TIE fighter!
So, a few months ago Sam (6) comes toddling into my office and says “Can we make a TIE fighter?”
And I say “You mean like get a modeling kit, where you put it together?” And he says “No, I mean make it.” And I say “You mean, like, make a TIE fighter?” And he says “Yeah, like make one.” And I’m like “Like, make it out of — what, exactly?” And he’s like “Well, what are they made out of?” And I’m like “Well, they’re made out of some kind of metal from another planet, dude.” And he’s like “Well, but what could we make it out of that we have around here?” And I’m like, “I don’t know — cardboard?” And he’s like “Sure, cardboard, we could do that, right? And tape. And glue, right?”
Anyway, many months later, here is our TIE fighter, after countless production delays. It wouldn’t fool a stormtrooper, but I think it looks pretty good for a cardboard TIE fighter made by someone who’s never made anything crafty before in his life (by which I mean me, not Sam).
For those of you troubled by the color scheme, there was a long discussion between the client (Sam) and the builder (me) about what color to make it. In the movies, the TIE fighters are shown to be a pale bluish-gray. The toy TIE fighter we own (a 1997 re-release item) is a tad more bluish, but the TIE fighters shown in Sam’s Lego Star Wars video game are shown to be a dark cobalt blue. Then we found out that George Lucas actually wanted the TIE fighters to be the cobalt blue, but it was too close to the blue of the blue screens he was using for his special effects of the time so they had to make them gray. Sam is a stickler for accuracy, so for him the gray of the movies isn’t accurate and neither is the bluer gray of the toys — the cobalt blue of the video game is the most accurate color scheme.
Sam’s initial plan was to have a working hatch on his TIE fighter, and an actual cockpit inside with controls and things for the pilot to operate. Months of delays (while the builder worked on a TV show) forced him to accept a simpler version, and when he saw this mean-looking pilot hunkered down in his forced-perspective cockpit, all was forgiven. One of these days I’ll buy a ruler and I’ll be able to accurately paint an octagon.
Watch out, Santa Monica! There’s a rogue TIE fighter loose among your suburban palms!
The Empire Strikes Back, and I have a question
I wish I could quit you, Lord Vader.
So, Darth Vader is looking for Luke Skywalker. He doesn’t have a chance of finding him (in spite of being able to sense his presence a galaxy away when the plot demands it), but he can, theoretically, find Luke’s friends Han and Leia (and Chewbacca, of course). Han, Leia, Chewbacca (and C-3PO, you know, the robot that Darth Vader built when he was 9 years old) are in Han’s ship the Millenium Falcon. The Millenium Falcon is a fast ship with many tricks up its proverbial sleeves, so it’s very difficult to catch. To catch the Millenium Falcon, Darth Vader can’t rely on his ill-informed, bumbling Imperial forces — he must turn to bounty hunters. "We don’t need that scum," mutters Imperial Guy under his breath when he sees the dregs of the universe cluttering up his Star Destroyer.
So, the official Imperial stance on bounty hunters is: we don’t like you. So it seems that Vader has taken it upon himself to hire the bounty hunters himself, in spite of his officers’ disapproval. Who knows, maybe the bounty he’s offering is out of his own pocket. Point is, Vader has a much different opinion of bounty hunters than the Empire does.
Many bounty hunters apply for the job; only one can catch the wily Han Solo and friends. Scaly reptile in yellow flight-suit Bossk can’t hack it, half-droid-half-insect 4-LOM is a failure, stubby whatsit Zuckuss hasn’t a clue, renegade assassin droid IG-88 couldn’t find his ass with both hands, a map and a flashlight. Only master bounty hunter Boba Fett has what it takes to track down and capture Han Solo in his super-wily Millenium Falcon.
Here’s my question — what’s up with Darth Vader and Boba Fett?
He’s all yours — bounty hunter.
Sam art update
Sam (6) had his first art opening this week. His class had their “Rauschenberg” show, where the entire class studied Rauschenberg’s combines and then each student made their own. Well, one learns technique by copying masters.
click for larger view
Here’s Sam’s, with its own hand-made gallery card. “‘Adventure,’ Combine, Sam Alcott, 2007.” The background is a little busy so it’s hard to see the shiny stones and the postcard of Buddha on top.
click for larger view
If you click on the above, you’ll be able to see the cut-up postcard of the Cedar Waxwing, which Sam included as a tribute to his dad and “those birds you draw on your computer.” (On the other side of the Combine is a postcard from Point Reyes, CA, where his mom spent her childhood.)
Dad peruses the finished product.
Meanwhile, Sam has today whipped up a number of illustrations of key moments in the Star Wars saga. Note that all the drawings are signed “TM Sam” to prevent trademark infringement.
First, it’s the podrace from The Phantom Menace. Featured are the tall mushroom-like rock formations of the racetrack as Sebulba’s podracer careens through a narrow passage. An explosion to the left of Sebulba’s pod-racer (the yellow ball at the base of the center rock formation) is causing the tower to topple over, threatening Sebulba’s pod-racer. The purple arrows and action lines indicate the way the rocks are about to fall.
Later on in The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul slays Qui Gon in that room where that happens. Qui Gon is very surprised by this turn of events — you can tell by the “surprise” lines emanating from his head and the OH NO speech balloon. Darth Maul is merciless however and lets out a triumphal “AH” as poor young Obi-wan watches helplessly from the other side of the red force-field, screaming a bigger-than-life (or at least bigger-than-speech-balloon) — NO! — (he’s shouting so loud his exclamation point needs to go on a separate speech-balloon addendum)
Darth Maul, being an arrogant, short-sighted Sith, does not pay attention to the open pit behind him, the pit that will soon claim his bisected corpse.
The moment of Qui-Gon’s death so impressed Sam that he felt a need to go in for a close-up of Obi-wan’s horrified face as he chants “No No No.” Or perhaps this is a view of Obi-wan’s face from Darth Maul’s point-of-view (note the crossed light-sabers in the foreground), moments before his own death at Obi-wan’s hands.
UPDATE: I have misidentified this image. Sam tells me that this is not a close-up of the horrified Obi-Wan watching Qui-Gon’s death, nor is it Obi-wan’s face from the point-of-view of Darth Maul. The reality is much greater — it is Count Dooku at the moment of his death, from Anakin’s point-of-view. The crossed light-sabers in the foreground are being held by Anakin and are about to remove Count Dooku’s head from his neck. Count Dooku is saying “No, no, don’t do it.” The combination of the close-up and Sam identifying with the remorseless, hate-filled Anakin makes this father proud.
And then, finally, Sam’s favorite scene from Revenge of the Sith, the climactic light-saber duel between Obi-wan and Anakin on the volcano planet. Lava explodes in the background as student and master fight on a rickety bridge over a flowing river of lava. An outraged, heart-broken Obi-wan says, in four separate speech balloons, “I TOLD YOU TO” “BRING” “BALANCE” “TO THE FORCE.”
(Maybe the separate speech balloons indicate pauses in Obi-wan’s speech as he struggles to defeat Anakin. Much more effective than the traditional “I told you to — uh! — bring — unh! — balance — hh! — ” etc.)
This moment is brought to more vivid life in this drawing from a week earlier. Note the use of backlighting and silhouette.
This moment, his favorite in the Star Wars saga, was also featured on his 6th birthday cake:
I resisted the impulse to have Sam’s cake read “Revenge of the Sixth.”
Star Wars Episode VII scene 1
A first try at Star Wars: Episode VII — a test reel, really, written and directed by Sam. The “test” was me showing Sam that we could do a scene between two battle droids when we, in fact, only own one.
Yes, I know it’s out of focus.
Sam and I both cracked up at this, but to be fair to Sam, when I suggested we post this on YouTube he looked skeptical and said “Mmm, let’s make it better first.”
Further thoughts on Attack of the Clones
Many pixels have been spilled in the pages of this journal regarding Attack of the Clones. Most of them revolve around the world of Kamino, particularly the mysterious and seductive scoopy chair.
But one has not seen a movie until one has watched it with a six-year-old boy, as I did with Attack of the Clones today. I think this probably works with any movie; watch it with a six-year-old boy and any narrative flaws will become immediately clear. I must remember to try it with L’Avventura sometime soon.
The love story, as everyone knows, is an embarrassing shambles. And its not that the actors’ performances are so bad (although they are), it’s that the script makes absolutely no sense at all. From the very top, it’s simply unbelievable that Padme would fall deeply in love with Anakin, who is, throughout, nothing more than a petulant, moody, griping, disturbingly awkward pest. The most romantic thing Anakin says to Padme while he pitches woo to her is when he talks about how one day the republic will bend to the will of an iron dictator. As for his attempts at poetic flattery, search the racks of every greeting-card store on the planet and you will not find a single verse that tells a woman she is not like sand.
The detective story, “Who is trying to kill Padme and why?” works very well, thank you and is the best reason for the narrative existing. Obi-Wan tracks down Padme’s would-be killer in a crackerjack chase scene, finds a clue that leads him to a remote planet, where he stumbles upon a vast mystery that will change the course of history — as all good clues do. Super. Although I will add that Obi-Wan is a miserable detective — he can’t find a planet just because a snippy librarian tells him it doesn’t exist, but, literally, a six-year-old boy can.
The rescue story (“I must find my mother”) comes out of left field half-way through the movie, is motivated by nothing and leads nowhere. It’s ugly, brutal and racist (between the flies buzzing around the somehow-even-more semitic Watto and the characterization of the Sand People as “animals”). The action story (“We’ve got to find Obi-Wan!” “Uh-oh! Gladitorial combat!”) works well, and would work even better if the rescue story wasn’t in there. And the war story is gloriously staged and truly spectacular.
In fact, one of the interesting things about Attack of the Clones is that the CGI characters consistently give better performances than the live actors. Case in point: compare the arena scene on Geonosis with the pod-race sequene in Phantom Menace. The human extras at the pod race give terrible performances and look ridiculous in their rubber masks and silly costumes. In contrast, the giant-bug Geonosians look utterly believable and in fact give more subtle, more believable performances. And when a human has to interact with a room of CGI creatures, the effect is always awkward, but fill the screen with monsters and robots and it looks absolutely splendid and believable.
Now then: I still have some notes.
It says in the title crawl that “thousands” of solar systems have fallen under the power of “the mysterious Count Dooku.” Are we to believe that thousands of systems, representing untold billions of individuals, have decided to throw in with a leader they know nothing about?
Palpatine’s desk — it’s too clean. In fact, everything in Attack of the Clones is too clean. Everything looks like it was just unpacked yesterday.
Jango Fett comes to Coruscant to kill Padme. He contacts a female bounty hunter and gives her the squiggly bugs to drop in her window (they are apparently homing squiggly bugs — otherwise this is a stupid plan). The female bounty hunter takes the canister of squiggly bugs and loads it into a little flying thing, which takes off for Padme’s window (good thing for the bounty hunter she didn’t decide to sleep on the living-room couch at the last moment). My question: why does Jango Fett need the goddamn female bounty hunter? Can’t he load the goddamn flying thing himself? He’s already got the canister of squiggly bugs, presumably he knows how it fits in the flying thing. What the hell is his problem?
Senator Padme travels back to Naboo and chats with the new Queen. She counsels action but the new Queen chooses caution and patience. Padme nods in acquiescence because she understands from her own experience that becoming Queen of Naboo turns you a fucking idiot.
Now those Kaminoans (you knew it would come back to this): I’m sorry, I just — now wait. Play this back for me. Ten years ago, a Jedi guy came to you and placed an order for a clone army. In the ensuing ten years, you’ve been diligently manufacturing that clone army. The Jedi guy never called back to check up, and in fact business has otherwise dropped to zero due to your planet being removed from the archives, but you have kept on making this clone army. It must cost untold billions of dollars, and is useless to you personally, but that is, apparently, the way you do business. Okay. I get that.
Here’s my question. Ten years later, another guy in a Jedi robe shows up. He obviously knows nothing about the clone army and in fact seems to be lost. Don’t you even ask him for his receipt? Is this how you operate in your business? The only order you’ve had in the past ten years, and you don’t even ask for a receipt? Suppose this Jedi guy you don’t know says “Hey, nice army, wrap ’em up, I’ll take ’em with me,” and then the next day your actual client stops by? What are you going to do then, Kaminoans?
(By the way, today I counted a total of six Kaminoans, not two as previously reported: the Greeter, the Prime Minister, Jeeby, and three others, wandering around the halls of Kamino. The lack of population probably explains why the Prime Minister doesn’t even own a desk, but just sits in his windowless glowing room doing nothing while waiting for visitors to drop by every ten years.)
Note to Obi-Wan: when you’re chasing Jango Fett through a deadly asteroid field, what prevents you from simply leaving the asteroid field? You’ve got a freaking tracking device on him, and he’s heading for a giant planet, and everyone knows that in Star Wars Land every planet only has one or maybe two places to land — where the hell do you think he’s going to go?
C-3PO falls into the robot-factory machinery, then, within 24 hours, ends up wandering out onto the arena field with the rest of the just-created battle-droids. Yet all the battle-droids with him are already beaten up, scuffed and dirty. My son Sam suggests that they’re actually made to look like that. Perhaps the Separatist army prefers their droids pre-distressed, like stone-washed jeans — it gives them character and let’s you stop worrying about keeping them pristine.
The Phantom Menace
Everyone knows that The Phantom Menace doesn’t work. My 5-year-old Star Wars-obsessed son knows The Phantom Menace doesn’t work (two hours into the movie, he asks “Does Darth Maul ever actually fight anyone?”). But the question I must face as a screenwriter is why. And, after seeing the movie a half-dozen or so times, I believe I have an answer.
The problem is not Jar-Jar.
Let’s go back to first principles. What does the protagonist want? I thought about this for a long time, and then I realized something — I wasn’t sure who the protagonist was.
So I thought, as a public service, I would run down the most obvious characters and examine their motivations.
Teen Princess
“Hey Alderaan, I got your secret plans right here.”
In re Princess Leia’s character arc in The Empire Strikes Back (see yesterday’s entry), ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dougo writes:
“It seems wrong to say Leia’s motivations are all about Han. She wants revenge against Vader for blowing up Alderaan (and, in general, freedom from the empire), and Han is just a distraction.”
Leia never mentions Alderaan during Empire, and while she clearly feels a duty toward the rebellion, she seems to serve only a figurehead function. That Mon Mothma woman is in charge of the rebel forces (her Grand Moff Tarkin being old lobster-face Admiral Ackbar) and Leia seems to be in it for the adventure and intrigue. She’s around to hand out medals and look great in a slave outfit.
I was so sure that Leia doesn’t feel any particular sense of vengeance against Vader that I went back and watched Act II of Star Wars tonight. Sure enough, hours after her home planet is destroyed, Leia is cracking wise, kicking ass and swinging from chandeliers, when most other people would have been, I don’t know, all mopey and stuff.
Part of this, I think, is that Vader, rather pointedly, doesn’t blow up Alderaan. Rather, he seems reluctant to do something so rash. He didn’t seem to feel any pangs about torturing his daughter a scene earlier, but he draws the line at blowing up her home planet. It’s Tarkin who blows it up and he gets paid back in full by the end of the movie. Oh, you Grand Moff Tarkin! Did no one ever love you?
That explains the lack of Leia’s feelings of revenge, but why is she so unaffected? There is only one explanation — she hated that place. Just like her twin brother Luke couldn’t wait to get the hell off of Tatooine, Leia probably blasted off from Alderaan in a huff, tired of her blowhard ex-Jedi uncle Bail and all her tiresome senatorial duties. I mean, she didn’t undertake her secret “deliver the secret plans” mission because she’s a bureaucrat. She went off looking for adventure and she found it. Maybe that’s the reason she affects that weird English accent when she’s brought before Tarkin; she’s trying to get his dander up so maybe he’ll blow up Alderaan faster. Giventhe fact that Peter Cushing is English, maybe Leia is actually making fun of his accent, playing the Ugly Alderaanian, just to piss him off. Just like with Han in Empire, she protests too much — “Oh noes! Not Alderaan! Anyplace but Alderaan!” This is exactly the reason why people in the US have to be 35 before they can be elected president.
(One of the most egregious gaffes [not to be confused with gaffe sticks] in the Star Wars universe is the placement of Luke on Tatooine. Padme Amidala has twins and they are entrusted to the care of somebody or other; one is taken to Alderaan to be with Bail Organa, the other is taken where? Why Darth Vader’s home town, of course! He’ll never think to look for him there! Hey! And let’s send Vader’s mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi there too! That will double our chances of the kid never being found! And let’s not even change the kid’s name! With minds like this making decisions, perhaps it was best that the Old Republic fell apart after all.)
Sam on Star Wars
My son Sam (5) has now seen Star Wars. (quoth the clerk at my local “collectible toy” boutique: “You’re in trouble now.”)
SAM: You know who my favorite Star Wars guy is?
DAD: Who?
SAM: C-3PO.
DAD: Yeah, I think he was my favorite when I was a kid too.
SAM: You know why?
DAD: Why.
SAM: ‘Cause he’s always, like, saying to R2-D2 “No, I’m not going to follow you, you’re crazy, I’m not going to do that” and then they both end up in the same place anyway.
And it struck me just how thematically dense that first movie is. Somehow it had never occurred to me that, in this series of movies about Destiny and Duty, even the clowns, the Beckettian pseudocouple robots, one the irrepresible id, the other the worrywart superego, play out their little comedy of destiny together. One forges blithely ahead, heedless of danger, the other is very careful to avoid danger altogether, they choose very different paths, and yet they do both end up in the same place. It’s all very Mahabharata or the movie Sandy Bates is making at the beginning of Stardust Memories.
The Empire Strikes Back
A good reminder that movies are, at the end of the day, their plots. You can have as many great ideas in a movie as you want, but if you don’t have a good plot, you’re screwed.
What follows is a screenwriter’s exercise: take a favorite movie and reduce it to its plot. Take away the performances, the production values, the dialogue, the special effects, everything but the plot and see what makes it all work. The plot is the engine that makes the movie go. The result is a kind of retro-fitted treatment.
100% spoilers ahead
Kids say the darndest things
A conversation I had today with my four-year-old son:
SAM: Dad? How did God make everything, and make people, and make them talk?
DAD: Um, well, that’s a good question. And you know, a lot of people spend their whole lives thinking about that and some of them never come up with a good answer.
SAM: But how did he do it?
DAD: Well, the story goes, a long time ago, there wasn’t anything, and God decided there should be things, and he just made them out of nothing.
SAM: But how did he do that?
DAD: I guess you could say he’s magic.
SAM: Huh. And where does he live?
DAD: Where does he live?
SAM: Yeah, like in a house, or where?
DAD: Well, no one knows where God lives. Some people say he’s everywhere. In the rocks, in the trees, in the air.
SAM: Can he fly?
DAD: They say that God can do anything, sweetie.
SAM: What does he look like?
DAD: That’s another very good question.
SAM: You know what I think he looks like?
DAD: I would love to know what you think God looks like.
SAM: Well, you know that guy from Star Wars? [Sam has never seen Star Wars; he has only seen the action figures]
DAD: Which one?
SAM: He’s got a round head? And like a robe? And, like, light-brown skin?
DAD: What?
SAM: Yeah, like a round head, and a robe, and like, dark, light-brown skin.
DAD: Is he a guy or a robot?
SAM: He’s a guy.
DAD: Um [does a quick catalogue in his head of Star Wars action figures] — you mean Mace Windu?
SAM: That’s the guy.
So, there you are. From the mouths of babes. Or at least pre-schoolers. God looks like Samuel L. Jackson.