CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO PART ONE!!

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO PART TWO!!

Andre Dellamorte: You think the general populace is going to be excited to see Vader and the Wookies back?

Sarah S: Yeah, of course.

Andre Dellamorte: But with everything we know, they’re in it for maybe ten minutes. Do you think that will burn them? “Why isn’t Vader kicking ass in this movie?”

Obi-Swan: The Ewoks have more screen time in JEDI than the Wookies have in SITH. I was expecting the same amount of screen time.

Mr. Beaks: If people haven’t felt burned yet, they aren’t going to feel burned now. It doesn’t matter that much.

Moriarty: You use your friends back home as a barometer, I use my parents. My parents are in their sixties, they like movies, they watch pretty much everything. My parents are a good audience since they don’t walk in with any baggage. My dad’s just as happy watching a Michael Dudikoff film as he is watching a giant 200 million dollar movie, and he treats them all pretty much the same way. With STAR WARS, they liked the first ones. These new ones, they’re okay with them, but this one looks good to them, and Darth Vader’s in it. And Darth Vader’s the masterstroke this time, whether they use him throughout the whole movie or not. I think for a lot of people, getting to the end and going, “Ooh, look, now they’re putting the helmet on him. Ooh, now he’s Vader,” will be enough. They’re going to say, “Did you see how they turned him into Vader? That was awesome.” They’ll remember the last thing they see, and the last group of images are such classic Star Wars imagery.

Mr. Beaks: And they don’t know this stuff. They don’t know what’s going to happen, and when it hits them, I don’t know, they might be like, “Oh my god.”

Moriarty: I genuinely think the general audience… I think they’re going to see the last ten, fifteen minutes of it, they’re going to see the Duel, and say, “Oh My God.” They’re going to see the Monty Python and the Holy Grail moment, they’re going to slip out, they’re going to see it all come together, and they’re going to think it was awesome. “I got what I wanted.” I think the general public will keep this movie alive for a while. I think the hardcore audiences are the ones who have all the expectations. I think this is going to be one of those cases like what happened with MJ Simpson, the HITCHHIKER’S guy. This guy ran a website called Planet Magrathea, he’s written several books on Douglas Adams, he’s a self-acknowledged authority, “the man who knows more about Douglas Adams than Douglas Adams did,” and he saw THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, and lost his fucking mind. Hated it, hated every frame of the movie, went crazy on the internet, started talking about how disastrous it was, what wasn’t in the books that was in the film and vice versa, and then the fan community went nuts right back at him and said, “Well, are you sure? ‘Cause it looks really good to us and we like what we’ve seen so far” and “We kind of like the movie.” And he got so pissy about it, he shut his website down. He says he’ll never write about Douglas Adams again in print, online, anywhere. He’s never going to mention him again, he’s done, good bye. And there is a giant open letter on his site that is basically, “I am officially done with all things related to H2G2 and anything Douglas Adams related. Good bye, so long, and thanks for all the fish.” And it’s him throwing down the mike on stage and storming off. So my point is, there’s the 1977 contingent, those of us who’ve been around since the very beginning, who because we carried it around for 28 years, just are never going to be happy with these movies period, and the general public is having a more open experience with them because they’re just films to them. Because I honestly think the general public will like this more than other two. I think it’ll get a bigger reaction than the other two, and it’ll have a longer life with an audience.

Mr. Beaks: I think people will be okay with it. What I think, though, is that because nobody’s backing off, there’s just a brief window there, so people will forget STAR WARS is there. There’s MADAGASCAR, THE LONGEST YARD, and things just keep rolling out like CINDERELLA MAN, and it’ll get lost in the shuffle pretty quickly. It’ll go away. I don’t see how it’s going to stand out with everything else. If they go, it’ll be first week. I fully expect that first week to be huge, but I think it’ll get lost in the summer shuffle.

Moriarty: They’re not going to go back, you don’t think?

Mr. Beaks: Oh, no.

Andre Dellamorte: I think people will like it, but they’ll like it like most people like TWISTER, or whatever big loud summer film.

Sarah: But that’s what STAR WARS is. It’s a big loud movie. They’re big loud comic movies.

Mr. Beaks: They’re roller coaster rides.

Sarah S: Exactly. I don’t kid myself, that’s exactly what they are.

Moriarty: I must say, I’m looking forward to Malick’s NEW WORLD this year, and there are other films I’m looking forward to for that cinema lover part of me. I think for STAR WARS, I just want a great STAR WARS ride the last time out. I don’t know that I need it any deeper than this. When I read the script, I thought what he wrote was a good STAR WARS movie. I don’t think it’s the end-all-be-all STAR WARS movie. I don’t think we’ll ever get that. I don’t think that will ever happen.

Obi-Swan: My hope is that it will be my second favorite STAR WARS film. In a best-case scenario, that’s as high as it can go… my second favorite.

Mr. Beaks: And EMPIRE is your favorite?

Obi-Swan: No, A NEW HOPE is my favorite.

Darth Benedict XVI: There’s that great episode of Bravo’s THE DIRECTORS series where they wrap up with Lucas talking about EPISODE III, and he’s sitting there basically going, “Um, well, you know, right now, um, we’re doing the third one, and, well, and things are really mixed up in the culture now, and, um, people don’t know how they feel about them, and hopefully some years down the line people will see them for what they are.” And then he sort of struggled to find the words, “Well, it’s sort of a sociological…” And it’s like, okay, whatever. He is like Tolkien and Peter Jackson all in one. He created it, he’s directing the movies, and they’re not based on these big novels, and the interesting question is what are people going to feel about them fifty years from now? Will Jedi knights and all that stuff endure, and the other scary thing is what else is there after this?

Moriarty: I think this is it.

Mr. Beaks: I think he should break the staff. I mean, in my opinion he already broke the staff, but symbolically he should.

Darth Benedict XVI: MATRIX is dead. LORD OF THE RINGS, they got made and they’re great and maybe we’ll get THE HOBBIT later. We’re somewhere in the comic book cycle, and it’ll end as all cycles in movies end, and then go away and either be born again later or not. STAR TREK is dormant. What else are you going to line up for?

Andre Dellamorte: We’ve got three POTTER films left, we’ve got NARNIA.

Moriarty: I think NARNIA has an audience, but I don’t think it’s rabid anticipation, because I don’t think those books inspire that kind of passion.

Sarah S: There aren’t going to be NARNIA Lotto tickets.

Darth Benedict XVI: Do you turn this into the Geek Council? It’s the Jedi Council and it served a certain point, but it’s over.

Windy Starkiller: Well, we’re all going to die at some point.

Mr. Beaks: But what Cameron was talking about, is it 3D?

Moriarty: Obi-Swan and I have actually seen a bit of STAR WARS 3D, and I have to say it’s a novelty. It’s a really neat novelty, but it’s a little ridiculous. I can’t imagine why you’d want to have a render farm full of people doing nothing but lifting an element out, painting behind them, then sticking it back on in 3D. And doing that for six whole movies. It’s psychotic, it’s a psychotic thing to spend time on. But it is kind of interesting in terms of a way to drive people to a format that other people are producing original content for, which is what I’m really interested in. From now on, is STAR WARS what Lucas is going to fuck around with to test various formats out? Will it just be a home theater demo? Because that’s how he sort of looks at it, isn’t it?

Sarah S: That doesn’t seem fair. Once it’s done, it should be done. It’s like the Mormons running around cleaning up other people’s movies and editing out swear words and stuff.

Moriarty: Even though he created it, it still feels like that a little bit.

Mr. Beaks: Well, he’s a gearhead, and the thing with gearheads is that they’re always working under the hood. Gearheads are never happy with their cars. They’re always trying to modify it, put a nitrous oxide tank on it.

Obi-Swan: So Lucas equates cars with his movies?

Mr. Beaks: Well, he was a big car guy, so, yeah. I think that’s the correct analogy. But I think I’m borrowing that from Tom Shone, so I don’t want to take credit for it.

Obi-Swan: That’s interesting.

Dr. Hfuhruhurr: You know what we can do after this is all over? Copyrights expire eventually. So we should start to train our children how to edit all these films properly. Our kids are going re-edit these things to sell them for a profit.

Windy Starkiller: Well, they can remake these things all the way through, and fix the Gungans, completely redesign those characters, change their voices.

Dr. Hfuhruhurr: In seventy years, who gets the rights to STAR WARS?

Moriarty: His kids. And like anybody who deals with the Seuss estate or the Tolkien estate, it’s going to be that kind of thing. They’ll be a monolith, they’ll be a commercial force for generations, I’m sure. And they will protect the living shit of that for as long as they can, and exploit it.

The Hellboy: They could sell it off. We don’t know.

Moriarty: I don’t think his kids will, because he raised them on the sets of these three films, and these are like their movies.

Obi-Swan: And he doesn’t let anybody talk to them.

Moriarty: You know, at least Robert Rodriguez admits that with THE ADVENTURES OF SHARK BOY AND LAVA GIRL, he let his five year old write that movie. I’m not going to hold that against him if the film makes five-year-old sense. But I get the feeling on PHANTOM MENACE, Lucas’s kids were sitting in his lap and naming stuff. And it’s like, “Hey, George, that’s cute, but make sure it’s something I don’t have to spend a third of the movie with.” And I think that’s why they’ll protect the films; these movies are their movies, too.

Darth Benedict XVI: I hear John Williams is going back to rescore all six.

Sarah S: Well, with the changes on the DVDs, the music cues are off.

Darth Benedict XVI: But we didn’t touch on the score. You think when Darth Vader walks in in A NEW HOPE for the first time, the Imperial March won’t be played?

Obi-Swan: Didn’t I hear that “Duel of the Fates” was going to be in A NEW HOPE as well?

Darth Benedict XVI: Well, where’s the Emperor’s theme in REVENGE OF THE SITH?

Moriarty: I think there’s stuff we haven’t heard yet. I think it’s just the new stuff that’s on the soundtrack album. I’m guessing “Duel of the Fates” is in the film.

Darth Benedict XVI: I think it’s safe to say we haven’t seen the final version of any one of these films yet.

Moriarty: I think the most telling quote was from Rick McCallum, who said, “I’ve had a nightmare recently where I’m 85 years old and I get a call from George and his daughter in the middle of the night saying ‘I was wondering if you had reel six of A NEW HOPE ‘cause we want to take something off the mag track and tweak it.’” So I think he’s starting to realize that he signed on for a longer gig than he expected. And, on that note, thank you guys for coming.

I enjoyed these meetings over the last couple of years, and based on the volume of mail that was generated each time we published one, many of you did, too. Keep in mind that this meeting took place before the reviews started to land online, and now it seems like the film is connecting with audiences and with critics alike, exactly as I’d hoped. Edgar Wright, director of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, was at the screening I went to on Thursday, and we spoke a bit about it afterwards. He offered up his official reaction to the good guys over at EMPIRE Online. Both VARIETY and THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER loved it. Sure, Jeffrey Wells hated it, but he hates anything that even remotely smacks of popular entertainment, so fuck him sideways.

The long and the short of it is this: STAR WARS long ago stopped being “just” a movie or even “just” a series of movies. STAR WARS is a part of the cultural lives of everyone who’s grown up in its shadow, and these movies will be debated and watched for generations to come. You may love the last chapter. You may hate the last chapter. But I hope you go into it with an open mind, because this is not only a last chance for Lucas... it’s a last chance for you, the viewer, to set aside your baggage and just let a STAR WARS film happen for you.

I’ve still got to put up my WATCHMEN piece this weekend and a review of EARTHBOY JACOBUS, and then I’ll get my own EPISODE III review up online for Monday morning. Until then...

"Moriarty" out.