Return of the 'Merchandising' Jedi and other 'Star Wars'
By Dini S. Djalal
JAKARTA (JP): A long time ago in a studio far, far away, a budding movie mogul penned and directed a film which opened in 35 cinemas across the U.S. But in the twenty years since its release in 1977, the sci-fi fantasy the cinephile brought to the world became the biggest-grossing film ever. The director is George Lucas, and the film is called Star Wars.
Get ready to hear that musty refrain "May the Force be with you" a million more times. Star Wars, and sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, are making a comeback -- the biggest in movie history. After raking in US$448 million in its first five weeks of U.S. re-release in January, Star Wars: the Special Edition has arrived in Asia. This is possibly the smartest move ever made by Lucas, and Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox Entertainment. After all, the ink on the merchandising deals hadn't long dried before the posters were put up in the theaters -- there are hundreds more Star Wars products in the stores, and Pepsi signed a $2 billion marketing tie-in.
Cash register ringing is drowning out the film's real noise (on THX Sound System, also a Lucas invention and monopoly). All the hype has obscured just what Star Wars is, other than the most obvious: a cultural landmark.
After all, Star Wars is a turning point in film history. When Star Wars first opened, few, including Fox executives, imagined that this $10 million investment could even settle its debts. Yet Lucas not only balanced the books, he bought the bank -- Star Wars scored $1.3 billion at the box offices, and $4 billion in merchandising royalties. Star Wars coined the term "blockbuster", Star Wars started merchandising mania. After Star Wars showed Hollywood how much money could be made with so little plot or character development, Hollywood could not turn back. The formulaic action-adventure flick was born, and no such thing as creative integrity was going to stunt its meteoric growth.
Mania
Don't let this cynicism confuse you. Like many children growing up in the 1970s, I loved Star Wars. I was too young to see Star Wars in the theaters, but that didn't stop me from watching it on video countless times.
And, just as the studio executives hoped, my adoration translated into merchandising dollars. On my 10th birthday, I received a Luke Skywalker doll, a gift I treasured long after I threw away the Barbie fun-house and Olivia Newton-John records. I was too young to know better, but Luke Skywalker was my awakening into the paraphernalia-buying world of teeny-bopperdom.
Watching the space age adventurer again on the big screen, my eyes still glaze over with infatuation. Is nostalgia clouding my judgment or does Mark Hamill, Luke's real life persona, truly have charisma? No doubt nostalgia; Hamill's disastrous follow-up films have nixed his career into deep space nine.
But merchandising barons don't care why people watch movies, as long as they buy the video game. And nostalgia or not, the thrill of Star Wars remains. My wry eye can't explain it, because there's been better adrenaline frenzies since, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring a funnier and sexier Harrison Ford.
Of course, the slower action pace is forgivable. At the time, Star Wars shocked for being so fast, so rushed. But this was before MTV's 90-scenes-a-minute pace forever altered audience concentration levels. Now, a battle with the stormtroopers, once cinema's scariest soldiers, drags by uneventfully. HBO movies elicit more lip-biting than this lame exchange of electric zaps.
Twenty years is a long time, and next to the more recent, more high-tech Aliens and Batman series, the Star Wars set looks like Kansas. When Darth Vader's Death Star comes into my now-1990s view, I spot the crudeness in the Lego-like formica interiors. Lucas' Special Effects team, Industrial Light and Magic, has won 14 Academy Awards since Star Wars, but if released today, this groundbreaker probably couldn't get off the ground.
The dialogue, save for the banter between Leia and Han Solo, also needs more bite. When C3-PO and R2-D2, the robot world's answer to Abbott and Costello, chat in that harried Queen's English, it feels like a stale TV sitcom.
Who isn't stale is that baddest of bad guys, Darth Vader. The Dark One's first moments on-screen are among cinema's greatests. Ominously Vader steps out from a cloud of smoke, his long black cape billowing past bodies of dead rebels. He then interrogates a rebel commander: by the throat, six inches off the ground, and an inch within his life. The rebel eventually chokes, but Vader continues questioning despite the subject's increasingly apparent limpness. It's classic Vader wickedness.
Other characters performing well on screen include Carrie Fisher (as the regal Leia) who, despite those donut-buns around her ears and thick layers of lip gloss, shows a talent for snappy retorts. Leia's more than just a Princess with bad hair -- she's a quick-witted freedom fighter. Only the mercenary Han Solo matches Leia's sharp tongue and spunk, as well as her reluctant flirtation. Ford has done well -- his rough diamond image has given him a multi-million dollar career.
But it was the boy, tormented but pure, who caught my eye. In essence, Star Wars is a simple coming-of-age story set against spaceships; the orphaned Luke fashioned from ancient prodigal-son myths. First appearing as a whingey pretty boy, Luke soon suffers emotional turmoil Freud would be proud of. His anguish worsens in the sequels, particularly in Return of the Jedi, transforming the trilogy from mere escapism to a pained morality play. This bold innocent's struggle against destiny, and his stumbling crawl over evil, surely tortured the minds of many idealists, and kept them, and me, returning to the theaters.
But Star Wars' magic formula is different for everyone. Han Solo's heroic stunts may be the catalyst for a generation of galaxy gazers. The magic is unfathomable, but it's real. Just ask the studio executives -- they can barely hear Luke's lightsaber roar beneath the ringing of the cash registers.