Appreciating Phantom Menace from a kid’s perspective

So much for my promising to not see "Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999) in 3D.

Feb. 20, 2012, will be in the words of Darth Vader from "Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope" (1977), “a day long remembered” as it marked the first time, I opted to sit through a blockbuster film that I knew would not look good in 3D simply because it was never meant for that process to begin with.

My reason for seeing Phantom Menace was not the result of creator/director George Lucas waving his imaginary hand through the use of that famous Jedi Mind trick in which he says, “You WILL gladly shell out your hard-earned money to see my re-released movie in 3D.” Nor did I awake Monday morning to find myself face to face with Darth Maul standing over my bed threatening to slice me in half with his double-sided lightsaber.

The one and only justification for my seeing Episode I again on the big screen was because I took my five-year-old nephew, Jake, to see it who, up until then had never seen the film but is vaguely familiar with the Star Wars universe thanks to all the toy merchandising.

For much of those two-and-a-half hours I was worried Jake would get bored sitting there and tell me midway through that he wanted to go to the theater lobby to play video games. To my surprise, Jake sat there glued to the screen. He was as happy as a clam chomping down on his kid’s pack of popcorn, hot dog, sprite, some fruit snacks and a bag of cookies he brought from home and only once in a while taking off those bothersome black 3D sunglasses for a few seconds before putting them back on.

I didn’t have to ask Jake why he liked The Phantom Menace after it was over. I already knew the answer and it had nothing to do with the film’s intergalactic politics, Jar Jar Binks’ annoying comedic antics or the microscopic life forms called “midi-chlorians” Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) tells young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) that he and everyone else in that “galaxy far, far away” are born with.

Jake’s positive reaction to Phantom Menace had to do more with his watching those pod races on Tatooine, Jedi Knights slicing apart mindless battle droids, outer space laser battles, and seeing a black and red tattooed horn-rimmed devil show off his double-sided lightsaber in battle.

It’s the same reaction I got when I first saw "Star Wars" back in August 1977. As a kid going into second grade I did not care if the science fiction story made any sense to me. I just wanted to see the good guys and bad guys engage in a lot of laser battles whether it was in the corridors of the Death Star or in outer space.

Jake’s fascination with the film’s visual effects got me thinking once again how the Star Wars movies were never made so much for adults as they were for young kids. This isn’t the first time I got that impression. When a friend of mine and I saw Phantom Menace back in 1999, he called the film “the best Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie” ever made for youngsters.

As I walked in for the second Saturday morning of the animated "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (2008) at theaters opening weekend, I took note how excited the young moviegoers got as they walked out following the first showing.

I heard one kid yell, “That was awesome!” as I walked in. The minute the end credits rolled, I could hear the audience cheering and needless to say, the applause was not so much coming from the parents and adults as it was from the kids.

A few weeks ago, when a coworker took his two daughters around to all our cubicles asking us if we wanted to buy Girl Scout Cookies, he told me how much his kids liked my work area more so than anyone else’s. The reason being because I got two ultimate collector Lego sets of a giant Yoda and a snowspeeder along with two 12-inch alien Star Wars figures of Greedo and Hammerhead from Sideshow Collectibles on display at my desk. He told me that both his daughters were Star Wars fans who religiously watched the Clone Wars TV series on the Cartoon Network every week and was also going to be taking them to see Phantom Menace in 3D as well.

It only clarifies what Lucas said in a May 1999 interview at www.gaurdian.co.uk saying how the Star Wars movies “were intended for 12 – and 13-year-olds.”

"The die-hard Star Wars fans have grown older and somehow expect the films should be for them, but they're not. I think that's the reason so many people are saying The Phantom Menace is more kid-friendly than any of the other films, which is categorically not true,” Lucas said. “It's just that the original fans have lost sight of what thrilled them in the first place. My intention has always been to make a Saturday afternoon serial for children.”

Here we are thirteen years later after its original release and the die-hard fans still can’t forgive the father of The Force for creating Jar Jar Binks and giving them a prequel trilogy that in their minds despite being big on computer generated effects was emotionally empty.

As Jar Jar Binks would say in his native alien tongue, “How wude.”

©2/22/12

Gone Too Soon: Whitney Houston (1963-2012)

“They’re devils to me…and they’re out to eat my flesh.”

That was one among several memorable quotes uttered by six-time Grammy Award winning singer Whitney Houston over the years. The comment in particular was from a 1996 interview in Redbook Magazine on her opinion of the media.

If the “Drive-By Media”, as conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh calls them, are devils in disguise, then they really had a plateful and were only too eager to come back for sloppy seconds with drool spewing from their mouths when the recording artist and actress was found dead in her fourth floor suite at the Beverly Hilton hotel Feb. 11 at the age of only 48.

The singer’s body still hadn’t been released to the coroner’s office when I read a story from TMZ the morning of Feb. 12 that an unnamed source said pill bottles were nearby in the bathroom where Houston was found reportedly under water in the bathtub. Toxicology results are not expected for weeks but speculation exists that a lethal combination of prescribed medications and alcohol likely played a role.

Not surprisingly the Houston story dominated the Monday morning news shows. Switching stations from NBC to ABC to CBS reminded me of that scene near the end of Oliver Stone’s "Natural Born Killers" (1994). In the climax, a faceless individual can be seen switching channels where a different tabloid news story was covered from the 1993 Branch Davidian Siege in Waco, Texas and the Tonya Harding scandal to Rodney King.

In typical tabloid media fashion, the negatives not only outweighed the positives but conflicted with other’s accounts from those close to the singer who were interviewed about her supposed behavior in the days prior to Feb. 11.

“She (Houston) did not seem disheveled,” said singer Kelly Price in a 2/13 story on CNN who was with icon at a party two days before. “She was dancing. She was laughing. We were having a good time. What I saw on Thursday night was not erratic behavior. I didn’t see someone who was high.”

A far contrast from what Los Angeles Times’ music writer Gerrick Kennedy said when he ran into Houston at the Beverly Hilton during a press event.

“She (Houston) was very – almost kind of frantic,” Kennedy told NBC’s Matt Lauer on the Today Show Feb. 13 who added the singer smelled of cigarettes and alcohol. “There was a bit of erraticness in her behavior, you know. When I had the first time to interact with her outside in the lobby she was wandering around aimlessly, almost like a child. She seemed lost. That was the first interaction I had but as the day went on, you know, you got more glimpses of her and you got another taste of the fact something was off that day.”

Even more ghoulish was the picture Entertainment Tonight showed on their broadcast Monday of the pop superstar in a body bag and boasted how this was an “exclusive” photo that only they had.

That night, HLN’s Nancy Grace put in her two cents when speaking with CNN’s Brooke Baldwin demanding answers while the investigation was still ongoing.

“I’d like to know who was around her, who if anyone gave her drugs....and who let her slip, or pushed her, underneath that water,” Grace said.

I suppose I should give the “drive-by” media a small miniscule amount of credit. When ABC news reporter Linsey Davis showed photos courtesy of TMZ of Houston lounging at the pool at The Beverly Hilton, she said it was not known if the drink the singer had by her side was alcohol.

All this tabloid coverage makes me glad that the recording artist’s family chose to hold a private memorial service Feb. 18 in the singer’s hometown of Newark, New Jersey at the New Hope Baptist Church where Houston sang in the choir as a child versus the televised media circus that took place when the “King of Pop” Michael Jackson was laid to rest in 2009. Instead of a public funeral, fans will be able to view Houston’s service via streaming the Internet supplied by the Associated Press.

I heard some say that Feb. 11, 2012 is another one of those “where were you when” moments when you heard Whitney Houston had passed. To me Feb. 11 is no more different than any other day. I will for the record say I was at work when a friend of mine texted me the news and asked “who’s next” given that celebrity death’s always seem to come in threes.

Later that night, I did what everyone else was likely doing upon hearing the news downloading the singer’s music videos from her motion picture debut in "The Bodyguard" (1992) on YouTube.

Even now, I can’t get Houston’s “golden voice” out of my head as I recall the lyrics of “I will always love you”, “I Have Nothing,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, “I’m Your Baby Tonight” and her patriotic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XXV Jan. 27, 1991 that puts just about every other entertainer who has done the country’s national anthem since to shame.

That’s the Whitney Houston I prefer to remember versus the sad scandal ridden portrait the “Drive-By Media” has been so fixated on reporting about since her final curtain unexpectedly fell late Saturday afternoon.

©2/15/12