Jodorowsky's Dune – Movie Review

During the weekend, while taking a break from writing the latest instalment of Short Story Sunday, I watched Jodorowsky’s Dune, a movie about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s doomed attempted at adapting Frank Herbert’s Dune to the silver screen. As always, I started this movie with some personal baggage, something that is also known as expectations. I was apprehensive, to say the least. I was worried the movie would be the celebration of an incomplete film project, filled with commentators who would enthusiastically call it a masterpiece even though no footage of it exists. People who would tell you that by not sharing their opinions of this unmade movie your life has somehow been poorer than it otherwise would have been. I was expecting an audio visual check list with a narrator marking off each instance where the legacy and influence of this lost Dune could be seen in other science fiction movies that followed. In essence, I was expecting a lot of back patting and celebration for something that, by my understanding, simply doesn’t exist. Something that was nothing more than a dream. I was worried that I was about to watch a documentary of overzealous film enthusiasts verbally masturbating over their lost holy grail. I cannot express my excitement and relief that Jodorowsky’s Dune isn’t that movie.

To be honest, there is a little bit of what I’ve described in this movie but it’s presented through a filter of pure creativity and exhilaration that it’s hard to not give in an accept it for what it is. You can’t avoid making this kind of documentary and simply ignoring all of the adoration some people will have for the subject matter. The movie has some moments where fans of Jodorowsky lament the loss of what could have been one of the most culturally significant and worthwhile science fiction movies of all time. It’s also inevitable that people will talk about the lasting legacy that this movie had on parts of the film industry. That’s great and it’s worth mentioning, but playing “spot the influence” simply isn’t for me. Most of the movie, to my surprise and great enjoyment, is about something else.

Brooklyn (2015) Movie Review

Last year I attended Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival and I watched a riveting dramatic movie titled TheDisappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them. As annual film festivals are known to do, Cinéfest took place again this year and I went to go see another movie. It looks like I’ve got a new tradition on my hands and that’s fine by me because I’ve enjoyed myself both times. If nothing else, seeing a movie in this kind of environment, where dramatic stories tend to dominate and international films abound, I know to expect something different from your average Hollywood movie. If I’m lucky, I’ll even get to see a movie with an actual story and that’s very refreshing when you’re used to being bombarded by shit blowing up, showy yet poorly crafted special effects, and more guns and ammo than Rambo knows what to do with. I think I got lucky again this year when my wife and I went to go see Brooklyn.

Brooklyn, an Irish-American-Canadian production directed by John Crowley, tells the story of Eilis Lacey (a confident Saoirse Ronan in the leading role), an Irish immigrant during the early 1950s. The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Irish author Colm Tóibín, chronicles Ms. Lacey’s departure to America at the behest of her sister who wishes a better life for her. During her stay in Brooklyn as well as her return to her home country, Eilis establishes a new life for herself and finds romantic attachment. The movie’s climax sees her making a decision between two countries and two men.

Interstellar: A Bullet Point Review

I’ve finally had a chance to watch Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. I say finally because I had plans to go see it earlier but due to negligence and poor planning on my part, I completely missed out on it. I’m not an expert on Nolan and his films. Heck, I haven’t even seen all his films, but I’ve been blown away by those I have seen so consistently that I pay attention and make sure to watch all of his new projects. Interstellar is his first movie to come out since I’ve started blogging and I’m happy to have a place online where I can dump my thoughts about the film. SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE after the image below.

-The movie is long and it’s very bleak. Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) described the movie rather well when describing the planet on which he stayed for several years in complete isolation from the rest of humanity: “It’s stark but undeniably beautiful.” (Or words to that effect).

-Nolan cuts down on some of the movie’s darker tone by inserting testimonials of senior-aged survivors of the events of the movie. You know that someone, at some point in time, succeeds in saving the human species. At that point in the movie it’s unclear how or if they’re still on Earth but having those snippets of the movie’s outcome helps the viewer better appreciate the movie they’re just starting to watch because you know it will end well for humanity, if not for the main characters specifically.

-I’m not sure how accurate the science is. I know that it’s based on the work of real-world theoretical physicist Kip Thorne and that he played an advisory role in the film’s production. I can’t say much more beyond that because I don’t understand it in great detail but what I needed to understand is clearly discussed and presented in the movie. I also get the sense that there is more there waiting for me to learn and understand if I feel like being more attentive and rewatching the movie a few times. Certainly some of the science is inaccurate because it serves the story too perfectly. It’s fiction, after all, not an academic paper or a non-fiction novel about black holes.

-Indeed, some of this is pure speculation as part of the movie’s climax takes place inside the black hole (also called a singularity) where a three dimensional space is created inside the fifth dimensional space of the black hole in order to allow Cooper’s three dimensional brain from understanding how gravity can bend time back onto itself and enable him to communicate with himself and his daughter in the past. You’d have to spend many hundreds of hours to convince that you could find this in the heart of a black hole.

-What I’ve just described in the previous paragraph is actually one of the weaker points of the movie. There is a definitive sense that the narrative is building from the first minute of the movie but it doesn’t amount to anything entirely satisfying. Time loops on itself, basically, is the big reveal but there is no time travel movie paradox as where used to seeing them. I can’t make sense of it all because it appears as though Cooper had to physically be in two different places at the same time for a few key scenes of the movie. I tried thinking about the movie and labelling the characters as “old Cooper” and “future Cooper” but it still doesn’t seem to work. It’s very likely I simply don’t understand it but it’s also likely that it doesn’t make sense, even from a narrative point of view. That, ultimately, is why it’s disappointing.

-It could have been so much worse though. The first half of the movie had me fearing the worst: it’s all because of aliens! In the end we get a much messier reveal but the messy ending is actually kind of a refreshing for a movie by Nolan. He’s known for creating movies that act as a story and as a puzzle. Unsurprisingly, his high technical skills and his focus on narrative structure have garnered him a reputation for making cold and emotionless movies. This movie is, from those that I’ve seen so far, his most emotional movie and there is a nice irony to the idea that this movie doesn’t work very well as a puzzle because there is no definitive answer. I’m under the impression that there is room for interpretation, especially consider what the movie has to say about love and how it can govern our actions and lead to negative results even when we’re trying to do something positive.

-One thing that bothers me is that the movie mentions that stable wormholes cannot occur in nature. Why make mention of it and suggest it must have been created if no answer was to be given as to who created it? Surely it wasn’t Cooper.

-The emotional storyline is one of the movie’s strongest attributes but it’s resolved so early on in the movie despite remaining in focus for the duration of the movie.

-Cooper makes the decision to leave his children behind in order to save mankind. Murphy, his daughter, also chooses to let him leave while they’re still on bad terms. It’s her decision because he tries to make up while she refuses to listen to him or concede that he’s actually making a very difficult decision for all the right reasons. Later in life she admits to herself and to him that she was prepared to live with the consequences of letting him leave while they were still on bad terms. The consequences of that action are that she wasn’t able to make peace with her feelings of abandonment and she’s dedicated her life to understand the mission her father undertook. A mission she comes to share with him and eventually takes over due to the severity of the time distortions caused by the black hole and Cooper’s proximity to them for an extended period of time. Cooper chose to sacrifice his daughter and she chose to sacrifice her father by abandoning him and working on her own work which eventually lead to the survival of the human species.

-Their reunion at the end of the movie which takes place after a few years for him and a lifetime for her is so incredibly brief. They delight in the success of their mission only to realize that they have nothing to share anymore. She’s lived her life without him. As for Cooper, the daughter he knew has been gone for several years as Murphy is unrecognizable, physically, mentally and emotionally. She’s a different person. She dismisses him (kindly) in order to spend her last moments with her family and he moves on to reconnect with the one person he knows and understands, Amelia Brand. He’s a man out of time. The world he’s returned to isn’t the same world he worked so hard to save. He’s much closer to TARS, a robot, than any other human alive except for Brand. Everybody thinks they understand the sacrifice they made while saving humanity but nobody knows the details of the suffering they went through.

-The robot designs remind me of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In fact, there are many similarities to be found between both movies and I’m certain that it’s intentional. Interstellar is a 2001 for modern audiences and it manages to top it off by adding heart to the story and minimizing the self-indulgence of the movie’s mend-bending climax.

-One of the great things about this movie is the musical score. It’s by one Hans Zimmer, one of Nolan’s frequent collaborators, and it’s so different from what we’re using to seeing in Nolan’s previous movies. The now infamous use of bass to make various “BRAAAAAAMS” appear in every important seen are replaced, for the most part, by wonderfully classic and sometime even elegiac pieces of music. He also uses a lot of short, quick sounds – the tick tick tick tick of watches that heighten the emotional moments and the tense scenes in the movie. The music really tied the whole thing together. It served the plot and the story while also elevating the entire movie. I doubt that Interstellar would have achieved as much emotion in it without Zimmer’s involvement. It’s a captivating score and it moved me on more than one occasion.

                                               

-The movie also looks damn good. It’s simply superb to look at. The minimal use (by today’s standard) of computer generated effects is appreciated because everything looks so realistic. It didn’t surprise me to learn that a lot of the scenes with the Ranger, the Lander and the Endurance were done with miniatures.  They certainly didn’t look like it when flying in the vastness of space, looking tiny in comparison to the black hole. There is also a prevalent sense of danger which I think the visuals played a big part in conveying on the screen. The movie’s designs are also wonderful. I really like the look of the spatial anomalies, the space shuttle, the Endurance, the rectangular robots. Everything looks futuristic but also practical and believable. The look of the movie didn’t stress disbelief. Instead, it helped to lure you even deeper into the movie’s story.

-The movie succeeds for me because it doesn’t shy away from using big ideas to tell two stories. The first being very personal; a small scale story told on a huge storytelling canvas. The second is a much larger story, one set against the backdrop of an environmental disaster and dealing with the survival of a species (I’m please the movie didn’t try to make it about the planet, it’ll be quite fine without us causing havoc on it). It also uses big scientific ideas to ask large, even intimidating, questions to the viewer. Questions about what it means to be human, what we’re willing to risk and for whom we’re willing to risk it for. One of the ideas I really liked was how mankind tends to be skilled at making good decisions when thinking about the future of a few individuals that are close to you (family, mostly) but that we suck at making decisions that concern the entire species. It rings true when viewed against the backdrop of today’s reality. Anyone who reads the news regularly sees this failure in judgement in action on a weekly basis. It’s easier to digest or at least be receptive of these questions because the overall tone of the movie is hopeful but it doesn’t shy away from showing us an example of the kind of hardships we might have to face when choosing to do the right thing in difficult situations.

-Overall, the movie gets really messy and unravels quite a bit in the final forty minutes but it’s a beautiful mess to watch. It’s an exquisite mess that gives the viewer quite a few answer and explanations while also posing a ton of new questions. Best of all though, the movie has consequences. It’s not happily ever after but it also avoids ending on a depressive note or with the end of mankind. It’s actually a hopeful ending because our own humanity, love, dedication and hard work is what saved us and that’s also what will help us survive and rebuild in the future. You get the sense that the worst has passed but it’s also suggested that there is still quite a bit of work to be done. Strangely enough the task of rebuilding isn’t exclusively passed on to the next generation. Cooper and Brand are on Edmund’s planet where they will likely incubate the fertilized embryos and establish a colony on a planet’s surface instead of in space. Murphy saved humanity from the brink of extinction with the help of her father’s communication through the singularity of the dark hole but it’s Cooper and Brand that are have been and are still working on creating a sustainable future for humanity on a new planet.

-It’s clear to me that I haven’t fully digested this movie yet and that’s a great thing. I know it won’t all make sense. That’s also clear to me but there are still a great many things left for me to decipher and understand. It’s a great story which, very surprisingly, has a father-daughter relationship at the heart of it. That’s the biggest surprise of this movie. That and the fact that Interstellar asks big questions and doesn’t stoop to giving simple answers or dumbing down the science for the sake of marketability. Even when it doesn’t make sense this movie is never dumb. It remains intelligent while keeping a respectable level of accessibility. It extends its hand to the viewer, inviting it to think big thoughts and have big ideas instead of dumbing it all down without giving us a chance to rise to its level. Some people feel Nolan is pretentious in his filmmaking but until cinemas are filled with movies that could be qualified as pretentious with nary a fun, brainless movie around, then I’ll consider an intelligent movie to be a negative thing. For now, I’ll simply be thankful that a director like Nolan has the audacity to make such sprawling and original movies as this one. 

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998): Odd(-numbered), but Good

There are many thoughts about the Star Trek movies floating around online. Many people will tell you that the movies that are numbered with even numbers are the best (Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country, First Contact). Star Trek: Nemesis is usually excluded from this rule and if we’re sticking to it, I would also include Intro Darkness (it being the twelfth installment) as an exception since it is utter shit. I’ve never been a big fan of that theory, not only because it’s a gross generalization but also because there are too many exceptions. It also leaves out The Motion Picture, Generations and Insurrection. While those three movies have their issues I consider them to be good movies. At the very least, they occupy the space between the better movies and the worst movies on the quality measuring stick.

Regular contributor at Tor.com, Ryan Britt, presents his own theory in his article “Forget Odds Vs. Evens: Bad Star Trek Can Be Detected By Their Subtitles”. In his interesting article, he posits that all Star Trek movies are problematic to a degree and that they don’t compare favourably against their televised counterparts on the small screen. He then offers his own explanation as to why we continue to have Star Trek movies and asks what they should be about? “The answer is: they should be about something specific.” His proceeds to write about each movie in turn passing judgement on vague titles and praising those that dared be accurate. It’s a fun take on the idea on the categorization methods of Star Trek movies based on their quality.

Those are just two of the many theories out there. While researching a bit online I found a page at TV Tropes titled “Star Trek Movie Curse” which list several other ways that people have figured out to categorize the good Star Trek movies from the bad. The most interesting one here states that any movie that has a main character singing is a bad one. That’s kind of ridiculous, isn’t it? Still, it made me chuckle that someone not only pointed it out the pattern but argued that it is a legitimate way to distinguish good movies from the bad.

Aside from being fun conversation starters, I find these classifications of Star Trek movies to be pretty useless. I’d go so far as to say they focus they steer the conversation towards the bad movies or, more generally, the negative aspects of the franchise. When I think of Star Trek I think about the good, I celebrate it and I try to convert some of my friends to the world of Star Trek fandom. I do this simply because I like Star Trek and I think it’s a better investment of my time than nitpicking every little thing I don’t like about the nearly 50 year old franchise. When people tell me that there is only one good The Next Generation movie or that Star Trek: Insurrection is an atrocious movie without telling me why; I can’t help but feel defensive. It’s actually quite good. It’s not only the second best TNG movie, it’s better than some of The Original Series movies.

The plot of the movie is actually quite simple. The crew of the Enterprise-E uncover a suspicious alliance between the Federation and an alien group called the Son’a. They are observing a peaceful people call the Ba’ku. Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew are initially asked to intervene in a secret mission after Lieutenant Commander Data malfunctions. Upon further investigation it is discovered that the Son’a and Admiral Matthew Dougherty are planning to deport all 600 Ba’ku in order to populate their homeworld. Due to radiation from the planet’s rings, the Ba’ku people become for all intents and purposes immortal after becoming permanent residents of the planet. It is because of the promise of immortality that the Son’a and Admiral Dougherty want to take control of the planet. Picard and his crew become the only line of defence for the Ba’ku and for preserving the moral integrity of the United Federation of Planets.

More than any other Star Trek movie, Insurrection has oft been criticized for too closely resembling an episode of the TV series on which the movies are based. I’ve always found this to be an odd accusation as I believe it’s that resemblance to TNG that makes this such an enjoyable movie.

One of the main contributing factors to this movie being structured more like a long television episode rather than a summer blockbuster is that significant members of the production crew also worked extensively on TNG during its run. Jonathan Frakes who, aside from portraying Commander Riker, also directed such episodes as “The Offspring”, “Reunion”, and “Cause and Effect”. He also directed the spectacular eight film Star Trek: First Contact. His inclusion in the director’s chair likely had an impact on the inclusion of humour and the smaller character moments in the movie. Two other important crew members include producer Rick Berman who work as executive producer not only on TNG but also for Deep Space Nine and Voyager and many of the movies. With Insurrection scriptwriter and showrunner for TNG, Michael Piller, writes his first Star Trek movie script based on a story idea he had with Berman. Piller even had help from Ira Steven Behr on the first draft of the script. Behr is yet another important figure of Star Trek television as he served as executive producer, showrunner and scriptwriter for Deep Space Nine. It’s hard to argue that the difference in tone between this movie and most of the other Star Trek movies has nothing to do with the above mentioned crewmembers.  

While I disagree that Insurrection lacks scope, the comments that it resembles a long episode of TNG are valid. I personally don’t see anything wrong with that. How many episode of Star Trek have fallen flat because of a lack of breathing room or because of unsatisfactory or low-budget special effects? It’s a joy for fans to have a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously and that doesn’t try to make Star Trek fit the blockbuster movie formula. There are several elements from TNG runs on the small screen that are included in this film, not least of them humour and (how dare they?) an intellectually stimulating plot with the added bonus of themes. I can’t forget to mention that the characters themselves are equally important to the movie’s overall enjoyable tone. They’re not simply cookie-cutter action heroes at play.

There are many elements that make Insurrection work and one of them is that it actually takes the time to focus on characters. For the most part it’s allowing them to be affected by the advancement of the plot and other times it’s simply to let them be, well, characters. This is done by showing off their unique attributes and letting them interact with each other. It works well for this kind of movie based on a long-running TV series.

After eight Star Trek movies and hundreds of episodes it might not seem like a big deal but TNG has a large cast. While the movies and episodes tend to focus on a few characters more than others it’s important to actually take stock of just how many main characters headline this movie. Just looking at the Enterprise’s officers this movie already has an ensemble cast. Throw in important Ba’ku characters and couple of villains and it almost feels bloated. Not every main character appeared in every single TNG episode and while it works well for television to have certain characters highlighted in individual-centric episode, it would be a disappointment to exclude a main crewmember. It doesn’t truly matter if their time in the spotlight is a crucial part of the plot, what’s important is that they get some screen time. There have been many episodes that felt rushed or weren’t able to play with certain ideas in a satisfying way. Insurrection has room to breathe and it’s welcoming to see the cast and the crew take advantage of that.

I particularly like seeing that the workaholic crewmembers occasionally let loose and have a good time, mostly because it gives the movie a sense of realism (who doesn’t goof off at work, even occasionally?) and infuses it with humour. It doesn’t all work well. Worf in particular kind of gets the short end of the stick and so does Dr. Crusher with her boob humour but the fact that it’s there is important. Even the tacky moments avoid being gratuitous because it makes sense to have a character like Worf present on the Ba’ku planet. Even if you don’t like the idea of Klingon acne you can at still appreciate the writer’s attempt to show the effects of the Ba’ku planet on different characters, especially those of different physiology.

There are many humorous elements to enjoy in this movie and it’s refreshing to see so many because the TV series was regularly infused with humour. The quality of that humour is another issue altogether but it was part of the show’s bread and butter. Just to name a few, this movie includes jokes regarding Worf’s regression to adolescence, the rise of Picard’s libido, Troi and Riker’s flirtation. Certainly, your mileage may vary based on your sense of humour but I appreciate the effort to bring some levity to the movie as it not only prevents it from being taken too seriously but it’s indicative of its lack of concern for being perceived as edgy or badass. If there is one unattractive feature to long-lasting franchises it’s an identity crisis and Star Trek has certainly had its fair share. Luckily, Insurrection avoids it for the most part by sticking to its television roots and using many recurring and important elements of TNG.

In short, these characters are truly unique. They’re not the same characters wearing different coloured uniforms and performing the same tasks. They have different insight into the world. It makes sense that Data and Picard are those that are most affected by the Ba’ku; Data because of his wide-eyes curiosity and Picard for his romanticism and staunch moral values. That’s not to say the other characters aren’t affected by the events and the movie justifiably shows that.

Another reason some people don’t like the film is that the villain feels underwhelming. That’s a silly criticism for Star Trek. Even if Insurrection has long been mistaken as a blockbuster film, Star Trek has never solely been a villain-of-the-week kind of television show. It could more accurately be described as the-strange-happening-of-the-week or even the-encounter-of-the-week. That makes sense considering the show’s initial precise of exploration, research and discovery. The problem is that when you transpose that to the big screen, there is a sense of obligation to also introduce a major villain in each film. This is particularly true of all Star Trek films following The Wrath of Khan. I would hope that after seeing the tenth film, Star Trek: Nemesis, that fans would have given Insurrection a bit more slack on this point but negative comments towards Ahdar Ru’afo (played by F. Murray Abraham) have persisted.

The thing about Star Trek is that the antagonisms in its stories can be a wide range of things. Evil individuals are but one of many other options. As it’s often been the case during TNG’s television run, the crew of the Enterprise are battling against an action that has immediate consequences for a specific group but that same action could lead to further consequences for an increasingly large population of the planet or even the galaxy.

Some problems are too complex to simply be tossed aside and Insurrection gives us at least two very good antagonists for Picard and his officers. The first, of course, is the leader of the Son’a, Ru’afo, and the second is corruption within the organization of the Federation. The movie’s true villains aren’t individuals; they just act as figureheads to more abstract ideals that cause the characters and the viewers to think about the causality of our actions and the difficulties of dealing with other species and cultures. One of Star Trek’s biggest strengths is to entertain while also stimulating intellectual discussions. It’s because of that reason, more than any other, that I consider Star Trek: Insurrection to be a good film.

After two large-scale stories, Insurrection provides an equally interesting story but the conflict is moral and immediate instead of physical and temporal like the previous two TNG movies. Insurrection actually spends most of its time in service of story and the development of thematic elements that feel true to the characters of TNG as well as Star Trek as a whole. The movie swerves into the territory of generic blockbusters toward the end but the rest of the movie makes up for it by focusing on story rather than the size of its explosions.

Some of the themes include aging, eternal live, the value of life and the importance of stopping to smell the roses. All of these themes are very relative today and will likely endure as our culture seems to continue celebrating the successes of youth while ignoring the contributions of our elders. Technological advancements have made it so that we’re constantly bombarded with information and we’ve become increasingly preoccupied with quantity instead of quality. Thanks to the internet we experience a much wider variety of things but we do so only on the surface by acquiring information in summarized or condensed forms instead of fully experiencing the originals. We’re attracted by things that are new and we forget about everything that occurred even days prior. It’s not just our entertainment, we’ve become a culture of consumers and our interests lie in information gathering, not in acquiring experience, understanding or appreciation for the world around us. It’s also true of how we deal with people.

There is also a theme of technophobia. One of the differences between the Ba’ku and the Son’a is that the Ba’ku have relinquished their dependences on technology while the Son’a has grown increasingly dependent on it. Throw in the Federation and their use of technology and the commentary you can take from it is that the Federation more closely resembles the Son’a which makes me think that Admiral Dougherty’s alliance with them isn’t coincidental. Technology, in this case, can be seen as the harbinger of the erosion of values and the degradation of interpersonal relationships.

Ba’ku and Son’a have the same origins but there are differences in the way they act and the lessons that they’re taught. The result is the development of two very distinct cultures. Sure, it’s a little heavy-handed but it gets the message across. More importantly, Michael Piller remembers that this is a Star Trek movie and so he takes the theme of technophobia and makes it a positive one. It’s nurture, not nature that makes the Ba’ku and their way of life so enticing and attractive. Certainly their incredibly long  life span helped them achieve their peaceful existence but they still achieved inner peace and understanding on their own. Even after relinquishing their daily use of technology they are discovered that there are many lessons to be learned and anyone can do it, all we need is a little patience, a desire to learn and the ability to listen to our surroundings. This is clearly demonstrated during Picard’s time on the planet. More

Regardless of whether or not you agree with any of the various Star Trek movies curses or generalizations, one thing is clear. It’s kind of a bad habit to frequently discuss one or more of the movie curses. It’s a bad habit I hope will eventually fall by the wayside as fandom steps up and starts looking at the movies based on their individual merits instead of dismissing them because of their subtitles, numbering or the inclusion of a singing cast member. You might disagree with me that Insurrection is a good movie and that’s fine, as long as you don’t start telling me it’s impossible for it to be a good movie because it’s the ninth instalment in the franchise and that it’s numbering equates it to a bad movie. Give me something less vague, something that shows you’ve actually put some thought into it and that you’re not just repeating the tired and uninformative Odds vs. Evens classification. I’m starting to sound grumpier and more serious than I want to but I still sound less ridiculous than fans who are adamant about telling me The Search for Spock is a terrible movie “because the curse”! At least Ryan Britt is having fun in his article and doesn’t take himself too seriously.

I concede to defending only one of the bad Star Trek movies in this article but I think I make my point clear by defending it without employing either an established Star Trek movie classification or introducing a new one. For me, Star Trek: Insurrection will always be a good movie. It might not be the best but the good far outweighs the bad and that’s all I need from the humble instalment in the Star Trek franchise. Ok, I’m stepping off my soapbox.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them review

I’ve got a friend who loves movies. Much more than me, I think. She saw an interesting two part movies last year while attending the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s called The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby but unlike traditional films, this one was split in two parts one subtitled Her and Him. Each of the two movies tell the same story but they follow the point of view of two different characters, one per movie. They work on their own but watched back to back they inform each other. She’s been talking to me about this movie (these movies?) for a whole year so when she found out that yet another version of the movie, this time subtitled Them, was going to be screaned at Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival (I’m classy like that), she convinced me to go see it.

Even before seeing Them and having never seen Him or Her, I knew that this was going to be a different movie. For starters, Him and Her have a combined screen time of nearly 3 hours but Them is only 2 hours long. Something has likely been edited out of the combined film and frankly, I think that’s ok because it will assumedly be a different movie that what the viewers of Him and Her have seen anyway. That makes it an interesting movie before you even watch it. Thankfully Them was a good enough movie to make the three movie experimentation worthwhile and I’m confident enough to say this even though I’ve only ever see one of the three movies. I think it’s interesting to point that out that after the movie premiered in two parts at TIFF, the Weinstein Company purchased the distribution rights to the movie and apparently was part of the motivation to combine both movies together. I wasn’t able to find clear details on why Him and Her were edited into Them. It could have been direction from Weinstein Company but I think it's likely other reasons behind this since writer-director Ned Benson categorized his film as a “work in progress” when it was viewed at TIFF. Either way, Them has been released and I was lucky enough to watch it in a crowded theatre and I rather enjoyed it for being a bit unorthodox yet emotionally resonant film about loss and healing.

Before I get to the movie proper, I want to talk about the inaccurate and misleading trailer for Them. I watched the trailer before seeing the movie and other than the foreknowledge I had of the movie’s previously separated point of view movies I didn’t know anything else about Them. Going into the theatre I thought it was going to be a romance film. I knew it definitively wasn’t a romantic comedy and thankfully the trailer didn’t try to make it look like one but it does try to make it a love story and that’s not quite what it is. At least, it’s not a movie about two people falling in love. It was more interesting and layered than that. The trailer didn’t provide me, a potential viewer, with the right set of expectations for the movie. It’s not very important because the movie obviously stands on its own but it’s a common thread in many movie trailers that they inaccurately portray the kind of movie they’re mean to be advertising.

Them begins with a romantic evening out where we’re introduced to Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) and Connor (James McAvoy). It’s a cute scene and it shows the main characters at a point in their life where they were deeply happy. The next scene in the movie shifts gears emotionally and gives us the titular scene of Eleanor’s disappearance. The rest of the movie deal with two things: 1) the reason for her leaving Connor and 2) Connor and Eleanor dealing with the fact that they’ve seemingly separated, putting their marriage in limbo after seven years of being together. In less than ten minutes Benson established the couple and then tore them apart. It’s a bold way to start his first film.

The rest of the plot felt familiar and likely will be to anyone who’s watched drama films. The story’s building blocks are nothing new but Benson uses them and presents them in a way that heightens the story being told. The first half of the movie plays almost like a mystery. By withholding one piece of information, the cause of Eleanor's disappearance, Benson involves the reader in the events of the movie. We’re paying close attention to what all the characters say in the hopes of finding out what happened. It made me feel a little voyeuristic. The characters on screen are all suffering in varying degrees and it felt a bit wrong to be snooping in on them. Once we find out what happen my feelings towards what was happening changed. I became increasingly concerned and worried for Eleanor, Connor and their families. I was worried they wouldn’t be able to recuperate from the event that transpired off-screen earlier in the movie.

Them isn't a movie with twits but it’s a movie with many layers. It leads itself well to thought and interpretation. What starts off as a simple movie builds in complexity as the minutes pass by. The acting by Chastain and McAvoy is impressively powerful and they’re surrounded by many other very good actors such as Viola Davis, William Hurt, Ciarán Hinds, and Jess Weixler. Even Bill Hader plays a satisfyingly serious role as Connor’s best friend. To see such a carefully constructed movie with a detailed script (few words are spoken that don’t contribute to the movie’s story and themes) so superbly acted out by such great actors was a treat in itself. It also helped that Them had something important to say about loss, emotional healing and the power of love.

Most of the movie concerns itself with Eleanor and Connor’s healing process. It can see how this movie would have worked well in two parts, each focusing on one of the characters, because there are very interesting similarities and differences in the way they try to heal themselves. Connor continues to move straight ahead in his life. He focuses on his work as a failing restaurateur as a way to cope with his loss. He does it blindly though, focusing more on hiding his pain with his actions. He starts a fight with one of his patrons, he starts a fight with his best friend and chef and he’s running his business to the ground. It’s pretty clear he also has a great sense of pride as his refuses to ask his father, a very successful restaurateur, for any help even though his father is the one clear lifeline he has since Eleanor left.

Eleanor doesn’t move forward, she moves backward. She also tries to hide the problem but not by acting out. She suppresses it, she tries to hide it and act as though nothing is wrong. After her failed suicide attempt, she retreats to her parent’s home. There she tries equally hard to get them to understand she doesn’t want to talk about what happened. “Why do you need to remind me that something is wrong?” she asks her father. She’s in an environment where people could help her but, similarly to Connor, she rejects that help, though she doesn’t do it out of pride but as a way to try and move past her current situation. Both characters are running in opposite directions as a way to cope with their loss but in doing so they’re simply causing more problems for themselves. They’re also running away from the one other person who survived the same ordeal they did. They’re miserable and emotionally devastated and so they split but that only created another problem for them to deal with: the loss of their spouse.

I won’t tell you how the movie ends or any more about how the characters try and cope with their situation. If you’re interested in watching a writer-director’s impressive debut or a drama that is taken seriously by the cast as well as the crew (it’s really a well put together movie), you’ll eventually find yourself in front of a screen playing The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them. It’s an emotional movie, yes, but it’s not exclusively a sad movie. Unlike many other movies that it vaguely resembles, Them doesn’t deal with a sad subject in a depressive way. Certainly some, if not most, of the characters in the movie deal with a form of depression, they’re not focusing on their pain. They’re focusing on healing. Not forgetting their problem but true healing. It’s a worthy struggle and a lot of it is unspoken and it leaves room for interpretation on the viewer’s part but it’s a worthy subject to deal with. I’d love to tell you I’m happy and proud for Eleanor and Connor but the truth is I don’t know exactly what the future holds for them. All I know is that they’re likely to deal with it together, as a couple. Despite dealing with sadness, Them ends up being a surprisingly hopeful movie.

Ip Man (2008) review

Directed by Wilson Yip

Written by Edmond Wong

Starring Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Lynn Hung, Gordon Lam

Martial Arts Choreography by Sammo Hung

Kung Fu movies are great but they're all very similar. Actually, that can be said of nearly every genre. Clichés and familiar patterns will always emerge and eventually they become part of what we expect to see when watching a movie of a particular genre. Kung Fu movies are often set in the 19^th Century (if not earlier) and involve a power hungry lord as a villain. Alternatively, they’re set in the present day and involve some sort of crime lord as the villain. The hero defends the people against the villain and what makes the movie good or standout from the rest of Kung Fu films is the performance by the actors or anything additional to the Kung Fu formula. Additions often include humour, drama or romance but mostly, what fans of martial arts film really want to see is the action choreography.

While Jackie Chan has made his career by combining death defying stunts, impressive fight scenes and humour. They’ve become staples of the kind of movies Chan stars in. When he did some of his more serious movies, such as Crime Story or Gorgeous, they instantly stand out because they don’t use his regular bag of tricks. This particular movie, Ip Man, starring Donnie Yen, uses historical, specifically wartime, drama along with biographical elements to add that something extra to the story.  

The movie takes place in and around the town of Foshan and focuses on the life of legendary Wing Chun master, Yip Man (the movie’s title uses another known spelling, Ip Man). Foshan is a town known and celebrate for its martial arts schools and in this town, no master is better known or more respected that Ip Man. Despite being the grandmaster of Foshan, Ip Man’s wealth allows him not to have to take on any students. Instead, he recommends that people seek tutelage at one of the many other schools.  The movie, along with Yen’s understated performance, informs the viewer that he does this out of respect for the other masters. He doesn’t want to take away from there livelihoods. Still, Ip Man is very busy and seldom has the time to relax with his family.

Yip Man.

Once the movie has setup the day to day reality of Foshan, including early action sequences in which a ruffian comes to town determined to take on the master of martial arts to show off his own skills in the hopes of opening a school, the wartime drama kicks in. The Japanese invade China, it’s the Sino-Japanese War and the once prosperous town of Foshan is under enemy rule. Ip Man and his family now live in poverty and he’s force to take on employment at a coal mine.  Not making enough money at the mine, Ip Man agrees to fight Japanese martial artists to win rice. A Japanese general is a martial arts enthusiast and knowing the reputation of Fosha, he offers a bag of rice to any local who can beat one of his Japanese students in a fight. It’s a very difficult time for the Chinese but through perseverance, national pride and a duty to protect his family, Ip Man is able to maintain focus and survive the war. The story can get pretty bleak, especially when Ip Man’s fame as a martial arts master threatens to put his family in harm’s way.

It’s interesting to see Ip Man’s progression from pre-war to wartime. Before the war he’s calm, composed and there is hint of youthful glee in his eye when discussing Wing Chun. Later, when fighting the Japanese martial artists he’s angered by the cruelty they display towards his fellow countrymen. He reciprocates  by challenging all of the general’s fighters and the result is a brutal and somewhat frightening show of force from Ip who so far has been characterized by his strong spirit, respectful nature and calm demeanour. The fight is an excessive show of brutally after which many of the Japanese men are undoubtedly crippled for life. From calm and relaxed to violent and cruel, it’s jarring to see how the war has affected the grandmaster of Foshan. But his transformation isn’t out of character. It was pretty clearly established earlier in the film that one of the reasons he’s respected in town is because he protects those that need his protection. He protected the integrity of the other Kung Fu master when the ruffians came to town and now he’s protecting his countrymen and his family against the Japanese general and his men.

Ip Man has more story than most Kung Fu movies. Fans of more typical martial arts movies might actually find the story to be a bit slow despite early action sequences, the focus is on Ip Man and how he had to change as a person in order to survive the war. I think it’s interesting that for a movie based on a real man (legendary Wing Chun master who helped to popularize the fighting style and trained now-famous students such as movie start Bruce Lee) that the movie only focuses on a small part of Ip Man’s life. The story begins shortly before the war and ends with Ip Man escaping Foshan with his wife and child. Really, it’s a drama film with some Kung Fu but the movie works well because it treats the dramatic elements and the action elements with equal importance. It makes for a solid film all around. There are also a couple side stories that help to round out the story of Foshan and its residents. The real highlight of the movie though is Donnie Yen, as an actor and as a martial artist. His understated performance early on and his surprising brutality later on perfectly demonstrate the internal and external struggles of the man. You’d be hard pressed to find a Kung Fu movie that so effectively juggles as much as Ip Man does. It’s a modern classic of the genre.

The People vs. George Lucas: The Problem with Fandom

I completely missed writing something last year for May the Fourth and so I’ve made sure to prepare something for this year. It was a bit challenging to find what I should talk about but I settled on watching The People vs. George Lucas documentary and it sparked enough thoughts and commentary to make up a whole post.

The movie was directed by Alexandre Philippe, a lifetime Star Wars fan (aren’t we all?). It presents a discussion between the conflicting aspects of the franchise, particularly the love/hate relationship many fans have with Star Wars to a degree, but particularly with George Lucas. The movie is structure in such a way as to present a brief history of Lucas’s career up to the release of the first Star Wars movie. It then used interviews with a wide variety of people including writers, several people in the film industry, comedians, journalists and fan-submitted videos from the movie’s website. These various interviews were edited into what I thought was a poorly structured look at Star Wars, its fans, and the difficult relationship with Lucas. There are some very interesting ideas that are brought up in the movie but ultimately it doesn’t really go anywhere. In the end, the movie’s message to its viewers is that Star Wars is great, Lucas has deeply hurt us all and we feel pretty betrayed, but we hope there will be more Star Wars goodness in the future. What follows is my attempt to restructure some of the ideas from the movie, add in my comments, and try not to upset too many of the more sensitive (emotionally sensitive, not Force-sensitive) fans.

George Lucas – Duality of the businessman

One of the elements that start off the discussion from the movie is the duality inherent in George Lucas. As one person explains, they believe Lucas’s psyche is structure similarly to a Russian doll. On the onside there is a Lucasfilm, the corporation. Inside of that is Corporate Lucas. Inside of that is Lucas the Capable Filmmaker. And inside of that is a young, enthusiastic Lucas Filmmaker. That’s not quite how I see it. I think it’s simpler than that, but it does shed some light on how Lucas’s fans see him. He’s a complex and contradictory figure.

The way I see it, Lucas is internally conflicted by two aspects of his life. The first is his creative persona, the one that initially allowed for the creation of Star Wars. The second half is his business savvy persona, which also allowed for the creative success of Star Wars. During the early part of his career, Creative Lucas (that’s what I’m calling him now) has to defend his creativity and artistic vision against company executives and producers. These early battles were very difficult for him and I believe they’ve affected his development as a filmmaker. The success of the original trilogy, which I believe was made possible by the combination of Creative Lucas and Business Lucas, freed him from ever having to battle it out with a producer ever again and that’s what led to the fractured Lucas we all know now. Before, when he had to fight with his producers, both parts that make up Lucas were working together against an outside force. After Star Wars, the outside force was more or less absent and without a common enemy both sides started to fight against themselves.

 

"Advance and destroy all laser disc copies of the theatrical release!"

Fame and success have changed how Lucas feels about creating. He’s had serious issues with the lack of control he had in his early career. He had to fight for it and when you have to fight for control, you need to pick you battles. Having to struggle with producers and production company executives meant that Lucas had to fight to implement the creative ideas he thought had more potential. Since he’s escaped that type of creative environment, he’s been on his own. He no longer has the outside filter he had before. Wanting to have all the control has left him with too much control and many, many internal conflicts over various creative decisions on the franchise.

Fandom – Imitating the Duality of the Creator

Is this was betrayal looks like?

Some of the biggest fans of Star Wars are also some of the meanest towards the creator of the franchise, George Lucas. They can be huge assholes with him for rather small and petty reasons. Fans of Star Wars have been engaging in participatory culture for several years, if not decades since the release of A New Hope. They don’t simply consume Star Wars, they contribute to the development of the franchise while also acting as disciples who spread the word and share it with new fans and create new generations of fans. This participatory culture has created group of fans who enjoy pocking fun at the thing they love or re-enacting it for their enjoyment. There are countless projects that can be found online where fans are simply having a good time. Some fans are also using these projects to develop their own filmmaking or special effects skills in the hopes of becoming filmmakers someday. I like this portion of fandom. It has fun, creative, and positive aspects to it. Playing in the Star Wars sandbox has acted as their training wheels in a way. Lucas has influenced an entire generation of creators. Watch any documentary on Star Wars and you’ll have interviews with film industry professionals who started their career in filmmaking because of Star Wars.

However, there are other fans whose time engaging in participatory culture has led them to develop a penchant for remixing the beloved franchise. In essence, they’re remixing Star Wars to suit their preferences. It’s unclear why this practice originated but it’s as much a part of Star Wars fandom as dressing up as favourite characters when attending conventions. It’s pretty clear that some of this remix attitude is the result of Lucas’s crusade to shove his Special Edition version of Star Wars down the throats of unwilling fans. On its own that would be an unfortunate desire on the part of Lucas but it’s even worse if you’re familiar with a bit of film preservation history.

Early in his career, Lucas was a main proponent against the colourization of black and white films. He would argue that colouring black and white movies went against the creative visions of the people who originally worked on the movie. It was disrespectful. He also presents arguments that preserving films in their original appearance was a way to preserve cultural history. He went further in stating that the reasons why he thought it was important to preserve our culture history. You can easily find plenty of information on this part of Lucas’s life online. It actually makes for a rather interesting read.

Older George Lucas always looks sad. Even sadder
than young George Lucas. You can see the regret
in his eyes. Tugs at my heart strings, it does.

These earlier arguments made by Lucas seem to contradict the release of Star Wars: Special Edition in which Lucasfilm did several revisions, changes, additions and tweaks to the theatrical release version of the original trilogy. That in itself isn’t a necessarily a bad thing. After all, it’s the creator tweaking his own work with the intent of having the finished product more closely resemble his artistic vision. I’m ok with that as long as the original work is still available. For the most part, it’s not, and that’s what’s problematic for me. Lucas has been attempting, and as far as I know continues to attempt, revisionist history. By refusing to continue to produce and sell the theatrical version of Star Wars, he’s not only disrespecting everybody else who worked on the films, he’s being disrespectful of our shared cultural history. The Star Wars of 1997 isn’t the same Star Wars people saw back in 1977. Lucas isn’t only being hypocritical, he’s being disrespectful to fans and the people who helped make the Star Wars films.

The problem though is that certain fans continue to allow Lucas to do as he wishes because they continue to support him throughout all of the various releases, his new films, and basically anything else that has the Star Wars brand name on the product. Fans will buy it. There is a moment in The People vs. George Lucas were a fan lists all of the different VHS and DVD versions of Star Wars he’s bought over the years. In essence, it was all of them. When discussing the release of The Phantom Menace, there is a scene in which a journalist asks two fans “What are you going to do if the movie really sucks?” To which one of them answered “I’ll go see it again.” That’s part of the problem! Why go see a movie you don’t like? Why financially support the man who is responsible for producing the movie you thought sucked? It’s a vicious cycle in which fans complain about the changes being made but continue to pay to watch it or own it. Nobody is forcing you to be a ridiculous, all-consuming fan. I have some distance between my love of Star Wars and how much money I spend on it and that allows me to continue to love the franchise and not lose my mind or get insanely angry at Lucas.

The remix culture allows for fans to continue enjoying Star War by taking out or changing the parts they don’t like. Perhaps without realizing it they continue to support a franchise that no longer reflects what they like. They’re taking the good and taking out the bad in order to be able to enjoy the good. I think it’s an unhealthy approach to entertainment consumerism because it’s symptomatic of radical fanaticism. Do you really love Star Wars if you’re changing it to better suit what you think it should be? When you’re watching the fan-edit of The Phantom Menace, are you still watching The Phantom Menace?  I’m interested in seeing how fans will react to the new trilogy being worked on by J. J. Abrams. I know that part of me will enjoy some of it even though I’m also pretty convinced I won’t enjoy parts of it. There are a few reasons for that but I won’t get into them hear aside from mentioning that I’m worried about what Abrams will do with the franchise simply because his first Star Trek film is about the only film or TV series by him that I’ve enjoyed. The other thing is that there appears to be as much importance played on looking back as there is looking forward. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it can lead to self-indulgence and lack of narrative progression. We’ll wait and see but really, other fans’ reactions is something I’m looking forward to. The discussion of the franchise’s future as well as the pervasive remix culture leads me to another point of contention among fans, what exactly is the “true” Star Wars?

Is this awesomely ridiculous book
"true" Star Wars? Hells yes it is.

The “true” Star Wars?

I’m curious as to why George Lucas is so adamant in having his vision be the only “true” Star Wars. By deciding not to release the theatrical release on blu-ray, he’s clearly supporting one version of Star Wars above another. Maybe he wants to make his revised, Special Edition version the only “true” version because he’s had to suffer through seeing his films be interpreted in hundreds if not thousands of different ways. Sometimes this was done reverently, other times in ways combining amateurish invention and unfiltered adoration and other times filled with hatred and condescension. With so many different versions of Star Wars available to the masses, maybe he’s worried his version, the only one he thinks really matters, is being lost in the mix.

I have to admit I find it kind of sickening to watch people argue, rather than have open and honest discussions, but argue and fight over silly things like Han shooting first. Who gives a shit? Multiple versions of that same event exist on official releases. That in itself is problematic but at the end of the day, regardless of your opinion, all those versions exist. If you choose to accept one version over another, that’s fine. I’d actually encourage it because I would then ask you why you preferred one over the other and that could be the start of a fun conversation about Star Wars and who doesn’t like that? But once the discussion evolves into which version of Han shooting Greedo is the “right” one, you enter dangerous territory. That leads to remixing Star Wars and it becomes of battles of which version is right and which version is wrong.

You can also throw in the whole idea of canon into that discussion. Star Wars is a multi-media franchise. Comics, novels, video games, TV series, etc. Many stories from different genres directly contradict things in the movies and in other stories. The development of an Expanded Universe of tie-in media before the release of the prequels trilogy inevitably led to contradictions galore once the prequels were finally released. The same thing is bound to happen with the release of Episode VII and Disney has already published a press release on the matter. Which stories are “true” Star Wars and which ones aren’t? Which stories count? I know that this is opening the floodgates but really, there is an easy solution to all of these questions. It all counts. It’s all one glorious mess of super-continuity.

No two fans can agree on what Star Wars really is. So why not embrace it all? Lucas and the fans need to embrace it all. Why is it so difficult to be able to admit that you like certain things and dislike others? Where does this need to erase the things you don’t like come from? Is it in reaction to Lucas’s own hypocrisy? Do fans who re-edit the films feel as though they’re sticking it to Businessman Lucas? All of that doesn’t matter to me because I love it all. I even love to hate the parts I don’t like (“Yippee”, anyone?).

Love 'em or hate 'em, Ewoks are part of Star Wars. I choose to love 'em. 

The idea of super-continuity isn’t mine. I’m borrowing it from Grant Morrison’s take on Batman. While writing his multi-year Batman story, Morrison decided that all of the published Batman stories have actually happened to the character. There is a way to better understand and appreciate all Star Wars stories in how Morrison treated Batman. He attempted to reconcile large section of the character’s past into one huge, ever-expanding history for Batman. In this idea of super-continuity, if something was published with Batman in it, it “counted”. It happened. The same idea can be applied to Star Wars and essentially all other entertainment franchises. You can choose not to read or watch any stories in which Jar-Jar appears, that’s your call, but you cannot dismiss him by pretending he never existed in the first place. He did and it’s up to you to reconcile that.

I like to embrace it all, the good with the bad. By not allowing myself to watch Episode I, I’ll never have to deal with some of Jar-Jar’s worst moments. That’s true. But I’m also missing out on tons of other cool ideas that are present in the movie. I also miss out on Obi-Wan’s early days and that’s a shame because he’s one of my favourite characters. I’m not trying to tell you Episode I is a misunderstood masterpiece because it’s not. It’s a visual masterpiece; the entire prequels trilogy is a visual feast. Yes, Episode I (or maybe Episode II) is the worst Star Wars movie but it’s still has its moments. The most important thing to keep in mind is that it’s not the worst thing to ever have happened to Star Wars, it’s also not the first thing that “ruined” the franchise. I’d like to offer up Star Wars: Jedi vs. Sith as one of the worst stories in the franchise. It’s certainly one of the worst comics. As for things that happened before Episode I that contributed to ruin Star Wars for a certain category of fans, you can kind of take your pick. It can be a pretty selective list. Some people will posit that Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was the first step in a dumber Star Wars. Others will mention Star Wars Holiday Special.  I for one love Return of the Jedi. Ewoks? Love the little bastards. You can hate them and you can disagree with me but Ewoks are still Star Wars. You can’t change that and neither can I. What Lucas has forgotten is that he can’t change that either and he has to stop trying.

Have fun with continuity. Embrace it. Hell, the first obvious thing that comes to mind is a drinking game. Take a drink every time something happens in Episode I that you don’t like. I guarantee you’ll like the movie by the time the end credits roll because you’ll be so inebriated.

Overall The People vs. George Lucas was very frustrating to watch. It’s well put together and some of the people in the movie actually had some very interesting things to say but really, it’s just inconsistent in what it’s trying to be. It wants to discuss what Star Wars is to fans and the difficulties that come with being a fan, many of them having their source with Lucas. It’s also trying to be a comedy and it kind of undermines some of the more serious and interesting discussion. Some of the comedy works, but a lot of it doesn’t. It also feels very one-sided and I feel as though the movie was trying to make me hate Lucas. It’s all a bit difficult to understand though; it’s not an easy subject for a documentary. Star Wars fandom is filled with confusion and contradictory emotions and opinions. I think it’s important that we remember that Star Wars is a multigenerational franchise. The first generation of fans had so little Star Wars for so long that they invested themselves in the franchise. The newest generations of fans have been bombarded with Star Wars media their entire lives. For them, it’s been non-stop.

The movie ended on a hopeful note. People are willing to give Lucas and the franchise the chance to amaze us again. When a fan’s reaction to not liking the first of the prequels is to go and watch it twelve other times, it’s a strong sign that he has faith in the creator and the series. Fans felt betrayed by the prequels because they had very specific expectations and when they were giving something different, they wanted to continue watching until they “got it”. Fans acted as though they didn’t understand the movies, as though they were the problem. When it finally clued in that they weren’t the problem the finger was pointed at Lucas and the remix culture caught on. I don’t agree that Lucas has a responsibility to the fans. I think that’s a perceived responsibility. However, I think he does have a responsibility in preserving cultural history and it’s up to us to ensure he acknowledges that. As for fandom, it grows and changes hand in hand with the franchise. It’s bigger than all of us combined and the contradictions is what fuels the growth of its fans by always having another element to enjoy, criticize, and debate.