Chapter 6:

Enter Twilight

 

        Significantly, despite the twilight seen ominously gathering in the film, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was another big hit for Lucas, definitely due in part to the eagerness with which young audience members awaited STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI and flocked to any film or television program linked to Lucas.  Indeed, Lucas and Spielberg triumphed with the action packed film, and re-established themselves as the Geek Kings of healing Ozian themed American cinema.  For the film was a box office sensation, playing in theatres for almost one year and pulling in over $330 million dollars worldwide from an initial investment of $22.8 million dollars.  Nominated for eight Academy Awards, the film won four the following Spring for Best Art Direction, Editing, Sound and Visual Effects.  This latter award and the great effects in the film no doubt encouraged Spielberg to stick with ILM, for he has worked with ILM for most of his big visual effects filled films since RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  This association with ILM forever after linked Spielberg to Lucas, regardless of whether he was directing a Lucas film or not.  Spielberg’s endorsement of ILM also encouraged other film artists to use the effects firm, joining forces with Lucasfilm and the Lucas Licensing division of Lucas to allow Lucas to become the head of his own conglomerate of companies and provide enough additional income to ride out the lean years of box office failures to come (Pollock, pp. 244-52 and 311-13). 

 

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK also delighted viewers with another rousing soundtrack by Maestro Williams that rivalled that of the Classic Trilogy, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and JAWS.  Inspired by its music, its full Force throttle energy, and its heady and transcendent triumph over the blockbuster fortune and glory lusting Dark Side-despite, ironically, being a boffo beastly blockbuster film-and not noticing that it was addressing and cautioning Friedkin, Herzog, Landis and Malle, J.D. geeks-or was that J.D. G-boys?-all over North America were inspired by the film to reluctantly leave behind their Atari, Intellivision and Coleco home video game systems-the latter allowing young gamers to battle DONKEY KONG, somehow fitting given that KING KONG was one of the favourite films of Landis in another memory of the future-and take to the woods and ravines in a furious and desperate attempt to pull off a death defying jump or cliffhanging climb that would top a friend’s Indy, running like the wind as excitement shivered up and down our spines. 

 

However, while young audience members loved and flocked to the film, the blockbuster and highly successful nature of this supposedly anti-blockbuster film implicitly infuriated film art for film art’s sake film artists yet again, leading to more implicit and allegorical attacks on Lucas and Spielberg in film and literary art.  Implicit roasts of Spielberg that began on June 12, 1981, the same day that Lucas and Spielberg began dealing with the kudos and arrows of outrageous fortune with the release of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, when Desmond Davis and company implicitly addressed Gilliam in the presciently twilit and allegorical animaction film CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981).

 

“A hundred good deeds

 cannot atone for one murder.”

 

Indeed, the Gilliam resembling and implicitly linked Perseus-played by Harry Hamlin, whose name fittingly looked and sounded like Terry Gilliam-ominously and ironically used the decapitated head of the fiercely independent Medusa to kill the dread and Harryhausen hand animated blockbuster beast of a four armed Kraken unleashed on an unsuspecting world by the implicitly Lucas linked Poseidon-played by Jack Gwillim-save Judi Bowker’s beautiful, blonde and implicitly film art for art’s sake linked Andromeda, bring peace and harmony back to the city of Joppa, light to conquer darkness and admiring defeat to the feuding gods and goddesses of eternally bickering Olympus in the legendary end of the JABBERWOCKY, LIFE OF BRIAN and MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL evoking film-an ironic and ominous victory indeed, given that the decapitated head of Morrow would soon kill off the Skyrocking New Hollywood era.  Thus, it was all too ominously fitting that four time TWILIGHT ZONE vet Meredith returned as Ammon, another trainer to another determined and unknown young hero, and that Neil McCarthy appeared as the hideously insidious and implicitly Spielberg linked manbeast Calibos, who was as fond of whips as Jones. 

 

It was also all too eerily fitting that Perseus sought advice on how to kill the blockbuster and beastly Kraken from a twilit trio of witches-played by Freda Jackson, Anna Manahan and Flora Robson, respectively.  Last but not least, the sight and sound of Calibos transformed from a man into a bitter, hated and outcast manbeast by a vengeful Zeus-who evoked the Gilliam animated God in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, and was played by Laurence Olivier-as punishment for killing all but Pegaus, the last of the herd of flying horses of Zeus, ominously and presciently anticipated the sight and sound of the equally bitter, hated and outcast Landis after the TZ disaster.  Thus, it was equally eerily fitting that Calibos had the same three syllable cadence of both Spielberg and John Landis.

 

Significantly, soon after the release of CLASH OF THE TITANS, another implicit roast of Lucas flew resolutely into the Temple Theatre on June 19, 1981 to protect the Hollywood status quo again when a briefly powerless and implicitly Kubrick linked Clark “Superman” Kent-played again by Reeve-roared back to super life to stop the twilit and implicitly George and Marcia Lucas and Coppola linked super villain trio of General Zod, Ursa and Non-played again by Stamp, Douglas and O’Halloran, respectively-from succeeding in their nefarious Rebellion and taking profits away from the Hollywood studios after their accidental release from imprisonment from the Twilight Zone anticipating Phantom Zone in the twilit and allegorical Richard Lester super satirical docufeature film SUPERMAN II (1981), a film that also saw another determined attempt to sweep away the implicitly PM Trudeau linked Luthor-played again by Hackman-and his all too close and “alien” free film tax deduction encounter.  A twilit battle, indeed, given that Ursa at one point used her super-?stinky?-breath to cause a helicopter to crash in a fiery explosion. 

 

And so the twilight continued to gather, aided by the desperate struggle of Moore’s James Bond to escape a remotely operated helicopter in another ominous memory of the twilit future in the opening prologue adventure of the allegorical and implicitly Ted Kotcheff roasting Glen docufeature film FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981), released on June 26, 1981.  Curiously, on the same day, Gilliam was implicitly toasted in the form of the earnest young sorcerer’s apprentice Galen Brandwardyn-played by Peter MacNicol-and Lucas implicitly roasted in the form of the tyrannical Tyrian-played by John Hallam-and a blockbuster beast of a dragon named Vermithrax was killed at the end of the allegorical Robbins animaction film DRAGONSLAYER (1981).  Just as curiously, the film saw the appearance of McDiarmid as the doomed and dragon denying Brother Jacopus, preparing audiences for his return as a less righteous but equally doomed and spiritual Dark Force in the trimax of the Classic Trilogy. 

 

Ominously, Spielberg discussed serious accidents and deaths on film sets involving stunt people, cameramen and even film artists when he showed up to promote RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK on the Dick Cavett show on July 2, 1981.  And how all too fitting, given all of the ominously and presciently twilit memories of the disastrous future in the fiction and film art that year, that Landis was also implicitly roasted that year when Marquand implied that Landis was as dangerous to the New Hollywood cause as a murderous German secret agent in England nicknamed the Needle was to the Allied cause in the Second World War in the twilit and allegorical docufeature film EYE OF THE NEEDLE (1981), released on July 24, 1981. 

 

Indeed, the bloody sight and sound of the clean cut, well dressed, suave, deadly and implicitly Landis linked German secret agent Muller aka Captain Henry “the Needle” Faber-played by Sutherland-dispatching one victim after another with a callous stab of his switchblade “needle” as he wandered around the UK carrying out his illicit spying activities for Nazi Germany implicitly affirmed Marquand’s fear that Landis was killing film art.  The presence of Sutherland as the Needle implicitly affirmed that fear, for Sutherland was linked to Landis via roles as a clumsy waiter in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE and as the marijuana promoting Faber College English professor David Jennings in ANIMAL HOUSE.  The Needle’s second nom de guerre Henry Baker reaffirmed his implicit link to Landis, for it evoked the apeman and wolfman suits Rick Baker made for Landis for SCHLOCK and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.  In addition, Kate Nelligan’s love interest Lucy evoked Leia, while her son Jo-played by Jonathan Haley-evoked Luke, implying that Marquand was also presciently warning Lucas that Landis was a danger to him-but not too dangerous, given that Lucy gunned down the Needle, in the end.  Ominously twilit forebodings that were reaffirmed on the same day as the release of EYE OF THE NEEDLE when DePalma teamed up again with Allen and Travolta on the eerily twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and THE CONVERSATION evoking indie docufeature film BLOW OUT (1981).

 

“I’ve decided to terminate her

and make it look like one of a series

of sex killings in the area.”

 

For while DePalma implicitly warned Lucas that naively creating the hitech Classic Trilogy could destroy him and the humanity of his film art as surely as the attempt by the equally naïve, tech obsessed and implicitly Lucas and Scarecrow linked indie sound man Jack Terri-played by Travolta-to prove and solve the murder of the implicitly Wicked Witch of the East linked U.S. Presidential hopeful, and Pennsylvania Governor George McRyan-played by John Hoffmeister-led to the murders of three innocent young woman-played by Allen, Deborah Everton and Maureen Sullivan, respectively-by the psycho and Duvall evoking Wicked hitman Burke-as fond of choking as Vader, and played by John Lithgow-an implicit Lucas addressing intent affirmed by the lone haunting flute on the soundtrack and the film’s allusions to the Classic Trilogy, LOOK AT LIFE, 6-18-67 and THX 1138, the film also came across as yet another ominously and presciently twilit cinematic memory of the future. 

 

Indeed, the sight and sound of Terri and the indie and implicitly Kubrick and Cowardly Lion linked photographer Manny Karp-played by Dennis Franz-capturing on tape and film the death of Gov. McRyan when he drowned in his car after it went careening off a bridge into a river one fateful night at the beginning of the film again eerily anticipated the filmed deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow in the Santa Clarita River in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982.  The sad and shocking murder of Allen’s implicitly Dorothy linked Sally Badina by Burke at the end of the film also ominously anticipated the TZ disaster bringing about the end of the Skyrocking New Hollywood era in general and that of Lucas in particular.  Thus, it was all to fitting that Sally was eerily linked to film art when Jack chose to immortalize her by using his recordings of her final dying screams for the allegorical and low budget Independent Pictures indie docufeature horror film CO-ED FRENZY (198?) that he was working on for his implicitly Coppola and Tin Man linked friend Sam-played by Peter Boyden-in the end.  Significantly, an eerily twilit shroud returned on August 7, 1981 when the greedy, insidious, power mad, sniggering and Gor evoking ball of Evil, the Loc-nar-voiced by Percy Rodrigues-was released from a box like the power of the Ark of the Covenant at the beginning of the twilit and allegorical Potterton hand animated indie film HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE (1981). 

 

Luckily, however, after a terrifying a captive girl-played by Caroline Semple-with some raucous and boastful storytelling-including a wryly cautionary and TAXI DRIVER evoking tale about an implicitly Lucas or Scorsese linked future flying taxi driver with the outrageously salacious name of Harry Canyon, voiced by Romanus-the insidious and gloating Loc-Nar was defeated in the triumphant end by the gorgeous, grey haired and legendary warrior Taarna the avenging Defender, the pure personification of art-indeed, an “art” was artfully hidden in the letters of her name to implicitly affirm that she was the embodiment of film art-whose flying mount evoked Canyon’s flying taxi to bring the film full circle.  Significantly, this triumph over the arrogant Loc-Nar allowed Taarna to avenge a decapitated and grey bearded Elder-played by Mavor Moore-who had helped summon her from the realm of legend within so that she would confront and defeat an Evil, Loc-Nar infected and implicitly Spielberg linked Leader-played by Vlastra Vrana-and his equally Loc-Nar infected zombie hordes, a decapitated Elder who anticipated the decapitated Morrow in yet another ominously prescient memory of the twilit future.  Thus, it was all too grimly fitting that the film began with a VO that said “…a shadow shall fall over the universe and Evil will grow in its path and death will come from the skies”, a VO that eerily anticipated the falling helicopter of the TZ disaster.  In addition, HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE was a wholly remarkable film that not only inspired and would be remade as THE FIFTH ELEMENT, but also gave the world in many ways the theme song of the dread allegorical Zone Wars in the form of the presciently twilit, allegorical and Eric Bloom and Michael Moorcock written Blue Oyster Cult tune “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” (1981). 

 

Curiously, but fittingly, the same day that the fearless Taarna swooped into the Temple Theatre, an equally fearless female film artist named Kathryn Bigelow also appeared in the Temple Theatre with the eerily twilit, allegorical, CGI free and Monty Montgomery co-written and co-directed indie docufeature film THE LOVELESS (1981), which presciently anticipated that society would turn against the more successful young male film artists after the TZ disaster by implicitly linking some of those artists to a group of bikers despised by society-with Cronenberg implicitly linked to the lonely loner indie biker Vance [played by Willem Dafoe] and Lucas implicitly linked to the sullen and surly Hurley [an implicit link to Lucas affirmed by the film’s allusions to AMERICAN GRAFFITI, and played by Phillip Kimbrough], and also signalled that both fearless female film artists and equally fearless indie film art would be significant Forces in the dread allegorical Zone Wars that raged after the TZ disaster.  A TZ disaster that came closer when Landis reappeared with Baker, Folsey jr., Oz and Elmer Bernstein-composer for ANIMAL HOUSE-in the Temple Theatre on August 21^st of that year with the twilit and implicitly Kubrick roasting indie docufeature film AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981).

 

Indeed, the resemblance of and implicit link to Kubrick of the young American backpacker in England turned werewolf serial killer David Kessler-played by David Naughton-and the film’s allusions to THE SHINING affirmed that Landis was roasting Kubrick in the film and implying his conviction that Kubrick had turned into a human blockbuster beast.  Significantly, the film’s gory violence, dangerous stunts-which saw ex-film stuntman Landis knocked through a store’s plate glass window by an out of control car in the film’s riotous and violent climax in Piccadilly Square, and the eerily Morrow anticipating decapitation of London Police Inspector Villiers [played by Don McKillop] by the werekessler in the same riotous mayhem-and the murders of Kessler’s kid brother and sister Max and Rachel Kessler-played by Mark Fisher and Michele Brisigotti, respectively-in one of Kessler’s surreal and violent dreams, murders of a boy and girl, the girl astoundingly named Rachel, that anticipated the deaths of Rachel Chen and Myca Le yet again and made this the most ominous Landis film to date, affirming all too well that a bad moon was indeed rising in the film art of Landis in particular and in film art in general. 

 

A bad moon rising linked to Lucas, for the sight and distinctive sound of Oz as an American embassy official in London named Collins openly linked Lucas to Landis again-indeed, Oz probably performed his cameo for Landis while he was at Ellstree Studios near London playing Yoda for STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Makeup wizard Baker also worked again with Landis on this film, evoking his work on STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE as much as that on SCHLOCK, making for a double trouble link to Landis for Lucas.  As if that were not enough, Kessler’s surname evoked the legendary Kessel Run in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, making for an eerily twilit trio of links of Landis to Lucas in 1981.  Eerily twilit premonitions that continued on August 28, 1981 when a ceiling fan whose rotoring blades ominously anticipated the rotoring blades of the out of control helicopter of the TZ disaster spun behind William Hurt’s doomed Ned Racine the first time he made love to Kathleen Turner’s Evil and duplicitous Matty Walker in the allegorical and implicitly Lynch roasting Kasdan indie docufeature film BODY HEAT (1981), in another eerie memory of the future, and one that was apparently linked to Lucas as he supposedly acted as executive producer on the film under the alias “Fred T. Gallo” as a reward to Kasdan for completing the Brackett screenplay for STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and for writing RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. 

 

Significantly, Screamin’ Stephen King, master of the allegorical weird tale of terror, also implicitly addressed Lucas and his blockbuster beast of a Classic Trilogy in September of 1981 in his allegorical and Jaws: a novel evoking indie docufiction novel Cujo (1981).  This implicitly reaffirmed that he was now addressing New Hollywood after years of watching their allegorical film art, and the Old Hollywood film art that roasted them, particularly CARRIE and THE SHINING, no doubt.  Indeed, King implicitly underlined his interest in Lucas with the “…once upon a time, not so long away” fairy tale preamble that began Cujo, for it evoked the “…once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away” fairy tale preamble that began all of the STAR WARS films.  A character named George Meara, a Fisher evoking police officer named Roscoe Fisher, and a boy named Theodore “Tad” Trenton who loved STAR WARS action figures also openly linked the novel to Lucas. 

 

Thus, this link to Lucas and the Classic Trilogy implied that the rabid blockbuster beast of a St. Bernard that rose up from the Id to attack and transform the lives of the ominously twilit trio of Vic, Donna and Tad Trenton of 83 Larch Street in Castle Rock, Maine and kill Tad, after the collapse of Vic’s fortune and glory seeking blockbuster breakfast cereal television ad campaign and the gut wrenching revelation that Donna had had an affair with an angry, independent and King evoking artist named Steven Kemp, equated with an eerily prescient warning from King to Lucas that his equally fortune and glory seeking STAR WARS movie tie-in merchandise campaign that would trimax in ‘83 would also lead to the arrival of the twilit and out of control blockbuster beast, death and disaster, and perhaps even the gut wrenching revelations of Marcia’s sexual infidelity. 

 

A twilit blockbuster beast, indeed, for Vic woke up from an ominous nightmare about Cujo before it attacked at twenty to two in the morning on p. 176, a time that ominously anticipated the 2:20 am time of the TZ disaster.  Later, Donna would leave the safety of her Pinto and be attacked by Cujo on p. 220, in another eerie memory of the twilit and disastrous future.  Thus, it was all too eerily fitting that the name of Vic Trenton ominously foreboded that of Vic Morrow, and that King’s favourite fictional town of Castle Rock, the setting of the novel, had a Hollywood cadence-like the towns of Chamberlain in Carrie and Hastings Glen in Firestarter-as if King saw Castle Rock as the Dark Side of Hollywood.  If so, it was fitting that Charity Trenton had a sister named Holly Brooks, whose name openly evoked Hollywood and Mel and Richard Brooks.  It was also strangely fitting that a character named Gary Pervier was the first victim of the rabid blockbuster beast, anticipating the enormous impact that the blockbuster TZ disaster and the dread Zone Wars would have on the Gardevil in another eerie memory of the future. 

 

The allegorical Steven Barnes and Larry Niven indie docufiction novel Dream Park (1981), was also eerily prescient in retrospect.  For the hard core Gamers who fought real-life Dungeons and Dragons-like adventures against holographic adversaries in holographically enhanced landscapes staged in huge gaming domes anticipated the intrepid actors and actresses who would fight their way through CGI enhanced film art adventures against CGI adversaries in CGI enhanced landscapes in huge greenscreen equipped soundstages, as well as multi-player online videogames.  Indeed, the presence of Gamers like Holly Frost, Chester “Lore Master” Henderson, Alan Leigh, Felicia “Dark Star” Maddox, Gina “Semiramis” Perkins and S.J. Waters implied that Barnes and Niven were allegorically addressing the world of film art in the novel, for the characters evoked Hollywood, Curt and Laurie Henderson in AMERICAN GRAFFITI, Vivien and Jennifer Jason Leigh, DARK STAR, Anthony Perkins, Harold Ramis and John Waters, respectively.  The fact that, in the end, implicitly Coppola linked Dream Park head Thadeus Harmony covered up the murder of a security guard on the premises so that adverse publicity would not turn away patrons and hurt revenues was also another eerie and prescient memory of the future, as downplaying and obscuring what happened to Chen, Le and Morrow on the night of the TZ disaster was the strategy of all involved in the twilit and disastrous events of July 23, 1982. 

 

How fitting that Gamer Tony “Fortunato” McWhirter would eventually be outed as the nonsensical and money lusting thief and that Dream Park research psychologist Skip O’Brien would be outed as the murderer, for Tony McWhirter had a name with the same syllable cadence as Steven Spielberg, and O’Brien and his reluctance to have children with his wife Melinda evoked the reluctance of Lucas to have children with Marcia, linking him to Lucas.  And how also fitting that Alex Griffin, Dream Park Head of Security, would adopt the nom de jeux Gary “the Griffin” Tegner when he inserted himself into the game as a pretend player in order to figure out who was the money lusting murderer, for the name Gary Tegner evoked and had the same number of letters as Gary Wright, while his nom de jeux “the Griffin” evoked that of “the Gardevil.” 

 

Significantly, as ardent young Jedi waited impatiently, production on a film then called STAR WARS EPISODE VI: REVENGE OF THE JEDI finally began at Lucasfilm headquarters and ILM in San Rafael, CA, just outside of San Francisco, and at EMI Elstree Studios in London.  Alas, an ominous twilight already overshadowed the trimax of the Classic Trilogy.  For as editor John Phillip (J.P.) Peecher soon revealed in The Making Of STAR WARS: Return of the Jedi (1983), released along with a landslide of other STAR WARS stuff on the same day as the release of the film that was eventually retitled STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, the telex code on the telexes that were sent to and from Lucasfilm/ILM and EMI Elstree Studios starting in October ’81 was the eerily twilit 897932 STWARS G-thus ominously linking STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to 7/23/82 right from the get go [Peecher, 8]. 

 

The Peecher tome itself reaffirmed that eerily twilit shadow, for the cover promised “…32 pages of fabulous behind-the-scenes photos!” and the ISBN was 0-345-31235-X, linking the book to the fateful and ominous number 23 a double trouble two times-one of them backwards, evoking the deadly and murderous word “redrum” in The Shining and THE SHINING.  Intriguingly, another prescient memory of the Cameron dominated future also arrived in October of ‘81 when another hero named Cameron-who evoked the Cams of SCANNERS and THE STUNTMAN, and who was played by Edward Albert-won the deadly and film art linked game and became the new Master of the Game in the twilit, allegorical and ALIEN evoking B.D. Clark indie film GALAXY OF TERROR (1981), making it fitting that future film artist master Cameron returned to theatres that year as a second unit director and production designer on this low budget Corman quickie. 

 

Curiously, with one Gilliam and JABBERWOCKY evoking film released in 1981, it was fitting that the man himself returned to the Temple Theatre in North America on November 6, 1981 and lashed out again at the increasing commercialization of Hollywood film art and at Ozian themed film in his allegorical, zany, madcap and Ozian themed indie animaction film TIME BANDITS (1981), an indie film curiously anticipated by the allegorical Vincent McEveety directed telefilm ‘Shgoratzhx!’ (1981) of the second season of BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY.  Indeed, the short and bearded film artists of New Hollywood and their growing obsession with fortune and glory were implicitly likened to six mostly bearded and morally stunted men obsessed with travelling through time and looting the wealth of the ages with the help of a secret map that revealed the locations of all of the 2001: A SPACE ODYSSESY monolith shaped black holes in space-time that had been created by the botched creation of the universe by Sir Ralph Richardson’s wryly, drily sarcastic and implicitly Glinda and Hitchcock linked Supreme Being.  Two of these booty obsessed little people-the group’s leader, Randall, and Wally, played by David Rappaport and Jack Purvis, respectively-were implicitly linked to Coppola and Lucas.  Indeed, in the film’s climatic and elementally harmonizing showdown in the Black Castle evoking Fortress of Ultimate Darkness with the personification of Wicked and commercial profit obsessed Evil-played by David Warner-Randall and Wally showed up in a tank and a spacefighter, respectively, evoking Coppola’s Oscar winning screenplay for PATTON and the X- and Y-wings of the Classic Trilogy, affirming the implicit link of Randall and Wally to Francis and George Walton Lucas jr.  The fact that Purvis also played an ewok, a jawa and an ugnaught in the Classic Trilogy, reiterated the implicit link of Wally to Lucas, an implication affirmed by the presence of Baker outside R2D2 the tin can as Fidget.

 

        And so another ominous and prescient year passed, and finally the twilit and disastrous year implicitly foretold for so long in fiction and film art was upon us.  And so it proved to be a deadly year right from the start, for chubby bon vivant Victor Buono, perhaps best known for his role as the creepy and implicitly Hitchcock linked Edwin Flagg in the allegorical and implicitly Vadim and Brigitte Bardot roasting Robert Aldrich docufeature film WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962), died on the first day of 1982.  Soon after, however, Douglas briefly dispelled the gathering gloom with more tragicomic adventures of the implicitly Daniels and Scarecrow linked Earthman Arthur Dent, the implicitly Lucas and Cowardly Lion linked Ford Prefect, the implicitly Coppola and Great Oz linked Zaphod Beeblebrox, the implicitly Tin Man linked Marvin the Robot, and the implicitly Dorothy linked Earthwoman Trillian in the wholly remarkable allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufiction novel The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe [January 1982].  But a dark shadow returned when principal production photography began on Monday, January 11, 1982 on an already twilit STAR WARS EPISODE VI: REVENGE OF THE JEDI, a twilit shadow affirmed by the presence of director Marquand, whose last film EYE OF THE NEEDLE implicitly roasted Landis, and by the twilit telexes being sent to and from EMI Elstree Studios and Lucasfilm/ILM with the code number 897932 STWARS G.  How fitting that the first scene lensed on Stage 2 was a sandstorm on Tatooine that was later excised from the film, given the film’s stormy reception (J.P. Peecher, pp. 47-64).

 

Soon after, Coppola reaffirmed that it was going to be a rough year for New Hollywood film artists in general and himself in particular when he failed to achieve his dream of running his own American Zoetrope Studio when he returned to the Temple Theatre on February 11, 1982 and failed to please audiences with Forrest, Garfield/Goorwitz, Garr, Roos, Tavoularis and Vittorio Storaro-director of photography on APOCALYPSE NOW-and the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film ONE FROM THE HEART (1982). 

 

“The women are liberated now. 

They’re coming on strong!”

 

Perhaps the ominous opening of the film, which saw blue curtains part to reveal a first quarter moon in a nighttime sky, troubled the uneasy and prescient subconsiouses of audiences.  For a first quarter moon would float in a cloud scudding and star studded nighttime sky at 2:20 am in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982 at the time of the TZ disaster, making the opening of the film truly one from the twilit heart and the disastrous future that was only months away now.  The fact that the film saw the implicitly Spielberg linked Hank-played by Forrest-desperately woo his girl,Frannie-played by Garr-back to his side on their Fourth of July fifth anniversary may have also troubled audiences, as the sight and sound anticipated Spielberg frantically wooing back audiences after the TZ disaster.  Indeed, the film’s allusions to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and 1941, and the fact that Hank and Frannie lived on a side street just off the Vegas sprawl in a house at 704 affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Spielberg, reminding us that he kicked off his feature film art career in 1974 with THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS. 

 

Significantly, the lonesome and tragicomic deaths of Philip K. Dick on March 2, 1982-after which the poor and unknown PKD curiously went on to become the most popular and successful dead writer on Earth-and of Belushi on March 5, 1982 soon after the deaths of ONE FROM THE HEART and Zoetrope Studios reaffirmed that 1982 was already a deadly year.  Curiously, an eerily prescient musical memory of the twilit future also arrived the following month with the release of the unusually grim and sombre Van Halen album DIVER DOWN on April 14, 1982.  Indeed, from the ominous album title, which anticipated the upcoming helicopter down on a Landis set and the kickoff cover of the allegorical and Davies written Kinks tune “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” (1965) to the creepy and unsettling Alex and Eddie Van Halen instrumental “Intruder” (1982), DIVER DOWN was already weirdly in tune with the shocked, confused, and righteously furious post-TZ disaster zeitgeist. 

 

As for George R. R. Martin, he implicitly agreed with McCammon, for he also implicitly linked Lucas and Spielberg to the Evil vampire King and Renfield pair of Damon Julian and his favourite foolish human quisling, Sour Billy Tipton, respectively, a dastardly duo who were hunted down and killed by the implicitly Lynch linked Good vampire King Joshua York and his indomitable and implicitly Milius linked steamboat captain friend Cap’n Abner Marsh at the end of the eerily twilit and allegorical indie docufiction novel Fevre Dream (1982), an implicit allegorical intent affirmed by the novel’s allusions to AMERICAN GRAFFITI, BIG WEDNESDAY, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and THE ELEPHANT MAN.  Making it fitting that Milius teamed up again with surfer Gerry Lopez and composer Basil Poledouris-both from BIG WEDNESDAY-to implicitly roast Lucas and his STAR WARS empire with righteous fury in the eerily twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature artbuster CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982), based on a character created by Robert E. Howard in the Dirty Thirties for Weird Tales. 

 

“No one, not even you,

will remember if we were good men or bad.

Why we fought or why we died.”

 

Ominously, the film began with a brutal attack on a village in Cimmeria led by the implicitly Lucas and Wicked Warlock of the West linked Thulsa Doom, leader of the snake cult of Set-played by Jones, the electronically modified voice of Vader-anticipating the equally brutal simulated attack on a Vietnamese War era village in the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  Indeed, the eerily premonitory nature of the attack was affirmed by the fact that it ended with Doom using a sword to callously decapitate the mother-played by Nadiuska-of young Conan-played by Jorge Sanz.  Thus, Milius implied with this village massacre that Lucas, his hypercommercial STAR WARS Classic Trilogy and its avalanche of movie tie-in merchandise were laying waste to film art for film art’s sake-symbolized by the hand crafted sword made for young Conan by his father-played by William Smith. 

 

This implication was affirmed by the fact that after escaping from slavery, the older and implicitly Kubrick and Scarecrow linked Conan the Cimmerian barbarian-his implicit link to Kubrick affirmed by the film's allusions to DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB, SPARTACUS and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and played by Arnold Schwarzenegger-teamed up with the implicitly Christiane Kubrick and Glinda linked warrior thief Valeria-played by Sandahl Bergman-and the implicitly Landis and Tin Man linked Subodai-his implicit link to Landis affirmed by allusions to AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and played by Lopez-and then spent the rest of the film hunting down Thulsa at his Temple of Doom built on a Mountain of Power that evoked the Hollywood sign hill, before finally killing Doom by hacking off his head in another eerie premonition of the death of Morrow with another hand crafted sword of kings at the end of the film.  For the death of Doom released his young followers from his evil psychic control, implicitly affirming that Milius was not happy about the hordes of young and fanatical followers of the Classic Trilogy, and also ironically anticipated an Empire freed from the Emperor’s wicked control at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI. 

 

Indeed, the film’s grimly ironic allusions to the implicitly Lucas toasting APOCALYPSE NOW and the fact that CONAN THE BARBARIAN was released in Canada and the United States on May 14, 1982, the thirty-eighth birthday of Lucas, implicitly reaffirmed the Lucas roasting intent of Milius-making it also grimly fitting that principal first unit production photography for STAR WARS EPISODE VI: REVENGE OF THE JEDI finished six days later with an eerily twilit 23 takes on the ILM blue screen stage in San Rafael on May 20, 1982 (Peecher, pp. 211-26).  The fact that the death of Doom also freed the pretty and implicitly Spielberg and Dorothy linked Princess-played by Valerie Quennessen-from Doom’s control, allowing Conan to rescue her and return her to her implicitly Great Oz linked father King Osric-played by Max Von Sydow-also implied the hope of Milius that a powerful indie film artist like Kubrick would emerge to wrest film art from the insidious control of commercial film artists like Lucas with a resoundingly successful film art for film art’s sake film like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.  Indeed, the ability of Doom to transform himself into a snake implicitly affirmed that Milius thought that Lucas had revealed himself as a snake in film artist’s clothing who had betrayed film art for film art’s sake with the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy.  And the fact that Conan saved the Princess before she was killed by a sibilant arrow from Doom implied the hope of Milius that film art for film art's sake would be saved before it was killed by the trimax of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, given that the death of the Princess would have meant three women killed by Doom after Conan's mother and Valeria.

 

Significantly, the death of Doom and the end of his insidious mind control also presciently anticipated the death of the reputation of Lucas and the rejection of his film art and himself by his own young followers soon to come.  Last but not least, the sight of the powerful warrior from the North who in time would become King by his own hand also again presciently anticipated the arrival of King Cameron.  Thus, it was fitting that the film ended with an epilogue that foreshadowed a day when the devout and indomitable Cimmerian would be crowned King Conan.  Synchronously, on May 21, 1982 a week after the release of CONAN THE BARBARIAN, Miller teamed up again with Gibson and producer Byron Kennedy and composer Brian May-both from MAD MAX-and returned to the Temple Theatre to also implicitly roast Lucas in the presciently twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature film THE ROAD WARRIOR (1982).

 

“Here they come!”

 

Ominously, this second future neo-Western film began with a newsreel prologue chronicling a cyclone of disastrous events that led to nuclear war on Earth that acted as a symbolic Kansas tornado that touched down in an embattled  and Tatooine evoking post-apocalyptic Australia near Broken Hill in western New South Wales, a cyclone of disastrous events that eerily anticipated the TZ disaster and the equally embattled post-TZ disaster apocalypse dread allegorical Zone War era in yet another ominously twilit and premonitory memory of the future.  Upon touchdown in the post-apoc Oz we found ourselves roaring full throttle down the hellish highway in the battered Ford Falcon XP GT Coupe Interceptor with the implicitly Cronenberg and Scarecrow linked "Mad" Max Rockatansky-played again by Gibson. 

 

Curiously, after battling some violent neo-indigenous outlaws in equally battered and souped up cars or on motorcycles, Rockatansky soon met up with the gleefully eccentric Gyrocopter Captain-a curiously composite and complex character, indeed, as he was as ragged and wildly dressed as the Scarecrow but flew high in the Air like the Great Oz in his gyrocopter when he was not frozen on Earth like a Water rusted Tin Man due to lack of gas, and always as Cowardly as the Lion, and played by Bruce Spence.  This curious character who flowed with the Ozian Fours led Rockatansky to Oillium, a lonely desert oil refinery defended by fiercely and indomitably human indie warriors led by the possibly Coppola linked Papagallo-played by Mike Preston-who were implicitly linked to indie and vitally human film art for film art’s sake as the refinery was being besieged by beastly and ahuman blockbuster besiegers consisting of more violent neo-indigenous outlaws led by the huge but diseased, Vader evoking and implicitly Lucas and Wicked Witch of the West linked muscle man Lord Humungous-his implicit link to Lucas affirmed by the film's allusions to AMERICAN GRAFFITI and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, and played by Kjell Nilsson-and his implicitly Spielberg linked number one Toadie-played by Max Phipps-eerily anticipating the equally brutal and uncompromising allegorical cinematic battle between outraged film artists like Miller and violent twilit outlaws led by Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Lucas, Marshall and Spielberg that erupted after the apocalyptic TZ disaster.  Indeed, the sight of the madcap Gyrocopter Captain being shot out of the sky as he launched buzzing attacks in his tiny gyrocopter on the beastly outlaw besiegers to help Rockatansky relieve the blockbuster siege and draw off the outlaws in order to allow the besieged warriors of Oillium to escape ominously anticipated the fatal helicopter crash of the TZ disaster, making it all too fitting that the film was distributed in North America at least by Warner Brothers. 

 

Significantly, while Rockatansky and the Gyrocopter Captain succeeded in relieving the siege and drawing off the attackers, they also discovered they had been manipulated by the besieged warriors of Oillium, implying not only that Miller again felt that Cronenberg would not beat New Hollywood with his film art but would also fail to establish himself as an indie film artist like the implicitly intrepid indie warriors of Oillium.  The sand pouring out of the crashed tractor-trailer after the Death Chase at the end of the film also presciently anticipated where the dread allegorical Zone Wars with all their sound and fury would lead, nowhere but a world weary, bruised and battered, embittered and exhausted dusty death with no sense of accomplishment or solace for its luckless and tramautized participants, including Cronenberg and Miller.  Alas, Miller anticipated all too clearly, for THE ROAD WARRIOR ended with the bleeding and battered Rockatansky all alone on the shattered highway in the gathering twilight again, making it eerily clear that the daylit and Skyrocking era of New Hollywood film art was indeed over, and that film art was now being taken over…by the Twilight Zone.  A fatal, infuriating and unexpected detour into the Twilight Zone that was eerily anticipated yet again by the sight and sound of Meredith teaming up again with Stallone and Shire, Weathers and Young in the eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature film ROCKY III (1982), released on May 28, 1982.

 

‘If you wanna go out in style,

go out in one piece.’

 

Eerie and prescient indeed, for the sight and sound of the Great cranky trainer Mickey-played again by Meredith-dying midway through the film prepared us yet again for the death of Morrow in the TZ disaster.  Thus, it was all too fitting that Mickey urged the implicitly DePalma and Scarecrow linked Rocky Balboa-played again by Stallone-to finish his career in one piece, given that Morrow was less than two months away from finishing his career in two bloody pieces.  The open and righteous fury and vociferous scorn heaped on Balboa by the implicitly Cowardly Lion linked human blockbuster beast and modest “…mountain of molten lust”, Thunderlips-perhaps linked to Lucas and his Classic Trilogy due to his Luke evoking blonde hair and Forcefull quartet of ruby red bikini clad blonde companions, and played by Hollywood Hulk Hogan-and the aspiring and Wicked boxer, Clubber Lang-played by Mr. T-also anticipated the open and righteous fury and vociferous, venomous and vituperative scorn heaped on Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Lucas, Marshall and Spielberg by young audiences after the TZ disaster. 

 

Significantly, the sight and sound of Balboa defeating the Hollywood cadenced Thunderlips and Clubber Lang in mortal combat and battling back into the good books of his admirers, in the end, also presciently anticipated the sight and sound of Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Lucas, Marshall and Spielberg defeating the TZ disaster and their most vengeful critics in equally mortal cinematic combat and battling back into the good books of audiences, particularly after the fateful and twilit year of 1987.  Indeed, Lang weighed in at 237 eerily twilit and prescient pounds prior to the climatic bout, making Balboa’s defeat of Lang an ominously prescient defeat of an implicit embodiment of the TZ disaster by a determined film artist in yet another twilit memory of the future.

 

Of course, the sight of Valeria hacking down male opponents with her scything sword in CONAN THE BARBARIAN like a real live Taarna and the Warrior Woman-played by Virginia Hey-teaming up with Mad Max to fight off the covetous minions of Lord Humungous in THE ROAD WARRIOR reaffirmed that the year of the TZ disaster was indeed also the year of the fearless and indomitable female film artist, making it fitting that soon after the release of CONAN THE BARBARIAN, the young and inexperienced but determined and steadfast Lieutenant Saavik-played by Kirstie Alley-was seen sitting in the captain’s chair leading her equally naïve but courageous young crew through the legendary Kobayashi Maru Starfleet training exercise, an exercise that ominously took place in the Twilight Zone evoking Neutral Zone, at the beginning of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Corman roasting Meyer docufeature film STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982), released on June 4, 1982.

 

Significantly, the film’s desperate battle against the bitter, vengeful and implicitly Corman linked Khan-played by Ricardo Montalban-and his morose minions was overshadowed by the ominously twilit and film closing death of Captain Spock-played again by Nimoy-at the end of the film in another eerie memory of the future.  A death that also made it fitting that the film featured the most spectacular CGI sequence to date and one ironically created by a Smith led digital effects team at ILM in the form of a literal CGI simulation of the aptly named and experimental Genesis missile which, when fired at a dead moon or planet, literally created a brave and lush new CGI enhanced world of film art right before the astounded eyes of audiences over the course of a pivotal and game changing minute, suddenly making it clear that CGI was a big “Khan do” that was going to have an enormous and game changing effect on film art and a prominent role to play in preventing future film set disasters after 1982 while evoking the allegorical Georges Melies indie film VOYAGE TO THE MOON (1898), in a nice little nod to the dawn of cinematic special and visual effects magic.  For their part, Kennedy and Spielberg implicitly and gently roasted Gilliam and his fear of the slathering blockbuster beast by having the implicitly Gilliam linked boy Elliot Thomas-played by Henry Thomas-develop a warm and fuzzy relationship with a slathering blockbuster beast in the eerily twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced animaction film E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982), a film released in Los Angeles on June 10, 1982 whose implicit interest in Gilliam affirmed by the film’s allusions to JABBERWOCKY, MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS and, curiously, even some similarities to TIME BANDITS-maybe they had a spy on the Gilliam set? 

 

Curiously, given that Elliot almost died when E.T. died, in the end, Kennedy and Spielberg also implied that a little blockbuster beast was good for the health of film artists.  Alas, E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL was not only bursting with exuberantly shameless product placement-Reese’s Pieces and STAR WARS action figures, anyone?-but was also mostly an insidious and shameless filmmercial for an avalanche of movie tie-in merchandise that was bigger than that which had accompanied the releases of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or SUPERMAN, no doubt so that Spielberg could survive box office flops with his own separate income like Lucas.  In fact, if there was one all too successful film one could point to that persuaded the crass and money lusting Hollywood studios to turn film art into witless filmmercials for movie tie-in merchandise, it was E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.

 

An infuriatingly ironic and insidious message from Emperor Palpaberg indeed that outraged audiences and film artists, turning them against him already in the final weeks before the TZ disaster.  A disaster that was yet again eerily foreshadowed by the ominous sound of the Twilight Zone theme being imitated during a search for E.T. behind the Thomas house at the beginning of the film, by the waxing crescent silver of a moon seen hanging in the sky during that search, a sight that eerily anticipated the waxing crescent silver of a moon hanging in the sky at the time of the TZ disaster at 2:20 am in the early morning of July 23, 1982, a date also eerily anticipated by the 132 YEB license plates on the Audi 5000S car of Mrs. Thomas.  A twilit trio of memories of the future that all too fittingly and eerily reminded us that the TZ disaster was almost upon us.  More eerily twilit premonitions that made for a perfect time for Sir Scott to return with his eerily prescient, twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Lucas addressing indie docufeature artbuster BLADE RUNNER, released on June 25, 1982 and the first of the Dick pics as it was inspired by the allegorical and implicitly Disneyland animatronic people roasting Dick indie novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968).

 

 "Have you ever retired a human

                by mistake?"

 

Significantly, the film’s many allusions to OUTLAND implied that Sir Scott primarily used the film to roast Hyams in the implicit form of Joe Turkel’s Tyrell Corporation head Eldon Tyrell.  Indeed, the sight of Ford’s Rick Deckard spending the film hunting down a quartet of deadly and renegade Replicants in the labyrinthine streets and buildings of a nightmare L.A. 2019 after the Replicants stole a shuttle and infiltrated Earth from Offworld evoked the sight of O’Neil hunting down a trio of assassins in the equally labyrinthine passages of Con-Am 27 after a company shuttle brought them to the mine at the end of OUTLAND.  This link was reaffirmed by Deckard’s desperate pursuit of Joanna Cassidy’s Replicant Zhora through the crowded streets of L.A., as it evoked O’Neil’s equally desperate pursuit of the third drug dealer Spota through the crowded corridors of Con-Am 27 in OUTLAND.  However, despite this implicit interest in Hyams, BLADE RUNNER, like ALIEN, APOCALYPSE NOW and DEMENTIA 13, was also filled with all sorts of eerie and prescient memories of the TZ disaster future that was now only weeks away. 

 

Indeed, the film’s setting in a constantly dark, depressed, dirty, polluted, gloomy, nasty, violent and rainswept post-apocalyptic L.A. and its hauntingly and wistfully sad and lonely synthesized soundtrack by Vangelis all anticipated the equally twilit, depressed, gloomy, haunted, sad and wistful L.A. and film art world that would struggle to carry on after the TZ disaster brought the Skyrocking era of New Hollywood film art to a sudden and brutal halt.  The twenty-three passengers of a commandeered Off-world shuttle who were killed in order for a group of rogue more human than human Replicants-who implicitly symbolized not just films like OUTLAND that merely repeated or replicated ALIEN, but the more hi-tech and CGI enhanced film art that was now threatening to replace regular film art-to return to Earth also returned the fateful number twenty-three to allegorical film art only weeks before the TZ disaster on July 23, 1982.  This ominous link to the fateful number twenty-three was soon reiterated by the number on the conapt of Deckard, for 9732 openly linked the film to the upcoming TZ disaster. 

 

Of course, 9732 also evoked the 723 prominently stamped on the glass bubble of Ripley’s sleeping beauty hibernation cocoon at the end of ALIEN, linking the films together in a way that confirmed that Ridley was continuing his battle against the ahuman, corporate backed and hi-tech blockbuster beast in BLADE RUNNER, symbolized this time by the fugitive and violent Replicants of the Tyrell Corporation that had snuck back to Earth on the hijacked shuttle.  This linked Rick to Ripley and both implicitly to Ridley to confirm that his film art was rising up to battle the more film art than film art blockbuster beast again.  This also set us up for the end of the film which saw Deckard waking Sean Young’s sleeping, beautiful and Bigelow resembling Rachael and fleeing with her to points unknown after defeating the beastly and blockbuster corporatist menace of the Replicants and fighting their charismatic leader Roy Batty-played by Rutger Hauer-to a draw as at the end of THE DUELLISTS which nonetheless allowed the artbuster philosophy of Sir Scott to prevail again.

 

Incidentally, BLADE RUNNER was a bittersweet inaugural cinematic realization for PKD.  Indeed, so bittersweet that it may have precipitated the stroke that killed him four months before the release of the film after seeing some footage from BLADE RUNNER.  For in the literary art of PKD, residing on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, symbolized achieving the pinnacle of literary success and being accepted as a titan of the literary world, a status he had tried and failed to attain with his thoughtful allegorical indie novel The Man In The High Castle (1962).  Living on Mars, on the other hand, implicitly symbolized only succeeding in the fantastic fiction and film world, as PKD did with the Hugo award he received for The Man In The High Castle.  Indeed, a Martian existence equated with being trapped in a sly fi ghetto far away from majestic Titan on the planet synonymous with sly fi since the publication of the allegorical H. G. Wells indie docufiction novel The War Of The Worlds (1896), a sly fi ghetto fate that PKD implicitly acknowledged after the failure of The Man In The High Castle to attract a wider audience.   For, after implicitly battling off the evil Titans of American literature in his allegorical indie novel The Game-Players Of Titan (1963), he resignedly and dejectedly retreated to Mars in the allegorical indie novel Martian Time-Slip (1964). 

 

Living on a lunar colony implicitly symbolized only having a few fantastic fiction stories published in specialized sly fi magazines over the course of one’s literary life, and, hence, not being terribly successful.  Last but not least, but even worse, being stuck on Earth with the rest of the unimaginative and untalented mass of humanity like poor old Rick Deckard in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and BLADE RUNNER was the ultimate disgrace, implicitly symbolizing that you were a talentless hack like the rest of the huvine herd.  A talentless fate and planet recovering from a nuclear war that had killed off most of the fauna of Earth that a depressed PKD had consigned himself to by the time of the 1968 publication of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?  Thus, transforming the novel into BLADE RUNNER and seeing Ford’s Rick Deckard-a name that implicitly affirmed the character’s link to Philip Kindred Dick, as Rick Deckard evoked Dick Kindred-trapped on Earth and resignedly stalking the neon lit and crowded streets of a future L.A. in the first film based on one of his novels, novellas or short stories might have seemed to PKD as confirming that he had failed as a literary artist, precipitating his stroke. 

 

However, despite the bittersweet misgivings of PKD, it was actually fitting that Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? inspired the first Dick pic.  For the novel implicitly and furiously roasted Disney and the animatronic creations like President Abraham Lincoln that had appeared at Disneyland shortly before the publication of the novel-dismissed as real androids of the Hollywood android factory or “andys” in the novel-and resolutely championed a flawed but real, free, vital and fully formed humanity.  Indeed, the Sidney animal catalogue that wistful and regretful humans consulted throughout the novel affirmed the implicit allegorical intent of PKD, as Sidney was an anagram of Disney.  

And so the TZ disaster was eerily foretold again in another all too prescient cinematic memory of the future.  An all too eerie prescience, implicit concern that CGI was threatening the vital humanity of film art and implicit interest in Lucas that continued on the same day as the release of BLADE RUNNER in the equally eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Lucas addressing Carpenter docufeature film THE THING [1982], inspired by the original THE THING.

 

“So how do we know who’s human?”

 

Significantly, after the opening titles played to the accompaniment of an eerie and fittingly electronic score by Ennio Morricone, a circular CGI spacecraft soared through space and landed on a CGI Earth, openly linking the Earth to the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art rather than a distant new lunar world created in space as in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN.  Then, after the title of the film tore its way through the screen and a brief title set the future scene in “…Antarctica, Winter, 1982”, implicitly making THE THING the first salvo of the dread allegorical Zone Wars, the sight of a snowswept mountain range filled the screen.  Within seconds, an eerily and presciently twilit helicopter rotored over the mountains, in hot pursuit of a fleeing Siberian Husky-fittingly played by Jed.  Someone was shooting at the dog from the left side of the chopper, and the POV switched to a shot from the POV of the rifle shooter-played by associate producer Larry Franco-as he blazed away next to the pilot-played by Norbert Weisser.  This was an eerily and presciently twilit shot, indeed, for it exactly anticipated that in less than four weeks a cameraman would stand behind and film a stuntman dressed as an American Vietnam War soldier shooting blanks at Chen, Le and Morrow with an M-16 from the left side of a helicopter behind a pilot moments before the TZ disaster.

 

Soon the fleeing Husky raced towards an American Antarctic research station identified by a sign as United States National Science Institute Station 4, a small but Fourcefull base dwarfed by the desolate snowscape around it that evoked the equally small Rebel base on Hoth in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK to implicitly affirm that Kershner and Lucas were being addressed on one level in THE THING.  Indeed, soon after the POV switched inside the base, where we found the Skyrocking and implicitly Lucas linked helicopter pilot  R.J. “Mac” MacReady-played by Kurt Russell-drinking his favourite J & B scotch and losing a game of computer chess like Chewie lost an equally combative holo game to R2D2 onboard the Millenium Falcon in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, immediately linking MacReady and the film to CGI, Lucas and the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy.  Drawn out of the base along with the rest of the personnel by the sounds of the chopper and the gunshots, MacReady was just in time to see the chopper land, the pilot inadvertently blow it and himself up with an errant grenade in an eerily twilit explosion, and the shooter to be shot dead in the sinister left eye by one of Mac’s colleagues, the fittingly named, red haired and implicitly Howard linked station Commander Garry-played by Donald Moffat.

 

Alas for Garry and MacReady, the Siberian Husky let unknowingly into the base was in reality a shapeshifting alien that was able to kill, assimilate and assume the appearance of any living creature it came across, evoking the human replicating alien invaders in THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and the less mutable but no less deadly biomechanical alien inadvertently brought onto the Nostromo by Kane in ALIEN.  Indeed, the sight and sound of a baffled and increasingly worried MacReady and the implicitly Rush linked Norris-played by Charles Hallahan-flying one of the two base helicopters southwest, the same  sinister southwest from which sprang the hideous Id monster in FORBIDDEN PLANET, to the alien spacecraft landing site and exploring the Millenium Falcon resembling craft evoked the sight and sound of Capt. Dallas and Kane exploring the biomechanical alien spacecraft on LV-426 in ALIEN, while the memorable sight and sound of Norris revealing back inside the base that a shapeshifting thing was hidden inside him evoked the equally memorable sight and sound of a baby biomechanical alien bursting out of the stomach of Kane in the dining room of the Nostromo, openly linking the two films-and eerily foreboding the TZ disaster, for the grotesquely detached and mobile head of Norris after the thing revealed it had taken over him again ominously anticipated the decapitation of poor Morrow.   However, unlike in ALIEN, where the rampaging biomechanical alien blockbuster beast was implicitly linked to hi-tech and CGI enhanced films like STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE that Sir Scott implicitly worried would destroy the vital humanity of film art, the rampaging and mutable alien beast in THE THING was implicitly linked to improved CGI and its increasing ability to imitate everything realistically and believably in film art, including human beings. 

 

Indeed, the fact that the ability of the alien’s cells to assimilate and recreate human cells was shown in a videogame evoking CGI sequence that was pondered by the implicitly Hitch linked Blair-played by A. Wilford Brimley-openly linked the alien to CGI, an open link to CGI already affirmed by the CGI spacecraft the alien arrived in, affirming that the alien’s ability to assimilate and recreate human and other terrestrial life forms like the Siberian Husky symbolized the ability of CGI to recreate living and non-living things.  Eerily, this alienated and assimilating CGI sequence began with a time stamp that included the twilit time of 17:36:02, openly linking it to the 237 date of the TZ disaster.  Another eerily twilit memory of the future reaffirmed after the sequence, when a computer diagnostic informed Blair that “…if intruder organism reaches civilized areas…entire world population infected 27000 hours from first contact”, a 27 followed by 3 zeroes that created another 237 combination in THE THING.

 

Thus, the sight and sound of MacReady leading Garry, the implicitly Williams linked Childs-as shaven headed as SRT and Williams, as handsome and moustached as Calrissian, as flowing with the Afro-American Force as both, and played by Keith David-and the rest of the implicitly American film artist linked personnel of the base-including the implicitly Bartel linked and Lucas evoking weatherman George Bennings, the implicitly Dante linked and PHOTOPLAY film magazine luvin' radio operator Windows, the implicitly De Palma linked Husky handler Clark, the implicitly  Nicholson linked helicopter pilot Palmer, and the implicitly Spielberg linked scientist Fuchs-played by Peter Maloney, Thomas G. Waites, Richard Masur, David Clennon, and Joel Polis, respectively-in a desperate battle to kill the shapeshifting alien and preserve their vital humanity implied the hope of Carpenter that Lucas would lead the battle to retain the vital humanity of the new world of CGI enhanced film art.  Curiously, to do so MacReady thought up an ad hoc blood test to determine the vital humanity of the base personnel, an ad hoc test that evoked the Voight-Kampff empathy test used to determine a vital humanity in BLADE RUNNER, linking the two films and making if fitting that they were both released on the same day. 

 

And so the two most eerily and presciently twilit films of all arrived in the Temple Theatre less than a month before the TZ disaster.  And so the TZ disaster was eerily foretold again in another all too prescient cinematic memory of the future.  And so a desperate and greedy lust for blockbuster profits had caused Warner Brothers to approach Spielberg and Universal Studios and ask the studio to loan them Spielberg for three films, in order to make some money to help their ailing studio.  Strangely, given the bitter and cutthroat rivalry between the Hollywood studios, Universal and Spielberg agreed.  The latter also enthusiastically supported the idea of turning the TWILIGHT ZONE-one of his favourite television shows as a youth-into an allegorical feature film.  Perhaps as a way of celebrating his television roots with Serling’s NIGHT GALLERY, and to rub it in with a true telefilm that he had conquered film art despite his television background-that television had conquered film! 

 

Eventually, Spielberg and Warners decided to make four allegorical half hour episodes for their cinematic homage to the TWILIGHT ZONE rather than one single two hour allegorical film, with a different film artist overseeing each episode.  Spielberg then persuaded Dante, Landis and Miller to join him in directing an episode for TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  Indeed, Spielberg persuaded Landis to helm an episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE in March only months before the release of E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.  When the people at Warners did not like the first draft of his original script, which saw cranky and depressed Bill Connor trapped in the Twilight Zone forever after being forced to live the harassed and harried life of an Afro American in the KKK ruled South, a Jew in occupied Paris in the Second World War and a Vietcong in the Vietnam War after making disparaging comments about all three groups in a bar after work one night, Landis added a new ending that saw Connor redeem himself and escape the Zone by rescuing two children in a Vietnam War village from an explosion and bullet filled nighttime American helicopter attack. 

 

Landis wrote this new ending on June 13, 1982, right around the day of the release of E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.  Three days later, on June 16, 1982, Landis mentioned this change to Michael Fenton and Marci Liroff of Fenton-Feinberg Casting and also revealed that he wanted them to hunt down two real Asian children to play the parts rather than special effects dummies or little stunt people, in order to make the ending of his episode more dramatic.  Fenton and Liroff refused to do this as it was illegal to have children work at night around explosives.  According to them, a furious Landis did not back down from this refusal or polite explanation of the law.  Instead, he furiously snarled “…the hell with you guys.  We don’t need you.  We’ll get them off the street ourselves.”  Tragically ironic words indeed from a film artist who was trying to send a sympathetic message about how difficult it was to be of African, Asian or Jewish descent in the United States in his episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and was now about to make the lives of two Asian children and their families and relatives very difficult indeed. 

 

Unfortunately for film art, film artists and audiences, Landis and Folsey jr., the producer of his episode, proceeded to do just that.  Even worse, they were helped along by two adults who should have known better, a production secretary named Donna Schuman and her husband Dr. Harold Schuman, who illegally rustled up Chen and Le from amongst his Asian patients by July 16, 1982.  Alas, Folsey jr., Landis and the Schumans were assisted and supported in their illegal endeavour by Kennedy and Marshall, the associate producer and executive producer, respectively, of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, who were eager to please Landis and Spielberg to advance their film art careers.  Perhaps because he was not just a director of an episode but a co-producer along with Spielberg of the entire film, making Landis oddly both the subordinate and the superior of Kennedy and Marshall and of episode producer Folsey jr. in a further complication in the pecking order of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (LaBrecque, pp. 1-16).  Curiously, but fittingly in another ominous and foreboding memory of the future kinda way, not long after BLADE RUNNER and still weeks before the TZ disaster, the eerily and presciently allegorical and CGI enhanced Steven Lisberger animaction film TRON (1982), was released on July 9, 1982 and reaffirmed that CGI was going to have an enormous impact on film art. 

 

For TRON was the first feature length CGI enhanced film, giving hope that dangerous on set special effects such as those involving low hovering helicopters and explosions could be done in the future with realistic CGI so as to avoid any more TZ disasters.  A good thing, as Bruce Boxleitner’s implicitly Spielberg linked Alan Bradley was ominously seen requesting a truly twilit file marked TRON JA 307020 at the beginning of the film, making the film a little too close to the Zone for comfort.  In addition, as TRON saw the implicitly Lucas linked Kevin Flynn-played by Jeff Bridges-transformed into digital data and sucked into the digital world where he joined Boxleitner’s implicitly Spielberg linked Tron in a battle to defeat the Master Control Program-voiced by Warner-and his head slave Sark-played by Warner-so as to return to the real world, Disney implicitly urged Lucas and Spielberg to be wary of CGI enhancement, lest they lose their own humanity, as well as the humanity of film art. 

 

Curiously, TRON was released in early July of 1982 only weeks before the TZ disaster, as if the Mouse House had a premonition of the nightmare to befall film on July 23, 1982.  A prescient implication, indeed, given that Disney took a leading role in the CGI enhanced and always dread allegorical Zone Wars after 1982.  Making it fitting that shortly before the release of TRON, Carpenter and company released a film that implicitly warned that CGI enhancement could eventually lead to all film art losing its humanity, the eerily prescient, twilit and allegorical Carpenter docufeature film THE THING (1982), released on June 25, 1982.  Indeed, the desperate battle of a group of New Hollywood film artist linked American scientists and support staff led by the Skyrocking and implicitly Lucas linked pilot Macready-played by Russell-to prevent a blockbuster extraterrestrial beast from imitating and killing any lifeform it came across was implicitly linked to a desperate battle to prevent CGI from imitating any lifeform it wanted so as to retain the vital life and humanity of film art throughout the film. 

 

A brave new CGI world that, in retrospect, could be argued was symbolized by the innovative fusion of plant and animal that turned Ray Wise’s Dr. Alec Holland into the Schlock and Landis evoking Swamp Thing-played by Dick Durock-in the allegorical Wes Craven docufeature film SWAMP THING (1982), released back on January 1, 1982.  A film that also presciently saw Lucas revealed as a callous evildoer in the implicit form of Louis Jordan’s Arcane, anticipating the insidious outing of Lucas soon to come.  And the insidious outing of Landis, for on July 19, 1982, shooting for his episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE moved from the back lot of Universal Studios for the occupied Paris scenes to Indian Dunes Park, a handy natural location with diverse environments that was popular with film and television people located in the suburbs twenty miles northeast of Los Angeles for the outdoor shooting of the KKK sequence, which featured a young and unmasked John Larroquette amongst the crowd of KKK members, forever linking him to the Zone, and the Vietnam War sequence. 

 

Two days later, in the late afternoon of Wednesday, July 21, 1982, Folsey jr. and studio driver Jeff Powell picked up and drove Chen and Le and their parents to Indian Dunes Park for what was to be their first and last night of illicit shooting.  The early scenes of the entry of Morrow’s Connor into the simulated village took longer than expected, however, and the Chens and Les were asked to come back the following night to finish the final scenes of shooting for the film.  Ominously, production was delayed again Thursday, including a very worrisome scene shot at 11:30 pm that almost saw special effects explosions take out the helicopter, piloted by Dorcey Wingo, a decorated two tour veteran of the Vietnam War, of Western Helicopters in Rialto.  This was a wakeup call that the explosions being used to film this final scene were too powerful. 

 

Unfortunately for Chen, Le and Morrow, this wakeup call was ignored, and even more powerful explosions were readied for the final scene that saw Morrow’s Connor rescue Chen and Le, playing the two Vietnamese kids, from the American helicopter attack on their village by picking up one child in each arm and carrying them across the Santa Clarita River to safety.  One powerful special effects mortar was also placed under an open sided food drying rack by special effects technician Jerry Williams and armed by fellow technician James Camomile, both under the orders and supervision of special effects chief Paul Stewart.  Unfortunately, no one told helicopter pilot Wingo about the existence and position of the new mortar.  Not suspecting any trouble, Wingo dutifully lowered his helicopter to only twenty-four feet above the ground when ordered to by Landis, an order relayed to him in the helicopter by radio by first assistant director Elie Cohn shortly before the shooting of the final explosive and embattled scene.

 

Alas, poor Morrow!  For when all was finally ready and the cameras started rolling and action! was shouted out around 2:20 am in that fateful early morning of July 23, 1982 with a waxing crescent first quarter moon hanging in a sparsely cloud scattered sky, and Morrow’s Connor began carrying Chen and Le across the Santa Clarita River on his redemption rescue, the mortar under the food drying rack in the village behind the twilit trio ignited by Camomile when Morrow reached his mark in the river released a fireball that united with another explosion set off a fraction of a second earlier to combine into a super explosion that engulfed and blew off the tail rotor of the Vietnam War era UH-1B “Huey” helicopter piloted by Wingo for this final scene.  To the horror of Wingo and the five other members of the crew onboard, the hovering helicopter immediately began to spin out of control away from the village set and over Morrow and the kids in the river.  Luckily the helicopter was hovering, as loss of a balancing and stabilizing tail rotor caused a helicopter to spin out of control and fall straight down at the speed it was travelling like a massive and whirling drill bit.  With the chopper hovering, however, Wingo was able to drop the helicopter down gently into the water of the Santa Clarita River. 

 

Unfortunately, while Wingo saved himself and the five crew members on board with him-including unit production manager Dan Allingham-the chopper had spun far enough away from the village set to now be quite close to Morrow and the two kids.  The left side of the downed helicopter also sank, causing the helicopter to tip over after landing in the shallow riverbed, crushing the Taiwanese born Chen to death.  The whirling main rotor blades decapitated Morrow next, and then sawed the Vietnamese born Le in two before the chopper fully crashed on its side in the river and a shocked silence settled on the gory scene.  Then the sad wailing of Shyan Chen, the mother of Renee, rent the air.  It only took ten nightmarish seconds to cause another bleak day in July.  And with that, the daylit and Skyrocking era of New Hollywood film art was over.  It existed now…only in our memories (LaBrecque, pp. 17-56).

 

Significantly, the bloody accident was not only filmed, but also witnessed by dozens of people, as Landis had invited a large crowd to celebrate the filming of the final scenes of the first episode of the film.  Thus, the horrors of the Vietnam War finally became a part of the personal experience of a generation of film artists who had been mostly non-participants opposed to the war.  Eerily, the horrific accident also made all of the ominous memories of the future in the films of New Hollywood indeed look like prescient insights that anticipated the disaster.  The accident also recalled the fixation with explosions and senseless violence in the films of Landis, from Schlockthropus the ape man’s murderous attacks on everyday people in SCHLOCK and the mutilated mannequin torso thrown out of the attic window of Delta House at Flounder and Pinto at the beginning of ANIMAL HOUSE, to the dangerous car stunts of THE BLUES BROTHERS, and the violent nightmares that haunted tormented American wolfman Kessler before he began to kill Londoners, leading to a climatic decapitation, in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. 

 

Indeed, this obsession with violence, dangerous stunts and tormented nightmares now implied that they were a cry for help from Landis, that he was revealing in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON his fear that he would be unable to control a hatred for humanity that would lead to an actor or crew member’s death on his famously reckless sets.  A hatred linked to sex, as the undead London victims of Kessler eventually confronted him in a strange sequence in an adult theatre in Piccadilly Square at the end of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.  Indeed, soon after this confrontation, Kessler turned into a werewolf and went on one last climatic, Schlockthropus-style killing spree, openly linking violence to film and graphic sexuality in the films of Landis, and turning the Piccadilly adult theatre into the first cinematic Temple Theatre of Doom. 

 

The three horrific deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow eerily anticipated before July 23, 1982 in so many ominous films and novels were also the final nail in the coffin for the New Hollywood brat pack, as global outrage over this movie city madness swept audiences worldwide.  The tragic deaths also cast a pall on the rest of the production of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, as the Landis episode was the first to be filmed for the movie.  Even worse, investigators quickly discovered that the two young Asian extras were not only working illegally after hours on orders from Landis, but that they had also been secretly hired by Landis outside of regulated casting firms so as to avoid legal restrictions on their hours of work and their proximity to dangerous explosions.  This revelation of illegal and secretive actions immediately caused audiences-particularly younger audience members-to turn against him.  In fact, this revelation even convinced some young viewers that Landis had deliberately murdered the TZ trio and cunningly hid their murders within what appeared to be a snafu accident in order to create his own “snuffu” film.  This conclusion was reinforced by the fact that investigators also quickly discovered that Folsey jr., Kennedy and Marshall had helped Landis illegally hire and use the children, and by the fact that Landis ordered the helicopter to hover lower over a powerful incendiary device without telling Wingo it was there.  Thus, Wingo was unaware of what was about to happen when the explosion brought down the helicopter. 

 

The disturbing role of Kennedy and Marshall in the TZ disaster also infuriated and disturbed audiences, and made them wonder how much they had told Spielberg about the decision of Folsey jr. and Landis to illegally hire and use Chen and Le after hours near explosions and helicopters-and whether Spielberg decided to go along with their illegal hiring and use.  After all, as the driving force of the film, he could have stopped their use if he had known and cared.  However, Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg refused to comment on their role in the TZ disaster, an infuriating and incriminating silence that they insisted on to this day.  Indeed, in the February 2016 Hollywood issue of VANITY FAIR, Kennedy continued to refuse to comment on the TZ disaster, an infuriating silence unfortunately helped by the fact that Contributing Editor Sarah Ellison did not ask Kennedy about her role in the disaster for her article “A Force of her Own” that appeared in the special Oscar issue.  This despite the fact that by the time of the VANITY FAIR article Kennedy was working with supposedly child nurturing Disney as head of Lucasfilm Ltd., when Lucas persuaded her to head his old company after selling the moisture farm to the Mouse House.  Nor was this the only recent time that the role of Kennedy and Marshall in the TZ disaster was overlooked, as Ben Taylor’s recent book Apocalypse On The Set: nine disastrous film productions (2012) also did not mention their evil actions in its section on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.

 

This stubborn refusal to talk about the TZ disaster led to a conviction amongst many audience members that there was a coverup in the TZ disaster led by Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg.  Outrage was intensified by the fact that Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg made millions from E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL and its ridiculously huge avalanche of movie tie-in merchandise at a time when the global economy was in a spiralling nosedive.  Clearly, Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg wanted the public’s money and adulation, but did not want to hear about tragic deaths on their film sets, and were even willing to cover up those messy deaths in order to continue to make money.  This infuriating response to the TZ disaster turned our Temple Theatres of escape and delight into disillusioning Temple Theatres of Death and Duplicity, as well as crass and impersonal commercialism.  Suddenly, we were all victims of the Twilight Age, made of scarred stuff indeed, and transformed into real life troubled, angry and disaffected members of the Artie West led X gang with the eye of the furious tiger. 

 

The bitter fury of viewers was further inflamed by the fact that the show went on after the tragic deaths, and the other three episodes by Dante, Miller and Spielberg were completed for the film.  Audience outrage was increased by the fact that soon after the TZ disaster, Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg fled the U.S. for London to attend the premier of E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, and, even worse and more infuriating, to develop the Lucas executive produced sequel to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, an ironically infuriating new film indeed, given that Jones had been implicitly linked to Friedkin in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, a film artist whose film sets were just as dangerous as those of Landis.  Infuriating was really putting it mildly, for the foolish decision of Lucas to stick with a pre-TZ disaster commitment to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg on a sequel to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK shocked, outraged and embittered young audience members around the world as much as the TZ disaster-in fact, perhaps even more!  For working with two of the people most responsible for the TZ disaster and a third that he had been furiously dismissing as a beastly blockbuster loot lusting Lord Palpaberg implied that Lucas did not care about the suspicious, horrific and infuriating deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow, the possibility that Landis had deliberately killed the twilit trio “snuffu-style”, or the damage to his reputation and film artist career that would result from working with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg.  Indeed, unfortunately for Lucas and for the peace of mind and tempers of young audience members, working with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg of his own free will implied that the Stinky Kid was now an equally insidious and beastly blockbuster loot lusting Sith Lord himself-Lord Stinkious!-Emperor Palpaberg’s head Sith puppet who now only cared about making the blockbuster film profits that he needed in order to complete his Skywalker Ranch film facility and pay for his own film art. 

 

This abrupt change mocked his own primly preached code that a person must not only flow with the Afro-mojo Force and be on the Light Side of Good and the Truth, but must have the Law and the police Force with them in order to succeed in life and film art.  A code held so dear by Lord Stinkious prior to July 23, 1982 that he had avoided graphic language, sex and violence in his film art, and had implicitly hid his role as producer of the first Kasdan film BODY HEAT under the pseudonym of Fred Gallo in order to not be linked to murderous duplicity at the height of the popularity of the Classic Trilogy and of himself.  Suddenly it seemed that film art, Good, Law, Light, the police Force and Truth meant nothing to Lord Stinkious when it came to protecting three friends and helping them flee to England to allow them to avoid talking to investigators and even testifying at the TZ trial in order to prevent the truth from being revealed about the TZ disaster-and possibly even to cover up three possible film set murders.  It also suddenly seemed that the cameos of Oz in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and THE BLUES BROTHERS that linked Lord Stinkious to Landis were no idle omens, and that Lord Stinkious was now as firmly caught in the same twilit web as Folsey jr., Landis, Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg. 

 

The attempt to disguise the trimax of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy as a horror film called BLUE HARVEST during U.S. location shooting of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI near Yuma in western Arizona and near Crescent City in northern Cali also took on tragic new meaning, for Lord Stinkious had set off on a dark and insidious new path that was indeed horrible beyond imagination-a catchphrase for BLUE HARVEST that was possibly inspired by the “…temperatures beyond imagination” now mentioned in the opening credits of the second season of BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY-particularly to sincere and dedicated young fans of the Classic Trilogy, who were shattered by this sinister new direction of Lord Stinkious.  Indeed, so shocked and outraged that the X gang rose up in full throttle and furiously shouting Rebellion against Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Marshall, Palpaberg, Stinkious and the TZ disaster.  So righteously furious, that the cast and crew of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, just wrapping up its shoot at Elstree Studios and heading into post-production when the TZ disaster occurred and Lord Stinkious confirmed soon after that he was going to work again with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on the Indy sequel, must have became worried. 

 

After all, what was supposed to be perhaps the most sweet, Light, Good, healing and harmonizing cinematic trimax of all time was now linked to infuriating and disappointing disaster, death, duplicity, and betrayal, qualities that would ensure that the film tanked at the box office.  Hamill in particular must have been quite worried.  For his “Good” and “True” J.D. Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker was linked to Lucas, a man now seen by all as an insidious Dark Lord hiding in Jedi robes.  How could Luke Skywalker be accepted by anyone as Good when he was linked to Evil?  Ford was also in a quandary, for how could he return as Jones in the Indy sequel given the twilit and insidious cloud that now hung over Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious?  And if he did return, how could he get audiences to believe that Jones was a Force of Good?

 

Alas, the following month, outraged, shocked, confused and despondent spirits of J.D. Jedi youth were further lowered by the arrival of the disappointingly dismal allegorical Adams indie docufiction novel Life, The Universe And Everything [August 1982], which lamentably failed to bring the Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy to a memorably tragicomic and satisfying conclusion.  However, how grimly fitting that that same month, as Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg fled to England as the light and success of E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL was swept away by the darkness and failure of the TZ disaster, Slava Tsukerman’s eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical, ragingly iconoclastic, indomitable, CGI free, Ozian themed and implicitly Palpaberg and Stinkious roasting indie docufeature film LIQUID SKY (1982), was released between August 19-29 of 1982 at the Montreal World Film Festival.  For LIQUID SKY was not only an ultra indie film that reaffirmed that indie films were going to play a significant role in the dread allegorical Zone Wars, but the complete and nasty opposite of E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.  Indeed, the positive psychic link between Elliot and E.T. was replaced by the negative psychic link between Anne Carlisle’s Wicked and implicitly Dorothy linked Margaret and an extraterrestrial drug and sex fiend, allowing Margaret to use its vampirically draining powers to kill a group of sexually abusive male suitors implicitly linked to prominent male film artists like Lynch, Palpaberg and Stinkious.  And, alas, how also all too fitting that Margaret would be last seen in the film being spirited off into space by that alien addict after being unable to conquer her own drug and sex addictions, reminding us that not only film art but audiences had been led astray by addictions to special and visual effects filled fantastic films before we were all woken up too late to their dangers by the TZ disaster. 

 

And how even more fitting that LIQUID SKY would not only be an eerily twilit and prescient roast of Emperor Palpaberg and Lord Stinkious and their addictive and effects filled Ozian themed sly fi films that was perfectly in tune with the new righteously furious and anti-dangerous special effects mood of the post-TZ disaster era, but that Carlisle would also play the cynical and nasty and implicitly Cowardly Lion linked Jimmy in the film, given that Cameron would lead the Zonebusting way in post-1982 film art.  A righteously furious Zonebusting link to Canada that was reiterated right around the same time that LIQUID SKY debuted at the Montreal World Film Festival in late August of 1982 when Vancouver born and raised Marc Singer also implicitly led the cinematic fight against Kennedy, Landis and Marshall in the equally eerily and presciently twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Don Coscarelli indie docufeature film THE BEASTMASTER (1982), a film released on August 20, 1982 that was another iconoclastically indie film that reaffirmed that indie films were already playing a prominent and indomitable role in the dread allegorical Zone Wars.  

 

For the concluding and exultant triumph of Singer’s immortal, Hamill resembling and implicitly Lucas and Scarecrow linked psychic Dar and the always gorgeous and implicitly Dorothy linked Kiri-played by Tanya Roberts-over Torn’s Wicked, child sacrificing, implicitly Potterton linked and truly mad Maax, High Priest of Ar, and his weird Witches at his twisted Temple of Doom, and Tony Epper’s remorselessly slaughtering and Lord Humungous resembling Jun Leader and his violent horde of barbarian Juns was reimagined by Canadian and world X gang members away from Coscarelli’s implicit allegorical intent into a more pressing and important allegorical triumph of equally indomitable, heroic, righteously furious and twilit trio avenging young audiences over the Wicked child sacrificing Marshall and Kennedy, and the remorselessly TZ trio slaughtering Jun Landis and his twilit film crew after the film was quickly re-released in the fall of 1982 on First Choice and Superchannel, Canada’s first all film cable television channels, after quickly fading from the Temple Theatre after its release in late August. 

 

Significantly, the sight of the tall, blonde, muscular and Canadian born and raised Singer playing such a commanding role and returning health and harmony to the world, in the end, was also yet another omen that presaged the arrival of the equally tall, blonde, strong, commanding and Canadian born and raised Cameron in theatres and his own superhuman efforts to return peace and harmony to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre as a master of the cinematic universe.  Just as significantly, as Morrow exited stage right for good, one of his daughters, Jennifer Jason Leigh, suddenly appeared on the scene to keep her father’s spirit alive and inspire the X gang onwards in her role as restless teen Stacy Hamilton in the allegorical, CGI free and AMERICAN GRAFFITI and ANIMAL HOUSE evoking Amy Heckerling indie docufeature film FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982), an indie film released on August 13, 1982 that not only reaffirmed that female film artists and indie film art were both going to play prominent and indomitable roles in the dread allegorical Zone Wars, but implicitly roasted twilit male film artists like Bigelow and Montgomery implicitly did in THE LOVELESS. 

 

Indeed, Lynch, Milius and Spielberg were all implicitly roasted in the film in the symbolic forms of tormented teens Brad Hamilton, Jeff Spicoli and Mark “Rat” Ratner-played by Judge Reinhold, Sean Penn and Brian Backer, respectively.  How strangely fitting too that the teen girls of the film were more assertive and were given more equal time on the screen than the teen girls of AMERICAN GRAFFITI or the young college women of ANIMAL HOUSE, given that female film artists were already playing a more assertive role in the dread allegorical Zone Wars.  In fact, to reaffirm that female film artists and indie film art were already playing a prominent role in the dread allegorical Zone Wars, not long after the release of FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, Susan Seidelman implicitly summed up the frustration of female film artists and their eagerness to play a more prominent role in the now twilit world of film art in her presciently twilit, allegorical and all too fittingly entitled and CGI free indie docufeature film SMITHEREENS (1982)-fittingly entitled, given that the world of film art and the hopes and dreams of audiences and aspiring young film artists had been blown to smithereens by the TZ disaster-which was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 11, 1982.  For the film featured a young, angry, frustrated bored, restless, creative, disaffected, homeless, impecunious, peripatetic, feisty and exuberantly indie punkette Jersey Girl named Wren-played by Susan Berman-who spent the film wandering the wan streets of New York doing all she could to join a defiantly indie punk band and succeed in the music scene so she didn’t have to return to a boring suburban life in Jersey.  A musical dream implicitly linked to a cinematic dream, as the object of her musical affections, the indie punk rocker Eric-fittingly played by real life indie punk rocker Richard Hell-resembled and was implicitly linked to Lynch throughout SMITHEREENS, while New York indie film artist Amos Poe had a cameo as a hustler in a bar. 

 

Indeed, Wren’s name and fondness for black and white sunglasses and clothing affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, reminding us that his last film was the equally black and white and London shot THE ELEPHANT MAN, a film alluded to in SMITHEREENS.  Curiously, given that Eric rejected Wren and headed off to Lynch’s hometown of L.A. for fame and fortune, in the end, Seidelman implied her fear that the success of THE ELEPHANT MAN would go to the head of Lynch and cause him to leave behind his indie moving paintings and embrace mainstream blockbuster pap.  At any rate, given that the dread allegorical Zone Wars had broken out in full Force fury, it was fitting that after tormenting Eric and various other background extras implicitly linked to Lucas and Spielberg, Wren broke free from these twilit and implicitly film artist linked men and appeared to head uncertainly off on her own indomitably indie film art and music direction at the end of the film, implicitly affirming that a new era of indie female film art had arrived. 

 

Thus, with Bigelow, Heckerling and Seidelman showing up over the course of one year after a decades long drought of significant female film artists stretching back to the equally feisty and fearless Fifties film art of Ida Lupino, it was suddenly and unexpectedly clear that female film artists were indeed going to play a prominent role in the dread Zone Wars, and that their feminine spirits and energy would counterbalance the male energy and spirits of their favourite implicit targets, the main twilit male film artists of the Zone War era-a good thing too, given that the TZ disaster had made clear that the Dark Sides of those male film artists were controlling them and twitching them around like spineless puppets on a string.  Curiously, that same September of ’82, Bruce Springsteen also eerily kicked off the musical side of the allegorical Zone Wars with his lean, mean, acoustic and presciently twilit and allegorical recording NEBRASKA (1982), which like LIQUID SKY and THE BEASTMASTER had apparently been created before the TZ disaster.

 

“Everything dies baby that’s a fact

Maybe everything that dies someday comes back.”

 

Eerie and prescient, indeed, for the opening eponymous and allegorical song “Nebraska” brooded over the killing spree of a young killer couple who all too fittingly evoked Kennedy and Marshall in one of the last eerie and ominous memories of the future TZ disaster.  The sad and wistful second allegorical tune “Atlantic City” was also in tune with the sad and wistful twilit times, for it sadly and wistfully evoked the allegorical Malle indie docufeature film ATLANTIC CITY (1980), released two years and a sunny and Skyrocking eternity ago.  Significantly, the fourth allegorical tune “Johnny 99” was even more in eerie and prescient tune with the righteous fury of the times, as it was a righteously furious meditation on a murderer named Johnny who evoked Johnny Landis.  The fifth allegorical tune “Highway Patrolman”, reaffirmed that the Boss was in eerily prescient tune with the twilit new era.  For the song was about a police officer named Joe Roberts, whose “J.R.” initials and profession reminded us that until the TZ disaster, Lucas jr. had preached that the Good Force must be with you in order to succeed in life…always. 

 

Listening to J.R. lament in the song about his wayward younger brother Frank, a troubled Vietnam war vet, reaffirmed the eerie prescience of the song and recording.  For J.R.’s lament reminded us that Lucas jr. was the mentor of the wayward and younger Frank Marshall, now troubled by the deaths on a simulated Vietnam War village set of Chen, Le and Morrow.  That J.R. was unable to arrest Frank after his last crime and let him flee into the night in a no doubt stolen car toward the UK linked Canadian border, in the end, was also eerily prescient, for it reminded us that by the time of the release of NEBRASKA in September of ’82, Lord Stinkious had let Marshall flee with Kennedy and Spielberg to London ostensibly to work on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, allowing all three to evade investigation and prosecution for the TZ disaster. 

 

Thus, it was fitting that “Highway Patrolman” in turn inspired one of the finest allegorical films of the dread Zone Wars, lovingly crafted by a young film artist in the form of Penn with a reason to believe who was linked forever to the twilit and disastrous year of ’82 via his role as Spicoli in FAST TIMES AT RIDGMONT HIGH.  In addition, the allegorical seventh tune “Used Cars” reaffirmed the eerie prescience of the piece, for like “Atlantic City” the song linked the recording openly and wistfully to 1980 via USED CARS.  Last but not least, the recording’s last allegorical tune “Reason To Believe” wryly and sarcastically predicted that people would find a reason to believe, no matter how bad things became in life, which is actually what happened with film art, despite the shocking and outraging TZ disaster.  As for Herbert, he implicitly roasted Lord Stinkious in the eerily prescient and twilit allegorical indie docufeature novel The White Plague (September 1982).

 

“And what did you hear,

you there with your ears stuck out

like the wings on a bird?”

 

Indeed, the unleashing of a computer assisted plague on the world that only killed females by an implicitly Lucas linked mad scientist named John Roe O’Neill implied that the Master of Arrakis believed that, unlike his own literary art, the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy was a CGI enhanced plague on humanity that would only appeal to males.  Indeed, the novel’s allusions to AMERICAN GRAFFITI, the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy, THE HOWLING, THE INCREDIBLE HULK and THX 1138; the open allusion to San Rafael, which was then home to the headquarters of both Lucasfilm and ILM; the Irish militia known as the Beach Boys; the priest with the Dreyfuss evoking name, Father Ambrose Dreyfus; Pope Luke; the possible link of supporting “Adam and Eve” couple Stephen Browder and Katherine “Kate” O’Gara to Palpaberg and Kennedy; and the implicit link of supporting character Fintan Craig Doheny, whose name had a “Yoda” hidden within it, to Francis Ford Coppola all affirmed the implicit Lucas roasting intent of The White Plague.  Significantly, the Provisional IRA bombing in Dublin that killed O’Neill’s implicitly Marcia linked wife, Mary, and their two Jedi twin children, Kevin and Mairead, at the beginning of the novel were another dead twilit trio that anticipated the TZ trio in another eerily prescient memory of the future.  Eerily prescient, indeed, given that Mary was decapitated in the explosion, and that the Provo bomber, Joseph L. Herity, was standing at a window of the Film Society Building watching the streets below when he set off the explosion, implicitly linking the explosion to a beastly blockbuster bomb.

 

Significantly, the worldwide outrage created by O’Neill’s plague soon materialized in the equally embittered worldwide outrage of young audiences in the Fall of 1982 when the initial title of the trilogy trimax STAR WARS EPISODE VI: REVENGE OF THE JEDI was revealed in a trailer that preceded a special double feature re-release of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK in October of that year-which, despite our fury over the emergence of Lord Stinkious, my J.D. Jedi friends and I saw four times at the legendary Stanley Theatre in Vancouver, finally allowing me to see STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, as I had missed it the first time around.  Such worldwide outrage that a furious letter writing campaign was launched by the world’s ardent young Jedi to get Lord Stinkious to change the title of the film.  For everyone knew that true J. D. Jedi did not strike in revenge, only in defense! 

 

Curiously, The Making Of STAR WARS: Return Of The Jedi not only made no mention of the controversy, it ended its coverage of the making of the film in November of ’82 just when the controversy erupted, implying that Lord Stinkious, Marquand and company tried to ignore the outrage (Peecher, pp. 260-4).  It was also grimly amusing to note how confident Stinky, Marquand and company were that the trimax to the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy was going to be another much loved success, despite the fact that Lord Stinkious himself predicted some of the reasons why STAR WARS EPISODE VI: REVENGE OF THE JEDI was going to be a disaster:

 

…special effects don’t make the movie, and they

are only important to tell the story and to give the

characters credibility…The whole thing relies on the

actors.  I would say the acting and the story are at

least 75 percent of the film.  Just that.  If you can’t

get that 75 percent, if you don’t have good perform-

ances and a good plot, you will never get the film to

run on the 25 percent that is left.  No matter how

brilliant a director you are, how fantastic the special

effects, how beautifully it is photographed, how

wonderful the music is, it will not work as a popular

movie running on 25 percent. (Peecher, p. 243).

 

Too bad, because the indomitable letter campaign not only affirmed how angry young fans were with Stinky and his decision to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, but also implied that young audiences were going to reconfigure STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to fit the Zonegeist as they had done already with THE BEASTMASTER and would soon do to the twilit and allegorical Kotcheff docufeature film FIRST BLOOD (1982), which arrived in the Temple Theatre on October 22, 1982. 

 

For, while implicitly and satirically toasting Dante in the form of traumatized and haunted Vietnam War vet and ex-Green Beret John J. Rambo-played by Stallone-and implicitly and satirically roasting Rush in the form of nasty and violent small town cop Deputy Arthur “Art” Galt-played by Jack Starrett, who affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Rush via his role as California Highway Patrol (CHiP) Sergeant Bingham in the allegorical and implicitly Andy Warhol roasting HELL’S ANGELS ON WHEELS (1967)-the sight and sound of Rambo refusing to leave the town of Hope and returning to cause trouble for its inhabitants evoked the trouble that Landis had caused with the TZ disaster and anticipated the twilit trouble that enshrouded all film artists by the refusal of Landis to leave Hollywood and stop creating films after the TZ disaster. 

 

Indeed, the film long police pursuit of Rambo which evoked the film long police pursuit of the Blues brothers, the arrival of Rambo’s older and implicitly Corman linked but also Folsey jr. evoking military mentor Colonel Samuel “Sam” Trautman-played by Richard Crenna-and the revelation that Rambo was a member of the Rick Baker evoking Baker Team in ‘Nam affirmed the implicitly reconfigured link of John Rambo to John Landis.  The sight and sound of Rambo causing Galt to fall out of a helicopter to his death reaffirmed the implicitly reconfigured link of Rambo to Landis.  How all too eerily fitting as well that Jerry Goldsmith composed the soundtrack for FIRST BLOOD, given that he would compose the soundtrack for TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  Luckily for Kotcheff, however, and despite these reconfigured allusions to Landis, the dangerous live stunts and explosions that made FIRST BLOOD such a gripping action adventure and box office success somehow did not result in any serious injuries for cast and crew.  Significantly, but not too surprisingly, the outraged X gang also led the film reconfiguring as well as the withering fury poured on Emperor Palpaberg by scornful audiences when Palpy returned with Kahn to the Temple Theatre near the end of October of 1982 as co-writer and co-producer with Marshall-and with Kennedy as associate producer-to implicitly roast Reitman and Bill Murray in the twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed Hooper animaction film POLTERGEIST (1982). 

 

Indeed, Hooper, Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg implicitly roasted Bill and Mickey Murray and Reitman in the forms of Steven, Diane, and Robbie Freeling-played by Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, and Oliver Robins, respectively-and implied that the sight and sound of the Freelings uniting with oldest child Dana-played by Dominique Dunne-to successfully free youngest sibling Carol Anne-played by Heather O’Rourke-from imprisonment in the spirit world but abandoning their poltergeist haunted dream home, in the end, symbolized the likelihood that Murray and Reitman would not succeed in the world of film art.  However, in the new and outraged post-TZ disaster era, the ultimately successful and eucatastrophic battle of Steve, Diane, Dana and Robbie first freeing the young, pretty, blonde and implicitly Dorothy linked Carole Anne from the Twilight Zone of television was reimagined by the X gang to symbolize and anticipate the frantic and desperate battle of Hooper, Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg to use their film art to free Chen, Le, Morrow, audiences, film art, film artists, the Temple Theatre and themselves from the Twilight Zone with their allegorical film art after the TZ disaster.  Indeed, this reimagining was helped by the fact that the film was partly inspired by the allegorical, Matheson scripted and Paul Stewart telefilm “Little Girl Lost" (1962) from the third season of the original TWILIGHT ZONE and directed by a man who eerily shared the exact same name of the on set special effects supervisor on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE on July 23, 1982 and who was now a co-defendant of Landis in the upcoming TZ disaster trial. 

 

Curiously, Freeling’s imprisonment in the family television set also suggested that ex-telefilm artist Palpaberg was now worried that the safe Temple Theatre haven of film art was being taken over by television-like commercialism.  This was an ironic fear, given that the invasion of the theatres by television was precipitated by his own successful switch from television to film, by using a large number of popular television performers in his films-especially 1941-and by his own blatant commercialism in E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.  At any rate, POLTERGEIST was not very good, linking up with E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL and the TZ disaster to give audiences another good reason to dislike Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg in 1982.  A Holiday Inn sign proclaiming “…WELCOME DR FANTASTY & FRIENDS” at the end of the film and the children’s chorus theme with its closing happy laughter by Goldsmith were also sadly out of place after the TZ disaster.  To make matters worse, shortly after the release of POLTERGEIST, young Dunne was strangled to death by an ex-boyfriend on November 4, 1982, making a total of five people linked to Palpaberg and his films-including Belushi-to die that year. 

 

The death of Leonard Nimoy’s Science Officer Spock on Genesis planet in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN added to the gloom of the twilit telefilm dominated times, twilit and gloomy times that saw the release of the first allegorical and implicitly Sir Scott and ALIEN roasting Cameron indie docufeature film PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1982), on November 5, 1982.  Gloomy and twilit times that, as with THE BEASTMASTER, fitted the arrival of the eerily and presciently twilit, macabrely allegorical, implicitly Ozian themed film roasting and King scripted George A. Romero indie docufeature film CREEPSHOW (1982), which arrived in the Temple Theatre on November 12, 1982.

 

An eerily and presciently twilit film, indeed, given that the film had already been filmed and was in the post-production stage when the TZ disaster occurred, and one that was also reimagined by outraged young audiences.  For the opening and implicitly Dorothy linked and Rush and THE STUNTMAN addressing story of the film, “Father’s Day”, saw the decomposing and Morrow evoking corpse of Grantham family patriarch Nathan Grantham-played  in flashbacks by Jon Lormer, who openly linked the film to Rush via his Nixonian performance as college presidient Doctor Vandenburg in GETTING STRAIGHT, and John Amplas as a corpse, respectively-rise from the dead and, after killing his murderess, his black clad and implicitly Wicked Witch of the East linked daughter “Aunt” Bedelia Grantham-played by Viveca Lindfors-and opening the gates of the macrabrely healing Ozian dream, then proceeded to hunt down and kill children who now were reimagined to be the spoiled, bratty, indolent and implicitly Kennedy and Dorothy linked Cass Blaine, the implicitly Marshall linked Henry “Hank” Blaine and the implicitly Palpaberg linked Richard Grantham-played by Elizabeth Regan, Ed Harris and Warner Shook, respectively-and the mother of Cass and Richard, the implicitly Glinda linked Sylvia Grantham-played by Carrie Nye.  The sight of Syliva’s head being wrenched off and used as a Father’s Day cake by the vengeful corpse of Nathan at the end of the story reaffirmed the film’s eerily twilit prescience, evoking the decapitation of Morrow yet again.

 

It was also grimly fitting that King’s implicitly Kubrick and Scarecrow linked but Lucas evoking yokel farmer Jordy “J.D.” Verrill, killed himself after a meteor that landed on his rural farm infected him with green plant-like disease instead of bringing him blockbuster fame and fortune in the “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, the second and implicitly Scarecrow linked story of CREEPSHOW, an implication affirmed by the story’s echoes of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and THX 1138.  For the sad sight and sound summed up bitter and furious belief of young audiences that Lord Stinkious was killing himself and his film art by his lust for the green of money, an implied belief that would be affirmed by the trimatic conclusion of the Classic Trilogy. 

 

Significantly, after the third and implicitly Tin Man linked and Cronenberg addressing story "Something To Tide You Over", the fourth and implicitly Cowardly Lion linked and implicitly RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK roasting story, “The Crate” continued the film’s overall eerily twilit prescience.  For this implicitly Lucas and Spielberg roasting and fittingly Hirsch edited story saw a vengeful and Cujo evoking monster-nicknamed Fluffy by cast and crew, and played by Arnold Backer-that resembled a cross between the Cowardly Lion and Nikko the Monkey King roar out of an Ark of the Covenant evoking crate and kill a twilit trio of two men and one woman, the latter of which, the bitchy and implicitly Marcia Lucas linked Wilma Northrup-played by Adrienne Barbeau-henpecking wife of the implicitly Lucas linked Doctor Henry Northrup-played by Hal Holbrook-was the implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked character of the film.  How also fitting that the film ended with “They’re Creeping Up On You!”, a fifth and final macabre story that saw the implicitly Great Oz linked and Bob Hope evoking Upson Pratt-played by E.G. Marshall-fight off an invasion of bugs in his sterile apartment, for his name and battle evoked Edwin Catmull and his battle to conquer the bugs besetting CGI so as to make CGI enhanced film art-and even all CGI film art-a reality.  But not all post-TZ disaster film art, for three weeks after the release of CREEPSHOW, another eerily and presciently twilit and CGI free indie docufeature film arrived in the Temple Theatre whose popularity reaffirmed the important role that CGI free indie film art would play in the dread allegorical Zone Wars, the allegorical Sir Attenborough indie docufeature film GANDHI (1982), released on December 8, 1982. 

 

Curiously, ironically, but luckily for Sir Attenborough, the film was popular despite the fact that, after implicitly roasting Stinkious in MAGIC, Sir Attenborough changed his mind and implicitly sympathetically linked the struggle of Mohandas K. Gandhi-played by Sir Ben Kingsley-to lead the peaceful Indian rebellion in a triumphant defeat of the British Empire and to establish an independent India to the struggle of Lord Stinkious to lead the New Hollywood film rebellion to defeat the Emperor Palpaberg led Hollywood blockbuster film empire and establish a new era of indie film art.  Indeed, to affirm its implicit intent, various British characters who evoked Palpaberg were linked to the British Empire throughout GANDHI, reminding us of Palpaberg’s implicit link to the insidious Emperor Sidious in the Classic Trilogy.  Eerily, given that GANDHI would have been in post-production in July of 1982 in order to make its December 1982 release, it was eerie that the assassin who, in the end, killed Gandhi, one pathetic Nathuran Godse-played by Harsh Nayyar-looked like Landis, in another ominous and prescient memory of the future. 

 

Significantly, the implicit Lord Stinkious supporting intent of GANDHI was missed or furiously dismissed by the angry, disaffected, embittered and unhappy young audiences who flocked to the film, perhaps due to another reconfiguration of the film by audiences to fit the outraged new Zonegeist.  For the film now seemed less like an allegory for Lucas and more fittingly like an allegory for the arrival of an indomitably virtuous film artist like Cronenberg or Lynch who was not linked in any way to the TZ disaster or beastly blockbuster lusts and who would rally audiences to his cause of film art for film art’s sake and triumph over Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious with a great allegorical film that would bring harmony back to the universe and peace to the Temple Theatre.  Lynch clearly thought the same, for he soon announced to the delight of young audiences and the despair of Seidelman that he would try to do just that with a cinematic version of Dune.  A commitment to exorcising the TZ disaster and bringing harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre presciently anticipated and attempted in the twilit, allegorical and Kurtz and Jim Henson produced, Henson and Oz indie film THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982), which arrived in the Temple Theatre shortly before Christmas on December 17, 1982.

 

For the film long battle between the implicitly film art for blockbuster loot’s sake Skeksis, led by the Evil, life Force lusting and implicitly Stinkious linked Emperor-puppeted by Dave Goelz and voiced by Michael Kilgarrif, respectively-and the gentle and film art for film art’s sake Mystics now grimly and fittingly anticipated the battle between twilit film artists and Zonebusting film artists in the post-TZ disaster era.  The sight and sound of the perseverant and Gardevil anticipating Gelfing, Jen-played by Henson-using the missing shard to repair the Dark Crystal and transform it into the Light Crystal, thus bringing light and health and harmony back to a dark and diseased world and uniting the implicitly film art loving Mystics and implicitly commercial art loving Skeksis into fused, ethereal and luminous artbusting beings also grimly and fittingly anticipated the battle by artbusting film artists like Cameron and Lynch to bring health and harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre and end the dread allegorical Zone Wars after 1982.  Last but not least, the dimunitive but indomitable Gelflings, dying Mystics and twisted Skeksis also anticipated the equally dimunitive and indomitable Ewoks, dying Yoda and twisted Hutt and his entourage of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, and the film as a whole also influenced the look and plot of THE FIFTH ELEMENT. 

 

And so ended the twilit, shocking, enraging, depressing, demoralizing and tumultuous year that saw TIME magazine, perhaps as impressed by the CGI in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN and TRON as everyone else, nominate the computer as “Person Of The Year” in one of their final issues of 1982.  And so with its tragic and fatal helicopter crash that could have been prevented, its tragic murder and its film travesties, 1982 was a black, bleak, shocking and righteously infuriating year for Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Marshall, Palpaberg, Stinkious and audiences-particularly young audiences!  Indeed, it was even more memorable and transformative than 1962 had been for Lord Stinkious twenty years earlier-where were YOU in ’82?  And of all of the film artists caught up in the twilit nightmare, none was effected more by the shocking turn of events than Lord Stinkious.  For no film artist of the era was more linked to the Light Side and the Good Force than Lord Stinkious, making his perceived betrayal of that Light Side and of audiences-particularly young audiences-by supporting Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg after the TZ disaster that much more disappointing, embittering and infuriating. 

 

And so the long days waned, the slow moons climbed, and the sadolescent deeps moaned ‘round with many angst ridden, betrayed, furious and troubled voices.  Evoking the aid they gave Palpaberg with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, Universal Studios wrapped THE INCREDIBLE HULK after four Forceful seasons and rallied to protect their boy wonder film artist from the TZ disaster by rushing out the first twilit and allegorical season of THE A-TEAM telefilm series exactly six months after the TZ disaster on January 23, 1983.  Indeed, the name of the A-Team reminded us that 1941 was listed in the end titles as an A Team Production, affirming the implicit link of THE A-TEAM to Emperor Palpaberg.  And so the allegorical Rod Holcomb directed pilot telefilm for the series “Mexican Slayride” (1983) had the dubious honour of being the first true implicit film or telefilm response of the dread allegorical Zone Wars.  And dread was the word, as the dreadful series saw four Vietnam War outlaws, Boscoe “B.A.” Barrakas, “Mad Dog” Murdock, Templeton “Faceman” Peck and Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith-implicitly linked to Palpaberg, Marshall, Allingham and Landis, and played by Mr. T, Dwight Schulz, Tim Dunigan and George Peppard, respectively-striking out against evildoers from their secret base in the L.A. underground in a desperate attempt to restore the reputations of Allingham, Landis, Marshall and Palpaberg.  A desperate attempt that made clear that the quality of allegorical telefilm and film art would be dramatically lower than before the disaster, a characteristic of the dread allegorical Zone Wars that has never improved. 

 

And then Winter turned to Spring, helped along by grim and determined Dungeons and Dragons campaigns-how eerily fitting that TSR’s first storefront home was located at 723 Williams Street in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in another presciently twilit memory of the future (Ewalt, 105)-and the Colecovision home video game system that turned living rooms into the zen arcade.  And to the delight of young fans, most of whom were flexing their political power for the first time, the righteously furious letter campaign eventually worked, for early in ‘83 Lord Stinkous caved in and changed the title of the Classic Trilogy trimax to STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Ominously, however, eerily twilit prescience also continued when Cronenberg became one of the first film artists to presciently and implicitly reaffirm that a twilit new film world had emerged in his prescient, PKD-like and visionary indie docufeature film VIDEODROME (1983).

 

        For the film began with a wake up cassette from Julie Khaner’s helpful and Ripley evoking secretary Bridey James to James Woods’ implicitly Sir Scott linked Channel 83 CIVIC TV producer Max Renn on Wednesday, the 23^rd, again eerily anticipating the July 23, 1982 date of the TZ disaster.  The fact that James addressed the camera in her wake up call reaffirmed that eerie anticipation, reminding us that breaking the fourth wall was a famous characteristic of the film art of Landis.  The appearance of the Landis evoking Harlan and the Folsey jr. evoking Barry Convex-played by Max Dvorsky and Les Carlson, respectively-also all too fittingly implied that Cronenberg was addressing Folsey and Landis in the film.  In fact, the special makeup designed and created by Baker for VIDEODROME evoked his work on AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and SCHLOCK, openly linking the film to Landis.  Making Renn’s battle against the snuff television of Videodrome and Convex and Harlan on one level another memory of the future that anticipated the battle against Folsey and Landis after the TZ disaster given that the film was created in the fall and early winter of ’81 before the TZ disaster, as much as an implicit roast of Sir Scott and ALIEN. 

 

Curiously, President Ronald Reagan surprised all with a speech on March 23, 1983 that promised to save the world from nuclear apocalypse with an anti-ballistic missile Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) based on land and in space.  The President called the space based half of the SDI “Star Wars”, provoking an indignant response from Lord Stinkious that reminded us that the phrase “Star Wars” referred to battling directors and not war in the stars.  An indignant response that also implicitly affirmed that Lord Stinkious was now worried about being linked to real violence in the post-TZ disaster era.  Significantly, two days after President Reagan’s speech, the film artist who kicked off the New Hollywood era in ’63 with DEMENTIA 13 became one of the first-if not the first-film artist to launch an intentionally implicit cinematic salvo in the dread allegorical Zone Wars rather than an eerily prescient and ominous memory of the TZ disaster future haunted film, kicking off the careers of a talented group of Boomer brat actors and actresses in the process when he teamed up again with Carmine, Colby, Roos, Tavoularis and Richard Beggs, Gray Frederickson and Tom Waits-sound designer, co-producer and composer of, ONE FROM THE HEART, respectively-and returned to theatres on March 25, 1983 with the twilit, allegorical and CGI free indie docufeature film THE OUTSIDERS (1983), inspired by the allegorical S.E. Hinton novel The Outsiders (1967), which was a fitting choice, given that the novel may have been an allegorical tribute to the young Rebels of New Hollywood and their opening battles with Old Hollywood. 

 

“Stay gold.”

 

Significantly, in the sight and sound of a group of despised teenage outcasts fighting back against the wealthier teens of mainstream society and truly going for gold by beating them in the film’s climatic rumble, in the end, Coppola implicitly conceded that the film artists of New Hollywood were now in the bad books of mainstream society but would not go down without an Oscar questing fight and perhaps might ultimately have the last laugh by fighting their way back to respectability and success.  Curiously, Coppola also implied his fear that his era of dominance over film art in general and New Hollywood film art in particular was over, given that the implicitly Coppola linked John “Johnny” Cade-played by Ralph Macchio-succumbed to wounds caused by critical fire towards the end of the film after implicitly striking back at the success of the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy by stabbing a Hamill resembling and implicitly linked Soc named Bob Sheldon-played by Leif Garrett-to death. 

 

However, the sight and sound of Coppola’s daughter, Sofia, making a humourous cameo appearance as the skinny, slant eyed girl-under the nom d’art of Domino-also affirmed his hope that the Coppola commitment to film art would carry on in his daughter, as it did.  The sight of the child hating and implicitly Landis linked Dallas “Dally” Winston-the “Lantis” hidden within the letters of his given names affirming his implicit link to Landis, and played by Matt Dillon-being gunned down by police near the end of the film also implied that Coppola thought that the career of Landis was over, given that the ending evoked the sight of Kessler’s werewolf being gunned down by police at the end of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.  Curiously, however, Coppola also implied that he thought that Lord Stinkious would successfully carry on, given that the film ended with the implicitly Stinky linked Ponyboy Curtis-played by C. Thomas Howell-sighing resignedly and writing down the story of the Outsiders in a school notebook, in the end.

 

Fittingly, not long after the release of THE OUTSIDERS, Besson implicitly reaffirmed that the embattled new Zone War era had begun and implicitly likened the struggles of twilit film artists to find their cinematic voices and reconnect with their film art and with audiences in the post-TZ disaster era to the desperate battles between a group of voiceless men for power and women in a twilit and black and white post-apocalyptic world when he appeared in the Temple Theatre on April 6, 1983 with his twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film LE DERNIER COMBAT (1983).  Significantly, the angry and embattled film summed up the furious new Zone War era well, an outraged fury that caused angry and embittered audiences to furiously reject the sweet, gentle, twilit and allegorical Disney and Jack Clayton docufeature film SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983), when the film arrived in theatres on April 13, 1983. 

 

Curiously, the film saw the Chen and Le evoking and possibly Cronenberg and King linked pair of Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade-played by Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson, respectively-successfully free themselves and their small and implicitly Hollywood linked Illinois town from the seductive temptation to join the twilit and Evil company of the implicitly Landis linked Mr. Dark-played by Jonathan Pryce-and his implicitly twilit film crew linked Pandemonium Carnival who arrived to torment the town late one dark and spooky 23^rd of October.  And, despite the lack of popularity and half-hearted and flat spirit of the film, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES was a fitting choice for the first Zone War salvo from Disney.  For the Ray Bradbury scripted film reminded us that Mr. Dark in his black suit evoked Rod Serling, the Halloway surname evoked Hollywood, and Jimnight Shade had the same cadence as Twilight Zone, implying that Bradbury was already exploring the Dark struggle between Hollywood film art and the bodysnatching TWILIGHT ZONE series on television decades before the TZ disaster in his eerily prescient and twilit indie docufiction novel Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), an ironic implication, indeed, given that Bradbury wrote the teleplay for the allegorical William Claxton and James Sheldon telefilm “I Sing The Body Electric” (1962) for the third season of the original TWILIGHT ZONE telefilm series. 

 

Fittingly, given his implicit link to Nightshade in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, on April 29, 1983, King became one of the first literary artists to launch a literary salvo in the dread allegorical Zone Wars by implicitly and furiously roasting Palpaberg and his beastly and insidious lusts for blockbuster fame and fortune in the implicit form of Arnold Cunningham, a naïve and foolish teen who proved to be not so cunning as his surname suggested, when he allowed himself to be taken over and possessed by his twilit, Evil and murderous blockbuster beast of a car in the twilit and allegorical indie docufiction novel Christine (1983), a literary salvo that made it implicitly clear that literary artists were just as angry about the TZ disaster as audiences and film artists, and that the Zone Wars would be as literary as they were cinematic.  Cinematic indeed, as on the same day that Christine arrived in bookstores and libraries the twilit and allegorical Tony Scott indie docufeature film THE HUNGER (1983), arrived in the Temple Theatre, a film which saw the implicitly Landis linked human consort John-played by David Bowie-wither and die before he could achieve the immortality enjoyed by his vampiress lover Miriam Blaylock-played by Catherine Deneuve-implying that Scott believed that Landis had also doomed himself by his lust for film immortality.  Given that the film’s Good female protagonist Sarah Roberts-played by Susan Sarandon-had a name whose initials were the reverse of those of Ridley Scott and also fell briefly prey to a lust for Miriam, perhaps Scott also warned his elder brother to be careful lest he suffer the same fate as Landis.

 

Significantly, on the same day as the release of THE HUNGER, Martha Coolidge reaffirmed that female film artists were indeed emerging as significant players in the film art scene when she implicitly hoped that Landis would succeed again with his film art and win over audiences to his wacky cause like Nicolas Cage’s implicitly Landis linked Randy, the Hollywood Hills outsider, succeeded in winning over Deborah Foreman’s Julie at the end of the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film VALLEY GIRL (1983), inspired by the equally allegorical William Shakespeare play ROMEO AND JULIET (1595).  The following month, McCammon reaffirmed that literary artists would be active participants in the dread allegorical Zone Wars with the publication of the equally outraged, despondent, haunted and moving allegorical meditation on the TZ disaster, Mystery Walk (May 1983).  As for John Badham, he had the dubious honour to return to the Temple Theatre on May 13, 1983 to ironically toast Stinkious and roast DePalma and BLOW OUT with one of the last of the eerily prescient and twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed indie docufeature films, BLUE THUNDER (1983). 

 

“Grab your ankles

and kiss your ass goodbye, JAFO.

!We’re going down!”

 

Indeed, the sight and sound of the older, experienced and Vietnam War haunted vet and implicitly Scarecrow and Stinkious linked LAPD helicopter pilot Officer Francis McNeil “Frank” Murphy-played by Scheider-outlasting and avenging the murder of his naïve and implicitly DePalma and Cowardly Lion linked observer Officer Richard “JAFO” Lymangood-his name and that of Murphy evoking Lyman Frank Baum to implicitly affirm the Ozian theme of the film, and played by Daniel Stern-by the insidious and implicitly Palpaberg linked Grundelius-played by Anthony James-implied the hope of Badham that Stinkious would triumph over DePalma and Palpaberg with the trimax of the Classic Trilogy, an implicit hope affirmed by the film’s allusions to BLOW OUT and THE CAR.  However, the sight and sound of Officer Murphy terminating the eponymous and hi-tech prototype crowd control helicopter codenamed Blue Thunder, a sleek, dangerous and Wicked black biomechanical wasp of a blockbuster beast, by landing it on a train track and allowing a freight train to destroy it and walking away into an uncertain future, in the end, also implied the hope of Badham that Stinkious would also leave behind the hi-tech whiz bang STAR WARS films and head off into a new direction after the release of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN  OF THE JEDI.  Indeed, the return of Clark as Officer Murphy’s on again off again sweetie Kate openly linked the film to Stinkious and AMERICAN GRAFFITI.  The first sight of Blue Thunder flying out of a sunrise at a testing range and the film’s closing sunset, plus the film’s allusions to STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and THX 1138, also affirmed the implicit Stinkious addressing intent of the film. 

 

Curiously, though, and despite this implicit allegorical intent, the film appeared to be one of the first films to address and exorcise the TZ disaster due to its release in May of ‘83.  For Lymangood and Murphy fought to prevent the federal government and its insidious helicopter pilot, the implicitly Glen and Tin Man linked Colonel F. E. Cochrane-played by McDowell-from setting up its Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response (THOR) program with the Blue Thunder prototype helicopter to deal with crime and crowds in L.A.  As the fight ended with Murphy avenging the murder of Lymangood, destroying the beastly Blue Thunder helicopter, and stopping the THOR program, the film could now be reimagined to seem to be doing its best to exoricise Landis and the TZ disaster, allowing peace and harmony to return to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre.

 

However, despite this twilit implication and on closer inspection, BLUE THUNDER was indeed actually one of the last eerily twilit and prescient films to be made in the year before the TZ disaster.  With an emphasis on eerily twilit and prescient, for the names of Frank Murphy and Kate evoked those of Frank Marshall and Kate Kennedy.  The 323 BTY license plate on Kate’s car, the 2535 Los Angeles Street address of Murphy and the 9/23/57 birthdate of Lymangood reaffirmed the film’s eerily twilit prescience.  Murphy’s haunting and troubled memory of the fatal fall of a Vietcong prisoner-played by Bill Ryusaki-from a U.S. Army Huey helicopter during one of his two tours in Vietnam, the TZ disaster evoking sight and sound of three regular police helicopters going down over the course of the film-including that of Murphy and Lymangood, who crashed and totalled their LAPD patrol helicopter one third of the way through the film with some help from Cochrane before they were upgraded to Blue Thunder-and the explosion that terminated Col. Cochrane and his Huey resembling helicopter shortly before the end of the film reaffirmed the film’s eerie prescience.  Last but not least, the return of Oates in his final film as Captain Jack Braddock, the implicitly Great Oz linked commanding officer of Lymangood and Murphy, openly affirmed the twilit spirit of the film.  Thus, the film did little to soothe audiences.  Indeed, the timing of the release of the film and the Frank Marshall evoking name of Frank Murphy unfortunately implied that the film was, alas, outrageous propaganda in support of the Marshall cause.

 

For his part, Lamont Johnson, a director of eight of the original TWILIGHT ZONE telefilms, implicitly took on and took out both the TZ disaster and THE ROAD WARRIOR by having the indomitable ex-Space Marine and implicitly Eastwood and Great Oz linked lone Wolff, and his acerbic, mouthy and implicitly Dorothy linked Gen X teen sidekick Niki-played by Peter Strauss and Molly Ringwald, respectively-travel deep into the Forbidden Zone of planet Terra 11 of the Crinos Nebula to rescue a twilit trio of spacefarers-Meagan, Nova and Reena, played by Deborah Pratt, Cali Timmins and Aleisa Shirley, respectively-and earn that 3000 megacredit award by taking on and taking out the implicitly Landis and Miller linked and Lord Humungous evoking McNabb aka Overdog-played by Michael Ironside-and his twilit and violent Death Maze, a Maze of Death thronged by cheering spectators that reminded us that a crowd of revellers had gathered across the Santa Clarita River to watch and cheer on the final filmed scenes of the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE on the night of the TZ disaster, in the exuberantly and fittingly schlocky, twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed indie docufeature film SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1983), which arrived in the Temple Theatre on May 20, 1983 in pulse pounding 3D no less to the cynical and jaded jeers of Gen X audiences. 

 

And then suddenly and with some trepidation the sun at last dawned bright on the trimatic morning of the day of the week of the month of the year of the decade of the century of the millennia of the Jedi, Wednesday, May 25^th, 1983, the day that we had all been waiting so long for.  Unfortunately, however, the despair, fury, pain and suffering caused by E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, the TZ disaster and the decision of Lord Stinkious to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM filled our minds when we woke up, throwing a dark and diseased pall over this once sunny and sacred day, this holy day and holiday from Delview Junior Secondary School aka poor ol’ Helview in North Delta, British Columbia day, this supposed to be springing in J.D. Jedi delight day-THIS DAY OF THE JEDI!  Were you righteously furious and depressed but still in the front of the line like me in ’83?

 

In short, a surly and sullen mood filled the J.D. Jedi faithful at the front of the line outside the Vogue Theatre in downtown Vancouver on that fateful day.  But despite our disaffection, the angry and despondent not so faithful occasionally started hearty J.D. Jedi chants like “We want Luke!  We want Luke!” from our place at the head of the line, chants that slowly drifted down the growing line south along Granville Street.  Growing indeed, for despite the outrage, confusion and despair of the J.D. Jedi faithful and the fact that STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI started at 12:30 pm that day, as the wanly festive morning wore on the line-up became longer and longer. 

 

By 12:00 pm the line-up was a snaking wave of people stretching for block after block behind my friends and I.  At about that time, the manager of the Vogue Theatre began popping up from behind a curtain in the ticket booth wearing a Darth Vader mask to signal that ticket sales were about to begin.  Knowing how eager we were to see the movie, he mischievously taunted us with the mask, then hid behind the curtain, then reappeared again, over and over for some five or ten minutes.  Every time he appeared from behind the curtain, those of us at the front of the line would shout “We want Darth!  We want Darth!”, creating a wall of noise that echoed across Vancouver and signalled to the others behind us that it was time to buy tickets to what was still the most eagerly awaited film in history.  Similar chants and excitement coursed down the snaking line, and soon the Dark Manager relented, and we bought our tickets, and rushed desperately to the bathrooms, and then rushed to our seats to relieve stalwart seat holding colleagues who also needed to rush desperately to the bathroom. 

 

And so the stately and venerable old Vogue Theatre, that sturdy veteran of the Thirties with its spacious ground floor and its second level balcony, slowly filled up with cautiously excited and murmuring fans and one nutbar that strode to the front of the theatre and dismissed us all as a bunch of peasants.  Then at last, around 12:30 pm, the lights began to dim, setting off a tension relieving roar from the crowd that shook the Temple Theatre and Vancouver and return did Marcia, Baker, Bulloch, Burtt, Catmull, Colley, Daniels, Edlund, Fisher, Ford, Freeborn, Guinness, Hamill, Jones, Kasdan, Kazanjian, Lawson, Mayhew, McQuarrie, Muren, Oz, Prowse, Tippett, Billy Dee and John Williams on the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed, Lord Stinkious executive produced, co-directed, co-edited and co-written and implicitly Palpaberg roasting Marquand indie docufeature film STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.

 

“Twilight is upon [us].”

 

The edgy audience dutifully spoke aloud the Ozian fairy tale preamble of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, a fairy tale preamble that confirmed that Lord Stinkious was still dipping into childhood and THE WIZARD OF OZ to heal the implicitly incest scarred child within but a fairy tale preamble that now bitterly reminded audiences that the pre-TZ disaster era when Lord Stinkious was looked up to and trusted was indeed “…a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”  Then the STAR WARS logo and the triumphant Main Theme by Maestro Williams burst out of the speakers and the screen, and the familiar background of starswept space led to the equally familiar angled FORBIDDEN PLANET scrawl of sun drenched and celestial Yellow Brick words delivering their usual stately and upbeat introduction, also spoken aloud by the assembled Jedi.  But our suspicions were soon confirmed, and a groan erupted from the audience when the celestial paragraph moved from Luke returning to Tatooine to rescue Han, to news of a second, half completed Death Moon even more powerful than the first, back as another insidious and gloating mechanical brain from Arous. 

 

While fittingly more powerful, given that Emperor Palpaberg struck back at STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK with E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, a film even more successful than CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, this double trouble development was another huge and infuriating disappointment for youthful audiences hit with one shocking, confusing, demoralizing and outraging disappointment after another since the TZ disaster.  For we suddenly all realized that we had waited three long millennia for an original and trimatic end to the Classic Trilogy, but we would now be seeing a paraphrase of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE to literally bring the trilogy full circle, complete with another climatic space battle to destroy this new Death Moon, in the end.  At that moment, we groaned in unision, and slumped in bitter and righteously furious disappointment in our seats, mortared in by another twilit brick in the wall.

 

Indeed, we were all so disappointed that STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI would simply repeat STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE that the surly and cynical X gang was born at that moment.  We were convinced that Lord Stinkious had betrayed us again, as he had done earlier by announcing that he was working with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  This sense of betrayal increased as the film progressed, turning Lord Stinkious into our own Dark Father.  Thus, no longer interested in what we were seeing, the Wet Coast audience became detached and sullen spectators who pondered the falling reign of Lord Stinkious and his film Empire as, after the celestial preamble disappeared, we watched the POV angle down again through starry space into a familiar opening scene that linked the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE to definitely confirm that the Classic Trilogy was being brought full circle: another moon floating over an Earth-like planet in the left side of the screen.  And then on cue, the huge white underbelly of a great white spaceshark of a SD overwhelmed the centre of the screen, evoking the beginnings of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

 

Another groan erupted from the audience when we saw this floating moon, for it was indeed a new and partially rebuilt Death Moon.  It was also immediately clear that the sun was setting on the evil Empire, for ironically the second Death Moon did not look half-completed so much as half-destroyed.  Indeed, this second Death Moon was in deathly shape, looking as if a huge bite had been taken out of it by the space slug in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or by the TZ disaster.  In fact, to underline the Empire’s fading presence, the Deathly Moon’s frayed and tattered “C’”shape also looked like a waning third quarter moon.  The Empire had clearly made another double trouble mistake in rebuilding their floating machine brain from Arous, as this new battle station obviously did not have the old apocalyptic power of the gloating Gor.  In short, the evil Empire was floating on its last legs before the healing Ozian dream had even started!  However, this visible decline in the power of the evil Empire was consistent with the structure of the Classic Trilogy.  For STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK were homages to childhood and adolescence, meaning that STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI was supposed to be about leaving the Ozian dream behind as centred and healed, whole and harmonious adults in the end like the main characters of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, BARBARELLA, THE WIZARD OF OZ and THX 1138, and might have been, if not for the TZ disaster.   

 

After establishing the scene and re-booting audiences into the STAR WARS universe, it was noticeable that the Prowse played and Jones voiced Darth Anikkostein crossed to the Deathly Moon by shuttle from the SD in a scene that evoked the sight of Vader’s shuttle crossing from Cloud City to the Executor at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, linking the two films together.  Significantly, it was soon revealed that the impious shuttle was ST-321, openly linking the shuttle, its crew, Vader, the Evil Empire and the insidious Emperor to the July 23^rd date of the TZ disaster and the 23 people on an Offworld shuttle killed by Replicants at the beginning of BLADE RUNNER.  This linked the film to the disastrous and twilit events of 1982, implicitly making the stalwart Rebellion against the evil Empire also a rebellion against the TZ disaster in the reconfiguring Zonegeist minds of young audiences.  Darth Nikkostein’s shuttle was flanked by two flying monkey TIEs that underlined that the Empire’s decision to rebuild the Death Moon was nothing but more impious double trouble.

 

Indeed, the three ship formation reminded us of the three TIE formation that was blasted out of harm’s way by the Falcon at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, reinforcing that double trouble feeling.  This link to the end of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE was confirmed in an interior cabin shot of shuttle ST-321 looking over the shuttle Captain’s shoulder at the Deathly Moon.  For looking at the new battle station, we saw the familiar trench of Orlando from STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE as the Captain said over the radio to his counterparts on the Deathly Moon “…we’re starting our approach.”  The visual shot, the Captain’s comments, and the three ships together reminded us of Gold Leader’s “…we’re starting our attack run” statement that heralded the beginning of the Rebel space attack that climaxed in the destruction of the Death Moon at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  Thus, these visual and verbal allusions immediately underlined the fragility of the Empire, and prepared us for its demise at the end of the film in another climatic space battle, as well as the final escape from the Ozian dream and the healed rebirth into waking but disaffected adulthood.

 

That youthful audiences were indeed reconfiguring STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI was confirmed by the lusty cheers that greeted Darth Anikkostein when his huge black machine-man bulk appeared in his familiar black helmet and his flamboyant Phantom of the Space Opera cape walking down the shuttle’s leering landing tongue through another cloud of white smoke to reaffirm his link to the Wicked Witch of the West as in his first appearance in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  For the Dark Lord Vader now seemed more like a Light Lord who would hopefully take on and take out Lord Stinkious and his STAR WARS Empire.  However, the shuttle looked like a Trojan Horse, reminding us that Anikkostein was on a dark odyssey that was linked to the similarly black clad and masked Frankenstein of DEATH RACE 2000, preparing us again for his disappointing switch to the Rebel side at the end of the film. 

 

Curiously, striding briskly away from the shuttle with the Deathly Moon’s Serlingrod cadenced commander Moff Jerjerrod-played by Michael Pennington-Vader passed by C3PO actor Daniels standing second on his left amongst the line of attentive Imp officers.  This was an usually unnoticed, unremarked and non-speaking cameo for the Threepio star, allowed briefly out of the walking Oscar statue outfit by Lucas for the only time in the Classic Trilogy as a reward for his years of faithful and “invisible” service behind the mask.  Rumour had it that Daniels had threatened not to play Threepio if he was not allowed out from behind the mask in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  The sensitive actor was apparently jealous that his diminutive co-star and Artoo sidekick, Baker, had got out of the can in a bit part as a freakshow little person in THE ELEPHANT MAN, and in a starring role as Fidget the time travelling Film Bandit in TIME BANDITS, and wanted some openly visible time as well.  At any rate, the sight of Daniels infiltrating the Imp ranks emphasized that the Empire was waning, particularly as Vader did not notice his Light presence to his ironic and sinister left with his Dark Force.  A curious omission, as Daniels’ escape from behind the mask prepared us again for Anakin Skywalker’s emergence from behind the mask at the end of the film.

 

Signs that the Empire was waning away like the third quarter Deathly Moon and had been eclipsed by the TZ disaster continued when Darth Anikkostein sternly reprimanded Moffo Jerjerrod on behalf of the Wicked Emperor for falling behind schedule in the construction of the Deathly Moon.  Humourously, Jerjerrod petulantly complained that Emperor Palpaberg “…asks the impossible”, sounding like Luke crankily complaining to Yoda on Dagobah and preparing us for Luke’s return in this film.  This impotent failure to complete the Deathly Moon also reminded us of the struggles with impotence of Calrissian, Skywalker, Solo and Vader in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and Belloq and Jones in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, linking STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to those previous films in Lucas fashion.  This impotence also reiterated the double trouble thinking underlining the Emperor’s decision to rebuild the battle station, a double trouble theme heard in the Moff’s own name Jerjerrod, a name that also anticipated Jar Jar Binks-played by Ahmed Best-in the Tragic Trilogy.  This double trouble point was further reiterated when Jerjerrod stammered “…we shall double our efforts”, an unconscious irony that spelt doom for the Empire.

 

Surprisingly, and unlike previous Bad Force days in the Classic Trilogy, Vader did not reward Jerjerbinks by Force choking him to death for uttering this thoughtless remark.  Clearly, this was a kinder and gentler post-TZ disaster Dark Lord of the Shit Sith Hits, reiterating that the Dark Force was not as all powerful in this triumphant trimax, and setting us up for Vader’s rescue of Luke at the end of the film.  Vader confirmed this kinder state by turning on his heels and exiting stage right in a monkey wing flourish of his flamboyant black cape, instead of sinister stage left, implicity reaffirming that Vader was heading on a better path in this film.  Then the POV dissolved to the comically familiar Laurel and Hardy sight of Threepio-with Daniels out of his impious clothing and back inside the robot-and Baker’s Artoo continuing their stand up Comedy routine as they rambled down an equally familiar Tatooine desert canyonscape towards the lair of Jabba the Sacc, a sight greeted with ironic cheers by the audience as the two characters and actors had nothing to do with the TZ disaster or its coverup, but had the bad luck to be in the film. 

 

This wandering in the desert scene evoked the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, and reminded us that it was Threepio and Artoo dropping down from the sky onto Ozian Tatooine in their surrogate farmhouse space-pod like a Dorothy with her Detoto that set the whole Classic Trilogy in motion in the first place.  Clearly, the non-living robots were the ironic Adam and Eve progenitors of the saga again, bringing us full Ozian circle indeed here on Tatooine.  However, while familiar and reassuring, the sight of the female Artoo and male Threepio left alone to make their way in the embattled Ozian dream also evoked Chen and Le.  The link transformed the desertscape of Tatooine into an ominous lunar THX 1138-like limbo indeed, drawing viewers deeper into the Twilight Zone and linking Jabba Doo to Landis and filmmaking perfidy.

 

The desert wastes of Tatooine also reminded us of the burning sands of Arrakis, Barsoom and Mars again, setting us up for the Paul Carter space messiah heroics Skywalker needed to escape this twilit new limbo.  The desert canyonscape also reminded us of the post-apocalyptic badlands of A Canticle For Leibowitz and The Chrysalids, as well as the desert canyonscapes of PLANET OF THE APES and WESTWORLD.  A timely allusion, preparing us for the arrival of the huge and gorilla-like mutated pig guards that soon captured the two robots in the underground lair of Jabba the Sacc.  In addition, Tatooine evoked the desertscapes of Altair IV and THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS again, preparing us for more evil and aroused minds, sexual disease and attacks by nasty and rancorous Kid monsters.   The scorched wastes also evoked the blasted wastes before the gates of Mordor in The Lord Of The Rings.  Another timely allusion, for Artoo was again the Frodo-like bearer of powerful secrets as she was in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, in this case the one axesaber to heal them all of Luke Skywalker.  This Tolkien allusion reminded us that STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI sounded like The Return Of The King, preparing us for another defeat of the powers of darkness and the eucatastrophic triumph of a new King at the trimatic end of the Classic Trilogy.

 

Middle-earth allusions continued when the Laurel and Hardy pair arrived at the huge door leading into Jabba’s palace, an enormous sandstone door that evoked and linked up with the brown desert door leading out of the labyrinth of Cloud City to the liberating freedom of the Milnerium Falcon’s landing platform at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRES STRIKES BACK.  For Threepio’s tentative knock on the huge and intimidating door caused a small round spyhole to open and an all seeing and Sauron-like robotic eye to lunge out at the startled robot.  This phallic and cyclopsian eye reminded us of the cyclopsian eyes of the the dianoga and of the submerged Artoo on Dagobah in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and the emphasis on eyes in BLADE RUNNER, “Eyes”, FUTURE WORLD and EYES OF LAURS MARS.  This again linked the Classic Trilogy and the TZ disaster together, confirming that this penultimate showdown with the testy Sacc and his alienated mutated entourage involved facing down evil and inhuman masculine forces linked to the TZ disaster, as well as to the Dark Side of sexuality and the money owed to Warner Brothers after the failure of THX 1138.  Indeed, the one evil eye also evoked the one eye of television, implicitly affirming that this battle against Jabba was also on one level a battle against the Twilight Zone of television.  This evil phallic eye peered contemptuously at the two robots and then barked at Threepio in an ugly, guttural language that evoked the equally harsh language of Mordor. 

 

This evil eye seemed threatening, but it reminded us that anything evil and robotic ultimately failed in the independent and organic Classic Trilogy.  Indeed, the cyclopsian eye evoked the equally cyclopsian TIEs and the Hoth probot, another ominous link to Imperial ineptitude that definitely linked Jabba to Hollywood film studio evil, and also foreboded impious failure and defeat for the testy Sacc.  In fact, in anticipation of that spectacular defeat, this evil security eye incorrectly concluded that the two comical robots were no threat to Jabba Doo, and foolishly opened the huge and forbidding palace door to Artoo and Threepio.  Of course, opening the door to the two robots reminded us that the arrogant suitors of Penelope also foolishly allowed a vengeful Odysseus into his own palace, dismissing him as a harmless and ragged old beggar at the end of The Odyssey.  This in turn reminded us that the ragged beggar Kenobi began an Odyssean-like slaughter of the suitors back at Mel’s cantina in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, but did not finish the job.  Clearly, this slaughter was long overdue, and Artoo and Threepio were the new Odysseus-linked harmless beggars that were helping to Spring the twilit trap to take out the evil and arrogant film thugs.     

 

Following Artoo through the open door into this latest Lord Stinkious underworld, Threepio headed underneath the massive space slug evoking teeth of the door’s gaping maw and into another subterranean labyrinth for some quality Jabba Doo time.  This brought the two robots back into the garbage compactor in the form of the foetid and rank palace of Jabba.  A monstrous and drooling Gamorrhean pig guard that Artoo rolled into underlined the foul nature of Jabba’s underworld realm, for his name sounded like gonorrhoean pig guard.  A fitting appellation, for this name summed up the sexually diseased nature of Evil in the films of Lord Stinkious.  And affirmed that the film would be taking on and taking out blockbuster beasts, for the Gamorrhean pig guard evoked the Boarman-played by the Landis evoking Great John L-one of the blockbuster manbeasts of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU.  A salacious nature reaffirmed by the guard’s link to Crumb, for the guard also evoked the pig police officers of FRITZ THE CAT.  This sexually diseased nature was reiterated by the appearance of Jabba’s major domo Bib Fortuna-played by Michael Carter and voiced by Erik Bauersfeld, respectively-a twilit member of a species all too fittingly known in the post-TZ disaster era as the Twy’lek.  For the major domo looked like the sickly and red eyed walking penishead to complement Jabba’s monstrously mutated testicle sacc, evoking the salacious works of Crumb again-literally, as letters from his two names could create the anagram “Robirt”, which was only one letter away from the Robert in Robert Crumb.

 

Intriguingly, the name of Bib Fortuna also sounded like Jabba and Boba Fett, linking the evil Scarecrow bounty hunter to sexual disease and reminding us that he had menaced Solo’s rear while pursuing the Falcon in his ship, the Slave 1, in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Indeed, Fortuna’s name also evoked Bob Falfa, reminding us that he too had menaced Milner’s rear in AMERICAN GRAFFITI, reaffirming the sexually diseased connection.  And Fortuna kept to sexually diseased form and linked Jabba to Emperor Wang of FLESH GORDON by immediately asking the two nervous robots if they “…wanna wanga?”  A horrified Threepio quickly replied in the negative, underlining the Good nature of the two robots.  However, this prompt refusal did little to turn off the lascivious Fortuna.  Indeed, he ran a salacious hand over an anxiously quaking Artoo, raising the dire spectre of sexual assault again in the films of Lord Stinkious.  Ominously, Fortuna’s pale face and blazing red eyes suddenly reminded us of Gollum, and of how Gollum always coveted Frodo’s phallic “precious”, a precious now hidden inside Artoo.  This was an appropriate allusion, reaffirming the sexually diseased nature of Fortuna and reiterating The Lord Of The Rings cadence of the Classic Trilogy, a cadence heightened by the Shelob-like robot spider that appeared behind Threepio as he entered Jabba’s subterranean labyrinth.

 

Threepio hurriedly insisted that Artoo was a female gift for Jabba only, and the embittered Rob Golluma gestured angrily at this mention of his Dark Master.  He turned abruptly on his heels and grunted at the two robots to follow him deeper into the labyrinthine and Twy-lek Zone depths of Jabba’s cryptic underworld.  The plucky robots followed him timorously, Threepio stating nervously to Artoo that he had “…a bad feeling about this.”  This comment was as ironic as it was fitting, reminding us that the first time that the comment was made in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, it was confided to Bowman by Poole as they hid in a space pod discussing the problems they were having with HEL 9000 onboard the Discovery I.  Clearly, the roles had been ironically reversed in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, with the Good robots confiding their problems with Evil organic beings, a familiar theme in the Classic Trilogy. 

 

They scuttled along dark and subterranean passages that evoked the underground labyrinth of THX 1138, the midnight streets of Modesto, the Lars homestead, the hallway maze of the Death Moon, the lower depths of Cloud City, the hidden underground temples of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and the underground tunnel created by the crashed spaceship of Gor.  Clearly, we headed into some insidious inner territory here, a perfect place to find a rancorous Kid monster.  Soon Fortuna led the robots down a darkened hallway to a short stairwell that led even further down into a cavernous chamber filled with colourful and sinister alienated mutants that immediately confirmed the diseased sexual menace of the place, and evoked Mel’s cantina in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  One of these alienated mutants was an elephant headed creature called Ephant Mon-played by Andy Cunningham-evoking THE ELEPHANT MAN in a way that underlined that Jabba and his warped entourage were linked to Hollywood and its Dark vices.  Significantly, and unlike the Mos Eisley cantina, the robots were allowed to descend into Jabba’s cantina, an unwise decision that prepared us again for the slaughter of the film suitors to come.  Indeed, we remembered that rednecked human bartender Wuher refused to allow Artoo and Threepio into the cantina on that earlier, unfinished occasion.  Clearly, the surly barkeep possessed keener Jedi insight into the chaos that would erupt if you let robots into your establishment than did the Dark and Twy’lek Zone retinue of Jabba Doo and his mutated and alienated thugs!

 

Fortuna left Artoo and Threepio in the middle of the dank underground bar and crossed over to a dais to talk to the reclining Jabba the Sacc.  With the pale and phallic headed Fortuna beside him, Jabba also sprawled more like an obscene and grotesquely corpulent and mutated testicle sac than ever before.  Clearly, they were a sexually diseased cock and ball pair, a diseased nature underlined by their gonorrhoean pig guards.  Indeed, their grotesquely cartoonish nature was implicitly affirmed by Jabba’s pet flying monkey Salacious Crumb-played by Mark Dodson-a name that openly linked the diseased threesome to the exuberantly salacious Crumb and his notoriously graphic looks at sex and incest.  This reiterated the association of Evil with sexual disease and narrative art in the films of Lord Stinkious, and immediately raised the dark spectre of incest again in the films of Lord Stinkious.  The diseased duo of Fortuna and Jabba also reminded us that Luke had yet to face down and defeat his incestuous and sexually diseased Dark Side, making the two personified genitalia an ironically good omen for the defeat of that Dark Side, and for Luke’s pentultimate showdown with the similarly phallic headed Vader and the equally salacious and Wicked Emperor Palpaberg. 

 

And this showdown was clearly on schedule, for Jabba’s huge size, appearance and name evoked the triumph over the Emperor and his impious forces in Herbert’s Dune series again.  Indeed, Jabba sounded and looked like a cross between the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, the toadie puppet overlord of Arrakis known as the Beast Rabban, his grotesquely fat and sexually evil uncle, the Baron Harkonnen, and Maud’dib’s messianic son Leto II, who had fully transformed himself into an huge and hybrid manworm by the time of the events of the allegorical Herbert indie docufiction novel God Emperor Of Dune (1981).  With his reptilian eyes, Jabba also looked vaguely dragonish, evoking Smaug and Sauron.  Significant allusions to Tolkien indeed, for all of these malevolent characters were defeated in the end, preparing us again for the eucatastrophic triumph of Skywalker.

 

An ironic triumph that we were prepared for again by the sight of Artoo playing Jabba a holographic message from Hamill’s Skywalker-a sight which provoked dark and uncertain muttering by the young audience, as Luke symbolized Lucas but was played by an actor with no link at all in the TZ disaster or its coverup-when the robots were called over to Jabba and Bib, a projected image that again connected Jabba Doo and Bob to film art, film artists and the TZ disaster.  Indeed, the hologram of an earnest and squeaky clean Luke was marred by the link of Luke to Lord Stinkious, which unfortunately linked Luke and Hamill to insidious disease and blockbuster lusts, as well.  This hologram also evoked the hologram of Leia in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, and the hologram-like Force ghost of Ben in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  However, by being a hologram of Skywalker, the hologram reiterated that Artoo had become Luke’s familiar after the events of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, setting us up for the revelation that she was carrying his axesaber for safe keeping like Ben instead of Death Moon plans from Princess Leia. 

 

Significantly, the hologram also reminded us of the virile Afro-American holograms in THX 1138 and prepared us for the upcoming hologram-like dance of a green Twy’lek dancer in front of the lustful Sacc.  This was an important link, underlining that Jabba’s lair was a new THX 1138 underworld, and preparing us again for a new and improved Skywalker flowing with the mojo Force like THX 1138 upon his arrival in Jabba’s lair.  Indeed, Skywalker’s hologram gave warning of this Forceful arrival, politely urging Jabba to give up the carbon frozen Tin Han statue of Solo of his own free will for his own good.  This Forceful persuasion was heightened by his clothes, a virile and priest-like black shirt that ominously announced that Skywalker was back in black as a J.D. Jedi Skyrocker.  And not happy about the TZ disaster, for the presence of Artoo, Solo and Threepio in Jabba’s lair made for a new twilit trio of one female and two males to be rescued from the Twy’lek Zone.

 

Predictably, the testy Sacc laughed humourlessly at Skyrocker’s suggestion that he bargain with the young Jedi for the Tin Han.  In fact, the Sacc testily declared that he liked his favourite decoration where it was, hanging upright on a nearby wall like a mini-Monolith, a sight greeted again with ironic cheers by the cynical audience, as the character and the actor also had no link to the TZ disaster or its coverup, but just happened to have the bad luck to appear in the film.  It was an ironic sight, transforming Ford into a hidden Temple Theatre idol like the one he attempted to save for scholastic study at the beginning of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, making Jabba’s lair the first Temple Theatre of Doom of the post-TZ disaster films of Lord Stinkious.  The hanging Tin Han also reminded us that on one level Solo’s carbon freezing symbolized the lingering fear of Lord Stinkious that STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK would not be a success and he would end up a frozen and impotent failure as after the release of THX 1138, unable to pay off studios like the now twilit Warner Brothers again.  Of course, while that fear disappeared with the resounding success of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the possibility that Lord Stinkious could fail with STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI was now a distinct possibility now that he was seen as an insidious and blockbuster profit lusting Sith Lord with no interest in human lives in Jedi Master’s clothing since he had agreed to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. 

 

Indeed, the despairing look on the Tin Han’s face almost implied that Lord Stinkious was fully aware that he was now frozen and trapped in the Twilight Zone.  However, it was not all bad, as Solo’s hanging form also evoked the crucified Christ, reminding us that Han voluntarily gave his life so that others could live in true Christian fashion at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  The crucified Han also reminded us of the Christ-like figure of Skywalker hanging upside down from a cross at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, preparing us again for the arrival of the Skyrocker.  This in turn reminded us of the crucified form of Pygar the angel in the Evil Tyrant’s castle in BARBARELLA, preparing us for the arrival of Leia as a latter day Queen of the Galaxy to confirm the BARBARELLA influenced Ozian structure of the film.  After reassuring viewers that Solo was alive and relatively safe and sound in his state of hibernation, we were then led away with Artoo and Threepio by pig bouncers on the testy orders of Jabba Doo. 

 

We were taken to a hellish boiler room where the robots were questioned and assigned new duties by the evil robot EV-9D9, who evoked a Marvin the robot evoking robot named Criton in the allegorical Vincent McEveety telefilm “Time of the Hawk” (1981), the opening episode of the second season of the STAR TREK evoking BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY.  Here in this hellish hole the barely restrained contempt that was directed towards robots throughout the Classic Trilogy finally exploded in nightmarish fury.  Indeed, several unlucky robots were shown being burnt and dismembered.  This sinister spectacle connected the innocent robots and Jabba and his entourage to the TZ disaster victims again, and anticipated a similar “Mecha” robot destroying spectacle in the Flesh Fair sequence of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Lynch roasting Spielberg docufeature film A.I. (2001).  Significantly, EV-9D9 gloatingly supervised the destructive mayhem like an evil 21B and another Gor, evoking alienated brains and reminding us that there were Good and Evil robots in the Classic Trilogy.  This scene also seemed to bode ill for poor Artoo and Threepio, but luckily for Threepio he was groped by an alien tentacle that emerged from a cell in the labyrinthine corridor that led to the hellish room. 

 

For this grisly grope was more than just further confirmation of the sexual disease that infected Jabba’s palace.  In fact, like the robot security eyeball, this tentacle evoked the dianoga and Luke’s baptism into the living Force in the garbage compactor in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, implying that despite appearances to the contrary, the Good Force was actually at work behind the scenes at the palace.  Indeed, coming so soon after Skyrocker’s hologram, this tentacle grope was further preparation for the impending arrival of Skyrocker.  An arrival we were prepared for again, for the conversation with the sinister EV-9D9 that sent Threepio off to work as an interpreter for the testy Sacc mentioned his facility with languages.  This evoked his FORBIDDEN PLANET linked conversation with Lars soon after arriving on Tatooine for the first time in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, preparing us for the arrival of Skyrocker and another Kid monster that would waylay Skyrocker.  For her part, little Artoo was sent to work on Jabba’s helicopter-like Sail Barge, possibly in a sadomasochistic role.  For EV-9D9 darkly hinted that the feisty female robot would “…soon learn some respect…on the master’s Sail Barge.”  The salacious comment reaffirmed the sexual disease in this new underground labyrinth and prepared us for the twisted innuendoes of the Emperor, linking Jabba yet again to insidious and twilit Imperial and Hollywood perfidy.  And then the two robots headed off into different directions, splitting the Comedy narrative again and linking the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to the quarrelsome split on arrival on Tatooine that marked the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.

 

The POV then returned to Jabba’s cantina and its drunken dregs of arrogant and alienated mutants.  Here the blue and Snoopy-like Max Rebo continued the cartoonish link of Jabba and his retinue, and led his mutated band through some boisterous bluesy rock-updated in the 1997 Special Edition version of the film-that recalled THE BLUES BROTHERS, while the lustful Sacc drooled after the beautiful green Twy’lek dancer Oola-played by Femi Taylor.  Dancing alone in a bright light, Oolala’s whirling shape looked like a projected film image, again linking Jabba and his gang to twilit and blockbuster obsessed Hollywood filmmaking excess and evil.  Literally, as the “-la” that ended her name openly linked her to L.A. and the Dark Side of Hollywood.  Oola also evoked the naked Afro-American hologram dancers in THX 1138, underlining that Jabba’s underground palace was a new film linked labyrinth from which Lucas and Luke must escape.  Indeed, that Jabba’s lair symbolized all of the sinful vices that could lead one astray after achieving success with film art. 

 

However, and luckily for Lucas and Luke, Oola also reminded us that the sight of the powerful hologram dancers helped knock THX 1138 out of his Tin Man drug stupor and into jazzed up Scarecrow virility, setting us up again for the triumph of health and harmony here in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  This link to health was ironically underlined by her green skin, reminding us not of the Wicked Witch of the West but of Alderaan, Yoda, Dagobah, the Emerald City and the rejuvenating green Force of Spring.  Fitting links, as the name of Twy’lek Oola evoked not just twilit L.A., but also Yoda and Leia, reminding us that the last time we saw a pretty holographic girl in the Classic Trilogy, she was Princess Leia.  This set us up for Leia’s imminent and scantily clad return to the Space Opera. 

 

Significantly, Oola also evoked Joanna Cassidy’s Zhora, the beautiful and deadly Replicant who stirred up lust with an exotic dance with a snake in BLADE RUNNER.  An ominous link, as Oolala’s dancing was also so arousing that, unable to contain his diseased and drooling lust-a grisly sight that affirmed that he symbolized an out of control male libido like those seen in the narrative art of Crumb-Jabba dragged her towards him by her chain.  However, Oola confirmed her healthy green link to the Emerald City and Yoda by refusing to approach the lustful Sacc, struggling against her chain in indignant protest.  This caused Jabba to furiously bang a button on his dais, opening a trap door without warning in the floor in front of him.  Alas, Oola fell like the TZ helicopter, and dropped down into a twilit and bone strewn dungeon.  A loud and terrifying roar was soon heard, Oola screamed, and then all was silent.  A significant silence, for with her death another green skinned and surrogate Wicked Witch of the East figure died, removing the gatekeeper and opening wide the gates to the healing Ozian spiritworld dream. 

 

And the healing dream quickly unfolded with the sudden bark of a blaster nearby, followed by the entrance of another helmeted bounty hunter with Mayhew’s Chewbacca, greeted with yet another ironic cheer, as the character and actor also had no link to the TZ disaster or its coverup, but just had the bad luck to appear in the film.  The sibilant name of this dimunitive bounty hunter was Boushh, an name which evoked ambush, and the reptilian bounty hunter Bossk in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Fitting links to ambush, for Boushh would soon be revealed to really be Fisher’s Princess Leia in disguise, sneaking in like another disguised Black Castle Winkie guard in order to ambush Jabba and rescue Han.  The brash sight reminded us that Skywalker and Solo snuck into her cell block disguised as Imps with Chewbacca as their prisoner in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE-clearly, the pugnacious Princess was returning the favour and truly bringing the Classic Trilogy full circle.  This linked Jabba Doo to Imperial perfidy again, and prepared us for the upcoming melee. 

 

Leia’s brass Boushh demanded the bounty on Chewbacca from Jabba.  Jabba agreed to pay Boushh twenty-five thousand, but Boushh doubled the payment and demanded a Fifth Elemental fifty thousand.  Threepio was acting as Jabba’s translator, and when he told Jabba the reply of Boussh, Jabba furiously knocked him backward and out of sight.  Clearly, Jabba Doo recognized impious double trouble allusions when he heard them, and disliked being linked to the Empire.  When Threepio clambered back into view, we saw that he was covered in bright green slime.  While a sign of Jabba’s diseased and slimy nature, this colour was also auspicious, for it evoked Dagobah and the Emerald City, Oola and Yoda again, and prepared us for the Springing green of Skyrocker’s new axesaber.  Significantly, when the Sacc testily asked Boushh through Threepio why he should pay Boushh the fifty thousand, the disguised Leia pulled out a grenade-like thermal detonator and switched on the weapon.  This detonator looked like a mini-Death Moon, linking Jabba to impious double trouble again.  This thermal grenade was also a fitting weapon to stand beside Chewbacca and threaten Jabba with, reminding us that Chewbacca was the Cowardly Lion and Fire element of the healing Ozian foursome. 

 

However, Jabba missed the link and laughed raucously, appreciating Boushh’s impudent behaviour, and countering with a less repetitive offer of thirty-five thousand.  Much to the relief of Jabba’s quivering minions, Boushh accepted the offer, switched off the detonator, and allowed Chewie to be led away.  The Wookie passed by Orlando Calrissian-played again by Williams-disguised as a cantina bouncer wearing a helmet that evoked the guards of Pamela Hensley’s Buck wild Princess Ardala in BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY-greeted with yet more ironic cheers for the same reasons aforementioned-making for two disguised heroes in Jabba’s court and confirming the link to Skywalker and Solo’s rescue of Leia in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, and Jabba’s link to insidious and alienated minds.  Music and vapid revelry returned, and Boushh was accepted as a duplicitous equal by Jabba’s court and the watchful rival bounty hunter Boba Fett-played again by Bulloch and Don Bies, respectively-whose appearance earlier in the scene had been greeted with the same happy cheers that had greeted Vader on his first appearance, as Fett too had been reimagined into a Good guy who would lead the attack on Lord Stinkious and his Evil STAR WARS Empire. 

 

Significantly, this threatening scene was similar to one in BARBARELLA, when the beautiful astro-dominatrix saved the blind angel Pygar from crucifixion on a wall by threatening the Evil Tyrant with a ray gun.  Indeed, like Jabba, the Evil Tyrant was pleased with the innocent Barbarella’s uncharacteristic perfidy, and she happily released Pygar.  This allusion to BARBARELLA set us up for Leia’s rescue of the Tin Han from his own wall crucifixion, reiterating that Solo sacrificed himself so that the others could live.  This messianic symbolism linked Han to Skywalker again as in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, preparing us again for the arrival of the Skyrocker.  The messianic allusion also reminded us that Solo had also almost gone through all four of the Ozian elemental phases in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRES STRIKES BACK, implying that he would also become a whole and harmonious figure like Kenobi and Skyrocker when he was released from this Tin Han carbon freeze. 

 

And released he was, for later that night, a shadow moved amongst the sleeping figures in Jabba’s crypt, who lay dreaming within the dream.  This figure moved with the same silent grace as Kenobi on the Death Moon in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  A fitting allusion, for this shadowy figure was the latent J.D. Jedi Leia in her Boussh disguise, picking her way through the slumbering forms towards the carbon frozen wall hanging of the angelic Tin Han.  She soon stood in front of the rectangular block like Floyd stood in front of the lunar monolith in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, reminding us that Solo looked like a human monolith and was linked to Coppola, preparing us for his Star Child rebirth and Coppola’s return to the good books of audiences in 1983 after a disastrous 1982.  After pressing a few buttons on the device, Leia reversed the carbon freezing process and freed the cryogenic sleeper from his monolithic prison.  Leia’s earlier threat to unleash the fiery power of the thermal detonator also came true now, for red light and heat erupted from the monolithic block to thaw and lubricate the Tin Han. 

 

Ominously, this thawing evoked the heat that melted the ice block containing the thing from another world in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, a primal and alienated thing that was linked to the brutish lust of Kenneth Tobey’s Captain Patrick Hendry for Margaret Sheridan’s Nikki throughout the film.  This implied that Solo still had one last battle to win before he was a whole and harmonious person who was free of his Dark Side.  Luckily for Solo, however, the light that accompanied the thawing was ruby red, evoking the ruby red slippers and the fiery and melting passion of luv and the burning of Atlanta in GONE WITH THE WIND again, clear signs that the Romance had returned and the healing Ozian Force was gathering in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI despite itself, and that Solo would indeed triumph over his Dark Side and become whole and one.

 

Soon the Tin Han-played again by Ford, now permanently linked to the fateful and fatal July of ’82 via his role as Deckard in BLADE RUNNER-fell wet and unable to see from his cryogenic dream within the dream like a reborn cinematic Star Child or a new Jonah released from the interior of a blockbuster beast of a whale accompanied by more ironic cheering.  This healing liberation also returned a Western hunk to the Classic Trilogy, preparing us for the barroom brawl with Jabba and his evil minions to follow.  Fittingly, given his links to Pygar, Solo was also as blind as Pygar at first, and Leia pitied his sightless plight like a luving Barbarella.  Indeed, she quickly took off her reptilian Boushh helmet to reveal her stellar beauty, and reassured the blind Solo with her real voice, a reappearance that was accompanied by yet more ironic cheering.  This tender moment recalled their Forced parting on Cloud City, an allusion that Leia confirmed by kissing her Han again, reigniting their mystical energy shield of Luv.  This doffing of an evil mask to reveal the Good within also prepared us for the Tin Anakin’s transformation at the end of the film.  And so Princess Charming kissed Sleeping Hansome awake and helped him to his feet to Han’s delight, openly affirming that the swelling Romance had returned to the Classic Trilogy. 

 

This exuberantly reignited Romance confirmed the true and heartfelt luv expressed in their climatic kiss in the fiery carbon freezing chamber of Cloud Nine City, and reaffirmed that Rhett and Scarlett were now finished feuding and were truly committed to each other.  The luving sight also reminded us that Curt Henderson was freed to leave for college by Steve and Laurie’s commitment to each other at the end of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, preparing us for Luke’s severing of any forbidden attachments to his twin sister Leia here in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI and his full commitment to the Jedi order.  Clearly, Han was the good Western hero in his white shirt that we always suspected he was, ready to sweep Leia onto his Tauntaun charger.  At first, however, Solo was too blind and weak and suffering from carbon sickness for dashing exuberance.  He obviously needed to regain his strength before he could help defeat Jabba and the rest of his alienated and diseased mutant suitors, preparing us for the appearance of the Odyssean J.D. stranger at the gates.

 

But before that stranger could appear, Jabba’s ominous laughter suddenly burst out, interrupting the luving scene.  For the duplicitous Jabba Doo and his motley crew had guessed Leia’s disguised game, and had actually ambushed Boushh.  This insidious revelation reminded us that the Emperor and the Harkonnens had conspired to give Arrakis to House Atreides in order to ambush and massacre them, reiterating the link between Jabba and the Dune Trilogy.  While the testy Sacc did not kill Solo and Leia, he did order pig bouncers to take Solo away to a nearby cell.  This prompted Solo to promise to pay triple the amount he owed to the twisted crime lord, reminding us of Jabba’s link to the money that Lucas and Coppola owed Jack Warner’s old studio after the THX 1138 disaster, a studio now linked even more to the TZ disaster.  However, this twilit trio of credits was turned down by the double dealing Jacka.  Clearly, the Empire’s penchant for uncreative double trouble was a vice that was shared by Jabba, no matter how much he denied this fact.  Solo was then led away to languish in the same cell as Chewie, a dank and dismal cell whose wet floor evoked the wet, dark and cavernous interior of the space slug of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  This sluggish impression was reinforced by the sight and sound of Salacious Crumb laughing raucously as the Ozian heroes were led out, for the sniggering comix pet reminded us of the flying monkey mynocks inside the belly of the slug.  This space slug allusion reiterated Solo’s link to Jonah, and underlined that he had yet to fully escape from the beastly belly of the blockbuster whale to speak out openly against the Empire with Princess Leia. 

 

However, reuniting with the Fiery Chewie also emphasized that a healing conjunction of the elemental Ozian fours was definitely happening in the film, causing the Good Force to rise in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Being in the cell with Chewie also spared Solo the grotesque sight of pig guards bringing the disgusted Princess Leia close to the drooling Sacc so that he could lick her with his lascivious and salacious tongue.  Clearly, dark and diseased sexual Forces were also rising in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, making this the perfect time for the return of lean and lanky Luke and his Journey of Self Discovery.  And, as anticipated by the overwhelming success of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Lord Stinkious returned Skywalker to Tatooine looking like another reborn cinematic Star Child. 

 

Indeed, Lord Stinkious ironically confirmed that his success with his last two films had raised his confidence and energy, by having Skywalker immediately use the Force to raise Jabba’s massive gate while Jabba and his minions were again asleep, a reappearance greeted with furious groans as well as ironic cheers by the jaded audience.  The sight of this massive gate rising confidently upwards was significant, reminding us of the descending credits at the beginning of THX 1138, and of Luke’s failure to use the Force to raise his X-broomstick from the swamp on Dagobah, a failure to get it up that underlined the sexual, psychological and physical weakness of Lord Stinkious and Luke in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Clearly, with Skywalker easily raising the huge gate, the fears and worries of cinematic failure that haunted Lucas and THX 1138 and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE had indeed been swept away by the success of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRES STRIKES BACK and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  Clearly, Skywalker at least had indeed become Skyrocker. 

 

However, given Skyrocker’s link to Lord Stinkious and the conviction of audiences that Stinky was now an insidious Sith Lord since he had begun working with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, the effortless and virile raising of the gate of Jabba was highly ironic and unbelievable, indeed, to say the least.  Indeed, every scene involving poor Hamill’s Skyrocker was now unfortunately marred by this diseased and insidious link to Lord Stinkious, a link that made the film even more difficult to believe and watch.  For on one hand, audiences hated Skyrocker because he reminded them of Lord Stinkioius, while on the other hand, they admired the growth made by Hamill as an actor, a growth affirmed by his moving and memorable performance.  At any rate, by raising the gate, Lord Stinkious and Skyrocker did their worst best to open wide the gates to the healing spiritworld dream here at the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  This confirmed that Oola was indeed the surrogate Wicked Witch of the East of the film, and that the “healing” Ozian adventure was about to begin.  The easily rising gate also allowed seering Tatooine sunlight to pierce the twilit depths of Jabba’s dark lair, penetrating light that was perhaps sunrise light, ironically linking Skyrocker to Eastern wisdom as he strode into the underground labyrinth. 

 

Seeing Skyrocker stride within the sleeping labyrinth also reminded us that the conquerors of Ilium secretly entered the sleeping city in a wooden horse, evoking the Trojan Falcon’s openly secret entry into the Death Moon in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, and preparing us for the Trojan horse ending of the film.  These echoes of Ilium reminded us again of Odysseus, a stranger Skyrocker resembled in his hooded black cloak.  An ominous allusion to Odysseus, linking Jabba’s dank and dungeon-like palace to the palace of Odysseus and Jabba and his alienated entourage to the arrogant suitors of Penelope.  This also again reminded us that Omahan Kenobi had begun the slaughter of the suitors in Mel’s cantina in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, but had not been able to complete the eucatastrophic job.  This in turn reminded us that the sexually diseased Dark Sides of Luke and Lord Stinkious had to be defeated if the two men were to emerge at last as independent J.D. Jedi and atone for twilit associations…

 

Fittingly, Skyrocker’s ominous black hood and cloak affirmed that it was time for a showdown with the Dark Side, for it was in complete contrast to the virtuous whites, earthy browns, healing greens and leonine oranges he wore in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Indeed, the ominous black gear reminded us of the Emperor, Vader and the Wicked Witch of the West and the black hooded priests of OMMRICK and the black robocops of THX 1138.  However, on a positive side, the hooded black cloak also reminded us that black was a colour associated with the Good and virile Light Force in the film art of Lord Stinkious, for the colour evoked Solo’s rebellious black vest and the virile Afro-American holograms of THX 1138.  Clearly, Skyrocker had begun a new J.D. Jedi stage of his existence that needed to be made clear by wearing black clothing, and summed up with a new name like Skyrocker.  However, the ominous black gear and the emergence of Lord Stinkious also affirmed that Skyrocker walked a fine and twilit line between the Forces of Good and Evil at the outset of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  This fine line created a suspenseful tension that built throughout the film, finally exploding in the climatic light saber duel between Skyrocker and Vader.

 

However, any worry about the colour of Skyrocker’s clothing was lost on two Gonorrhoean pig bouncers who unconcernedly lurched into Skyrocker’s path and cut off his advance with axes ominously crossed together like helicopter rotors.  Significantly, Skyrocker waved them and their diseased allusion to the TZ disaster away with Forceful throat chokes, an allusion to Vader’s full throttle chokes that united with his black clothing to again imply that young Luke was walking a fine and twilit line between his Light and Dark Sides.  The J.D. Jedi then descended further into the underworld labyrinth, soon meeting the sickly white and penisheaded Bob Fortuna rising up the stairs from Jabba’s cantina to confront him like an undead erection.  Skyrocker used the persuasive Jedi Voice to convince the eerie penisheaded mutant to allow him down into the crypt to see Jabba, and the alienated major domo had the misfortuna to listen to Luke and wilt back down the stairs to the dais of Jabba the Sacc.  This powerful Voice ironically reiterated Skyrocker’s confident and virile newfound Force, and underlined that he now had the power to do great Good…or Evil.

 

Back at the slumbering side of Jabba, we noticed that Jabba Doo and his motley crew were still asleep, and lost again in wicked dreams within the dream.  Jabba’s malignant sidekick Salacious Crumb was one of the few alienated mutants still awake, staring in bewitched fascination at Jabba’s twitching tail.  We also saw that Princess Leia was now chained to Jabba Doo in place of Oolala, and that she had fully emerged as the sexy new Queen of the Galaxy in her revealing space bikini, a kini that again evoked the Woronov evoking and Buck wild Princess Ardala in BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY as much as it did Barbarella in BARBARELLA.  Clearly, Skyrocker was walking a fine line indeed between his Light and Dark Sides in his scarey black duds.  And embracing the Light, as Skyrocker was noticeably more amused than aroused by the sight of Leia in her skimpy bikini, preparing us for the full conquest of his Dark Side at the end of the film. 

 

Significantly, seeing the two J.D. Jedi children together reminded us of the two child victims of the TZ disaster, turning the upcoming triumph over Jabba and Fortuna on one level into an ironic triumph over Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Marshall, Palpaberg, Stinkious and the TZ disaster.  In addition, the alluring sight of Leia reminded us of beautiful Penelope and her own heroic struggle, preparing us yet again for the slaughter of these latest arrogant suitors.  The lovely Leia also reminded us again of the equally lovely and scantily clad Princess Dejah Thoris of Helium, captured and about to be sexually assaulted by the evil and corpulent old green Martian Jeddak Tal Halus, before she was rescued by John Carter in A Princess Of Mars.  A fitting allusion, also preparing us for Skyrocker’s timely rescue of Organna from the dark clutches of the equally evil, corpulent and aroused Jabba.  Of course, seeing Leia being held captive by the salacious Sacc also evoked Dorothy’s confinement in the Black Castle of the Wicked Witch of the West, confirming the film’s Ozian structure.

 

A wicked confinement, indeed, for at a sibilant whisper from Bob Fortuna, the aroused and testy Sacc roared awake.  Seeing Skyrocker, he knocked the penisheaded Fortuna aside, angrily and correctly noting that Fortuna had fallen prey to an old Jedi mind trick, linking Jabba to the Dark Force of the Emperor once more.  Jabba then refused to negotiate for the release of Chewie, Leia, and Solo, boasting that the Jedi Voice had no effect on testy and aroused Saccs.  Significantly, Skyrocker’s calm and reasoning confidence in front of the violent and irrational Jabba reminded us of the cool confidence of the wandering ronin samurai Sanjuro in SANJURO and YOJIMBO.  Luckily for Skyrocker, this was an ominous allusion that Jabba did not notice, leaving him unprepared for the human cyclone of sword strokes that was soon recreated by Luke.  Significantly, Jabba’s inability to perceive Skyrocker as a threat was also due to the fact that he was noticeably unarmed, for Luke had hoped to overcome Jabba and his madcap minions with the Force of his politely persuasive Voice alone.  This erring perception reminded us of the arrogant suitors again, and how they had unknowingly let Odysseus into his hall as they had not seen him as a threat.  Clearly, the quickdraw clouds of an Odyssean samurai Jedi saberslinger continued to gather here in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI. 

 

And the Kansas tornado was about to burst into motion, for the testy Sacc impatiently tired of conversing with Luke, and bashed the trap door switch again with a roar of “Boscka!” that reminded us that Bakshi had directed FRITZ THE CAT.  A startled Skyrocker fell like Alice and Dorothy and Oola into the deadly underground trap, joined by an equally startled and fittingly green and diseased pig bouncer.  While alarming, the Oola-like fall was actually good news, as it reminded us that double trouble always failed in the Classic Trilogy.  Significantly, as the trap door closed, Jabba jeeringly crowed “…Tibi Jedi…Tibi Jedi” as his dais slithered forward to the grate that allowed him to watch the macabre proceedings below.  This jeering chant was ironic Good news for Skyrocker, for it sounded like “J.D. Jedi”, affirming the J.D. root of the word Jedi.  Indeed, the chant linked Skyrocker openly to prototype J.D. Jedi John Milner in AMERICAN GRAFFITI, preparing us for the sight of Skyrocker saving the day in the end like Milner.  The pig bouncer that Skyrocker fell down with into the dank pit of death was also good news, creating another satirical Dorothy and Toto pair that restarted the healing Ozian dream. 

 

Unfortunately, the two falling figures also combined with Oola to make a new trio of two males and one female to be menaced by Twy’lek Evil.  This link to the TZ disaster was underlined by Jabba and his alienated entourage, who crowded forward to watch the carnage in the death pit below in a way that reminded us that a crowd of revellers had watched the disaster.  This again linked Jabba to out of control Directo Evil, another Nikko cadenced head flying monkey like Vader who danced to the twisted tune of the Dark Side of New Hollywood sibilantly sung by the Wicked Emperor Palpaberg.  Significantly, this fall down into the pit also evoked Skyrocker’s four descents into his dark and troubled subconscious in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, underlining that this fall led to another confrontation with the Dark Side within.  However, this time as Luke fell he lost his black hooded cloak, revealing the collared black jumpsuit of a priest-like J.D. Jedi Knight.  This was another ironically Good sign that underlined that Skyrocker was actually earnest about his Jedi vocation and hopefully able to leave this latest underworld of death.  But clearly, with his links to Stinkious, he still had to prove that he was worthy of that Light path, for with a thunderous roar the Rancor, the ultimate sexually diseased Kid monster and blockbuster beast, charged at him and the pig bouncer from a lair on the other side of the pit like a truly monstrous and out of control helicopter.

 

Indeed, this huge and slavering Kid monster now seemed like the personification of the TZ disaster helicopter-the Helirancor!-rushing to complete a new twilit trio with two male victims to join Oola.  Significantly, this huge and alienated Helirancor was also the non-identical twin sibling of the Id monster of FORBIDDEN PLANET.  This forbidding link underlined that this Kid monster, and not Vader or the Emperor, was also the pentultimate sexually diseased monster Skyrocker had to face down and defeat if he was to truly become a Jedi.  Indeed, the fact that the Helirancor was the twin sibling of the Id monster of FORBIDDEN PLANET reiterated that by defeating this last horrific Kid monster, Skyrocker would be free of incestuous lusts for his twin sister.  Curiously, the name “Rancor”-a name and spelling which evoked the carnal and blockbuster loot lusting Loc-nar [Rancol spelt backward] of HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE-also reminded us of Corellia, Han and Lando, suggesting that the monstrous beast represented Han and Lando’s lingering Kid monsters, as well.  Indeed, this link was underlined by the fact that “rancor” was usually spelt “rancour.” 

 

At any rate, the Kid monster quickly darted out and, scooping up the Gonorrhean pig bouncer with a three appendaged hand that evoked the hands of Yoda, ate his sexually diseased form with some relish.  After gulping down this diseased appetizer, the Helirancor turned its attention to Skyrocker.  This allowed the viewer to take a closer look at the raging beast, and confirm that it was sort of indeed the spitting and snarling twin image of the original Id monster. The Rancor’s twin status also underlined that Skyrocker’s Dark Side was still clearly centred around a forbidden teenage lust for his twin sister, emphasized by the intercut sight of his scantily clad sister, anxiously following his progress from Jabba’s cantina above the rancorous pit.

 

        And the young Jedi was left with no choice but to confront his Kid monster, for the Helirancor roared in and crushed Skyrocker in one huge three taloned paw that made the creature the first and largest gremlin of post-TZ disaster cinema.  However, luckily for Luke, this grasping paw was the Helirancor’s right paw.  This right paw evoked Yoda’s equally three appendaged hand of right, encouraging the Force to flow in Skyrocker and mojovating him to grab a big bone off the ground before he was raised up to the Kid monster’s drooling mouth.  When he was raised closer to this mouth, Skyrocker shoved the bone between the Helirancor’s upper and lower teeth.  This prevented the Helirancor from biting down on Skyrocker like the space slug, and he roared in frustrated fury as he dropped the young Jedi and turned his attention to this bone in his snarling maw.  Dropping safely to the ground, Skyrocker took advantage of this momentary lapse in attention to race between the Helirancor’s sexually neutral legs to the safety of the living cage behind the beast.  However, this apparent escape route led to a locked metal door that prevented Skyrocker’s escape, trapping the young Jedi.

 

Breaking the bone with a brutal bite, the furious Helirancor then turned around to roar at Skyrocker.  Luke turned to face his Dark Side as well, and suddenly noticed the metal teeth of the Helirancor’s door retracted into the ceiling above the monster’s head like the teeth of the space slug.  Picking up a handy rock, Skyrocker threw the rock at the door’s electronic control.  Ironically, this caused the door and its teeth to come crashing down on the Helirancor’s head like the helicopter in the TZ disaster just as the Helirancor charged into his lair to kill Skyrocker, crushing the neck and head of this huge gremlin.  This caused the career of the Helirancor to come crashing to a halt, hopefully underlining how upset Lucas was by the TZ disaster, and preparing us for his commitment to developing CGI to ensure deadly disaster free film sets forever after.  This crushing crash also killed the twin Id monster, and, by implication, also severed Skyrocker’s Dark links to Leia forever.  The sight reminded us again of the resemblance of the interior of Jabba’s lair to the insides of the space slug in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and the huge teeth of the slug that almost closed down and chomped on the fleeing Millenium Falcon in that film.  This link to the adventures of Solo also reminded us of the nomenclatural link of the Rancor to Lando, and Han the Corellian, implying again that Han-and now also Lando-symbolized Jonah, and that both had been liberated from the monstrous Id whale by this death to openly speak out and battle against the Empire, as well. 

 

It was a complicated victory for audiences, as on the one hand it allowed a symbolic Lord Stinkious to triumph, and yet on another hand a Skyrocker who evoked Myca to triumph.  At any rate, a new Euro-Indigenous Dar-zan had killed his lion and mastered his inner beast.  And so Skywalker severed all incestuous links with his sister at last with this defeat of this final Kid Monster, without Han Milner having to do it for him as in AMERICAN GRAFFITI.  And so Skyrocker triumphed over the TZ disaster, preparing us for his upcoming triumphs over Jabba the salacious Sacc, and the Emperor and Vader.  Skyrocker’s newfound Jedi vim and verve was quickly made clear, after Jabba and his alienated entourage greeted the Helirancor’s death with stunned silence.  Clearly, they were not aware that Lucas and ILM would digitally recreate the stop motion Helirancor in CGI form as a triumphantly carnivorous undersea monster in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE.  Obviously not able to predict the always in motion future in spite of his ability to shrug off the Jedi Voice, Jabba testily ordered that Chewie, Han and Luke be brought up to him. 

 

Significantly, the virile new confidence that Skyrocker displayed when he again stood before the sprawling Sacc reminded us of the emboldening confidence Luke displayed after being baptised in the living Force by the dianoga in the garbage compactor in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  Clearly, the Helirancor’s pit was another curious baptism in the living Force in another garbage compactor-like scene in the Classic Trilogy.  This newfound J.D. boldness was reaffirmed by Skyrocker’s black shirt, a black shirt that now stood out in marked contrast to Solo’s virtuous and virginal white shirt.  Of course, there was some humourous irony in this sight, reminding us that Luke started off the Classic Trilogy in a virtuous and virginal white kimono to Solo’s hip and edgy black leather vest.  Clearly, Solo was still the frozen Tin Man, and Luke was now the virile new Scarecrow of the Classic Trilogy.

 

Speaking through his translator Threepio, Jabba testily declared his intention to take Chewie, Han and Luke out to the Dune Sea and cast them into the pit of Carkoon, home to the nasty Sarlacc.  While ominous, this was actually good news for the Holy Trinity, for the Dune Sea and Carkoon evoked Muad’dib’s famous victory over the Harkonnens in Dune. Threepio’s explanation that the Holy Trinity would be slowly digested over a period of one thousand years inside the Sarlaac was also good news.  Indeed, the long digestion period evoked the Millenium Falcon and the thousand stalwart ships that sailed to Ilium to rescue Helen, preparing us again for the rescue of Leia and for the defeat of Jabba’s gang and the evil Empire.  This toss into the pit of Carkoon evoked the garbage compactor in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPW and also evoked the dump down into the pit of Helirancor, both of which Skyrocker had triumphantly escaped from, unwisely linking Jabba to impious double trouble that always failed in the Classic Trilogy all over again.  The Sarlaac also recalled the Lars farm, a prison that Skyrocker had also already escaped from, increasing the Good Force for Luke.  Clearly, the Forces of Good were still on track, and Skyrocker had every reason to confidently assure Jabba that his decision to kill the three heroes was the “…the last mistake you’ll ever make.”

 

Significantly, Skyrocker’s brash confidence was no doubt strengthened by the fact that the first ironically centring and harmonious conjunction of the four healing Ozian elements occurred in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI while the three heroes were being addressed by Jabba and Threepio.  Indeed, standing behind Earthy Scarecrow Skyrocker, the Fiery Cowardly Chewbacca and the Watery Tin Han was the reassuring figure of the Airy Great Lando in his cantina bouncer disguise.  This brought the harmonizing and rejuvenating energy of the four eternal elements to the dreaming, chained and implicitly Dorothy linked Leia and to the audience, confirming that the healing spiritworld dream was doing its twilit best to gather Force to heal all dreamers, in the end.  This energizing Ozian conjunction continued on the flying monkey-like flight on the small, anti-grav sand skiffs that accompanied Jabba’s Sail Barge, all of which floated like Gor out across the Dune Sea and to the pit of Carkoon.  For the disguised Lando continued to watch over his friends on the floating and aroused trip on their sand skiff, fittingly adding his Airy ambience to their Earth, Fire and Water energy on the journey.  A timely conjunction indeed, empowering Skyrocker and allowing him to prove in the slaughter of the alienated suitors that followed that he had indeed become an indomitable and unstoppable Jedi Knight with the defeat of his helirancorous Kid monster. 

 

In fact, the subsequent battle confirmed that Skyrocker was definitely free from any forbidden and incestuous lust for Leia, and that Bob Fortuna and Jabba Doo had symbolized an Evil and grotesquely personified cock and ball pair and Crumb and his salacious narrative, as well as twilit and Evil filmmakers like Folsey jr. and Landis.  For upon reaching the Sarlaac Pit, Skyrocker was prodded down to the end of a pirate plank on his sand skiff by an alienated skiff guard.  From this overhanging perch, Skyrocker was able to look down into the monstrous maw that waited to swallow him in the sand below.  Significantly, Jedi and J.D. viewer were startled to see that the Sarlaac looked not so much like the open mouth of a sandworm from Arrakis as it did an enormous, grotesquely personified, mutated and toothed vagina, another salacious creation straight out of the warped mind of Crumb.  Indeed, this salacious link was underlined by the resemblances of the name of the Sarlaac to Salacious Crumb and the pit of Carkoon to cartoon. 

 

However, as Leia was the only significant female in the Classic Trilogy, the implication was that the grotesquely personified vagina symbolized Leia.  Indeed, “Sarlaac” also evoked Scarlett O’Hara, reminding us that Scarlett had already been linked with Leia in the Classic Trilogy.  This link of the Sarlaac pit to Leia also now implied that the grotesquely personified cock and ball pair of Bob Fortuna and Jabba the Sacc also symbolized Luke on one level.  The new and improved 1997 version of the Sarlaac also evoked the blood sucking and man eating female plant Audrey II in the low budget allegorical Corman indie docufeature classic THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960), a darkly humourous and cautionary tale about doing anything-including murder-for, and ultimately being eaten up by, a monstrous and voracious blockbuster beast of a plant that symbolized fortune and glory, an evocation that was all too grimly appropriate in the post-TZ disaster years. 

 

Clearly, another battle against sexual and incestuous disease implicitly linked to the perils of fortune and glory was about to take place here at the voracious, salacious and cartoonish pit of Carkoon.  This implied that this latest battle against sexual disease would be the one to sever the link between Leia and Luke and free the siblings forever, reaffirming the open declaration of love between Han and Leia at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, and allowing young Luke to truly be a J.D. Jedi Skyrocker like Henderson.  Indeed, this liberating battle quickly erupted, after Skyrocker and a rejuvenating Solo coolly turned down any chance of asking Jabba for mercy.  Angrily prodded off the pirate plank into the vaginal maw below by the skiff guard, Skyrocker leapt into the air in Skyrocking fashion like he was preparing for an Olympic dive or a Superman flight, and deliberately turned in the air so that he decisively turned his back on Leia’s symbolic vagina and the lure of forbidden incest and filmmaking Evil.  Now facing inwards towards the skiff and its guards, Skyrocker then caught the scintillating new axesaber that Arttu tossed to him from the towering Sand Barge.

 

This new light saber flew through the clear blue desert sky like the bone weapon of Moonwatcher in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.  Popping out of the innards of Artoo, the flying saber also reminded us of the disguised rock of Zeus and of the living forms of his five brothers and sisters that flew out of the mouth of Chronos in the Greek legend.  A significant allusion, for the tale of the devoured and regurgitated figures of the six male and female children of Old Man Time was no doubt an allegory for the eating of the six months of Fall and Winter, and their eventual reborn release as the six months of Spring and Summer each year.  A timely reminder, for when Skyrocker caught and happily turned on his new axesaber, we saw that it was green, as green as lush green Spring and the Emerald City, and of Oola and Yoda and lush and fecund and overgrown Dagobah.  Clearly, this Springing green axesaber flowed with the healing Force, allowing him to fulfill his messianic destiny and bring ironically healing and transforming Spring to the barren and lunar wastes of Tatooine.  Indeed, the green Light of the Covenant saber confirmed his link to the equally messianic Paul Atreides, and his success in helping transform the equally barren and lunar wastes of Arrakis into an Earth-like world called Rakis in the Dune Trilogy.  !Skai’halud-the messiah had come!

 

And with his Springing green axesaber held aloft in his ironically robotic hand of right, the holy Jedi Priest confirmed his Journey of Self Discovery and his liberation from his forbidden and incestuous Kid monster by walking down the plank and into the mutated guards on the skiff like a Jedi Odysseus holding the axesaber that only he could wield.  And thus began the long awaited slaughter of the arrogant and alienated suitors of Penelopeleia, as Skyrocker cut down their infidel ranks with his Euro-Indigenous-Graeco-Roman-Judea-Christian-Afro-Egyptian-Arthurian-neo-samurai Springing green Light of the Covenant axesaber.  Indeed, Skyrocker exuberantly slashed through the alienated and criminal ranks of the skiff guards with the superhuman ease of Sanjuro at the end of YOJIMBO and the Krayyt Kenobi in the cantina in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE like a human helicopter rotor. 

 

Fittingly, and ironically, as Skyrocker cut down the twilit skiff guards, Leia took advantage of the confusion aboard the hovering Sail Barge at the sight of the determined Jedi in action and began throttling Jabba with the chain that held her to him.  In fact, the petite and pretty Princess throttled the gasping Sacc with the same superhuman strength and determination that Skyrocker was now unleashing in his battle against the skiff guards.  This underlined Leia’s twin sibling link to Luke, preparing us for Kenobi’s spectral revelation later on Dagobah.  This attack on the testy Sacc also reiterated that the sinister and incestuous link between Leia and Luke had definitely been broken, freeing her to love Han.  Leia’s unusual strength also reminded us again of the unstoppable and vengeful female spirits liberated from Pandora’s Ark at the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, vengeful spirits that liquidated Belloq and his Nutzi gang as remorselessly as Leia and Skyrocker liquidated Jabba and his alienated gang.

 

Indeed, soon the testy Sacc’s tail trembled and was still, and Jabba slumped over in death.  This death now destroyed any lingering incestuous Kid monsters within Leia, freeing her from a Harkonnen-like spirit of Evil in a way that Alia was unable to do at the end of Children Of Dune.  Now Leia was as free from incestuous Dark Forces as her twin brother Luke.  Indeed, perhaps even more so, as she was actually the Fifth Element Dorothy that was being centred and harmonized by this latest cinematic conjunction of the healing and elemental Ozian Fours.  And so Leia and Luke were liberated from incest on their Journeys of Self Discovery, and were now free to pursue their individual destinies. 

 

And so a truly unplugged J.D. Jedi Skyrocker battled his way across the matrix of assembled sand skiffs and up the floating and aroused and alienated side of the Sail Barge to rescue Leia, and she hurried from inside the barge to meet him.  And so she set off a chain reaction with the barge’s main laser cannon that soon destroyed the Sail Barge, and the two siblings ironically swung to the safety of the sand skiff commandeered by Chewie, Han and Lando like Gordon and Ardor swung to the safety of a spaceship at the end of FLESH GORDON.  And so their triumphant but impersonal swing in their brash and virile clothing underlined that they had travelled far on their separate paths from the affectionate and cuddly swing on the Death Moon in their virtuous white clothing in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  Indeed, this dispassionate swing in virile clothing confirmed that there was no longer any forbidden link between the two twin Jedi. 

 

And so the Renee and Myca evoking Leia and Luke rejoined their heroic, healing and elemental Ozian companions on the sand skiff.  And so the Great Lando confirmed his commitment to the Rebel cause by picking up the two robots-who had comically fallen out of the Sail Barge and into the sand in their usual Comedy narrative-and piloted the skiff and his friends to safety like the skiff was his old air balloon.  And just in time, as the Sail Barge exploded behind the heroes like the Death Moon in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, confirming its links to Gor and Jabba’s links to the Evil Empire-and triumphantly destroying the last remaining vestiges of sexual disease haunting Leia and Luke.  And so Folsey jr. and Landis also died with Fortuna and Jabba in the explosion, an explosion that also killed the film crew linked and alienated and arrogant suitor friends of Jabba in one of the last seminal car crashes of the Classic Trilogy-yabba jabba doo! 

 

Alas, and not surprisingly, given the bittersweet and complex luv/hate relationship that audiences had with Skyrocker, it was a difficult victory to accept, as on the one hand you wanted the Stinkious linked Luke to fail, and on the other hand you wanted the Myca evoking Skyrocker to succeed.  The bittersweetness was complicated by the fact that Boba Fett was also earlier dispatched by Skyrocker and Solo in a Western showdown after falling out of the sky like a helicopter onto Skyrocker’s skiff in his jetpack.  In fact, the implicitly Sir Scott linked intergalactic Falfa and his aura of sexual disease was casually and flippantly cast into the Sarlaac Pit in one of the biggest anti-climaxes of the Classic Trilogy-ironically despatched by the actor who played Bob Falfa!-to groans of enraged disappointment from the audience.  This casual death of a bounty hunter linked to debt collecting Jabba also evoked Jabba’s own link to debt collecting Warner Brothers, underlining that all fears of debt caused by another THX 1138-style disaster had been erased in the mind of Lord Stinkious by the successes of the first two STAR WARS films, and by RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

 

Curiously, the flight to safety of “our heroes” also reminded us that Pygar the blind angel flew Barbarella and the Evil Tyrant to safety at the end of BARBARELLA, reaffirming that Lord Stinkious was escaping from the Sixties and its salacious cartoonists.  Significantly, the sand skiff that flew the heroes to safety also looked like a flying carpet.  This evoked Magic Carpet Airlines and the triumphant and sunlit morning ending of AMERICAN GRAFFITI.  An ironcially fitting link, as Skyrocker had returned to Tatooine to tie up some loose ends like Lord Stinkious had returned to Modesto to film AMERICAN GRAFFITI, and would soon leave his small town planet with the same knowledge that there was no going back and the same commitment to post-secondary school education as Lord Stinkious and Henderson.  However, for the first time in a film by Lord Stinkious, the rest of the young heroes joined Henderson on the Magic Carpet ride to that Eastern college.  This emphasized that the Comedy, Journey of Self Discovery, Romance and Western narratives had reached an ironically triumphant Ozian conclusion, and that all of the heroes would have been healed and transformed into harmonious and holy adult figures like Skyrocker in the dreaming nighttime darkness of Jabba’s lair if not for their new link to the TZ disaster. 

 

This also implied that they would have been ready to leave the Modesto moisture farms of Tatooine and fly away with Luke Henderson to achieve their adult destiny.  An important change from the end of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, underlining the progression we had seen in the Classic Trilogy from the childish innocence of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and adolescent turbulence of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK to the more experienced and rounded adult maturity of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Indeed, with this explosive and daylit triumph over Jabba and the forbidden incestuous side, the Classic Trilogy would have been even more resoundingly healed and harmonious than the equally triumphant and daylit endings of THX 1138, AMERICAN GRAFFITI and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE-despite the fact that the film still had almost an hour and a half to go!  Thus, if they had not been linked to the TZ disaster, things would have looked good for the Holy Heroes as they prepared to face down and defeat the Wicked Emperor, Anikkostein and the deadly, diseased, power mad, accident causing, assembly line, blockbuster loot lusting, double trouble, film factory mentality of the Empire gang so as to free Lord Stinkious to be a creative, disciplined, independent and moral Jedi film artist forever.

 

However, due to their link to the TZ disaster and the Dark Side of Hollywood, the triumph over Jabba and his diseased entourage did raise the spirits of the audience, a glum spirit that continued when Skyrocker returned to Dagobah via X-broomstick to converse with the twilit and dying Great Yodakin, a scene that linked the three appendaged Jedi Master to the three taloned Helirancor.  A fitting link, for the Great Yodakin told Skyrocker that he needed no more Jedi training, confirming that Luke had indeed vanquished his sexually diseased inner demons when he defeated the rancorous twin of the Id monster.  In his next statement, however, the Great Yodakin insisted that Skyrocker was not yet a Jedi in spite of this victory.  Indeed, the dimunitive and dragonish sage insisted that he must face Vader again and defeat him in order to become a fully fledged Jedi.  This linked Vader and his rotoring saber to the Helirancor and the TZ helicopter, now making the Dark Lord young Skyrocker’s pentultimate Kid monster, albeit this time linked to the TZ disaster kids given Skyrocker’s defeat of incestuous Evil with his triumph over the Helirancor.  However, the Great Yodakin quickly complicated any desire that Skyrocker may have had to defeat and kill the twilit form of Vader by confirming that Vader was his father-and, ironically, mocked Stinky and his decision to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg with the sage words “…once you start down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny”-before dying like Dersu and Kenobi and becoming eternally one with the Force. 

 

The blue hologram-like Force ghost of Glenda then reappeared.  This ghost also confirmed that Vader was Skyrocker’s father, and also reassured Luke that he must face and defeat Darth Annikostein in order to become a full J.D. Jedi, turning the Dark Father into the Twilit Father.  However, while it was necessary to defeat this Twilit Father, it was also clear that Skyrocker must not kill Vader.  Indeed, killing Vader would cause Luke to embrace the Dark Side, almost certainly turning Skyrocker into a Skyfaller and new Dark Lord of the Shit Sith Hits-and Lord Stinkious into an even more demented Directo.  Ben also revealed that the Other was his twin sister Leia, a revelation that we had already been prepared for by her telepathic link to Skyrocker at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, by the display of her J.D. Jedi Force in the battle with Jabba, and by the triumph over salacious and personified genitalia and the Dark incest Side in that symbolic battle.  This solved the mystery of the Other, but still left Skyrocker with the knowledge that he had to somehow face and defeat his Twilit Father without killing him in order for Lord Stinkious and himself to somehow still become Jedi. 

 

However, linking Darth Annikostein to the cunning and double-crossing Frankenstein of DEATH RACE 2000 throughout the trilogy had underlined that Vader was not the pentultimate Kid monster, but a Rebel hero in hiding who was waiting patiently for his chance to get close and kill the real baddie in the form of the Wicked Emperor like Frankenstein had waited for his chance to get close to the President on the awards stand after winning the Death Race so as to kill him, in the end.  This link to Frankenstein had undermined the Classic Trilogy, for unlike Bartel, Lord Stinkious had never allowed the viewer to get behind the Frankenstein mask and get to know and like and care for this Frankenstein.  Thus, it was hard for us to accept Vader’s sudden assassination of the Emperor, as we had not been given any previous indications other than the visual allusions to Frankenstein that Vader was a good guy who would suddenly switch sides and come to the aid of his son and the Rebels, in the end. 

 

In fact, by showing us the back of Vader’s hideously scarred head in his evil and miniature Death Moon-like meditation chamber in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Lucas had visually underlined that Annikkostein-unlike Frankenstein-was in fact the monstrous baddie under his mask and costume that he had been made out to be over the course of the Classic Trilogy.  As a result, this sudden decision to save Luke in the end was completely against the grain for Vader.  However, as Vader was also implicitly linked to Kurosawa, an inspirational father figure for Lucas, the sudden return of Vader to the Good reminded us that Kurosawa blasted Kubrick in KAGEMUSHA, after blasting Lucas in DERSU UZALA. 

 

Indeed, while linked to the TZ disaster in retrospect, the rambling and contradictory explanations Luke received from Ben and Yoda on Dagobah did little to appease Skyrocker or the audience.  In fact, at the May 25, 1983 showing of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, groans and howls of laughter erupted from the audience during the entire Dagobah scene, for it confirmed only too well our already furiously dismissive feelings about the film and Lord Stinkious.  This dismissive fury was not assuaged by the creative attempt to wrap up the trilogy with a three pronged and trimatic Odyssean attack on the Empire and its new Deathly Moon.  This multi-pronged attack was layed out by the film’s true Glinda, a motherly woman played by Caroline Blakiston with the fittingly maternal name of Mon Mothma, who fended off the Evil paternalism of the Wicked Palpaberg.  Her name and spectral appearance in a white dress evoked Hoth and Cloud City, underlining her status as Good Witch of the North.  Unfortunately, however, she looked like Kennedy, giving young audience members yet another reason to hate the film. 

 

Curiously, the attack explanation also took place in a ghostly white briefing room inside the headquarters frigate of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA space wagon train evoking Rebel space fleet, a ghostly white room that further emphasized Mothma’s link to the Good North.  While the white briefing room also recalled the lunar limbo of THX 1138, and the impotent helplessness of that area, the assembled Rebel pilots banished that impotence, confirming that we had left impotence and other inner problems behind on Tatooine and Dagobah forever.  Indeed, the Falcon and the rest of the Rebel fleet would have no problems using hyperdrive as in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK to get to that final battle, underlining that new virility.

 

The first step in this three pronged Odyssean attack called for wholesome Han to lead a strike team to the forest moon of Endor, a moon that clearly could be the end or the beginning of the Rebellion-bringing the trilogy full ronde.  A forest moon that also evoked the forest planet of the Emperor Palpaberg linked Prince Barin in FLASH GORDON, reaffirming the implicit anti-Palpaberg intent of the Classic Trilogy.  Here Solo and his team had to knock out the generator emitting a Force field that protected the half completed and orbiting Deathly Moon from attack.  Significantly, this mission marked the fourth and last time that a mystical energy field controlled Solo’s destiny in the Classic Trilogy, ironically reaffirming that the Fours were truly with Han now and that he was a wholesome hero like Luke-and that Lucas was still implicitly reaching out to Coppola.  To pull off this mission, Solo’s strike team had to secretly land on Endor in full view of the protecting Imperial fleet in a stolen Imperial shuttle with an old Imperial security clearance code.  This imaginative ruse turned the white and horse shaped Imp shuttle into a literal space age Trojan horse, reminding us that the Millenium Falcon was used as a Trojan horse to sneak into the Death Moon in STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  Indeed, the shuttle’s link to the Trojan Falcon of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE was underlined by its horse appearance, and by its name Tydirium, which evoked both Ilium and Millenium Falcon. 

 

Tydirium’s Trojan shuttle status was further underlined by Solo’s mission, for by destroying the Force field generator Han and his team opened wide the gates to the Deathly Moon and to the healing Ozian dream.  This allowed Lando to lead the space fighters of the Rebel space fleet inside the gates of Illium and attack the diseased and semi-aroused mechanical brain at its inner reactor core.  At the same time as these Trojan efforts, and shortly after an exciting speeder bike chase that evoked the light cycle scenes in TRON, Skyrocker did his Odyssean part by leaving Solo’s strike team and allowing himself to be captured by Imps in order to be brought before Vader on Endor.  This caused Darth Anikkostein to bring a Dorothyish Luke to McDiarmid’s Palpaberg resembling and implicitly linked Wicked Emperor of the West-greeted with boos due to his resemblance to Emperor Palpaberg by audiences on his ominous arrival by shuttle on the Deathly Moon after the destruction of Jabba and his diseased entourage on Tatooine-in his Black Tower throne room on the insidious Deathly Moon, allowing Odysseus to confront the last impious suitor.  For like the ragged Odysseus, Skyrocker was allowed into the presence of the gloating and Gor-like Palpaberg because he was not perceived to be a threat to Vader or the Wicked Emperor. 

 

However, Skyrocker soon made fools of the two Dark Lords and affirmed that he had defeated his own personal and incestuous Dark Side already on Tatooine by defeating-but not killing-Vader.  Indeed, Skyrocker defeated but did not kill this last Kid monster in quick and expert Odyssean fashion, using the magic Springing green axesaber that only he could wield in the first and last collision of a green saber with Vader’s blood red rotorsaber in the Classic Trilogy.  Yet another difficult battle for audiences to watch given our love/hate relationship with Skyrocker, but one so moving that it ultimately caused us to accept him again.  For this defeat of Vader also saved Skyrocker from being turned to the sexually diseased Dark Side.  And a persistently incestuous Side it was, for during this final saber battle Vader read Skyrocker’s mind and made a salacious comment about sexually assaulting Leia.  This salacious comment openly linked Skyrocker’s Dark Father to incest, implicitly affirming that Luke’s long struggle to defeat inner Kid monsters linked to incestuous Evil had been no joke and that Lucas used his films to come to grips with equally Dark real life experiences of incest.  Indeed, the fury that the remark aroused in Skyrocker affirmed this harrowing reality, for he screamed in agony, re-ignited his Spring green axesaber, and angrily attacked and beat down Vader’s blood red rotorsaber with a full Force throttle rain of blows.  Clearly, Skyrocker had forgotten that he had defeated his Kid monster, and had become one himself! 

 

Indeed, Skyrocker soon had his symbolic Dark Father literally hanging on the rope-like railing of a small bridge after a rotoring torrent of saber blows.  Slashing down with his axesaber, Skyrocker cut off Vader’s robotic right hand in retaliation for the loss of his own hand on a similar bridge at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  This rotor-like torrent of blows also evoked the TZ disaster again, turning Vader into a troubled Landis figure controlled by his Dark Side as symbolized by the Wicked Emperor.  Indeed, this pentultimate rotorsaber fight began with Skyrocker and Vader’s green and red sabers crossed in front of the Emperor like helicopter rotors while the Wicked Warlock chuckled insidiously like Gor, affirming the Emperor’s new implicit link to the TZ disaster and the dark and demented Directo side of the New Hollywood brat pack on one level.  The crossed sight reiterated that on one level furious audiences-particularly young ones!-were reconfiguring STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to defeat the TZ disaster.  This goal was underlined by the fact that Skyrocker woke up from his twilit fury after seeing the exposed wires of Vader’s right wrist, a sight that reminded him of his own robotic right hand.  Indeed, the sight reaffirmed that Vader’s Frankenstein persona was not an elaborate ruse as in DEATH RACE 2000, and that Lord Stinkious, Luke and Marquand could still become full and inhuman machine men if they allowed reckless violence to desecrate film sets, or if they cut down their Dark Fathers like human rotors. 

 

In fact, seeing Skywalker stare at his robotic right hand reminded us of the robotic right hand of Rotwang, the mad scientist of METROPOLIS.  As Rotwang was the head and machine-man creating baddie of METROPOLIS and linked to the Dark Side of directors in that film, this link to Rotwang implied that Skywalker could become not just the next Vader if he killed his father, but the next Emperor, with the Dr. Frankenstein-like power to create his own machine-man underling.  This was a sobering implication, and one that prepared us for the Emperor’s necrolectric assault on Skyrocker when he refused to join the Dark Lord, necrolicity that evoked the bolts of electricity Rotwang used to give his machine-man life.  For the Wicked Emperor was the ultimate symbol of directorial dementia and sexually diseased authority in the films of Lucas, the nightmare opposite of the Krayyt Kenobi or Wolfman Jack.  Indeed, seeing Luke with the necrolicity Emperor in the end reminded us that Henderson confronted Wolfman Jack at the end of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, linking the salacious Wolfman to the Emperor in a way that evoked the AMERICAN GRAFFITI cadence of the battle with Jabba.  In fact, the Emperor’s name also reminded us that the first film Lord Stinkious made about a popular DJ was a 1967 short indie docufeature student film called THE EMPEROR, underlining the Emperor’s link to DJs like Wolfman Jack, a link affirmed by his electricity evoking bolts of blue necrolicity. 

 

Thus, with the link to AMERICAN GRAFFITI and the earlier battle with Jabba, there was more heroic inevitability than real dark tension in this final confrontation between Skyrocker and Emperor before the beginning of the necrolictic assault.  Indeed, Skyrocker had killed his personal Dark and Twilit Side on Tatooine, underlining that victory by easily defeating Vader and his twilit rotorsaber here.  And in spite of his new unfortunate link to Lord Stinkious and the TZ disaster, Luke had never been anything but a kind, virtuous and squeaky clean hero throughout the Classic Trilogy.  His failure in the battle against Vader’s ghost in the tree cave on Dagobah also no doubt reminded him that he could have won that fight if he had only not given in to fear and struck down the ghost with Anakin’s saber.  Indeed, Jones proved Yoda’s point when he turned down the opportunity to kill Belloq and the Nazis with a bazooka at the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, causing them to be obliterated by the vengeful feminine power of the Ark.  This reminded us that the Evil establishment usually defeated itself at the end of the films of Lord Stinkious, and accordingly Skyrocker made up for the failure at the tree cave and bowed to tradition.  He switched off his Springing green axesaber, threw it away, turned to face the Emperor and emphatically said “…I’ll never turn to the Dark Side  I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

 

Significantly, this was such a moving sight and sound that it was the moment when most audiences forgot the implicit link of Luke to Lucas and embraced him as the TZ disaster free Hamill, the Skryrocker.  It was a moving sight and statement that also reminded us that Henderson refused to join the Pharoahs after the rear axle stunt that stopped the pod police dead in their tracks at the end of AMERICAN GRAFFITI.  A timely reminder, for Skyrocker had just stopped Vader in his tracks, linking STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to AMERICAN GRAFFITI again.  Eerily, but true to his sexually Evil as well as twilit fashion, Emperor Palpaberg reacted to Skyrocker’s decision to refuse to become his new head flying monkey like a persuasive pedophile who had finally met a child who resisted his predatory lust.  For in the creepiest line of the Classic Trilogy, he angrily and sibilantly hissed “…if you will not be turned, you will be destroyed!” 

 

And so this line openly revealed the Wicked Emperor’s sexually diseased and Evil nature for all to see, and reiterated the fear of sexual disease seen in all of the early films of Lord Stinkious.  Then the Emperor raised his hands and blasted crackling blue lightning bolts full of deadly and diseased energy at Skyrocker, reminding us more of Gor and his alienated death rays than ever before.  These vampiric bolts of necricity sucked the life Force out of Skyrocker like Rotwang sucked the life Force out of Maria, making him writhe and scream in a violently orgasmic agony that underlined the rapacious nature of this assault.  And so things looked bleak for the smoking body of a Skyrocker we now identified with again and felt sorry for as the Wicked Emperor Palpaberg continued to blast him with necricity, his rage contorted face revealing the psychopathic sadist behind the perversely avuncular smile at last. 

 

However, Skywalker began to plead with his father for help.  Hearing these pleas for help, we remembered that Lucas sr. became his son’s staunchest supporter after the success of his son’s films.  We remembered that Indy chose to have faith that he and Marion would be saved from the Ark at the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, a faith that was rewarded by God.  We also remembered that Morbius faced down and defeated his subconscious Id monster at the end of FORBIDDEN PLANET when he finally realized that a forbidden love for his daughter Altaira had created the blockbuster beast.  And that March defeated Gor at the end of THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS with an axe attack on the fissure of Orlando.  And that Susumu Fujita’s Hyoe Tadokoro changed sides in the end and joined General Makabe and the two comical peasants Matashichi and Tahei in their tragicomic quest to save Princess Yuki at the end of HIDDEN FORTRESS.  Lastly, we remembered that Frankenstein revealed his true Rebel colours in the end and assassinated the Evil President when the President made the mistake of allowing Frankenstein to drive close to the platform for the medal ceremony at the end of DEATH RACE 2000. 

 

All of these memories pointed to one thing, and sure enough, after some initial hesitations, Skyrocker’s Dark and Twilit Father came to his aid like Han at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE.  It was a bittersweet moment for us angry adolescents in 1983, as the audience was kind of hoping that Vader would roar with triumphant laughter and watch the Emperor kill Luke, given the implicit link of Luke to Lord Stinkious and the decision of Lord Stinkious to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  However, despite our disappointment, Darth Vader approached the Emperor from behind like he attacked Luke in his custom TIE at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, evoking the Forced sodomistic nature of the Dark Side while negating that Evil at the same time.   Vader then lifted up the necrolicity spewing Emperor, evoking the Rebel officer on the Tantive IV that he lifted, throttled and discarded with one hand at the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE in a way that brought the Classic Trilogy full throttle circle.  An ironic link, for the impious attack made Vader another Odyssean figure like Han, Lando and Luke, allowed into the presence of the Emperor like Luke because he was not perceived to be a threat to the last arrogant suitor.  And so Vader completed his healing Odyssey by carrying Emperor Palpaberg to his doom in order to protect Telukachus, like Ben did in the cantina, and dropping him down the central reactor core shaft into that most popular of sub-themes in the films of Lord Stinkious: the garbage chute.  A somehow fitting demise for the Wicked Emperor, given the space-pod garbage jettison of the two robots down to Tatooine that began the Classic Trilogy and the earlier dump of Fett into the Sarlaac pit.  GIGO!

 

Falling down the chute also linked the Emperor to Rotwang, for the mad scientist also fell to his doom at the end of METROPOLIS.  Emperor Palpaberg also spun as he fell down the garbage chute, like Luke did when he threw himself down the chute to escape Vader at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  The Wicked Emperor shrank in size as he fell, evoking the melting Wicked Witch of the West at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ.  Far down the shaft Emperor Palpaberg burst in a vast explosion of Evil anti-energy, briefly sending a wailing rush of rank and despairing Dark Force up the chute, reminding us that the Wicked Witch of the West smoked as she melted at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ.  And then the insidious and Wicked Emperor disappeared, and the Wicked old Witch was dead again, and the equally insidious Emperor Palpaberg, his beastly blockbuster lusts and his TZ disasters had been defeated, freeing the world of film art to devote itself to higher goals again, and Skyrocker was saved, and Lord Stinkious defeated his fears of incest and of failing as a Directo, and film triumphed over radio and television, and Morbius defeated his Dark Side again, and March killed Gor, and Frankenstein brought down the evil President once more.  And so the angry Odyssey was over, and Anakin, Leia and Luke were free from the grip of the Wicked Poseidon at last.  And so Lord Stinkious and Marquand triumphed over the Dark Side that used Landis to cause the helicopter crash, saving two Jedi kids at last and reiterating their commitment to violence free film sets.  And so the Jedi twins were free from their diseased and incestuous Dark Father, allowing them to leave Oz and the healing spiritworld dream as whole and harmonious adults, in the end.  Significantly, Chewie, Han, Lando and the rest of the Rebellion were also free, but not the castle soldiers and flying monkies of the Empire, as at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ.

 

Indeed, the Empire was destroyed, a destruction that would have affirmed that with the success of his films, Lord Stinkious had broken free from the control of Hollywood and his fears and now stood free as a truly independent and virtuous J.D. Jedi film artist, if he had not agreed to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  This Imperial destruction was underlined by the spectacular obliteration of Vader’s Moby Dick-like Super SD, Executor, taking the implicitly Dante linked Admiral Piett-played again by Colley-and all of the rest of its Imps with it.  For the seemingly indomitable blockbuster whale of a spacecraft was ironically destroyed when it was knocked out of control by an equally out of control A-wing fighter-its pilot perhaps played by Poppy Hands-causing the ship to ram the Deathly Moon in the last Great Crash of the Classic Trilogy.  The destruction of this blockbuster ship reminded us that the Classic Trilogy had originally been in part about destroying the blockbuster profit lusting film studio Empire and replacing it with higher and more virtuous film art, a destruction that had obviously and ironically not happened as the Empire had been strengthened by this most blockbuster and merchandisable of film trilogies.  Fittingly, the A-wing fighter was piloted by Green Leader, a Wing Commander whose colour code connected him to the Emerald City, healing Spring, Yoda, Dagobah and Luke’s Spring green axesaber.  Clearly, the organic Forces of nature had defeated the Evil machine Empire, in the end.

 

This green and organic triumph was confirmed by the success of Han’s strike team mission, who combined with the diminutive Ewokins-small teddy bear like critters on Endor who resembled E.T. enough to imply that Lucas was using them to sarcastically roast the E.T. dolls Palpaberg was giddily selling at the time-to destroy the Deathly Moon’s force field generator on the lush and fecund moon of Endor below.  Significantly, the Ewokins evoked Muffit the mechanical daggit of Noah Hathaway’s Boxey in BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and a tribe of savage mutants in the allegorical Daniel Haller telefilm “Journey to Oasis” (1981), in the second season of BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY, reaffirming that Lord Stinkious was turning those two telefilm series against Emperor Spielberg and Universal Studios.  The Ewokins also reaffirmed the Ozian structure of the Classic Trilogy, becoming the latest Munchkins to appear after Dorothy fell down to a fantastic new world.  Indeed, the arrival of the Ewokins confirmed the healing Ozian structure of the Classic Trilogy, for the first Ewokin appeared after Leia fell and hit her head after a tornado-like speeder broomstick sequence in the Imp haunted forests of Emerald Endor.  Warwick Davis’ first Ewokin underlined that Ozian commitment to healing Leia, for his name was Wicket, evoking the Wicket Witch of the West and Muffit.  The Ewokins also evoked Moonwatcher’s successfully fighting tribe in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the equally successful fighting Sioux of RETURN OF A MAN CALLED HORSE. 

 

Unfortunately, unlike the Jawakins, the Ugnaughtkins and the Great Yodakin, these latest symbolic manifestations of the mischievous Munchkins in the Classic Trilogy were despised on sight and greeted with furious, incredulous and despairing groans by the audience when Wicket made his appearance.  Indeed, they were truly a horror beyond imagination that poked too much fun at a Classic Trilogy and a TZ disaster that young audiences were taking very seriously, indeed.  A Classic Trilogy that had implied up until the appearance of Wicket that it was fighting on the side of film art in a desperate battle against insidious and blockbuster profit lusting Sith Lords of the Shit Hits that wanted to turn film art into sterile and unimaginative filmmercials for movie tie-in merchandise and product placement.  Now, alas, with the appearance of Wicket, Lucas implicitly affirmed that he had indeed turned to the blockbuster loot lusting Dark Side, as well, and was just another Sith Lord, Lord Stinkious.  Explaining why he had no qualms working with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, as he was now just like them. 

 

Alas, that the dimunitive Ewokins also helped defeat the Imp forces on Endor with their ironically and comically effective fighting prowess-evoking the equally unlikely and ironically successful kid warriors who helped Dirk Benedict’s Lieutenant Starbuck defeat a Cylon garrison on a remote planet in the allegorical Donald Bellisario telefilm “The Young Lords” (1978), in the first season of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA-turning the dreaded storm troopers into storm poopers before our eyes- also infuriated young audiences.  For if the point Lucas and Marquand were trying to make was that Palpaberg would be destroyed, in the end, by his insidious and madcap lust for E.T, THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL movie tie-in profits, particularly perfidious profits from E.T. dolls, the savagely ironic point was lost on audiences.  Indeed, after regaining consciousness after her fall from the speeder bike, Leia won Wicket over to her cause with an offering of Rebel field rations, reminding us that Elliot won E.T. over to his cause with an offering of Reese's Pieces, affirming the implicit link of Wicket to E.T. and the implicit sarcastic point of Lucas and Marquand.  However, their tree houses did evoke the tree houses of the implicitly Emperor Palpaberg linked Prince Barin and his people on their forest planet in FLASH GORDON, reaffirming the implicit anti-Palpaberg intent of the Ewoks, the film and the trilogy.

 

At any rate, the combined destruction of the generator by the Ewokins and Rebels opened wide the gates to Illium as planned, allowing Lando to lead his own strike team of Rebel spacecraft deep into the labyrinthine passages and fissures of the Deathly Moon to attack the main reactor core deep inside the alienated machine brain.  Of course, in the triumphant spirit of the moment, Lando’s mission was successful.  Indeed, Lando in the Falcon-his Richard Bonehill and Mike Quinn played co-pilot Nien Nubh evoking an alien background extra in the capital city of Thrawn in “Time of the Hawk” in another link to that Buck Rogers adventure-and Wedge in the Falcon and an X-broomstick destroyed the reactor core themselves, with two double trouble bursts that fittingly spelled the end of this double trouble Empire.  These bursts caused a chain reaction to engulf the Deathly Moon in a cataclysmically eucatastrophic explosion, ending the reign of error of this second floating mechanical brain from Arous.  Thus the Emperor, the Deathly Moon, the field generator, and the Super SD were destroyed, explosive annihilations that recalled the demise of Jabba and his gang in the floating and Gor-like Sail Barge, reaffirming the link of the two groups of Evildoers to further bring the film full ronde and taking BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^TH CENTURY, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, JAWS and 1941 with them…but not too far away, of course, given that Lord Stinkious was now in league with Emperor Palpaberg.

 

Shortly before the Deathly Moon blew up, Luke and his father reunited forever in an ironically quiet scene in a landing bay aboard the detonating Deathly Moon.  Here we saw the Anakin behind the mask at last when Luke took off his father’s protective masks.  This unmasking evoked Daniels’ appearance outside the mask at the beginning of the film, and Leia’s unmasking at the side of the liberated Tin Han, truly bringing the film full circle.  Significantly, the face of Shaw’s Anakin was hideously pale and scarred.  This caused us not only to feel sorry for this Phantom of the Space Opera, but also reminded us that the hideously scarred face and body of Frankenstein under his black mask and costume was a running gag throughout DEATH RACE 2000.  This running gag was not true, but was simply designed to make Frankenstein seem more frightening and inhuman than he really was in reality.  Making the running gag true with this hideously scarred face and head of Anakin Skywalker was the major difference between DEATH RACE 2000 and STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, underlining that his time beneath the mask had been a truly dark Odyssey for this Dark Father.  Clearly, however, his rescue of Skyrocker and destruction of his own Ideous and monstrous Dark and Twilit Side had returned a lost heroism and humanity to Anakin Skywalker, in the end. 

 

And so the last Jedi Knight of the Old Republic died, and Lord Stinkious forgave Kurosawa and embraced him again, and his J.D. Jedi son Luke escaped with his body in another commandeered Trojan shuttle just before the pentultimate explosion of the Deathly Moon.  And so Lando also blasted out of the exploding Deathly Moon to safety in the wake of Wedge just in time before the explosion engulfed the Falcon, shooting out into space from the diseased depths of the labyrinthine battle station like THX 1138 in his rocket car at the end of THX 1138 and anticipating the opening shot of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE.  And so the Deathly Moon exploded safely behind the heroes like Jabba’s Sail Barge and the Death Moon and Altair IV in a trimatic orgasm that destroyed even more STAR WARS action figures, allowing the film to end on another eucatastrophic note that would have freed Lord Stinkious to walk a more creative, independent and moral line as a J.D. Jedi film artist in a triumphant end to the Journey of Self Discovery if not for his decision to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. 

 

And so the Wicked Old Emperor and his sexually diseased machine Empire were dead, and Palpaberg and his insidious blockbuster machinations had been swept away, and the eternal and Ozian personified elements and their holy Dorothy had returned harmonious and healthy and centred heterosexuality to the rejuvenated and organic universe of the real world, and the TZ disaster had been defeated, and courageous Rebels had won again, and celebrations and fireworks broke out around the galaxy and on Endor, a living moon that had clearly not become the end of the Rebellion.  And Princess Leia leaned over to kiss her Hansome Prince Charming Hunk to confirm the triumph of the Romance and establish both a new monarchy and a New Republic in the lush green forests of the ironically fecund moon of Endor, a fecund moon that evoked Kansas and Yavin at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and the Northern California location of Skywalker Ranch outside San Fran in reality, allowing Coppola to symbolically succeed in saving L.A. film art with his hopeful and racially and sexually harmonious New Hollywood.  This ironically underlined the pre-TZ disaster hope of Lord Stinkious that his life and films would come full healing Ozian circle with the trimatic end of the Classic Trilogy, from the diseased young adulthood of THX 1138, the stormy adolescence of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, the purifying childhood innocence of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, the more confident adolescence of STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and the healed and wholesome adult harmony of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI. 

 

And so Luke burned his father Anakin Skywalker on an ancient Graeco-Roman funeral pyre back on Endor, consecrating his father’s purity and bringing the Odyssean Journeys of Self Discovery of his father and himself to their heroic ends.  Soon after, his father appeared in a Holy Trinity of Force ghosts with Ben and Yoda, confirming that he had successfully completed his healing journey with the destruction of the Emperor in the midst of an Ewok “Mug Wump” stomp "musical" number that gave audiences yet another reason to hate the film and reject its triumphantly eucatastrophic ending.  And then Fiery Chewie, Earthy Han, Airy Lando and Watery Luke centred Dorothy’s Leia between them in the final harmonious conjunction of the healing and elemental Ozian Fours in the Classic Trilogy.  And then the film ended, igniting controversies that existed to this day.  Indeed, as far as my bitter and sullen colleagues and I were concerned, Lucas was indeed Lord Stinkious, Darkest of the Dark Lords, and was now heading down his own Dark and insidious Damnation Alley.  Angry, depressed, disillusioned and embittered, we stormed out of the Vogue Theatre onto Granville Street puzzled by the bright afternoon sunlight on that beautiful May day in Vancouver that did not reflect or illuminate the gloom inside us.  Truly begun, had the Zone Wars.