It Might Not Suck !
...you should see this trailer.
For those of us for whom Star Wars is/was/could be a Big Deal, the last decade has been rough. The rumours of the prequels, the sometimes beautiful, sometimes contentious re-releases, the brutal Disneyesque overmarketing, and then the prequels themselves... It's been a ride. A roller-coaster of hopefulness and defensiveness and, well, disappointment -- all of which is made harder by their contrast with the pure feelings we have from childhood about that whole universe.
I was looking at the article I wrote about the final Pursuit of Happiness record, which ended with the hopeful line, "... if Star Wars can end this well, I'll be a happy man." That was written in 1999, before the (mostly) shudderingly crappy Attack of the Clones. Since then I have never dared to think the prequel trilogy might end well. Conversations with friends usually follow hopeless lines such as "Are you going to bother seeing it?" (Yes, of course. If they make a TV show (rumoured) I'll watch that too. But they'll probably suck.)
Well, it's 6 months until the curtain will rise on Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, 6 months until I slink, worried and excited in equal amounts, into the theatre to see what happens with my favourite imaginary world. And I've just seen the trailer online ... and ...
I say this with trepidation. I have been wrong before. But I've just seen the trailer, and I will whisper this message to you from the rooftops of the land: It might not suck.
That's right, I said it: It might not suck! Discrimating Star Wars fans the world over (the loyalists who refuse to give up all hope) are whispering this same message: It might not suck! in the same excited tones as one might have once used to announce that the Beatles were coming to town. After the brutally disappointing, suckass last decade, with its "instant classics" and its annoyingly marketed Box Sets and its revisionist rereleases and its shitty Beatles "reunion" songs and its CNN wars, this is the rallying cry of the not-entirely-jaded, not-completely-bereft-of-belief optimists. It might not suck!
Go see for yourself: the trailer begins with Obi Wan's explanation of what happened to Luke's father, from the first film, the one that was once just called Star Wars, interspersed with footage from the five films that have come out to date. Then we're shown Mr. Vader (remember him!?) rising in shackles at the Emperor's command -- and then Boom! shot after exciting shot of space battles, lightsaber duels, monsters, a hundred Wookies, and a convincingly angry-looking Hayden Christianson trying to kill Ewan McGregor. A brief pause for breath, and then Boom! More! culminating awesomely with the Emperor himself, sharp teeth bared, killing somebody with a lightsaber and a baseball swing! Boom! Boom!
Well. Watch it, and then whisper the message of hope. Keep it close to your heart, and then, in six months, we'll see if we've once again been duped by a Lucas who has often forgotten us, the kids he wrote for at the start of it all -- or whether we were right, Luke, right to have faith...
It might suck, we've known that for years. But: It might not suck. God help us all.
November 2004 by jep, Bad MonkeyX.