the groundhog day project

On Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast from Wired , 21 March 2020, science fiction author Tom Gerencer says, regarding Willow (on the occasion of a reported Willow -related television series for Disney+ ): It wasn't quite up to Star Wars standards... I wasn't 100 percent in love with it, but I didn't think it was completely awful either. The podcast's host, David Barr agreed, adding: Star Wars draws on Flash Gordon, samurai movies, Westerns, and a bunch of other stuff... I feel like Willow pretty much just draws on Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barabarian . I feel like George Lucas wasn't as knowledgeable about--or maybe as passionate about--fantasy. I read that yesterday before turning the movie on and figured I had no use for it. But, given some points I am about to make, I should say, I think Barr is wrong. 1) Star Wars is very much fantasy. It's got wizards. It's got magic. It's got sword fights. It's got monsters. That Lucas base...

And, of course, as I've said with the previous Star Wars films, Return of the Jedi put me on the side of rebellion. The powers that be get a little too authoritarian, you band together and revolt. For the record, I jumped over to watching Return of the Jedi tonight after watching a CNN Town Hall about gun violence and school shootings. [And, throughout much of the film, there was a conversation going on in the next room about a lot of this stuff, too.] Future readers--on Valentine's Day, just one week ago, a 19-year-old expelled high school student returned to his school with a gun and killed 17 students and teachers and wounded 14 others. Surviving students have been rather outspoken, and if you don't know what side of this issue I come down on, you probably have not been following this blog; I do tend to get into political rants from time to time even under the guise of talking about movies because movies are inherently political, even if only to reinforce (or reject...

Kasdan: Her father may have been his mentor... That's why they know each other... So they have a previous relationship through her father. From the transcript of a story conference between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan. Later... Lucas: We have to get them cemented into a very strong relationship. A bond. Kasdan: I like it if they already had a relationship at one point. Because then you don't have to build it. Lazy storytelling, but that's not the problem here. Lucs: I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven. Kasdan: And he was forty-two. Lucas: He hasn't seen her in twelve years. Now she's twenty-two. It's a real strange relationship. Spielberg: She had better be older than twenty-two. Lucas: He's thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve... It would be...

To paraphrase Trent and Mike from Swingers , "VHS baby!" That's right, I've got Star Wars on tonight, finally. And I will be refusing for the purposes of this blog to ever refer to it as "A New Hope" because however much that episode title might have been part of the opening crawl, that is not what we called it back in the day... Did I just say "back in the day"? I should apologize. As I would tell my Public Speaking students, that phrase is vague. What I meant to say was that between the first time I saw Star Wars circa it's time in the theater (maybe when I was just a few months old but I'm guessing months later or the next year in some rerelease; all I know is that when The Empire Strikes Back came out, I knew Star Wars even though I was only four. I dont' actually remember seeing Star Wars for the first time. (Some of the first movies I specifically remember seeing in the theater are Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the ...

Today might not make any sense. Or it might involve insights into filmic structure and the visual tendencies of cinema... especially within the Star Wars films. See, I’m going to watch a video built from all six previous Star Wars films playing at the same time. (I was going to link to it, but to copies have been taken down from YouTube and the site where I’m watching it now might just lose it also. (Oh, just in case .) There is another version that has (present tense—that one has not been taken down) them laying over the top of one another, but it is hard to really look at that one for too long. I tested this one out a few days ago to make sure it wouldn’t be utter chaos. It’s not. Much. Positive thought: without the ability to make out a lot of Lucas’ cheesy dialogue, maybe this will make some of this more awesome. Anyway, here goes. (I’ll keep it simple— The Phantom Menace is ONE, Attack of the Clones is TWO, and so on.) Note: this video uses the “Special Edition” versi...