Obi-Wan Dances Back, Declares It To Be On

I'M NOT SO MUCH OF an ultra-orthodox Star Wars geek anymore that I can't do some creative speculation into the film. Used to be, though. Used to get indignant even at the thought of other science fiction franchises. The blinders eventually dropped off somewhere at the end of high school in 1987 when (a) while watching the original Star Trek to generate MST3K-style comebacks, I got into that show too; and (b) I began seeing the one girl who'd started hanging with me and my guy-friends, and her sister, in bathing suits more often, and my priorities realigned themselves somewhat. Some things just have a way of educatin' a man.

More jaded now than educated, I sometimes look back on that old film and wonder. Today it was Obi-Wan Kenobi's confrontation in the cantina with those two slags who threaten Luke. (Yes, I know these two slags' Extended Universe names. No, I am not going to use them.) A couple of months ago, I viewed Yojimbo, one of George Lucas's sources for Star Wars. Ben's rather one-sided bar fight had its birth in Yojimbo, right down to the severed arm. Toshiro Mifune walks away from that fight with a wry comment to the town coffin-maker about his services being needed. Obi-Wan, however, merely looks around grimly to ensure the fight is done, then snuffs the saber and helps Luke up off his ass.

I was thinking. Obi-Wan's no slouch as a Jedi Master. He's already Force-tricked a Stormtrooper into letting Luke and the Droids cruise through a DWI. Setting aside Lucas's hard-on to include scenes from like 10 Kurosawa and John Ford films in a two-hour skiffy romp, Ben easily could've used the Force on these two alien clowns and chilled their latex asses out before resuming his job interview with Chewie. The only two on-film Force-resistant creatures we'll meet — also on Tatooine, oddly enough — won't show up until later in the re-edit of Ep 4 (Jabba) and, years later, in the much-maligned Ep I (Watto). Everyone else? Fair game for the mind trick.

So that leaves two possibilities for why Ben didn't chose a softer way of resolving this conflict. First, he may have figured, we're going to be here for a while, and the longer we are, the greater the odds that Blondie over here is gonna step in shit with one of these freaks. I might as well make a statement now to disabuse them of the thought of fucking with us.

Second, and this is, if even less Jedi-like, my favorite. At this point, the details of Ben's 20-ish years of exile on Tatooine hadn't been frantically scribbled in yet by a million Extended Universe monkeys. (And me, in fact.) As far as we know, other than checking up on young Skywalker often enough for Luke to recognize his last name as that of a "strange old hermit," Ben hasn't been doing squadootch. Can't use the Force in any meaningful way; no sense in attracting the Emperor's attention, nor that of his chief flunky, whose midichlorian-packed kid happens to live down the road a piece. Tusken Raiders could be frightened off with a dime-store duck call, and he had nothing even a retarded Jawa would want to steal. Lonely days in the Jundland Wastes, endless nights under now-forbidden stars, a long damn way from a lifetime of adventure.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, hard-fighting General in the Clone Wars, wise and reserved Master on the Jedi Council, who bested two Sith Lords and a batshit four-armed kill-bot in combat during his prime, had a 20-year case of Force blueballs when he walked down those dusty steps into the cantina. When those two slapdicks got in Luke's face, it was like Ben's birthday and the Wookiee Life Day rolled into one bright gift.

Ben could've guided them away with a Force-ful suggestion. He didn't. He wanted that fight.

Boldly Going Into a Theater Near You

SOMETIME IN 2009, a new Star Trek movie will be released, focusing, surprisingly, on the crew of the late-60s incarnation of the show. Not news to anyone reading this blog, I'm sure. I hadn't really been following developments of the shoot, plot, or portrayals of the characters and Enterprise — and it's been a very long time since I had any emotional investment in how that's handled. In that, I am a minority on the Internet.

Judging by replies to stories about the film on Gawker Media science fiction blog io9, interest in these films, or in getting them right at least, is massive. Your average io9 post will pull 10 to 20 replies. Recent Star Trek posts, like this group of stills and this speculation over whether J.J. Abrams has made this film, in possible homage to the original show, deliberately cheesy, pulled four to five times that number of comments. Only posts about the Watchmen film (in which I very much do have an emotional investment) and The Sarah Connor Chronicles have come close. Posts regarding original science fiction creations, relying on no previous and adapted intellectual property, don't usually get this level of attention.

Nor the level of passionate argument. Rightly or not, opinions run hot on the Trek film. The Original Series raised the game of fandom to a new level. Write-in campaigns to save a TV show, fan-organized conventions, fan fiction (including what we'd come to know as slash fiction): Folks owe a debt to those whom Star Trek inspired to express their appreciation in these modes. But some fans have become unhealthily possessive of their experience with the show, and nitpick things that displease them or don't match up with what they saw on TV as children. This might be why these io9 threads are so long. I've come to believe nitpickers and aggressive geek-savants do this because they feel such a lack of control over their lives, they seize upon minutiae, bits of obscure knowledge they polish to a shine in their nervous grips, in their overcompensating attempts to wield dominion over something. And when something threatens this control, they lash out like startled cobras.

In May, I attended a cookout and gathering hosted at the home of my fine friends Dave and Julia. It was a rare summit of geekdom for our group, featuring folks usually several counties or states away. I commented to my buddy Len that I would reserve judgment on Heath Ledger's take on the Joker, comic fans' favorite Batman villain and no doubt a contender for top comic book (and comic movie-adaptation) bad guy. I'd been a bit skeptical about the first publicity image, but I'd decided I would reserve judgment and see how this Joker fit into his own skin. (Two viewings later, I'd say he all but burst the fuck out of it.)

For this film, and for the Watchmen film over which I'm still pessimistic, my best course is just that: See how this Enterprise fits into its shiny new skin, and what Abrams hopes to achieve by doing so. Try to understand why he chose this Spock, that Scotty, and why he leaves out what he chooses to omit. (He's not going to be able to name-check each little bit from TOS in 2 hours, much as we'd all like to see a salt-vampire-scarred redshirt or a scuttling Horta around each corner.) Leave a little bit to faith and enter the theater ready to be enchanted. I can always throw in a DVD or pull a graphic novel off the shelf to revisit what's been done. It keeps a brain fresh to see what nobody's done before, even with 40-year-old character concepts. And without curiously entering the unknown, what's the point of Star Trek — or any science fiction?