In honor of the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back I thought I’d post some thoughts on the movie. Since this is almost certainly my favorite movie of all time, I could go on for infinite pages about every single shot and how each one affected me personally. I won’t go quite as far as that, though nearly every frame of this movie has been hanging in the main gallery of the art museum of my mind since I was eight years old. The cold comfort of the Hoth base, learning the odds of dying in various ways, the thunderous reveal of Darth Vader and the massive Imperial Fleet, the epic scale of the Hoth battle, meeting Yoda, Han Solo and Princess Leia’s asteroid field inspired romance, Yoda schooling Luke in the ways of the force, the calm of Cloud City replaced by the excitement and terror of the heroes desperate escape, the final clash of the lightsabers in the hellish carbon freezing chamber, and, through it all, one of the most powerful and romantic music scores ever written—these are the things I will try my best to avoid gushing over.
There’s nothing new to write about this movie that hasn’t already been written. Everyone knows that this was the Star Wars movie that had the least Lucas involvement (though he deserves as much credit for the movie as anyone), everyone talks about how powerful the “I am your father” reveal was in 1980, everyone talks about how the more mature, “dark” tone made for a much more interesting movie, and how traumatic it was that the good guys lost. And look no further then Princess Leia's horrified reaction to the THUD frozen Han Solo makes when he clangs against floor to know that this movie cared about the little details in a way few have before or since. Empire was the first Star Wars that was really Star Wars—it took the simple story from the original movie and transformed it into an epic saga. Everything said about the movie is true, and when kids growing up in the 80s and 90s thought of Star Wars, it was this movie that laid the foundation for what Star Wars was. It’s a shame they show it on TV so much nowadays, and that the prequels and subsequent media inundation have made Star Wars less magical and almost banal. I know the movie so well that I’ll never be able to experience like I used to ever again, and new generations will never experience the way we did. Kids today turn on their Xboxes and have a lightsaber fight without understand the awed silence in which we sat when Luke turned on his saber in the carbon freezing chamber. So much of what was wonderful about Star Wars has been sucked away, for me and for millions, by unceasing overexposure.
Just for today, though, I will try to forget what Star Wars has become and just remember what it was. Oddly enough, Empire was the last of the original Star Wars movies I saw. Therefore it was always somewhat mysterious and epic, even before I watched it. I knew what happened in Star Wars, and I knew what happened in Jedi, so I therefore knew that the events that joined those two very different movies had to be explosive indeed. How did Luke Skywalker go from naïve farmboy to calm and collected Jedi knight? Why was Han Solo frozen? How did Luke meet Yoda? Where did the Emperor come from? Darth Vader was Luke’s father? And who was Lando?
So I never got to experience Empire the way older people experienced it, as a cliffhanger, as a struggle that the heroes largely lose, as the anticipated sequel to the original Star Wars. I knew that everything turned out okay in the end, so I never thought of Empire as “dark.” (And I’ll be honest, I still think the term “dark” in conjunction with any Star Wars movie is a bit much. I think I once heard Empire called the saga’s “dark opus of ever building despair” on a forum once. Whoever said that must have been thinking of the scene where Yoda beats R2-D2 with a stick. I still get chills.) But even with all that baggage, I was still struck by just how different Empire was from the much more tonally similar Star Wars and Jedi.
My reasons for liking it back then were a bit more simplistic than they are today. Luke and Darth Vader finally had a proper fight (something I was expecting, but never got, throughout all of Star Wars), Yoda was a lot more fun to look at than old Obi-Wan, and Han Solo was the coolest man in the universe. Really. Empire Strikes Back Han Solo could walk into any room today, right at this moment, wearing that stupid 80s navy blue jacket, and get every woman there to go home with him. Young boys could only watch him in jealous awe. It might be hard to understand or even remember, but for young 80s kids raised on Spielberg and Lucas, Harrison Ford was the absolute last word on movie stars. What resonates with me now, and why, despite all that the Star Wars saga has endured in the last decade or so, people still love Empire, is the story. The simplistic values of the original film might work when you’re a kid, but when you get older you realize life doesn’t quite work like that. Empire takes the traditional hero’s journey story of the first film and asks “what now?” So you’ve proven yourself and saved the galaxy. So what? To quote Princess Leia, despite everything that happened in Star Wars “The Empire is still out there!” Nothing our heroes accomplished mattered much in the end. Empire is a story about those times when dreams don’t come true, when we fail to rescue the princess, when no matter how hard we try nothing seems to go right. Yoda taught Luke the old Hollywood standby “Believe in yourself and you can achieve anything!” and so Luke, full of confidence, goes to Vader and gets his ass handed to him. We didn’t realize it as kids of course, but The Empire Strikes Back essentially makes a mockery of the value system in the first film, the value system spat at us, cynically, by so many movies. “Believe in yourself” “Good wins out in the end” "That evil guy you're after isn't a corrupted cyborg version of your father" “Love conquers all” “The hero gets the girl” (Remember, pre-Return of the Jedi, Han Solo was stealing Luke’s girl right from under his nose) Empire says “nope” to all of these old Hollywood themes. (And despite my oft maligning it, Jedi, when it’s good, takes this thematic evolution a step further, but more on that another time)
This is the opposite of the hero’s journey. The story where all your training and preparation amount to nothing. The story that forces you to face up to the fact that no matter how good you are and how hard you try, there are going to be times when you’re left without a hand dangling from the bottom of Cloud City. Empire shows that when everything else has left you, faced with terrible options, you still have the chance to be brave and good. What makes a hero in Empire is not traditional heroics, but the simple choice to do good. Leia’s choice to go back for Luke, Lando’s choice to help save Leia and Chewie, and of course, Han Solo’s choice to face the certain death of carbon freezing with a brave face and an immortal line. Luke’s sacrifice in choosing to jump to his death at the end of Empire is far braver than anything he accomplished in Star Wars. Life is more complicated, so much more complicated, than staring out at the setting suns wishing for your dreams to come true until, one day, they do. A lot of times, dreams don’t come true, or when they do they prove to be nothing like we imagined. That’s why the ending to the movie is still so beautiful and powerful, because in suffering the characters have found a goodness that transcends fate: compassion and friendship and loyalty—these are the things that save our heroes in the end, not their skill, not their courage, not their hard work. As Luke and Leia stare out at the impossible vastness of space as the Millennium Falcon turns into a spec in the distance and the powerful Han and Leia love them builds to a crescendo, we’re left not sad but hopeful, knowing that these characters have stared the devil in the face, as it were, and they’re still standing arm in arm. The enduring theme of The Empire Strikes Back, then, is a very brave one for such a mainstream movie. Genuine goodness, far from being rewarded, is often punished with increased suffering and hardship; it is worth pursuing not because it’s beneficial, but because it’s right. Beyond all the nostalgia and special effects, it’s this idea that makes Empire Strikes Back legendary. I don’t expect there will be another movie quite like Empire in our lifetimes. Sure, “better” movies might come along, but with the amount of media out there today there will never be a movie that defines fantasy for an entire generation again. There will never be another sequel that lives up and surpasses its predecessor with quite the same energy. Empire wasn’t “Star Wars 2”, it was Star Wars times 1000. Perhaps, many years from now, when the Star Wars marketing blitz finally dies down, these movies will be discovered again and seen the way they were to our generation, the way the Wizard of Oz continues to speak to people generation after generation. Maybe, when I write my Psycho-Cosmo-Blog on the 60th anniversary of Empire, such a magical film will no longer be held prisoner by merchandising gluttony: Lightsabers will be a rarity, Darth Vader will be scary, the battle of Hoth will be epic, Yoda will be wise, and Han Solo will, once again, be the coolest man in the universe.
Another Easter is upon us, though it might be tough to notice. Unlike Christmas or even Halloween, Easter has never been fully commercialized, and without a glut of TV commercials and specials (and days off work) it can come and go without much fanfare. While we can enjoy the exchange of Christmas presents or dressing up for Halloween well into adulthood, most Easter traditions are largely kid’s stuff—I see few adult Easter egg hunts. Thankfully, one Easter tradition from my childhood is still blissfully intact: The airing of cheesy biblical movies on TV.
Though it might fall by the wayside eventually, for now ABC still airs The Ten Commandments every year on the Saturday before Easter. When I was a kid, I thought a movie like this was the pinnacle of filmmaking: Huge sets, huge crowds, and huge acting. Though it all might seem a bit over the top and cheesy now, it has a charm all its own, particularly in the way it pads up the rather thin biblical story into a four hour movie.
It’s funny how much of the pop-culture impression of the biblical story of the Exodus actually comes from this movie. The Ten Commandments is so influential that the far superior animated film, The Prince of Egypt, though it claims to be based on the book of Exodus, is actually just a remake of the 1956 film, right down to the bald Yul Brynner hairstyle of Ramses II. Moses’ time in Egypt in the Bible boils down to about a paragraph. We only know that he was raised in the house of some pharaoh and is exiled after killing a slave master. The movie, however, makes Moses the adopted younger brother of Ramses II and spends a lot of time on the shirtless Charlton Heston’s role as prince of Egypt.
A highlight of the film is Anne Baxter as the sultry queen Nefretiri, a beautiful testament just how much 1950s America hated women. In the Biblical story, the Pharaoh is actually pretty eager to let the Hebrews go once Moses starts pestering him, but every time he tries God hardens his heart so God can show off with more plagues. The God in the story’s purpose is to show how powerful he is, not to free the Hebrew slaves. They’re simply an accessory to his display of machismo. Naturally, a realistic depiction of the story would never fly with middle American Christians of the 1950s, so instead of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart against the Hebrews, the work is done by his scheming wife Nefretiri. Indeed, without Anne Baxter’s feminine meddling, the whole Hebrew slavery crisis might have blown over without a lot of trouble. Pharaoh would have let Moses and the slaves go before it ever came to murdering the firstborn sons, and he might have gone on to rule a successful kingdom as an equal partner with the Hebrews and many other races. Instead the evil Nefretiri manipulates poor Ramses at every turn. In one memorable effort to stir Ramses against Moses and the Hebrews, she rubs Ramses' face in the fact that she threw herself at Moses. "All that you wanted from me, he would not even take!" she sneers. That's just cold.
The lesson, for all the would be pharaohs or Hebrew messiahs out there, is simple: Never listen to women—they’re evil monsters who make a mockery of the very will of God. Audiences of the era weren't willing to accept a scheming, self-involved, and cruel God and the theological implications of such a deity, but a scheming, self-involved, and cruel woman? That's no problem. I can’t leave this movie without mentioning the line so silly that it made it to the title of this post. If you thought ridiculous action hero lines originated with the Stallone and Van Damme films of the 1980s, you’ve obviously never seen Charlton Heston literally murder a crowd of apostate Hebrews with the Ten Commandments. There are few things more entertaining than watching Charlton Heston, in a ridiculous beard, raise the tablets above his head and shout out “Those who will not live by the law…” (Pause for dramatic emphasis) “…WILL DIE BY THE LAW!!” before throwing the Ten Commandments into the crowd. Never mind that it makes no sense. Never mind that it’s a complete twisting of both Jewish and Christian religious philosophy. I can’t think of a better phrase to utter when preparing to murder a group of people with a copy of a law code. My other favorite Hollywood Easter Epic is 1961’s King of Kings, starring Captain Christopher Pike as Jesus. Though it’s less famous, I think this movie is actually a good bit better than The Ten Commandments. It’s tough to stay true to the Biblical story of Jesus (which unlike The Ten Commandments, King of Kings actually makes an effort to do) and keep things interesting. The guy basically walks around talking for three years and then has a pretty hectic final week. King of Kings makes up for this by providing a (wildly historically inaccurate) depiction of the socio-political climate during the time in which Jesus lived. So while Jeffery Hunter’s Jesus does little more than walk around speechifying in a deep and powerful voice, we get scheming politicians, lots of background on the Roman Empire and the occupation of Judea, and actual battle scenes between the Romans and Jewish rebels. That’s right: Battle scenes in a movie about Jesus, decades before Mel Gibson ever thought of picking up a camera. Special mention needs to be made of young Brigid Bazlen's performance as Salome. She brings an evil malevolence to the spoiled palace brat. When asked why she wants the head of John the Baptist, she replies simply “I want to look at it” in a voice so haughty and matter of fact that it becomes chilling. It’s easy to believe that this girl would derive pleasure from looking at a severed head. More importantly, her seductive dance to convince King Herod to give her the head showed just how much sex you could get away with if you were willing to creatively push the bounds of the old Motion Picture Production Code. There’s nothing as titillating as actual nudity, and nothing overt, but just by dancing around in a gold bikini Salome proved now and forever that sexiness is all about attitude. There’s a lot more I could write about both of these movies, so perhaps I’ll write a full discussion of them at some time in the future. In the meantime, as this particular Easter winds down, I’ll leave you with the excellent main title music from King of Kings. Nothing sums up the spirit of Easter more than this bombastic composition from the golden age of Hollywood epics. It's too bad they don't make movies like these anymore--the world could always use a little more over the top earnestness.
Thanks to the upcoming release of the CGI monster-fest Clash of the Titans, I’ve been thinking a lot about one of my favorite mythological characters, the gorgon Medusa. Like most people my age, I was first introduced to Medusa in the famous scene from the original 1981 Clash of the Titans. And like many children, I was scared to death. It wasn’t the cheesy stop motion effects that got me, though the slow, methodical way Medusa tracked down her prey and the eerie rattle of her serpent tail was certainly frightening. It wasn’t even, necessarily, the fact that she could turn a man to stone with a single look, though that was terrifying too. With most monsters, even the most horrible, there was some possibility of escape. With Medusa, there was no hope. If you ever saw her, it was too late. But what scared me most about Medusa was that, unlike other monsters I’d encountered up to that point in my life, she was real.
After watching Clash of the Titans, I was unable to sleep for weeks. Even though Medusa died in the movie, her head still had the power to turn anyone who looked at it to stone, and her head was still out there! Perseus (portrayed by Harry Hamlin) had not destroyed it; he had simply tossed it into the ocean. Who knew when a simple day of playing at the beach could result in the dread artifact washing ashore and turning some unsuspecting vacationer into a life sized statue? That fear was an entirely justifiable one, because, as I said, Medusa was real.
I discovered that fact when flipping through the 1968 World Book Encyclopedia at my grandmother’s house (Yes, I was the sort of kid who spent his free time looking through the 1968 World Book.) There was no World Book article for Skeletor or Mum-Ra, not even for Darth Vader, but there was one for Medusa. She had really lived, really fought Perseus, and, since Clash of the Titans had to be a perfect retelling of the story, I knew her head must still be floating out at sea somewhere. Medusa was not just the fantasy of some filmmaker; she had been known for thousands of years.
Medusa is one of the oldest characters in Greek myth. There are two basic versions of the Medusa character, though the 1968 World Book Encyclopedia only focused on the more modern, Roman version. In the oldest version, Medusa is a hideous creature with wings, claws, and snakes for hair; a gorgon, one of three sisters whose gaze could turn men to stone. Nothing is known about the other two gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, only that they were immortal, while Medusa was, for whatever reason, mortal. Like the second and third members of girl groups everywhere, from the other two members of The Supremes to the other two members of Destiny’s Child, the stories of their exploits have been lost to history. This version of Medusa was the child of the gods Phorcys and Ceto, two children of the very first being, Gaia. That makes Medusa’s pedigree ancient indeed—she is of the same generation as Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. She was an ancient, primal being, and her stories are perhaps older than those of the twelve Olympians.
In the second version of the story, originating hundreds or even thousands of years later with the Roman poet Ovid in the time of Augustus, Medusa was a mortal woman, a beautiful priestess of Athena. She was renowned all over the ancient world for her gorgeous blond hair, and obviously attracted a great deal of male attention. Poseidon was particularly enamored with her, so much so that he ended up raping her on the altar of Athena.
Athena was infuriated at this outrage in her own temple, and, true to ancient Greek morality, punished Medusa for being raped. From that moment on, anyone who looked at her would turn to stone. There is some debate on whether Medusa stayed beautiful—ancient art, and modern Dungeons and Dragons fantasy art, gives her the face of a normal woman. If she stayed beautiful, the punishment was ironic—she remained the most beautiful woman in Greece, but no one would ever be able to look at her again. If part of the punishment was to make Medusa hideous, it may have been the intensity of her ugliness which turned people to stone. In any case, her beautiful blond hair was transformed into a nest of poisonous snakes. Some feminist scholars like to think of Medusa as a remnant of an earlier, female worshiping cult, and the later story as an indication of just how far the role of women had fallen during the course of classical civilization. They certainly have a point; going from one of the eldest gods to a rape victim who is punished for being raped is hardly a promotion. But I have a certain affinity for the second story—it was the first one I heard, after all, and it makes Medusa a tragic figure indeed, tortured to her death by the gods for absolutely no good reason.
Whatever her background, Medusa’s story always ends the same: Her head gets lopped off by Perseus and put to a variety of purposes. When Perseus is done with it, he gives it to Athena who makes it into a shield to ward off evil. Or, in Clash of the Titans, he tosses it carelessly into the sea, where it remained to frighten terrified children for millennia to come.
I don’t remember learning Medusa wasn’t “real” with nearly the same clarity as I remember learning that she was. I must have figured it out eventually, because at some point the terror stopped, and when I go to the beach I’m now reasonably sure her head won’t wash up on shore. But I’m still not convinced she doesn’t exist. Myths are fascinating because they exist in a place between what is and what isn’t. They will be around long after most of us are forgotten, and their stories, while maybe not factual in the strictest sense, can hardly be called false. Medusa’s story is thousands of years old at the youngest, yet in a few days she’ll be onscreen in 3D to once again have her head lopped off by Perseus as it has been for thousands of years, as it will be forever. It's a tired point, but one worth making: “Real” things involve worrying about money, relationships, your career, and other dull nonsense. I like to think of Perseus, Medusa, and all the other gods and goddesses, as being a bit more real than that.
My feelings about the Oscar noms are a bit mixed this time around. Last year I thought it was ridiculous that The Dark Knight wasn't nominated, so to ameliorate concerns like mine the Academy doubled the number of nominations from five to ten. That translates to five movies that would have been nominated anyway (Up in the Air, Precious, The Hurt Locker, A Serious Man, and An Education--remember how much fun we all had seeing those with our friends?) and five "bonus" movies (Inglorious Basterds, Avatar, Up, District 9, and The Blind Side--really, The Blind Side? Okay.)
By my count, Avatar and District 9 are only the 3rd and 4th sci-fi films ever to be nominated, if we stretch and count Star Wars and E.T. as science fiction. While some of those latter nominees are obvious pandering so that the telecast gets higher ratings (Blind Side, I'm looking in your direction), it's great to see the nomination lists expanding to included movies that audiences actually saw. My own favorite is easily District 9, though if there was a category for "Best Use of a David Bowie Song" (and why in God's name isn't there?) I'd go with Inglorious Basterds all the way. District 9 is proof that there is tons of creativity still out there in the film industry. I was too busy to blog about it when it came out, but trust me, I was through the roof for several days. Ditto Inglorious Basterds, but it was more zany than serious. Sure, District 9 was zany, but there was real emotional and intellectual depth there as well.
Avatar and Up sit less well with me--they're both great movies, but there's not a lot of originality there compared to some of the others. Up shouldn't be nominated for Best Picture and Best Animated Feature. I hate to say it, but Pixar films are starting to feel a little rote to me--Up was just a very touching short film about a couple growing up and growing old together accompanied by a fun but silly adventure that was nothing special. Coraline was, for me, a more inventive and exciting animated movie, and The Secret of Kells, so far seen only by the makers of The Secret of Kells, looks like nothing I've ever seen before. It's too bad most of us won't get to see it until March. (Maybe that's just the medieval history geek in me talking.)I say this with love, but Pixar films are starting to look too much like committee filmmaking to me--a little too neat, a little too predictable.
And Avatar? Good old Avatar. Where would we be without you? It's about to topple Titanic, yet it isn't half the culturalphenomenon that movie was. I can't say it's a bad movie, or that I didn't enjoy it, but it's one of the most predictable movies out there right now. (So was Titanic, I guess, but that was my generation's predictable James Cameron blockbuster!) Technically it's a masterpiece, but the story never gets anywhere beyond Dances with Smurfs. Again, it's a great movie, but I think the money and accolades it's raking up are a little excessive.
As for the others, well, I guess I need to see more movies, but movies about things that could just happen in real life never excites me the way fantasy nonsense does. So I haven't see the other five. Maybe I should. Hmm... How about those Grammys, though? Lots of great performances there. That crazy Lady Gaga, right? You just never know what she's going to do next.
Seven months ago I was thrilled that Conan O'Brien had taken over the Tonight Show. He'd been one of my comedy heroes since I was ten years old; I was sure that the new Tonight Show would bring him a whole new audience and inspire others to go after dreams of making people laugh for a living. I'm sure he'll end up on some show somewhere, but there's no denying that losing Conan on the Tonight Show is a sad moment in the world of comedy.
In what should be no surprise to anyone, Conan handled his last show with a whole lot of class. The more I see Tom Hanks, the more I realize what a funny guy he is, and it's hard to beat "Long May You Run", Neil Young's classic ode to his car and/or everyone or everything we've ever said goodbye to, for a musical number. Will Ferrell's final performance of "Freebird" was just classic Conan oddness.
What's most worthy of comment is Conan's final talk to the audience, and to his fans. It was touching, especially for those of us who did indeed stand out in the rain this past week, to see how visibly moved he was by all the fan support. But I think it was the final part of the speech that hit Conan fans the hardest.
"Do not be cynical"? For an audience of 20 and 30 somethings, especially those of us trying to find careers in Hollywood, that's an incredibly tall order. There's disappointment and discouragement around every corner, and they often strike in waves. Forces are working against us every day to try to drain the fun from the things we love. "Do not be cynical"? Asking a young person to give up cynicism is a little like Jesus asking that rich fellow to give up all of his possessions, and we all know how well that went over.
But Conan is exactly right: "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get" is something it's always good to keep in mind. No one starts out cynical or bitter; they're shields we acquire as we struggle through life, but they're not going to get us anywhere.
"Do not be cynical"? It's not easy. But for the guy who gave us Old Time Baseball, it's worth a try.
Gaming still has a bit of a bad reputation in popular culture. As the Nintendo generation continues to age (and we are aging, let’s deal with it), and people that grew up with video games as a part of life are now becoming parents themselves, a lot of the old social stigma has fallen away. Yet the stereotype of the 30 year old virgin living in his parent’s basement playing Call of Duty has never quite left us, especially among older generations. To many, games are children’s toys, or gratuitous orgies of violence and mayhem, or simple distractions. It doesn’t help matters that, as we speak, the once beloved Nintendo is doing its damnedest to make sure that reputation sticks for all eternity.
Ironically enough, it was a recent Wii game that, through no fault of Nintendo’s, reminded me just how far beyond those old notions games have come, and how far they might still go. After playing through Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on Nintendo’s parlor trick excuse for a video game system, I am more convinced than ever that games have a place in the future of storytelling. While movies and TV simply shovel information at you, games, done right, have a way of pulling you into a world and a story that no other medium can achieve.
Don’t get me wrong. One hundred thousand dollars in film school debt should be evidence enough that I love movies. Good movies can be life changing experiences, and the best ones stay with us our whole lives, providing quotable dialogue and life lessons. Who knows how many shark attacks I’ve avoided thanks to Jaws? Video games, though, provide a much different experience, much more akin to reading a book. In movies and TV shows, the story goes on with or without you. In games and books, you play an important part in what’s going on. You react to information as it comes at you, and, in games, actually have an impact on what’s going to happen next.
Silent Hill is only one of many games that give the player an active role in an ongoing story. I could use any number of fantastic games as an example (the Gabriel Knight series is the first to pop into my head—Note to Self: Write about those games in the near future), but since I’ve played Silent Hill most recently it serves as a good benchmark. Instead of a scary action-adventure romp like previous Silent Hill games, Silent Hill on the Wii is more of an interactive psychological horror story. There’s no combat, and the only “action” is running away from things. Most of the game is spent simply exploring an abandoned city as the main character searches for his daughter.
What’s interesting about the game is the way it can change. Based on the choices you make and how you play certain parts of the game, the content can change drastically. Characters can look and act completely differently based on the “psychological profile” you build up during the game. I’ve been through twice (it’s only a 5 hour game) and there are so many differences, subtle and major, that come into play to add to the sense of uncertainly the game tries to achieve. You'll travel around to different locations in the protagonist's life, collecting bits and pieces of memories, trying desperately to get a bead on what's going on only to watch your assumptions shattered again and again. It’s like being part of a good scary story that’s different every time through—to me, that’s what games should be after. I still can’t believe such a fine piece of game making art found its way to the Wii, a system that is determined to restore games to their pre-1980s role as novel time-wasters. Though Nintendo might bitch and moan until the end of time that games are supposed to be toys for children, people aren’t buying it.
Any movie, TV show, or song is subtly affected by what the intended audience brings with them. With a book, the reader takes control of the pacing, the character voices, and sometimes even their appearance. The story forms itself in the mind’s eye as it is read, and so the reader takes an active role in the creative process. Video games have the potential to go even further down this road, blurring the line between audience and character, placing the player in an environment where their choices have a profound impact on the world around them. Best of all, it can all be experienced from the comfort of your mom’s basement.
One of the great things about Hollywood is that some young hopeful out there might grow up to be the next Jay Leno. No matter how little talent you have, no matter how hackneyed and facile your sense of humor, you might be able to strong arm your way onto one of the most cherished shows in the history of television with nothing more than a pocket full of dreams. That’s right, it’s that easy. So don’t worry about all those talented and intelligent Conan O’Brien types out there. Theirs is a passing success, prey to the whims of the powers that be in Hollywood. But if your success is built on a solid foundation, one of bending over backwards for executives and using familiarity as a substitute for talent, no network will ever be able to take your dreams away from you.
Jay Leno has used his considerable skill and class to navigate the Hollywood trenches for decades, providing a safe haven for the type of people who find jokes about Sarah Palin’s lack of intelligence “too controversial.” When Johnny Carson wanted David Letterman to take over his spot on the Tonight Show, only Jay Leno had the courage to stand up and heroically weasel his way into the spot. Knowing that his success was due to the intervention of magic fairies (or merciless agents), Leno at least tried to smooth things over for his own retirement. Seeking to avoid more bruised egos, he announced in 2004 that he would step down in 2009, passed the show to Conan O’Brien, and was subsequently awarded his own primetime show. When that show failed to attract ratings, Leno was punished by receiving his old 11:35 timeslot back, ripping the Tonight Show from Conan O’Brien, and thus the pains of a complicated transition were safely sidestepped.
Everyone should admire what Jay Leno has accomplished. It takes a special kind of man to turn being unfunny into a career. I know plenty of unfunny people that are stuck in menial jobs. Getting paid to not be funny is like getting paid to not fix a car or not cure a disease, and yet Jay Leno not only gets paid for it, but he gets paid for it at the expense of people who actually are funny. In a paranoid, hyper sensitive country, blessed is the man who tailors his comedy to sleepy senior citizens.
When you’re just starting out in life, the road often branches. Down one path: Education, a natural passion for comedy and an innate talent to find the absurd in everyday life, hard work, patience, and a willingness to stick with a joke no matter who it offends; after all your job is to make people laugh, not to make them feel comfortable. Down the other path: A good agent and a willingness to screw anyone over to get what you want. The first path is a temptation, avoid it at all costs. Instead, work on screwing over people now. Cut in line in elementary school, have your mom call the school and complain until they make you the lead in the school play, steal your friend’s girlfriend, and never, never share anything you have with anyone else. Above all, DON’T BE FUNNY!
Act like Jay Leno, and you’re sure to find Hollywood success. Jay Leno will be remembered as the host who got back the Tonight Show. Future generations will speak of him with the same awed reverence they use today to talk about Jack Paar or Ernie Kovacs. Conan O’Brien, who used that useless, pointless sense of humor of his to not only host a show of popular cutting edge comedy, but also to write some of the best Simpsons episodes ever made, will be relegated to the dustbin of history. People will laugh at the situations and characters he brought to life on The Simpsons for as long as there’s a means to watch the episodes, and in being a comedy writer he brought joy to millions and millions yet to come. What a naïve waste of time. All that time he spent being funny could have been time spent being unfunny and climbing to the top of the Hollywood heap. His career will be a cautionary tale to everyone out there who thinks a good sense of humor is a means to a successful career as a comedian.
Jay Leno has shown us all that all you have to do to get your way is whine, and that’s a victory no network executive, however obsequious, will ever be able to take away from him.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back I thought I’d post some thoughts on the movie. Since this is almost certainly my favorite movie of all time, I could go on for infinite pages about every single shot and how each one affected me personally. I won’t go quite as far as that, though nearly every frame of this movie has been hanging in the main gallery of the art museum of my mind since I was eight years old. The cold comfort of the Hoth base, learning the odds of dying in various ways, the thunderous reveal of Darth Vader and the massive Imperial Fleet, the epic scale of the Hoth battle, meeting Yoda, Han Solo and Princess Leia’s asteroid field inspired romance, Yoda schooling Luke in the ways of the force, the calm of Cloud City replaced by the excitement and terror of the heroes desperate escape, the final clash of the lightsabers in the hellish carbon freezing chamber, and, through it all, one of the most powerful and romantic music scores ever written—these are the things I will try my best to avoid gushing over.
It’s a shame they show it on TV so much nowadays, and that the prequels and subsequent media inundation have made Star Wars less magical and almost banal. I know the movie so well that I’ll never be able to experience like I used to ever again, and new generations will never experience the way we did. Kids today turn on their Xboxes and have a lightsaber fight without understand the awed silence in which we sat when Luke turned on his saber in the carbon freezing chamber. So much of what was wonderful about Star Wars has been sucked away, for me and for millions, by unceasing overexposure. 
What resonates with me now, and why, despite all that the Star Wars saga has endured in the last decade or so, people still love Empire, is the story. The simplistic values of the original film might work when you’re a kid, but when you get older you realize life doesn’t quite work like that. Empire takes the traditional hero’s journey story of the first film and asks “what now?” So you’ve proven yourself and saved the galaxy. So what? To quote Princess Leia, despite everything that happened in Star Wars “The Empire is still out there!” Nothing our heroes accomplished mattered much in the end. Empire is a story about those times when dreams don’t come true, when we fail to rescue the princess, when no matter how hard we try nothing seems to go right. Yoda taught Luke the old Hollywood standby “Believe in yourself and you can achieve anything!” and so Luke, full of confidence, goes to Vader and gets his ass handed to him. 
We didn’t realize it as kids of course, but The Empire Strikes Back essentially makes a mockery of the value system in the first film, the value system spat at us, cynically, by so many movies. “Believe in yourself” “Good wins out in the end” "That evil guy you're after isn't a corrupted cyborg version of your father" “Love conquers all” “The hero gets the girl” (Remember, pre-Return of the Jedi, Han Solo was stealing Luke’s girl right from under his nose) Empire says “nope” to all of these old Hollywood themes. (And despite my oft maligning it, Jedi, when it’s good, takes this thematic evolution a step further, but more on that another time)
Life is more complicated, so much more complicated, than staring out at the setting suns wishing for your dreams to come true until, one day, they do. A lot of times, dreams don’t come true, or when they do they prove to be nothing like we imagined. That’s why the ending to the movie is still so beautiful and powerful, because in suffering the characters have found a goodness that transcends fate: compassion and friendship and loyalty—these are the things that save our heroes in the end, not their skill, not their courage, not their hard work. As Luke and Leia stare out at the impossible vastness of space as the Millennium Falcon turns into a spec in the distance and the powerful Han and Leia love them builds to a crescendo, we’re left not sad but hopeful, knowing that these characters have stared the devil in the face, as it were, and they’re still standing arm in arm. 
The enduring theme of The Empire Strikes Back, then, is a very brave one for such a mainstream movie. Genuine goodness, far from being rewarded, is often punished with increased suffering and hardship; it is worth pursuing not because it’s beneficial, but because it’s right. Beyond all the nostalgia and special effects, it’s this idea that makes Empire Strikes Back legendary. 
I don’t expect there will be another movie quite like Empire in our lifetimes. Sure, “better” movies might come along, but with the amount of media out there today there will never be a movie that defines fantasy for an entire generation again. There will never be another sequel that lives up and surpasses its predecessor with quite the same energy. Empire wasn’t “Star Wars 2”, it was Star Wars times 1000. Perhaps, many years from now, when the Star Wars marketing blitz finally dies down, these movies will be discovered again and seen the way they were to our generation, the way the Wizard of Oz continues to speak to people generation after generation. Maybe, when I write my Psycho-Cosmo-Blog on the 60th anniversary of Empire, such a magical film will no longer be held prisoner by merchandising gluttony: Lightsabers will be a rarity, Darth Vader will be scary, the battle of Hoth will be epic, Yoda will be wise, and Han Solo will, once again, be the coolest man in the universe. 
