'Star Wars' rocks

Oh dear

At ShoWest, the annual movie industry award show in Las Vegas this March, biz cognoscenti jammed up each others' cell phones, poured acid in the complimentary Estée Lauder "soothing moisture spa," and gave up their shot at seeing Nicole Kidman's luminous ivory buttocks in Eyes Wide Shut for a glimpse at a trailer. And some studio execs. With some cheesy blue sky "gee whiz" matte paintings. A rehash of John Williams' epochal score from the late '70s. And a collection of multi-armed aliens that looked like they were out of some Salvador Dali-meets-Roger Corman production of The Wizard of Oz. Yeah, it'll be that big.

Even with a crappy pseudo-matineé title like The Phantom Menace (which proves, once and for all, that while Paul Reubens wanked off while watching naked coeds, George Lucas--and probably Steven Spielberg--pulls it out for Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon), the new Star Wars movie is gonna be the most important media spectacle ever. Some people, I'm sure, will see it for the pot-smoking-2001 experience, others for the prospect of seeing Natalie Portman in futuristic Battleship Galactica style hot pants (a major improvement, I might add, over Carrie Fisher's pale-as-an-albino's-foreskin complexion and ridiculous "toga party from hell" fashion that let us see, like, a naked calf in the famous garbage disposal scene from the original `Wars'). I doubt anyone's gonna see it for Ewan McGregor's Anakin, especially since there's no pre-release hype that our boy'll chase a hit of heroin into the "Worst Toilet on Endor." But two out of three ain't bad.

Sure, you could criticize Lucas for ripping off Joseph Campbell, for capitalizing on a franchise that has genuine religious resonance for some people (but then, so does Scientology--sorry, Travolta), and for spending $115 million to keep his Industrial Light and Magic mega-geeks in pork rinds and platinum pocket protectors. But a little healthy capitalism and free enterprise seems much truer to the entrepreneurial spirit of Luke Skywalker and his randy crew anyway, doesn't it? (Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed noted that the Death Star looked a lot like pre-long- distance-anti-monopoly-trial juggernaut AT&T's logo). And that was never really the magic of Star Wars anyway, was it?

Star Wars was about a state of mind, a peculiarly innocent a priori weltgeist that just about convinced you that good really could triumph over evil, sons could make up for the evils of their fathers, and the ghost of Alec Guiness could preside over a concluding Ewok orgy that made Caligula look like Britney Spears. The music, the sights, the sounds, the new droids, the action-figure-ready polymath Jar Jar-- they're just window dressing.

What The Phantom Menace promises is a pre-millennial rehabilitation of our soulless society, not through smarmy Tarantino-style criticism, but by eschewing the ironic wink that shows up in just about every post-Scream flick, and without the saccharine spirituality that Hollywood continues to mistake for real transcendence in celluloid smegma like What Dreams May Come. And it's all wrapped up in gorgeous Myst-like visuals and a hormone cocktail (Lucas is actually casting well-known stars who look good to normal Americans before they made the flipping film) with a New Age spiritual chaser.

In other words, The Phantom Menace will be the best film of all time because it will redeem our time. "No," wrote André Breton aboard the Paris Metro in his surrealist Nadja, "these will not be the people to make a revolution." But Breton never saw this film. And he only knew lots of malodorous French people. The truly American romance that will save us from our sad, worthless lives won't come through something nasty like religion and introspective self-castigation.

We'll find it on the shelves of Toys 'R Us, on polysterene Burger King bags, and in our Sega game consoles. And every time some kid in a flammable Liam Neeson Jedi Knight suit looks to the stars. Yea, as nerds all over the world polish off their thick, thick eyeglasses and the crotch piece of their storm trooper uniforms, you'll know the Force is with them. As it is with all of us.

--Larry Switzky

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