Return of the Jedi

Some observations:

1. The Empire is back. With a new, formidable weapon. A weapon so powerful that it will finally crush the rebellion and make the Empire the reigning power for a thousand years.

This new weapon is —

THE DEATH STAR.

And THIS time — it’s UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

NOTHING will penetrate the defenses of this awesome, under-construction weapon.

Except, perhaps, a fleet of rebel fighters.

2. Jabba the Hutt: why doesn’t he wipe his chin? It’s disgusting.

I mean, apparently he NEVER wipes it. Because the spittle on his chin is in multiple layears, and it’s caked dry. He’s a wealthy slug, he’s got dozens of employees, flunkies and hangers-on. Why isn’t it someone’s job to wipe his chin? If it’s spilling down onto his chest, obviously it’s a chronic problem.

I understand he doesn’t need clothes, that’s fine. He’s a slug, he would find them constricting. And I understand that constant secretion of mucus comes part-and-parcel with being a giant slug. But then why would he allow it to dry and cake on his non-slimy skin? For that matter, why would a giant slug choose to live on a desert planet? Why doesn’t the giant slug do a property swap with Yoda? Jabba would have done very well on Dagobah and Yoda could have added years to his life in the dry heat of Tatooine. But no, the giant slug lives on a desert planet in a palace filled with stairs and narrow hallways far too small to accommodate his bulk. No wonder he spends all his time in his lair, he’s outgrown his hallway. How unhappy he must be.

3. How exactly does Leia manage to strangle a giant slug to death? He has a trachea? Lungs? Why not just dump a vat of salt onto him?

4. My favorite moment in the movie: Lando Calrissian enters Jabba’s lair and adjusts his mask. His eyes are already plainly visible, so obviously he can see, but he adjusts his mask, apparently so that his mustache can see.

5. There’s a scene between Vader and Sidious that goes something like this:

VADER: Those rebels that landed on Endor? My son is among them.
SIDIOUS: Really? How do you know?
VADER: I’ve felt his presence.
SIDIOUS: Really? That’s weird, I haven’t, and I’m ten times more psychic than you are. Oh well, what do you want to do about it?
VADER: Let me go find him.
SIDIOUS: No, I’ve got a better I idea. You stay put and let him come to you.
VADER: You think he’ll do that?
SIDIOUS: Yes. I have forseen it.

Now, I know ROTJ is a sitting duck, and I love these movies as much as anyone, but Huh? Sidious didn’t know Luke was there, but he has already forseen what Luke would do after he got there?

My guess is that there was another half-page of dialogue that got cut.

VADER: You — what — what do you mean?
SIDIOUS: I have FORSEEN it.
VADER: But — a minute ago —
SIDIOUS: Young Skywalker will seek you out and together we will DESTROY him.
VADER: But —
SIDIOUS: I have SPOKEN.
VADER: Well — okay —
SIDIOUS: You doubt my word?
VADER: I — well, your excellency, look, I know you’re the boss and all, but — I just, I gotta say, sometimes I think you’re just fucking with my head.

6. Now, as you all know, in the DVD edition os ROTJ, at the end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT) Darth Vader dies and Luke pries off his helmet, and there’s kindly old Humpty Du — er, Anakin Skywalker, and he and Luke have a moving little scene. Then, later, the teddy bears set Darth Vader’s body on fire and Luke looks over and hey, there’s Alec Guiness and — and — Hayden Christensen.

This isn’t a complaint against Mr. Christensen. He’s proven himself to be an actor of depth and range elsewhere and I’d work with him in a heartbeat. What I don’t understand is, how on earth does Old Anakin Skywalker suddenly get turned into Young Anakin Skywalker for the end of ROTJ? Oh, I suppose one could say that Hayden is the image of Anakin before he turned into Darth Vader, but, but, but —

Okay, I know I shouldn’t even spend my time worrying about this. But one day soon, I’ll be showing these movies I love to my children. And I will be the first to say that I prefer the DVD editions to the versions shown in theaters back in the day. I don’t miss the clunky special effects, the added sequences don’t bother me (well, one of them does) and the transfers are all jaw-droppingly beautiful.

But listen. When I show these movies to my kids, I will, obviously, show them Star Wars (that is, ANH) first. Not because it was the first one made, but because if a child is going to connect to these movies, they’re going to connect to the swift, involving, swashbuckling Episode 4, not the clunky, dense, confusing Episode 1. Besides which, it’s going to be a long time before they’re old enough to watch Revenge of the Sith.

So they’ll watch ANH, then they’ll watch TESB, then they’ll watch ROTJ, and at the end of ROTJ, right when they’re supposed to be learning what this whole thing all means, they’re going to see a funeral for Darth Vader, and Luke looking over and seeing ghosts of Good Old Obi-Wan Kenobi, who turns and smiles at — some guy with long hair. Oh, I get it, everything’s okay because Obi-Wan’s not really dead and in the afterlife he’s reunited with, with some guy with long hair. Who is that? We’ve never seen him before. What was wrong with the scene before? Why does Obi-Wan get to come back as himself, but Anakin only appears as his young self? Why doesn’t Ewan McGregor appear next to Hayden Christensen? Why does Obi-Wan get stuck spending eternity as a seventy-year-old, but Anakin is eighteen forever?

Attack of the Clones

For no particular reason, I threw on Attack of the Clones tonight.

Unsurprisingly, the best transfer to DVD of any movie I’ve seen, with the exception of, perhaps, Finding Nemo (which was, of course, created entirely on computers and not in need of transfer in the traditional sense.

For Clones, the same joys and disappointments as before. You could name them as well as I could.

But I found myself thinking about the tall, skinny aliens from the Camino system (Caminans?). They have a whole planet, covered in water and dotted with clone factories. “Cloners, these people are” says the crusty cook from the ’50s diner to Obi-Wan.

Well, I’ve never heard of a whole planet’s population identified by their profession, and it stuck out weird. Really, is the entire population of Camino involved in the production of clones? Are there no truck drivers, no bricklayers, no doctors, lawyers, bookkeepers on Camino, except those connected to the cloning industry?

It’s sort of like someone saying “Los Angeles, filmmakers those people are.” I mean sure, LA is a company town, but I often go weeks on end without running into a single filmmaker. I meet housewives and grocery clerks and doctors and accountants and locksmiths and librarians and swim coaches and short-order cooks and all kinds of things. But no, apparently on Camino all they do is make clones.

But wait: in all the Camino scenes, we meet a grand total of — well, let’s see — two Caminans (Caminists? Camisoles?). One is a female greeter of some sort and the other is identified as the Prime Minister. Now, Prime Minister implies that there are quite a few Caminans running around, but where are they? And where are their belongings? The rooms we enter into are completely uncluttered and sparkling clean. No piles of magazines or half-eaten doughnuts sitting around. I know that we never get inside the living quarters of a genuine Caminan, but they must eat and sleep somewhere, something. They have clothes, which they must keep somewhere, but what do they eat? Fish? Plankton? Where do they go to the bathroom? And where are they all?

Who built those factories? It must have been contract work from another planet, because the only things the Caminans do is clone. Cloners, those people are.

And then it struck me: maybe the female greeter and the Prime Minister are the only two Caminans on the planet. Maybe that’s all there are, and all the cloning and clone-training is done by machines.

But wait — if there are only two Caminans on the planet, why is one Prime Minister?

And suddenly the whole movie turned into some sick charade. There are two creatures on a planet, and they’re surrounded by these artificial people that they make, and there are so many of them that they start to think that they are actually the leaders of some great society, instead of just a couple of cloners running an automated factory. And in the extremity of their isolation and loneliness, they start to refer to each other as Prime Minister and, who knows, Vice-Prime-Minister or something.

Maybe they trade off from week to week, calling each other Prime Minister.

They’re smart, that’s for sure. They built those factories and they figured out how to clone hundreds of thousands of clones, so they must be pretty sharp. But no one visits, no one “drops by,” even the Jedi who ordered the clones never stopped back to check their progress. Little do they know their planet has been erased from the Archives on Coruscant.

I can imagine the two of them sitting around wondering what happened to tourism on Camino.

MALE CAMINAN: “We put up the billboards, we sent out the emails, how come no one comes to rainy, water-covered, windswept clone-factory-town Camino?”

FEMALE CAMINAN: “People just aren’t interested in cloning any more. Hey, can I be queen next week?”