No more waiting in lines for Star Wars

Obi-Wan Kenobi on the bucket of chicken at KFC, Queen Amidala beach towels at Bloomingdale’s, Anakin Skywalker on your Taco Bell cup; you can’t escape it. “Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace” is everywhere. After 16 years of a Star Wars dry spell, the phenomenon wave has erupted once again. 

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Laurel Veit

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In ancient Greece they had stories of Hercules, Hades, Zeus and Poseidon. In American pop culture, our mythical gods are Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
 If you have yet to see “Star Wars,” now is your chance. There is no need to camp out in front of Mann’s theater for weeks to see the film. If you just waited a couple of weeks you could easily buy tickets for any time, day or theater you wanted. And by the end of the summer no one will care if you were the first one in line or the last. It’s not exactly something you can put on a resume; “Talent: can endure weeks of living on the sidewalk of Hollywood Blvd.,” unless you are enlisting into the Peace Corps.

The original film “Episode IV”, released in 1977 could stand on its own without help from sequels or prequels. The American Film Institute ranked it 15th in its top 100 films. While “The Phantom Menace” may not be able to stand on its own in terms of storyline, it leaves the  audience hungering for more special effects, more explanation, more  surprises, which is really what a good franchise is all about.

While critics have found fault with the film for assigning accents to the villains and the somewhat annoying character JarJar Binks, my criticism seems to fall not with the movie, but with the movie’s audience.

Whose bright idea was it to give this movie a PG rating?

I’ve seen “Phantom Menace” three times because each time hordes of little rambunctious and talkative children with small bladders descended onto the very theater I was in. At my first viewing the screen was almost always blocked by kids and their parents who got up to go to the bathroom every five minutes. 
 Movie going should be like having surgery; don’t give the kids liquids for at least 24 hours before show time and nothing during the film.

At the second screening a little boy and his father sat behind me. During the previews the father told his son, “Once the movie starts you can’t talk.” I was so relieved hoping that I would get to see Star Wars in its entirety until the father forgot his command and had a nonstop conversation with his son for the next two hours. 

The third time the parents sat two three year olds together. Their squealing and screeching caused everyone around them to get up and move to other seats. In the next installment I suggest putting in more sex and violence and get this baby bumped up to PG-13.

I highly suggest seeing the film more than once and going with people who are familiar with the original trilogy. Unless you’re the type of person who wears a Princess Leia or Chewbacca costume to the theater, you’ll need help trying to ascertain the lineages and make the connections between the current film and the past three. It took me a third viewing and someone else to clue me in before I figured out who the phantom menace really was, but I’m a little dense. 

The next Episode promises to be a romance presumably between Queen Amidala and Anakin, or how else will Luke and Leia be available for Episode IV.

Unfortunately, if you are already tired of the “Star Wars” fanaticism then you are out of luck because it will continue until at least 2005 when the sixth and final film will be released.

Laurel Veit is the Diversions Editor for the Summer Forty-Niner.