Letting Go

Like many people born in the summer of “Star Wars” in 1977, and who grew up playing “Star Wars” with friends, and buying the action figures and the bubble bath, and staying up late to watch “The Empire Strikes Back” as the NBC Sunday Night Movie of the Week, as a fledgling adult in the summer of 1999 I was in a tizzy to see the long-awaited prequel “The Phantom Menace.” And because I was assistant managing a multiplex at the time, I first watched Episode I a couple days before its official May 19th, 1999, release, at midnight with just a few other managers. No regular employees were allowed; it was restricted access only. I literally had to step over people camped along the sidewalk for the first showing to get inside and was verboten from letting it slip why I was there. At some point during the movie, after what I think might have been the line about how you can’t stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting, I exchanged a look with another manager, the same sort of look we might have exchanged during, like, “The Mod Squad” a couple weeks earlier. Digital effects aside, that’s basically what “The Phantom Menace” was, as good as “The Mod Squad.” After it ended, that same manager and I stepped back over the people in line and went to his car. He paused before opening his door, cast his eyes toward the devotees settling in for a night of sleeping on the cement, and said, with a genuine touch of melancholy, “Those poor bastards don’t even know.”

For its 25th anniversary I am not interested in making an aesthetic appraisal of “The Phantom Menace”; for the purposes of this post, consider my negative opinion of it strictly as a work of art written in stone. What always bothered me, though, both at the time of its release and in the years since as it has been reclaimed in some quarters as supposedly better than its reputation, were the assumptions that people who did not like it had an agenda, or held a grudge, or suffered from unfairly outsized expectations. Indeed, to observe the 25th anniversary of “The Phantom Menace,” the Roger Ebert site recently reposted its namesake’s original review and I was horrified to rediscover the first paragraph is an in-advance scolding of all the naysayers like me, that if we didn’t appreciate it for what it was then we couldn’t even appreciate the stars in the sky, or something. Reading that review, man, made me want to take up figurative arms like Gene Siskel on the other side of the aisle. “‘The Phantom Menace’ isn’t Orion, Roger, it’s the lights in the parking lot at Ruby Tuesday.”

There is considerable history and subsequent baggage that comes with being a “Star Wars” fan, true, and it’s easy to believe a great many fans of the franchise were and are not being honest with themselves, but Ebert’s positive notice was rife with equivocations and so maybe he wasn’t being entirely honest with himself. The ancient fallacy of assuming me incapable of setting aside my expectations and assessing the movie on its own terms ticked me off then and it ticks me off now. But letting that hate flow through me, to quote the late great Emperor Palpatine, is what tends to go hand-in-hand, anymore, with being a “Star Wars” fan: everything is taken personally, resulting in the kind of fan toxicity that has become a modern pop culture scourge, and which led me to detach from “Star Wars” as much as the mediocre prequels and subsequent sequels themselves.

I want to be real clear here and say that George Lucas did not destroy my childhood. Leaving aside the should-be self-evident observation that a movie having any real effect on my upbringing is ridiculous, those memories I have of playing “Star Wars” with friends, of buying the action figures and the bubble bath, of staying up late to watch “The Empire Strikes Back” as the NBC Sunday Night Movie of the Week all still happened despite whatever happened later. Besides, there is the movie itself, the first one, which has always meant the most to me, and which, in revisiting the first 30 minutes or so of recently, I was not surprised to find for the umpteenth time still slaps, to use the parlance of our times, imagery and editing and music linked in that way that continues to awe me independent of everything else. And as I get older, and my memory banks begin to deteriorate, “Star Wars” itself will exist as the last document of what it all meant. 

That half-hour of “Star Wars” I watched was the Project 4K77 version, the one in which a group of guerilla fans remastered the original 1977 cut, ridding it of Lucas’s myriad digital and narrative add-ons over the years, seeking to restore the real thing everyone like me grew up on and fell in love with to 4K visual fidelity. This post isn’t about the aesthetics of “The Phantom Menace” and it isn’t about the ethical or moral implications of this remastering, though it’s notable how Lucas seeking not just to alter the original cut but to actively suppress it would appear to go against his own words regarding film preservation, if you consider, as he would seem to, film preservation to be not just about protecting the film negatives of old movies but their original presentations, treating such a cut, as The New York Times’ Jody Rosen wrote of the masters lost in the 2008 Universal Music fire, as “the thing itself.” And if the thing itself is what endures as the last real memory for those of us who grew up with “Star Wars” only to see that memory essentially erased before our very eyes, I sympathize with the fans who don’t want to lose it even if I find something equally interesting and revealing in Lucas treating his masterpiece like a palimpsest.

Almost 50 years after it was filmed, the abandoned remnants of some original “Star Wars” sets remain scattered across Tunisia, standing in for Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine, like the little igloo in deep in the Sahara representing the character’s family home. Given the remote location and harsh climate, it’s hard to believe that it’s lasted this long, helped along by some “Star Wars” fans who specifically sought to preserve it, though you can bet that eventually the desert will reclaim it. It is reminiscent of the original trilogy itself, with Lucas as a kind of manmade Mother Nature, eroding his own creations, and reminds me of my own relationship with the seminal space opera, once alive and immediate but having gradually worn away over time. At one point in my life, movies and “Star Wars” were synonymous, but even by the summer of 1999, it had already ceased to matter to me as much as the movies themselves. And so, when “Star Wars” stopped being good, I didn’t really have a reason to need it anymore.

Ranking the 11 Best Star Wars Sartorial Choices

The plan had been to put up my Films of the Decade on Friday and then shutter the blog for the rest of the holiday season, until the momentous annual Random Awards on New Year’s Day. However, this weekend marked the release of “The Rise of Skywalker” (The Last STAR WARS Movie...Until the Next One). That does not mean I saw “The Rise of Skywalker.” No, no, no. I like to wait a few weeks to see any new “Star Wars” so all the opposing tribes, fans and critics and critics accused of being haters and actual haters and snarky agnostics, can exhaust their hot take ammunition before I slide in, when no one’s listening anymore, with my take. But. Late Friday afternoon, loyal frustrated follower Rory, texted me the following: “The Star Wars saga is over, so it’s time for you to rank all the best sartorial choices in all 11 movies!” Indeed, everyone else is ranking all 11 movies now that the “Star Wars” saga is over (until it isn’t) and so why on blogging earth is Cinema Romantico here if not to respond from a sartorial point-of-view. Duty, I realized, called. (I did, however, slightly amend my friend’s request to simply rank the best 11 sartorial choices among all the movies because, well, you’ll see. See you in the New Year.)

Ranking the 11 Best Star Wars Sartorial Choices

11. A New Hope Star Wars – Tantive IV Rebel Troopers

I have always loved these rags because their cheap all-purpose aesthetic not only suggests insurgency finances as bargain bin but evokes the indie roots of that very first film.

10. Return of the Jedi – Leia, Camouflage

Princess cum General Leia Organa has more important things to worry about than walking the runway, granted, but she would have been the first person in this galaxy or in a galaxy far, far away to own the runway by walking it in camo.

9. The Force Awakens – Rey, Going-To-Find-Luke Getup

I like this getup because it essentially suggests that Rey is taking the same design as her Jakku Scavenger duds and then spiffing them up to begin Jedi Training. You know, like when a Track & Field athlete starts recording Olympic-quality times and finally gets sponsorship from Nike. 

8. Return of the Jedi – Luke, All Black

I already broke down Luke’s Jedi look in my separate post ranking his character’s sartorial choices, of course, but I had not seen this photo. And if fashion is as much about confidence and presentation as it is about clothes, hoo boy, Luke Skywalker was never more a la mode. Here the one black glove comes across not as a necessity but a choice, and a bold one at that, recasting himself less as a mystical knight than a Coruscant pop star.

7. The Last Jedi – Oscar Isaac, Jacket

To quote the Cuban Embassy Dude noticing Cosmo Kramer’s striking outerwear: “I *like* that jacket.”

6. Solo: A Star Wars Story – Lando, Tie

The shirt, yes, fine, solid, but the tie ties everything together by hanging loose, summarizing Lando Calrissian as a man who can get look good while kicking back.

5. Empire Strikes Back – Leia, Hoth Gear

Refuse to eschew fashion for functionality with this quilted vest and these wedge heel boots, making you equally at home trekking the frigid frozen plains of Hoth or in repose on the slopes of Alderaan’s Triplehorn Mountains.

4. Attack of the Clones – Padmé, Tatooine Leisure Wear

This proves, once and for all, that, with just a little effort, people, you can dress stylishly in the far Outer Rim.

3. A New Hope Star Wars – Han Solo’s Vest

Self-evidently seminal.

2. Empire Strikes Back – Lando, Baron Administrator Ensemble

A cool blue with a gold-lined cape doesn't mix business and pleasure but makes them one and the same so that you can go straight from the Cloud City Council meeting to the club without losing a step.

1. Attack of the Clones – Padmé’s Jumpsuit

Now I know that technically speaking “Attack of the Clones”, being a prequel and all, comes before “Empire Strikes Back” in the “Star Wars” universe, meaning a pseudo logical argument might say that Leia’s Hoth outfit was inspired by Padmé’s jumpsuit. But here, in our real reality, we know “Attack of the Clones” came after “Empire Strikes Back” which means it’s the other way around. And so, Padmé’s jumpsuit becomes akin to all these teenagers I see running around these days duplicating and expanding Alicia Silverstone’s [Chef’s Kiss] look from the Cryin’ video. I mean, I’ve never seen “Attack of the Clones” but holy shit. Making this list was revelatory for me. I don’t know where Padmé stands in the character canon with the “Star Wars” faithful, and I know this movie’s reception was lukewarm, but whatever. Padmé Amidala, it turns out, is a goddamn icon.

Not-Forgotten Great Moments in Movie History

Forty-eight hours ago, or four months ago, who’s to say anymore, the second trailer for “Star Wars Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker” dropped to much fanfare. “This is your fight,” we hear Luke Skywalker advising Rey, the Taylor Swift of the Western Reaches. And that may be true, but this is also a nostalgia trip in the guise of a summation of the series and so half the trailer is just a cavalcade of green lights at the end of the pier in the form of images of past “Star Wars.” I got so exhausted I almost laid down for a nap in the middle of it. But I stayed awake, and so I saw the end where Rey, the Taylor Swift of the Western Reaches, is sporting a red lightsaber. That’s red, and that’s a potential problem, see, because red connotes Evil in the “Star Wars” universe and, wait! Is Rey the Katy Perry of the Western Reaches now?! Maybe, who knows, but Reddit’s got some theories which is all you need to know about how “Star Wars”, my beloved “Star Wars”, long ago jumped the shark. I wish a Knight of the Old Republic was an Internet ombudsman.

Anyway. This new lightsaber drop got me to thinking about my favorite use of a lightsaber in the whole “Star Wars” saga – Real Edition and Ersatz Editions I & II. Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t involve Luke or Darth! It doesn’t even involve Obi-Wan, though I’ve always dug his pulling the lightsaber at Mos Eisley like it’s the Jets and the Sharks under the highway. No, my favorite use of a lightsaber involves Han Solo and it happens on Hoth.

You know what I’m talking about. Luke has escaped the Wampa and passed out in the snow and Han goes looking for him by Tauntaun and finds him but then his Tauntaun dies and so Han has to erect the emergency shelter. But he can’t just leave Luke lying out there in the snow; he’ll freeze to death! So he scoops up Luke’s lightsaber, gets the thing turned on, a moment which Ford brilliantly accentuates with a kind of “uh”, as one might in a moment of unsure DIY plumbing, transforming “an elegant weapon for a more civilized age” into nothing more than a shiny tool for ripping up Tauntaun guts, which, frankly, is the kind of unprepossessing vérité nodding at nothing more than primal necessity that could really benefit the summation of Ersatz Edition II.

What's the Best Star Wars Line?

Earlier this month, Star Wars Day was observed. That’s May 4th, of course, because, like, you know – heavy sigh – May the Fourth Be With You. If you wonder why “Star Wars” deserves its own day, well, I suspect it’s for the same reason that there is an action figure of General Madine. But the holiday’s origin and reason for continuing to exist is not what we are here to discuss. No, we are here to discuss the actual line of dialogue that, obviously, May the Fourth Be With You is culled from – that is, “May the force be with you.”

This is a famous line. It is so famous that it checked in at #8 on the AFI (American Film Institute) Best 100 Movie Quotes list from 2005. Mike Pesca noted this too in a recent episode of his daily podcast The Gist. He argued, however, that an 8th place finish was far too generous because the line, like other lines on the list, like “Bond, James Bond”, are less examples of great writing than merely ubiquitous, whether within the movie itself or societally speaking. That ubiquitous quality was also cited in “Rosebud”, the famous explanation, so to speak, from “Citizen Kane.” And I have to say, Pesca is right. Is “Rosebud” a better written line than “I always gagged on the silver spoon?” No, it’s not. And “May the force be with you” is not a better written line than…..

Well, that’s the thing. What is a great “Star Wars” line? I mean, a “Star Wars” line that’s really written. The obvious answer here is Leia saying “I love you” and Han replying “I know.” But then, that line wasn’t written; it was improvised by Ford. And most of the great lines in “Star Wars”, the really great lines, are as much about Ford as the writing. Ford may have famously remarked “George, you can type this shit, but you can’t say it”, but Ford could say it. He could say it really, really well.

“I’ve run outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, I’m talking about the big Corellian ships now.” That Solo line is really just B-movie b.s., but Ford gave it the ring not of a weary actor in a b.s. B-movie but a space stock car driver over beers. He’s even better in “The Empire Strikes Back” quarreling with Carrie Fisher (rip). When Leia accuses Han of making things so difficult, Ford’s “I do, I really do” riposte is just something else, smug acknowledgement of his own smugness. (Smug Runner-up: “ Yes, your Highnessness?”) The best lines in “Star Wars”, in other words, are Harrison Ford line readings which isn’t really the same thing. (Parenthetical shout-out here to Graham Ashley as the immortal Gold Five whose “Stabilize your rear deflectors, watch for enemy fighters” is a righteous line reading steeped in regal theatricality.)

The best written Han Solo line is maybe the smuggler cum rebel General barking at slow-moving C-3PO when quickness would suffice: “Hurry up, goldenrod! You’re gonna be a permanent resident!” I like it because at least you could picture Humphrey Bogart brusquely saying this to some supporting blowhard. Non-Solo speaking, “It’s a trap” might well be a solid choice, an effective, panicked come to Jesus cry. Yet if it is only said once in the movie, it has been repeated ad nauseum in pop culture, repetition in the manner of  “Rosebud”, and not line a where you admire the craftsmanship anyway. I am tempted to cite “That’s no moon...it’s a space station.” Except that line too seems a little less about the words and a little more about the immaculate portentous spin Guinness puts on them.

“Do or do not, there is no try,” as Yoda advises, might be ubiquitous, but it’s also infused with actual wisdom, though it skews a little too much toward classroom inspirational poster for my dialogue tastes. “But I was going into Tosche station to pick up some power converters!” gets laughed at a lot, but it is remembered. Does it not accurately capture a whiny adolescence? Even so, I think we can do better.

Pesca tossed out some options, including “I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home” and “Only a master of evil, Darth.” Those are solid. And yet, it is not “Only a master of evil, Darth” that leaps to mind when I consider Ben Kenobi observations so much as this: “You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

Obi-Wan, of course, would re-appear in the ensuing two films by way of ghostly hologram, most problematically, sadly in the “Return of the Jedi” where he is made to utter that “certain point of view” line which is one of the worst bits of dialogue in the series, less a punchy observation than narrative evasion. These re-appearances of old Ben Kenobi, in fact, merely undermine his cautioning that “If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

Redundancy, Pesca said in quoting an old observation that he tied back to may the force be with you, should not be mistaken for profundity. And that is sort of the whole problem with the recurring ghost of Ben Kenobi. Had the films honored his declaration that being struck down would merely make him more powerful than that sinister Sith Lord could possibly imagine and subsequently allowed the wise Jedi to exit stage left, thereby maintaining his dignity, this line would have resonated so much more, a parting shot echoing across the eons.

Rogue One

“Rogue One” is, first and foremost, as the film’s subtitle implies, “A Star Wars Story”, but it is also A Gareth Edwards Film. And Edwards’ two preceding films, “Monsters” and “Godzilla”, were, as those titles suggest, principally about the monsters. In the former, romantic squabbling partners were drowned out by the eerie atmosphere surrounding the extremely ambiguous titular creatures. In the latter, Godzilla’s climactic tussle with other gigantic monsters causes the humans to realize their piddly place among these beasts. In other words, whether deliberately or not, Edwards created films in which underdeveloped, un-charismatic characters felt part and parcel to the elemental universes into which they were cast.

In “Rogue One” the monsters are fashioned as the Galactic Empire and their Death Star. After all, this film is set in the run-up to the very first “Star Wars” film, filling in the blanks of how Princess Leia Organa’s small band of rebels managed to steal the secret plans of the planet destroying battle station. In telling the story, Edwards, true to his style, comes across more taken with the rebellion itself rather than the specific people populating it. Not that Edwards and his writers Christ Weitz and Tony Gilroy don’t try to give us a strong protagonist in the tersely named Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones).

It’s commendable, of course, that “Rogue One”, like “The Force Awakens”, opts for a female main character, but Jyn is less important as herself than as the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), the man tasked by the Empire to erect the Death Star. The movie never gives her traits and never gives her real dialogue. Jones is therefore left to build the character from behavior, such as a splendid shot aboard some sort of transport prison spacecraft where Jones’s ferocious, bulging eyes emit a genuine pent-up rage, and which suggest a female Snake Plissken when the Rebel Alliance recruits her as a means to find her father and eradicate this Death Star. This is the attitude Jones plays to, but the script awkwardly jerks her character from criminal to hero and she never goes all in on this “transformation”, stranding her in some unhappy medium.

There are remnants of a tougher, darker film, in those early eyes of Jones and in the early sequences where Jyn and rebel intel captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) drop into some remote outpost called Jedha, prowling the streets among a Mos Eisley-ish crowd, having secret conversations in dark alleys while Storm Troopers lurk around every corner. It is not, frankly, unlike that sequence in “Zero Dark Thirty” where the Americans are trying to get a fix on UBL’s courier, except from the point-of-view of the courier, which in a “Star Wars” movie would have been pretty radical, portraying the Rebel Alliance less as heroes of a space serial and more as true terroristic insurgents.

The movie never commits to that version, just as it never commits to the darker aspects of Jones’s performance, ultimately opting for a more conventional action-adventure in which a small gaggle comes together to fight the good fight. And that’s fine. But in these middle portions, where less plan-stealing thrills unfold, the people on screen are necessary to sustain interest and momentum and no one has any personality, aside a re-programmed imperial droid who, in the voice of Alan Tudyk, delivers his one-liners with a forced cadence, an exasperated “Do I Have To?” It’s a problem when the film’s most memorable people are digital re-creations of previously existing characters.

In these middle portions you can sense the rumored re-shoots and re-writes, with Disney saying “Lighten up!” But Edwards doesn’t know how to lighten up, more consumed by serious ideas than fanciful ones, which is why The Force is nothing more than a bit player in “Rogue One.” One scene finds a Rebel council debating whether or not to go after the Death Star or run and hide. As Inspiration 101, it barely flies, written in terrible platitudes, but a tantalizing idea of the rebels less as a simpleminded united front than squabbling splinters that eventually must unite nevertheless emerges.

That comes through in the conclusion, which brings the alliance’s “first victory against the evil Galactic Empire” that is referenced in the original 1977 scrawl to dramatic life. Here Edwards feels in his wheelhouse, rendering a kinetic battle that cuts between space and the planet below, where attention to detail is everything, like a shot from a Turbolaser turret in which the blast is incredibly deep and echoey, reverberating through you like the bass at some rock concert. What’s more, the frustrating lack of character strangely, wonderfully becomes a strength in this wrap-up. All the rebels come together in the name of their alliance, willing to give themselves up their beliefs, which makes even the extras who are deposited onto the battlefield just to get killed off less typical collateral damage than noble unknown soldiers. Nameless X-wing pilots who get shot down become no different than Jyn Erso, which is problematic, yet also kind of beautiful. No one is greater than the cause.

That also speaks to “Star Wars” more broadly, I suppose, and why these films continue to get produced and reap success, whoever is at the helm, whoever is in them. Sadly, Jyn Ersos will always be a dime a dozen while Star Wars™ will never not be worth its weight in gold.

A Long Time Ago, When Rogue One Was on the Radio

“(A)s I write these words there is almost a physical intensity to my memories of listening to the radio. Television was never the same. Television shows happened in the TV set, but radio shows happened in my head.” – Roger Ebert

The late great Mr. Ebert wrote those words in his review of Woody Allen’s “Radio Days”, a wonderful and requisitely wistful remembrance of the way things were when the radio was king. It was released in 1987 and yet even if the radio was already in the process of becoming a relic in the mid-80’s, it held some sway, and never more so than with National Public Radio’s “Star Wars” dramatizations, a 13 part serial which my dad recorded to cassette tape when it premiered and which I would listen to, perched intently at the foot of those massive standing speakers set up in our basement family room. I connect “Star Wars” to those tapes as much as I do to the DVD’s sitting on my shelf.

In 1981, George Lucas, often derided for vanity and greed, often derided for vanity and greed by me, sold the rights to NPR to serialize his space opera gravy train on the radio for a mere $1. He provided all the legit “Star Wars” sound effects as well as John Williams music score, and while only a few of the original actors (Hammil, Antony Daniels as C-3PO) appeared as themselves, the fill-ins held their own. Perry King served up some serious gruffness as Han Solo. Ann Sachs made for a fiery Leia. Brock Peters was a different yet no less effective Darth Vader.

It seems ludicrous, probably, to imagine a product as visual and effect-y as “Star Wars” being re-imagined entirely as an auditory experience, but then it shines a spotlight on how the strength of the original trilogy really was its story. Then again, there was not necessarily enough story there to sustain an entire serial, and that is why, as NPR recounted last year to coincide with the release of The Force Awakens, they had science-fiction novelist Brian Daley come in and punch up the drama with further backstory and extra scenes amidst the scenes culled from the movies.

Included in those extra scenes are a few in which Leia acquires the plans to the Death Star, which I mention because “Rogue One”,  the new “Star Wars” offshoot, set for release later this year, its big  teaser trailer dropping today, centers around the acquisition of those plans. In the context of these scenes for the serial, Leia feels more like the major player that the actual film only really hints at her being, allowing us to see all the espionage that goes into a heroically treasonous Imperial Senator going after the Galactic Empire. This is never more apparent than in her faux-courting of some self-impressed bureaucrat named Lord Tion, all a means to an end, to get at the plans. And when her cover is blown, what she does, and what she convinces her father to do, and that is played by Sachs with an incendiary out-of-breath desperation, is bone-chilling, and takes “Star Wars” to a raw kind of place the movies have mostly avoided.

I get the sense that Gareth Edwards is not going to avoid it either, and I think that's a good thing. I think “Rogue One”, standing apart from the series just re-ignited, should embrace the chance to do something else, much like the Radio Dramas did so long ago, and hone in on character and render the proceedings more mentally tense than casually heroic. I confess, I have had trepidation about my memories of this radio drama, which are so indelible, being compromised, or completely usurped. But then, Edwards' debut, “Monsters”, excelled specifically at striking your nerves not with what you could see but with what you could not,  and so if any director has the skill to make a movie that invites your imagination as much as his, I suspect it’s him. I’m in, teaser trailer or not.

My Favorite Shot in Star Wars

Because “Star Wars” is so often lauded (and, in turn, chided) for its groundbreaking special effects, and because we so often first see “Star Wars” at an age when we are most susceptible to the spectacle of spectacular special, it only makes sense that the film’s Wowza! Shots would be most burned into our memories. That was certainly true for me. The Star Destroyer in the indomitable franchise’s very first shot swallowing up the rebels’ little pile of junk; the X-Wings swooping down into the Death Star’s terrifying trench; that moment in “The Empire Strikes Back” when Han desperately dives the Falcon between the converging Star Destroyers, which took away my breath on the little TV in our family room as much as it did when I finally saw it on the big screen some fourteen years later. And yet, there is another shot that has stayed with me even longer despite its formal plain-spokenness, and that required years between it and myself to engender the proper perspective to truly appreciate it. The shot has nothing to do with space or spaceships or planets blown to smithereens; nope, it’s just a human face.

I call him The Old Guy In “Star Wars.” He has an entry on the infamous Wookiepedia because “Star Wars” obsessives don’t like to let the mystery be, but for the purposes of this post we will act as if that in-depth backstory does not exist because it certainly did not exist the first time I watched “Star Wars”, and the first thousand million times after. You remember The Old Guy. The Star Destroyer tractor beams the rebels’ little pile of junk and the rebels’ hapless foot soldiers assume defensive positions for when the Imperial storm troopers enter to wreak havoc. And the camera settled, and then lingered, twice, on The Old Guy. There were any number of rebels the camera could have picked out, but it chose him. It – that is, the camera – was advising that I should pay attention to him, and so I did, thinking he must therefore be of extreme importance, that perhaps he was the leader of this little band with the little ray guns. Then, the Storm Troopers barreled through the door, firing off lasers with surprising accuracy given their woeful marksmanship to come, and the camera re-found The Old Guy, blasting his ray gun back at the invaders, and…down he went. It was shocking. It’s still shocking.

It’s as basic a lesson as you’ll learn but which every kid needs to learn about the movies anyway – that is, the camera is the author of the story, and wherever its gaze goes, you go too. It reels you in, and while it can convey truth, it can also deceive. By putting the camera where he did, up close and personal, however briefly, on The Old Guy, Lucas roped me in before completely undercutting me a few staggering seconds later.

I’ve never recovered.

When the Unknown Becomes Known

Today the New Horizons probe is set to make its fly-by of Pluto and give us our very first up close and personal look at our solar system’s most distant planet* (*suck it, IAU). Pluto has always been my favorite planet, and not because of the Disney dog, as my arch-nemesis Neil deGrasse Tyson might claim. No, it was my favorite because it was so far away, because by being so far away it was utterly unknown. I remember doing a “science” project in grade school in which we were tasked to choose our favorite planet and present a report. There was so little information on Pluto. Everyone knew about Jupiter’s spot. Everyone had seen that shot of Mars from Viking 1. Everyone knew the 411 on Saturn’s rings. But Pluto? Ah, ‘twas a mystery. No one really knew what it looked like, we could merely imagine, and to imagine it was simply the best. I still daydream about the sun’s remote, barely-there glimmer from Pluto’s surface, a surface which I always imagined was similar to the picture employed by the Encyclopedia Brittanica of my youth to illustrate the Greek underworld ruled by the god Pluto. I guess that’s why I feel so strange today. I’m absolutely euphoric to see Pluto up close yet completely heartbroken to cede the mystery.

The real secret weapon to the original “Star Wars” movie was its setting in the midst of an ongoing conflict. It was a period of civil war and we just happened to be catching up. The scuzzy X-Wing fighters were physical evidence. Those things looked like they’d been broken down and re-built, like, two-dozen times. Those things had mileage. The movie’s opening crawl was akin to reading a history textbook several decades after the fact. “Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon.” You could imagine that hidden base and battle and the secret plans’ thievery any way you wanted.

Well, as you know, there are going to be a series of new “Star Wars” spinoff movies, filling in the blanks between the god-awful prequels and the seminal trilogy of yore. The risk these movies run is not simply in their quality. Perhaps they will be finely made. But there is something to having all those wondrous places our imaginations have carried us rendered null and void. In the original “Star Wars” there are small references to seemingly enormous pieces of the puzzle – the Old Republic, the Academy, the Imperial Senate, The Clone Wars. I loved those allusions. I loved conjuring up the mental image of the Imperial Senate floor while the spooky connotations that something like “Clone Wars” elicited let the darker aspects of my mind’s eye go haywire. Alas, when finally we were introduced to the Imperial Senate and the Clone Wars……well, it was like getting to the Alamo and discovering there is no basement. God, I’ve never experienced such cinematic letdowns.

There is part of me, I suppose, that is excited for the possibility of these stories, just like part of me is excited to see Pluto as Pluto really is. But part of me, the hopeless romantic, the hipster Walter Mitty, is genuinely crushed. There is going to be a movie detailing the origin of Han Solo, even though Han Solo, as far as I’m concerned, exists on the same sorta plain as William Kidd. Who wants to be told unequivocally that Captain Kidd didn’t leave buried treasure? How on earth is that any fun? Those damn scientists get in the damn Loch to harness foolproof evidence that Nessie is just a fanciful Scottish saga and everybody loses.

Well, maybe not everybody. I suppose to more scholarly minds than my own the truth of Captain Kidd and the reality of Loch Ness is exciting and insightful, not unlike how finally seeing Pluto up close and personal and in vibrant color will be breathtaking. And I confess to being riveted by every Pluto image beamed back by New Horizons thus far. Still, with captivation comes a significant dose of sadness, a putting to bed of all my whimsical Plutonian daydreams. I will be heartbroken to know Pluto does not quite exist as I thought I did. And even if this Han Solo origin story winds up to be a phenomenally crafted film with impressive insights into the mind of our favorite Corellian smuggler, I for one will nevertheless be grief-stricken to see precisely how he made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Star Wars & Nostalgia

As a staunch “Star Wars” prequels adversary, both with their existence and “artistic” execution, there is nonetheless a single moment near the end of Episode III, “Revenge of the Sith”, that I find positively delightful. It was a sudden and remarkable realization that Bail Organa was strolling through the snow white hallways of a fairly familiar looking spaceship. “That’s Leia’s ship!” I internally screamed like Bruce Springsteen had just ascended the stage. It was the same ship, the storied Tantive IV, in which this and that galaxy’s most famous Princess (sorry, Kate) tried to flee the Imperial Starfleet. It was the same ship as a kid lo so many years ago I would pretend to be in as one of the hapless rebel soldiers trying to stave off the small-scale storm trooper invasion. It was the same ship that sent a whole film franchise, for better or worse, spinning into orbit, and now it was on a screen in front of me and I was overjoyed.

Of course, that joy stemmed not from whatever context in which Leia’s ship was currently being used in “Episode III.” I’d be hard-pressed to provide even a vague description of why Bail Organa was strolling through its snow white hallways. But that’s because its role in the story was beside the point; its presence was all that mattered. Seeing it again flooded me with a sensation as precarious as it is liltingly potent……nostalgia.

I felt the waves of nostalgia rolling in once again when the latest teaser for J.J. Abrams’ brontosaurusly hyped “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (release date: December 18th) made the rounds last Thursday. The Twitters were aflame with social media fanboy screams and Facebook status updates confessed to goose bumps aplenty. Adults became kids – specifically adults of my generation, that is, and that makes me wonder what truly provoked all these screams and goose bumps? After all, no one seemed to be mentioning Daisy Ridley fleeing an explosion like a Michael Bay guest directed spot. That’s not what thrilled us.

What thrilled was the voice of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker reciting recognizable dialogue (“The Force is strong in my family” – aiyeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!). What thrilled us was the sight of an Imperial star cruiser, crashed and burned. What thrilled us was the Millenium Falcon mid-soar. In other words, what thrilled us was a Thursday afternoon wistful remembrance of the way things were. These are sights and sounds of a time gone by, resurrected for a fleeting moment, perfectly captured in the wink of a teaser trailer that doesn’t have to follow through any further than ninety seconds later. Yes, Oscar Isaac looked pretty fly in that X-wing pilot suit but that image of Oscar only left me pining for an appearance by Wedge. The teaser felt like flipping through a photo album and focusing on the faces we once knew with such immense fondness and haven’t seen in a long, long time. And that makes me wonder, are we really anticipating “The Force Awakens” or is its hype overdrive merely waking the echoes?

The most indelible image of the teaser was Han Solo & Chewbacca standing in what appeared to be the innards of Earth's favorite spacecraft, the Millennium Falcon. “Chewy,” Han says in the least gruff timbre Harrison Ford has managed in at least a decade, “we’re home.” It’s a line overflowing with audacity, a deliberate flouting of Thomas Wolfe’s infamous observation. “You can't go back home to your childhood,” he wrote and yet that’s precisely where the teaser takes so many of us. It transports us to the past, to our youthful homes and our glorious childhoods when we were so young and so naïve and the world seemed full of such hope and wonder that we really did feel like we could take on the whole empire ourselves. God, it's dangerous. The gorgeous blue illumination of the Falcon's engine grill calling out like a beacon may as well be a flashing green light across the harbor.

J.J. Abrams has trafficked in this sort of nostalgia before, of course, with “Super 8”, an insistent homage to Father Spielberg. Yet that film worked for me; at least, that film worked for me in real time inside the movie theater where I was subsumed by nostalgia. Outside, afterwards, on the long walk home, in a blink, the whole damn thing fell to pieces, and I realized the film was just a hollowed out spectacle, not unlike the Tantive IV of “Revenge of the Sith”, a gleaming re-creation, not the real thing. I felt sad. I also felt satisfied. It was just a trick, but for two hours that suspension of disbelief kept me riveted, to hell with hindsight. And if for just a couple hours J.J. Abrams can trick me into thinking that, yes, old sport, you can repeat the past, maybe, just maybe, that will be enough in spite of the emotionally bankrupt charlatans telling me to mind my sentimentality. Like Janis sang, “I’d trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday.”

If Star Wars Characters Could Smoke...

It was announced last week by Disney CEO Bob Iger that going forward they would ban all smoking in films made under their umbrella with a rating of PG-13 or lower, which would include Lucasfilm. And because it includes Lucasfilm, it would include the “Star Wars” films. I never really thought of the “Star Wars” universe as a smoking one, but quick research did remind me that Jabba the Hutt liked the inter-galactic hookah. Funny that seeing Jabba smoke at such a tender age didn’t turn me into a smoker but then maybe it’s because he was a villainous and fairly disgusting crime lord and that scared me away.

But that’s not the point here. The point here is that really, for the most part, nobody was smoking in “Star Wars” even before ol’ Iger said they couldn’t. Yet ol’ Iger saying they couldn’t naturally made me wonder if they could who would? LISTICLE!!!!!!! (A brief note: 1. There will be no Han Solo because Han Solo was a whiskey drinker and we all know it.)

“Star Wars” Characters That Probably Smoked

Lando Calrissean. This is so obvious that I’m retroactively angry at Irvin Kershner for not forcing its conclusion. You’re telling me Lando didn’t kick back after a long day of administrating Cloud City at his mahogany desk with velvet drapes drawn to look out at his mining colony and light up a fat stogie? OH MY GOD, OF COURSE HE DID!

Uncle Owen. He didn’t smoke around Beru, of course, because she’d never stand for it. But when he was out there on the south ridge and struggling to make those persnickety condensers, like, you know, condense there’s not a doubt in my mind he snuck in a couple Tatooine-esque Kools. I know you, Owen. I know you, man.

Porkins. As most diehard “Star Wars” fans know there is a deleted pre-Battle of Yavin scene in which Porkins, sitting in his cockpit and waiting for his X-Wing to get gassed up, is seen smoking a Marlboro and drinking a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

Gamorreans. I like to imagine these dudes sucking those cigs down on their fifteen minute break outside Jabba’s palace.

Princess Leia. Well, she doesn't smoke now, no. But back on Alderaan when she was just a rebellious teenage girl with dyed sky blue hair and Doc Martens and ripped fishnets? Hell yeah, she did. You know Kate Middleton used to smoke, right?

General Tagge. He’s stuck managing the Imperial Starfleet in the era of the Death Star, which is threatening to make his job obsolete, and all the while he’s got this menacing, mouth-breathing Sith Lord looking over his shoulder. Yeah, Tagge’s a two-packs-a-day kinda dude.

Boba Fett. Well, there's just no way Boba Fett didn't smoke. Am I right, fanboys? He was the baddest dude in the universe, right? By definition he was OBLIGATED to smoke. I'm sure he tilted that mask up after doing some badass thing and lit up the Mandalorian version of a Chesterfield. And I'm sure that when he did, it looked an awful lot like this.

Leaked Star Wars Episode VII Photos

"Star Wars: Episode VII" is currently filming and photos from the set have begun to trickle out. The first few are shown below with brief additional commentary to provide potential context.....

Sources advise a possibility that rights to use the Millennium Falcon™were not secured.

Uh oh! Has J.J. Abrams opted for time-travel AND alternate reality?

Seeming to confirm rumors that "Episode VII" will be returning to Hoth...

Seeming to confirm rumors that Penelope Cruz will appear as Adam Driver's ally in a cilona-extract death stick ring...

Seeming to confirm rumors that Jon Voight will appear as crusty bounty hunter Exeter Ampoule...

The new Cantina Band?

Richard Burton hologram?

Mara Jade?

My 5 Favorite Star Wars "Special" Effects

The special effects of "Star Wars" (all right, okay, fine, "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope") were groundbreaking. And Grand Chancellor George Lucas continued breaking more ground with them. And tampering with them. But I'm not here to complain nor demean those special effects. Because not only were they groundbreaking, they were integral to the story. Yet, just as integral to the story, and perhaps even more so in a way, were the less special of effects. The mere effects, the regular effects, the prosaic effects. "Star Wars" was sci-fi, to be sure, but it was also old-fashioned guerrilla filmmaking and just plain old-fashioned, and those old-fashioned effects are the ones we here at Cinema Romantico prefer.

  My 5 Favorite Star Wars "Special" Effects

1. Rebel Uniforms

The vests look like they came from K-Mart. The pants look like they came from Walmart. The helmets look like they came out of a dollar bin at Walgreens. Could there have been a more appropriate contrast to the badass Stormtroopers about to come barreling through the airlock?

2. Plastic Cookware

If there is a brightest spot to the center of the universe, and if you are on the planet farthest from, then it probably takes awhile, right, for new cookware to trickle its way down. So it would only make sense that poor Aunt Beru is still stuck with that same damn plastic cookware she probably got as a wedding gift from Owen's super cheap second cousin.

3. Mos Eisley Matte Painting

I'll never forget the first time I saw the Emerald City glimmering in the distance of the frame of "The Wizard of Oz." I can't quite remember any other image so utterly illuminating my family's RCA tube TV from the 80's. Did my youthful mind register that it wasn't real, merely a supreme optical illusion? Probably not. Maybe it did. Who knows? But that Emerald City matte painting remains at the forefront of my Cinematic Effects list and the Mos Eisley matte painting of "Star Wars" is not far behind. The actual view is in California's Death Valley, looking out toward Furnace Creek, but it always makes me think of a Tatooine-esque Mulholland Drive. From above L.A., all those far-reaching lights twinkle so romantically. Down below amongst them, sin and vice lurk down every highway and under every neon sign. From above Mos Eisley, invoked by John Williams' heralding score in that moment, it's the first outpost of a new world to which young Luke Skywalker is venturing. Down below, it is a hive of scum and villainy. And much like the Emerald City itself could never - in my fanciful mind anyway - live up to how it looks from a distance, there will be always be something just a touch more magical about seeing Mos Eisley from the ridge and merely imagining what awaits.

4. Rebel Base, Yavin Moon

Do you know what's so much cooler than some computer-generated Jedi Temple? An ACTUAL Mayan Temple standing in for the rebel base in "Star Wars", that's what.

5. X Wing Marshall Wands

Yesterday at The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky had a fine article detailing what he termed the "scum-caked brilliance" of "Star Wars", a spot-on label of its "visual scruffiness." And that's sort of what this entire Top 5 (that I swear I had begun crafting before reading that article) boils down to. The X-Wing fighters carrying out the infamous attack on the Death Star are most definitely visually scruffy. They are worn and scarred, as if slapped together out of used parts from Big Al's Scrap Yard on Yavin 8. These were the details that not only grounded "Star Wars" but so fantastically enhanced the all-important "long time ago" in the "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" preamble. It's why when I contemplate "Star Wars", I don't contemplate X-Wing fighters hurtling through space. I contemplate the Rebel Marshall Wands guiding them toward the runway to lift off for space.

Han Shot

In “Veronica Decides To Die” Paulo Coelho wrote that “there is always a gap between intention and action.” If, however, anyone were capable of taking, say, a Navicomputer keyboard and wedging it between the intention and the action, thereby rendering that gap obsolete, it would definitely be the irascible spice smuggler Han Solo, which was what popped into my head when I read about Harrison Ford’s recent Reddit Q&A. He was inevitably asked for his thoughts on whether or not Han shot at Greedo first in “Star Wars: Episode IV.” Ever curmudgeonly, Ford replied (and you could hear the growl from Corellia), “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

To a certain breed of cinema devotees, the story is not merely familiar but probably played out – still, some may need context, and so we will provide it. In the original “Star Wars” of 1977, before “A New Hope” was woefully tacked on, we were essentially introduced to Ford’s Han Solo at the cantina in Mos Eisley where a bounty hunter named Greedo, his laser blaster drawn, sits down across from Solo to collect the mark on his head. Solo, coolly, draws his own laser blaster out of sight beneath the table and blasts Greedo down. Han not only shoots first, he’s the only one who shoots, most likely – as scholars note in their scholarly language – because he’s, like, a total badass, man. Unfortunately, upon the “Special Edition” release of 1997, Grand Chancellor George Lucas chose to make a notable change – that is, Greedo shoots first, somehow splaying his laser blast badly to the side of Han’s head and clearing the way for Han to get off his own shot. Or, to say it another way, Han Shot Second.

Aside from Lucas, grievous Lucas apologists and Skywalker Ranch Yes Men, no one cared for this revision, though some expressed their dislike for it more extravagantly than others. The creators of a website, for instance, with the expository name of HanShootsFirst.org went so far as to enact a petition officially calling for Greedo’s first shot to be revoked. The revision has been referenced with extreme distaste in Kevin Smith films and on the just shuttered “How I Met Your Mother.” Timothy Olyphant as Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens (a man who knows a thing or two about drawing first) knew that Han shot first. Go to a comic con, bellow through a megaphone that Greedo shot first, sit back, and watch the righteous spittle fly. And hey, I’ve long been pro-Han Shot First, thinking that it crucially underscored his character’s laconic cool. Except that hearing the man who brought Han to life growl that not only didn’t he know who shot first but that he didn’t care who shot first, I realized that I too didn’t care who shot first.

Lucas has gone on record in the years since with some sort of marble-mouthed blarney about how even in 1977 he intended for Greedo to shoot first, but no one’s buying it and it doesn’t matter anyway. In spite of the laser blast addendum, what Lucas could not change in his “Special Edition” was Ford’s demeanor. That was baked in and it was everything, because ultimately what this scene comes down to is not its mechanics but its philosophical underpinnings. The only way in which Lucas could have altered the philosophy of this moment would have been to somehow CGI it so that Han kept his blaster holstered and Greedo’s laser magically ricocheted off the wall and hit himself in the face. (I fear I may have just given Lucas an idea for the “Star Wars Maxima Cum Laude Edition”.)

In other words, the point isn’t that Han shot first. Han’s intention and subsequent action, minus the gap that he brazenly rejects, was to shoot, and he would tell you in no uncertain terms that in the same situation he shoot again. Or as the green dude from Dagobah might have put it: shoot or shoot not, there is no shoot first.

Star Wars: The ABC Saturday Night Movie Re-Release

There have, of course, been roughly 1.5 million re-releases of the original “Star Wars” trilogy in some sort of home video format. VHS & DVD & Blu Ray & Gamma Ray & A-1 Ionisation & Orographic Advanced. It has been re-released with new footage & bonus footage & special footage & special bonus footage & deluxe special bonus footage & enhanced deluxe special bonus footage featuring Cloud City reimagined as a Blanket Fort (unless I’m confusing that with an episode of “Community” – I honestly don’t know anymore).

All I ever wanted, though, was the original versions. That’s it. The “Star Wars” where Mos Eisley still looked like a sleepy desert town off I-80 in Nevada and “The Empire Strikes Back” where Cloud City still looked like a leftover Emerald City set and “Return of the Jedi” still had The Yub Nub Song That dream finally came true in 2006, even if Grand Chancellor Lucas still stuck the special edition versions on there too. Didn’t matter. I had the originals, Jabba didn’t show up ‘til the third one, you barely saw the Wampa and the X-Wings lifting off from the moon of Yavin were still tiny blips of light in the sky. It was – to quote Shelley Duvall in “Annie Hall” – transplendent! Except……

Well, just recently Ryan McNeil of the ever-fabulous Matinee wrote a post detailing how one of the crucial ways in which he first watched film as a young lad was off TV – watching broadcasts and taping broadcasts to VHS and so forth. And this made me realize something. See, kids, there was a time when home video meant there was no such thing as “Netflix streaming” or some such fancy-pants nonsense. No, it meant your whole family piling into the car and driving to the Roadshow Video and arguing for who-knows-how-long about what to get from the severely limited options and getting something like Howie Mandel’s “Walk Like A Man” which even if you were all of 10 years old you knew was a cinematic atrocity.

It also meant gathering around your TV set for the ABC Saturday Night Movie because cable was niche-driven and an afterthought, something your family might not even have for another handful of years, and mostly unnecessary since ABC, CBS & NBC ruled the roost all on their lonesome. Way back when we had “Star Wars” (that is to say, “Episode IV: A New Hope”) taped onto Betamax from an ABC Saturday Night Movie telecast, and THAT’S the version I want most of all. I want the feeble sound and the dodgy visuals and the dude saying “We will return to ‘Star Wars’ after these messages” and I want those messages. I want Karl Malden hawking American Express and Wendy’s customers wondering “where’s the beef?” and people arguing about whether Miller Lite tasted great or was less filling.

Look, I get it. I do. I’m as nostalgic as anyone, if not possibly more than anyone, and asking for a “Star Wars” re-release of a TV telecast with freaking commercials from around the end of the Reagan administration is essentially hitting nostalgia rock bottom. And it’s not that I don’t love Netflix, because I do. And it’s not that I don’t adore DVR, because I do. And it’s not that without Turner Classic Movies I wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown, because I would. And it’s not that my DVD collection isn’t more important than the possibility of finding life on mars, because it is. And while it certainly has something to do with wanting to gather around the TV with my family for popcorn and “Star Wars”, that’s not all of it.

Nowadays we become discontent when our movie-viewing experience isn’t the biggest and/or brightest and/or best. There was a time when you could watch a movie on a middling TV with middling sound and middling special effects and still have it be.........special.