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June 25, 2005
Star Wars, part II
Tim's forcing everyone to watch the second film in the second Star Wars trilogy, the one called Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. This is a copy of the DVD, which is probably illegal, because the copy is terrible, as though they'd put some anti-piracy coding in there. One thing Tim really wants is the DVDs for all six films, but that's an expensive present for an 8 year old.
In this one, Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala fall in love. I identify with this guy who becomes Darth Vader. By that I don't mean I'm good looking, technically competent, an ace with a light saber, or any of that. It's more his feelings, frustrations, sense that you start out an idealist and eventually cave in to the dark side.
There's one scene where he goes to rescue his mom, who has been taken captive by some desert dwelling nomads. She dies in his arms. He loses his temper and kills the whole village. Then he's back in his stepdad's garage, fixing something. He makes this statement about fixing things, how it's soothing and makes life simple where he can fix everything. (And pointless, like the red polyhedron in THX1138.) He's talking about power, enough power to provide immortality. Then, right after that commentary on modern man's approach to reality, Padmé gets him to say what's wrong. He admits he killed them all, women, children. This she more or less ignores, instead pitying him, saying something like, "To hate is normal."
This probably goes right by Tim and Emma, but it surprised the heck out of me. I thought the last three were mostly devoid of humor and intelligent commentary, but in fact it's all there, dry irony. It's like reading the Das Glasperlenspiel through Noam Chomsky's glasses.
Posted by Mark at June 25, 2005 08:12 PM