Head canon: Star Wars edition

Polish Star Wars poster?

I like the idea of head canon, especially as I get older, and the franchises I loved get longer and longer in the tooth. 

It's inevitable that franchises will have ups and downs, golden eras and dark ages, fabulous creative teams and capricious greedy studio hacks who care nothing for the material, have nothing to say, and just want to milk it for every penny they can get their grubby cheeto stained fingers on. 

Or is it me with the cheetos? Whatever.

So I thought I'd put together a list of my own head canon. 

There's different international flavours of Star Wars, so why not my own? Copyright, that's why! 

First up is Star Wars, because, honestly, that one is pretty easy.

My official (and completely irrelevant outside of my head) list: 

• Star Wars (just Star Wars, not the Very Special Edition with Blossom)

• The Empire Strikes Back (original cut)

• The Return of the Jedi (original cut, but only half of it)

• The Mandalorian season 1 (some of it) and season 2 (a little of it)

• Andor (all of it)

I'm not really a fan of the prequels, but George Lucas deserves his due: he didn't blatantly rehash the first trilogy, lazily reordering elements. He added to the whole, and he didn't blow up another d*mn Death Star (okay, that Trade Federation control ship came close). Still, it wasn't the creatively bankrupt hack job the sequel trilogy was.

Just as The Force Awakens regurgitates A New Hope, The Last Jedi recycles The Empire Strikes Back. It's so obvious, yet no one sees it (or they don't care). I still don't get why people swoon over this lacklustre film. It doesn't 'democratize' jedi or force powers: the jedi were shown to not have kids in the prequel trilogy already. Lucas set that up, so why this film gets the credit I have no idea. 

Star Wars unlike you've ever seen it before!

And as bad as I find Last Jedi, the Rise of Skywalker is an irredeemable, unwatchable abomination about which nothing further should be said.

Sadly, younger fans HATE Andor, they find it slow paced, boring, and insufficiently superficial with lots of bling bling. Not enough Death Stars blow up, and there isn't enough ostentatious back flipping. They'd probably prefer Swan Lake with lightsabers. 

Me? I think it's fascinating, smart, historically informed, and well constructed. It has slow builds that yield big payoffs. It's brilliant, far better than anything else put out since Empire Strikes Back. 

That said, Andor's NOT a kids show. Lucas famously declared himself a toymaker who also made movies (mostly to advertise the toys) and that the films were made for specifically for children. I think he's mistaken, in that the first two films are actually all-ages (despite muppet Yoda), and it's only with lame Ewoks and subsequent prequels that it smashed right into children's faces, rather than a general audience's. 

My head cannon reflects this. 

From Samurai rip-off to Samurai-in-Spaaace!

How the h*ll Andor ever got greenlit given the franchise focus on kiddies I can't explain, but it makes up for a lot Disney has put out. Not enough, mind, I'm still a disgruntled old fan who regularly yells at the younglings on his lawn (at least I don't dice them with a lightsaber, unlike Ani 'Are you an Angel' Skywalker), but a lot.

The Disney era for Star Wars has a few other highlights: they've put out some cool games (Rebellion, X-Wing, Armada) and... uh, okay that's about it. 

I've aged out as an audience member. As the feral kid says, it just lives now in my memories.

Oh, Feral Kid... what wonderful memories you have!

They Live: Obey!

The movie is a bit of a hash, and Carpenter didn't have much of a budget to play with. The underlying ideas and themes, however, are powerful stuff. I feel like they could have really expanded upon them. Sure, it may seem cheesy and didactic now, but when I first saw it, I loved it.

Don't look at that totally gratuitous, five minute long alley fight!

Never mind the deflating ending!

The best part, for me, comes after Rowdy Roddy Piper (I have no idea what his character's name is) discovers a box of sunglasses. He has no idea what they do, but he knows they're important. Cops trashed a homeless camp searching for them. He buries the box in a trash can, and slips a pair of the cool shades on. 

Then he walks out into a street transformed.

What he beholds is not our usual world of slick advertising, with beautifully lit beautiful models surrounded by elegantly framed products. 

Instead, he sees a stark world in black and white, filled with messages like: 

Obey.

Marry and reproduce.

Stay asleep.

Consume.

Conform.

Watch TV.

Buy.

Roddy can't believe his eyes.

Then he sees a man buying a magazine, only this guy's face is stripped of the flesh, and has weird orb like eyes. It's a nightmare visage, skull like. And this horror reacts to Roddy's incredulous stare with indignation, and says, "What's your problem?" 

Good ol' Roddy can't believe his eyes.

Without the glasses though, rich douchebag looks like a normal human being: 

BAM! 

It's wonderful stuff, poking fun at not only our own larger social foibles, but the empathy challenged psychopaths who often dominate corporate board rooms and slip into police forces despite psychological checks. 

Those without empathy are the true reptilians in our society. 

Keep your bubble gum supplies at hand, for They live... among us!

The Martian vs. Interstellar vs. Gravity vs. Prometheus

The Martian, based on Andy Weir's book, is about a paper thin character and his struggle to survive after being abandoned on Mars. He does so by eating potatoes grown in his own shit and using copious amounts of duct tape.

Basically, it's MacGyver in Spaaaaace.

I'm being facetious, of course.

Weir heavily researched his book, and everything in it is plausible. That Andy Weir researched all this in the first place is, and worked it into a novel, is impressive. That scientists figured out everything for Weir to research is even more amazing.

Human beings can do such miraculous feats, like going to other planetary bodies (we've already reached the moon). It just makes me think I must be part of a different species. The characters in the film are fictionalized versions of all the very smart people down at NASA.

The film spends a great deal of time on Matt Damon 'sciencing the shit out of' his predicament. Which, initially, is pretty cool. He grows the aforementioned potatoes, for example. He co-opts an older probe. He uses radiation for heat. And so on.

The only thing they don't spend much time on is the human element, and without interest in him as a person, interest in his situation wanes as the film drags on and piles on disaster on top of another.

He has no love interest, for example. No close friends. His parents are mentioned, once, but he seems in no hurry to speak to them. They are not invited to NASA to view his return, or to write to him, or, well, anything.

They cover his relationships with his coworkers a little, but it never goes more than puddle deep.

It could so easily have been different.

The human element here is mostly, if not entirely, afterthought.

Gravity takes something of the same approach. We start with the disaster, so there's little time to flesh out Sandra Bullock's character. But that's less of a problem here: she has George Clooney to play off of, and the film is really an IMAX roller coaster ride in space. No need for rumination. Because lookout, space debris! Gravity isn't a deep film, and doesn't pretend to be. That's not the genre.

The Martian, on the other hand, had potential to be far more affecting emotionally than it was.

Castaway got to me. The Martian never did.

Interstellar had dodgy science. Three habitable planets around a black hole? Where was the light coming from? One hour on the surface is a year aboard the ship? Say what? What would that mean for satellite TV reception?

My monkey-brained understanding is that, even with a 'perfect' star like ours, Venus is too close, and Mars too far away, to support life. We're in just the right spot. It can vary a bit, but not much. The idea of finding three planets with stable orbits around a black hole seems… unlikely. But hey, I'm no scientist.

It scarcely matters: if you put the science of Interstellar aside (and I only bring it up because I was told so often how accurate and real it was), the film is much more enjoyable. They establish an emotional connection, and background, between the protagonist and his daughter. Love is at the centre of the film. Powerful, primal emotion the viewer can connect with. It has a heart, however overwrought.  

The Martian's heart barely beats. It's more like an episode of Nova or something.

Gravity felt like a realistic portrayal of a disaster in space, as far as Hollywood goes. The rapport between Bullock and Clooney sold it for me emotionally. Especially Clooney's seeming sacrifice, and unexpected return. They managed to make me care enough that the action sequences, and Bullock's fate, mattered.

By contrast, the lack of emotional depth in The Martian made the film a long, slow slog. There's a great bit with the Council of Elrond, and some clever and funny lines, but it needed more than cleverness. There's no looking into the empty void. No real anguish at being abandoned. He doesn't plumb the depths, he's too practical, so when he rises at the end it doesn't carry much emotional heft.

You just don't give a shit.

Some critics are saying The Martian is Ridley Scott 'returning to form' after the disaster that was Prometheus. I saw that film: it was gorgeous, creepy, and well cast, but didn't make a lick of sense. But you know what? I'd sooner watch Prometheus again than The Martian. I was never bored watching the former, while the latter made me shift in my seat and look at my watch.

Yes, I still have a watch.

Prometheus has characters who are interesting basket cases. The engineers are cool and mysterious. The android is ambiguous in intent. There's a lot going on to look at and absorb. It's a mess, honestly, but it's an interesting mess.

The Martian, on the other hand, is a slighter offering, despite the science. Despite the realism, or perhaps because of it, the picture was boring.

That's a cardinal sin for a piece of entertainment.

It should be mentioned that the climax is pulse pounding and I got caught up in it, but getting there was far more painful than it had to be.

Ultimately, The Martian just raised my opinion of Interstellar, Prometheus, and Gravity (although I already had a high opinion of Gravity).

Is it time to let go of plausibility and embrace the universe altering power of love?

Just remember to bring duct tape.

Retro-review: Revisiting Flash - a-ah - Saviour of the universe!

Klytus, I'm bored. What play thing can you offer me today?

For pure, ridiculous fun, nothing beats Flash Gordon. It's sugar saturated sci-fi cheese. You couldn't, survive on a diet of such fare, but it makes for a great treat after a season of, say, The Wire (which is so grim it's like beating your hopes with a two by four for an hour), or a grueling day in the corporate trenches fighting rival fiefdoms. I mean departments. But enough of reality.

Every now and then you want leave all your concerns behind, slip the surly bonds of earth and flit about in the stratosphere of juvenile silliness.

If such is your desire, I humbly recommend the critically savaged 1980 Flash Gordon.

It's right up there with delights like Army of Darkness and Galaxy Quest.

Based on the comic strip by Alex Raymond (which was King Features Syndicate's answer to Buck Rogers), this movie doesn't just indulge in tropes, it revels in them. It's like someone sent the writer's internal sophistication censor packing and let his inner ten year old run riot: there are Hawkmen, an entire people of Robin Hood look-a-likes in tights (honestly, is there only one clothes manufacturer in Arborea?), floating cities, ray guns, sword fights, rocket cycles, hideous monsters, beautiful maidens and seductive femme fatales.

What's not to like?

According to the director, Mike Hodges (who also directed Michael Crichton's The Terminal Man), it's "the only improvised $27 million dollar movie ever made."

In one early scene, our eponymous hero actually identifies himself to the alien Emperor Ming as 'Quarterback, New York Jets' as this would have meaning to an alien overlord. Then he plays 'irresistible force' linebacker to Ming's flat footed Imperial Goon Squad lineup, and starts tossing about a metal egg like it's a football, all while Dale Arden cheers him on from the sidelines.

Flash shows aliens how it's done football style.
All astronauts in future should be NFL quarterbacks.

It's gob smacking, high octane kitsch and it's totally awesome.

That's the miracle of Flash Gordon.

You know immediately it wasn't made in the USA: European DNA suffuses the flick and there are few Americans in the cast. In particular, the over-the-top art direction (What isn't over-the-top about Flash Gordon?) is more reminiscent of Barbarella rather than Star Wars.

And then there's the sociopolitical subtext. It's most obvious in the hero and the villains, who embody stereotypes from the mid-Twentieth Century.

Ming's control panel of Dooooooom:
complete with hail, earthquake, and volcano options!
Does Walmart carry these?

Flash Gordon (Sam Jones), the all American football quarterback hero, simply put, is America: bright eyed, naive, idealistic, and brimming with hope and positivity. He's eager to stand up for what's right while being utterly oblivious to larger political ramifications. His exhortations to team up and fight Ming ("Ming is the enemy of every creature of Mongo! Let's all team up and fight him.") are so simple minded as to seem childish to the jaded barons of Mongo. These lords cannot even conceive of playing a positive sum game, so broken is their sense of altruism and justice.

Nor do they even know how to cry or feel empathy. So sad.

Outer Space Eurotrash Sophisticates. 'Pitiful earthlings, who can save you now?'

Flash's idealism stands in sharp contrast to these inhabitants of Mongo, who are all played by Europeans: Max von Sydow (Ming), Timothy Dalton (Barin), Brian Blessed (Vultan), Peter Wyngarde (General Klytus), Mariangela Melato (Kala), and Ornella Muti (Aura). They're sophisticated, cynical, duplicitous, Machiavellian, and engaged in endless, internecine struggle. They'd stab their own mother in the back. Dominated by their tyrannical Emperor Ming, they believe one can only win if others lose. Their hearts have been hardened by despotism and oppression, and they exist without hope or belief that things can be different.

It's a planet of narcissistic manipulators who lack all empathy. But they have sex appeal to make up for it.

Idealize, devalue, discard, baby.
The Mongons (?) lecture with sophisticated British or Italian accents, while Flash sounds like he just left a farm in Kansas. Ming is verbally dexterous, spinning webs with seductive words, while Flash uses them with the finesse of a Big Bud 747 tractor. Naive, honest, direct vs. seductive, beguiling, deceitful. Which would you prefer? Think of it as a self-revelation test.

Casting the urbane Max Von Sydow as Ming was a stroke of genius. The veteran actor contrasts beautifully with Sam Jones' Flash. Sydow's Ming is a brilliant, charistmatic megalomaniacal, narcissistic psychopath.

Flash identifies Ming's true nature within the first few minutes of encountering the dictator. It isn't hard: Ming is busy demanding a subject fall on his own sword to demonstrate his loyalty when our heroic trio of daring earthlings arrive. Flash rather unwisely identifies Ming, out loud, as a psycho (Speak truth to power!), which is overheard by a security robot. This inevitably leads to Flash being sentenced to death.

Rulers of the Universe don't like hearing the truth from alien country bumpkins.

Physcially, the pair are opposites: Flash has youthful good looks and great hair, while Ming is old and chrome dome bald. You know who the good guy is with a glance. Cinema short hand in action.

Flash himself goes through the film actually labelled, "Flash". In the font of the movie's logo. So Meta.

It's no surprise that the 25 year old Sam Jones, who did most of his own stunts, is outclassed by his European counterparts, most of whom were experienced stage actors. But it works: he's meant to be simple, all the better for sophisticates to look down upon. Flash is the American interloper, the earnest G.I., the bourgeois American, blundering about with a surfeit of good will and helpfulness while the shocked Mongo elites stand agog at his lack of manners and insight. Doesn't he know it's a dog eats dog world? That you cannot trust anyone? Cooperation and compromise is for rubes.

Wake up! Remember Munich!

Which brings us to Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol). Zarkov represents The Jewish Other, for, despite his European accent, he's not from Mongo. It's no coincidence Flash is accompanied by a Jewish scientist: hundreds fled Europe to escape persecution by the Nazis. Ming's minion Klytus, head of Mongo's secret police, even praises Hitler.

Yet Zarkov doesn't fit in on earth, either, where his theories got him expelled from NASA, America's science Mecca. He's a one man diaspora, who doesn't fit in anywhere, not quite. But he does work well with Flash, the living embodiment of the American Superego. Jim Crow and the uglier aspects of America couldn't fit on Zarkov's rocket, and didn't make it over to (European) Mongo. Resourceful, intelligent, and moral, Zarkov's a slice of Einstein mixed with secret agent. He's the brains of the trio.

Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) is the perfect female compliment to Flash, all earnest and well meaning American pie. She's also proves resourceful and spunky, as a New York gal should.

The film could be said to work on another level still, with Flash representing American entertainment, Hollywood, penetrating into Europe's higher brow but fractured cultural milieu. Hollywood was overwhelming European studios and establishing huge sci-fi blockbuster beachheads with hits like Star Wars in 1977.

Now it was time for The Europeans Strike Back. Many attempts have been made to mimic Hollywood's sci-fi success, such as the batsh*t insane LifeForce, but Flash Gordon is the one that successfully fused European and American DNA.

The capital looks like a great big red wedding cake.

Thoroughly tongue in cheek, and all the better for it, Flash Gordon knows it is silly and preposterous, like the fevered dream of a ten year old boy, a spiritual ancestor of Axe Cop, yet also manages to also be relentlessly fun and enjoyable.

The screenwriter,  Lorenzo Semple, Jr., also wrote for the Sixties Batman TV show, and it shows. Batman and Flash share a similar, campy sensibility, although Flash is buoyed by a far bigger budget and has better action sequences with real tension. That so much money was thrown at such an eccentric script can be disconcerting for some audience members who are more fiscally responsible.

In fact, Semple himself didn't want to make it a comedy:

"Dino wanted to make Flash Gordon humorous. At the time, I thought that was a possible way to go, but, in hindsight, I realize it was a terrible mistake. We kept fiddling around with the script, trying to decide whether to be funny or realistic. That was a catastrophic thing to do, with so much money involved... I never thought the character of Flash in the script was particularly good. But there was no pressure to make it any better. Dino had a vision of a comic-strip character treated in a comic style. That was silly, because Flash Gordon was never intended to be funny. The entire film got way out of control." 

And Dino only read Semple's scripts after they were translated into Italian:

"He reads English better than many people realize, but translates all of his scripts into Italian. We were living in Nantucket at the time, and his translator was a woman whose name I forget. She could barely translate the scripts; if it said, 'The tall, beautiful woman walked into the room,' she'd say, 'Oh, what a beautiful cat.'"

It just gets more absurd: on set, not only could many people not communicate on essential matters due to language barriers, not everyone was even on the same page regarding the tone of the film, at least according to Melody Anderson (Dale Arden):

"The director said, 'I want you and Sam to try to go for a relationship, make this as human as possible. Don't camp it up or go for laughs.' That's why the movie's so funny, because we didn't try to make it campy. In fact, I'm surprised that (people) are laughing, because we weren't out to make a funny film. In fact, De Laurentiis was very upset when he showed the film and people started to laugh, because he thought they were laughing at it and not with it. In fact, he re-did the cheerleading scene. He wanted it to be serious...with macho man out there. Play it very straight, the more you play it straight, the funnier it is. I think that's why Flash and Dale work, because of the way we played it."  

"I'm supposed to serious here, right, guys?… I'll just play it straight."

Sometimes when you skirt the edge of The Abyss of Total and Utter Catastrophe you wind up escaping with something unexpectedly, accidentally wonderful.

Personally, I love the film's humour and unrestrained, campy joie de vivre style, and wouldn't have it any other way.

The sets and costumes look like they were designed by a madman, something Dali might dream up, and the film has aged better for it. The art director, Danilo Donati, outdid himself with his grandiose, operatic sets and sexy-silly costumes of gold trim and spandex and guaze. There's just nothing out there to really compare it to, other than, perhaps, Barbarella or Fellini's pictures. Sadly, those are virtually unwatchable today. Frighteningly, executive producer Dino De Laurentiis actually wanted Fellini to direct originally.

Brrr.

Bullet dodged, there.

Lava lamp skies of pink, white, and purple swirl over the jagged gold and red capital of Mongo City, while ginormous trees stretch up to infinite heights in Arborea. Everything is warped and exaggerated, like in a fun house mirror. Mongo City is machined oppression, the fantasy of a control freak, while Arborea is nature run amok. It's a spiritually empty but scientifically advanced urban state vs. rural tree hugging druids who dress like Robin Hood. There is even a court jester of sorts in Arborea, a wise counsel for the stiff, Prince Barin. Barin doesn't like what his spirit guide says, but knows he needs to hear it. Techno-Emperor Ming would have such an insolent figure executed before breakfast. The Hawkman's floating sky city is airy and dream like, detached from the concerns of the rest of the world, their isolationist 'I stick my neck out for no man' position delivering them inevitably into subservience to Ming.

For divided the kingdoms of Mongo are easily dominated by the Machiavellian despot. As Princess Aura observes, "Every moon of Mongo is a kingdom. My father keeps them fighting each other constantly. It's a really brilliant strategy."

Sound familiar?

It should.

Flash and Barin face off on a spinning disk with extendable steel spikes.
Because… everything is better on a wobbly, spinning disk
covered in sharp spikes over a bottomless abyss.
Try it with your next company meeting!

There are great action sequences, and yet the goofiness is never allowed to undermine them or rob the film of (admittedly lighthearted) dramatic tension. It's a cartoon struggle for an alien world, but still a struggle, and not quite so wink-wink that you're thrown out of the adventure aspect entirely.

Most of the characters get at least a few instantly classic lines:

Princess Aura: But my father has never kept a vow in his life!
Dale Arden: I can't help that, Aura. Keeping our word is one of the things that make us better than you.

Ming: It's what they call tears. It's a sign of their weakness.

And then there's the kick-ass theme song. It was the first time a rock band scored a major picture (they'd follow it up with Highlander's score), and Queen threw themselves into the task with gusto. Dino had never heard of them before, but he was nothing if not willing to experiment. They came back with a soundtrack that makes you want to stand up and cheer, it's that feel good.

The lyrics bear repeating:

Flash - a-ah - saviour of the universe
Flash - a-ah - he'll save everyone of us
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Flash - a-ah - he's a miracle
Flash - a-ah - king of the impossible
He's for everyone of us
Stand for everyone of us
He'll save with a mighty hand
Every man every woman
Every child - with a mighty flash
Flash - a-ah
Flash - a-ah - he'll save everyone of us
Just a man
With a man's courage
He knows nothing but a man
But he can never fail
No one but the pure in heart
May find the golden grail
Oh oh - oh oh
Flash

Yeah. Go, Flash, go!

Flash is sentenced to death for defying Ming, while Dale is sentenced to… marry the lecherous despot. Hard to say which would be worse. Zarkov is shuttled off to be brainwashed and turned into an agent of the secret police.

Saved by a lustful and slinkily seductive Princess Aura, Flash must then endure the machinations of a jealous rival, the Prince Barin. Oh, those silly blue bloods. She's a little bit wanton, he's a little wooden woodie.

"You mean you two… and he… and I'm… Oooh, that's not good. Can you say, 'Triangulation'?"

Flash even has a nice, quiet one-on-one chat with Ming the Merciless along the way. Ming weaves verbal rings around him, and tempts Luke – I mean Flash – to The Dark Side by offering the young man a kingdom of his very own: the earth. After, that is, Ming's finally finished 'toying' with it. Which is a polite way of saying 'kicking the planet about and killing billions'. Ever noble, our man Flash turns the offer down and flies a battlecruiser into Ming's wedding.


It's a move right out of G.R.R. Martin's playbook.

Ming's minions are so decadent, so used to being on top and facing little to no real resistance, that when the revolution arrives they are poorly prepared for it and start to fold like cheap chairs.

Of course, Flash saves the universe in the end, as your inner 10 year old would expect. The naive young do-gooder and all American boy unites cynical, decadent alien aristocrats in opposition to real evil and triumphs in spectacular fashion. A new, better day dawns.

Boo-yah, baby!

The film's tone is supercharged feel good, and this is reinforced by the rocking sound track and zany dialogue.

The climax reunites the characters from earth (who, oddly, are rarely in each others' physical presence after the first third of the film) and Flash delivers all Mongo from Ming's oppressive grasp. Mortally wounded, the weakening emperor vanishes into his power ring, which clatters to the floor. Flash is informed the earth has been saved and jumps for joy into a freeze frame.

As the credits roll, Ming's ring is picked up by a mysterious, black gloved hand. We hear Ming's laughter, and the words, 'The End' appear on the screen, followed by… a question mark.

Is it really the end, after all?

Yeah, pretty much.

At least for this iteration of the franchise. Which may be just as well. Given the haphazard way it came together, recapturing the original's unintentionally madcap magicwould have been a very difficult task indeed. This was a freakish, one-of-a-kind happy accident.

But what we have is pretty awesome.

"Give me the sugar, baby!"

Flash delivers.