• About this, that and the next thing

The Ox

~ Short stories, real ales and fine finger food

The Ox

Tag Archives: Non-Fiction

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace of May 1999. Episode Five

07 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by patblack in Film, Media, Movies, Non-fiction, Pat Black

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1999, Culture, Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Movies, Natalie Portman, Non-Fiction, Palpatine, Prequels, Star Wars, The Phantom Menace

Darthy

Takes years off you, honest

The prequels and wider culture, debugged:

The prequels’ worst crime was to become a template for how popular culture would unfold into the 21st century. We are still suffering from their effects today.

They were terrible movies – yes, even Revenge of the Sith; stop kidding yourselves! – but they made some very serious money. Even today, there’s probably tickertape showing you how much these movies continue to rake in for the producers on a daily basis.

It’s our own fault. Even after Attack of the Clones – which was arguably even worse than The Phantom Menace – we still went back to this terrible franchise, its popularity unabated. We bought the books and toys and video games. We indoctrinated our children into it; non-discerning younglings who didn’t know any better, doomed to repeat our mistakes.

Producers and accountants took careful note. This proved beyond dispute that the quality of the end product didn’t matter, even if the film was a steaming turd. The bottom line was that if you had a pre-existing concept, with an in-built, loyal fan base, then it didn’t matter what you fed them – they’d consume it, in great numbers, and then come back for more.

We can see this manifest in the cameos issue, where some characters get walk-on parts to service fans’ desire to see them. It’s why we saw Chewbacca’s pointless appearance in Revenge of the Sith. It’s why R2D2 and C3PO were shoe-horned into the plot in the first place. Although some wonderful creatures and locations were designed, all three films were falling over each other to reference what had gone before instead of going their own way.

This is now endemic in our marquee movie culture. The Spider-Man movies were made, and then rebooted, in the space of just 10 years. Same story, played out again, with different actors. The same thing is happening with Batman, who is being rebooted despite the Christopher Nolan trilogy having a definitive ending (about the only bit he got totally right in The Dark Knight Rises).

It’s as if they think we’re stupid.

…Are we stupid?

Astonishingly, Peter Jackson made the same mistake as Lucas with his Hobbit movies – nothing like as bad as the Star Wars prequels, but nowhere near as involving as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, either. The Hobbit films, too, are falling over themselves to cram in references to characters we know, outside the framing of Tolkien’s original text. Legolas appears, although his character seems to be totally different to the one we know. Incredibly, the special effects were worse in many places.

Lord of the Rings felt like a banquet; The Hobbit feels like a binge.

Brand recognition is the key. It’s hard to launch a big movie without it these days – and turkeys like John Carter and The Lone Ranger, based on more obscure properties, have not helped.

Think back to the movies that were coming out 30 years ago in comparison. Ghostbusters… Back to the Future… Beverley Hills Cop… The Terminator… all original properties, all massive hits, all excellent films. Where is this generation’s Ghostbusters? Will a studio take a chance on an unproven tentpole movie again? You could make a case for Avatar, but it has James Cameron’s stamp across it; much like new property from Spielberg, that imprimatur means it’s guaranteed some financial backing and a turnout at the box office, come what may.

Even new movies with heretofore unseen elements on the big screen come with added brand recognition. Twilight was already entrenched in teenage girls’ culture long before the movies came out. I’d never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy, but it has the Marvel stamp on it, and that universe will tie in with the Avengers and all those other comic book guys. Godzilla, yet another reboot, has both feet firmly planted in popular culture across the globe.

A recent article on the BBC by Adam Curtis showed that there may be an economic reason for this stuttering phenomenon in mainstream entertainment. We can understand why a corporation would seek to make its risk as near zero as possible; but this is manifest in individuals, too. People not only enjoy this VHS-style “re-record and repeat” phenomenon, but actively seek it. It’s a cultural comfort blanket.

Curtis reminds us that the Blackrock computer programme analyses what’s gone before in culture or politics, and makes predictions based on that past knowledge – but this completely removes the factors which resulted in things like Star Wars making it out of some nerd’s brain and onto a cinema screen in the first place: inspiration and imagination.

We have all the creativity in the world, but nothing new gets created, because that would be unsafe for producers and consumers. So, what you get are retreads of what you already know. It’s safer that way, for us as consumers, and for the powers that be in government, entertainment, or wherever.

That’s why, in time, Keanu Reeves will make another Matrix film. That’s why Eddie Murphy will do Beverly Hills Cop again. You’d better believe that’s why we’re getting a new Star Wars. It’s the same with music. U2, the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Springsteen, AC/DC… bands whose heyday was 30 years and more ago, and yet they are still the biggest draw in the digital age.

Where is this generation’s Rolling Stones? Where is its Star Wars?

Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end… here’s the beginning.

And it ends right here.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace of May 1999. Episode One

01 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by patblack in Film, Media, Movies, Non-fiction, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Ewan McGregor, George Lucas, Jedi, Memoir, Natalie Portman, Non-Fiction, Obi-Wan, Oh God the Prequels, Qui-Gon Jinn, Samuel L Jackson, Sith, Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, The Prequels, Yoda

Darth closeup

Oh, is there a new Star Wars movie due out?

I’ve got lots to say about Star Wars. It feels like it’s in my DNA. Not everything in one’s DNA is good, of course…

Here’s something I wrote about Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It was just kicking around my computer. There’s a lot of it, so I’ll make it a series.

It can be read as a warning as The Force Awakens approaches… And perhaps, a wee celebration, too. It’s Star Wars, for Zuckuss’ sake! 

None of us had mobile phones. The organisation had to be done in a way which must seem like smoke signals to today’s 15-year-olds. Our data travelled by landline, and our social lives were marshalled by making note of times and dates, and sticking to them.

Roughly speaking.

We had to memorise whole telephone numbers. Sometimes we even resorted to putting coins in public phone boxes. None of us turned into Superman in these booths, though the thought did cross my mind from time to time.

One of my friends, the biggest sci-fi fan I know, was especially tense a couple of days beforehand. “We’re doing this by the numbers,” he said, finger pointed, glaring. “If anyone’s late, we’re not waiting.”

The rest of us sneered at this, in that way only lads in their early 20s can, but he was on the right lines. Time was a critical factor.

It was exceptionally difficult to get tickets for The Phantom Menace in the first few days of its release. When the movie finally arrived, on Wednesday May 19th 1999, it was sold out at most evening screenings the length of the city – and all its satellites. I know; I checked. We could only get tickets for a showing on the Tuesday night afterwards in the cinema nearest our home town, a situation which even now seems ludicrous.

I cannot think of any other film that was more hyped in my lifetime.

As the release date came and went, it became tortuous, waiting at our workplaces or places of study, knowing that the movie was being screened everywhere; that millions of people had already seen it… and yet, we had to wait.

The internet was already around and spewing spoilers, of course, but I wasn’t yet well versed in the world of movie websites like aintitcool.com and CHUD. I was on a dial-up internet connection at my dad’s house on a computer I had paid £1,000 for, and AOL hadn’t yet started charging a one-off monthly fee for internet use. After the first eye-watering phone bill, I’d restricted my time online accordingly.

Work for me was still a wall-to-wall grind from 8am to 4pm, with little time spare for screwing around online – something we take for granted now, but a novelty back then, and seen as a real risk to your job if you got caught. My personal email of choice was Excite. There are teenagers on the internet now who will not know what Excite was. Sometimes I wonder if my account is still out there, collecting spam in cyberspace much as junk slowly accrues in orbit around the Earth.

One benefit to this old-school network set-up was that I’d managed to stay relatively spoiler-free. That was, until a well-meaning but goofy lad in my office blundered in on Saturday May 22nd, cheeks bright red with spring sunshine, and maybe something else.

“Oh, Star Wars – it’s great, absolutely brilliant. Have you seen it yet?”

“No, mate.”

“You’ll love it, absolutely love it. There’s some great lightsabre fights in it.”

“Ah, great. I’m going on Tuesday. Looking forward to it.”

He paused. I thought he had digested this information. But then he licked his lips, and continued: “There’s this one bit, right, where Obi-Wan and Darth Maul are fighting, and Obi-Wan chops…”

I was literally out of my seat, hand held out as if to Force-clamp his fat trap; or perhaps simply to strangle him the analogue way.

“For fuck’s sake!” I bellowed, snapping up heads all around the office. “Aren’t you listening? I said I haven’t seen it yet!”

Even I had to admit I was starting to take this Star Wars business a bit seriously. But then, Star Wars has always been a serious business.

Episode two? It’s right here.

Recent Posts

  • My Boris Johnson fantasy
  • Interview: Matthew Harffy
  • Interview: Ger Hogan
  • The Family – the thriller of the year, out now!
  • Interview: Lisa Hobman

Archives

  • December 2019
  • August 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • December 2018
  • August 2017
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • March 2015
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • May 2012

Categories

  • 365
  • Alcohol
  • Authors
  • Books
  • Chick-Lit
  • Christmas
  • Crime
  • Crime fiction
  • Debut novel
  • Drama
  • Drink
  • Drinking
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Film
  • Flash fiction
  • Food
  • Food and Drink
  • Halloween
  • Historical fiction
  • Horror
  • Interview
  • Iron Maiden
  • Jaws
  • Journalists
  • Licensed Trade
  • Literature
  • Locked room mystery
  • Media
  • Memoir
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Mystery
  • Noir
  • Non-fiction
  • Novels
  • Pat Black
  • Politics
  • Pop culture
  • Post-apocalyptic
  • Pubs
  • Reviews
  • science fiction
  • Short Stories
  • Short Story
  • Spoken Word
  • Sport
  • Suckerpunch
  • This Thing You Humans Call Love
  • Uncategorized
  • Werewolves
  • Writing
  • Zombies

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy