Of Moonbats and Midichlorians - A Photo Essay

George Lucas.

Let's contemplate him for a time, shall we?

Cinematic genius to rival Kubric and Hitchcock: "In a way, I did destroy the Hollywood film industry, only I destroyed it by making films more intelligent, not by making films infantile"

Beacon of anti-capitalist integrity in the moral desert that is Hollywood: "A lot of people are saying how can you [make Star Wars Episode III PG-13]? My children love these movies. Why can you not let them go see it? But I have to tell a story. I'm not making these, oddly enough, to be giant, successful blockbusters. I'm making them because I'm telling a story, and I have to tell the story I intended."

Soho-Boho Champion of True Art, who suffered for his creation, but emerged from oppression to create masterpieces that will move the ages: "Most creative people don't like others looking over their shoulder saying, "Why don't you make that green? Why don't you make that blue? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? I don't like that. Don't put that in there." It's sort of like Michelangelo and the Pope doing the Sistine Chapel. It is a very irritating thing, and I'm sure Michelangelo was very irritated with the Pope."

Sensitive observer of the ... uh ... human ... condition, tearing down harmful stereotypes and cliches in the interest of bringing mankind together: "If you put that notion on a larger scale, you have to understand that it's a very cooperative world, not only with the environment, with but our fellow human beings. If you do not cooperate, if you do not work together to keep the entire organism going, the whole thing dies, and everybody dies with it."

Tireless defender of the downtrodden: "One of the basic motifs in fairy tales is that you find the poor and unfortunate along the side of the road, and when they beg for help, if you give it to them, you end up succeeding. If you don't give it to them, you end up being turned into a frog or something. It's a concept that's been around for thousands of years. It is even more necessary today, when people are more into their own aggrandizement than they are in helping other people."

Intellectually supple Apostle Paul to Michael Moore's firebrand, inconstant Peter, bringing the Truth and Light of New Age Leftism to the benighted masses: "Fahrenheit 9/11. People went nuts. The folk aspects of that film were George Bush or Iraq or 9/11 or -- intense emotional issues that made people put up their blinders and say, "I have an opinion about this, and I'm not going to accept anything else." If you could look at these issues more open-mindedly -- at what's going on with the human mind behind all this, on all sides -- you could have a more interesting conversation, without people screaming, plugging their ears, and walking out of the room like kids do.... With a film like Fahrenheit 9/11, you can affect people who already believe that way, and they can say "Right on," but you can't affect people who have made up their minds the other way.... But the best thing that's happened since Fahrenheit 9/11 is that now we can actually get documentaries in theaters."

Religious guru for a New Age of Man: "I think there is a God. No question. What that God is or what we know about God, I'm not sure... I see Star Wars as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a more modern and easily accessible construct-that there is a greater mystery out there... Religion is basically a container for faith. And faith in our culture, our world and on a larger issue, the mystical level--which is God, what one might describe as a supernatural, or the things that we can't explain--is a very important part of what allows us to remain stable, remain balanced.... All religions are true.... I put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people... It's designed primarily to make young people think about the mystery. Not to say, "Here's the answer." It's to say, "Think about this for a second. Is there a God? What does God look like?"

As the final installment of the Star Wars saga (sag - a would be more like it) is set to be released, Jim Garaghty provides the most telling summation yet of this man and his "ideas:"

Let me get this straight. With villains in Attack of the Clones that consisted of the "Trade Federation", "Commerce Guild", "Techno Union" and "Intergalactic Banking Clan", etc., I'm being warned about the dangers of capitalism from a man who made perhaps more money from merchandising than any other man in history. I'm getting lectured about the dangers of greed from man who authorized, "C-3POs" breakfast cereal, "The Star Wars Christmas Special" featuring Bea Arthur's musical number, and not one but two Ewoks made-for-TV movies.

I'm being warned about the dangers of technology, and the glory of primitive cultures like the Ewoks, who are able to defeat the "technological terror" of the Empire, in what is supposedly an allegory of Vietnam. Technology is bad, soulless, dangerous, and dehumanizing. Mmm-hmm. This from a man who replaced a tall man in a hairy suit, projecting the human-eyed loyalty and sadness of Chewbacca, with the CGI cinematic war crime that is Jar-Jar Binks. A man who tossed aside the Yoda puppet, the spaceship models, the stop-motion animation of the Imperial walkers to go all-computer-animation-and-green-screen, all-the-time.

Yep. That pretty much says it all. I realize that challenging George Lucas on the intellectual merits of his movies is pretty much like shooting a very fat, very slow, very old catfish on the bottom of a very small barrel, but then, as Rastus McWebfoot ... sorry ... Jar Jar ... would doubtless say, "Meesa likee shoot fishies in barrelzes, massah."

Darth Monkius

Update: "Director Steven Spielberg wept at a premier of pal George Lucas' final Star Wars movie.... Spielberg was so moved that by the eagerly awaited conclusion of the sci-fi saga, he burst into tears at its screening last week."

Funny... I had the same thing happen at the end of Episodes I & II....

Monk