Unlike, say, intuition, imagination is not monolithic. There is the centrifugal and the centripetal kind. The former, and lesser, looks away from human reality to other, fabricated realities; the latter, and greater, burrows deeper into the reality we live in, discovering yet unexplored verities in its unsounded depths. Two archetypes of the greater imagination are Shakespeare and Proust; of the lesser, the hordes of mystery and sci-fi writers.
In the opinion of many movie fans, especially those whose puberty coincided with the first installment of George Lucas's Star Wars trilogy, those three films are the ultimate in cinematic science fiction, ahead even of Kubrick's 2001. They attempt nothing less than the creation of a new mythology, if not indeed a new religion. And there is something to be said for new religions: they are less likely than the old ones to engender bloody conflicts all over the globe. On the other hand, lets not forget Jonestown and Waco.
I have never been a sci-fi reader, except for the Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, better known for his Tarzan ones. These books about the adventures of Captain John Carter, a Virginia gentleman on Mars, taught me as a 15-year-old much of my English. There is little if any technology in them: Carter does not get to Mars by building a spaceship; he simply stares at his beloved red planet one night and, presto magico, finds himself transported thither.
The half-dozen novels record his love affair with the lovely Martian princess, Dejah Thoris, planet-crossed by many evil forces (none that you would want with you), but ending in conjugal bliss. And Dejah Thoris does not look like some sort of weird extraterrestrial, but a supremely beautiful earthling, save that her skin is truly pink, whether shocking or Schiaparelli, as befits a daughter of the red planet. But, I suppose, when we can see Mars on our television screens, its magic is forfeit, and Lucas's exordium, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," is understandable.
The new film's full title is Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace, and it is, alas, to be followed by two more before we reach Episode IV, which is where the old Star Wars begins. The prequel was, it seems, already a gleam in Lucas's eye 20 years ago, though the actual writing didn't start till November 1994. If each installment then takes roughly five years to finish, we must count on Episode III not being completed before the year 2009. Which means that I, writing this, and you who are reading it, may not be around to savor the ultimate accomplishment, but will have to go to our graves with a gaping hole in our education -- not to say our religion.
The situation is hard on the reviewer. On the one hand, I must not tell you how Episode I comes out and spoil your fun; on the other, I cannot pass any generalized judgment based on a first third, the mere groundwork or exposition for the two parts to come. Of two evils, I'll pick the lesser and express some strictures that five or ten years hence may land some egg on my face, provided my face is still around. But then, I may by that time have become as wise and venerable as Yoda, and who will dare lift a finger, let alone an egg, against me?
The events of Episode I are triggered by the heavy tax levied in that faraway galaxy by the "gigantic, commercial Trade Federation" that threatens the survival of "the small, peaceful planet Naboo," ruled by the lovely young Queen Amidala. She and Naboo are menaced "by the might of the wealthy corporate powers" that flout "the weak galactic government." Strange that Lucas, owner of Lucasfilm and the supreme special-effects house, Industrial Light & Magic, as well as many other corporations, should cast "those wealthy corporate powers" as the villains of his piece. Could the theogony and the ecstasy of our youth be born of mere self-hatred?
The Jedi Council, presumably synonymous with that "weak galactic government" (clarity is not Lucas's strong suit), delegate two Jedi knights to settle the crisis. They are the doughty Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn and his bright and bushy-tailed apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi. Lucas's very nomenclature is significant. Luke Skywalker was, of course, Lucas in excelsis; Princess Leia was a good lay, at least until Carrie Fisher was cast in the part. Kenobi must have been derived from cannabis, i.e., hemp, the inspiration behind much of Star Wars. Now Qui-Gon Jinn is most likely quick on gin, gin and hemp being the new nectar and ambrosia.
As for Queen Amidala, I'd say her name comes from the Yiddish, a madela, a girlie. Natalie Portman, who portrays her, as well as her decoy doppelgänger, is both Jewish and quite a girlie. The name of the beautiful 9-year-old blond boy, Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), derives, surely, from manikin, i.e., little man, and what a little man he is! He wins the grueling pod race, the Lucas equivalent of a car chase, doubtless also indebted to Ben-Hur.
There is not much human feeling in The Phantom Menace. Not much story either, although the press kit proclaims the "conflict between good and evil and between technology and humanity," which, in a parallel construction, would equate good with technology, evil with humanity. In the Lucas universe, this may indeed hold true.
Technology, by the way, has advanced quite a bit since Episodes IV-VI, the old trilogy. So, too, have hairstyles. When you now see sequences from the old Star Wars juxtaposed with the new, the contrast is jarring. To be sure, we are now in an earlier time in that galaxy, but why should its past look so much more our contemporary than its future? It is as if time there moved in reverse.
Speaking of reversals, Liam Neeson, who portrays Qui-Gon Jinn, was quoted in the press as disgusted with acting in a heavily digitalized movie -- playing opposite computer graphics is like shadow-boxing -- and said he was through with films altogether. At the televised New York gala preview, however, our Qui-Gon was quite gone on the film, whether merely out of tact, I can't say. But yes, in such a movie there is very little real acting, and the excellent Bergman actress Pernilla August, who plays Shmi Skywalker, the grieving mother who must give up Anakin to his high Jedi calling, comes to grief here: She acts, and thereby sticks out like a sore thumb.
Ewan McGregor, as the young Obi-Wan -- who would've imagined he would grow into Alec Guinness? -- is content just to be a Robin to Neeson's quasi-Batman. No Batman mask, though, to cover up Neeson's backward-sloping forehead, which evokes Edwin Markham's immortal question, "What hand smoothed back that bestial brow?" It may just be that one of those light sabers, with which the Jedi here duel for what feels like light years, clipped off part of his cranium.
The heartening thing about The Phantom Menace is that overwhelming armies of evil can be mowed down by a handful of stalwarts with computer-game ease because the Force is with them. "Feel, don't think," Qui-Gon counsels, and I can report that the second part of the advice was scrupulously heeded by the filmmakers.
