I read the news today, oh droid . . .

My initial reaction to today’s announced sale of Lucasfilm to Disney was:

No. . . . Noooooooooo!!!!!!

Apparently not content with buying Captain America, Disney now must also acquire Captain Needa!

Not to mention that I’ve grown rather fond of George Lucas’s seemingly annual refreshes to the original trilogy every time there’s a rerelease on disc or on the big screen. You know – Greedo shoots first, Ghost Anakin is now Hayden, Vader cries “No!” It keeps the movies evergreen, as if they never really ended. Does this mean that the movies will now and forever remain frozen in carbonite?

I’m sure numerous fantasy crossovers have already sprouted up in the Twitterverse; personally, I’ve so far heard:

“Darth Sidious to join the cast of Once Upon a Time.” This is shameful in every conceivable way, and would considerably cheapen the Sidious brand. It would also put to rest any ambition that Once Upon a Time might have had of actually becoming its own brand, rather than just a clumsy mish-mash of Disney tropes.

“Darth Vader in Kingdom Hearts.” This could work. But would it be Vader, the thoroughly evil scourge of the galaxy, or the redemptive Vader at the climax of Return of the Jedi?

“Darth Vader princess outfits.” I don’t really understand this one.

Next thing you know, Ariel and King Triton will be visiting Boss Nass in Otoh Gunga, Herbie the Love Bug will be resurrected as a pod racer (Ocho Quadinaros?), and the Tomorrowland Terrace eatery will start serving Jango Fettucine with “Boba” tea.

My best crack at a crossover would see a Jar Jar Binks “plush toy” join forces with Buzz Lightyear and Woody in a space opera Toy Story 4. (Ahmed Best to reprise his voice and motion capture role.) In fact, with Buzz and Woody playing the roles of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, respectively, I could see Pixar making a passable “Toy Story as Phantom Menace” hybrid remake. Meesa cannot wait!!!

Reports of an impending Episode VII, followed by new movies every few years (even after a “sequel trilogy” of VII-VIII-IX is complete) smack alarmingly of crass commercialism. And the press release begins ominously by announcing that this acquisition is all part of a grand Disney “strategy.”

But then again, maybe this has been a long time coming. After all, Star Tours opened at Disneyland in 1987, and these two titans have been friends (never rivals) for a long time. Moreover, being inundated by the products of these two companies in childhood actually inculcated in me all my lifelong values. I learned about chivalry from The Sword in the Stone, justice from Robin Hood, humility from Cinderella, honesty (and terror, though that’s more a feeling than a value) from Pinocchio, whimsy from Alice in Wonderland, compassion from Beauty and the Beast, friendship from The Fox and the Hound, and most importantly, I learned how to make a man out of me from Mulan.

From Star Wars, I learned the difference between good and bad, and that you always have a choice between the two.

And if nothing else, perhaps at least one dream comes closer to reality: Disney's California Adventure theme park can finally convert its Soarin' Over California ride into Strafing Over Hoth: When AT-ATs Attack. Yes, you want that.

Sometimes a patriot

This is my 51st blog post, and but for an eleventh-hour substitution, it would have been the 50th. If that had come to pass, here is how it would have gone:

This is my 50th blog post. I thought this day would have come quite a bit sooner, but it comes now, and I want to post something special. Something classy and respectable, and that best represents the magnanimous spirit of Czardoz Contra World.

Behold, a goat peeing:

As Paul Harvey would say, now let’s hear “the rest of the story.” I spotted this enchanting tableau at Comic-Con this year, on a congested intersection in the heart of the convention’s splash zone (by which I mean, where the Con’s largesse splashes over onto the streets of downtown San Diego). The goat was one of an unholy trinity of protestors calling for the abolition of Anaheim, specifically in reference to our northern neighbor’s attempts to pilfer Comic-Con from us, but perhaps in general terms as well.

I hope all this talk of Comic-Con leaving San Diego for Anaheim or LA or wherever is all smoke and mirrors. The Con is the cultural touchstone of San Diego, and the city needs this event much more than the alleged wooers. Anaheim has Disneyland. LA has Hollywood, among other splendors. Vegas has . . . Vegas versions of Paris, New York, Ancient Rome, the South Seas, and more magicians than you could fit into a clown car.

Lest anyone think this is purely a local issue, one municipality against another, I must remind you that this is a matter of national gravity, nay, of patriotism. This point is driven home by no less than the greatest patriot, Captain America:

Though Cap is looking about as plush as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man these days, his point is well made.

This controversy actually reminds me a lot of the Lebron James debacle in Cleveland. I’ve been to Cleveland. I’ve seen President Garfield’s coffin lying in the crypt of the exquisite Garfield Monument. I’ve admired Tiffany’s denim jacket at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’ve stood in the footsteps of the concertmaster at Severance Hall and gazed from his perspective at the podium where George Szell once conducted the Cleveland Orchestra.

So yes, I know that Cleveland has its place in the world. But that place is not at the top of a jetsetter’s hitlist. And if I were some young buck (or cavalier, for that matter) with a bright present, I wouldn’t expect a very bright future staying in a town like Cleveland.

Lebron is just a dude, of course. Comic-Con is an institution, and, like the office of President, it’s much bigger than any one man. But even though I can understand the arguments for moving – the bigger convention space, the proximity to Hollywood, the proximity to Disneyland, for Goofy’s sake! – the loss of Comic-Con would leave a cultural void in San Diego far bigger than the bankruptcy of the San Diego Symphony in 1996, bigger than the loss of K-BEST 95 – the only oldies radio station in town and yet to be replaced, bigger even than the death of Dr. Seuss.

Yes, I understand that this is a crum-bum town in which I reside, and when the Namor-reading nerdlinger grows up to be Tobey Maguire or some kind of expensive Hobbit crap, he needs to spread his wings and fly to a bigger toilet. Hell, I did it myself once upon a time.

So no hard feelings on my end. But Comic-Con, if you really do leave, just don’t think for a second that the gasping culture junkies you leave behind in this wasteland will forget that you pulled the plug on their life support.

Long live the Con!

Who says you have to get inside Comic-Con to have a good time? Here’s what I saw on the outside looking out, walking around in front of the Convention Center and strolling the Gaslamp.

The Milieu

For a few blissful days every summer, Comic-Con turns the Gaslamp District into a veritable tent city of Amazons, Voltrons, Superfriends, orcs, wizards (both pinball and Hogwartian), spiky-haired Japanophiles, Sailor Scouts (yes, they still exist), keyblade-slingers, Pokemon trainers, X-Maniacs, Jedi Knights and other sad devotees of ancient religions – all wearing matching lanyards and packing grossly oversized swag bags.

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The San Diego Convention Center, home of Comic-Con, has fitful dreams, talks in its sleep: “Must . . . grow . . . bigger! Accommodate . . . more . . . vendors! Keep . . . the Con . . . local!”

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Comic-Con is the one event that makes downtown San Diego feel like the hub of a city that is more than a zoo and some beaches. And somehow, it does this by transforming skyscrapers into gargantuan video game posters.

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Yes, more posters!

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Trolley signs in Klingon = a brilliancy! True or False: Klingons hail from the planet Klingonigon!

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It turns out that Skyline is a movie about people floating up into the sky, hence the little white bubble-men in this frame.

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Yeah! Bubble-Man!

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The Denizens

Don’t bears already have enough of an advantage without toting machine-guns as well?

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Now hold the phone there, Michael Eisner. Something’s not quite right about these Disney princesses. I mean, come on, where’s Tiana???

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Mob scene: a crowd hoping to catch Dragon Age 2 blow-up spears tossed from a balcony. Seriously.

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Now isn’t that adorable? It’s a Wonder . . . boy . . . bun . . .?

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Girl with platinum hair and rabbit ears. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

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Before all those bad dreams started, Freddy Krueger was just another carefree kid reading Dick Tracy and kicking it with a Milhouse.

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Ah, the classic “girl being ogled by sleazy dudes” photo. A timeless set piece.

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Hahaha, some of you will get this joke. You perverts know who you are.

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Will someone please give her a cookie, a tiara, and a box full of gold stars?

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Walking among this elbow-to-elbow mess of exuberant humanity, and having cosplayed once myself, I was happy to see how many people had donned costumes (both homemade and store-bought), painted themselves, built accessories, stretched their imaginations to come up with something unfamiliar, and posed proudly for photos.

And then I became convinced of something. These wizards’ robes, metal brassieres, horns, lightsabers, princess gowns, all manner of animal furs – these were not the costumes. These represent something real about what these people care about. No, the costume is that fashion-challenged, mother-approved school attire that these chaperoned kids go back to when Comic-Con ends. The costume is that ill-fitting work shirt and suffocating necktie that the guy in the head-to-toe Vader outfit returns to after he takes his bag of newly bought action figures home.

The costume is that attitude we put on that says we’re okay with the life of workaday monotony, where we have to act like we don’t really know all that much about the things we value most, where we pretend that, yes, those are just little hobbies that we have, those comics, those games, those movie trailers that we wait hungrily for, or maybe it’s music or dancing or poetry or even Latin grammar, mirabile dictu! This is the stuff that makes people distinctive, and it’s the stuff they do when they are being who they want to be.

O Captain! My Captain!

For those of you who were looking for a reason to spring for that Disneyland 2fer ticket, behold:

After a 13-year absence, Captain EO returned to Disneyland yesterday, February 23, for what is described as a “limited engagement,” though some sources report that the stay will be indefinite. Good riddance to Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which this replaces.

I saw Captain EO more than once when I was a kid, and I remember not one jot of detail from it. But when news of Michael Jackson’s death broke back in June, one of the first stray thoughts that moonwalked into my mind was, “I wonder if they’ll bring back Captain EO at last.” What? You didn’t wonder the same thing?

Where no moviegoer has gone before

I’m sure everyone with a television or Internet access or friends who talk has heard of James Cameron’s Avatar by now, which alone indicates a greenback-laden future for the movie. But as far as its grandiloquent claims of changing the way movies are made and even being “something we’ve never seen before,” I’m skeptical. With its release just a few days away, I’ll tempt fate and say that it doesn’t look like the game-changer it’s touted as. Not that it doesn’t look like a good, fun movie. I mean, tall, skinny cat/goat people sure beat the second breakfast out of Hobbits. But for Avatar to really be the movie I’ve never seen but always wanted to see even without knowing it, it would probably have to be something like a Star Wars-style epic narrative delivered through the immersive atmosphere of the Soarin' Over California ride at Disney’s California Adventure theme park. And I don’t mean a juiced-up version of Star Tours. That would be nice, but without visionary storytelling to quicken it, it would just be a nice theme park ride.

Cameron’s the guy who brought us a Universal Studios stage show “sequel” to his film, Terminator 2, so it’s no stretch to think that he might like to bring a bit of that theme park scale to the big screen. I’m not necessarily saying that the next big leap in feature films has to include staged stunts and live explosions, or that your seating area has to lift you off the ground and fly you over the screen. Though all that might constitute a real leap, none of it would be reproducible on your couch/flat-screen setup, and it’s unlikely that technology that further separates the movie theater and the home theater would replace movies as they exist now. But if Avatar aspires to be a turning point in the very nature of cinema, it will have to be much more than Dances With Wolves meets Ferngully, shot with a camera that costs more than most McMansions.

If we’re lucky, we’ll come out of Avatar having seen merely a great movie. And that wouldn’t be so bad, except for Cameron, who may really believe that he’s bringing us into a brave new world of moviegoing.

Happiness is a warm . . . pun?

“What kind of gun do you want?” the helpful militia man behind the case asked. I had been enlisted on an outing to a shooting range, and I entered the facility with an eager queasiness in my innards. I deferred to my companion and her superior knowledge of firearms, consisting of one previous visit to a shooting range. She responded, “What’s your smallest gun?”

“A .22.” he said. “What’s the next one up?” she asked.

The clerk pulled out an all-black handgun with the name, Walther P99, on it. It looked like every gun I had ever seen in any FBI vs. terrorists TV drama (other common variants are FBI vs. aliens, FBI vs. drug lords, FBI vs. rogue FBI, etc.).

Despite the saturation of gun images in our media culture, I had never shot a gun nor seen one shot live. In my boyhood, I played with BB guns, firing copper beads, then later lead pellets as my tastes became more sophisticated, at paper targets, aluminum cans, glass bottles (not wise, considering the invariable danger of collapsing into sharp fragments), and even to put the fear of God into the hearts of small birds that crowded my mother’s backyard garden. Air rifles worked better than scarecrows, in my experience.

BB guns embodied my childish fantasy of the outdoors and rugged manhood, but they could not convey any of the seriousness of firing a real gun, which is what I expected and feared to find at the shooting range.

Along with the gun and two bags of 9mm luger rounds, we were issued earmuffs. TV shootouts make for a misleading representation of the skull-shattering noise level of real gunfire. Even with the muffs on, each shot from the chaps on either side of me was loud enough to ripple through my chest and come out through my nostrils, leaving me slightly unsteady each time, as though I were standing during minor temblors.

I was surprised at how hard it was to load the bullets into the magazine, which was essentially a cruel-looking, headless, metal Pez dispenser, with bullets for candy. They had to go in one at a time, from the top down, pushing against an unyielding spring. I’m sure my soft poet’s hands would perform the operation quite dexterously with practice, but my first tries were clumsy affairs, trying to push and slide the bullets into the magazine, frustrated by how they resisted, how they seemed determined to pop back out. In other words, almost as hard as getting those candy tablets into a Pez dispenser.

The basic loading procedure involves pulling back the slide, inserting the magazine into the handle, then snapping the slide shut with the press of a button, whereupon the gun is ready to be fired. The Walther P99 is a semi-automatic, meaning that after each shot, it ejects the spent, still-warm casing and loads up the next round from the magazine. As a funny side note, the spent shells are ejected from the right side of the gun, typically spitting out right and down. However, as I was shooting, the occasional shell would pop out directly backward and glance off my shoulder. I even saw a shell bounce out toward the left somehow when my companion was shooting.

After you’ve taped your paper target to a piece of cardboard attached to the conveyer mechanism, you press a button that sends the conveyer hurtling away from you, as far away as you want the target to be. The target shows a roughly life-size outline of a man’s upper body, with various vital organs identified. (I tagged the cerebrum and cerebellum early on, but never was able to pierce the tiny gall bladder.) I was impressed at some of the more creative paper targets people brought from home, including one that featured a swarthy, vaguely Latin-American-looking illustrated guerilla in a beret, gripping a lily white blond girl as a human shield.

In almost all respects, the actual shooting was unlike what I had expected. First of all, if you ever go shooting with something bigger than a BB gun, hold the damn thing tight. Though I’m sure it’s a cooing baby in the hands of some of these muscle-bound gun nuts, in my hands, the Walther kicked like a mule on Viagra. On my first shot, I felt both arms tossed high above my head, wriggling like giant gummy worms. I learned my lesson, but even with acute concentration throughout the rest of my session, the shots still bucked my arms upward each time.

Second of all, one eye or two? My companion insisted it was “lame” to close one eye when aiming, à la TV faux-cool shooters. But one-eye shooting had never failed me on the cans and bottles circuit. I tried it both ways with the Walther, and met with distressingly inconsistent results. One minute, I was sure that two eyes were better than one; the next minute, it seemed like two eyes made my vision blurry.

Which brings me to a related problem. Maybe I’m just getting old, or maybe the noise and smell of gunpowder and shells were getting to me, but I couldn’t keep my vision focused when looking through the gun’s sights. The smell, in fact, acrid with oily metal, burnt smoke, and unshaven men (and women), is probably what made me dizzy, so much so that I eventually cashiered myself into the viewing gallery, rather than finish my bag of ammo.

Third, this is a handgun, not a sniper rifle, so I expected there might be some diminished precision, even compared to my BB gun. But I didn’t expect that once the target was about 20 feet out, it was impossible to hit the body part I was aiming at. Hell, it became hard even to hit any part of the target. In this respect, TV has it right (sometimes). Any time you see a guy on Chuck or Prison Break shooting repeatedly at another guy about ten feet away and missing badly, and you wonder, “Why can’t he hit someone that close?” – well, the reason is: it’s freaking hard. And my targets weren’t even moving.

The thing I most expected this activity to be was the one thing it was not: fun. Even though I was nervous about shooting a gun, I thought the experience would be . . . cool. I was surprised to find that firing a gun conveyed none of the thrill that is popularly believed to accompany the activity. It’s often said that shooting ranges are good for relieving stress (akin to punching a bag), or that shooting offers visceral excitement and feelings of power. None of this was true for me. I found the whole experience more stressful than anything, certainly not a way to relax or have a good time, and at no time did I think to myself, “Man, I feel more powerful than ever!”

That’s not to say that this was a wasted experience. Though I didn’t find it fun, I was glad I tried it, because it helped me appreciate the reality of guns, beyond the fictional representations, which really are largely fantasies. I am reminded of what Thoreau wrote about guns and boyhood:

We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature, which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.

- Thoreau, Walden