Month: May 2002

In my post about Attack of the Clones below I mention the Knights Templar. Here are some books regarding those ill-fated Knights:

:: The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, the Most Powerful Military Order of the Crusades, by Piers Paul Read. This book has been firmly ensconced on my “To Read” pile for a long time now. I really should get to it….

:: Dungeon, Fire and Sword: The Knights Templar in the Crusades, by John J. Robinson. This is one of my favorite history books. Robinson writes with a grand sweep of history, and he was a fine historical storyteller, able to make the actual events of history as rivetting as any of the sensational speculations that have gathered around the legendary Templars.

:: Born In Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry, by John J. Robinson. This book describes how some of the Templars escaped their ruthless purge and settled in Scotland, helping the Scots to break free of their Plantagenet rule and eventually form the basis for what became Freemasonry. A fascinating book.

:: The Temple and the Lodge, by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. This book also deals with the Templars in Scotland and their role in the beginnings of Freemasonry.

The books named above are historical works, concerned with the actual history of the Knights Templar. The legends surrounding the Templars have grown through the years, and the Templars figure into a number of historically-based conspiracy theories. A few books in this vein are:

:: Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Now this is what all good conspiracy theories should be: large-scale, ambitious, and a little bit blasphemous. Here the Templars become stewards of a long-lost bloodline sired by Jesus.

:: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ, by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince. Another fine gonzo theory involving the Templars and Christ — but not necessarily Jesus. Yes, you read that right.

:: The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar: Solving the Oak Island Mystery, by Steven Sora. Legend has it that when the Templars were purged, their vast hordes of treasure were placed aboard several ships which sailed and then were never seen again. And then, 200 years ago, an ancient vault was discovered on Oak Island, Nova Scotia….

And finally, a good novel involving the Templars:

:: Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. Not the easiest read, but this book involves a group of conspiracy researchers and the theories they create from all manner of medieval esoterica.

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Random Thoughts on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

The last two days I indulged a lengthy essay on the new Star Wars film, concentrating on its structure. Now I should like to discuss some other aspects of the film.

:: What a visual marvel this movie is! Take the very opening sequence, as Senator Amidala’s ship arrives on Coruscant. Instead of just swooping down into the same cityscape that we saw in The Phantom Menace, this time the landing takes place on an overcast day on Coruscant — but the buildings are so high, they tower above the clouds. The ships fly past the tops of buildings that look almost wraith-like as they rise from the cloud cover, before finally setting down on a landing platform. It’s a brilliant piece of construction, and just the beginning as the film gives us more details in every shot than we could possibly take in at once. These visuals have been derided by some as overly busy, and George Lucas has been blamed for being more interested in visuals than in the story. I differ greatly on that point, but in any event the visual constructions of this film are staggering in the degree of their world-building. After Obi Wan dives through a window early in the film, would any other filmmaker think to show that window being replaced by a couple of mechanic droids? Or consider the air traffic on Coruscant. Many films like this which assume wide-spread aerial vehicles in their futuristic cities depict the skies as a free-for-all, with vehicles and ships and whatnot flitting every which way possible, like bees around a hive. Not so with the Coruscant that George Lucas and his ILM technicians have envisioned; the air traffic of Coruscant travels in very orderly fashion, with the vehicles remaining in specific lanes at specific altitudes. We even see vehicles peeling away from one lane and into another, much like a standard expressway interchange in the Real World. This orderliness conveys the sense of a real world going on beyond the confines of the Senate Chamber and the Jedi Palace.

:: If I could have one item from the Star Wars movies, of course it would be a lightsaber. But if I had to pick a non-weapon, I might well go for Obi Wan’s pocket-sized holographic planetarium.

:: It seems to almost be an article of faith that the acting in Attack of the Clones is sub-par. I cannot agree. Just watch Hayden Christensen’s eyes in this film, particularly when he and Padme are talking politics and he says that “Someone should make everyone agree.” Before he relents with a sly grin, there is a look in his eyes that makes clear that on some level he is being perfectly serious. And the moment when he snaps and kills the Tuskens, as well as the moment when he confesses the deed to Padme, are absolutely chilling. As for Natalie Portman, she has a couple of stiff scenes early in the film, but then her acting is fine. Ewan McGregor commands the screen in all of his scenes, and of course Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, and Ian McDiarmid provide solid performances. Is Attack of the Clones a masterpiece of thespianship on par with Casablanca or Schindler’s List? No. But neither is it inept, as many critics would have us believe.

:: The John Williams score to this film is a revelation. I reviewed the score CD here, but now I can say a few words about the score as used in the film. There are a number of new themes and motifs, most prominent being the new Love Theme, a supple and gorgeous melody that lends a tone of sadness to every scene in which it is heard, never more so than at the end when Anakin and Padme are wheeled into the arena. There is also a motif which I call the “conspiracy” motif; this is first heard when Obi Wan lands on Kamino. It is heard quite often in scenes involving water — partly, even, during the lake scenes on Naboo. This is an unsettling motif, constantly churning. Williams also uses older themes from his previous Star Wars scores, including the Imperial March at the end as the Clone Army takes to the skies above Coruscant. We also hear the Imperial March — Vader’s Theme — when Anakin tells Padme what he has done to the Tuskens. However, just before that we hear another theme: the Emperor’s Theme, which for these films is being used for Darth Sidious. This only underscores the fact that everything that happens in the film has been orchestrated by Sidious. John Williams manages to both highlight a plot point and foreshadow what is to come with a single musical cue.

Oddly, the film’s climactic scenes — the battle, mostly — are scored with battle music tracked from The Phantom Menace. The music used fits the scenes perfectly, but I still wonder why Williams did not write new battle music for this film, or why it was not used if in fact he did write new music. This choice struck me as odd, although not nearly as distracting as many film music afficionadoes have found.

:: Yoda’s fight scene with Count Dooku was thrilling. Cheers went up in the theater when he hobbled into the landing bay, glared at the Count, and tossed his walking stick aside. I have to admit that I could not envision a Yoda fight scene when I learned that there was going to be one in the film. I’m glad that someone could.

And now, a few speculations and questions regarding Attack of the Clones and its implications for Episode III:

:: Consider the plight of the Jedi: an order of Knights, fairly monastic in nature, that is charged with keeping the peace and maintaining order. But gradually they become absorbed with their own concerns, and as the body they serve becomes more and more threatened by forces internal and external, they find themselves increasingly unable to perform their appointed duties. And even as this all transpires, they are unaware of forces conspiring against them from quarters that they believe to be beyond mistrust. They are betrayed completely and utterly, and in one horrible and violent event (or series of events) they are hunted down and ruthlessly exterminated or driven into hiding in the farthest reaches of the realm. This sounds very, very similar to the historical events surrounding the fall of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon — the Knights Templar — in the late 13th and early 14th centuries AD.

The Templars served the Catholic Church until Pope Clement V was convinced by King Philip IV of France that they had succumbed to evil and were undermining the power of the Papacy. The Templars were taken by surprise, and their slaughter was stunningly easy. Some of them eventually fled to Scotland, where the Church had little real power and where they were able to help Robert the Bruce in his struggles against the English throne. Now, we know that Yoda survives the Jedi holocaust, but does that leave Mace Windu to fill the role of Jacques de Molay, last of the Templar Grand Masters? (de Molay was burned at the stake.) Does the story of the Templars point the way toward what may come for the Jedi?

:: I like the idea that the villains found a way to conceal a planet from the Jedi, erasing it from the archives. I’ve been wondering for a long time why Yoda is allowed to live after the Jedi holocaust; surely the Emperor and Darth Vader, once ascendent, would not allow the greatest of the living Jedi to escape — unless Yoda has taken a page from their playbook and gone hiding on a planet whose records he himself has deleted from the archives. Thus he will be able to use one of their own schemes against them.

:: As of this film, we have seen the traits in Anakin Skywalker’s character that will lead him to the Dark Side, but we haven’t seen his real temptation yet. We haven’t seen him truly indulge his anger and fear and hatred, and I wonder what the event will be that will finally drive him away. Many think it will involve Obi Wan, and perhaps it will, but I rather suspect that Padme will be the one to do whatever it is that pushes him over the edge. Will it be lost love, or (even worse) love betrayed, that sends Anakin into Darth Sidious’s waiting arms?

:: Was the fate of Shmi Skywalker an extremely unfortunate event, or were the Tuskens prompted to abduct this particular woman at this particular time?

:: How will C-3PO and R2-D2 come to forget the man they’ve served? Or do they at some point think that he is dead, and that it is Vader who doesn’t remember them? In any event, it has to be explained why it is that, upon meeting Luke in A New Hope, Threepio doesn’t say something like “I think I knew someone named Skywalker once….”

:: Will the Death Star plans prove to be a plot point in Episode III, or were they simply a nifty Easter egg in AOTC?

:: Will we see Mon Mothma and the beginnings of rebellion?

:: Will we get to meet any Correllians?

:: Will we get to see the enslavement of the Wookiees?

:: In Return of the Jedi, Leia says that her birth mother died when she was very young. So, in Episode III, will we see Padme die?

It’s a long time to 2005….

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Those who love science and knowledge have lost a keen mind, a wonderful writer, and a good friend.

Stephen Jay Gould has died.

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Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones — an Exercise in Structure, Part II.

(Read Part I here)

How does structure work in Attack of the Clones? The film begins with a fairly visceral event — the assassination attempt on Senator Amidala — and then proceeds into a mixture of mystery and political intrigue. Nearly every event along the film’s main storyline exposes new levels of plotting and scheming. Obi Wan and Anakin identify Amidala’s would-be assassin, but fail to learn exactly why she has been targeted. Obi Wan succeeds in identifying the weapon used to kill the assassin, and follows that trail to a planet called Kamino — but not before he learns that all records of Kamino have been erased from the Jedi library archives, thus revealing a further facet of scheming and conspiracy. What started as a simple political assassination attempt is now taking on deeper and darker overtones, and this becomes even more pronounced when Obi Wan learns that the Kaminoans are constructing an army of clones at what they believe to be the behest of the Republic itself — only, no one in the Republic knows anything about it. Here Obi Wan locates the bounty hunter responsible for the death of Amidala’s would-be assassin, Jango Fett, but Fett escapes (with his son, Boba). Obi Wan tracks Fett to the planet Geonosis, where he discovers a gathering of the Republic’s breakaway factions — the Trade Federation, the Banking Clan, and others — at the beck and call of Count Dooku, a renegade former Jedi. The puzzle is apparently solved.

All this is fairly straight-forward — except that we know from The Phantom Menace that there is another Dark Lord behind the scenes, manipulating events. So it is that at nearly every key juncture in the story, we find the hand of Chancellor Palpatine — who will eventually be the Emperor — nudging things along. It is he who suggests that Obi Wan and Anakin be assigned to Amidala’s security detail. He is aware, well aware, of Anakin’s crush on Amidala. The suggestion is that he wishes to use his feelings to some end, although we don’t know what. It could be that he is already planning to tempt Anakin toward the Dark Side of the Force, or it could be that he is trying to keep the Jedi off balance. It could be that he sees Anakin as a potential threat, as he even says that he sees Anakin becoming “the greatest of all the Jedi”. Is he moving Anakin into position for his fall from grace, or is that merely a fortunate happenstance that arises later on? We don’t know. But the structure of the film — the scenes of Palpatine’s clever manipulations juxtaposed with Obi Wan’s investigations — implies that even as the Jedi work to learn who is behind the dark events that are transpiring, they are being maneuvered unthinkingly into a position to be destroyed.

The film’s main subplot is, of course, the blossoming love between Anakin Skywalker and Senator Amidala. (ASIDE: I need some clarification here. Is her first name “Padme”, or “Amidala”? The film seems to imply “Padme”, but I like “Amidala” better. Ah well….) This is the aspect of Attack of the Clones that has received the strongest attacks from the critics, mainly on the basis of dialogue. And if dialogue is all that we should expect from a screenplay, then perhaps they are right: Hayden Christensen has some very awkward lines to deliver, such as “I don’t like sand; it’s coarse and rough and irritating….not like you; you’re everything smooth and soft.” Or, “You are in my very soul, tormenting me.” It is easy to hear lines like that and conclude that George Lucas has lost any skill as a screenwriter that he may have once had (and Lucas himself has admitted that dialogue has never been his strong suit). But when the love story is examined in the light of structure, the dialogue is easier to understand — or at least, the reason for that dialogue becomes more clear. The key is that all of those overwrought, awkward lines are given to Anakin. These lines make the audience uncomfortable, but judging by Padme’s reaction to having these things said to her, I can only assume that the discomfort of these lines is intentional.

Here is where Harry Knowles, in his AICN review of AOTC, calls the film’s romance “teen love”. And that is precisely what it is. Anakin is a teenager who has fallen desperately, hopelessly, in love with Padme. At the film’s beginning, it is more like a schoolboy crush — note how he awkwardly tries to praise her beauty, how he humbly approaches her when she finally recognizes him standing there behind Obi Wan — but soon it grows, and it does so very quickly. (I’m wondering if Palpatine has a hand in this, partially engineering the fact that Anakin is sent off alone with her.) Anakin, in his immaturity, says things that he hopes and prays are poetic and beautiful, but they keep coming off as stiff and awkward and overwrought. He is at that point in life where love isn’t a deep and delicate and beautiful thing; rather, it is a scary and terrifying and overwhelming force that can totally dominate every other emotion. This, I think, is what Lucas is trying to convey here. This is why the “love story” scenes seem awkward, and why they are not as emotionally involving as what comes later. It is no accident at all that the most emotional love scene in the film comes when Padme finally professes her love for Anakin, just before they are wheeled into the arena on Geonosis for their executions. It is then that she can finally express her love, because it isn’t until then that she can be sure of her feelings. She is an adult, while Anakin is in many ways still a child, and as such her love needs to grow, to be nourished by the weight of shared experiences. She cannot truly love Anakin until she has been through harsh times with him — and on Tatooine, she goes through a very harsh time indeed. The ride to the execution is the film’s emotional high point, and here even John Williams’s wonderful score gets into the act as his Love Theme — the saddest, most poignant Love Theme in the entire Star Wars series — swells while the camera pans across the crowds that have gathered to witness the Jedi and his love being put to death.

So the awkward and stiff dialogue in the early love scenes is explained by the structure they are assigned to serve. However, I must note that the love story is still the biggest weakness in Attack of the Clones precisely because of structure. Simply put, Lucas missed an opportunity to really put Anakin and Padme through an emotional wringer — even moreso than what transpires with Anakin’s mother. Anakin is being sent alone to provide for Padme’s protection; surely the people who want her dead would rejoice at this — instead of having to deal with a Jedi master and his capable Padawan, they would only have to overcome the Padawan alone. There should have been a brazen attack on Padme, which Anakin have to fight off alone. The attack could come on Naboo, revealing that Padme is really not safe there at all. Then, Anakin could seize the initiative and take her someplace where he thinks she could be safe: Tatooine. In so doing, though, he would be able to deceive Padme: his real reason for choosing Tatooine would be to investigate his increasing dreams of his mother’s distress. As it is, in the film now, Anakin seems almost willing to abandon Padme utterly to go to his mother’s side. This seems very contrived, and to my mind was the only truly false moment in Attack of the Clones. Here Lucas’s structure partially failed him, and he attempted to cover it over by constructing the deus ex machina to resemble Luke’s quandary in The Empire Strikes Back, when he too chooses to abandon duty in favor of an attempt to save his friends from a dark Force-vision he has experienced.

The rest of the film plays out fairly straight-forwardly, as the story gains momentum and plotlines come together for the climax. Lucas’s skills as an editor are still with him, and he puts together a massive battle scene that genuinely ebbs and flows. The entire last half-hour of Attack of the Clones is exhilarating as first we see a riveting Gladiator-style fight in the arena, followed by something I have wished for ever since I saw Braveheart: a line of lightsaber-wielding Jedi charging into battle. All hell breaks loose, but then there is a momentary lapse into silence as Count Dooku offers to spare the lives of the remaining Jedi. There are a number of such silent moments sprinkled throughout the gigantic battle scene, which separate the action, allow the audience to momentarily relax, and keep the entire battle from becoming an overwhelming morass of over-the-top ILM-generated action. And the battle that starts small — as two Jedi and a woman against three horrible monsters — and grows to a massive assault then shrinks back to small again, as the Jedi confront the evil Count Dooku. This change of focus — from narrow to wide and back to narrow — is deftly and wonderfully handled, and the gigantic battle in the middle of it all is unlike anything ever seen in a Star Wars film before, dwarfing the Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back and possibly even the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi. The film’s climax is a triumph of structure. Even when things are at their most frenetic, the story is still perfectly clear. (Of course, as Steven Denbeste shows here, it probably helps if you’re not something of an expert on military tactics….)

The film ends, as we might (and should, if we are intelligent viewers in any sense of the word) expect, with a non-resolution. The battle is won and the separatists who would divide the Republic are defeated — but the Jedi have been greatly reduced in number and have been forced to adopt artificial means of keeping the peace. And it is then revealed that Count Dooku is actually in league with Darth Sidious (who is probably Chancellor Palpatine). The events of Attack of the Clones turn out to have been orchestrated from behind the scenes. Lucas has stated his belief that complacent democracies will eventually slide into totalitarianism by their own choices, and that is certainly what is happening here. A threat is created which devastates the Jedi and necessitates the creation of the clone army. The Republic is gradually deciding to become the Empire, and Lucas’s structure confirms and reinforces the point.

Finally, a note on the film’s “metastructure”. By this I mean the fact that the current trilogy is clearly being conceived by Lucas as a single story told in three parts; these films (The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are less meant to be viewed as stand-alone stories than their antecedents, the original classic trilogy). Harry Knowles made the comment that AOTC makes TPM a better film, by illuminating aspects of that film’s story and making the reasons for certain events and storytelling decisions more clear. I can only assume that the same will be true once Episode III arrives, when everything should be explained and clarified. I, for one, look forward to watching TPM, AOTC, and Episode III consecutively. It’s all about the structure. (Lightsabers and neat spaceships don’t hurt, though.)

Thank you, George Lucas, and see you in 2005.

(I will have some more things to say about Attack of the Clones tomorrow, in what will probably be a “random thoughts” type of article.)

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Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones — An Exercise in Structure, Part I.

“A word here about movie dialogue: It is among the least important parts of a screenplay. Sure, intelligent talk is always better than dumb stuff. And sure, dialogue matters more in some kinds of movies — wit comedies, such as As Good As It Gets, or intelligent dramas — than in others. But for the most part, the public and critics have come to believe that screenplays are dialogue.

Wrong. If movies are story, and they are, then screenplays are structure.”

-William Goldman, “Rocking the Boat”, The Big Picture: “Who Killed Hollywood?” and Other Essays.

::

I saw Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones twice on opening day, and once more this afternoon. Now that I’ve seen it three times, I am wondering if I saw the same film that a lot of the critics saw — because I love this movie.

I kept trying to spot the horrible dialogue, only to find occasionally clunky lines (Obi Wan does affix phrases like “my very young apprentice” to his sentences way too much when addressing Anakin Skywalker, for example) amidst some genuinely memorable lines (Jango Fett’s “I’m just a simple man trying to make my way in the Universe” being a prime example). I kept on the lookout for wooden acting by Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, but I kept discovering that while their line deliveries tend to the muted side, they emote fully with their eyes and body language. I searched in vain for the soul-less special effects, and kept running instead into stunning visuals that were amazing in their detail, the immense amounts of thought that went into the creation of this world being writ large on the screen for all to see. I keep wondering: why on Earth is this movie getting so much bad press? Is it because of lingering feelings from The Phantom Menace (which I do not share, having actually liked that film)? Is it a more jaded populace, now very accustomed to fantasy on the silver screen but still unacquainted for the most part with the history of fantasy and the tropes that drive it? (For how many people was Peter Jackson’s film their first encounter with The Lord of the Rings?) Or is it that we’ve come to expect films to tell their story entirely through dialogue? I suspect the latter is at work here: dialogue is expected these days to carry the story, but George Lucas’s movies have always been about structure. The William Goldman quote above holds the key.

Consider structure from the standpoint of a couple of classic films. Casablanca is filled to the brim with great dialogue; in fact, anyone who wants to learn about writing dialogue had damned well better know Casablanca. But structure is at its core. Note that we don’t know at the film’s beginning just why Rick Blaine is so bitter and cynical, and we still don’t even when Ilsa Lund comes into his cafe. We only know that she is a part of it, a suspicion which is later borne out via flashback. Then the film returns to its present day and plays out straightforwardly. Simple construction, but it has the effect that Casablanca is a much better film after you’ve already seen it once. Only when we already know what Rick and Ilsa shared in pre-war Paris can we know just what a visceral blow it is to him when he sees her in the cafe; only then can we understand his anger at hearing “As Time Goes By” played on Sam’s piano. The film practically demands a second viewing, and by then we are forever under its spell. We can never forget Casablanca, and it’s all because of structure.

Or, take a more recent example, noted by Goldman in the quoted essay: Titanic. Here is a film that was also excoriated by critics for lousy dialogue, especially in its “love story” scenes (much like Attack of the Clones). But how does structure fit in? First, there is the story’s framing device: it’s not just a tale about two lovers on a doomed ship, but there is also the mystery of just what happened to the diamond — a device that justifies the story’s being told through flashback, and connects the long-ago story with the one playing out now. But secondly, there is James Cameron’s masterstroke: early in the film he has a secondary character explain in some detail just what happened as the Titanic went down — what physically happens to the ship from the moment it hits the iceberg. At the time, it appears to be just an excuse to show off some nifty digital animation of the ship’s sinking — but when that point is actually reached in the film and as the characters make their harrowing escape from the bowls of the liner, we know exactly what is going on and what the next threat to their lives will be, before they know it. Cameron has already done the heavy lifting of exposition, so there is never a moment where, say, Jack turns to Rose and says something like “Oh my God, the ship’s hull can’t withstand the pressure being put on it! The ship will break in two any minute now!” We already know this, so Cameron is able to keep the cords of tension humming. That’s structure, and it is great storytelling, and it has nothing at all to do with dialogue.

By far the biggest knock on Attack of the Clones from the critics is its dialogue. Roger Ebert, for example, says that the film doesn’t contain a single memorable line. (In this I think he’s wrong. There is Jango Fett’s line quoted above; the charming bit where Obi Wan turns aside a would-be drug pusher; Anakin’s chilling “They’re animals, and I slaughtered them like animals”; Obi Wan’s sarcastic “Good job” after Anakin’s failed rescue attempt. And there are more.) Of course, Star Wars films have never been known for their dialogue. It’s worth noting that what is probably the best single line in the entire Star Wars saga, Han Solo’s reply of “I know” to Princess Leia after she’s professed her love for him just before he’s carbon-frozen in The Empire Strikes Back, was actually an ad-lib by Harrison Ford because the line in the script — “Remember that, ’cause I’ll be back” — just wasn’t working. (And for those who point to The Empire Strikes Back with longing as an example of the Good Old Days when there was “great dialogue” in these films, I defy you to watch the scene in Luke’s hospital room without cringing.) The Star Wars films work because of structure, and it is on that basis that we should judge Attack of the Clones.

(To be concluded tomorrow….)

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Tonight while watching the series finale of The X-Files, I checked my e-mail during a commercial break and found the most amusing piece of Spam that I’ve ever seen. This thing is just priceless, and I’ve decided to reproduce it below. The fact that it showed up while I was watching TXF is kind of eerie….

——————–

If you are a time traveler or alien and or in procession of alien

or government technology I need your help! My case is truly

genuine! I seek to work with someone who is of a kind nature,

someone I can call my savior as well as a friend.

My life has been severely tampered with and cursed by evil beings!!

I have suffered tremendously and am now dying!

I need to be able to:

Travel back in time.

Rewind my life including my age back to 4.

I am in great danger and need this immediately!

I want to work with you in any way possible.

I am aware of two types of time travel one in physical form and

the other in energy form where a snapshot of your brain is taken using

either the dimensional warp or the brain snapshot device and then sends your

consciousness back through time to part with your younger self. I’m almost

certain the dimensional warp would be the safest and best

solution. Please explain how safe and what your method involves.

I have a time machine now, but it has limited abilities and is

useless without a vortex. If you can provide information on how to create vortex generator or where I can get some of the blue or red glowing moon crystals this would also be helpful. I am however concerned with the high level of

radiation these crystals give off, if you could provide a shielding this would be

helpful. I believe the vortex would have to be east-west polarized,

North-south polarized vortexes are used for cross-dimensional time

travel only. Also, I know about the three dimension 4 bit (CODE) our universe is written in. If you are one of the very few beings who can edit this code, or know the passwords which can be spoken over a vortex, please reply!

——————–

(WARNING: If you think you have the information that this person so desperately needs, please DO NOT send it to me!!!)

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I suppose it had to happen sooner or later: George Lucas has been accused of employing racial stereotypes in Attack of the Clones. I didn’t read the linked article all the way through (it’s from The Detroit News), but I was struck by a couple of incredibly idiotic statements, both from the same person. First, that Jango Fett is obviously Latino. That’s interesting, considering that the actor who plays him is a New Zealander — which is unsurprising, given that Lucas made the movie in Australia. The casting of Temuera Morrison as Jango Fett is simply an example of using local talent. (The Empire Strikes Back was filmed in England, so take a wild guess as to what nationality was tapped when the character of Boba Fett was originally cast in 1980. And by the way, another person quoted in the article sees the Fetts as surrogate Arabs. I’m confused here. Are Arabs and Latinos the same thing?) The film’s anti-Latino sentiments are apparently further revealed by one of the planet names used: Kamino, which is similar in sound to an actual Spanish word (camino, meaning “road” or “I walk”). Ummmmm….OK. The word also sounds like Tamino, which is the name of the hero in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. Maybe Lucas is spreading anti-Mozartean propaganda. This charge is reminiscent of the flap a few years back when some people were offended by a Washington, DC government official who dared use the word “niggardly” in a sentence, despite the fact that the word does not mean anything remotely similar to the ugly epithet to which it sounds similar.

This same person, a woman named Martina Guzman who is apparently some kind of political operative in Michigan, isn’t content to stop with an imagined slur against Latinos: “Jimmy Smits had all of two lines in the whole movie, and Samuel Jackson had like five. Then there’s the bad guy.” In the first place, Jimmy Smits played Senator Bail Organa, a character who is only introduced in this film and will have a larger role to play in Episode III when he becomes the adoptive father to Anakin and Amidala’s daughter Leia. (And interestingly, Senator Organa was actually played by a white actor in The Phantom Menace, but those scenes were cut entirely and the role recast for Attack of the Clones.) As for Guzman’s second statement, “Samuel Jackson had like five”, this statement makes me wonder if she even saw the film at all. Jackson’s character, Mace Windu, probably has the most screen time in the film after the leads (Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, and Natalie Portman). He’s a high-profile character, and Guzman’s utterance here is simply stupid and ignorant. And finally, she says “Then there’s the bad guy”. I wonder just what she is talking about here. Is she still referring to Jango Fett? He’s not even the film’s main villain; that honor belongs to Count Dooku, played by Christopher Lee — a white man.

I’m amazed that the people quoted in this article actually view the world this way, and I’m further amazed that in a city the size of Detroit, the local newspaper couldn’t come up with anything more newsworthy than this. A pox on the houses of all involved.

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A couple of Star Wars related shortcuts: Sunday’s Entertainment section in The Buffalo News featured an article on George Lucas and one on Hayden Christensen.

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Here is a transcript of the conversation about Star Wars Episode II from the Ebert&Roeper TV show. Nothing against Roeper, but it’s times like this that I really miss Gene Siskel.

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Harry Knowles of AICN stunned a lot of people a few months back when he posted a review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, based on a secret screening of a work print that he managed to attend. Now he has written a full review of the finished film, which can be found here. It is a highly positive review, and it says a lot of things that I agree with. Knowles’s analysis of the film in terms of the classic structure of the James Bond films is particularly interesting. Check it out.

(My own thoughts on the film will be appearing in this space sometime this weekend. Be warned, as I plan to indulge all of my instincts toward long-windedness.)

(UPDATE: AICN seems to be having server troubles the last day or two, making access to the site and its contents spotty. Keep trying.)

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