NEWS: Wil Wheaton's Geek In Review: Han Shoots First

GEEK: Wil Wheaton's Geek In Review: Han Shoots First

Wil Wheaton was called into a studio today for an outrageously long costume fitting...so this is a repeat column...

Last weekend, Cinemax ran a constantly-repeating marathon of the entire Star Wars series, beginning with Phantom Menace and ending with Return of the Jedi. I watched four of the six movies in their entirety (sorry, but there is no fucking way I will ever sit through Phantom Menace one more time. Fool me once, you can't get fooled again, y'all) but I did my best to watch Attack of the Clones, before giving up about 30 minutes in and letting it run in the background while I played PLO/8 at Pokerstars.

I gave Revenge of the Sith more of my attention, though, because I'd never seen it before, and my nerd friends all agreed that it wasn't as horrible as the other two. (Uh, if the best thing you can say about a movie is that it doesn't suck as much as another movie, that's sort of a problem, isn't it?) After watching the entire thing—which was about 30 minutes too long—I can agree with them. It's not as bad as the prior two, but it doesn't rise to the level of the original Star Wars, and isn't even close to Empire Strikes Back.

After about eleven hours of Star Wars movies, though, I wondered: why exactly is the Star Wars trilogy such a big deal to some of us, even though it's clearly flawed, and ends with a bunch of muppets singing around the campfire? Why do so many of us love it so much? Why did so many of us take it as a personal affront when the new movies and re-releases didn't meet our expectations? Why did most of us go back twice after Phantom Menace, like we were in a dysfunctional relationship, hoping that if we just worked a little harder, we'd find a pony?

To me, and I suspect to many other people in my generation, Star Wars was more than just another movie; it was a cultural phenomenon that carried us through elementary school and primed us for Voltron, He-Man, GI Joe, and all the other action figure-oriented entertainment of our youth. While our parents played Cowboys and Indians, we played Star Wars (and Batman and Star Trek, but mostly Star Wars) on the playground, and in the park, and on the floors of our parents' kitchens. Every flashlight or broomstick we saw was a potential lightsaber, and we dreamed of someday using the Force for real.

We love Star Wars because, when viewed from our complicated adult lives through the lens of childhood nostalgia, we see a simpler, happier time, and recall this phenomenon that was an integral part of our lives. Remember what it was like to see the Death Star blow up the first time? Remember how you just couldn't believe it that they froze Han Solo? If you were young enough at the time, will you admit that you thought the Ewoks were actually kind of funny and cool? (I will.) And how much did you run around the woods near your house, pretending to be on a speeder bike? See, it's more than a movie; it's culture.

And that is why the prequels, especially Episode I, are such a kick in the balls to us. To be fair, it's pretty impossible for George Lucas to create something with Phantom Menace that matches up to the idealized version we all created in our minds, but releasing a movie that felt like an excuse to sell ILM's new toys to studios, and sell actual toys to kids was not a good place to start.

My brother and I sat in line for 18 hours for that movie (it's not the several days that the real Star Wars nerds put in, but everything is relative, and 18 hours on the concrete in Burbank was a significant commitment for us.) To maximize our geekiness, we played Magic: The Gathering for most of the time we waited, and I am not ashamed to admit that I got goosebumps and a little misty when the lights dimmed in the theater, and that iconic music started. It was all downhill from there: "My name is Anakin, and I'm a person!" and "Yeah, the Force? Well, it's not as much a mystical energy that runs through the universe as it is a virus that's carried around by nanites in your blood. Hey, Star Wars fans? Fuck you! I got your money! Ha! Ha! Ha!" And don't even get me started on Jar-Jar Binks. By the time the film was over, I wasn't just disappointed, I was mad. No, I wasn't mad, I was furious, and I didn't bother to watch Episodes II and III until they were on cable this weekend, and even then I ignored most of Episode II, lest my fury rise again.

See, can you imagine having this sort of reaction to anything else? I thought it was lame that Molly Ringwald went with the Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink but it didn't make me mad. I thought Ghostbusters 2 was pretty stupid, but I didn't want to punch a door when I walked out of the theater. Star Wars wasn't just a movie, it was personal.

But now that some time has passed, I can take a longer view and ask: Did Lucas really betray us with the new movies? Well, I don't know if it's fair to say that he did, because I don't think he ever cared about us as much as we cared about them. It's obvious now, especially after watching all of them and seeing what Lucas does when he's left entirely to his own devices, that the movies are just excuses to show off his special effects and sell toys.

But ultimately, all of that matters as much as we allow it to. Yes, the new movies suck out loud and should be dumped into the Sarlacc pit, but we'll always have the original trilogy, and its halcyon memories.

Some of us even have our action figures, so we can recreate that famous scene in Mos Eisley where Han shoots first.

Wil Wheaton picks up all his power converters at Toshi Station.

hey i still love the ewoks!

Hey man, Phantom Menace was a good movie!

Toshi Station: Power Converters

I agree with you about PHANTOM, but I LOVED Revenge of the SITH!!
Clones was weak, but had a couple really cool parts. (the droid factory & the ending 20 min battle).

The re-release of ROTJ - sux0rz. I liked the jub-jub music, personally.

You are spot-on about the original three Star Wars movies. They were a light in our young lives. We were younger and more innocent and hopeful and brave. I don't know that those movies would have had the same effect on me if they had been released just now.

+wf+

When I watch the prequels three things jump to mind. The first is that Lucas got lost in seeing his vision made real via special effects. Second is that there was some wooden acting/dialog which totally destroyed some scenes. We had twenty years to create our own image of the prequels. Perfect recipe for disappointment.

'm not going to lie, i was a little kid and i loved the ewoks. i will say that the one upside to the new star wars movies is that it's pretty much numbed me to the parade of horribles that is the collection of other shitty remakes and reincarnations of things i liked as a child. i'm over it--you want to remake jem and the holograms as a live-action disney channel movie with hannah montana? i don't care. the new and improved muppet show with all voices done by the cast of jackass? fine by me. the neverending story 12 (or whatever they're on now, i stopped at 2) starring that zak efron kid and jamie lynn spears? i'm so not even listening anymore.

andie (molly ringwald's character) in pretty in pink should definitely not have gone for blane (andrew mccarthy's character--blane, seriously?). i always saw that as an essentially tragic high school story, because she could never be happy with blane, but i'm convinced duckie was gay, so even though he harbored a diva-worship for her and loved her as a friend, he couldn't satisfy her either.

(btw i' eagerly await pretty in pink 2: duckie's revenge.)

Phantom Menace wasn't the worse movie I ever saw, but it was definitely the most disappointing. As a kid I was a huge Star Wars nerd, as were most of my friends (one of whom got to be on the Tonight Show with Carson after writing a SW trivia book). The years between movies were long and full of anticipation, and when the prequels were announced, well hell, Lucas could do no wrong, right?

Quite a bit of wrong, as it turned out.

I've not seen the 2nd or 3rd prequel and doubt I ever will. As Colbert might say, they're dead to me. I'll just live the dream and pray, vainly, that whatever Lucas is cooking up for TV won't cause the universe to hang itself in shame.

-TTm

I saw Ep1 and it sucked. I went to Ep2 hoping it would be better. It was worse. Despite all this I still went to Ep3 on opening night.

Thank the gods here in Holland we don't get the crazy crowds of people waiting 18 hours + to go see a movie. I don't think I would have ever been able to live down waiting in line for a movie I knew was going to suck that much.

I'm still unsure which is the bigger disappointment: the SW prequels or the Transformers movie. Or perhaps the D'nD movie... Can someone tell me why I watch so many bad movies?

i sat through one of those lame genre parody movies, "not another teen movie" which was lame, but the kid who played the duckie character nailed it. he was twitchy and gross and hilarious.

the funniest joke in the movie sadly, was the cafeteria named "anthony michael dining hall"

eh they're OK - sorta like a serial with the obvious stereotypes and such - but certainly not mythic like the first one or the first trilogy...

It's certainly obvious that everything after the first movie was made with marketing in mind, altho the last 3 were obviously MUCH more "I want YOUR MONEY!" than the the second and third one - the first one was a labor of love tho...

sigh.

everyone who loves starwars but hasnt seen 'hidden fortress' needs to sut your trap.

Why's that, huh? Leave Kurasawa alone!

My main beef was the redoing of the Greedo killing scene. How the fuck does he miss from two feet away? And all the jokes made possible with CGI. And the changing of the Force into some exercise in eugenics.

oh, it's all on Darth Lucas, actually. lots and lots of Star Wars: ANH was taken from Hidden Fortress. R2 and 3PO are based on the two hapless peasants that get pulled into helping out. General Kenobi is based on Toshiro Mifune's character* (Lucas even wanted him to play the part, originally). they always had the princess with them, but her home had been destroyed by the film's bad guys, still. they're searching for this secret fortress/base from which they will mount a rebellion. and they're secretly carrying the key to fighting back against their foes; granted, it's gold and not the plans to some super weapon, but it's a fictional feudal Japan they're in: gold is how they'll fund their rebellion.

so what he's saying is that Star Wars fans can't complain about how I, II, and III are suck compared to IV, V, and VI unless they've seen Hidden Fortress and realize how IV is a lesser version of Hidden Fortress with laser swords, ray guns, and spaceships. and Chewie. who is the shit.

*: look at Kenobi's robes and those of the jedi in I, II, and III. their high-minded ideals about their place in the universe. how they serve the Chancellor and the people above all else. how all their posessions and equipment are provided by those they serve. the fact that there are a small number of Jedi that protect the masses. their authority to cut down, apprehend, or remove people from power as they see best serves the greater good. and some of the original artwork for the lightsaber handles. Jedi are Space Samurai.

oh, and i forgot to add how Darth Vader looks, especially in the helmet. totally evil Space Samurai going on there. shit, "Darth Vader in feudal Japan" is still the best way to describe Oda Nobunaga to students new to Japanese history.

exactly. people need to understand that empire was the abberation, the one good AND original movie.

however, the first 2 movies would have been totally redeemed for me IF the structure of the third didnt have the vader reveal at the tip end, but had him suited up fairly early, an anti hero who betrays everything in his life slowly and agonizingly, with lots of blood.

i felt cheated out of my vader blood lust.

I think Star Wars provokes that reaction because it's the one thing from childhood that doesn't look completely lame and ridiculous through adult eyes. GI Joe=cool at age 8, now those PSAs are hilarious parody fodder on YouTube. The Empire Strikes Back=cool at age 8 and age 38. That the original trilogy has stood the test of time makes you protective of its "magic"....just my 2 cents.

I think more that Jedi were the ideal of the Samurai code. Service unto death, enlightenment and higher thinking and abilities through diligent training and focus. Some actual samurai were powermongers (at least many of those given their own daimyos to Lord over) who used their positions for political endeavors and luxury off the backs of the peasants who toiled beneath them. A noble pursuit corruption by man's darker natures.

Still Gotta love the prequel lightsaber fights I like the more stylized combat, it's fun to watch. Plus Yoda is a Badass and Mace Windu doesn't need no muthaFUCKIN' lightsaber to take down a battalion of droids.

because you're a nerd and we're a target audience Hollywood has unanimously decided have nothing but low standards for entertainment?

I was coerced into seeing the prequel trilogy, saw the first one opening night, but like everyone else had said that rendered star wars dead to me. At least 2 and 3 had a collective 15 minutes worth watching.. But the only good thing that came from Phantom Menace was Jedi Power Battles on the Playstation.. sad how a movie can be so bad the licensed, underbudgeted video game can steal it's thunder

Really?? Jedi are Space Samurai? I only figured that out when I was 10!!

I'll say something positive about the prequels, they affirm the genius of John Williams and Ben Burtt. The orchestral score carries them as much as the original trilogy. The sound still gives a relentless and indelible sense of place.

Beyond that, well...

Revenge of the Sith has some full on visual poetry by the end, if you can shake off your disgust and tune out Anakin's line readings. The tall ship careening down the burning river into hell was inspired. But those scenes were gestating in Lucas' mind since before he made the first movie.

Then it ends with a noooooooooooooooo!!!

I don't get why ppl hate Phantom. I thought it was fine.

good for you. congradulations on being 12, now, too.