Quantum Leap (continued)

The latter half of season 3 is mostly great stuff, and a good mix of the fun and the serious.  Episodes like "A Hunting We Will Go" and "Future Boy" and "Piano man" are great fun, in the style of the earlier episodes.  The more serious episodes actually work without being too preachy, like "Last Dance Before An Execution," "Nuclear Family" and "Shock Theater."  Amazingly Sam still panics sometimes when he leaps and despairs over what to do, despite having effortlessly solved countless leaps on and off screen.  I also find it hilarious every time Sam and Al go "oh for christ sakes," every time Al finds out how much the person they've leaped into help is screwed, like the dancer who Sam thinks will be easy to help before Al announces that she becomes a prostitute and dies of AIDS in a few years.

The next season is off to a slow start.  The opening episode has Al leap into a physical body while Sam appears as the hologram from the imaging chamber somehow.  Personalities are also partially switched around and hijinks ensue as whitebread Sam experiences Al's horniness and Al becomes stiff and awkward.  Dean Stockwell is kind of funny like this, but Scott Bakula just can't pull off Al.  It reminds me that without Al to lighten the mood this show would just fail, because Sam is a humourless wet blanket.  Finally seeing Ziggy, Guchi, Donna, Tina and Vermeena was a nice little novelty for a while.  The next couple of episodes are alright but not too interesting.  One episode sees Sam try to evacuate people during a hurricane, but what could have been a cool episode is reduced to stock footage and a plot about a jealous lover and a murder.  Then things pick up with "Justice" yet another anti-racism episode, which is hilarious because Sam leaps into a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  He also puts on a weird southern accent, inhabiting a role other than Sam Beckett and trying to be believable in it for the first time in the entire series, which is a little odd, but a nice change.  It gets funnier when once again, despite the necessity that people believe that he's the person he's leaped into, he struggles and gets deeply distressed when he simply has to say the N word.

In the next episode he leaps into a woman, and they actually decide to do something with this rather than just have Scott Bakula dress in drag and act indignant and embarrassed.  They actually play on this as well, as the episode opens he whines "oh no, not again" before finding out that he's just been raped.  Yes, it's a rape episode, and although it's quite tame, it is surprising and quite effective, although the  happy ending seems a bit tacked on (it's Quantum Leap, what do you expect).  Just when I thought this series was really running out of ideas.  

Altered States (1980)

Drug films don't particularly interest me, from what I've seen.  At least those that try to simulate the experience of being on drugs don't, because I don't see drugs themselves as sacred and I don't think they show us anything that isn't already there.  The psyche is ever present, psychedelics merely show it from a different place, inside the outside.  This place exists with or without the drugs, the drugs simply are a key that fits a certain lock for a door to open to a point of view specific to that marriage between a certain chemical and part of the brain.  This can produce incredible experiences that appear to show the inner-workings of everything through a loss of individual self that seems to automatically conform to everything as if it had always been that way, or at least that's how I interpret it.  Many people see this as "god" or the "tao" or whatever, and it's been described in religion and mythology throughout history.  Whether this is true or not is subjective, no one really knows.  Plenty of films also describe this whether inspired by drugs or not (not the only way to get to this place, though probably the fastest), possibly often unintentionally (really it describes itself in mysterious ways).  Others who have spent more time down the rabbit hole have more to say on this.  So I cannot attribute "psychedelic" to any attitude or style, although the exploitation hippie films of the 60s look fun.  I guess films that go for a surreal/psychedelic image can work, like the hilarious and fun Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.  M, The Shining, The Matrix films, the Star Wars saga, Badlands, Metropolis, various David Lynch films, all of these I can relate to the trip experience.

Altered States is a sort of mystic sci-fi horror film, about an insufferable scientist obsessed with finding the ultimate truth, or "God."  This overbearing guy rants and raves like a lunatic and waxes poetic about higher states of consciousness and how it relates to mental illness.  He starts by using sensory deprivation tanks, which give him bizarre religious visions in which jesus masks are repeatedly thrown on this old man's face as he sleeps and cast off and burnt.  Is this to symbolize the mask of time breaking up a singular timeless experience?  I don't know, but there's some pretty nightmarish and powerful imagery in this scene.  He belongs to a circle of scientist friends that must be from the 60s because they all have beards, wear scruffy clothes and smoke pot.  A friend tells him about a tribe that uses mushrooms to induce visions, so he travels with his friend to meet the tribe.  The tribe agrees to let him partake, and so he does, drinking a concoction of I don't know what and his own blood which they spill suddenly and without his consent.  He drinks the potion and has weird visions of Adam and Eve and a cross in a field of flowers, and hellish visions of fire and lava and such.  It's all very confusing.  Despite his experience he leaves underwhelmed and in a huff, and as one of the tribesmen holds a goat horn in his hand one can only assume that something is afoot.  Back home he continues to rant and rave in agitation and it's clear that something within him must be exorcised.  Meanwhile his scientist friends and his wife become concerned about his behaviour and about the possible effect the concotion had on his brain chemistry, as apparently he's exhibiting genetic regression or something, as he has goat visions in the sensory deprivation tank.  I really don't have a clue, someone with some knowledge of science may shed some light.  Eventually he turns into some kind of man-ape, a man animal as it were, and he goes on a rampage, making the poor security guards scared that a monkey has escaped.  He then goes to eat a goat at the zoo and the police show up.  He returns home to his concerned wife and the next day I think there's a report of something like that in the news, leading him to the conclusion that his inner psyche must have released something into the outside world to commit these acts.  I don't know, I watched it on youtube and the sound was poor.  He insists against the warnings of his friends on going back into the tank, and seems to be reborn in the big bang or something, as he screams out in an explosion of colours.  He finds himself back at his house and as some mad beast thing he reaches back for his wife, as if yearning to return to his human lie.  And he does so, he comes to and joins once again with his woman in great relief, and no longer needs exorcised, calmer and no longer frenzied by the search for god.  

I liked the film, and can relate to the main character, particularly in his final relief in the end after his heavy experience.

Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith - Jedi mind tricks

The last in the prequel trilogy is all tragedy/despair and no adventure, but it's the most powerful of the prequels, and it ties up the trilogy perfectly while tying the knot on the whole saga. I find the non-linear order in which these films were released beautiful, the way time seems to loop in the films and everything works synchronously, or as Lucas put it, "it's like poetry, it rhymes." In Revenge of the Sith all of the events of the first two come to a head, and all is revealed. When it was first released I was very underwhelmed with it. I don't think it had anything to do with the film itself, although I remember I found the heavy tone a little crushing as opposed to the previous films which had Jar Jar and podracing and all that. Really Star Wars had lost a lot of appeal, and despite the success of Revenge of the Sith I don't think people were particularly excited for it any more. A lot of people felt disappointed with The Phantom Menace because it was different, although it was new Star Wars and that was enough to keep people hyped for Episode II to see how it would unfold. I think there was further disappointment with Episode II, and by the time Episode III came out, I was a teenager and so were my friends, and as excited as I was for it I didn't feel it in anyone else, even in the cinema, and this might have lessened the experience for me, although I did enjoy the hell out of the film. It is certainly the most powerful of the prequels, possibly of the whole saga. Having rewatched it today, I can say it's a great film. 

I like the opening crawl of this one, and the lines "There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere." I'll go into detail as to why it's a great film about the nature of good and evil. It begins with Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting through a Separatist fleet to a rescue Chancellor Palpatine, who is being held by General Grievous aboard his ship. Obi-Wan almost immediately has his ship covered in "buzz droids" loses R4, to which his response is a mere "oh dear," despite having had the droid for three years (I don't think Obi-Wan has much regard for droids), and has to be saved by Anakin. Then they crash land in the hangar of the ship and destroy the disposable balsa wood battle droids the trade federation is still using for some reason, despite the upgraded super battle droids. I think Lucas made those droids particularly useless as a sort of throwback to the stormtroopers who couldn't hit anything. They find the Chancellor tied to a chair, his hands clamped in place and yet his sinister authority still evident, and are cornered by Count Dooku. Earlier Obi-Wan says he senses a trap, and says that the next move is to "spring the trap," and Count Dooku in thinking he has trapped the two jedi finds himself in a trap, while the instigator sits helpless as it unfolds awaiting his opportunity. His illusion of power lies in his belief that he is the manipulator, and even that schemer is eventually trapped. After Obi-Wan is incapacitated (again) Anakin and Dooku face off, until Dooku loses his lightsaber and is left helpless. Anakin is faced with a decision, and crosses the red and blue lightsabers over Dooku's throat, ready to take him prisoner. Anakin, probably feeling some contempt for Dooku for all the death and destruction of the war, is ordered to kill him by Palpatine, who clearly realises the anger he feels for Dooku. Anakin, highly suggestible when faced with this decision does as Palpatine demands and beheads Dooku, before lamenting that he shouldn't have done it and that it's not the Jedi way. This is the trick, Anakin's biggest trap, in which the forces of the light side lead him to the dark side as much as the lure and temptation of the dark side. The conditioning of the Jedi Order makes him second-guess this action and feel shame for it, throwing him into confusion and hesitation, into the black and white prison of self-loathing. Palpatine knows this self defeating uncertainty very well, and it is what makes Anakin so easily manipulated. The Jedi too have been led by the dark side in this way, imprisoned by indecision and attachment to the preservation of order and security. As Yoda says, the first key to the dark side is fear, and the Jedi are filled with it. 

The dark side is not separate from the light side by any means, they both work synchronously, and I think there's only really a grey. The dark side represents the deluded doubt, fear, confusion and frustration that exists as fallout to the clarity and peace of the light side, and yet in believing the two sides are separate, the Jedi, who attach themselves to good, noble values, fall, through the fear of loss Yoda warns Anakin of later in the film. This is why I like the line in the opening crawl "There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere." At one point Yoda speculates that the prophecy of the one will who will bring balance to the force (Anakin) could have been misread, and in a way it was, because in the end Anakin does bring balance. The light and dark side are married through his eventual sacrifice to save his son Luke, and it all adds up. Everyone is tricked by this dichotomy. 

Anakin, Obi-Wan and Palpatine are trapped by General Grievous, a sort of prototype cyborg war lord with a bad back and lung problems. Why this would be designed into a cyborg I don't know, but I guess it can be put down to the same shoddy workmanship the Trade Federation put into the pathetic battle droids. They escape with ease and then crash land the ship on Coruscant. Obi-Wan, finally admitting that he didn't really do anything to help and that Anakin out-Jedied him in every way, takes a step back and gives Anakin his due credit. Anakin, having fought for years in the clone wars, is finally more lax and easygoing. He finds out that Padme is pregnant and that night has a nightmare that she dies in childbirth, trapped once again by a premonition like the one he had about his mother. Afraid that this one will come true as well, his mind is plagued and he begins to seek out ways to avoid it, going to Yoda for advice. Yoda warns him that he has to be careful when considering the future, and to forget about everything he fears to lose, and that loss is a necessary part of life, effectively telling him that there is nothing he can do about what will come to pass and that the only logical thing to do is to let it all go and meet it as it comes. By trying to avoid this future catastrophe he causes it, sealing it in fate. Everything that is done to avoid the coming oppression ends up creating it. There is no conflict in the force, only the force, which is what the Jedi order fails to take into account, although so does Palpatine. Palpatine could easily be considered a hero for his contributions to the fulfilment of the prophecy. There is no doubt or fear in the prophecy because by its very definition prophecy cannot be wrong, even if it turns out differently than expected. 

Sensing the doubt and fear in Anakin, Palpatine feeds it and gives it confidence. He knows Anakin fears the future, and knows the instability and disturbance that comes with that, so he gives him the belief that he has power over it, and uses this to his advantage. He feels the suspicion closing in on him and needs a new apprentice and something to bargain. So in a pivotal scene Anakin is finds himself having to decide between letting Palpatine die at the hands of Mace Windu and the shaky possibility that Palpatine can help him. Here we see the order and rationality of the Jedi clash with the passion and reckless gambling of the Sith, and Anakin caught in the middle of it. In a moment of weakness and desperation he cuts off Mace Windu's hand and Palpatine kills him, and in that instant he is no longer able to turn away from his shame and guilt and it imprisons him completely, and Palpatine makes him a slave to his own self loathing, reinforced by the rigid Jedi code he's been indoctrinated with. He is already imprisoned in that black coat of armour and it cannot come off now, he must carry it for the rest of his life, it is his life support. He becomes a slave to his own egoic desire for control and it only controls him. 

The Jedi, who never considered the blind compliance of the clones a threat, are massacred one by one, Palpatine having given them a special order that only he knew about. They think they are leading these troops against the forces of evil and yet they are betrayed shot in the back by their automation. Suddenly everyone is powerless. Anakin, having destroyed everything he thought he stood for, becomes an automaton of all of his conditioning, and the Jedi's chosen one massacres them at the Jedi temple. Obi-Wan and Yoda return to dismantle the Jedi signal to stop any stray Jedi from running into the trap, and they learn of Anakin's demise. Obi-Wan's distress is soon focused by Yoda's cold disregard for that can't be changed, as Yoda tells him there is no hope for Anakin and that he must confront him. So Obi-Wan follows Padme to the volcanic planet of Mutafar where Anakin is hiding and Yoda goes to confront Palpatine in the senate. I can see now why Yoda is such a wise and great Jedi. It is his lack of attachment and non-belief in having power over the force. He accepts everything, and knows that nothing is certain in his mind. 

On Mustafar Anakin chokes Padme who sees the change in him. In anger over losing everything and the one he loves he kills her because he can now only destroy himself. Obi-Wan confronts him and scoffs at his notion of being all powerful. He is the last light of Anakin's life, his mentor, everything he knows was given to him by Obi-Wan, so in his last act of self-immolation he fights Obi-Wan, effectively believing he can defeat he who taught him, cut off the hand that has fed him. The battle is intense and they clash in the same moves, and it seems like it cannot be won. Meanwhile Yoda is defeated by Palpatine and goes into hiding, knowing the fight cannot be won. At last Obi-Wan stands above Anakin, taking the high ground, telling Anakin that it's over. In one last desperate act he lunges for Obi-Wan, who cuts him to pieces, destroying that which he helped to make. Ewan MacGregor is really great here, and you get a sense of the pain and failure Obi-Wan feels. The force seems to exist by hierarchy in a way and the Jedi conforms to this. Anakin can't defeat his master, or have power over the force, which can only flow through. 

In the end it all ties into the original Star Wars, as Padme gives birth to Luke and Leia and dies doing so while Anakin is lost completely and becomes the machine man. And so the cycle continues through the original trilogy until the prophecy is fulfilled and Vader defeats Palpatine the false authority of the galaxy and balance is restored once again. 

Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones - masterpiece of next

In my last post I explored the themes and ideas of George Lucas' misunderstood masterpiece The Phantom Menace. The sequel is perhaps the target of even more malignant vitriol, opinionated fanboys picking it apart for a myriad of petty reasons. The rifftrax is still hilarious and well worth checking out, but on its' own the film is actually a flawless masterpiece that expands upon the complex metaphysical and mythological ideas of The Phantom Menace. 

Attack of the Clones opens with an assassination attempt, and fingers are pointed at Count Dooku, a renegade jedi and separatist leader. Obi-Wan and an older Anakin are brought in to protect Padme. Immediately Anakin, no doubt forbidden to masturbate by the rigid jedi code, starts drooling over Padme and spewing misguided compliments in an attempt to get her attention (it's Natalie Portman, who wouldn't?). Right off the bat it's evident why Anakin is sulky and moody, and it's not hard to see why. Not only is he neutered by the strict Jedi dogma, but the childish free spirit he exhibited in Episode 1 is completely stifled by his gay new Jedi haircut (apparently masters are spared the humiliation) and Obi-Wan's smug, superior attitude. It's no wonder big annie is frustrated and has no skills with the ladies, Obi-Wan has made him his bitch. Apparently the Jedi code also forbids competence and good sense, because when an attempt is made on the life of Padme by a remote controlled robot drone Obi-Wan leaps out the window onto it several thousand feet high in the air as it whizzes away to god knows where, while Anakin does the sensible thing and finds a speeder to chase after the assassin and save his "masters" ass. I thought Obi-Wan put protection of the senator before finding her attacker, but never mind, he's rescued by Anakin (for the second time apparently). To my utter amazement and bewilderment Obi-Wan thanks Anakin for rescuing him by making snide remarks. It's not hard to see why Anakin turned to the dark side, it really isn't, but I guess that's the point, it's showing us how the doubt, jealousy and arrogance projected by others frustrated and confused him. When Anakin leaps from the speeder and lands perfectly on the assassins' speeder Obi-Wan says "I hate it when he does that" while looking typically useless. Everyone keeps second-guessing Anakin and doubting him while he doesn't even have to try and just does it. Apparently because he's the "chosen one" he is often wrong and needs his hand held, while it's evident that he knows exactly what to do all the time without even thinking about it or trying, pretty much the force incarnate. 

The real assassin gets away and the Jedi suddenly decide it's important to find the attacker, so Obi-Wan is expelled from the Jedi order for his incompetence and recklessness. Only joking, he's tasked with finding the assassin, so he goes sleuthing (which is done for him by others) while Anakin is rewarded for his good work with a bodyguard assignment, tasked with protecting Padme at a retreat on Naboo. He gets to carry her luggage while she teases him with provocative dresses and indecisively half kisses him. It's clear what will happen, and he knows it, while she denies and and doubts because of her high and mighty senator status. The Jedi council thought it would be a good idea to keep him close to the woman he pines for, despite forbidding love as a weakness and sensing great danger in him. There is a complex society in the Star Wars prequels, complete with politics, cultures and factions, and I think the films sort of show how society thrives on doubt, false dogmas and rituals and paranoia. The Jedi Order is very paranoid and enclosed, and very dogmatic and elitist. It's a complex world of argument and indecision that collapses under that weight and causes many casualties, including Anakin, changing him from a very natural, happy kid into a stiff, miserable, depressed, mechanical adolescent. He's already a cyborg, unnecessarily supported by the malfunctioning, poorly designed, second rate machine of space society. Or whatever they call it in the star wars universe. Spaciety maybe. 

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan takes the poison dart taken from the dead assassin and takes it to one of his contacts, a multiple armed fat alien who owns a diner, probably Obi-Wan's supplier. Apparently the dart was made by the Kaminoans, a race of cloners, as Dex can tell by the shape of the dart. Hilariously, he remarks about the Jedi not being able to differentiate between knowledge and wisdom. A local diner owner is able to identify the dart but Obi-Wan is not. So Obi-Wan goes to the Jedi archives to try and locate the planet, which turns out to be absent from the star charts. He asks the archive keeper and she smugly tells him "if the system is not in the archives, it does not exist," before walking off with her nose in the air. I think Anakin enjoyed his Jedi Temple killing spree in Revenge of the Sith, I really do. Totally clueless, Obi-Wan goes to Yoda and some toddlers for assistance. Yoda says something poetic about "gravity's shadow" which I liked, and patronizes Obi-Wan (something I think he's used to), by asking the children for an answer. Almost immediately, one of the children tells Obi-Wan that it must have been erased from the archive memory, and Yoda quips about how wonderful the mind of a child is while Obi-Wan leaves totally unaware of how startlingly stupid everyone finds him. Yoda leaves to "meditate." 

So off he heads to the mystery planet, which turns out to be a stormy ocean planet of mushroom dome cities on stilts. Entering a bright white epileptic nightmare of a building, he is greeted as if he was expected by a tall thin white alien, and wonders if it was a good idea to use DMT to discover the identity of the assassin. Totally miffed, he just plays along as the Kaminoan prime minister tells him about the army they've cloned for the republic, sanctioned by Jedi Master Sifo Dyas a decade earlier. Apparently the Jedi don't know about it, although I wouldn't be surprised if they'd just forgotten about it. He soon finds out that the original host for the clone is unimpressive manager of young bounty hunters Jango Fett, who answers his questions as suspiciously as he can before fleeing after a short battle with Obi-Wan. He decided to take his beloved son with him instead of leaving him at the safe cloning facility. Truly Obi-Wan has met his equal. 

Meanwhile Anakin has a troubling dream about his mother being in danger. Wisely defying Obi-Wan's instructions he heads to Tatooine in search of his mother, who it turns out has been kidnapped by Tusken Raiders. In one of many Star Wars scenes lifted from the classic western The Searchers, Anakin goes in search of his mother, and finds her half dead in a tent. Hayden Christensen's acting is actually very good and believable in this scene, in which is at last has emotional release, taking out his pent up rage and grief on the Tusken Raiders. Here we have the biggest contrast between childhood Anakin and Jedi-ified Anakin, who laments about his rosebud of fixing things before going on a raging tantrum about how it's not fair and he wants power over his destiny and those of his loved ones. Why not indeed? 

Obi-Wan goes to Geonosis in search of Fett and discovers the separatist plot to turn on the republic before being quickly and easily captured. 

Back on Coruscant Jar Jar is manipulated into convincing the senate to give the republic army to Chancellor Palpatine to counter the threat.

Resentful of the Jedi and everything but loosened by his release, Anakin responds to Obi-Wan's distress call, and he and Padme and the droids find themselves amidst a massive droid factory. In one of the best action sequences of the film that is often criticized for being like a video game, they find themselves at the mercy of a massive machine. There's some great symbolism here as Anakin has his arm clamped in a piece of metal on a conveyor belt and struggles to reach for it as it moves along. He is constantly struggling to keep control within the machine of the galactic society. As he struggles he is freed once again by machine, but they're soon captured and tied up to stone pillars in an arena for execution. Unsurprisingly this is where they find Obi-Wan, who sarcastically jabs at Anakin after he came to rescue him. What a f-----g prick. Three beasts are released, one a spider like creature for Obi-Wan, one a three horned raging beast for Anakin, and one a furry claw bastard with two sets of eyes. Count Dooku, not such a bad guy, prefers this method to having them shot. No wonder he went renegade, how could the Jedi tolerate such a flamboyant eccentric? In a series of flukes they escape, although Padme has her back scratched by the furry claw bastard, and squeals out in pain. This really turned me on. Soon the Jedi come to the rescue and go to battle against the droid army, but are soon surrounded, before being rescued by Yoda who brings the clone army, which starts the clone wars. The Jedi start a galactic war to save their own, how noble this religious order is. As the clones go into battle Anakin and Obi-Wan confront Dooku. Anakin is temporarily disabled by force lightning and then Dooku insults Obi-Wan before giving him a small slash which renders him totally inactive. Meanwhile Anakin, infused with electricity by his foe, leaps into action with two lightsabers, one of which is lost, leaving him to fight Dooku, who is clearly taken aback. The camera focuses on their faces rather than the fight choreography, showing how effortlessly Anakin matches Dooku, free of all struggle and running on the automation of the underlying force. Soon however, the deceiptful Dooku cuts off his arm, and once again his power and control is lost. Yoda comes into the save the day but he too is cheated as Dooku the deceiver runs away leaving Yoda to rescue the two jedi from the stone column about to crush them. The force is synchronous, and those that realize this are more in tune with it, which is why Dooku is such a brilliant fighter and schemer. 

The battle won, but the war begun, Anakin and Padme get married. We see Anakin's cybernetic replacement for his arm as he holds hands with Padme and they get married, the marriage between the cold male cybernetics and his female counterpart. Everyone in the film is a robotic pawn, and the Jedi, enamoured with their religion and order in an elitist, materialist sense, are blind to this, especially Obi-Wan, but maybe he has to be. Anakin is the ultimate pawn, a pawn of the force, so it makes sense that he would end up destroying this unnecessary mess of a spaciety. It's a great end to a great film. I personally don't enjoy it as much as The Phantom Menace, but it is brilliant, and I can't wait to review Episode III. 

Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace - A misunderstood masterpiece

A little background - I was a huge Star Wars fan as a kid. I didn't think about them, I just enjoyed the hell out of them and that was enough. I loved the prequels mostly (not so much the third) and I've always felt they were good films, although I do find the backlash and the prequel bashing quite humorous as with the brilliant Star Wars rifftrax series. However it is often petty, coming from disgruntled fans of the original trilogy who couldn't look past how different the new films were in style and look. I probably spent more time with the merchandise than I did with the films, especially the games, and when looking back posited to myself that it was the universe and not so much the films I was into, as the prequels didn't hold my interest throughout even as a kid. Except Natalie Portman, but that's another matter. Now looking freshly at The Phantom Menace and discarding the cynical jibes of the satirists I've come to the conclusion that not only is it an excellent sci-fi fantasy film, but an effortless work of art. Of course film critics and buffs, so enamoured with form and technique pick it to shreds for the flat performances and the complicated plot and whatnot, but seeing in the guise of persons of a chosen path they fail completely to see the larger picture. 

Lucas understood metaphorical storytelling. It's there right from the start, on multiple levels, from the hero's journey to ideas more esoteric. In A New Hope, Luke Skywalker lives a simple, free wheeling, hippie-ish life that he feels is obscure, of little consequence and restrictive. He years for a greater freedom, for a role to play, and a series of events leads him into outer space with a wise old man, a smug smuggler and a big wolf man. The old man guides him and they find themselves aboard a large technological super weapon, a giant labyrinthine ball, no doubt a symptom of the Empire's stiff insecurity. Lost in this ridiculous thing the freedom fighters are split from the wise old man as he goes to confront the burned man in character armour. They duel quite unimpressively and as Vader taunts Obi-Wan about how he's a big powerful man who knows what he's doing, one gets the impression from Alec Guinness' looks that he doesn't care and is just going through the motions. Eventually, he tricks Vader into thinking he's won, that he's achieved something as he just allows himself to die and slumps to the ground and dies so gracefully he turns into everything. Luke, lamenting the literal death of old Ben, is distraught but goes into battle against the techno terror, which has a tiny weak spot hidden amidst a mess of turrets and trench. The beast defeats them one by one by fooling them with all its many functions and orifices, until Luke, hearing the disembodied voice of his supposedly dead master blows it up without even making an effort by letting go of his own technology and letting things take care of themselves. Alas the beast is blown back into the million tiny fragments of stardust that made it and life and death become as one and everyone gets medals and corn flakes. Great film, and Empire and Return of the Jedi expand on the themes and make it a perfect trilogy. 

Looking at Star Wars in this sense, The Phantom Menace becomes an entirely different beast and complaints about the look of the film, the cartoonish characters and plot (whose plot?) seem irrelevant and take a back seat in a film that takes the ideas of the original trilogy and plays upon them in multiple very inventive ways that are at testament to the creative vision of Lucas and co. This time instead of a simple story of a humble hero discovering his power and facing his dark side the scope is broadened and we have a whole space society complete with politics, factions, sports and third worlds and first worlds. The trade federation are a technological terror unto themselves, an elite of very deliberate, elitist traders who hide behind armies of droids they control through ranks and by proxy with orbiting control ships that they've formed into a blockade to block trade to and from the peaceful green society of Naboo, a planet of two cultures divided, one an ancient indigenous species of amphibious like lizard creatures who live in vast organic underwater cities beneath the surface and the other a more conventional, civilized, society of humans that lives in massive, hard stone cities under the light of the bright blue sky. So already there are three levels of civilization, two on the planet that are estranged from one another and yet as Obi-Wan states astutely form a symbiotic relationship. Then there is this seemingly malevolent and oppressive higher level of lifeless skeletal droids controlled by cowardly control-freak bureaucrats that suddenly invades for reasons unknown. It must be the Naboo for although unaware they and the Trade Federation also have a symbiotic relationship, manipulated from within by an insidious instigator who wants to take charge of it all for his own ends. 

The Naboo seek the help of outsiders, two powerful but arrogant Jedi to intervene and negotiate with the trade federation, but the federation fearing threat try to kill them, only for them to slip into the ventilation shafts and sneak down to the planet. One on Naboo they make contact with the key to everything. Literally. Lucas is often quoted by satirists who make fun of Jar Jar as saying "Jar Jar is the key to all this," while conceiving the storyboards for the film I believe. Unfairly called an incompetent idiot like his creator, Jar Jar is a powerful force user, no Sith Lord but an unthinking master of accident, like all great Jedi. It is an old Jedi teaching to disregard thoughts and turn on and tune with a quiet mind, so Jar Jar fits the bill perfectly. Strangely hypocritical for Qui-Gon to call him "brainless" and think of a life form in such a materialist way, but I believe Lucas wrote the Jedi to be arrogant, thinking themselves above the primitive lifeforms that thrive by the force. Jar Jar is an idiot savant demonstration of the kind of surrender that led Luke to apparently fluke the death star's destruction. Putting aside his major contribution to the events of later episodes, Jar Jar unites the two Naboo cultures effortlessly and turns the tide of the final battle, saving the lives of his comrades by falling around in a disorganized panic. A "pathetic lifeform" indeed and look where he ends up, a general and then a senator while the "higher-minded" Jedi walk blindly into genocide. Jar Jar is indeed the "key to all this." 

The Jedi lead the Naboo in an escape from the blockade and they find themselves adrift in the outer rim and to Tatooine, the home of humble, obscure slave boy Anakin Skywalker, played by Jake Lloyd who is not nearly as annoying as I remember and actually does a pretty good job for his age. He is a slave, bound to winged junk dealer Watto, who has the parts needed to fix Queen Amidala's starship. It's a very different world from Naboo, as Padme (Natalie Portman) points out. Here symbolic money holds no value as Qui-Gon finds out, and the Jedi haven't the power and status granted to them on other worlds. It's a world of obscure nobodies, of scumbags, drifters and gangsters, not considered important by the imperialistic republic. Anakin doesn't see himself as a slave as he points out angrily, stating that he's a person with a name. He is free spirited in the same way Jar Jar is and just seems to appear in the right place and the right time, leading Qui-Gon in a leap of faith to gamble both his ship and the freedom of Anakin and his mother on the Boonta Eve podrace Anakin takes part in. This is one of my favourite parts of the film, as it sees Qui-Gon test his faith in destiny and gamble with fate. Watto rolls a chance cube with two colours on it, red and blue (this came out in the same year as The Matrix, WHOA), and Watto entranced by the cube's dance across the sand fails to notice the hand of Qui-Gon guide it to the one choice, the freedom of the boy and not his mother, as "no pod is worth two slaves" as Watto puts it. The podrace, often considered tedious filler, is one of the best parts of the movie. It is Anakin's initiation, in which he casts aside the childish cartoon competitors and Sebulba, his nemesis. He triumphs, but has to leave his mother behind. 

They then head to coruscant where they have to debate on...stuff about what to do about the Naboo invasion. A far cry from the quiet simplicity of Naboo or the desolate, slummy Mos Espa the Senate is filled with indecisive squabbling delegates of a thousand species of use to no one, and the more complex and frustrating the process the clearer the way forward becomes. So the queen heads back to Naboo and the two cultures team up, the subterranean gungans and the fashionable surface Naboo of many dresses. Playing the Trade Federation at their own game of deliberation they form a plan of diversion and entrapment, the gungans diverting the army while the Naboo security forces storm Theed to capture the scheming Neimodians. However it all hinges on the destruction of the Fade Trederation control ship out in outer space, from which all the droids are controlled. As the Neimodians find themselves vulnerable and panic, Anakin accidently flys into space to the droid control ship and his trusty auto pilot leads him to the heart of the droid forces, the droid control ship. At the last minute he breaks free of his auto-pilot, from a red screen to a blue screen, and he purely by accident destroys the droid control ship and ends the so carefully planned and plotted invasion in one chance blow, and the Neimodians are trapped and they too are forced to lose control completely and surrender. Meanwhile Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon battle the double-edged deviant Darth Maul relentlessly, until there can be only one, and the master is defeated. Obi-Wan is now on his own and must let all of his force go to defeat Maul, and he shafts him. 

The film ends happily but provocatively, as Mace Windu and Yoda wonder which was destroyed of the sith menace, the "master," or the "apprentice." Which is which in all of this? The trade federation represents a false, unnecessary pseudo-control force that is automatically defeated by the power of the force, the real control force. 

I feel like I have a lot more to say about this film and will when I rewatch it once again, as this viewing was very rewarding. So now I see that the much maligned Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is actually a brilliant take on religious, metaphysical and societal ideas about control, freedom and fate, and all wrapped up in a neat, fun fantasy film. I actually prefer the lack of emotion or drama or tension, I feel that would only distract and take away from the story and themes, as I feel it did in Episode II and III, although considering how much my view of The Phantom Menace has changed I will be rewatching those soon too. I still don't think there was any point in changing Yoda from a puppet to CGI in the subsequent releases of the film, but Lucas has a habit of doing things like that and I can't say I want to nitpick. I'll edit more into this review with subsequent viewings, and I really can't believe it came full circle like this. I loved this film as a kid for the battles, aliens, droids, ships, colourful locales and Natalie Portman, and now after all this time it's been reborn to me. 

M (1931)

Fritz Lang's M is a great timeless thriller, a great thriller for the atmosphere of dread and paranoia it cultivates, timeless because the sequence of events of the film, the deliberation and the plotting of the police and the gangsters is nothing more than a mask being peeled back as the film unfolds.  As the film unfolds it feels less like a procedural and more like the psyche of the beast unmasking itself methodically, as if the chase after child murderer Becket (Peter Lorre) is nothing more than the humanity itself exposing its' own devil, the problem of evil it struggles with in eternity.  The city is like an organic machine, and Becket merely filling in the ultimate quota.  He is pure evil, and yet innocent in that purity.  He commits the most appalling crime of all, the murder of innocents, and yet he is a symbol for society's own corruption, the way the machine systematically murders its' own innocence from within.  Because Becket is absolutely responsible, he is also absolutely absolved, because his crime is beyond reason, it is insanity, good and evil wrestling but joined in symbiosis, the ultimate monster none of us can bear.  Trapped by the criminals who want him perished so they can continue their vices without restriction by police and civilian paranoia, he finds himself charged guilty by the guilty, by those that greedily profit from the weak, those criminals of 10 000 reasons who cannot deal with the devil directly.  Becket must do that for their sake, god forbid they face the ultimate truth.

The film is a tense, taut, brilliant thriller.  The opening scene of the murder of little Ellsie is done with subtlety, shown only as a mother crying out for her daughter and the balloon Becket gave her caught in power lines.  It's a powerful image to kick off the meticulous frenzy as the gangsters plot to remove themselves from the murders so as to continue business unhindered by the police raids.  From there the tension only builds, until Becket is cornered in safe house by the gangsters.  He is their ultimate treasure, that which has been locked up and hidden, that which they want killed so they can finally be free.  But he cannot be killed, even by his own hand, such is his madness.  The final scene with the criminal courtroom is incredible and must be seen, and Lorre's performance as the tortured soul is devastating.  The film goes beyond merely pitying Becket, rather it simply shows the necessity of evil and the problems that arise when people try to take this into their own hands.  

The Wolf Man (1941)

"Even a man pure of heart, who says his prayers every night, may be bitten by a wolf, when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."

This film is the ideal horror film for me.  A lot of modern horror goes for shock value, each film trying to out grim the last, and of what I've seen it neither entertains me or scares me.  I like my horror films bright, tongue-in-cheek, clever and fun.  Unfamiliar with golden age Hollywood horror movies, I gave The Wolfman a try having heard nothing but praise, particularly for the powerhouse performance of Lon Chaney Jr, and he is great.  This film has all the werewolf cliches, probably because it invented them, like death by the silver bullet among others.

The film drips with atmosphere, with misty forest scenes shot in beautiful b/w.  The cast is all great, from Chaney to Claude Rains who plays his rational astronomer father and Warren William who plays the psychiatrist.  Lon Chaney Jr. certainly shines as the distressed Larry Talbot, returned from California and beset on all sides by paranoia in the sleepy Welsh town populated by psychic gypsies and countryfolk.  In a scene that reminded me of Body Double, another great light hearted horror/thriller, Larry spies a pretty girl through a powerful telescope and pursues her, teasing her about jewellery in her room that no one could know about unless they were peaking in her window with a powerful telescope.  I guess he picked up some bad habits in America.  It's set in a Welsh town that for some reason is populated almost entirely by Americans and gypsies, and I won't question that any further.  

Quantum Leap - continued

Well season 3 was off to a great start with the two parter "The Leap Home," especially the second part which had Sam in Vietnam trying to save his brother Tom from an ambush.  It fit nicely with the finale to season 2, M.I.A, in which we learn that Al was held by the Vietcong for five years.  The next episode is a blatant anti-drug episode in which Sam has to stop a model from overdosing on amphetamines.  The funniest part of the episode is Sam's line "drugs are no laughing matter" which he says earnestly as he does everything else.  This is in character for straight-laced white boy Sam Beckett, but not for a 60s fashion photographer, as another character even points out.  Apparently no one notices when otherwise very flawed characters suddenly turn into the embodiment of all that is good and noble when Sam takes over.

The whole idea of leaping into different people in time is never explained logically, nor does it have to be, although there are some things that raise eyebrows, like Sam's build-up of urine apparently leaping from person to person through time, as when he finds himself in the body of a kid named "Butchie" (apparently dog names are popular in America) on a road trip and suddenly has to pee while his parents point out that he just did.  This is no accident, the way it's written suggests they actually had time travelling pee in mind.  It's not a great episode which resolves things by having the character who needs help suddenly dangle off a cliff in order to be saved, end of episode.  Sometimes the conclusions are a bit tacked on.  There are many episodes in which Sam leaps into a woman, and it makes sense that he would, but Scott Bakula in drag isn't as funny as they thought, although when he acts serious it is pretty funny.

The episode "The Boogieman" is one of my favourites, not necessarily because it's good.  In fact it's very bad, hilariously so.  He leaps into a horror novelist and tries to solve a mystery in a small town that seems to have a population of five.  Many cheap scares later and Sam finds himself face to face with the devil, in the form of Al, who taunts Sam about his leaping around putting right what he put wrong.  Dean Stockwell is hilarious as "the devil" and has to be seen to be believed.  Before long, in quite possibly the silliest looking scene ever, they grab each other and start spinning around, faster and faster, Al turning into various characters from the episode, and then into a goat.  In one final kick to the face Sam wakes up and it was all a dream.  Then it turns out his assistant is Stephen King.  Seeing as Sam is apparently being leaped around by God, I thought they were actually going to go with the devil thing.  

There are a few other good episodes, like Black on White on Fire, a tense episode about the Watts race riots, and Rebel Without A Clue.  I don't know if I like the more serious episodes or the dumber ones more.