I was exiting one of the most horrendous examples of modern architecture the other day: the Paramount cinema. For those that haven’t seen it, this is the ultimate abomination that sprouted in the fashion district of Toronto, to ensure that multiple servings of the latest Hollywood shite can be enjoyed by insane amounts of people. All of this with over-priced servings of Starbucks coffee, popcorn, and whatever else that uses sugar as 90% of its ingredient. Myriads of little corporate-slaves, all dressed in black with their little ‘Team Player’ tags drone about the place as if they were ants.
Whoever designed the building perhaps was trying to make it look original, stand out, give it a sense of overwhelming entertaining value. As far as I can tell, the architect only managed to get the ‘stand out’ part right, as it is the ugliest structure I’ve ever seen. Not even the Mall of America can successfully reach this level of tackiness.
And while this place has the convenience that you can see any movie you may feel inclined to see with good seating, good sound and fairly decent viewing ability—which all depends on where you end up sitting—it’s upsetting to see venues such as these lacking the charm and charisma as some of the older places. The good old Eglinton, with it’s fascinating Art Deco style is bound to close, and we’re stuck with this corporate place without an identity of it’s own.
But I digress.
Anyway, as I was leaving the theatre, I spotted the poster for the upcoming “Attack of the Clones”, the ever famous Episode 2 of the Star Wars saga. For a brief moment I imagined that perhaps this movie may clean up some of the mistakes of the previous one. Perhaps be entertaining. Perhaps feature all the things that, to me, makes a Star Wars movie. Fortunately, I quickly checked for a lobotomy scar and found none.
Let’s be frank. With all the hype, pictures on McDonald’s fries, posters, toys and propaganda, it doesn’t take away from one fact: Episode II is going to blow. To reinforce this, I suggest to everyone to look at the first trailer that came out for Episode II. I hear there is a second, longer one, but I haven’t seen it. I also didn’t make any effort in trying to do so, either.
So, without much further ado, here are my top ten reasons why Episode II will turn into a giant black hole and suck, suck, suck:
10. Jar Jar Binks will not die the gruesome, painful and pointless death everyone was expecting. In fact, for a mere split second, we get to see him dressed in some weird summer dress standing next to Obi Wan. Now, clearly, he isn’t in the trailer for more than a second in case it may discourage some of the more hardcore Star Wars geeks from actually seeing this. But he’s there. Chances are we will all be entertained by his whimsical blabber that will have us rolling on the floor. In spastic cramps.
9. Anakin “Yoopee” Skywalker—no, some of us can’t let down the “Yoopee”, sorry—appears as the cockiest little bastard you’ve ever seen. You’re Dark Vader, damn it! Act evil and stuff! Kill little furry creatures that cross your path! No, we get to see him ride his hover-scooter in the desert on the verge of tears.
Aside from the shame that Hayden Christensen is from up here, what little he mutters on the trailer sounds like a bad combo of Southern jargon and pre-pubescent arrogance. Hopefully the movie will spare us any ‘you got a purty mouth boy’ scenes in the backwoods of Naboo in the company of Jar-Jar creatures.
8. Uh, hello? We want to see lightsabre fights. We want fighters zooming in and out, blasting their proton-cannon-thingies at each other. We want to see massive starships gun blazing at each other. Instead we get bits of Anakin and the Princess arguing. Or having a drink together. Or kissing. Or going for pic-nics. What is this, Starship Titanic?
7. Is it just me, or is Naboo the most boring planet in the history of Science Fiction? It’s populated by Jar-Jar creatures and other boring humans that live in really pretty places and find it important to change clothing every scene. Princess Amidala manages to display more fancy clothing in less than 11 seconds of trailer than your average supermodel does in a runway show. Mr. Anakin is wearing the same old drab, but men are slobs, so I guess that’s okay.
Already the whole Trade Federation blockade parade was hard to digest, but to be back in the backwaters of the universe again and witness a love story—as if we didn’t know that was going to happen—is insulting. Lightsabres, people! That’s all I got to say.
Okay, okay, Naboo is not the most boring planet in the history of Science Fiction. Make that the second. First goes to Deep Space Nine with planet Bajor. Why didn’t the Cardassians kill them all in one big swoop is still beyond me. Not that I’ve seen the show or anything. No, not I.
6. The character everyone is obsessed about is here: Boba Fett. That’s right. We get to see a glimpse of him floating in the air and firing some red laser out of his arm. Seeing his past... or rather, future experience in handling any of the good characters of the Star Wars universe, you have to wonder what purpose he serves here. Other than incite more people to buy the Boba Fett Action Figure.
I heard rumours that this may not be the actual Boba Fett, but his long lost cousin or something, so my guess is that this Boba will die in a stupid way too. I can picture this already: massive fight endures between Boba and Obi. Suddenly when everything seems lost for Obi, Boba will trip and hit his head really hard against the corner of a table and die. Why do people trust these folks? Don’t tell me it’s the Mandalorian armour.
5. I’m still upset at that whole Miti-chloriens story. Thanks George.
4. Why is everything so spotless and clean? One of the cool things of Star Wars was that everything looked run down, dirty and used. Now it looks like everything came out of an Ikea catalogue. Even the starfighters look like they’ve never been used. Yellow starfighters at that!
3. The trailer shows that the main characters are in Coruscant, Naboo and Tatooine. Are there no other planets in this Universe to go for a slushy with your Royal girlfriend?
2. Yoda is completely computer generated! Why did you have to die, Jim Henson? Why?!
1. Judging by the title, there is going to be some massive war with clones. Why do people care about this planet, is still beyond me. However, we can already picture how this will work. Tons of clones will land on the planet, and start blowing things up. Nobody will actually die—or care—because George Lucas’ kids will be watching this, so no chance that a Jar-Jar thing may buy it.
Suddenly Anakin will come out of the bathroom—all that sex to make Leia and Luke requires a refreshing shower --, hit the wrong switch, all the clones will fall dead to the ground. Meanwhile the light in the bathroom will remain on till Episode III, with princess Amidala throwing up in the toilet due to morning sickness.
Georgie boy lied to us again, folks. So much for listening to its audience in improving the upcoming. Perhaps we can hope, just like with the “Phantom Edit”, we’ll get the “Attack of the Edits.” I’m just glad I’m not one of those people that had to wait sixteen years to see Episode I in it’s true form.
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