THE DUKE'S ADVENTURES
RELATING TO
STAR WARS EPISODE III
REVENGE OF THE SITH
RELATING TO
STAR WARS EPISODE III
REVENGE OF THE SITH
Episode IV – Holy Shit, It’s Bucky O’ Hare
Let me tell you this nonsense right the hell here for the price of
nothing more than a second of your time. The idea that it would
take almost two days of general release before The Duke done got
sat in front a cinema screen showing Star Wars Episode III is so
far beyond the realms of the unthinkable that it almost becomes
thinkable again, but in a kind of weird fever-dream parallel
universe sorta way. It’s the sorta thing you would put down on a
list that has, at numbers 1 and 3 respectively, Having Sex With A
Yak Without Realising and Sawing My Head Off For The Hilarity Of It
All.
It’s the kinda shit ain’t in no way or no how ever gonna be
occurring in a fella’s day-to-day, that’s for damn sure.
If you asked me if I’d be sat in a theatre seeing Star Wars Episode
III at 8:25 PM on the Friday, knowing that I could’ve seen it at
midnight on the Wednesday of the same week, if you’d have said “So
what’s the chances you’ll be at that Friday screening?” I’d have
cut your eyes out with a witty retort along the lines of “The fuck
would I be there for? I’d already have seen it seven times, no
sense being there on a Friday evening, the most wretched of all
cinema-going evenings, when there ain’t no school the next morning,
so anything vaguely “kiddie-friendly” is privy to any number of
vanloads of sugar-doped pre-adolescents, straight from the bowling
alley and the McBurger King and whacked to fuck on giddy mania.”
Not that I’m one a these sour sonsabitches who wanna moan about
kids seeing flicks. Let them eat their popcorn, man. Let them point
when something spectacular appears onscreen. Let them scream at the
bits where maybe the cannibals eat the fellas ribs, and let the
parents argue about “It wasn’t my fucking idea, I hadn’t even seen
the poster!” Let them chortle and point and go “wow!”
Just that sometimes a man’s mood doesn’t quite welcome this kinda
tomfoolery.
Mind you, there are times when a man’s mood can, in fact, be lifted
immeasurably by such antics, and he finds himself getting swept up
in the kiddie dementia washing across the audience like some
caffeine an’ chocolate coated veil of insanity.
But for something along the lines of Star Wars Episode III –
Revenge Of The Sith, a man needs a contemplative air, for the first
12-15 viewings, anyway. He needs folks stroking their chins, not
mad possessed youngsters screaming and puking and raising all
sortsa hellish bastardry.
“Get the fuck off my forehead”, you find yourself having to holler.
“He’s turning, sweet Jesus, he’s turning, and there’s a ten-year-
old with Satan in his smile tearing my motherfucking eyes out!”
But anyway, owing to a buncha balls, I ended up seeing Star Wars
Episode III for the first time on just such a Friday evening,
almost two days after it had gone on general release. The fuck
kinda voodoo leads to this sorta bullshit, you’re thinking? All
sortsa voodoo, to be related via a hotly debated prequel trilogy of
some kind.
But no matter.
I was at least a day behind The Schedule, but fuck it, the mood’s
good, a fella got a reasonable night’s kip, and I gotta say, I
could feel the good-will seeping through my every fuck-gland in
that damn cinema, that’s for sure.
Most of the seats were booked well in advance, but being something
of a Rebel Without A Pause Motherfucker, I decided to take a chance
on just walkin in and demanding a damn seat right the fuck now, in
exchange for a couple quid flung at your tyrannical teeth.
Now here’s a horror story for to have you screaming yourself blind
and nauseous every night of the week from now till doomsday;
I picked what folks in the business might call “an aisle seat”,
because let’s face it, no matter how many jars a piss a man forces
out his bladder prior to the screening, there’s always gonna be
that niggling thought about “Did I do enough pissin? Should I have
gone through the thirty minutes of adverts? Maybe I should go
during this advert right here, just to be sure. What if I go
through an advert and it turns out it was the last one, though? I’d
miss the motherfucking opening scrawl. Screw that upside the ball-
holes.”
A fella’s prone to doin’ so much thinking about pissing, in fact,
that next thing he knows he has convinced himself he has to piss,
and the last thing you want is to be stuck in the middle of a row
stretching from here to Golgotha when it becomes apparent that
“Sweet Sweetback, looks like I’m gonna have to go piss after all”.
Next thing a fella knows he’s struggling to get past half a zillion
sets of awkwardly raised knees and inconveniently placed cups a
stuff, needing to think about that whole “arse or crotch” thing
from Fight Club, needing to apologise ninety times over, “sorry,
‘scuse me, sorry, cheers, sorry” till before you know it you’ve
annoyed the fuck outta not just your row, but the three rows behind
who had to contort their necks in all sortsa zany directions just
to get a glimpse of the screen past the silhouette of a
motherfucker couldn’t piss before the picture started, and worse,
takes half an hour to get to the damn aisle, stuttering and
apologising and causing no end a fucked-up disruption.
“I did piss, man! It’s the pressure! Risen fuckin’ Lazarus, it’s
the pressure of it all!!”
Sometimes during this the only thing you can do to take your mind
off the horror is raise your arms and do a comedy dance for the
benefit of the folks sat at home watching the charade on some
bootleg CAM-TS version of the flick. Maybe you even got a wee
routine about Vietnamese Mosh Pits or wanking.
Maybe you might get noticed by some high-flying talent scout who
ended up with this on account of a maliciously uploaded file
purporting to be War Of The Worlds 2005.
Any the fuck way, when the fella with the torch leads me to the
seat (B-O1, I believe, which subtly hints that maybe one of your
overweight comedy Star Wars fans should be sat there, and also, I
just realised, is almost O-B1, which would’ve been much better,
given the circumstances), I find it is indeed the last one on the
row, but, as luck would have it, the seat is next to the bastard
wall.
So, in conclusion, I couldn’t have picked a seat on this row
further from the aisle unless I got all Woody Allen in Zelig and
sat my arsehole up vertically on the fucking paint.
Still, fuck it. I had a couple pisses a while back. More important
is who has the seats next to me? A couple parents and their
children? One parent and his / her children? One vagrant and a
couple children he helped get in since it was 12a? A romantic
couple of some kind, who’ll keep looking over and thinking about
“Hmm. Not really surprised he’s sat on his own, to be honest.”
Or, sweet God, my ex and her new fella? How wretched a scene this
would be.
No way they’d be here, though, tonight of all nights.
And yet what better night for a date-flick than Friday? And what
better date-flick than a film about the dehumanising voyage of
degradation endured by a young fella with hope in his eyes and a
couple sprogs on the way?
Before long, it stood to reason that it could ONLY be my ex and her
fella who had booked these seats. It all made sense. They’d come
in, there’d be an awkward smile and then I’d be subjected to all
manner of soul-scarring slurping, or worse, and all throughout this
virgin airing of Revenge Of The Sith. I was about to demand a
change of seat, but then three fellas sat down. I’m fairly sure
none of them was my ex, but who knows? In this light, and with a
fellas thoughts driving him all shadesa psychedelic, Trotsky
himself could sit his arse down to my right and I wouldn’t notice
for a second.
Any the hell how.
Soon as the adverts appeared onscreen, I knew this was to be a
glorious occasion.
A sense of community was being instilled in us from the
motherfucking get-go is the facts of the truth of it all, every
advert being about some event that was bringing all sortsa
disparate people together. There was the beer one with the Franz
Ferdinand performance. There was the one with folks going to work
on giant space-hoppers, which I wished to the heavens would be an
advert for giant space-hoppers, but no, turns out it was about
phones or something. Over and over, loads of people in these
adverts find themselves as part of something greater, and smiles
are passed to folks the smilee ain’t ever seen, and smiles
returned. I figured I should look round and smile at the really
rather attractive lady sat behind me, but no doubt her partner
would interpret this as something other than a flicker of
solidarity amidst this space-hopping adventure, and so I figured
no, fuck it.
Still, I looked at her arse when she went for a piss a little bit
later.
Even before the adverts, though, I knew this was to be a special
moment in the lives of every human being sat in this cinema.
How the fuck couldn’t it be, when, with the black screen still
looming up ahead like the big diamond thing hanging over the
labyrinths of Hell in Hellbound – Hellraiser 2, our ears pricked up
as one, a whole roomful of pointy-up ears, as nothing less than the
theme-tune to Bucky O’Hare blared from out the speakers.
“Holy Shit”, I hollered, “It’s Bucky O’ Hare!”
Nobody paid any heed. Fuck that maniac yackin on about the space-
rabbits, they maybe thought. Fuck his O’Hare talk, fuck its hole.
But I took it as an omen of great things to come. Vast,
unimaginable happenings would happen.
The trailers for War Of The Worlds and the new Batman only
increased my enthusiasm, until I thought I might pass the fuck out,
like the time I had a panic attack during my fourth cinema viewing
of Attack Of The Clones.
“Call a damn doctor, the fella in screen 3’s having himself some
kind of demented fit of some kind. Sweet Jesus, he’s purple!”
I was in screen 2. They didn’t give two fucks for The Duke.
Episode V – Attack Of The Very, Very Mild Spoilers
There are plenty thrills a man can get in a picture-cinema, plenty
of ways for to inspire the head-sauce to bubble its way out the
cracks tween grinding teeth. Maybe he takes a sip of his actually
really rather reasonably priced beverage, and finds that holy fuck,
he’s just had a throatful of pure ether. Maybe he accidentally
takes a handkerchief from the pocket of the person sitting next to
him, instead of his own pocket, and finds that he’s wiping his nose
with a tissue soaked in poppers set to have the eyes boiling in his
head in 20, 30 seconds time. Maybe he even receives a hand-job
during a screening of Shrek.
Whatever the fuck it is, you can be sure it delivers no kind of
kick to the adrenaline pipes that’s in any way comparable to the
sheer fucking delight that drips from a fella’s hairline as the
Sacred Threesome batters the screen for a couple minutes of
unbridled wondrous wonder.
1 – “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
2 – Boom! Williams’ score, big yellow Star Wars. Fucking hell!
3 – Episode Whatever – Some Kooky Title. A scrawl all about “The
trade federation” and “Rebellion” and “Silly pony-tails”.
These three events, springing gainst the eyes a couple seconds
after one another, they instil in the heart the kinda warmth that
even two hours-worth of gungans and bastard mop-headed pod-racers
can’t entirely destroy.
Seeing it in this damn cinema, knowing it’s the last time I’ll see
it for the first time, knowing that there probably won’t be any mop-
headed “Yippee!” fuckers or much Jar-Jar to worry about, the thrill
is close to the kinda thing that has a fella smiling the kinda
smile that stretches four faces on either side.
Episode III, it says. Revenge Of The Sith.
I would’ve grabbed the hand of the fella sitting next to me but
most likely he’d have stabbed me in the face with a fountain pen.
Around this point, y’see, a momentary melancholy descended ‘pon my
form. Here it is, man, the last Star Wars flick of all ever, or at
least till they realise how much money they’d make from an Episode
VII, here it is right here, look, just in front there, you can’t
miss it. Here it is, and here’s The Duke, sat with folks he not
only doesn’t know, but probably would have trouble even devising
some filthy fantasy about, with no hand for to hold or shoulder for
to navigate in sneaky pursuit of The Chestal Area. Sat here
lovelorn and lust-crazed and yet very obviously alone. You pathetic
wretch, I could hear folks thinking about saying, except they
couldn’t, cause look, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
But fuck it. Who can think about the soul-crushing nature of
mandatory masturbation when Episode III’s busy introducing itself
to the room?
Those words up there have a power, is the truth of the matter. For
a certain type, in a certain situation, with certain hopes and
notions and dreams, those words soon sweep any amount of mental
hubris out the damn road.
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
Even on the third viewing of Phantom Menace in the cinema, I still
felt high as a meth-soaked tramp when that fucking blue writing
came up. Even though I knew all sortsa horrors were about to
unfold, it was worth it, it was worth all the gungans in the
universe just to see that shit up there.
The time I went in a couple minutes late, so Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon
were already killing a gaggle of green lizard-folks, I turned and
walked the fuck out. It’d be like expecting to get a smack-rush
even though you forgot to stick the needle in your vein.
But in the here and now ain’t no thoughts of Phantom Menace for to
be plaguing a man. Here and now we’ve moved on, moved on a couple
episodes, in fact, and so this prequel trilogy born so humbly, like
Christ in his manger, except the manager was a horrible, dull,
fancy-pants sci-fi flick, now reaches a glorious conclusion, like
Christ again, granted resonance and meaning and instilling hope and
wellbeing in a man’s soul even though to do so it needs to get
involved in all sortsa horrific violence.
I took a minute for to look around me, see what sortsa folks the
world had coughed in these doors, anyhow. For sure, I had a glance
or two earlier, but, truth be told, I was more interested in the
conversation going on behind me. Turned out a few folks, including
the attractive female from back in Episode IV, had booked a row of
seats, only to find that one of the seats wasn’t actually really a
seat at all, more a bizarre metallic stump, and so all sortsa
kafuffles went on with the management, all sortsa talk of “House
seats” and “sorry” and “fuck your fucking stump-seat”.
The rest of the audience turned out, for the most part, to be
either young children and their parents / guardians, or gangs of
youth-types. I couldn’t see many other folks sat on their own
thinking about hands they’d like to be holding throughout this
fucking incredible battle with General Grievous.
Maybe in my head I imagined who I would like to be sat here, and I
whispered to her now and again, maybe saying about “Y’know, this
dialogue makes me wanna pierce my ear-drums with forks” or “Still,
this is much, much better than I thought it was gonna be” or “Is it
ok if I put my arm around you for a second? Just this is all rather
grim, this bit right here, and I feel a bit sad, and I’d dig it if
maybe you were a bit closer”.
The last one I accidentally said out loud, but no fucker paid
attention, or if they did hear, they pretended they didn’t,
terrified out their very skulls no doubt.
Above all, though, I just kept thinking how much fun this was. I
went to see Phantom Menace more times than enough, but after one
and a half viewings, it became more of a chore than anything borne
out a desire to see the flick. You had to see it a million times,
man, and if your mate’s brother saw it a million and one, then
nothing less than three billion would suffice.
This here, though, I’ll come back to plenty, I decided. And cause I
want to. Cause despite the shitty banter, there’s just too much
great, great stuff here, too many bursts of glorious eye-watering
wackiness, too many brilliant characters, brilliant designs,
brilliant set-pieces, brilliant moments of silence followed by
brilliant screeches of cacophonous abandon.
And look how much plot’s packed in here, would you ever for a damn
second? The Phantom Menace tried to convince folks it was
complicated just by having loads a scenes where folks talk for
hours about a loada half-arsed balls. How much story was there?
About a page, and it fucking sucked, I might add.
Here, you can’t move for story. Don’t turn that corner, you Sith
bastard, there’s gonna be more story waiting round there than I
could hope to deal with in this state. Every road these bastards
take, story story story. Folks trip over the damn story. Where’d
all this damn story come from alla damn sudden, they’re saying.
Last six hours there ain’t been nothing resembling a story,
suddenly I can’t raise my right nut without hitting a story the
size a Canada.
All sortsa shit’s goin’ on – Political scheming, rebellions, war
(or “War!” as the opening scrawl has it), Order 66, pregnancies,
temptation, violence every which motherfucking way.
And it’s sad, too. There’s a bit where Anakin and Padme are just
sitting in silence, contemplating the enormity of some shit or
other, and a fella couldn’t help but feel moved by it all. Plus,
the longer he kept his face shut, the less chance there’d be that
he’d find time to start comparing her to sand.
“You’re not like sand, Padme. I hate that gosh-darn sand.”
““Fuck the sand, bastard. You’re supposed to be seducing me. Sand
talk don’t do a damn thing, ‘cept make me dryer than the fucking
desert it came from.”
And that’s without mentioning all these motifs and themes and
visual asides that bring it that bit closer to A New Hope. Certain
sets, certain costumes, certain characters.
Certain moments when a certain type of viewer will laugh out loud
even though nothin’ especially funny occurred, just so as other
folks less learned in matters of daft sci-fi tomfoolery will know
that I know.
Maybe when folks ask about “What was your favourite bit?” you find
yourself saying “Well it’s gotta be that Kurosawa reference in the
opening.”
Fuck the Kurosawa reference, I didn’t even know till I read about
it later, but you bet you last ball the next time I go see it I’ll
point and laugh and scream out loud the second that shot arrives.
But even if you don’t wanna be bothered with Kurosawa, what about
all the nods and winks and ropes flung across to the outstretched
palms of A New Hope?
For example, as far as The Duke might be concerned, the best moment
in Attack Of The Clones was when Dooku walked past the hologram of
the Death Star plans. That tingle that bounced along a fella’s
spine, that was some powerful shit right there. “It geeked the
bejeesus outta me” is, I believe, the technical cinematalogical
term for it all.
There weren’t no big deal made about it. The camera didn’t zoom in
and have someone point it out with a stick, saying “Look here, it’s
the big thing from out the first one”, it just happened. It was
just there for a second, but it’s all I could talk about when folks
asked about if the flick was any good.
Revenge Of The Sith is stuffed to the chops with shit like that,
reaching a glorious crescendo in the final shot, a beautiful
reprise of the most beautiful moment in A New Hope, which is now, I
suppose, itself a reprise, chronologically speaking. The 1977
version is my favourite shot in all Star Wars, so it stands to
reason that this variant would be my favourite shot in all the
prequels.
It’s the one with the two suns, or maybe it was two moons. I dunno.
But the sky was red, the gaze was longing and the score was
dragging every dream I ever had in the direction of those floating
blobs of fiery death, and a fella felt himself choking on the
bittersweet phlegm of his own aspirations.
When that final “Written And Directed By George Lucas” appeared, I
wanted to stand the fuck up right there and throw my arms around
the girl I wished had been there too, maybe kissed her even, since
fuck it, this is a glorious moment in our cinema-going lives, and
if I get a slap in the yap and a cutting rebuttal, at least for a
second I was kissing her whilst that score was stirring every
cinematically inclined fibre in my being well beyond their
collective capacities for being stirred.
I would’ve roared and clapped and hollered, but I heard the fella a
bit behind me attempt to start some applause, and I could feel the
cynical patronising sneers scourging his guts out, so I didn’t. But
I felt it too, man. I wanted to cheer right alongside you. Was it
because I really thought the flick was more cheer-worthy than, say,
The Woodsman, or was it because folks don’t cheer at The Woodsman
regardless of its quality, they cheer at Star Wars? Didn’t you see
the documentaries with the fucker out Happy Days yacking about
“Wow, gee howdy, first time I saw Star Wars I cheered myself blue
in the balls alright”? Who knows?
But know that I would’ve cheered, had I been in a roomful of
similar cheerers, and not just one cheerer a bit behind me who, it
must be said, offered only a half-hearted kinda apologetic slap of
the palms, and not really much of a cheer at all.
But regardless of their outward apathy, I knew everybody here was
as enraptured as me, even the fellas outside who were yacking about
“He should’ve had someone better than General Grievous. Maybe the
black and white one from The Clone Wars” and the other fella said
“The woman?” and the first fella said “No, no, the black and white
one”. I suppressed the desire to scream “She was a fucking woman!
Just accept that the coolest Sith motherfucker in The Clone Wars
was a woman, you chauvinist hound! Your patriarchal fantasies are
crashing around your feet at this very minute, I dare say!” Even
those fellas, I knew, adored every second.
And I had a big grin on my face like the grin a man might grin when
leaving a brothel at four in the morning high on the whiskey-cracks
and shagged delirious, except even better, since, most likely, I
wouldn’t wake up with a headful of suicidal torment and a void to
the south of the soul.
Episode VI – Attack Of Insomnia
Thing is, I didn’t wake up at all, since I didn’t sleep, since my
head decided I’d had plenty sleep these past few years, so fuck it,
I’ll just do a whole shit-load of really noisy thinking while you
toss an turn in some sleep-starved fever.
Before this though, text messages had to be sent.
“General Grievous was amazing!” I announced to some folks. “I
coulda watched that bouncy cunt all night!”
Thoughts were forming in all sortsa weird shapes and sizes.
Thoughts that needed some sort of perspective, and so I immediately
read the spoiler-heavy reviews I’d avoided until now. The thoughts
of Kevin Smith, for example, or Harry and Moriarty from off Ain’t
It Cool. The thoughts of the legions of Blogcritics who’ve reviewed
the flick. All sortsa thoughts and feelings, and, with a few
exceptions flung screaming to the fires of Fuck You, everyone
seemed to be saying shit like “This is the best of the prequel
trilogy, no messing.”
Some of them said truly outrageous nonsense like “It makes The
Phantom Menace better”, but I can’t get behind that kinda talk for
even half a second.
I’d sooner pay attention to the ravings of the drunken priest sat
on my doorstep witling about The Apocalypse than I’d listen to a
motherfucker trying to convince me of the worth of The Phantom
Menace.
I sooner shit me all the Ewoks in Endor.
What’s a man to do in light of all this crazy Star Wars tomfoolery,
if not douse himself in caffeine and sit up till the morning light
contemplating what the fuck’s just gone on.
I had to think about a whole swirling array of Bantha bullshit. I
had to think about how some folks didn’t like Star Wars Episode III
– Revenge Of The Sith one little ounce. There were plenty hostile
reviews, folks yacking about the horrific dialogue, the wooden
delivery, the suckiness sucking every suck-gland from a fellas suck-
holes.
Outside the theatre, there were two fellas dressed up as Wookies
fucking each other behind a skip. I distinctly heard talk of “It
was awful. What was that shit about “Will to live?” That was some
cack on my ears, that right there.”
I think the other one was just yacking on about “Fuck me like a
Gungan” or something.
What could I do but lay back on the kitchen floor with The Band
singing Across The Great Divide, a couple Dali numbers stuck to the
ceiling above me, the one with Lenin’s arse held up by a crutch and
the one about The Great Masturbator, and thinking thoughts along
the lines of “I really dug it, man.”
Fuck these critics, I found myself hissing, and then a second hiss
more in tune with “No, they’re entitled to their opinion, even if
it’s wrong.”
But what if I’m wrong? What if holy shit, it’s almost five in the
morning, the song’s long since moved on to an Outake Stereo-Mix of
Get Up Jake, the Dali’s have come unstuck and ended up all bent
over and disgraced in the sink, and maybe there ain’t even a
glimmer of critical integrity left in my head for to make it all
even a notch less degrading.
I’m thinking about White Noise, how I loved that flick, and yet it
was undeniably a loada wank. Was Star Wars Episode III a loada wank
that just happened to spray my face at the right time?
No. How many bouncy robot bastards did White Noise have? About
five, and they sucked in comparison to the Episode III variants.
For a fella keen on the wonders of Star Wars, Episode III was just
the tonic for a head hung low with the weight of unrequited love
and mental unravelling and crushing monotony.
I lay there for ages, till at least 11:15 in the AM, looking at the
ceiling, until those two suns or moons showed up right the fuck
there, although it might’ve been a couple spiders I couldn’t help
but destroy a few nights ago.
Freud said spiders were vaginal creatures. I couldn’t have two
vaginas crawling about the roof, not at that hour of the night, not
with a fella already deranged with frantic lust.
I think I slept for an hour or two shortly after noon.
Episode I – Cute Noses And A Lack Of Purpose
Burnt out, man. The Duke was feelin’ burnt out as a Volkswagen
hotwired by a buncha skag-riddled teenagers, driven out to a
country lane and doused in petrol, and maybe they even burned
themselves rotten whilst fumbling with the lighters in their heroin
stupor. That blackened cage in the middle of that shitty field, I
identified some with the metaphorical fucker, no doubt.
I tried opening Microsoft Word no end of times, tried for to wax
some sort of hilarious fuck-laced rant of some kind about maybe Sin
City or The Long Weekend, but that white screen, it grabbed a fella
by the ears every time and pounded my head into the monitor until I
passed out slavering all over the keyboard.
I woke up with QWERTY printed cross my head, like the time I fell
asleep drunk in Technical College and woke up with half the front-
page of The Sun peering from my jaw.
The only thing a fella could do was witter endlessly to a lass in
the unfortunate position of having snared The Duke’s affections
somewhat.
“Sweet fuckery”, I’d announce, “It would appear to me, at this
hour, that I can no longer function in any way shape or form, not
one word will leave my fingers, not one paragraph about a flick I
maybe saw but fuck that, here’s a buncha self-obsessed wank for to
think about instead, and also, here’s a motherfucker or twenty.”
But dig this, would you ever. Star Wars would be out shortly, the
last ever Star Wars flick, would you believe, the last of these
prequels everyone harps on about, this series of flicks that get
folks in all sortsa tizzies about “You’re raping my childhood, cunt-
beard” and so on in the message boards and the forums.
I realised that, if I was to in any way aspire to becoming some
sort of astronaut or linguist, I had no option but to proposition
said lass from a couple sentences ago, a request along the lines of
some shit about my local cinema closed, and the only way I can
imagine I might ever see Episode III is if I see it in the cinema
closest to you, and therefore, perhaps you might accompany a foul-
mouthed motherfucker with Jabba in his dreams.
Of course there’s cinemas much closer, but fuck them, they ain’t
nothing but bastard fronts, satanic meeting grounds masquerading as
picture-nickelodeons.
But she couldn’t.
What could I do but write a song about “Oh, I wanted her to go see
Star Wars with me / She couldn’t / I’m very blue / Navy, almost”.
I sat for a while listening to Adam Green singing about Choke On A
Cock, took a walk about the place, met up with a couple rent-boys
needed me to man the gates whilst they went off on some sort of
buggery and espionage mission of some sort.
And all the while thinkin’ about cute noses.
They came back a couple hours later soaked in blood and semen. I
didn’t ask, they didn’t tell. The night was young.
Episode II – Possible Addictions #114-118
Sometimes a man gets to thinking about maybe what he should be
doing is devoting his life to some kind of free-form poetry read
out in clubs the size of matchboxes, maybe some motherfucker
beating a bongo by the bar, maybe the atmosphere coated in sickly
sweet crack-smoke.
Surely this would make his sleeplessness and general paranoia and
neurotic disposition all the more acceptable. Course I ain’t slept
in a week, I been coked to the balls on the speedy-ganjas.
How pathetic, this son of a bitch sat tossing and turning and no
hint of sleep on the cards, and all because of something so slight
and socially acceptable that he can’t even remember what it was.
It’s Wednesday. At midnight, Star Wars Episode III will grace every
screen fit to hold it. Already there’s been a buncha malcontents in
London sitting through all five flicks thus far in preparation for
Revenge Of The Sith.
Why aren’t I out there, dressed like a Jedi and calling folks
Padawans? Why? I’ll tell you why, because I ain’t slept in days and
the thought of attempting to digest Star Wars Episode III in this
state would’ve probably got a motherfucker killed in Stalinist
Russia.
All a man needs is a night’s sleep, and then tomorrow I’ll go catch
that Star Wars by the hair of the arse and demand that it pleasure
me in ways unimaginable to even the most depraved of civil
servants. Penetrate orifices I didn’t even know I had, I’ll be
demanding.
Still, 3 am turns to 4 am, like that bit in Phantom Of Liberty when
the fella’s seeing ducks and emus and postmen walking through the
bedroom, and every time he looks over at the clock, an hour has
miraculously passed.
I found myself wishing I lived near a cathedral, one of the
cathedrals that still batter the fuck out the bells on the hour
every hour, adding some sort of grandeur to this depressing scene.
Or maybe a flat just off Princes Street in Edinburgh, so I could
hear the cannons being fired from the castle.
Maybe I could go investigate those winding alleys in the late-night
fog, maybe even get murdered by a motherfucker with a handlebar
moustache and a top hat?
What it says on the box of sleep-enhancers I end up fondling for
the second time, is One A Night. Do Not Exceed Stated Dose You
Junkie Bastard. Go Get A Real Habit, Would You Ever? I’ve already
swallowed two and a half, and a handful of useless herbal offerings
for variety, and now I’m poking through the leaflets and foil
trying to find the other half.
Fuck knows where it’s gone, so I just take another full one.
Might as well have shoved my nuts in a pint of buttermilk, for all
the sleep enhancing these fuckers did.
Having slept not an ounce, but feeling slightly re-energised on
account of Billy Bragg singing about “You’re a dedicated follower
of fascism!” and a bit of Ryan Adams talking about “Tennessee’s a
brother to my sister Carolina, where they’re gonna bury me” I end
up standing in line at Burger King with Sir Fleming, head of Mondo
Guerrilla Marketing, listening to a couple Scottish bikers who had
obviously just seen Star Wars Episode III.
“I have them all at home”, one of them announces, “But I don’t like
the episodes.”
He means the prequels. Who the fuck calls them “The episodes”? Who,
barring this man-mountain etched in leather and steel, this
motorcycle maniac who no-one would ever dream of contradicting?
“Fuck those episodes!” I shouted, just in case he thought maybe I
had thoughts along the lines of “Fuck your episode talk.”
Turned out Sir Fleming was attending a screening of Star Wars on
this very eve, being the Thursday. He was psyched. He had the look
of a man who knew he was gonna be seeing some Jedi sonsabitches get
slaughtered the fuck up.
It seemed right that this Burger King meal, which I despised but
ate out of dementia, be some sort of celebratory affair. This very
night, he would stroll past the barrier erected for to keep Geekdom
in place. Once past it, there’s no going back. He’s seen all there
is to see of Star Wars. This is it.
As if he knew of our situation, Jim Morrison started singing The End
over the in-store sound system. “This is the end / My only friend,
the end / Something about fucking mothers.”
Thank God someone saw sense and put on some Libertines instead.
Another second of Morrison’s pretentious “oh, I’m a shaman” banter
and I’d have cut the heads off of the staff with a hatchet.
Jim Morrison was the David Blaine of rock n’ roll.
“I’m a shaman. Oooh.”
Fuck you. The only Shamen I give a rats wank about are the ones who
sang about E’zer Goode and I Can Move, Move, Move Any Mountain.
Comin’ on like a seventh sense, motherfucker.
Episode III – Thoughts From The Back Seat
On my way to the Friday night screening of Star Wars Episode III –
Revenge Of The Sith, and I can’t help but feel horrendously under-
prepared. I had intended to watch every single Star Wars flick this
past week, in anticipation of this grand finale, but I just kept
looking at that cover of Phantom Menace and thinking about no
amount of Jedi carnage is worth this shit.
It felt right to have Don’t Stand Me Down by Dexy’s Midnight
Runners playing on the iPod. It felt right to have Kevin Rowland
yacking about “This is what she’s like…” in his curious half-man /
half-wookie yelp.
What’s she like then, Kevin?
“She’s got a cute nose, JIMMY!! AIEEE! She has this brilliant,
hallucinogenic wit that fries my skull and makes me smile PLAN BUH-
EE!! HUUWOOOO!!!!”
Where is she then, you yelping psychopath?
“She cuuuuulllldn’t come, JIMMAH!! Huruggghhhhh!!! She had to study
an SOOCH-A. PLAN BAYEEE!”
An so it’s just me an Kevin and thoughts about some nuns I saw
earlier, and how come nuns don’t wear black anymore? Where did all
these navy nuns come from all a damn sudden?
Whoopie Goldberg, man, fuckin up every damn thing.
I managed to avoid almost every spoiler and every review of Revenge
Of The Sith, something I never managed with the last two
instalments, and something that has, inevitably, left me a tad less
hyped about it all than I was when settling down for Attack Of The
Clones.
Still, at least there’s less chance of embarrassing myself in the
foyer by gabbling ridiculous about “It was amazing! Jar-Jar really
works!”
I can’t show my fucking face in the cinema that doesn’t exist
anymore, and all because of ill-judged rants regarding the podrace.
But I feel quietly confident that this will be something worth
celebrating.
Last night, Sir Fleming sent me a text message which read only; “A
joy! A sheer fucking joy!” Sir Fleming is not one to make these
kindsa decisions without plenty consideration.
Crimes And Misdemeanours, among the most criminally underrated of
all Woody Allen pictures is, according to Sir Fleming, “Overrated.”
Whereas The Duke went into some kind of babbling frenzy regarding
White Noise, Sir Fleming saw it for what it was; pish, but pish
that nonetheless had Michael Fucking Keaton.
If Sir Fleming assumes this Star Wars picture to be “A joy! A sheer
fucking joy!” then I have no reason for to assume otherwise.
I’d moved on from Don’t Stand Me Down, so what I’ve got in the ear-
holes is Fevers And Mirrors by Bright Eyes, but much as I love
young Connor, and I think I would love him with great intensity if
the situation ever arose in a dimly-lit tavern or barn, I just
can't be having his temper-tantrums at this time.
“You were my sunshine!!!! RAGH!”
Shush now, Bright Eyes. I’m in a Star Wars kinda mood right now.
I'm going on my own to see Star Wars Episode III for the first time.
I saw Episode II on my own the first time too, Bright Eyes, but
that was different. That was cause my fiancée was at work and so
couldn’t make the first screening of the day, which I had to
attend, since my very lungs depended on it.
I knew that there would be another viewing the next day, and I’d
have a hand for to hold, and a friend for to cuddle, and maybe
even, without getting rude about it all Bright Eyes, maybe we might
even degrade ourselves in a puddle of sweat and filth-sauce right
there in the presence of Yoda.
“Skinny arsehole I see. Bumping around, it is. Not long it took.”
But this here is a solo venture, and all such ventures shall be
chaste affairs, I'd wager. Maybe I’ll see it with some friends some
time before it leaves the cinema, but I can’t imagine any filth’ll
take place.
Still, fuck it, man, it’s Star Wars Episode III.
To be all the honest in Wisconsin, I found the trailer a bit under-
whelming. It just didn’t seem all that wonderful. Then again, it
made it clear that there would be moments of undeniable wonder in
the parent feature, so who knows, maybe that’s all a trailer needs
to do.
But I’m confident. I’m grinning on this back seat, I got Ice-T
hollering away in my ear-hole.
“Alright, when we get up in this house all I want is the
motherfuckin’ kids. Far as Pops I don’t give a fuck what you do,
bust him in his motherfuckin’ head. He got any money, take it…”
Baaa-ba-b-ba ba-ba-baaa-baaa
Best intro ever. Screeching descending adrenaline, right there in
my lug-drums. “This is home invasion!”
A fella feels psyched. A fella feels like maybe this picture might
be all he imagines it might be.
A fella feels hopped to the nuts on the force. A fella’s
midichlorians are running wild.
I got out the vehicle, bid farewell to my companions, and made my
way up the steps, stopping for a smoke on account of some girls
were stood around lookin’ all too attractive, and even though a
buncha psychopaths were tryin to bust their teeth open by way of
some skateboarding shindigs of some sort, I felt calm, and aroused,
even.
Probably I looked like some motherfucker stood waiting for a break
in the weather so as he could raise a plastic bag filled with glue
to his nose for the seventeenth time this evening, but no, that
couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m heading in here and god
knows when I’ll return, or what sights I’ll see, or whose body I
might study for ten or eleven minutes before they realise and throw
a Gideon’s bible at me.
It feels good, this anticipation.
Thanks folks.
Fling The Duke An Email or Sign The Mondo Guestbook
Let me tell you this nonsense right the hell here for the price of
nothing more than a second of your time. The idea that it would
take almost two days of general release before The Duke done got
sat in front a cinema screen showing Star Wars Episode III is so
far beyond the realms of the unthinkable that it almost becomes
thinkable again, but in a kind of weird fever-dream parallel
universe sorta way. It’s the sorta thing you would put down on a
list that has, at numbers 1 and 3 respectively, Having Sex With A
Yak Without Realising and Sawing My Head Off For The Hilarity Of It
All.
It’s the kinda shit ain’t in no way or no how ever gonna be
occurring in a fella’s day-to-day, that’s for damn sure.
If you asked me if I’d be sat in a theatre seeing Star Wars Episode
III at 8:25 PM on the Friday, knowing that I could’ve seen it at
midnight on the Wednesday of the same week, if you’d have said “So
what’s the chances you’ll be at that Friday screening?” I’d have
cut your eyes out with a witty retort along the lines of “The fuck
would I be there for? I’d already have seen it seven times, no
sense being there on a Friday evening, the most wretched of all
cinema-going evenings, when there ain’t no school the next morning,
so anything vaguely “kiddie-friendly” is privy to any number of
vanloads of sugar-doped pre-adolescents, straight from the bowling
alley and the McBurger King and whacked to fuck on giddy mania.”
Not that I’m one a these sour sonsabitches who wanna moan about
kids seeing flicks. Let them eat their popcorn, man. Let them point
when something spectacular appears onscreen. Let them scream at the
bits where maybe the cannibals eat the fellas ribs, and let the
parents argue about “It wasn’t my fucking idea, I hadn’t even seen
the poster!” Let them chortle and point and go “wow!”
Just that sometimes a man’s mood doesn’t quite welcome this kinda
tomfoolery.
Mind you, there are times when a man’s mood can, in fact, be lifted
immeasurably by such antics, and he finds himself getting swept up
in the kiddie dementia washing across the audience like some
caffeine an’ chocolate coated veil of insanity.
But for something along the lines of Star Wars Episode III –
Revenge Of The Sith, a man needs a contemplative air, for the first
12-15 viewings, anyway. He needs folks stroking their chins, not
mad possessed youngsters screaming and puking and raising all
sortsa hellish bastardry.
“Get the fuck off my forehead”, you find yourself having to holler.
“He’s turning, sweet Jesus, he’s turning, and there’s a ten-year-
old with Satan in his smile tearing my motherfucking eyes out!”
But anyway, owing to a buncha balls, I ended up seeing Star Wars
Episode III for the first time on just such a Friday evening,
almost two days after it had gone on general release. The fuck
kinda voodoo leads to this sorta bullshit, you’re thinking? All
sortsa voodoo, to be related via a hotly debated prequel trilogy of
some kind.
But no matter.
I was at least a day behind The Schedule, but fuck it, the mood’s
good, a fella got a reasonable night’s kip, and I gotta say, I
could feel the good-will seeping through my every fuck-gland in
that damn cinema, that’s for sure.
Most of the seats were booked well in advance, but being something
of a Rebel Without A Pause Motherfucker, I decided to take a chance
on just walkin in and demanding a damn seat right the fuck now, in
exchange for a couple quid flung at your tyrannical teeth.
Now here’s a horror story for to have you screaming yourself blind
and nauseous every night of the week from now till doomsday;
I picked what folks in the business might call “an aisle seat”,
because let’s face it, no matter how many jars a piss a man forces
out his bladder prior to the screening, there’s always gonna be
that niggling thought about “Did I do enough pissin? Should I have
gone through the thirty minutes of adverts? Maybe I should go
during this advert right here, just to be sure. What if I go
through an advert and it turns out it was the last one, though? I’d
miss the motherfucking opening scrawl. Screw that upside the ball-
holes.”
A fella’s prone to doin’ so much thinking about pissing, in fact,
that next thing he knows he has convinced himself he has to piss,
and the last thing you want is to be stuck in the middle of a row
stretching from here to Golgotha when it becomes apparent that
“Sweet Sweetback, looks like I’m gonna have to go piss after all”.
Next thing a fella knows he’s struggling to get past half a zillion
sets of awkwardly raised knees and inconveniently placed cups a
stuff, needing to think about that whole “arse or crotch” thing
from Fight Club, needing to apologise ninety times over, “sorry,
‘scuse me, sorry, cheers, sorry” till before you know it you’ve
annoyed the fuck outta not just your row, but the three rows behind
who had to contort their necks in all sortsa zany directions just
to get a glimpse of the screen past the silhouette of a
motherfucker couldn’t piss before the picture started, and worse,
takes half an hour to get to the damn aisle, stuttering and
apologising and causing no end a fucked-up disruption.
“I did piss, man! It’s the pressure! Risen fuckin’ Lazarus, it’s
the pressure of it all!!”
Sometimes during this the only thing you can do to take your mind
off the horror is raise your arms and do a comedy dance for the
benefit of the folks sat at home watching the charade on some
bootleg CAM-TS version of the flick. Maybe you even got a wee
routine about Vietnamese Mosh Pits or wanking.
Maybe you might get noticed by some high-flying talent scout who
ended up with this on account of a maliciously uploaded file
purporting to be War Of The Worlds 2005.
Any the fuck way, when the fella with the torch leads me to the
seat (B-O1, I believe, which subtly hints that maybe one of your
overweight comedy Star Wars fans should be sat there, and also, I
just realised, is almost O-B1, which would’ve been much better,
given the circumstances), I find it is indeed the last one on the
row, but, as luck would have it, the seat is next to the bastard
wall.
So, in conclusion, I couldn’t have picked a seat on this row
further from the aisle unless I got all Woody Allen in Zelig and
sat my arsehole up vertically on the fucking paint.
Still, fuck it. I had a couple pisses a while back. More important
is who has the seats next to me? A couple parents and their
children? One parent and his / her children? One vagrant and a
couple children he helped get in since it was 12a? A romantic
couple of some kind, who’ll keep looking over and thinking about
“Hmm. Not really surprised he’s sat on his own, to be honest.”
Or, sweet God, my ex and her new fella? How wretched a scene this
would be.
No way they’d be here, though, tonight of all nights.
And yet what better night for a date-flick than Friday? And what
better date-flick than a film about the dehumanising voyage of
degradation endured by a young fella with hope in his eyes and a
couple sprogs on the way?
Before long, it stood to reason that it could ONLY be my ex and her
fella who had booked these seats. It all made sense. They’d come
in, there’d be an awkward smile and then I’d be subjected to all
manner of soul-scarring slurping, or worse, and all throughout this
virgin airing of Revenge Of The Sith. I was about to demand a
change of seat, but then three fellas sat down. I’m fairly sure
none of them was my ex, but who knows? In this light, and with a
fellas thoughts driving him all shadesa psychedelic, Trotsky
himself could sit his arse down to my right and I wouldn’t notice
for a second.
Any the hell how.
Soon as the adverts appeared onscreen, I knew this was to be a
glorious occasion.
A sense of community was being instilled in us from the
motherfucking get-go is the facts of the truth of it all, every
advert being about some event that was bringing all sortsa
disparate people together. There was the beer one with the Franz
Ferdinand performance. There was the one with folks going to work
on giant space-hoppers, which I wished to the heavens would be an
advert for giant space-hoppers, but no, turns out it was about
phones or something. Over and over, loads of people in these
adverts find themselves as part of something greater, and smiles
are passed to folks the smilee ain’t ever seen, and smiles
returned. I figured I should look round and smile at the really
rather attractive lady sat behind me, but no doubt her partner
would interpret this as something other than a flicker of
solidarity amidst this space-hopping adventure, and so I figured
no, fuck it.
Still, I looked at her arse when she went for a piss a little bit
later.
Even before the adverts, though, I knew this was to be a special
moment in the lives of every human being sat in this cinema.
How the fuck couldn’t it be, when, with the black screen still
looming up ahead like the big diamond thing hanging over the
labyrinths of Hell in Hellbound – Hellraiser 2, our ears pricked up
as one, a whole roomful of pointy-up ears, as nothing less than the
theme-tune to Bucky O’Hare blared from out the speakers.
“Holy Shit”, I hollered, “It’s Bucky O’ Hare!”
Nobody paid any heed. Fuck that maniac yackin on about the space-
rabbits, they maybe thought. Fuck his O’Hare talk, fuck its hole.
But I took it as an omen of great things to come. Vast,
unimaginable happenings would happen.
The trailers for War Of The Worlds and the new Batman only
increased my enthusiasm, until I thought I might pass the fuck out,
like the time I had a panic attack during my fourth cinema viewing
of Attack Of The Clones.
“Call a damn doctor, the fella in screen 3’s having himself some
kind of demented fit of some kind. Sweet Jesus, he’s purple!”
I was in screen 2. They didn’t give two fucks for The Duke.
Episode V – Attack Of The Very, Very Mild Spoilers
There are plenty thrills a man can get in a picture-cinema, plenty
of ways for to inspire the head-sauce to bubble its way out the
cracks tween grinding teeth. Maybe he takes a sip of his actually
really rather reasonably priced beverage, and finds that holy fuck,
he’s just had a throatful of pure ether. Maybe he accidentally
takes a handkerchief from the pocket of the person sitting next to
him, instead of his own pocket, and finds that he’s wiping his nose
with a tissue soaked in poppers set to have the eyes boiling in his
head in 20, 30 seconds time. Maybe he even receives a hand-job
during a screening of Shrek.
Whatever the fuck it is, you can be sure it delivers no kind of
kick to the adrenaline pipes that’s in any way comparable to the
sheer fucking delight that drips from a fella’s hairline as the
Sacred Threesome batters the screen for a couple minutes of
unbridled wondrous wonder.
1 – “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
2 – Boom! Williams’ score, big yellow Star Wars. Fucking hell!
3 – Episode Whatever – Some Kooky Title. A scrawl all about “The
trade federation” and “Rebellion” and “Silly pony-tails”.
These three events, springing gainst the eyes a couple seconds
after one another, they instil in the heart the kinda warmth that
even two hours-worth of gungans and bastard mop-headed pod-racers
can’t entirely destroy.
Seeing it in this damn cinema, knowing it’s the last time I’ll see
it for the first time, knowing that there probably won’t be any mop-
headed “Yippee!” fuckers or much Jar-Jar to worry about, the thrill
is close to the kinda thing that has a fella smiling the kinda
smile that stretches four faces on either side.
Episode III, it says. Revenge Of The Sith.
I would’ve grabbed the hand of the fella sitting next to me but
most likely he’d have stabbed me in the face with a fountain pen.
Around this point, y’see, a momentary melancholy descended ‘pon my
form. Here it is, man, the last Star Wars flick of all ever, or at
least till they realise how much money they’d make from an Episode
VII, here it is right here, look, just in front there, you can’t
miss it. Here it is, and here’s The Duke, sat with folks he not
only doesn’t know, but probably would have trouble even devising
some filthy fantasy about, with no hand for to hold or shoulder for
to navigate in sneaky pursuit of The Chestal Area. Sat here
lovelorn and lust-crazed and yet very obviously alone. You pathetic
wretch, I could hear folks thinking about saying, except they
couldn’t, cause look, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
But fuck it. Who can think about the soul-crushing nature of
mandatory masturbation when Episode III’s busy introducing itself
to the room?
Those words up there have a power, is the truth of the matter. For
a certain type, in a certain situation, with certain hopes and
notions and dreams, those words soon sweep any amount of mental
hubris out the damn road.
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
Even on the third viewing of Phantom Menace in the cinema, I still
felt high as a meth-soaked tramp when that fucking blue writing
came up. Even though I knew all sortsa horrors were about to
unfold, it was worth it, it was worth all the gungans in the
universe just to see that shit up there.
The time I went in a couple minutes late, so Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon
were already killing a gaggle of green lizard-folks, I turned and
walked the fuck out. It’d be like expecting to get a smack-rush
even though you forgot to stick the needle in your vein.
But in the here and now ain’t no thoughts of Phantom Menace for to
be plaguing a man. Here and now we’ve moved on, moved on a couple
episodes, in fact, and so this prequel trilogy born so humbly, like
Christ in his manger, except the manager was a horrible, dull,
fancy-pants sci-fi flick, now reaches a glorious conclusion, like
Christ again, granted resonance and meaning and instilling hope and
wellbeing in a man’s soul even though to do so it needs to get
involved in all sortsa horrific violence.
I took a minute for to look around me, see what sortsa folks the
world had coughed in these doors, anyhow. For sure, I had a glance
or two earlier, but, truth be told, I was more interested in the
conversation going on behind me. Turned out a few folks, including
the attractive female from back in Episode IV, had booked a row of
seats, only to find that one of the seats wasn’t actually really a
seat at all, more a bizarre metallic stump, and so all sortsa
kafuffles went on with the management, all sortsa talk of “House
seats” and “sorry” and “fuck your fucking stump-seat”.
The rest of the audience turned out, for the most part, to be
either young children and their parents / guardians, or gangs of
youth-types. I couldn’t see many other folks sat on their own
thinking about hands they’d like to be holding throughout this
fucking incredible battle with General Grievous.
Maybe in my head I imagined who I would like to be sat here, and I
whispered to her now and again, maybe saying about “Y’know, this
dialogue makes me wanna pierce my ear-drums with forks” or “Still,
this is much, much better than I thought it was gonna be” or “Is it
ok if I put my arm around you for a second? Just this is all rather
grim, this bit right here, and I feel a bit sad, and I’d dig it if
maybe you were a bit closer”.
The last one I accidentally said out loud, but no fucker paid
attention, or if they did hear, they pretended they didn’t,
terrified out their very skulls no doubt.
Above all, though, I just kept thinking how much fun this was. I
went to see Phantom Menace more times than enough, but after one
and a half viewings, it became more of a chore than anything borne
out a desire to see the flick. You had to see it a million times,
man, and if your mate’s brother saw it a million and one, then
nothing less than three billion would suffice.
This here, though, I’ll come back to plenty, I decided. And cause I
want to. Cause despite the shitty banter, there’s just too much
great, great stuff here, too many bursts of glorious eye-watering
wackiness, too many brilliant characters, brilliant designs,
brilliant set-pieces, brilliant moments of silence followed by
brilliant screeches of cacophonous abandon.
And look how much plot’s packed in here, would you ever for a damn
second? The Phantom Menace tried to convince folks it was
complicated just by having loads a scenes where folks talk for
hours about a loada half-arsed balls. How much story was there?
About a page, and it fucking sucked, I might add.
Here, you can’t move for story. Don’t turn that corner, you Sith
bastard, there’s gonna be more story waiting round there than I
could hope to deal with in this state. Every road these bastards
take, story story story. Folks trip over the damn story. Where’d
all this damn story come from alla damn sudden, they’re saying.
Last six hours there ain’t been nothing resembling a story,
suddenly I can’t raise my right nut without hitting a story the
size a Canada.
All sortsa shit’s goin’ on – Political scheming, rebellions, war
(or “War!” as the opening scrawl has it), Order 66, pregnancies,
temptation, violence every which motherfucking way.
And it’s sad, too. There’s a bit where Anakin and Padme are just
sitting in silence, contemplating the enormity of some shit or
other, and a fella couldn’t help but feel moved by it all. Plus,
the longer he kept his face shut, the less chance there’d be that
he’d find time to start comparing her to sand.
“You’re not like sand, Padme. I hate that gosh-darn sand.”
““Fuck the sand, bastard. You’re supposed to be seducing me. Sand
talk don’t do a damn thing, ‘cept make me dryer than the fucking
desert it came from.”
And that’s without mentioning all these motifs and themes and
visual asides that bring it that bit closer to A New Hope. Certain
sets, certain costumes, certain characters.
Certain moments when a certain type of viewer will laugh out loud
even though nothin’ especially funny occurred, just so as other
folks less learned in matters of daft sci-fi tomfoolery will know
that I know.
Maybe when folks ask about “What was your favourite bit?” you find
yourself saying “Well it’s gotta be that Kurosawa reference in the
opening.”
Fuck the Kurosawa reference, I didn’t even know till I read about
it later, but you bet you last ball the next time I go see it I’ll
point and laugh and scream out loud the second that shot arrives.
But even if you don’t wanna be bothered with Kurosawa, what about
all the nods and winks and ropes flung across to the outstretched
palms of A New Hope?
For example, as far as The Duke might be concerned, the best moment
in Attack Of The Clones was when Dooku walked past the hologram of
the Death Star plans. That tingle that bounced along a fella’s
spine, that was some powerful shit right there. “It geeked the
bejeesus outta me” is, I believe, the technical cinematalogical
term for it all.
There weren’t no big deal made about it. The camera didn’t zoom in
and have someone point it out with a stick, saying “Look here, it’s
the big thing from out the first one”, it just happened. It was
just there for a second, but it’s all I could talk about when folks
asked about if the flick was any good.
Revenge Of The Sith is stuffed to the chops with shit like that,
reaching a glorious crescendo in the final shot, a beautiful
reprise of the most beautiful moment in A New Hope, which is now, I
suppose, itself a reprise, chronologically speaking. The 1977
version is my favourite shot in all Star Wars, so it stands to
reason that this variant would be my favourite shot in all the
prequels.
It’s the one with the two suns, or maybe it was two moons. I dunno.
But the sky was red, the gaze was longing and the score was
dragging every dream I ever had in the direction of those floating
blobs of fiery death, and a fella felt himself choking on the
bittersweet phlegm of his own aspirations.
When that final “Written And Directed By George Lucas” appeared, I
wanted to stand the fuck up right there and throw my arms around
the girl I wished had been there too, maybe kissed her even, since
fuck it, this is a glorious moment in our cinema-going lives, and
if I get a slap in the yap and a cutting rebuttal, at least for a
second I was kissing her whilst that score was stirring every
cinematically inclined fibre in my being well beyond their
collective capacities for being stirred.
I would’ve roared and clapped and hollered, but I heard the fella a
bit behind me attempt to start some applause, and I could feel the
cynical patronising sneers scourging his guts out, so I didn’t. But
I felt it too, man. I wanted to cheer right alongside you. Was it
because I really thought the flick was more cheer-worthy than, say,
The Woodsman, or was it because folks don’t cheer at The Woodsman
regardless of its quality, they cheer at Star Wars? Didn’t you see
the documentaries with the fucker out Happy Days yacking about
“Wow, gee howdy, first time I saw Star Wars I cheered myself blue
in the balls alright”? Who knows?
But know that I would’ve cheered, had I been in a roomful of
similar cheerers, and not just one cheerer a bit behind me who, it
must be said, offered only a half-hearted kinda apologetic slap of
the palms, and not really much of a cheer at all.
But regardless of their outward apathy, I knew everybody here was
as enraptured as me, even the fellas outside who were yacking about
“He should’ve had someone better than General Grievous. Maybe the
black and white one from The Clone Wars” and the other fella said
“The woman?” and the first fella said “No, no, the black and white
one”. I suppressed the desire to scream “She was a fucking woman!
Just accept that the coolest Sith motherfucker in The Clone Wars
was a woman, you chauvinist hound! Your patriarchal fantasies are
crashing around your feet at this very minute, I dare say!” Even
those fellas, I knew, adored every second.
And I had a big grin on my face like the grin a man might grin when
leaving a brothel at four in the morning high on the whiskey-cracks
and shagged delirious, except even better, since, most likely, I
wouldn’t wake up with a headful of suicidal torment and a void to
the south of the soul.
Episode VI – Attack Of Insomnia
Thing is, I didn’t wake up at all, since I didn’t sleep, since my
head decided I’d had plenty sleep these past few years, so fuck it,
I’ll just do a whole shit-load of really noisy thinking while you
toss an turn in some sleep-starved fever.
Before this though, text messages had to be sent.
“General Grievous was amazing!” I announced to some folks. “I
coulda watched that bouncy cunt all night!”
Thoughts were forming in all sortsa weird shapes and sizes.
Thoughts that needed some sort of perspective, and so I immediately
read the spoiler-heavy reviews I’d avoided until now. The thoughts
of Kevin Smith, for example, or Harry and Moriarty from off Ain’t
It Cool. The thoughts of the legions of Blogcritics who’ve reviewed
the flick. All sortsa thoughts and feelings, and, with a few
exceptions flung screaming to the fires of Fuck You, everyone
seemed to be saying shit like “This is the best of the prequel
trilogy, no messing.”
Some of them said truly outrageous nonsense like “It makes The
Phantom Menace better”, but I can’t get behind that kinda talk for
even half a second.
I’d sooner pay attention to the ravings of the drunken priest sat
on my doorstep witling about The Apocalypse than I’d listen to a
motherfucker trying to convince me of the worth of The Phantom
Menace.
I sooner shit me all the Ewoks in Endor.
What’s a man to do in light of all this crazy Star Wars tomfoolery,
if not douse himself in caffeine and sit up till the morning light
contemplating what the fuck’s just gone on.
I had to think about a whole swirling array of Bantha bullshit. I
had to think about how some folks didn’t like Star Wars Episode III
– Revenge Of The Sith one little ounce. There were plenty hostile
reviews, folks yacking about the horrific dialogue, the wooden
delivery, the suckiness sucking every suck-gland from a fellas suck-
holes.
Outside the theatre, there were two fellas dressed up as Wookies
fucking each other behind a skip. I distinctly heard talk of “It
was awful. What was that shit about “Will to live?” That was some
cack on my ears, that right there.”
I think the other one was just yacking on about “Fuck me like a
Gungan” or something.
What could I do but lay back on the kitchen floor with The Band
singing Across The Great Divide, a couple Dali numbers stuck to the
ceiling above me, the one with Lenin’s arse held up by a crutch and
the one about The Great Masturbator, and thinking thoughts along
the lines of “I really dug it, man.”
Fuck these critics, I found myself hissing, and then a second hiss
more in tune with “No, they’re entitled to their opinion, even if
it’s wrong.”
But what if I’m wrong? What if holy shit, it’s almost five in the
morning, the song’s long since moved on to an Outake Stereo-Mix of
Get Up Jake, the Dali’s have come unstuck and ended up all bent
over and disgraced in the sink, and maybe there ain’t even a
glimmer of critical integrity left in my head for to make it all
even a notch less degrading.
I’m thinking about White Noise, how I loved that flick, and yet it
was undeniably a loada wank. Was Star Wars Episode III a loada wank
that just happened to spray my face at the right time?
No. How many bouncy robot bastards did White Noise have? About
five, and they sucked in comparison to the Episode III variants.
For a fella keen on the wonders of Star Wars, Episode III was just
the tonic for a head hung low with the weight of unrequited love
and mental unravelling and crushing monotony.
I lay there for ages, till at least 11:15 in the AM, looking at the
ceiling, until those two suns or moons showed up right the fuck
there, although it might’ve been a couple spiders I couldn’t help
but destroy a few nights ago.
Freud said spiders were vaginal creatures. I couldn’t have two
vaginas crawling about the roof, not at that hour of the night, not
with a fella already deranged with frantic lust.
I think I slept for an hour or two shortly after noon.
Episode I – Cute Noses And A Lack Of Purpose
Burnt out, man. The Duke was feelin’ burnt out as a Volkswagen
hotwired by a buncha skag-riddled teenagers, driven out to a
country lane and doused in petrol, and maybe they even burned
themselves rotten whilst fumbling with the lighters in their heroin
stupor. That blackened cage in the middle of that shitty field, I
identified some with the metaphorical fucker, no doubt.
I tried opening Microsoft Word no end of times, tried for to wax
some sort of hilarious fuck-laced rant of some kind about maybe Sin
City or The Long Weekend, but that white screen, it grabbed a fella
by the ears every time and pounded my head into the monitor until I
passed out slavering all over the keyboard.
I woke up with QWERTY printed cross my head, like the time I fell
asleep drunk in Technical College and woke up with half the front-
page of The Sun peering from my jaw.
The only thing a fella could do was witter endlessly to a lass in
the unfortunate position of having snared The Duke’s affections
somewhat.
“Sweet fuckery”, I’d announce, “It would appear to me, at this
hour, that I can no longer function in any way shape or form, not
one word will leave my fingers, not one paragraph about a flick I
maybe saw but fuck that, here’s a buncha self-obsessed wank for to
think about instead, and also, here’s a motherfucker or twenty.”
But dig this, would you ever. Star Wars would be out shortly, the
last ever Star Wars flick, would you believe, the last of these
prequels everyone harps on about, this series of flicks that get
folks in all sortsa tizzies about “You’re raping my childhood, cunt-
beard” and so on in the message boards and the forums.
I realised that, if I was to in any way aspire to becoming some
sort of astronaut or linguist, I had no option but to proposition
said lass from a couple sentences ago, a request along the lines of
some shit about my local cinema closed, and the only way I can
imagine I might ever see Episode III is if I see it in the cinema
closest to you, and therefore, perhaps you might accompany a foul-
mouthed motherfucker with Jabba in his dreams.
Of course there’s cinemas much closer, but fuck them, they ain’t
nothing but bastard fronts, satanic meeting grounds masquerading as
picture-nickelodeons.
But she couldn’t.
What could I do but write a song about “Oh, I wanted her to go see
Star Wars with me / She couldn’t / I’m very blue / Navy, almost”.
I sat for a while listening to Adam Green singing about Choke On A
Cock, took a walk about the place, met up with a couple rent-boys
needed me to man the gates whilst they went off on some sort of
buggery and espionage mission of some sort.
And all the while thinkin’ about cute noses.
They came back a couple hours later soaked in blood and semen. I
didn’t ask, they didn’t tell. The night was young.
Episode II – Possible Addictions #114-118
Sometimes a man gets to thinking about maybe what he should be
doing is devoting his life to some kind of free-form poetry read
out in clubs the size of matchboxes, maybe some motherfucker
beating a bongo by the bar, maybe the atmosphere coated in sickly
sweet crack-smoke.
Surely this would make his sleeplessness and general paranoia and
neurotic disposition all the more acceptable. Course I ain’t slept
in a week, I been coked to the balls on the speedy-ganjas.
How pathetic, this son of a bitch sat tossing and turning and no
hint of sleep on the cards, and all because of something so slight
and socially acceptable that he can’t even remember what it was.
It’s Wednesday. At midnight, Star Wars Episode III will grace every
screen fit to hold it. Already there’s been a buncha malcontents in
London sitting through all five flicks thus far in preparation for
Revenge Of The Sith.
Why aren’t I out there, dressed like a Jedi and calling folks
Padawans? Why? I’ll tell you why, because I ain’t slept in days and
the thought of attempting to digest Star Wars Episode III in this
state would’ve probably got a motherfucker killed in Stalinist
Russia.
All a man needs is a night’s sleep, and then tomorrow I’ll go catch
that Star Wars by the hair of the arse and demand that it pleasure
me in ways unimaginable to even the most depraved of civil
servants. Penetrate orifices I didn’t even know I had, I’ll be
demanding.
Still, 3 am turns to 4 am, like that bit in Phantom Of Liberty when
the fella’s seeing ducks and emus and postmen walking through the
bedroom, and every time he looks over at the clock, an hour has
miraculously passed.
I found myself wishing I lived near a cathedral, one of the
cathedrals that still batter the fuck out the bells on the hour
every hour, adding some sort of grandeur to this depressing scene.
Or maybe a flat just off Princes Street in Edinburgh, so I could
hear the cannons being fired from the castle.
Maybe I could go investigate those winding alleys in the late-night
fog, maybe even get murdered by a motherfucker with a handlebar
moustache and a top hat?
What it says on the box of sleep-enhancers I end up fondling for
the second time, is One A Night. Do Not Exceed Stated Dose You
Junkie Bastard. Go Get A Real Habit, Would You Ever? I’ve already
swallowed two and a half, and a handful of useless herbal offerings
for variety, and now I’m poking through the leaflets and foil
trying to find the other half.
Fuck knows where it’s gone, so I just take another full one.
Might as well have shoved my nuts in a pint of buttermilk, for all
the sleep enhancing these fuckers did.
Having slept not an ounce, but feeling slightly re-energised on
account of Billy Bragg singing about “You’re a dedicated follower
of fascism!” and a bit of Ryan Adams talking about “Tennessee’s a
brother to my sister Carolina, where they’re gonna bury me” I end
up standing in line at Burger King with Sir Fleming, head of Mondo
Guerrilla Marketing, listening to a couple Scottish bikers who had
obviously just seen Star Wars Episode III.
“I have them all at home”, one of them announces, “But I don’t like
the episodes.”
He means the prequels. Who the fuck calls them “The episodes”? Who,
barring this man-mountain etched in leather and steel, this
motorcycle maniac who no-one would ever dream of contradicting?
“Fuck those episodes!” I shouted, just in case he thought maybe I
had thoughts along the lines of “Fuck your episode talk.”
Turned out Sir Fleming was attending a screening of Star Wars on
this very eve, being the Thursday. He was psyched. He had the look
of a man who knew he was gonna be seeing some Jedi sonsabitches get
slaughtered the fuck up.
It seemed right that this Burger King meal, which I despised but
ate out of dementia, be some sort of celebratory affair. This very
night, he would stroll past the barrier erected for to keep Geekdom
in place. Once past it, there’s no going back. He’s seen all there
is to see of Star Wars. This is it.
As if he knew of our situation, Jim Morrison started singing The End
over the in-store sound system. “This is the end / My only friend,
the end / Something about fucking mothers.”
Thank God someone saw sense and put on some Libertines instead.
Another second of Morrison’s pretentious “oh, I’m a shaman” banter
and I’d have cut the heads off of the staff with a hatchet.
Jim Morrison was the David Blaine of rock n’ roll.
“I’m a shaman. Oooh.”
Fuck you. The only Shamen I give a rats wank about are the ones who
sang about E’zer Goode and I Can Move, Move, Move Any Mountain.
Comin’ on like a seventh sense, motherfucker.
Episode III – Thoughts From The Back Seat
On my way to the Friday night screening of Star Wars Episode III –
Revenge Of The Sith, and I can’t help but feel horrendously under-
prepared. I had intended to watch every single Star Wars flick this
past week, in anticipation of this grand finale, but I just kept
looking at that cover of Phantom Menace and thinking about no
amount of Jedi carnage is worth this shit.
It felt right to have Don’t Stand Me Down by Dexy’s Midnight
Runners playing on the iPod. It felt right to have Kevin Rowland
yacking about “This is what she’s like…” in his curious half-man /
half-wookie yelp.
What’s she like then, Kevin?
“She’s got a cute nose, JIMMY!! AIEEE! She has this brilliant,
hallucinogenic wit that fries my skull and makes me smile PLAN BUH-
EE!! HUUWOOOO!!!!”
Where is she then, you yelping psychopath?
“She cuuuuulllldn’t come, JIMMAH!! Huruggghhhhh!!! She had to study
an SOOCH-A. PLAN BAYEEE!”
An so it’s just me an Kevin and thoughts about some nuns I saw
earlier, and how come nuns don’t wear black anymore? Where did all
these navy nuns come from all a damn sudden?
Whoopie Goldberg, man, fuckin up every damn thing.
I managed to avoid almost every spoiler and every review of Revenge
Of The Sith, something I never managed with the last two
instalments, and something that has, inevitably, left me a tad less
hyped about it all than I was when settling down for Attack Of The
Clones.
Still, at least there’s less chance of embarrassing myself in the
foyer by gabbling ridiculous about “It was amazing! Jar-Jar really
works!”
I can’t show my fucking face in the cinema that doesn’t exist
anymore, and all because of ill-judged rants regarding the podrace.
But I feel quietly confident that this will be something worth
celebrating.
Last night, Sir Fleming sent me a text message which read only; “A
joy! A sheer fucking joy!” Sir Fleming is not one to make these
kindsa decisions without plenty consideration.
Crimes And Misdemeanours, among the most criminally underrated of
all Woody Allen pictures is, according to Sir Fleming, “Overrated.”
Whereas The Duke went into some kind of babbling frenzy regarding
White Noise, Sir Fleming saw it for what it was; pish, but pish
that nonetheless had Michael Fucking Keaton.
If Sir Fleming assumes this Star Wars picture to be “A joy! A sheer
fucking joy!” then I have no reason for to assume otherwise.
I’d moved on from Don’t Stand Me Down, so what I’ve got in the ear-
holes is Fevers And Mirrors by Bright Eyes, but much as I love
young Connor, and I think I would love him with great intensity if
the situation ever arose in a dimly-lit tavern or barn, I just
can't be having his temper-tantrums at this time.
“You were my sunshine!!!! RAGH!”
Shush now, Bright Eyes. I’m in a Star Wars kinda mood right now.
I'm going on my own to see Star Wars Episode III for the first time.
I saw Episode II on my own the first time too, Bright Eyes, but
that was different. That was cause my fiancée was at work and so
couldn’t make the first screening of the day, which I had to
attend, since my very lungs depended on it.
I knew that there would be another viewing the next day, and I’d
have a hand for to hold, and a friend for to cuddle, and maybe
even, without getting rude about it all Bright Eyes, maybe we might
even degrade ourselves in a puddle of sweat and filth-sauce right
there in the presence of Yoda.
“Skinny arsehole I see. Bumping around, it is. Not long it took.”
But this here is a solo venture, and all such ventures shall be
chaste affairs, I'd wager. Maybe I’ll see it with some friends some
time before it leaves the cinema, but I can’t imagine any filth’ll
take place.
Still, fuck it, man, it’s Star Wars Episode III.
To be all the honest in Wisconsin, I found the trailer a bit under-
whelming. It just didn’t seem all that wonderful. Then again, it
made it clear that there would be moments of undeniable wonder in
the parent feature, so who knows, maybe that’s all a trailer needs
to do.
But I’m confident. I’m grinning on this back seat, I got Ice-T
hollering away in my ear-hole.
“Alright, when we get up in this house all I want is the
motherfuckin’ kids. Far as Pops I don’t give a fuck what you do,
bust him in his motherfuckin’ head. He got any money, take it…”
Baaa-ba-b-ba ba-ba-baaa-baaa
Best intro ever. Screeching descending adrenaline, right there in
my lug-drums. “This is home invasion!”
A fella feels psyched. A fella feels like maybe this picture might
be all he imagines it might be.
A fella feels hopped to the nuts on the force. A fella’s
midichlorians are running wild.
I got out the vehicle, bid farewell to my companions, and made my
way up the steps, stopping for a smoke on account of some girls
were stood around lookin’ all too attractive, and even though a
buncha psychopaths were tryin to bust their teeth open by way of
some skateboarding shindigs of some sort, I felt calm, and aroused,
even.
Probably I looked like some motherfucker stood waiting for a break
in the weather so as he could raise a plastic bag filled with glue
to his nose for the seventeenth time this evening, but no, that
couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m heading in here and god
knows when I’ll return, or what sights I’ll see, or whose body I
might study for ten or eleven minutes before they realise and throw
a Gideon’s bible at me.
It feels good, this anticipation.
Thanks folks.
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