know that there are secret Targaryens in A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO's Game of the Thrones?  Well, officially there is one secret Targaryen, young Aegon, who has only shown up in George R. R. Martin's most recent novel, A Dance of Dragons but there is widespread doubt about his legitimacy.  The idea of secret Targaryens in the story is wrapped up in a couple of prophecies, both the foretelling of the "Prince Who Was Promised," which may or may not be related to the return of the mythical hero Azor Azai and also  Rhaegar Targaryen's elaboration on that prophecy that the "dragon will have three heads."  These are widely thought to mean that the end of the story will involve three Targaryens, one for each of Dany's dragons and that the Targaryen trinity will be involved in the  climactic battle against The Others.

So who are these three Targaryens?  Clearly, Dany is one of them.  The books would have you believe that this new Aegon Targaryen is one also but there is good reason to believe that he is an impostor propped up by Varys and Illyrio as part of their conspiracy to restore the Targaryens and competent leadership to the throne with an "even better than the real thing" impostor.  So, it is likely he is the "Mummer's dragon" about which Dany was warned.

For reasons that I have previously described, I believe Jon Snow is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.  Given this fact, and his importance to the story, I believe that he is the second dragon.  So, who is the third?

The popular guess is that Tyrion Lannister is, in fact, the third dragon in this scenario.  This is based mostly on sketchy book information such as his fascination with dragons, his light blond hair, and eye color.  Of course, Tyrion, is perhaps the most beloved character on in the series and with Dany and Jon, part of a trio of protagonists so it is natural to want to see them all ride dragons together into the sunset but this feels like wishful thinking to me.  Tyrion as a Targaryen would be a cheap twist that would undermine a lot of what has made the character compelling, namely his relationship to his house and father.

The only solid evidence from which this theory is drawn actually supports another character, or pair of characters.  In the books it is relayed through that incorrigible old gossip, Barristan Selmy that the mad king Aerys Targaryen was taken with Tywin Lannister's wife, Joanna, (the mother of Jamie, Cercei, and Tyrion) and even "took liberties with her" on her wedding night.  Some have speculated a long-standing affair in support of their Tyrion Targaryen theory but we just don't know.  All we do know is of one incident on Tywin and Joanna's wedding night.  It would seem then that it would be more likely that the twins would be secret Targaryens than Tyrion.  Beyond the "evidence," from a character and narrative point of view, this would be a much stronger and more dramatic choice.

For Tywin, it would explain a lot of his actions and attitudes toward the Mad King, which we pick up in bits and pieces throughout the books.  The two had once been close but seemed to have a complicated, antagonistic relationship later in life. According to the books, their conflicts were largely attributed to power struggles over Jamie and Cercei's roles at court. Not only did Arys refuse to marry Cercei to his son, Rhaegar but he drafted Jamie into the King's Guard essentially stealing him away from Tywin and denying the Lannister patriarch his chosen heir.  Ultimately, it was Tywin Lannister's actions at the end of Robert's Rebellion that led to the Mad King's death at Jamie's hand. It's not hard to imagine Tywin arranging things so that Aerys would be killed by his own son as a final response to the Mad King's initial insult of fathering a child on his wife.  This would be the Tywin Lannister version of a mic drop.

If Jamie and Cercei are not Tywin's children (although still Lannisters though their mother) then Tywin's only true born son would be Tyrion.  This explains some Tywin's frustration and anger with his children.  Of the three, the only one that is his trueborn is (in his eyes) unfit to be his heir because he is a dwarf.  Being Tywin, he is forced to put on a good face and present them as his own children.  Instead of undermining the Tyrion/Tywin relationship, this choice would actually enrich it with depth and dramatic irony.

Throughout the books, characters comment on how much Tyrion resembles his father in skill and intellect.  His aunt, Genna, even goes as far as to point out to Jamie that Tyrion is Tywin's "true son." In an offhand way, Tywin comments on his children's parentage on a couple of memorable occasions. He grudgingly tells Tyrion that he "cannot prove" that Tyrion is not his son.  On the surface, this simply means that as much as he would like it not to be the case, Tyrion is trueborn son.  It is interesting that this is something that he would even say.  Can he prove that his other children are not his own?  Tywin's famous last words to Tyrion, "You're no son of mine" are often interpreted as a confession that Tywin is not actually Tyrion's father but these words take on more power if Tyrion is Tywin's only trueborn son.

For Jamie, in particular, this theory  changes things.  He would have unknowingly killed his own father. He and Tyrion would have that experience in common.  He becomes Kinslayer as well and Kingslayer and his story takes on a new depth.  He and Cercei already share some Targaryen qualities such as a penchant for arrogance, incest, and madness.  Certainly, Joffrey would have fit right in with Aerys and the worst of the Targaryens.

This also means that for all of Robert's efforts to destroy the Targaryen line, there was one sleeping next to him every night, and Targaryens would sit on the Iron Throne after his death.  It also means that Cercei and Dany-two women who seem to be on a collision course in the story-are actually sisters.  Much more than the Tyrion as a Targaryen theorgy, the Targaryen Twins theory, infuse Martin's work with a sense of  the epic old-school Tragedy that is already part of the eclectic mix of ingredients that make up A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones.

Patrick Garone
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The Force Awakens Has Me Worried

Can you feel it?  There has been an awakening.

Last night a new trailer dropped for the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens.  Most people seem really psyched about it but it actually has me less excited than I was after the previous ones.  I have a nagging feeling that this movie is going to be a long fan-wank for middle-aged Star Wars fans (a group which includes myself.)

There are several things that stand out to me.  First, the villain, Kylo Ren, is apparently obsessed with Darth Vader and collects Vader memorabilia, including his charred helmet and talks to his Star Wars collection.  Not only that, be he seems to be a Darth Vader cosplay enthusiast.  To put it mildly, this is very dumb.  Look, I love Vader, everyone loves Vader but he's dead, move on and create new villains, not wannabes. Especially not wannbes who are in-universe Star Wars collectors.

This new trailer also tells us a little bit about the world that has developed in the wake of Return of the Jedi.  Apparently the events of the Star Wars Original Trilogy have passed into legend and are spoken of in hushed tones by the people of the galaxy.  The heroes of the Rebellion are legendary and probably also have fans.  The subtext of this movie seems to be, "Star Wars is awesome, let's Star Wars!"  There is something annoyingly meta about it all.  

Also, there seems to be a new Death Star on the poster, which, ugh.

Mostly, I'm worried because of Super 8 the 2011 J. J. Abrams movie that was a "love letter" to the Amblin movies of the 1970's and '80's but was really just a self-indulgent hodgepodge of all the things you liked about those movies and little new and original.  Abrams loves Star Wars but I don't want to watch a movie about how great Star Wars is, I want to watch a great Star Wars movie with new and original ideas.  This is precisely why Abrams did such a great job on his two Star Trek  movies: he wasn't a fan.  He approached it as an outsider with a fresh take on the world and characters unburdened by fandom.

I hope I'm wrong.  I hope, The Force Awakens is great but I have concerns.

Patrick Garone
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Retro Review: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar

In retrospect, it is obvious that the 1990's were a weird and transitional time to be gay.  Back then, a lot of us thought that we were living in a progressive socially cutting-edge era, certainly compared to how it had been in the prior decades for gay rights and visibility.  Very few of us imagined how far we would come in two decades.  For example, I don't think any of us expected there to be legal gay marriage in all fifty states in our lifetimes.

Naturally, the gay movie landscape has changed with the cultural landscape and while there were a number of big gay Hollywood movies in the 1990's some of them are really only interesting as cultural artifacts of a bygone time.  The 1995 comedy To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar straddles being entertaining on its own and being a weird relic of 1990's attitudes about gay life.  Not only is it a gay movie starring ostensibly heterosexual actors but a movie about drag queens, a subculture within the gay community that a lot of gay men are not even familiar with. Certainly, it is a movie that would not be made the same way today.

It's actually puzzling that the movie was even made at all.  Certainly it was a response to the success of the earlier Australian movie The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert  to which Wong Foo  is often unfavorably compared.  (One way Wong Foo is superior to Priscilla  is in it's appealingly diverse cast, whereas Priscilla is jarringly and aggressively racist).

It is as though a Hollywood producer decided that they wanted to jump on some non-existent drag queen movie bandwagon but also went to great pains to keep the movie light and accessible to general audiences.  Whereas Priscilla also features a heterosexual cast, the movie still feels very courageous and authentic in its story and the way it treats its characters.  In comparison, To Wong Foo maintains a sitcom feel throughout much of the movie but often awkwardly and abruptly switches to a dark or "serious" tone, like a Very Special Episode.

Also, with the exception of the opening sequence, we don't ever see any of these drag queens out of drag.  They are on a cross country car trip and they are in drag the whole time.  This movie should be rated D for Day Drag.  In that way, To Wong Foo seems to confuse being a drag queen with being transgendered (despite expositional dialogue to the contrary) or it is too scared and or lazy to deal with the fact that the movie is about three gay men on a cross country road trip.

There is also some weird gender politics going on with the Patrick Swayze character.  Well into the movie he is accused of being a drag queen because he "couldn't cut it as a man," and we see by his reaction to this statement that he believes that it is true.  This, combined with the fact that the three characters are always in drag sends a confusing message about drag queens and gay men.  For most drag queens, being in drag is a job (and a physically exhausting and uncomfortable one) and as soon as they can, they get out of drag.  Most don't do drag because of gender issues but because drag is their chosen method of performance and artistic expression.

I harp on the fact that the actors are all outsiders to the community that they are portraying on screen because of the way that the movie briefly features and sidelines actual notable drag performers such as Lady Bunny and Candace Kane in its opening sequence at the ceremony for the Drag Queen of the Year (Ugh) pageant.  Even RuPaul, who brought drag into the mainstream for the first time in the '90's is given a small speaking part.  This is a shame for a number of reasons, not the least of which is if not for RuPaul's popularity at the time, Hollywood would not have even dared to make this movie. So, I can't help but think that there is a little bit of a diss in the way that the movie treats actual drag performers.  Especially since RuPaul is genuinely funny and could have easily nailed either Swayze's or Snipes' role.

If they made the movie today, of course, it would be a very different story.  Not only are filmmakers a little more savvy about how they portray minority communities but America has been exposed to a lot more drag, again thanks to RuPaul and his hit competition show RuPaul's Drag Race which has been running for seven seasons and seems to get more popular every year.  Not only has the show exposed us to what it is that drag queens actually do and how much work goes into their artform but we have seen a huge variety of drag styles, approaches, and performers.  If they were making a movie like this today, the main casting problem would be choosing three performers from all of the talented candidates.

To Wong Foo, imperfect as it is, was an important stepping stone in both gay movies and movies about drag,   Despite the movie's flawed portrayal of drag and drag queens there is a lot of fun to be had with the transformations of the three actors and transformation is part of what makes drag such a compelling and fun art form.  Wesley Snipes, in particular, seems to be having a ball and really commits to his character in a fun and surprising way.  John Leguizamo was no stranger to drag having turned in some memorable and fearless performances of female and trans characters in his early one-man shows and his character in the movie feels like an extension of those characters. And that's a really good thing.  These performances and some good one-liners really help to salvage the movie from the weak script and generic direction.

Patrick Garone
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How To Make A Good Terminator Movie

The Terminator Franchise is in danger of termination.  Prior to the release of this summer's Terminator: Genisys there were big plans for a trilogy of new Terminator movies featuring a new cast and a rebooted story but after dismal US box office performance (but impressive foreign grosses) the studio is now re-evaluating it's plans.  After two beloved movies, a good but too-quickly cancelled TV show, and three unsatisfying sequels, where is there to even go with Terminator as a franchise?

The only way to go is back.  The best of all the Terminators was the original 1984 movie, a wonderfully stripped down low-budget flick that straddled Sci-Fi and Action.  With the success of Terminator 2, the franchise was irrevocably moved into action/blockbuster territory much to its detriment.  The subsequent movies have been trying to ape the T2 formula ever since and have all failed miserably at it resulting in overly long, bloated, action movies.

The way to save Terminator is to go back to its roots with a small to mid-budget movie that gets at what made the first movie so successful: horror.  Despite the gun play  and Sci-Fi plot, the original Terminator was a movie that tapped into a very universal and primal fear: being stalked by an unstoppable pursuer, the idea that something is out there and it is looking for you.
This idea is the heart of what made the original movie so great and while it was explored in the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show, it has been largely abandoned by the movies in favor of noisy action, convoluted plots, and burdensome mythology.  The only hope for the series is to let all of that stuff go and go back to basics with another simple, lean and mean Terminator movie, something in the spirit of Mad Max Fury Road,  another back-to-basics entry from a left-for-dead franchise.

What would this movie look like?  For one, it leaves behind the things that have holding the franchise back: no Sarah or John Connor, no Arnold, and no time-travel shenanigans.  This new Terminator should be laser focused on the experience of surviving an unstoppable killing machine.  It probably should be set in the present, although the idea of a gritty Terminator set in the Old West or the Middle Ages could be interesting side stories, too.  Since so many Game of Thrones actors have been in Terminator projects, it would only be fair to bring Terminator to a GOT-type setting.

But for the sake of our mission to make a roots Terminator movie, lets set it in the present.  There is a Terminator and a target.  Following the formula of the series the Terminator makes and attempt to kill the target but fails.  The target escapes into the city or country and the rest of the movie exists with this fear that the thing is out there and going to find you.  This is a point in the story that the later movies gloss over in favor of detours into "mythology" but it is interesting area for storytelling. 

One of the things the new Terminator movie has to do is to make the Terminator scary again.  He's not cool, he's not your buddy who understands "why you cry."  He's a terrifying Other.  The best recent example of a character rehab like this is not actually with a movie but a video game.  The recent Alien Isolation game took Giger's Alien which had been exploited and watered down over the years and brought it back to its scary roots delivering an experience that was in the spirit of the first Alien movie.  We need to do that with a Terminator. 

Our number one rule in this endeavor:  No good Terminators.  The idea of reprogrammed "good" Terminators was just a way to keep Arnold involved in the franchise.  This idea muddles the Man against Machine theme that is central to the franchise.  I know people love T2 and it is not a bad movie but I can't help feeling that it jumped the shark a bit with the way that it treated the Terminator.

We need to see some new scary behaviors from our Terminator that we haven't seen before.  What if after the Terminator fails to find its quarry it allows itself to be arrested and sent to jail in order to draw it's target back.  I'd like to see the police involved in the story where they are not just getting in the way.  Perhaps one of the protagonists can be a police detective and the story is largely from his or her point of view.  Maybe we don't get all of the context that we get from Kyle Reese in the first movie and the Terminator and his targets activities are treated like crimes until the Terminator's true nature is revealed.  Maybe the Terminator and its quarry are put in the same facility and the film is partially a prison movie and the last act has the protagonist evading the Terminator in a high security detention facility.  The point is, let's see some things we haven't seen before and maybe explore some fun sub-genres in the movie.

These are just a few examples of new and interesting things you can do with the series on a low budget and in keeping with the spirit of the first and best Terminator movie.  What they shouldn't make is another big bloated movie that rehashes the same action movie elements as T2.  More than another blockbuster, if this series is ever going to be credible again, it needs to deliver a really good movie. Most importantly, this is a series that needs to re-engage its fans and generate excitement for another movie.

Patrick Garone
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A Star Wars Retrospective: The Phantom Menace (1999)

The Force Awakens is a couple of months away, so like any dutiful nerd, I have pulled out my Star Wars Blurays and decided to revisit the two Star Wars Trilogies, starting with Episode I: The Phantom Menace.  Never before had a movie been so eagerly and desperately anticipated.  The trailer for Episode I was literally the first thing to ever break the Internet.  Not only did fans use the Internet see the trailer and get news about the movie but they later turned to this new medium to engage in a bit of heated group think about the film and its merits.  It is important to note that while the movie got great reviews upon release and was a huge hit, "fans" turned on the movie in the weeks and months after its release and it has garnered somewhat of a bad reputation in the years since.

While, The Phantom Menace is clearly flawed in several important ways, it is far from the worst Star Wars movie (hello Return of the Jedi and Attack of the Clones).  In a measured, and realistic assessment,it is clear that the movie has some serious problems, the most glaring one being that it is about twenty minutes too long.  Secondly, Jar Jar is an annoying and problematic character.  Thirdly, Jake Lloyd is poorly directed.  Finally, there are some alien character choices that are questionable.  None of these performance problems are the fault of the actors but of George Lucas who has always been less than interested in directing actors.  For me, none of these flaws really sink the movie.  The Phantom Menace is still a fun, imaginative, visionary, adventure that greatly expands the Star Wars universe.

Perhaps one of the movie's greatest strengths is what doomed it with fans: it dares to be very different from the Original Trilogy.  It is a very plot heavy movie; there's no smart alec Han Solo character; it depicts a galaxy that is shiny and new as opposed to the grungy aesthetic of classic Star Wars; much of it takes place in the halls of power and there is a lot of talking, etc.  Lucas was never interested in making another Star Wars just to make it and repeat what he had already done.  He was interested in telling his story and it was by necessity different than the movies that had come before.

Because the movie is so much maligned, let's take a look at ten reasons The Phantom Menace is a great addition to the Star Wars Saga.


10. The Special Effects

I was rewatching this movie and it occurred to me during the big Gungans/Droid ground battle how good the effects looked even after sixteen years.  While it was obviously all CGI and impossible and the blocking was a bit cartoony, the droids and Gungans all had a real weight and reality to them which is more than you can say for certain shots in recent movies like Avengers: Age of Ultron. Also, as annoying as Jar Jar was, that character and Ahmed Best's work on him helped to create the art of performance capture for CGI characters and without him there would not have been any Gollum or Ceasar.

9. Ewan McGregor

Another great casting choice and one that paid dividends in later movies.  McGregor did a great job of inhabiting a much younger version of one of the most beloved Star Wars characters.  The movie does a good job of showing Obi-Wan as both a product of the stuffy Jedi culture and his more freewheeling Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn.  The movie is also not afraid to make him a little callow and unlikeable with his snarky comments about picking up "pathetic lifeforms."  Here we see him starting the journey to becoming the wise and compassionate Jedi of Star Wars.  For a whole generation of Star Wars fans, Ewan MacGregor is their Obi-Wan and lets hope we get to see him in some more movies now that Disney is making spinoffs.

8.  The Story

While Lucas lacks skills in directing actors and writing human dialogue, he is a genius at the broad strokes of storytelling. In Episode I, begins his tale of both the corruption and decay of Galactic society and of the Jedi Order.  It's pretty dark stuff for a kids adventure movie.   In Palpatine, he has created a wonderful scheming villain who orchestrates a crisis in order to get himself into a position to be able to create a war that will tear the Galaxy apart so that he can rebuild it the way he likes.  People criticized the movie for not telling the Clone Wars story that they had been waiting for but The Phantom Menace sets up the Clone Wars in a very elegant way.



7. Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman is a very talented actress as her larger body of work and Academy Award winning performance in Black Swan proves but her work in the latter two Star Wars prequels is saddled with some of the worst dialogue and scenes in the whole saga.  In The Phantom Menace however she turns in a fun performance as both the very stylized and formal Queen Amidala and her alter ego, the plucky handmaiden Padme.  This is dual identity is a fun subplot of the movie that not even the Jedi pick up on.  Which brings us to...

6. Costumes

While there are a handful of simple iconic costumes that the movies are known for, Episode I  is really the one Star Wars movie where the filmmakers got really adventurous with their costume, hair, and make-up.  While there are some interesting costumes throughout, Queen Amidala wears some truly weird, wonderful, and beautiful outfits throughout the The Phantom Menace.  Like much of Star Wars, they are wonderful for being a interesting hodgepodge of various world styles and influences.

5. Design

Design is an area that people seem to have issues with this movie.  Whereas the OT mostly featured Imperial ships and bases, grungy Rebel outposts, and a few industrial and frontier areas, The Phantom Menace really showed you a much more expansive look at the Star Wars world and one that was set in a more elegant time.  That being the case, Episode I features a lot of designs that were sleeker and hearkened back to classic sci-fi such as the chromed Art-Deco looking ships, the Baroque Naboo architecture and design, the glimmering underwater Gungan city, or the dizzying futuropolis that Coruscant.  The Phantom Menace not only showed us a lot things that we had never seen in a Star Wars  movie but a lot of visuals we had not seen before, period.


4.  Liam Neeson

It is a testament to the actors in this movie that some of them were able to turn in good performances despite being directed by George Lucas.  Neeson's wise and earthy Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn helps ground the movie in the same way that Alec Guiness did in Star Wars.  In the world of the movie, he is an interesting character, one who stands apart from the other Jedi for his worldliness and compassion.  The great tragedy of Anakin's story, is that Qui-Gon might have been the mentor who would have been able to guide him through his later difficulties and help him avoid his dark fate.

3.  Light Saber Battles

This movie was out first chance to see fully trained Jedi Knights in their prime and Lucas really upped the ante in making the light saber battles dynamic and active.  The climatic three-on-one battle between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Maul is possibly the finest fight in the series (with the Luke/Vader Empire fight edging it out for dramatic impact).  I challenge even the most ardent Prequel hater not to get goosebumps at the start of this sequence.

While largely lacking the "banter" that characterized the OT saber battles, this fight is beautifully choreographed and full of revealing character moments, such as when Qui-Gon meditating and Maul prowling during the quick moment they are separated by the ray shield in the Naboo reactor core.  All of this featuring a terrific piece of music...

2. The Duel of the Fates

This section of John Williams score plays during the film's climax, accompanying the dramatic light saber/space/ground battle and stands among the greatest pieces of Star Wars music, period.    While it is showcased most prominently in The Phantom Menace is is present throughout the Prequels.  Even the title is perfect as it poetically sums up Anakin's complicated path.

1. Darth Maul

The star villain role in the new Star Wars movie was always going to be a challenge to George Lucas. After all, how do you follow up what is the most iconic villain in movie history?  Instead of rehashing a Vader-like design (ahem, The Force Awakens), the filmmakers decided to do something completely different with an unforgettable and very organic design that seems to have sprung out of the fevered imagination of some far Eastern demonologist.  While Maul could have used a bit more character development in the The Phantom Menace, he lives on in The Clone Wars series (literally) and has taken his place in the Pantheon of Star Wars Badasses along side Darth Vader and Boba Fett.

Pic Profile: Magic Hour By Jon Demartin

A few years ago, Lucas Books released Star Wars: Visions which, unlike the typical "Art Of" books, presents works of "fine" art inspired by Star Wars both in and out of universe.  My favorite piece is the one pictured above, the wonderfully nostalgic Magic Hour by Jon Demartin. Magic Hour depicts a scene from The Empire Strikes Back seen as many people at the time would have seen it: in a drive-in.

I love this painting because it so beautifully captures the socio-economic context of the original Star Wars trilogy, a very different America from the one in which exists now.  One needs only look at some of the other popular movies of the 1970's to see that Star Wars with it's light-hearted tone and optimistic story sticks out like a sore thumb.  One of the reasons the first movie took off the way that it did was that is was fun piece of escapism during dark and gloomy times.  

I grew up in Chicago and the industrial background behind the movie screen is one that could have been the steel mills of the South Side of Chicago or anywhere in the industrial Miswestern Rust Belt with its beautiful and terrible glimmering towers and belching smokestacks.  Part of the nostalgia of the piece is that it pictures a world that is lost. Not only is the drive-in mostly extinct as a phenomenon but with the decline of manufacturing in the U.S. the communities it once supported are mostly gone as well and many of the large-scale facilities have been torn down or stand as ruins.  I like to think the people in their cars are enjoying some time off from their rough but good-paying manufacturing jobs.

The great thing about the drive-in as a subject is that unlike the normal cinematic experience which is purposefully sealed off from the world, the drive-in is open and movie's contents are free to be compared to the surrounding world. Notice the juxtaposition of hardscrabble industrial life and clean cinematic fantasy which speaks to the role of movies as escapism and inspiration in our lives.  The painting's title, Magic Hour, implies that the other hours of the day are less than magical.  

The artist's use of color is a clever nod to Ralph McQuarrie, the concept artist who is largely responsible for the look of the original trilogy and whose painted skies often featured electric blues and rich oranges like the background sky in Magic Hour.  In fact, Demartin's industrial landscape strongly recalls McQuarrie's concept art for Bespin, the floating city in The Empire Strikes Back and the location depicted on the movie screen in the painting.

For all its exotic location and beauty, Cloud City is an industrial "Tibanna" mining station and for all way know, could be the Gary, Indiana of the Galaxy Far Far Away.  

Patrick Garone,

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