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The Force will be with us once
again, as STAR Movies presents the world TV premiere of
Episode One: The Phantom Menace, along with an
intergalactic slew of Star Wars documentaries starting
tonight (April 23). Jeanmarie Tan
reports...
For
every hardcore freak rolling out the sleeping bag in
front of the box office sidewalk, there's someone who
hasn't seen any of the Star Wars monolith and who
doesn't care to.
Most
of us, admittedly, are somewhere in the middle - but who
among us hasn't been suckered in by the sci-fi
stranglehold and its obscene proliferation of magazine
covers, Internet trailers and random Ewan McGregor
quotes?
"I
only watched Star Wars because everybody else was into
it, and even then I remained indifferent," admitted
undergraduate Benjamin Lee, 25. "As for those fanatics
out there, life is more than just a movie."
Well, now the galaxy far, far away will be part
of a bigger-scale television extravaganza culminating on
April 29.
Ben
Iu, senior marketing manager for STAR Entertainment,
said: "To create the Phantom Menace event, we reckon
there has to be more value-added entertainment. That's
why we've packaged a Star Wars evening - over four hours
of special programmes, covering anything and everything
Star Wars."
Revived after a 16-year hiatus, the first of
three feverishly-anticipated prequels was a gargantuan
cultural event. And you didn't have to be Yoda to
predict that George Lucas' brainchild became the
highest-grossing movie of 1999, raking in US$430 million
(S$731 million). However, although it topped Singapore's
1999 list at S$3.37 million, it couldn't make that jump
into the Top 10 films of all time led by James Cameron's
Titanic (S$6.4 million).
Then
came the inevitable Phantom Menace backlash.
It
captured eight nominations for the 20th annual Razzie
Awards, including Worst Picture and Worst Director. It
was accused of perpetuating blatant ethnic stereotypes
(Watto's Jewish demeanour, The Trade Federation's
Chinese mercenaries, Jar Jar Binks' Caribbean-flavoured
pidgin English).
And
for some critics, The Phantom Menace's emotional core
was sacrificed for computer wizardry, and thus failed to
capture the elemental grand space-opera magic of the
Star Wars trilogy that began in 1977.
Who
could forget the alien denizens of the Mos Eisley
cantina, "I'm your father" plot-twists, lightsaber
battles on board the Death Star, and those two cute
robots? Many a child has also fantasised themselves as
archetypal characters Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess
Leia - even Darth Vader.
Just
as beloved are the countless Star Wars satires,
especially Mel Brooks' Spaceballs (1987), a hilarious 10th
anniversary homage populated with a wise old gnome named
Yogurt, Dark Helmut and Pizza the Hutt.
A
nine-minute short film George Lucas In Love (1999) situated
the young aspiring filmmaker back in college hacking
away at an unsuccessful sci-fi script. Even the South
Park tykes take swipes in Park Wars: The Little Menace, calling
themselves Obi-Stan Kenobi, Ken Ken Binks and Cart
Yoda.
The
marketing and merchandising frenzy of the Star Wars
franchise has become a global entertainment empire of
unstoppable epic proportions. A Force to be reckoned
with in a competitive Hollywood area, or one that could
compromise the quality of the upcoming Episode II,
scheduled for a US release in May 2002.
Yet,
John Williams' now-iconic Wagner-gone-Hollywood fanfare
still gives us tingles. Its universal themes of social
obligations, destiny and the heroic quest have also
taken on quasi-religious proportions for some, like
Iu.
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