There are some psychological pieces to my purchase that don't quite fit.
First of all, I'm not especially excited about this forthcoming instalment in the saga -- cautious optimism I'll admit to, but not excitement. I'm guessing it'll likely be the third-best movie, after Empire, but nowhere near as mind-blowing as '77, because how could it possibly be?
But why be a Debbie Downer about it? It's entirely possible, even likely, this movie will be at least as much fun as Abrams' first Star Trek flick. Should it hit this high-water mark, I shall take great pleasure in watching my daughters dig it.
So -- not exactly excited, and yet I bought the kit. Was it so freakin' cool-looking I just couldn't resist? Mm . . . nope. I doubt I'm alone in thinking it looks like she's riding a thumb-drive.
Or that it bears a passing resemblance to Luke's Speeder, turned sideways.
Now that was a vehicle that excited me -- as a 12-year-old, of course. Still, the residue of that excitement clung on into adulthood so that, when the first LEGO rendition of it came out, I went ahead and dumped the change for it. My mother must've taken note, because years later she gave me the later rendition -- the Mos Eisley Cantina -- for a Christmas present.
Alright, on to another impulse purchase -- this box of postcards:
They're distillations from these books . . .
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| "Priced out-of-range, these books are." |
Had I not already attended these movies and experienced the prolonged irritation of a bad script filled with bad lines being delivered badly, I expect I could be forgiven for beholding these stills and expecting the trippy promise of Jodorowsky's Dune come to glorious fruition.
Jodorowsky's Dune -- I think we're getting somewhere, now.
Back to the latest LEGO speeder: putting these smooth and shiny pieces of plastic together, witnessing its carefully considered aesthetic taking shape beneath my fingertips, then feeling the heft of the completed item -- the LEGO brick is to this suburban brat from the '70s what the Madeleine was to Proust: the key to chambers of recollection and the endless possibilities of a stimulated, youthful imagination.
The new movie doesn't have to be anything. The LEGO is more than enough.
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| "Wait: X-Wing? Orange? Black?? I ... gurgle." |
2 comments:
By all reports, the original Star Wars script went through years of work before they got it just pitch perfect. It's no wonder that nothing since then has managed to hit that level of perfection.
I read somewhere on the Internet (don't remember where now) about how they were under such time pressure to finish the script for the new movie that they were just shouting ideas at each other in a coffee shop and writing as fast as they could.
It's a fair bet this new movie isn't going to be nearly as wonderful as the original.
...And yet...and yet I'd be lying if I said I wasn't becoming obsessive in my anticipation now. The curiosity factor more than anything--I'm just so curious as to what they've done with these characters now.
Dark Horse's recent series illustrating the original "red scribbler" script confirms just what a dud Lucas's first draft really was. But then, so did all three prequels. Funny how, once a creative-type gets conquer-the-world successful, the first person they banish to the hinterlands is the editor.
As for Abrams, I think it's a fair bet he and his team have lit on characteristics that the audience will eat up. Again, the first Star Trek movie may have had a risible storyline, but it nailed the esprit de corps that made TOS so attractive for so many people -- right out of the gate, too. I'm expecting a fun movie, really.
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