It’s a trap!

If I picked one film director per day and discussed why he wouldn’t be a good fit for Star Wars: Episode VII, I probably wouldn’t get very far before the actual director is announced. Yes, the rumor mill seems to indicate that the announcement is imminent. So maybe I’ll just do a run-down of every director I can think of, with brief comment. I should note that almost every big name in Hollywood has appeared in the rumors, but it’s perhaps the few who haven’t come up who are most interesting. And a caveat: I honestly don’t think any known director is really a match for the Star Wars universe, but this doesn’t mean I don’t respect their work; I’ve just never seen a movie and thought, yeah, this guy should direct Star Wars some day.

Self-recused

Steven Spielberg – Would have been a practical, easy choice. He’s Lucas’s best compadre, the biggest name around, a lock at the box office, comfortable with huge productions, and yet I’m incredibly glad that we won’t see the Spielbergian Star Wars, a jaunty caper full of extreme close-ups, broken homes, and way too many little kids with chips on their shoulders.

Quentin Tarantino – No one could seriously want this, right? Least of all Tarantino himself.

Occasional mention

James Cameron – The Terminator and Terminator 2 are classics, but where the hell did this guy’s brain go when he made Avatar? Does having a bunch of kids really ruin a man this thoroughly? Anyway, he’ll be making sequels to Avatar for the rest of his working life (and when is True Lies 2 coming out?), so sadly, he’ll be too busy to take on another big project.

Christopher Nolan – This one puzzles me most, because of the fervor of his supporters contrasted with the utter inappropriateness of his style. To Nolan’s great credit, he actually has a style. But that brooding, mind-bending labyrinth, with its abundance of weighty dialogue and obsession with suffering as a catalyst for action – does it really scream “Star Wars” to anyone?

Zack Snyder – Reportedly not interested in the job. What a shame. Now we’ll never get to see a lightsaber duel that starts with a super slow-mo shot of both combatants sword-swinging with faces locked in “scream mode,” followed by a hyperkinetic three seconds of laser-grinding saber contact, going back to slow-mo as a Jedi somersault leaps into the air, all against a stark two-color background shot through a dirty lens filter.

Alfonso Cuaron – He made the third Harry Potter movie, which was a good one. But so what?

Heavily favored by press and fanboys

Matthew Vaughn – My favorite possibility so far. X-Men: First Class was the classiest(!) X-Men movie, and though this is not saying much considering the humiliations of the Bryan Singer era, I think it’s also the best Marvel movie of all time, hands down, and I’d like to think that the powers that be at Lucasfilm and Disney have the good taste to recognize this. This doesn’t mean his movie would feel much like Star Wars, but at least it would have emotional pull.

Joss Whedon – The ardor for Whedon has cooled in the past week, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. I consider his Buffy and Angel to be great artistic achievements, but what did he have to say with The Avengers? Sure, he stuffed it as full of his trademark wisecracks as he could, but do we want everyone in Episode VII to talk like Han Solo? Or worse, to have everyone talk like Joss Whedon, which is what seems to happen with his projects.

Jon Favreau – Iron Man was refreshing, combining the gritty realism of the first act with the optimistic superheroics of the second and third acts. But he phoned it in for Iron Man 2 (one day we’ll wake up and realize that War Machine was just a bad dream), and Cowboys and Aliens was garbage, and not even ambitious garbage. I say give the man a non-speaking cameo in Episode VII, maybe as a chubby cantina alien.

Guillermo del Toro – Probably the director whose work I most despise of all time, likely because his reputation is so drastically out of proportion with his actual talent. Seriously, I’d take Danny Boyle over this guy. Well, maybe not, but to even float the suggestion is to condemn both of these charlatans.

Brad Bird – I don’t know, he’s a cartoon guy, and as cartoony as Star Wars is, and no matter how you feel about CG and green-screen, there’s a huge difference between making an animated film and a live-action one. To wit, how many directors of the one type ever successfully cross over to the other type?

J.J. Abrams – I get this, but I think it’s for all the wrong reasons. None of the stuff he’s done – Lost, Star Trek, Super 8 – is remotely like Star Wars. His Star Trek was both grand, as a movie should be, and intimate, in the best tradition of the television series, but it felt a bit caught between being a great two-part episode of a TV show and a “real” movie. Star Wars is huge in every direction, and I don’t see Abrams doing that, at least not successfully.

The forgotten

Ridley Scott – A real pro and a sci-fi veteran, and he’s worked memorably with Harrison Ford. I have a feeling his Star Wars would be 90% serious and 10% trashy. Not very appealing.

Robert Zemeckis – The answer to my question above. Zemeckis actually has successfully worked in both live-action and full-length animated features. I haven’t seen his latest, Flight, but I have to believe his glory years are behind him, and what he has left should be devoted to gripping domestic dramas, not space operas.

M. Night Shyamalan – Why is no one talking about Shyamalan? Okay, so his last several movies have been epic bombs, and it seems like J.J. Abrams has usurped his position as Spielberg’s heir. But to speak as an apologist, The Last Airbender was actually a quite competent children’s entertainment, and I thought Lady in the Water was a highly misunderstood movie (not good, mind you, but misunderstood). The Happening was terrible, but there are maybe five minutes in there that are genuinely menacing, with bodies being mauled by lions and eaten by lawnmowers, and treetops swishing maniacally in the wind, as if we had entered the Bizarro version of a Terrence Malick film. What Shyamalan would bring is a sensitivity to childlike wonder; or at least he might have brought that ten years ago, when he still had some discernible talent. He does have history with Disney, but I don’t think that’ll help him here.

Speaking of which . . .

Terrence Malick – I so wish we could see the Terrence Malick Star Wars. We would see more clouds than city in Cloud City. James Earl Jones would be brought in to do lengthy voice-overs, even though Vader would never be on screen. Two-thirds of the movie would be set in the marshes of Dagobah, following slimy creatures and gazing through spiraling tree branches. Roll the title crawl. Star Wars: Episode VII – Leaves of Grass.

And the rest of the peanut gallery

The rest of these are just names. Try to imagine even one single frame of a Star Wars made by:

Wes Anderson

Michael Bay

Paul W. S. Anderson

David Fincher

David Lynch

Sofia Coppola (daughter of Lucas’s mentor!)

The Coen Brothers

Michel Gondry

Luc Besson

Terry Gilliam

Tim Burton

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In the 2002 TNT miniseries, Julius Caesar, there’s a line spoken by Jeremy Sisto, who plays Caesar, and he’s referring to either Pompey or Sulla, I don’t remember which: “Pompey/Sulla has merely done something, but I am for something.”

There are only a few directors on this list – Spielberg, Tarantino, Nolan, Shyamalan, maybe Scott – whose work consistently shows that they are “for something,” and yet none of them really seems right for Star Wars.

Honestly, my hope is that it won’t be any of the people I’ve named. In the same way that it was important to cast relative unknowns to star in both the Original Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy, I think it’s important to find a relatively young, baggage-free, and highly talented filmmaker to helm Episode VII.

I had read that Lucas originally offered the director’s chair for Episode I: The Phantom Menace to Ron Howard, but Howard was gracious enough and surely smart enough not to accept. Considering how scathingly and endlessly Lucas himself has been excoriated in the press and by critics for his Episodes I-III, is there any major director who would risk his career by taking command of what will surely be the most hyped and heavily scrutinized movie of all time? I say, let someone new take that risk and make his mark.

Yeah, that’s really going to happen.

From Aeneas to Ant-Man to Anakin

I was recently asked whether I was “excited” about the inevitable yet improbable announcement of new Star Wars movies to be produced and released by Disney. As previously indicated, I am rather apprehensive about the whole affair. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it, but I know I’m not “excited,” if that word is measured by a distinct rise in heart rate when I think about the prospect of more Star Wars movies. If “excited” means that other things I’ve been anticipating now seem bland in comparison, then no, I’m not excited.

Now rumors are solidifying into news: Harrison Ford wants in, Steven Spielberg won’t touch the damn thing with a double-bladed lightsaber, and the latest is that Michael Arndt, writer of Toy Story 3, has written a treatment and will be penning the script for Episode VII.

Nothing against Arndt (Toy Story 3 was witty, and shows he could write within an established story world), but I think I would be much more excited (and happier) if, instead of bringing us the continuing adventures of the Skywalker clan, they simply remade the existing Star Wars movies. A Pixar version, a Wes Anderson version, a version of Phantom Menace where Jar Jar is magically deleted from every scene and then you are astounded to realize that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn were just talking to each other the whole time and there never was a Jar Jar! Etc., etc., whatever.

With remakes, we could expect the unannounced director (and any later artists at the helm) to make Star Wars his/her own, to apply an unusual vision, to revel in reinterpreting what has come before. But to continue Star Wars “officially,” but have it done by hands other than George Lucas’s, I wonder how closely they can hew to his voice. If the movies are to continue the story using the major original-trilogy actors, I’m not willing to entertain any grotesque notions that a distinctive voice would somehow be preferable to imitating the Lucas style. And yes, I realize that Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were directed by two different men, but surely under the firm oversight of Lucas.

What is Star Wars without George Lucas? What is it without his inexplicable brain giving birth to operatic lightsaber duels, a galactic menagerie of creatures, sleazebags peddling death sticks, high-speed vehicle chases and races, and line after line of dialogue just awkward enough to challenge even the gravest thespian? You can say it’s a formula easily copied, and often copied in the last three decades of American cinema. True that, and yet it’s Star Wars that we remember and salivate over while the legions of followers are forgotten.

Whatever Lucas’s shortcomings, I think his greatest talent, besides just inventing the vastness that is Star Wars, is that he knows how to tell a visual story clearly. He knows how to get the audience from point A to B to C without leaving them hopelessly lost, and that’s something that many celebrated filmmakers can struggle with.

For example, there’s been minor squawking over at the Star Wars fantasy camp (which is what the internet has become over the past week and a half) about getting Christopher Nolan to direct Episode VII, and though I greatly admire his films, they tend to be a royal mess because they’re overstuffed with speeches and ideas and fisticuffs, with little awareness of how to connect one thing to another. He often can’t even make sense out of simple fistfights in the Batman movies. How on earth is he going to choreograph something as potentially complicated as a lightsaber clash? (Here’s hoping Luke wields the green beam once again!)

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Star Wars is becoming (or has become, some would say) something greater than a collection of one man’s stories; its artistic progeny are already legion, in the form of books and games, and it will continue to be the wellspring of reinterpretations and additions, “fan fictions” some would derisively call them, but perhaps the better way of understanding the Expanded Universe is to see it as the natural outgrowth of an original body of myth.

The chief analogues in my mind are 1) classical Greek and Roman mythology, and 2) the myth-making renaissance of 20^th century comic books. 

Classical mythology (alongside the Bible, which is a codified mythology – that’s right, I said it), is the source material for pretty much every story that western civilization has come to tell. The stories of Zeus and Hercules and the Medusa and so on, though their origins are now murky, came to be reinterpreted by various writers during antiquity, and though certain traditional storylines became established, they were hardly sacrosanct.

Homer and Hesiod wrote about existing myths, tweaking them, including and excluding details as they pleased. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides adapted from Homer and Hesiod and other early storytellers, making the myths relevant to their times and personal values. One interesting example is Euripides’s play, Helen, which describes a lesser known variant of the story of Helen of Troy, where a “phantom” double of Helen is substituted for her by Hera and Athena, and it is the double that is abducted by Paris. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the mere mortals, the real Helen was spirited away to Egypt, and thus could not be held culpable for the carnage of the Trojan War. This is no recent revisionism, but a revered writer from antiquity who thought the variant was worth exploring, despite the fact that a traditional version existed.

In like fashion, comic book writers, and later, TV producers and filmmakers, have taken liberally from previous comics sources, and over time have become bolder about deviating from the traditional or canonical stories.

Though most comics followers will disagree, one could plausibly say that anything not written by the original creator can be considered “fan fiction.” Any Spider-Man story that was not among the original set created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko is fan fiction, regardless of whether it was published by Marvel or by, say, Czardoz Contra World. The fact that Stan Lee approves of later Marvel versions makes them, what, somehow authentic? As authentic as the innumerable Star Wars novels and games that George Lucas has rubber-stamped?

Ultimately, what seems to matter is not whether a story can be considered canonical and true to the original artist’s intention, but rather, whether it is any good. Who begrudges the wealth of Spider-Man and Superman comics that came well after the heyday of their creators? Who begrudges Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy for creating new characters and not adhering strictly to any particular preexisting storylines?

The destiny of mythology is to be manipulated and reimagined by subsequent generations. This has already happened with Star Wars to a certain extent, but generally under the radar of the mainstream fan, who does not typically read stuff like the Thrawn Trilogy or New Jedi Order novels. Episode VII will be the bigger moment, when the franchise is presented to the world at large as a thing beyond its original form, as a story that is bigger than any one person’s ability to tell it, and worthy of retellings by any person able to lift the weight of the material.

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There are probably a lot of people who can’t accept that this Star Wars thing they grew up with has become so much bigger than just their pet movie. And that consequently, it’s going to be the template for endless new waves of creativity, hopefully by people who are genuinely prepared to handle the subject matter.

Having said that, my greatest worry is that I’ll come out of Episode VII thinking, “Well that was very good, but it wasn’t Star Wars.” And it astonishes me that the “real” Luke, Leia, and Han would appear in another Star Wars, and yet it sounds like this is really happening. It’s like someone writing a few more books to tack onto the end of the Old Testament. How about a sequel to the Book of Job? Probably a raging controversy even back when the New Testament was being compiled, so how could you take it seriously now? You’d say, “Job 2: The Misery Continues? After all this time? I guess there must be some money in it.”

The original trilogy feels far too established, and despite all of Lucas’s attempts to “refresh” it every few years, it’s fairly well set in stone, and to imagine Harrison Ford playing old man Solo just seems wrong to me. Of course, as soon as the first trailer appears in 2014, I may be singing a different tune, and be grateful that they’re getting an encore. After all, it was pleasant to see Indiana Jones cracking his whip again after a 19-year absence.

I do wonder how the old guard will adapt to a new director’s sensibilities and a new writer’s words. Actors don’t usually have the final say, but would Mark Hamill be okay with some whippersnapper director telling him how a 60-year-old Luke Skywalker is supposed to talk? Would Harrison Ford tolerate any deviation from his conception of a character he owns in all but legal terms? Would Carrie Fisher insist that, yes, she does still fit into her old slave girl costume, and she’ll prove it in front of everyone?

And with Lucas all but gone, is John Williams coming back to score the film, or is it time to pass that torch as well? James Newton Howard is the first name to cross my mind as having an appropriate sensibility, though Michael Giacchino has history with Disney/Pixar, and did a great sci-fi score for Star Trek. Thankfully, I’m sure Hans Zimmer will be on the far side of the Disney lot working on the next Pirates film.

And finally, how many kinds of wipes will be used? Horizontal and vertical, surely. Probably diagonal, too. But what about clock and pinwheel wipes? Or vertical blind wipes? Will there be star wipes?!? That’s when I’ll get excited!

The difference between bitterness and anger

Some years ago, I overheard a young sage say the sort of thing I thought was only uttered by wizened old curmudgeons. She was apparently pontificating on an upcoming presidential election, and she said something to the effect of: anyone who doesn’t like America the way it is should leave the country. She was speaking not about individual candidates or policies, but about America as a system of governance and as a culture.

In the moment, I thought to myself that hers was a particularly hard-line stance, even if she was half-joking (which she wasn’t). It didn’t seem to me that intolerance represented America the way it would like to see itself. A more elegant formulation would be to say that all of us, by virtue of remaining in this country, have implicitly agreed to a social contract, and that if we really felt so offended and wronged by it, we would voice our opinion more strongly than by grousing.

Over the years, I have occasionally heard people express the same sentiment: find another country, you ungrateful ones who do not deserve the blessings that America lays at your feet. But words that once seemed merely thoughtless now seem vicious. To these words I now say that I would gladly leave if I could find but one inch of earth left that hasn't been defiled by civilization’s dirty institutions.

I’m sure I sound bitter, but I am not bitter. I’m angry. As I see it, bitterness is indicated by an impotent stewing and railing against a world you can neither change nor run away from. Bitterness is essentially self-destructive. Anger too is obsessed with a contrast between self-image and external reality, but it can be harnessed to produce something better than itself. Where bitterness seems to seethe at a kind of lack within oneself, anger represents a fullness of self that wants to burst out and impress itself on the object of the anger. Anger can motivate a person to look outside himself.

Wikipedia has an article on “resentment, also called ranklement or bitterness,” which draws from the work of one Robert C. Solomon, who expressed the distinction among resentment, anger, and contempt thusly: "resentment is directed towards higher-status individuals, anger is directed towards equal-status individuals, and contempt is directed towards lower-status individuals." 

If I take my cues from Wikipedia, then it goes to reason that my feelings would be bitterness if directed at Barack Obama or some senators or the fatcats on Wall Street. My “betters,” I believe is the term. But these are not the ones I would challenge, though they are easy targets. It’s the ordinary people that I am angry at, equal-status individuals who vote and by voting implicitly state that they accept the status quo, and that they don’t really want change.

I do not mean to say that voting is the disease and that people should be ashamed of what is grandly deemed “participating in the democratic process.” People should do what they think is right, but they should think first. Voting is merely the morphine for a diseased and dying society; it functions as a kind of masturbatory escapism. A way to wash your hands of the problems by saying you did your part.

So yes, I am angry that so trifling a thing as voting counts for so much in the eyes of so many. And so I rejected it and the slavery it represented. I tried very hard to live in that other country – that place of intellectualism and love and brotherhood, the country of the mind, I suppose. But it did not take long for me to realize that this other country belongs in our country, in our America, and we do it a disservice by thinking it too fragile to exist here.

Every year there’s an election, and every four years a big, unavoidable one that inevitably finds someone staring at me, appalled to discover that I do not vote. Perhaps it’s time to put my anger to use and modify my stance. I am not willing to vote the way the government tells me to vote. So I vote with my words and hope that others will listen.