Star Wars

This is a pretty spiffy day.

• The Phoenix landed safely and is already sending back amazing photos.
• Clayton Kershaw had his major league debut for the Dodgers, and while he didn’t get the win, he acquitted himself quite well, and the Dodgers wound up winning in the 10th inning off of Andre Ethier’s first career walkoff hit. Luis Maza also hit his first career homerun.
• This is Towel Day, honoring Douglas Adams, the hoopiest frood ever.
• It is the one-year anniversary of my epic Star Wars Day marathon.
• It also marks the beginning of a one-year countdown to the even-more-epic Alien vs Predator Saga movie marathon in 2009.

Fresh off last year’s successful Star Wars Day movie marathon, it occurred to us that an Alien vs Predator universe marathon would also be awesome. Between the Alien movies, Predator movies, and the crossovers, there are eight films, so it would require either an earlier start, or a multi-day commitment.

The first question is what order to watch them in:

by movie release date…

• Alien (1979)
• Aliens (1986)
• Predator (1987)
• Predator 2 (1990)
• Alien 3 (1992)
• Alien Resurrection (1997)
• Alien vs Predator (2004)
• Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

or by timeline…

• Predator
• Predator 2
• Alien vs Predator*
• Aliens vs Predator: Requiem
• Alien
• Aliens
• Alien 3
• Alien Resurrection

* Contains flashbacks to early visits by the Predators, but the main story line places it here.

(See also Alien and Predator Timeline.)

My inclination, as it was for the Star Wars marathon, is the latter: by timeline.

The next question is when to hold the marathon. Again, with Star Wars, I declared Star Wars Day as May 25th, which in 2007 was the 30th anniversary of the release of the original film.

Coincidentally, May 25th, 2009, will mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Alien, the first picture in the AvP universe. This gives me enough time to amass all the DVDs. Actually, I think I have the first three Alienses already, so I’m ahead of the game…unless I decide to get the Alien Quadriology set. ;)

So, more to come.

Impressions from the sixth movie. Just in case you’ve managed to not see the movies, here be spoilers:

At last, the circle is complete. Having watched all six films in one fell swoop this past day, you see the hexology being the story of Anakin Skywalker’s rise, fall, and redemption, expanding beyond the characters of Episodes IV-VI.

And one of the great thematic threads is highlighted again:

Luke: “Your overconfidence is your weakness.”

The Emperor: “Your faith in your friends is yours.”

Also:

• Luke coming into his own, the first young Jedi Knight to make an appearance in some time, since they were all killed in III. Strong and confident in his powers.
• I want to believe Boba Fett made it out of the Sarlaac after everybody left.
• In 1983, a great moment after three years of waiting for Han to thaw from the carbonite, akin to what happened between Star Trek II and III, waiting to (hopefully) see Spock.
• Speeder bikes! Better yet: speeder bikes in a giant forest! Better still: speeder bikes in a giant forest battle!
• I remember being wide-eyed by the sheer number of TIE Fighters swarming toward the screen as the Rebel Fleet approached the new Death Star, a moment which doesn’t make as much sense with all the additional ships added in the special edition Episodes IV and V. Space was a lot less crowded in the originals. Juxtapose those with the beginning of Episode III especially.
• Anybody who thinks the Ewoks were too cutesy must have missed the part where they were going to eat everybody.
• The scenes in the Emperor’s throne room with him, Vader, and Luke were tense, almost claustrophobic. Even knowing how things would end, the internal struggles of both Luke and his father are readily apparent.

Here we are, some 19 hours later — I was the only one of the three of us who made it all the way through, although both Denyse and Hans watched large swaths of all of them. Oh, and Pharaoh the Standard Poodle kept me company quite a bit, mostly sleeping. ;)

No grand philosophical conclusions or other intellectual attempts at the moment, as I’m tired after the day, and we have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow. Suffice to say, a wonderful time that lived up to my anticipations.

Hopefully you have a chance to duplicate the experience yourself someday, if you’re a fan. Oh, and by the way:

May the Force be with you.

Impressions from the fifth movie. Just in case you’ve managed to not see the movies, here be spoilers:

The hands-down favorite of all six according to most surveys, including the Celsius1414 poll. Darkest of the second trilogy (though perhaps not the darkest of all six), with much to recommend it.

• Ice Planet Hoth! Snowtroopers! AT-AT Walkers! Snowspeeders!
• I made more than a few cents selling accurate line drawings of AT-ATs to my fellow 8th graders. ;)
• Training on Dagobah, Luke confronting the Dark Side.
• After the X-Wing is lifted out of the swamp… Luke: “I don’t believe it!” Yoda: “That is why you fail.”
• One of the best movie lines ever, by Darth Vader: “Apology accepted, Captain Needa.”
• Everything that can go wrong does — Luke is lost in the ice world, the Rebel Base is found and attacked, the Millennium Falcon is all but useless until the very end. Luke’s losing his arm, finding out who Vader truly was, that Ben had lied to him, and his choosing his friends over his training.
• Back in the day, I remember after the third time of the Falcon’s hyperdrive failing, I could physically feel the frustration. And when it finally worked…phew! You feel exhausted after this movie.
• Han and Leia’s burgeoning romance. Another great bit of dialogue — Leia: “I love you.” Han: “I know.” as he is lowered into the carbonite chamber.
• Boba Fett! I forgot to mention his cameo at the end of the additional Jabba the Hutt scene in Episode IV.
• The sly and smooth Lando, betraying his “friends,” but saving them in the end as his deal falls through.

I think the DVD player is overheating as we start Episode VI — it was showing signs of overexertion during IV. We may have to switch to watching VI on the computer instead. Either that or our communications are being jammed by the Empire.

There’s something I’d like to explore more later about how the Force folks (Jedi and Sith) screwed things up for the Republic and everybody else. ;)

Impressions from the fourth movie. Just in case you’ve managed to not see the movies, here be spoilers:

• This is the one that started it all. I can’t help thinking of my Aunt Ann, who took me to see this at the drive-in theater in 1977. I was eight, and you can imagine the impression it made on me. We’d gone to the mall before the movie and I’d gotten a copy of the novelization, which I devoured once I got back to my aunt’s house. My mind was buzzing — I can easily travel back to that time and reinhabit the moment with my eight-year-old self.
• The classic, mostly improved in this special edition save for one particularly egregious moment that will go unremarked. (COUGH-Greedo-COUGH!)…except this is the newest release, with both versions available. Thank goodness.
• It wouldn’t be Star Wars without the Cantina Band — Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes.
• Also, they really should’ve given Chewie a medal.
• Despite the retroactive nature of things, it’s an entertaining exercise ascribing memories and motivations to Obi-Wan and Darth Vader based on the previous movies today.

More on this topic later, but I see no disparity between this and the newer movies — one of the main bones of contention with the haters is how bad the acting and storylines are in the newer movies. There is not that much difference to me, apart from the special effects of course. This is not high art, nor are they supposed to be. These are pulp movies, perhaps the most elaborate and well-done pulp movies ever made.

I love pulp movies. I loved the childhood Saturday morning movies (once matinee serials) that these Star Wars were tributes to. This and another absolute favorite of mine are love songs to the past. Are there problems with them all? Certainly. But if you spend all your time trying to find every flaw and inconsistency, you will lose the greater whole. What was it Emerson said? “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

Next: Hoth!