I have come to a horrible revelation. I have written 25 columns for the Collegian during the last two years and have not made a single Star Wars reference.
To those of you who know me well this should come as a shock. My professors are lucky if a class goes by without me attempting to tie course material to the holy trilogy. My girlfriend is lucky if we can have a dinner without me bringing up how awesome and huge Star Destroyers are.
The general public is lucky if I make it through a day without bellowing a Tusken Raider war cry. To make it through four semesters of column writin' with nary a reference to Lucas' masterwork, well, that's a mighty accomplishment.
So for my final column, I'm going to allow the sizable Star Wars portion of my brain take control of my body and let flow a mighty deluge of space opera-themed material.
We have 19 days until the release of Episode II: Attack of the Clones. OK, I'll admit, Episode I was a disappointment. I saw it seven times in the theaters searching for its good qualities. I truly enjoyed the Jedi Council and the Galactic Senate scenes (please see my majors).
But in the end the film lacked the spirit of the original trilogy and the vitality of the original characters. Not to mention that it was full of hundreds of painfully goofy computer-generated aliens (I'm sure many of you continue to cringe at the mention of Jar Jar Binks).
Many college-aged Star Wars fans felt robbed by Episode I. As a friend put it, his disappointment with Episode I marked the ultimate death of his ability to feel childhood joy.
Yes, such sentiment seems overdramatic to the non-Star Wars fans but as the true fans out there know, the hurt was real.
But mark me; Lucas will not hurt us again. Clones will rock. Anakin is no longer nine years old, Jar Jar has about two minutes of screen time and the Jedi actually get to lay the smack down. Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, fiercely critical of Episode I, was privy to an advanced screening of Clones. Quoth Harry on his advance screening, "I love this film desperately... After the film was finished playing I was just beside myself with glee." Booyah to that I sez.
Clones follows 20-year-old Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker, under the tutelage of Obi-Wan Kenobi, as he guards Senator Padmé Amidala (you know, Natalie Portman's character). Pheromones abound as Anakin and Padmé start the romance that will eventually bring Luke and Leia into being. The love story is set across the backdrop of an immense war to stop a separatist movement that threatens to pull apart the Republic.
Let me repeat, Episode II will rock. This will be the film that brings back those childhood feelings that we through Episode I quashed. We will learn the origins of Boba Fett and see Palpatine's deterioration into becoming the Emperor. We will see clones attack and we will see Yoda fight.
That's right; we will see Yoda fight.
I've been trying to find the didactic hook in my Episode II yarn. Maybe it has something to do with Clones' message about humanity's tenuous relationship with liberty. Lucas, speaking with Time magazine, says that his film is about how democracies devolve. "All democracies turn into dictatorships--but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler."
Certainly this could be a good way to makes Clones applicable to modern times. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, so many of us were more than willing to give President Bush whatever powers necessary to ensure our safety. This absolutely mirrors the war in Clones, where the Republic gives Supreme Chancellor Palpatine whatever powers necessary to quell the separatist movement.
These initial powers grow and fester, until the Republic is unrecognizable and has become the Empire that we see in the original Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. "It isn't that the Empire conquered the Republic," says Lucas, "it's that the Empire is the Republic."
Or maybe the link is in Episode II's treatment of human cloning. In order to fight the separatists, Palpatine commissions the creation of a clone army. Does Clones ask our society to tread carefully with cloning by presenting an allegory where human beings have become expendable war supplies?
What is Episode II: Attack of the Clones? A geopolitical warning? A bioethical admonition?
It could be neither. It could be both. But its allegorical nature means nothing if it does not bring about one thing--that feeling of childhood joy that once so permeated all things Star Wars for so many of us.
This has been a tough year at Penn State.
We've had to cope as a community with a national tragedy beyond comparison. We've had to mourn as a community for the loss of too many of our fellow students. In so many ways, the 2001-2002 school year has left us emotionally drained.
If Episode II can show us that we still can feel childhood joy, that we are still capable of a welling of childish giddiness, then its importance as a film cannot be underestimated.
May the Force be with us.
