PREQUEL FEVER, BABY,
IT'S UNBELIEVABLE!
Commentary by Jeff Carter
In less than eight months, on a sparkling Spring day, every Star Wars fan in the free world is going to stand in line at their local Cineplex, hand over their hard-earned eight dollars, sit down with some over-priced popcorn, and wait for one of two things to happen. The first, preferably, is to be utterly blown away by the images on the screen. To be taken back to his or her childhood, to have the sense of awe and wonder and magic experienced in the original trilogy fully matched and expanded a thousandfold. The second is to witness one of the biggest letdowns of their entire lives. The cold, terrifying realization that Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace, comes nowhere remotely close to meeting the stratospheric expectations placed on it over the 15 years since the last Star wars film debuted.
Let’s not kid ourselves here, ladies and gentlemen. This film is, without debate, the most anticipated movie in all of cinematic history. Never before has a single movie ignited an inferno of speculation, rumors, and innuendo. Every aspect of Episode I, from costumes to action figures to promotional soda cans, is debated and dissected on a daily basis by hundreds of web sites, television programs and print magazines. In the five years since George Lucas announced he was going forward with his prequel trilogy, the Star Wars faithful have coughed up millions of dollars on Star Wars merchandise ranging from novels and action figures to Darth Vader holiday nutcrackers (yes, they exist).
Rival movie studios are terrified of the prospect of opening a film near the Phantom Menace’s May 21 date. So terrified that the nearest big-budget summer explosion-fest, The Wild Wild West, will not debut until the Fourth of July weekend. The Pepsi Cola Company® shelled out a record 2 billion dollars (including a rumored-four Super Bowl commercials), for the right to promote the movie on its’ soda cans, Frito Lay® chip bags, and in its Taco Bell®, KFC®, and Pizza Hut® fast-food chains. Kenner® paid an enormous price to keep producing Star Wars action figures, and are staking their future on a massive Episode I toy line. Even Lego® is getting in on the act, paying through the teeth for the right to produce a huge line of Star Wars Legos. With all of these people pouring their emotional and financial hopes into the future of the Star Wars franchise, the question must be asked…what happens if this movie is a failure on both of those levels?
Will people be turned off by the film’s awkward title? Was 40 % of the footage really distorted? Will the limited screen distribution hurt the box office grosses? Can the movie capture pop culture like it did 20 years ago? Will hard-core Star Wars fans shudder at the slapstick comic-relief of the computer-generated sidekick alien Jar Jar? Will young Jake Lloyd annoy us with a shallow, annoyingly cute performance as Anakin Skywalker? Will the Battle Droids and other computer effects look hokey and unrealistic? Will Ewan MacGregor take his Obi-Wan performance seriously? Has Frank Oz lost the ability to do Yoda’s voice effectively? Is there REALLY another of Yoda’s species named…(gasp) Yaddle? Will there be…(shudder) EWOKS? These are but a sampling of the concerns Star Wars fans have about the Prequels and, unfortunately, none of them can be answered until the curtain rises on May 21.
The maddening speculation, the rumors, the enormous financial prospects associated with this movie are all very adult concerns, and in the end, maybe we can look to this fact as the key to a solution to the dilemma. This is a movie, folks, and it’s a movie for children. Kids don’t care how much money a movie makes. Kids don’t care about fast-food promotion contracts. Kids don’t care about cross-marketing and summer-movie positioning. Kids don’t care about funny sidekicks, Ewoks, and computer effects. Hell, they like that stuff. They think it’s cool, and you know, maybe we should too. So on May 21st, before you leave the house, forget all the rumors, forget all the speculation, forget the monetary and promotional concerns, forget the adult stuff. Look at that 10-year old ahead of you in line and remember what it was like to be in that world. That wonderful, innocent world. And when the movie starts, and the hairs on your arms stand up when that John Williams score blasts out, you can lean over and whisper…. "cool".
(Jeff Carter is ECHO STATION's resident Bounty Hunter/Interviewer, so if you have any professional association with any aspect of Star Wars, no matter how obscure, expect a call, card or Email soon!)