127 HOURS AND INTO THE WILD

127 Hours - Danny Boyle, 2010
Into The Wild - Sean Penn, 2007

It's not easy for a director to make a film where the ending doubles as the selling-point, where there's no real potential to surprise your audience with the outcome. Sure, maybe there were a few people who innocently went to see the movie about "the guy who gets trapped beneath a rock," wondering what would happen to the poor fellow. I'm extremely curious how such a person's reaction to 127 Hours might differ from someone who went to see the movie about [SPOILER?] "the guy who has to cut his own arm off to escape from under a rock." The focus of the movie would seem to change completely — likewise with Into The Wild, a story about [again, SPOILERS, I guess, but you might as well stop reading and just go see the movies] Chris McCandless, a young kid with a bad case of Kerouvac Syndrome, who hiked into the Alaskan wilderness, lived in an abandoned bus for four months, and never made it back out. Most people know how these stories end, but that's not the point. They're still remarkable stories, made much more remarkable because they actually happened. The danger for those translating them to film is how easily they demonstrate a few really obvious lessons. The same holds true for almost any non-fiction account of tragedy, but the important difference here is the tragedy is self-perpetuated. It's an unwritten law of cinema that any movie about a hiker / adventurous type (see also: people who have survived the apocalypse) must scream in 72 point font, Comic Sans: HEY SO OTHER PEOPLE ARE REALLY IMPORTANT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY VALUE THEM IN YOUR LIFE. Of course, no one realizes this until they're hallucinating and on the verge of death. Because, let's face it, if the value of other people has never impressed itself upon you before, you're not going to have this epiphany waiting on the platform for the G train at 9 in the morning. Or in your cubicle, listening to your coworker's stupid story about spooning his girlfriend and throwing his back out. This lesson is so broad that it will mean a lot more when we, as viewers, understand why it has to be learned in the first place.

Hikers and outdoorsy types come in any number of varieties, like any demographic big enough to have entire department stores catered to them, but there are a few broad archetypes. Aron Ralston, as depicted by James Franco in 127 Hours, seems to be a classic adrenaline junky. Into The Wild's Chris McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch, is what I'd describe as the "misguided hippie" archetype. The obvious link between these two men is their love of the outdoors. An adrenaline junky could get their fix in any number of ways, but a climbing nerd is a special sort, in it for both the nature, the spectacle and the rush. McCandless undoubtedly felt the need for adrenaline as well, but his appreciation of the outdoors is a more thoughtful, patient sort, influenced as much by literature and some deep-seated family issues than the pure embrace of adventure. These two archetypal mindsets strongly influence the direction and pacing of their respective films, which makes sense. Unfortunately, like the men they're based on, both take it just a bit too far, and neither quite nails the landing.

Comparing any two films is an arbitrary exercise, of course. They're not competing against each other and they were not intended to compliment each other, but these are similar films with similar messages. James Franco does a terrific job capturing what Ralston went through in 127 Hours, the nuances of a man who can barely move but watches his life flash before him over the days he's trapped. Yet it's Boyle's direction that truly drives the emotion — even when Franco doesn't have much to do but shout and scream in pain. Boyle proves that it required a full movie to show us Aron Ralston's plight — and maybe in some unintended ways, as I would argue that the movie doesn't show enough. Eventually the screaming / shouting / pain comes to an end, and the movie finishes on the most obvious of lessons: people are important. Totally don't ignore your mom's phone calls. Is it effective? Yes. I was very moved, even inspired. The movie leaves you feeling good, but when I thought about it later, I wanted more. 127 Hours is a bit of an adrenaline junky itself, rushing toward that quick fix, the broad, bold conclusion. It's a technical accomplishment to film an action movie where the main character can barely move, but technical accomplishments often aren't as interesting as their context. The nuances Franco manages to convey by reacting to his limited environment are impressive, but we're never given a hint of why he is this way — the psychological background that would make his eventual triumph feel like catharsis, rather than just relief. What makes an adrenaline junky the way he is? And how much of a loner was he, anyway? Boyle offers hints of explanation, indications that he could have been closer with his parents, that he misses an ex-girlfriend, but these background issues could apply to nearly any character ever. Telling us that Ralston is pining over some failed, undefined relationship leaves vague loose-ends tangling in the past of the character.

It's interesting that Franco's character only begins to appreciate the sexual interest of his three female co-stars when he's on the verge of death. In Into The Wild, Chris McCandless is even more asexual, never once pursuing a romantic relationship, even when he's offered one flat-out. But it's not just romantic relationships that he walks away from, it's all relationships. Hirsch's character seems incapable of forming any permanent bonds, yet he's happy with his lifestyle. He knows what he wants in his life, and creates a charismatic specter of wish-fulfillment that sucks in those around him and leaves them heartbroken when he so casually moves on. It's not that he doesn't get along well with people. He's great with people, excels in their company in fact, but he views these interactions as experiences building up to something greater, something more personal, more about Chris McCandless. Ralston and McCandless are men who are in love with nature, and probably, in love with themselves. Neither film addresses this head-on, but it's obvious, and Into The Wild does a far better job of character development simply due to the structure of the film. We understand the relationship McCandless had with his parents. We figure out how he could leave behind his old friends so easily. And while he's never shown with any sort of romantic past, it's easy to see why. Though 127 Hours is a marvel of direction, and the superior movie on a technical level, Into The Wild nonetheless manages to tell a more developed story.

There's really no reason Into The Wild couldn't have been told the same way as 127 Hours. Chris McCandless only spent about three or four months in the Alaskan wilderness, and in the last week or two of his life, he was also trapped. Not by a rock, but trapped by a river and his own recklessness. Both films could have unraveled their stories with a similarly narrow focus. Yet Into The Wild wisely chose to spend much of its running time showing the past of the character, cutting to his time in Alaska only for brief scenes. Penn is far from the director that Boyle is, and in a sense, he had to take this direction — Boyle's character lived, giving him a lot of artistic freedom in building up to that moment, whereas Penn's tale would have been much more of a downer without that broad context and character development. I don't blame Boyle for taking the material he was given and trying to make his movie as unique as possible; he pulled it off. But Into The Wild manages to explain a great deal of what 127 Hours leaves dangling. To be fair, Into The Wild is far from perfect itself.  Apart from some odd directorial choices, there's simply too much material crammed into its running time, making the same point so often that the ending seems almost insincere. We understand everything McCandless abandoned to reach his final destination, even if we never do see him really cherish anything. Only on his deathbed does he seem to miss the company of other people, and even then, his drive is still sort-of selfish: "happiness only real if shared." Aron Ralston only learned to update his Facebook status so people know where he's hiking. (Too bad we'll never get the sequel, "127 Days Later.") 127 Hours isn't a failed movie due to its lack of context. Into The Wild demonstrates how too much context can drag a film down, but I still believe a lot of the most interesting material in Aron Ralston's story was dropped because it didn't fit into Boyle's dramatic vision. And anyway, that's okay. Sometimes drama is self-fulfilling. I'm not sure whether I'd call 127 Hours a great movie, but it is a great experience. No matter what you believe about the importance of people, you have to admit — great experiences are pretty sweet too.

SUBURBAN DISCONTENT: AMERICAN BEAUTY AND REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Until I sat down to write this review, it hadn't actually occurred to me that Sam Mendes directed both American Beauty (1999) and Revolutionary Road (2008).  I remembered that he was responsible for at least one of them, but I figured I was getting myself confused and couldn't remember which.  So that wasn't why I decided to write this joint analysis — honestly, I just happened to watch both films within a week of each other, and I was struck by how well they complimented each other thematically.  And now... that makes sense.  Both are films book-ending the era of American suburban expansion, examining jaded, former idealists — and taken together, they add up to a unique statement on American suburban ennui.  I wonder where Sam Mendes lives?

I already agree with the angle Mendes seems to be honing in on, but I suspect it isn't terribly important to what's going on here.  These films aren't about the suburbs being good or bad on their own.  They never attempt to demonstrate that suburbs are culturally bankrupt compared to other modes of living, or inferior to cities, even if their inhabitants are shown in a harsh light  These aren't films about societal sustainability — they're about cultural sustainability.  Mendes falls upon the suburbs as a symbol of a lifestyle that was becoming quintessentially American around the time of Revolutionary Road, and by American Beauty's era, had established itself as the status quo.  In another sense, the suburbs are simply a metaphor for failed American idealism.

Back before I realized that both had the same director, I was especially struck by how much these movies are inversions of each other.  Revolutionary Road is set in Connecticut in the 50's, and follows a couple (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio) forced to settle down because of their kids.  They are a pair of vaguely-artistic self-appointed outsiders; they consider themselves better than the system, and want to move to Paris to regroup and figure out what their calling in life is. Friends of the couple consider them immature and slightly crazy for wanting to pack up and leave — like many idealists, DiCaprio's character seems to have no idea what he's running to or what he's running from, and that's where the trouble appears.  After all, 50's America was a time of finally embracing normalcy, when suburban societal rhythms were being established and America as a whole was transforming into a middle aged version of itself, rich and ready to pay for reliable comforts and picket fences.  On its own, Revolutionary Road is a fascinating look at the underside of an era when media, advertising and government were bizarrely united in portraying a simplified, sterilized image of regular American life.  "Normalcy does not inspire happiness" could be the tagline of either of these films.  American Beauty takes place presumably at the same time it was filmed, the late nineties, and once again develops around a married couple who appear normal, who try to act happy, and are neither of those things.  It's another story of a marriage falling apart, another warning that one day you might wake up and out-of-nowhere realize how miserable you are. Both stories spiral toward tragedy due to miscommunication and discontent — or maybe inevitability.  On the surface, these films would seem to more or less make the same statement, but it's the differences in tone that captured my interest — like I said, they serve as book-ends, not only to the way culture changed (or didn't change) in the five decades between their characters, but also in the decade separating their creation.   

American Beauty is very much a 90's movie, both in its setting and feel — flippant, jaded, sarcastic.  Everything is slightly tongue-and-cheek, yet with that undercurrent of anti-corporate, anti-establishment cynicism that cropped up after the Reagan era but never congealed with the focus of the 70's punk era.  It's no fluke here, and the cynicism may not all trace back to Mendes.  While rewatching Beauty, I was struck how close in tone it is to another movie from the same period: Donnie Darko.  These movies wouldn't seem to have anything in common on the surface, but if you strip out the metaphysical sci-fi from Darko, the rest is strikingly similar in tone and ideology.  It's the era, not specific filmmakers, of course. That cynical, middle-finger sense of humor can be found in other 90's movies like Office Space, Clerks, Fight Club, and so on.  A lot of the material in American Beauty could have been even darker than it was, if not centered around such a relaxed, enjoyable actor as Kevin Spacey.  Yet compared to Revolutionary Road, Beauty seems tame, almost a comedy.  There are fewer sinister events in Revolutionary Road, up until its ending, yet the film feels much colder. It lacks humor; its characters seem doomed — there's an almost apocalyptic air to it, as if innocent young America were ambling along obliviously into decades of chaos and war (well, okay.)  That the story is so simple, the character's struggles so domestic, only makes it seem more tragic.  Decades later, America had suffered plenty, and suddenly the same suburban discontent is skewed from the other end.  The same unanswerable questions about marriage and happiness and success — suddenly it's not that you're looking ahead and seeing dark clouds on the horizon, you're looking back, thinking, "Oh, whatever. That sucked.  F**k it."  It's a perspective uniting both the cultural background of the movies, and the characters themselves: in Revolutionary Road, the couple is young, eager, looking forward to life; in Beauty, they've endured a thankless marriage for years, and are bored with their suffering.  Even their young daughter has already become resigned, ready to run off with a boy who shows some hint of unconformity and passion.

It's probably suggestive that the dread Road builds around was best captured in the 00's, despite it serving as a period piece.  The mood is straightforward, haunted, capturing the feeling that something big has changed and god knows what those changes might mean.  The suburban lifestyle was well established by the 90's, but that feeling of despair over mere angst has reappeared in strength these last few years.  Except this time, it isn't a sense of naive idealism that's failing us — it's the ability to survive through apathy and sarcasm.  And not in a good way.  We found no relief in the 00's, in the honest, unadorned tone of films like Revolutionary Road.  By the end of the movie, the characters don't really know how to react — they simply are where they are, and there's little they can do about it until their lives return to something that appears normal.

BLACK SWAN (2010, DARREN ARANOFSKY)

Black Swan makes a pretty good first film to review, it turns out. It's a really well made movie, objectively, yet I didn't particularly enjoy the experience of watching it.  Movies like this contain some interesting lessons in the subjectivity inherent to enjoyment of films, something that film criticism often ignores entirely. Black Swan is a psychological horror movie, and probably the most painfully tense movie I've seen since No Country For Old Men. Don't watch the trailer (more on that later.)  All you need to know, plot-wise, is that this is a heavily tone and character based movie about a ballerina losing herself to the music, the moment. (This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.)  It will be enjoyed by those who enjoy horror, and it deserves to earn Oscar noms for Aranofsky and Natalie Portman. It's an impressive and interesting movie, certainly.  But if you, like me, have never learned to savor horror-tinged tension, cringe-worthy scenes of fingernail clipping, body mutilation and creaking, bloody feet, all enacted by off-putting, obsessive characters, there's very little else here to enjoy. (And, Jesus spinning Christ, I never want to see anyone's foot ever again.)

On a technical level, the movie is nearly impeccable.  Aranofsky's direction embodies both the technical perfection and unhinged madness discussed throughout the movie, even if he tries maybe a bit too hard, getting a little overblown toward the end and tossing out too much over-thought cinematography, such as Vincent Cassel's absurdly black-and-white apartment full of swan imagery.  Portman is perhaps the best thing about the movie, and shapes her character effortlessly.

I mentioned not to watch the trailer. Don't. If you know anything about the movie at all, there are few surprises here. Really, that was my greatest disappointment: everything happened exactly as I expected it to.  The story does hold a few surprises in the end, but only in the specifics — I assumed it would have a certain 'type' of ending, and it did. Aside from cringing at the many uncomfortable scenes, I felt like I was watching a movie I had seen a few years ago and forgotten about. It's not that the trailer gives anything away; it's more that there isn't much to give away, once you get a handle on the characters and style of the film. Of course, the storytelling in Black Swan is far from lazy; it's just based on the assumption that you enjoy tension. Granted, I've enjoyed many other tension-filled movies, but most of them have some form of payoff. No Country For Old Men was almost unbearable to watch, but I'd say I enjoyed the film because of its unique characters and mixture of Western and Noir tones, the message that tension was sculpting.  And that is, of course, boiling things down to my personal taste.  Black Swan is a very dry movie.  If you like the tone here, then you'll like the movie. If you don't — well, there's little else going on except the impressive direction and acting. There isn't a single moment of comedy, nor are there really any character or societal insights. It's fine for a movie to be so singularly focused. It's why film criticism so often misses the point. Black Swan isn't trying to appeal to everyone. (It might be trying a little too hard to appeal to the Oscar crowd, but I digress.)  As a very well-made, artistically accomplished film, it has nothing else to prove; it does what it does quite well.

Grade: B

INCEPTION AND THE DEFENSE OF IDEAS

This is not a review of Inception. I'm not going to discuss Inception in-depth, either, so there will be no spoilers here in case you haven't seen it yet.  It will hopefully become clear later on in this editorial that I thought Inception was a dashingly-crafted good time, and a movie that got a lot of mileage out of eluding people's guesses of what it would be. Going by the vague premise unveiled in teasers and Christopher Nolan's previous filmography, many likely expected a movie full of crazy plot twists, another film like The Prestige or Memento scattered around a shifting dream-world matrix.  Yet the plot of Inception is fairly straightforward in-and-of itself (despite the complexity of the in-world rules dictating that plot), propelled mainly by the strength of its central idea.  Much has been made of the fact that Inception was one of the few movies released this summer not based on previously-existing material, but I will argue that its originality is far more significant than that: Inception is the rare movie that starts almost completely from scratch.  So this is what I would like to discuss today: ideas, whether they are in decline, and how Inception makes a damn good case that those in the creative arts cannot lose sight of them completely.

So what is a film's "idea"?  Admittedly, I don't have a concise explanation for what, exactly, I'm talking about, as a movie can bring new ideas to the table in a variety of ways.  Ideas permeate every stage of a movie, but for the most part I'm talking about a film's general, central premise. Boil the plot of a movie down to one or two lines, as simple as possible, and you have its premise.  Compare that premise to other films and see how many start to sound the same.  Very few completely original ideas exist anymore, and this is another logical inevitably. Someone more knowledgeable in economics than I will have to tell me the term for this, as I'm sure there is one — like oil, dinosaur bones, or rare Magic: The Gathering cards, there are a finite number of purely original, unused movie plots, and thus their discovery will decrease over time.  A film — or a work in any mode of storytelling — can achieve success, I believe, in two broad ways: its idea, and its execution. Of course, a film doesn't require a new idea to be good; it doesn't even need to alter an existing idea all that much in order to set itself apart.  In other words, it's more important to have a well-executed "story" than a totally original premise.  A good premise can still lead to a bad story, after all, and even a good story can be poorly executed.  (In case this is confusing, the "story" of a movie is the more specific way in which its "premise" unfolds, the way its characters bring about resolution — but for the sake of simplicity, I'm not going to discuss the originality of story here).  Now, to further simplify, I'm going to suggest the somewhat less-than-scientific proposition that a premise can be measured for originality, and that a premise can be varying degrees of original when compared to other films.

Here's an example.  "A soldier arrives in a foreign land where his people are seeking valuable resources, despite the protests of primitive natives.  After falling in love with one of the natives, a beautiful princess, he questions his allegiances and helps to reconcile the differences between the two cultures."  That description describes the plot of Disney's Pocahontas, but it's also the exact plot of James Cameron's recent blockbuster Avatar.  (I am far from the first person to note the similarities between the two). Of course, Avatar got quite a bit of backlash for its lack of originality, so let's look at some other examples.  Many of the best movies made in recent years are not necessarily based on original ideas — which isn't a problem, so long as they establish their creativity on different terms.  Take the premise of There Will Be Blood, which isn't particularly novel: "An oil prospector and his son make their fortunes in turn of the century California."  It's simple, and its success lies in the many elements that make up the unfolding story: its execution.  Of course, in lumping all the elements that make up a film into one category, I don't want to dodge the fact that any of these smaller elements can make or break the film.  There Will Be Blood succeeds, and establishes its originality, through its cinematography, acting, soundtrack, and characters, et cetera.  Similarly, a film can present ideas on a smaller scale, even if the general premise itself isn't necessarily that inventive.  A good example of this is the original Star Wars.  Here's the premise:  "A sheltered farmboy, anxious to leave his home, finds himself caught up in a plot to rescue a princess and overthrow an evil Empire."  Taken on such a basic level, Star Wars doesn't sound all that different from various "epic quest" stories that proceeded it.  Like Avatar, Star Wars: A New Hope can't be given credit for taking an old story and just transplanting it to space.  However, if you view both ideas and execution as intertwined and thus layered, Star Wars gets more original just one layer down.  Let's take a slightly expanded premise: "A sheltered farmboy, anxious to leave his home, finds himself caught up in a plot to rescue a princess after her home planet is destroyed by a seemingly-unstoppable new weapon under the control of an evil Empire."  Star Wars was designed to show off original ideas within its various layers of execution: as set-pieces, plot-points, or even as characters.  Darth Vader, though not unique in his actions as a villain, is fairly original taken in the context of the full movie — in his design, rank, powers, and motivations.  To further illuminate how ideas can set a film apart at every level of design, one only has to compare the original Star Wars trilogy to the new one.  The "prequels" are unoriginal and uninspired in nearly every way that a film can be, often stealing scenes wholesale from their predecessors, relying on flashy effects and overly-stylized, emotionless action-sequences.  It's as if Lucas were merely referencing his original ideas rather than thinking up new ones. Where the original film gave popular culture the idea of a "lightsaber," the new films try to dazzle you with smoke and mirrors: a character with a double-bladed lightsaber!  A character that fights with two lightsabers!  A robot that has four lightsabers!  In my opinion, there is hardly a better example of why we need original ideas.

People are talking about Inception for a number of reasons, of course, but the fact that it has mastered both idea and execution is chief among them.  I wrote this editorial with Inception in mind because the film is itself about ideas — the importance of ideas.  Christopher Nolan isn't the first person to capitalize upon this sort of meta-commentary, but he built a film around it in a way that few others have.  Inception can be taken as a metaphor for the shared experience of watching film, and itself serves to highlight just how a good, bold idea can take hold in people's minds.  An idea is "the most resilient parasite," but the act of "inception" is not limited to a single mind — Inception is itself an act of inception, and I believe this was fully intentional.  Of course, the art of ideas is not entirely lost, and I hope the success of Inception goes to show why it cannot be.  There are many ways for a film to make money, but few ways to build a reputation as a landmark filmmaker.  Take Charlie Kaufman, one of the few scriptwriters in Hollywood to have a large following — and he's earned it.  Kaufman's films are terrifically rich with both idea and vivid execution, setting him aside from nearly everyone else in film today. Charlie Kaufman is successful for his ideas, and this reputation — the strength of the ideas he has set to film — will outlive money-makers like Michael Bay, who contribute very little.  Pixar is another contributor of inventive ideas lately, and most agree that their track record is nearly perfect.  Their reputation is equal to their creativity.  Or, for a more complicated example, take the bizarre career of M. Night Shyamalan, who made a name for himself as a creator of original, odd ideas.  For a while, this worked as well would be expected — take the "idea" behind The Sixth Sense, and consider just how permanent it has become in the cultural consciousness.  Yet interestingly, Shyamalan soon turned this strength against himself, making films that grew ridiculous and uneven, sinking under the weight of expectation that his ideas would come in the form of an astounding and increasingly preposterous "twist."  Ideas are hard to come by, and unfortunately, they're also easy to ruin.

All this hopefully makes the case for Inception.  As I said, this is not a review of that film, and thus I don't want to write too much as if in defense of it.  But for comparison, here's the premise of Inception, the basics of the film stripped down as much as is possible: "A team of thieves is able to extract information from the mind of a target while the target, as well as the team, are in a shared dream.  After a job gone wrong, the team is hired to do the opposite: plant an idea in a new target's head."   In essence, Inception follows the structure of a heist movie.  Yet how many films would be even partially be described by that summary? Any? Could you confuse it with The Thomas Crown Affair or Inside Man?  How about films dealing with artificial realities within the mind, like The Matrix, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or even The Science of Sleep?  Even the basic premise would not be at all similar. Regardless, this is not to say that Inception was executed perfectly: that's been argued, discussed and shouted-about elsewhere, and even if you disagree, I'm not here to debate the point.  My claim is simply that Inception marks an increasingly rare kind of movie — a movie that is entertaining, successful in its use of cinema as technique and art, but a film that also contributes to the shared popular mind, our cultural dream state.  Ideas are scarce, and for every new one, for every Inception, there's suddenly another benchmark.  In the future, any movie that leans a little too close to Inception's territory will at once be compared to it and torn down accordingly — and thus, a little more of that available pool of ideas is taken away.  Let's be fair: it's hard enough to execute pre-existing ideas, to shuffle things around enough so as to find an original story, much less an original premise.  It's damn hard, and rare, to make a movie as well executed as There Will Be Blood, and who cares if it has superficial similarities to Citizen Kane?  But to do both — to invent, and perfect, within the same film — is no longer commonplace in cinema, and is thus understandably lauded as a landmark accomplishment.

SPECIAL HOLIDAY REVIEW: THE STARS WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL

The Star Wars Holiday Special
Created by George Lucas
Directed by Steve Binder
Starring Wookiees
VERDICT: The undeniable peak of human achievement

If you've at all paid attention to the Star Wars franchise, you know that George Lucas is a humble man. So humble, in fact, that he doesn't want you to think that he had anything to do with the Star Wars Holiday Special, despite it being, without question, the greatest achievement of art in any medium that the human race has thus far produced. Few have seen it since its initial historic airdate: November 17th, 1978. So just how good is the Holiday Special? From truefacts.org: "Multiple studies[3] by the University of South Carolina have shown that 63% of randomly selected viewers are fully retarded after an initial viewing of the Star Wars Holiday Special." Though it has not been proven conclusively, it is thought that this unfortunate side-effect is due to the sheer self-loathing created in viewer's minds for not having the genius to create the Holiday Special themselves. In other words, compared to George Lucas, we are all retarded. And still, the man won't take credit for this masterpiece, suggesting he was merely a "producer." I suppose, in a sense, that's true. The Star Wars Holiday Special could not simply have been made by George Lucas. That would take us too many steps removed from his genius for such a surreal experience to have made it onto TV. No, the Special is like peering directly into his mind, as if one could snap a million MRI scans of the Master's brain, take the results and form a flip-book out of them. This is his vision, so pure and undiluted that it is literally dangerous for human consumption--for why else would George Lucas say "If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it." George Lucas knows how frail our inferior geniuses are, and he wishes to spare us the staggering contrast that is literally so mind-blowing as to blow your mind. Literally.

So I've talked this shit up quite a bit, but how do you know it's legit? I don't want to spoil the veritable cornucopia of treasures that await within, but the Special's got so much to give (and give it hard) that a little tease is just going to make it all go down easier. The basic premise, since this is a TV special from 1978, is a Star Wars variety show, with both familiar and original characters, musical interludes (including a holographic performance by Jefferson Starship viewed by an Imperial officer on his computer), dance sequences, cartoon interludes and a sensuous interactive holographic spaceporn sequence which is also a musical number.

George Lucas dares to ask: what do irrelevant background characters do in their spare time? The Star Wars Holiday Special introduces us to Chewbecca's family, three hideously-deformed Wookiees who, despite their tragic cleft-palates, resulting speech impediments and general social retardation, make a hard-working living on the Wookiee Planet in the midst of a Galactic War, torn by the knowledge that their son is in constant grave danger. In the introductory sequence, we follow the family through fifteen minutes of their daily grind on Life Day--the Star Wars equivalent of Christmas, since apparently the planet was first settled by ambiguously spiritual, unimaginative hippies. The nuance and subtlety with which Lucas captures these characters eliminates the need for subtitles, and thus we follow their growling and honking verbatim, a scene of such staggering drama and passion that it literally never seems to end. But, alas, evil is afoot, and soon other stuff happens. Fucking other stuff. And might I add: oh, does fucking other stuff happen. Because it does. "Mark Hamill" sublimely models a new blond wig and enough makeup to smother a small child, Harrison Ford delivers a performance of such understated subtlety and stoney-faced calm that he almost ceases to exist, and, once we shift to some new character who bumbles around and does some stuff for some reason that advances what one might eventually begin to suspect is a plot, we are treated to a tension-filled confrontation between this shop-owner and a haughty Imperial officer who does not wish to buy a pocket-sized fish tank.

It's hard to chronicle the many reasons why the Special is so startlingly, stupefyingly, horrifically, enormously good. Only a keen mind like Lucas' would think to include a 20 minute sequence in which 0ne of the Wookiees watches a cooking show hosted by a purple, four-armed, "zany" alien chef, who also dances. Or how about a musical number by none other than Bea Arthur? And did we mention Jefferson Starship? That shit is real, I wasn't making it up. It's that good. How does Lucas find time for such unblinking, unending, true-to-life detail? Our senses are gloriously assaulted with scenes of Wookiees enjoying their interminable daily humdrum, idle domestic time-passing, interminable daily time-passing, idle daily humdrum... and the resulting surrealist purple-tinged sexually suggestive hallucinations. To eliminate the risk of us getting bored, the characters occasionally partake in entertainment themselves, which we, therefore, are also partaking in. When Little Wookiee watches a cartoon, yes, that cartoon is ours for the viewing as well. On Life Day, motherfuckers share.

I cannot stress enough the vibrant, enthusiastic performances by the actors in the Special. Harrison Ford gives, without question, the performance of his career, especially considering how handicapped he must have been by the overwhelming urge to kill himself and everyone he had ever met that he so clearly displays in every scene he's in. The nearly-lifelike performance of "Mark Hamill" demonstrates just how far Lucas had advanced animatronics in 1978, creating uncanny, humanlike emoting that pushed the very limits of puppetry and technology for the time. As the Star Wars Holiday Special aired only once, was never released on any media whatsoever, and is punishable by death in most countries outside the US, one tends to forget that hundreds, possibly thousands of people were involved in the making of this forgotten gem, that millions of dollars were considered, accepted and spent in the creation of it, and that, somewhere along the way, any one of those involved could have stopped and suggested: "No. This is too pure and terrible a light to shine upon the ignorant masses. It will cause them to melt like a Nazi opening the Arc of the Covenant."

Melt, ye masses. Melt. The Star Wars Holiday Special is more powerful than any drug ever created, more surreal than any pot-fueled trip, even if Jenkins made the fucking cookies (fucking Jenkins). It will own you. And you will not survive it.