Posted on 05/21/2002 3:19:31 PM PDT by Snake65
To: My Fellow Democrats in the United States Senate
From: Tom Daschle, Majority Leader
Subject: My review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
I know many members of this august body joined in at the special viewing of George Lucas’s latest installment in his Star Wars saga, a fantasy of such epic proportions that we labeled Reagan’s SDI with the same title, though the old coot took it in stride and still managed to bamboozle Gorbachev with it. Perhaps Gorbachev got confused and imaged AT-AT Walkers coming over the Arctic Circle. No matter, that’s Gungan flux under the bridge. As you can tell by my casual use of Star Wars references, I come second to none of my colleagues in appreciation for the Star Wars mythos. I’ve found it gives me “the common touch” when speaking to young people, and is less embarrassing than when I tried wearing baggy pants and carrying a skateboard (NOTE TO STAFF: in the future, please disregard any mail referring to me as “Senator Butt-Crack.” I’ve had enough.).
Some of you missed the showing, and to save you the potential distress of having to rub shoulders with the proles at the Georgetown Cineplex (I sympathize, Dale Earnhardt t-shirts and the lower orders’ artificial-topping-smeared broods give me the heebie jeebies too!) I’ll go over the talking points here. Out of respect for your time and hygiene, I’ll summarize the storyline for you so you’re “in the Genosis loop” at your next $5,000-a-plate fundraiser.
The movie starts out with the traditional forced perspective crawl setting the scene, which I missed due to the astonishing lack of flexibly sized urinals in the cinema washroom. I had my Washington office condense the text after the viewing for me, and their 1849 page analysis was summarized by a 4 person working group into a 30 page brief. My chief of staff had his assistant create an executive overview of the brief, and at a working lunch meeting (the tremendous hours a Majority Leader puts in does prepare one for the stress of the Oval Office better than, say, representing New York, wouldn’t you agree?) he outlined the key points in it for me. I can assure you that based on extensive analysis of the first twenty seconds of the movie that the Galactic Republic was in trouble, and it was George Bush’s fault.
Senator Amidala, played by the exquisitely compact Natalie Portman, arrives in her interstellar limo at her private landing pad. (NOTE TO STAFF: I know the Mall is crowded with war memorials, but a special senior-senatorial landing pad is a frightfully good idea. Can’t we do away with something nobody cares about any more, like that wretched Grant statue? I always feel like the horse is mooning me.) There’s an explosion, and her double is killed in a touching scene which brought a tear to my eye…"dulce et decorum est, pro patrician moria." Can’t we all relate?
There is an assassin hunting Amidala, so the Chancellor (NOTE TO STAFF: Send some flowers to Lucas for making the evil Chancellor look like a Jew. When people see Lieberman’s sanctimonious mug I want people thinking, in the famous words of my colleague from New York, “Jew bastard”) assigns two jedi knights to protect her. They are none other than Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). It seems the Jedi always pair and older, experienced man with a teen. This kind of positive relationship between smooth-chested youth and maturity, so near and dear to the hearts of many of one of our most important constituencies, must be celebrated when it is shown in such a positive light.
While guarding the sleeping Senator the two jedi knights discuss Campaign Finance Reform. The Hon. Sen. McCain got so excited he lurched to his feet and began one of his tiresome tirades on the corrupting influence of money. “You see, Lucas understands, he really really understands,” he said, drowning out even the THX sound system. He was in another of those Captain Queeq emotional meltdowns that we’ve all grown to know and tolerate, and he only settled down when I gave him what was left of my box of Junior Mints to be quiet.
Thanks to the Arizona Republican’s outburst, I missed much of what happened next, but I saw Anakin leap into Amidala’s bedroom and slash two insects in half with his lightsaber. It happened so fast I didn’t see if he checked the Galactic Endangered Species List. I mean, Senators--as I know too well from rubbing shoulders with Trent Lott’s crowd--are a dime-a-dozen, but that might have been the last mating pair of Death-Crawlies on Corsuscant, and that would have been an environmental tragedy. Before anyone has time to fill out a Bd-1104(m)-C form {Bug Death – 1104 (multipede, for use of) –Coruscant } Obi Wan jumps on a robot and is whisked though the crowded skies of the city-world. (NOTE TO STAFF: The Air Traffic Control Union will be very important should flying cars ever come into vogue. Research it.) There’s a tiresome chase and some fighting, and eventually the jedi hunt the would-be assassin down in a bar. There is a funny scene where Obi-Wan suggests to someone with the tobacco lobby (at least that’s what I assume ‘death sticks’ represent) to seek a new vocation. Perhaps Obi-Wan’s previous assignment was protecting a trial lawyer. But my staff told me that it was just to show the Jedi powers over the weak-minded. I had trouble with the concept until they told me to replace “Jedi” with New York Times and “weak-minded” with Democratic Party. By the way, Star Wars collectibles are a great investment. Buy them for your family and friends, they’ll be delighted. Star Wars ™ Merchandise can be found in any decent toy store. Make sure you get the droids, everyone is looking for them. You can go about your business. Move along.
The jedi council assembles, and they decide it is too dangerous for Amidala on Coruscant. She leaves her office in the reliable hands of the devoted Jar Jar Binks (still a loyal servant on the Naboo plantation) and returns to Naboo, with Anakin as her bodyguard. The wise jedi council knows that just because you send two attractive near-teens (instead of, say, a Hutt Jedi as bodyguard) to a beautiful planet to hide in a remote villa together; that doesn’t mean anyone’s going to break a vow of celibacy. And if so, whose business is it to legislate morality? Not mine, I can tell you. At some point Amidala gave a touching speech about her opposition to creating an army to defend the Galactic Republic. Amidala realizes that it’s armies that cause wars. If there were no armies, there’d be no wars, would there? It’s so simple. Hollywood gets it, why doesn’t the rest of America? Ah, we still have so far to go with education in this country.
Obi Wan, meanwhile, goes to a rainy ocean planet and meets the long skinny aliens from Close Encounters. The aliens went to the Bill Richardson Nuclear Regulatory Commission School of Security Procedures, and immediately inform him that yes, they are creating a secret clone army. Sure he can see the training program. The unknown jedi wants to meet the clone model, Jango Phett, and poke around in his apartment? Go right ahead. (NOTE TO STAFF: That clone army was most impressive. Find that Italian reproductive scientist. Find some ex-Soviet expert on rapid steroid growth. Find a 40-watt soccer mom and a male social studies teacher /NEA memeber from Minneapolis. Rent me some unused offshore oil derricks in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ll do the rest.)
Back on Naboo, Amidala and Anakin have romantic strolls through baroque Italian architecture conversing about term limits and the efficacy of democracy versus dictatorships. While we all believe in democracy, the term limits stuff is pure science fiction, IMO. You can literally see her heart melt when he states his thesis that government should pursue “whatever works” regardless of morals. I have to say, I fell for him too at that point. So like a shining president of recent example. Anakin has a bad dream about his mother, and the two sensibly leave for Tatooine, because Lucas isn’t imaginative enough for them to go to a planet that hasn’t been featured in 4 of the 5 movies. The junior Senator from New York started yammering at this point on how Amidala was modeled on her: a beautiful Queen who becomes an important Senator and spends a lot of time traveling. I almost felt like turning around and telling her that I didn’t think Amidala had any Chairman Mao outfits that smell like the old tackle box my Aunt Phyllis made Uncle Lou keep in the shed. Almost.
Meanwhile Obi-Wan gets into a fight with Jango Phett (my Diet Coke was working on me, so I went to the washroom and joined the small-bladder caucus. It broke up when Ted Kennedy started hitting on the girl with the carpet sweeper and Joe Biden began counting his implants) which leads to a chase through an asteroid filed. Jango tries to kill Obi-Wan with unlicensed assault-seismic charges, probably obtained at a gun show on Dantooine, and Obi-Wan fools him with a hoary Kraut trick first used by Curt Jurgens. Jango Phett isn’t as smart as Robert Mitchum, so Obi-Wan is able to slip onto yet another mystery planet unnoticed.
Anakin looks for his mother, and meets some sort of creature that looks like a freak accident involving Yassir Arafat and a bluebottle fly in that machine Jeff Goldblum built. Inexplicably, Anakin does not demand reparations for his years of slavery, but instead fixes a robot troubling the Arafat-alien. Anakin and Amidala track Anakin’s mother down to the familiar-looking Lars moisture farm. Personally I’m against environment-raping moisture farming, which disturbs the beautiful natural vistas of Tatooine with those ugly binary vaporators and destroys priceless womp-rat habitat. Some in the Galactic Senate must be far-seeing enough to think as I do, because while Mr. Lars is engaged in moisture farming, there seems to be precious little moisture being accumulated, as I saw no water tanks on the farm. My guess is they are on a Galactic Republic subsidy to not produce moisture, so similar to many of our own fine Department of Agriculture programs. Mr. Lars’ young nephew Owen and girlfriend Beru know a good business to get in when they see it, so he’s joined Anakin’s mom and Lars in the not-moisture farming family business. Anakin learns that his mother has been captured by Tusken Raiders, and goes out to find her, acting unilaterally without consulting his Galactic allies or the Senate. A recipe for disaster. I found the violence in the ensuing scene rather distressing, because it is obvious that the Tusken Raiders are living in crowded refugee camps under Tatooineian oppression. The horrible conditions, poverty and hopelessness of their camp leave them no alternative but to tie women to A-frames and slice them up. Anakin whips out his lightsaber and commences in an atrocity that would get him hauled before the Galactic War Crimes equivalent of the Hague, and even Yoda—thousands of light years away—is visibly distressed that Anakin didn’t go before the Galactic Security Council and get a resolution before taking action. And thus the cycle of violence on Tatooine is continued. Tragic.
Meanwhile Obi-Wan spies out an evil conference featuring Saruman, the banking cartel, defense industry lobbyists, Enron, Dick Cheney, and the big-eyed Charlie Chan aliens. They’re plotting to overthrow the Republic, cut the capital gains tax, poison the environment, force senior citizens to choose between medication and food so the wealthiest 1% can get a tax cut, and kill your Labrador puppy, all using a droid army produced without union labor. Saruman captures Obi-Wan and holds him in conditions worse than Gitmo, if such can be imagined, where he’s deprived of food, water, dental care, religious succor, and gravity. I did like Saruman’s voice though, so soothing of timber and perfect of inflection, like a certain Majority Leader that modesty prevents me from naming, and so unlike a certain Texas hayseed playing with the presidency like a kid who’s found his dad’s old service pistol.
Anakin and Amidala arrive, and immediately fall into the Galactic Droid Assembly Funhouse from Hell. Anakin’s jedi-levitation mind tricks would be pretty handy in this situation, but Amidala’s perky young nipples interfere with his mastery of the force domain. R2, who can crack computer systems on the Empire’s Ultimate Weapon but can’t find the off switch grows a couple of rockets and comes to the rescue, eventually.
They still wind up joining Obi Wan in the Traditional Coliseum Template to face the Death of a Thousand Pixels. Again, our heroes start killing beasties without consulting the Endangered Species Lists to the dismay of the PETA sympathizers in the audience, who expected to see some deserving animals fed. Kennedy drooled all over my left arm when Amidala’s shirt got ripped. At least I hope it was drool.
Then there was a big battle further showing the futility of war as a big noisy thing that keeps everyone from exploring their sexual identity. The Evil Count Saruman whipped out his bent lightsaber (I don’t think Lucas was making a political statement here, judging from the rest of the film Skywalker Ranch votes the correct way) and fought first Anakin, then Obi-Wan, then Iron Monkey Yoda. The film ended with a wedding, a good Democratic wedding without prayers or vows of any kind, just sort of something to get dressed up for before the banquet-hall. Anakin had a robot arm that foreshadowed his turning into the Terminator in the next movie. Then a big, expensive, pointless army lifted off from the city-planet and went somewhere, but the sight of all those guns upset me so I just pretended they were all going camping and those things were tent-poles.
I hope Episode III is less violent. And I think George Lucas is doing a huge disservice to his homosexual, bisexual, and pansexual fans by having all the kissing male/female. It had better be revealed that Obi-Wan is gay, or Lucas is going to get a very pointed letter from a certain future president.
snake65 is the Free Republic handle of a software developer/dark fantasy writer living in Oak Park, IL.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.