Chapter 10: Duel of the Mates
Ironically, and no doubt to the dismay of Lucas, THE MATRIX was a huge global success and pop phenom, just like STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE. This success was an unexpected and novel development for Lucas, as in years past his Classic or Indy Trilogy had usually been the first big allegorical film of the Spring/Summer season. Now he had to top THE MATRIX, or he would find himself banished to DAMNATION ALLEY. Luckily for Lucas, fans seemed convinced that he would. Indeed, to my surprised, baffled, disappointed and angry interest, exuberant and happy young people lined up for months outside Temple Theatres-around North America at least-happily waiting for the May 25, 1999 release of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE and eager to be one of the first people in the world to experience the first Lucas directed STAR WARS film in decades. Clearly, a new generation of audiences either were not aware of the insidious reputation of Lucas, or did not care. Even the Columbine High School shootings on April 20, 1999 did not dampen the excitement, and when the new Day of the Jedi finally arrived, happy young audiences poured into the Temple Theatres to finally experience his first film in the CGI enhanced Tragic Trilogy, the twilit, Ozian themed and Spielberg addressing allegorical film, STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE.
Significantly, after the familiar Ozian fairy tale preamble that linked the new trilogy to childhood, the Classic Trilogy and THE WIZARD OF OZ, the explosive STAR WARS Main Theme, another ominous and FORBIDDEN PLANET trailer evoking celestial Yellow Brick Word scrawl appeared that rebooted audiences back into the STAR WARS universe. Significantly, and not surprisingly, given that a growing obsession with fortune and glory in the early Eighties had led to bitter squabbling amongst New Hollywood and coincided with the TZ disaster, this word scrawl pointed out that the Supreme Chancellor of the Old Republic on the Dorothy and Emerald cadenced Galactic Republic city planet of coruscating Coruscant-with all of its chorus of cant-had sent two J.D. Jedi Knights to the taboo planet Naboo to resolve a lustful squabble over tax money, linking the Old Republic to the golden years of New Hollywood between 1967-81 before the TZ disaster. That this lust for tax money equated with a forbidding lust for film profits in the early Eighties was confirmed when STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE began with a shot of a Republican cruiser carrying the Jedi blasting from the left to the right side of the screen and into the greedy embrace of the arms of the Neimoidian Trade Federation spaceship blockade of Naboo, a planetary blockade that evoked Reagan’s Star Wars Defense Initiative. For this opening shot linked the film to-indeed, recreated-the scene at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI that saw the Calrissian piloted Millenium Falcon blast out of the exploding Deathly Moon and into the waiting space wagon train mass of the Rebel fleet orbiting Endor. Thus, this opening shot not only linked the two films together in Lucas tradition, but also linked STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE to 1983 and the year of the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, immediately implying that far from blasting off into new galactic territory at the cusp of the new millenium, the new STAR WARS trilogy would be as concerned with the twilit and disastrous events of the early Eighties as the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES telefilms.
This link to 1983 was reiterated soon after the cruiser docked in one of the orbiting Neimoidian spaceships. For here the viewer was introduced to two serious and questing J.D. Jedi Knights of the Old Republic, Qui Gonn Jinn and his apprentice, Obi Wan Kenobi-implicitly linked to Emmerich and the new CGI enhanced Lucas, and played by Neeson and Ewen McGregor, respectively. This not only returned the Journey of Self Discovery back to the allegorical film art of Lucas, but linked the film openly to 1983 and Palpaberg via Neeson’s roles in KRULL and SCHINDLER’S LIST. His name underlined that significance, for Qui Gonn Jinn sounded like Twilight Zone and why is the jinn-or magic-gone? Curiously, when the destruction of the Republican cruiser and its surrogate female Wicked Witch of the East Captain-played by Bronagh Gallagher-in a cyclonic explosion opened the Kansas gates of the healing Ozian spiritworld dream, Jinn and the young, naïve, innocent and implicitly Lucas linked Kenobi had to fend off Neimoidian Viceroy Nute Gunray and Rune Haako-the bumbling Neimoidian leaders implicitly linked to either the equally bumbling Republican leaders, Ronnie Raygun and Bush sr., respectively, reaffirming the implicit links of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE to the early Eighties. The two resigned Jedi also had to fend off their legions of bumbling CGI combat robots (combots)-even more skeletal than the Imps-with their Cylon evoking voices and their equally CGI but huge, black, powerful and spider-like destroyer bots (desbots) that evoked the equally huge, black, intimidating and crab-like soldiers of the insidious Skeksis in THE DARK CRYSTAL.
Significantly, this human Jedi versus CGI combot and desbot battle immediately implied that Lucas was worried about CGI, a worry that was linked to the early twilit and disastrous years of the Eighties. An implied worry that was also linked to cinematic invasions of CGI enhanced schlockbuster beasts, for after negotiations with Gunray and Haako quickly failed, Jinn and Kenobi battled the combots and desbots in the passages of Gunray’s ship before joining the blockbuster combot and desbot invasion of taboo Naboo. And, as CGI enhanced shots of Portman’s poised and balanced Queen Padme Amidala-her four syllable surname evoking Pocahontas as if to imply that she symbolized the response of Lucas to Disney-seen on a ship to ground communicator appeared on Gunray’s ship before the invasion, clearly Queen Amidala was indeed the symbol of a CGI enhanced film art in general and that of Lord Stinkious in particular that was balanced between the human world and the CGI enhanced machine world in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE. Indeed, the resemblance of her chief advisor, Sio Bibble-played by Oliver F. Davies-to Maestro Williams implicitly affirmed that the young Queen symbolized the new CGI enhanced film art of Lucas. As such, this interest in balance between man and machine implied that Naboo symbolized the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art that Lucas hoped would emerge in the 21st century.
Alas for the Queen and the citizens of Naboo, Ronnie Gunray and Haako were too obsessed with the schlockbuster profits their machine invasion could create than they were in balance. Luckily for the denizens of Naboo, however, Jinn and Kenobi fell down onto the forbidding Ozian planet in an ‘H’ shaped landing craft-a landing craft that evoked the CSF Quest, the spaceship whose landing on the Organna evoking planet Organicus kicked off the death game of GALAXY OF TERROR-like Dorothy and Toto to help begin the healing Ozian dream. Unfortunately, and ironically, falling down onto Naboo also began the healing Ozian nightmare, for the CGI enhanced schlockbuster machine invasion of Naboo evoked the impersonal killing machines seen in the nightmarish memories of the future in the healing Ozian nightmares of T1, T2 and THE MATRIX. This openly linked STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE to 1984 again in a way that reaffirmed the film’s links to the Eighties and the TZ disaster. This link also reiterated that the blockbuster machine invasion symbolized the fear of the Temple Theatre being overwhelmed by an invasion of ahuman, depressing, mindless and soulless CGI enhanced schlockbuster product rather than humanity affirming, inspiring, rejuvenating and uplifting CGI enhanced film art. A worry linked to Emperor Palpaberg, for it was noticeable that the name of Queen Padme Amidala evoked not just Dorothy and Princess Yuki Akizuki of HIDDEN FORTRESS, but Queen Isabella of Spain in AMISTAD, Princess Ardala of BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY, Amy Irving, Palpaberg’s girlfriend at the time of the TZ disaster, and L.A., linking her to the L.A. residing Palpaberg.
The opening shots of Queen Amidala also revealed that the monarch resembled the evil, androgynous, Palpaberg linked and schlockbuster CGI bomb supporting Ra of STARGATE, despite her opposition to the invasion. This resemblance to Ra linked Amidala to Emmerich as well as Palpaberg. Indeed, Princess Amidala’s link to Emperor Palpaberg was made certain by the return of McDiarmid in holographic communications from Coruscant as Senator Palpatine-looking more like Palpaberg than ever before-in CGI enhanced holo-communications with the Queen and her court on Naboo at the same time as Palpy was appearing to the Neimoidians on their almost circular spaceship as Lord Sidious, CGI holograms that openly linked the equally insidious Palpy and Palpaberg do the Dark Side of CGI enhanced film art. That STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE should be released in the tenth anniversary year of the last collaboration of Stinkious with Palpaberg in 1989 on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM reaffirmed the link of the film to Palpaberg. Thus, Lucas openly alluded to Palpaberg right from the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, and did so in connection with some serious implicit misgivings about the CGI that he had been instrumental in developing for the enhancement of film art. The latter was an important new direction for Lucas, and one not seen in the enthusiastically CGI promoting THE RADIOLAND MURDERS, TUCKER and the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures, the latter heard in the title of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, which evoked CHAPTER 10: THE PHANTOM TRAIN OF DOOM.
Lucas also soon affirmed an implicit interest in Landis, for after falling down onto the planet in an invasion craft, Jinn was seen running from the elephantine battle tanks of the machine invasion as they crashed and crushed their way through a forest. The sight evoked the sight of the mobile missile launcher that crashed and crushed its way through a forest in the USSR to its secret location at the beginning of SPIES LIKE US. Significantly, after linking the film to SPIES LIKE US, Jinn’s flight through the forest from the CGI machine invasion also led to the Jedi Knight meeting Ahmed Best’s big eared and Goofy, Howard the Duck, Scarecrow and Wak Wak evoking Jar Jar Binks, implicitly linking Binks to Landis and returning the Comedy narrative back to the allegorical film art of Lucas-and to 1982, as the name of Jar Jar Binks evoked the Jarjarsinpao Mountains in the twilit and allegorical Oshima Nagisa film, MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (1983). The Landis linked Binks also reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Palpaberg when he led the Jedi to the underwater and Emerald City evoking Gungan City, where we met hundreds more of his fellow Gungans, the symbolic Munchkins of the film and all with the same Howard the Duck evoking duck bill face and as Binks, and the imposing height and mask-like visages of the animal masked guards of Ra in STARGATE. For this fantastic and dazzling city evoked the equally fantastic and dazzling underwater city that Madison the mermaid led the Palpaberg linked Bauer to at the end of SPLASH.
Unfortunately, however, after the dazzling magnificence of the city, one of the first Gunkins we met in Gunkin City was Steve Speirs’ Captain Tarpals. This reintroduced an ominous and twilit ambience to the film, for his name-and Jar Jar’s name, as well-reminded us of Targo in the CHAPTER 17: MASKS OF EVIL episode of the YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES adventures, immediately linking the Gungans and STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE to twilit Evil, the Dark Side of Palpaberg, and movie tie-in machinations. An ominous beginning indeed, and one that overshadowed the film’s Forceful first elemental conjunction of the Ozian Fource in the form of Earthy Scarecrow Binks, the Fiery and Cowardly Jinn, Blessed’s Airy Great Oz Boss Nass, ruler of Gunkin City-whose name evoked Wasserman, head of Universal and Universal City at the time of the TZ disaster-and the watery and hesitant Tin Kenobi. An ominous beginning that also overshadowed the attempt to top Cameron with more flashy CGI, as an underwater craft that Boss Nass loaned to Binks and the Jedi to travel through the planet’s core to the city of Theed to confer with Amidala evoked the first alien spaceship encountered underwater in THE ABYSS. While overshadowing Cameron, this underwater trip openly linked Binks to Landis. For Binks’ revelation that he had been expelled from Gunkin City for causing an ‘…itty bitty accident’ reminded us that Landis had been expelled from the company of his fellow film artists for the TZ disaster, implicitly reaffirming the link of Binks to Landis. Significantly, a Godzilla evoking sea monster that almost ate the craft soon after the revelation of Binks also implicitly affirmed the link of Jinn to Emmerich.
Not surprisingly, after landing on Naboo and cutting their way through the machines, the Cowardly Jinn and Tinny Kenobi soon rescued Queen Amidala, affirming the determination of the Jedi and Lucas to preserve a harmonious balance between man and machine in CGI enhanced film art. The Jedi and Binks then fled the siege of taboo Naboo with Queen Amidala and her handmaidens-including one named Sache played by Sofia Coppola-for the safety of the planet city of Coruscant, seat of government of the Galactic Republic, in order to persuade the Galactic Senate to help the people of Naboo stop the blockbuster machine invasion. Given the implied determination of Lucas to plead for a balance between man and machine in CGI enhanced film art, all was proceeding as expected. Surprisingly, at this point Lucas veered unexpectedly from the programme. For after running out of fuel and in need of hyperdrive repairs, the gleaming chrome Nubian spaceship used by the Ozian heroes to escape Naboo was eventually forced to land on Ozian Tatooine in the film’s second symbolic fall down onto Oz. Here they wandered into the small Western town of Mos Espa, its name evoking Toad’s Vespa moped in AMERICAN GRAFFITI, returning the Western narrative back to the allegorical film art of Lucas.
Significantly, the appearance of Mos Espa evoked a town seen in BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, suddenly evoking the first film worked on by Cameron. This unexpected allusion to Cameron implied that Anakin Skywalker, the surprisingly Great Oz linked slave boy that the Ozian heroes met in Mos Espa-his slave status evoking the slave boys and girls of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM in another link of the film to Palpaberg, and played by Jake Lloyd-and freed from the greedy clutches of Watto, the implicitly Kubrick linked and dimunitive blue CGI flying monkey-voiced by Andrew Secombe-was not just an all natural J.D. Jedi Messiah born of a Virgin Mother, Shmi-evoking Smee in HOOK, and played by August-but symbolized Cameron. Indeed, his all natural Jedi status-rated 20,000 on the midi-chlorian scale!-reminded us that Cameron came by his film artist powers naturally too as he had no formal training, affirming the implicit link of young Skywalker to Cameron and implying that the Tragic Trilogy was just as interested in addressing Cameron as Palpaberg.
However, despite resembling Cameron and having Cameron’s intuitive affinity for technology, young Skywalker was soon also linked to Palpaberg when Amidala, Binks and Jinn helped free Ani by helping him repair his pod racer for the film’s pivotal Death-pod race. For when the engine of his damaged pod revved up again, Ani shouted ‘…it’s working! It’s working!’, evoking Elliot’s jubilant words to E.T. when the Kid Monster successfully contacted its E.T. brethren with its makeshift intergalactic telephone in E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL-an allusion that also implicitly affirmed the film’s interest in the twilit and disastrous events of 1982. However, given Senator Palpatine’s link to Palpaberg, it was not clear if the link to E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL meant that Ani symbolized a new and CGI improved Palpaberg, or a Palpaberg shadowed Cameron. One implication that was made clearer during the pod repair scene was that the sight of Binks working as a mechanic on Ani’s pod evoked the cameo role of Landis as a mechanic in DEATH RACE 2000. Indeed, at one point Binks broke the fourth wall by looking into the camera at the audience, grinning giddily and giving the audience a thumb’s up, reminding us -that having characters break the fourth was a famous characteristic of the film art of Landis, not of Lucas or any other film artist. This reaffirmed the implicit link of Binks to Landis, and also prepared us for the Death-pod race that followed soon upon the repairs to the pod of Ani.
This deadly Boonta Eve Death-pod race-‘Boonta’ hiding both Naboo and taboo within its letters, linking the race to the desperate battle against blockbuster CGI enhanced beasts on taboo Naboo-that was presided over by a two headed announcer who evoked the dreaded two headed Siskebert of WILLOW-and which included a frozen, impotent and Kenobi/Lucas evoking racer named Ben Quadrinaros who was unable to leave the starting line in a bit of self-mockery from Lucas-evoked not only DEATH RACE 2000, but the speeder bike chase of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI-a link affirmed by the return of Davis both under the mask of a Rodian boy named Wald (Disney?) and out from behind the mask as a race spectator-and the dangerous chariot races that climaxed the 1925 version of BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST, and the allegorical and William Wyler directed, BEN-HUR (1959). Significantly, the race also saw Ani triumph over an evil gremlin resembling Dugg podracer named Sebulba in his orange podracer with its huge and X-shaped engines-implicitly linked to the bug squashing and orange Dutch flag flying Verhoeven, and voiced by Lewis MacLeod-in the Death-pod race like Roman Navorro and Charlton Heston’s Ben-Hur triumphed over Francis Bushman and Stephen Boyd’s Messala in their death chariot races in their versions of BEN-HUR. Curiously, while this victory allowed a Cameron evoking character to have revenge for all of the bashing Cameron received in the film art of Verhoeven, this also linked Ani to a Jewish character in a way that evoked Palpaberg’s Jewish heritage, returning the uncertainty over whether Ani symbolized Cameron or a new and CGI enhanced Palpaberg. Ani’s virile triumph and infatuation with Amidala also returned a strange new Romance to the STAR WARS films-ominously linked to the paranoid and duplicitous ‘moons of Iago’, moons that evoked the scheming and duplicitous Iago in the allegorical Shakespearean play, OTHELLO (1604), in a way that prepared us for the Kenobi versus Skyfaller confrontation at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE III: RETURN OF THE SITH-confirming that Naboo rhymed with taboo for a reason.
Ani’s triumph was almost short lived, for soon after his victory he was almost killed by Ray Park’s Darth Maul, the insidious Sith Apprentice of Lord Sidious, as he and Jinn returned to their Nubian spaceship for the run to Coruscant. Significantly, while the red and black face makeup of Darth Maul evoked the priests of Mola Ram in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, his name implicitly linked him to Catmull, the creator of CGI. This link was strengthened by the fact that he made his first appearance in the film in a CGI hologram after the invasion of Naboo, immediately linking him as well as Sidious to the Dark Side of CGI enhanced film art. The sight of the insidious Sith apprentice riding a black speeder back before attacking Ani and Jinn reaffirmed his to Palpaberg. For this rocket bike evoked not only the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, but the flying BMX bike of Elliot in E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL. Of course, the Wicked black speeder bike also evoked the speeder bike chase on Endor in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI as the Death-pod race had done earlier, reiterating the link of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE to the last STAR WARS film, and to 1983. The little flying monkey Watto had prepared us for the arrival of Mull’s real Nikko, and also prepared us for the arrival of the equally dimunitive Yoda-voiced again by Oz-and the rest of the twelve member Jedi Council after Jinn managed to fight off Mull in a draw, allowing the Ozian heroes to blast through hyperspace to Coruscant.
Of course, and ominously, the return of Oz as the voice and performer of Yoda openly linked the film to Landis via his many cameos in the films of Landis. The return of the Oz and Yoda also linked STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE to STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, reiterating the film’s interest in the events of the early Eighties. The twelve member Jedi Council also evoked the Old Hollywood linked twelve member council of humanity in BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, suggesting that the Jedi Council was also linked to film artists like that earlier council. Indeed it was, but this time to the leading lights of New Hollywood, particularly since the onset of the dread Zone Wars. For instance, the Jedi Master Oppo Rancisis-played by Blake in another role for him-evoked Master Coppola. The film’s interest in Palpaberg was also curiously and contrarily reaffirmed by the presence of a Jedi Master with the Steven Spielberg evoking name of Even Piell amongst the Jedi Council. Piell’s presence was strange, implying that Lucas was hopeful that Palpaberg would work hard to redeem himself with the new CGI enhanced film art, despite having the Jedi Council reject Ani as a candidate for J.D. Jedi training. This decision prevented the start of a Journey of Self Discovery for Ani, while not blocking the continued progress and Journeys of Jinn or Kenobi. The presence of Jackson as Jedi Council head Mace ‘Mason’ Windu underlined this interpretation of the rejection of Ani, reminding us that the rebel Afro-Pharaonic Force must be with you if you hope to truly succeed as an independent and J.D. Jedi film artist in the life and film art of Lucas. Jackson’s presence also confirmed the film’s concern with Palpaberg, the TZ disaster and beastly CGI enhanced schlockbusters, reminding us that Jackson had a small role as Arnold in the THX 1138 evoking control room of JURASSIC PARK.
The floating pods with their trios of politicians in the Galactic Senate scenes that were intercut with the Jedi Council scenes also reiterated the film’s links to Palpaberg and the early Eighties. Indeed, a trio of E.T. politicians applauded happily when Queen Amidala called for a vote of no confidence in the leadership of Chancellor Valorum-played by Terence Stamp, who linked the film to 1980 via his appearance as Zod in SUPERMAN II-the leader of the Galactic Senate, allowing Palpatine to be voted in as head of the Senate. This openly linked Palpaberg and E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL to schlockbuster CGI invasions of Naboo and Palpatine’s insidious takeover of the Republic. The links to E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL also affirmed that far from being a prequel, STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE was continuing the Lucas tradition of replying to the contemporary film art and telefilms of other film artists in his own work, rather than with concerns that pre-dated 1977 and the release of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE. Indeed, by linking the trio of E.T.s and Sidious to schlockbuster CGI invasions, Lucas implicitly reaffirmed that he was now worried that Palpaberg had lied to him about his foreknowledge of the use of Chen and Le and his presence on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE the fateful night of the TZ disaster.
These Dark, insidious and twilit links cast a pall on Ani when he was allowed to join forces with Amidala and Binks and return with them to taboo Naboo to help the Queen’s soldiers and space pilots and Binks and his fellow Gunkin warrior tribesmen defeat the evil Neimoidian Trade Federation, their beastly schlockbuster CGI invasion, and their planetary spaceship blockade at the end of the film. Significantly, this ominous participation in the final victory also reiterated Ani’s link to Palpaberg, for blasting through space with Artoo in a Yellow Brick Road coloured Naboo space fighter-which evoked the Ko-Dan space fighters in THE LAST STARFIGHTER and the BTA space fighters in ENEMY MINE-in the space battle at the end of the film evoked the sight of Elliot flying through the air with E.T. on his BMX bicycle in E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL. Of course, this final space battle evoked not only the climatic space battle that destroyed the Death Moon at the end of STAR WARS EPISOD IV: A NEW HOPE, but also the space battle that destroyed the Deathly Moon at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, reiterating the film’s link to the trimatic film of the Classic Trilogy and to 1983. This allusion was reinforced by the sight of Anakin accidentally launching two torpedoes that destroyed the Trade Federation’s schlockbuster CGI invasion control ship, a two torpedo knockout blow that reminded us that Lando and Wedge launched a similar two torpedo blast that destroyed the Deathly Moon at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.
Of course, the Deathly Moon evoking destruction of the Trade Federation blockbuster machine control ship also reminded us that the film had begun with an allusion to the end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, truly bringing the film full circle. The living Rebel versus robot-like Imp land battle, human Jedi versus ahuman Sith saber battle and epic space battle that occurred in the three part Odyssean end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI was also recreated at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE in the goofy but warm and sincere CGI Gunkin versus cold, callous and indifferent CGI blockbuster machine land battle and the human Jedi versus ahuman Sith saber battle on Naboo that accompa/nied the equally epic space battle that pitted human pilots in CGI ships fighting all CGI machine fighters while young Skywalker weaved amongst them in his ship with the help of Artoo at the end of the film. Significantly, Ani’s destruction of the Trade Federation blockbuster machine control ship caused the combots and desbots to shut down on taboo Naboo and stop fighting ‘General’ Jar Jar and the rest of the Gunkins, giving them victory. This ironically allowed the ‘good’ but tainted CGI of Lucas, humanity and the Skyrocking spirit of ’77 to defeat the bad CGI linked to Palpaberg, the schlockbuster machine and the twilit and disastrous year of 1982.
The sight of the insidious but disappointingly silent and non-taunting Sith Apprentice brazenly attacking the Jedi with a double length, two bladed and blood red nightsaber that evoked both the single bladed saber of Vader and a helicopter rotor reaffirmed the film’s obsession with the TZ disaster. Malignant Mull wielded this twilit nightsaber so well he killed Jinn with it with a saber thrust through the heart. The thrust implicitly confirmed how heartbroken Lucas was by the deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow and the failure of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, confirming that Jinn did indeed symbolize the pre-CGI and Classic Trilogy Lucas, an era with its Springing green lightsaber that was now gonn with the wind. Significantly, the death of Jinn was not entirely unexpected, for his inability to become a member of the Jedi Council implied that the Council sensed that Jinn had not fully defeated his Dark Side and was susceptible to being killed by a Dark Knight of the Sith. In fact, his attempt to use his Springing green light saber to burn through blast doors and get at Gunray and Haako on the bridge of their Neimoidian spaceship at the beginning of the film evoked the attempt by the Id monster to burn its way through the security doors of the sanctuary of Morbius at the end of FORBIDDEN PLANET, linking Jinn to festering, lingering and undefeated Id and Kid monsters right from the beginning of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: THE PHANTOM MENACE-indeed, Jinn looked as much like Morbius as he did Emmerich. This link between Jinn and Morbius was perhaps due to the fact that Lucas felt that GODZILLA, INDEPENDENCE DAY and STARGATE were too much like schlockbuster beasts to truly qualify as liberating and healing film art. An allusion to FORBIDDEN PLANET that returned at the end of the film, for the saber battle between Jedi and Sith was fought in a cavernous back area of a Naboo space fighter hangar that evoked the underground cavern that housed the thought enhancing machinery of the cruel Krel, bringing the film full circle.
Ironically but fittingly, Mull was also soon cut down, sliced neatly in two by McKenobi and his light caber, implicitly destroying Catmull and his all CGI film art, and allowing Lucas and his commitment to a new film art balanced between humanity and CGI to triumph, in the end. Significantly, Mull’s two twilit and dismembered pieces fell far, far away down another reactor shaft like the Emperor in another nod to the end of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI. Thus, this liberating ending allowed Lucas to briefly join THE MATRIX in hoping that dark memories of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and the TZ disaster would also disappear like Mull with the success of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, and that CGI enhanced film art that achieved a balance between man and machine would triumph over fully CGI and ahuman, soulless and money lusting blockbuster CGI enhanced film art like TOY STORY. Indeed, Lucas underlined this hope with the sight of the fully CGI Boss Nass accepting a glowing ball of harmonious CGI enhanced Force from Queen Amidala outside her palace in Theed in the victory celebration on Naboo at the end of the film. However, as everyone knew that there were two more films in the Tragic Trilogy, and that they revolved around the fall of young Skywalker and the rise of the CGI enhanced blockbuster machine, Lucas was already preparing us for his despairing and pessimistic fear that CGI would destroy the humanity of allegorical film art.
A destruction quickly suffered by Lucas, for the exuberant welcome audiences-particularly young audiences-gave the despairing film artist and the film did not survive a viewing of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE. Indeed, perhaps because they did not understand its allegorical intent, most audiences felt that Lucas had stolen their sunshine yet again as he had done in ‘83, transforming Lucas back into Lord Stinkious, Darkest of the Dark Lords. Indeed, it was all too appropriate that he alluded to FORBIDDEN PLANET in the film, as many felt that STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE was just more b.s. from Lord Stinkious. In particular, Jar Jar and his fellow Gungans were hated as much as Wicket and his fellow Ewoks, turning the film into another horror beyond imagination. As a result, the film failed to live up to fears that Lord Stinkious would slaughter his film art competitors that year as he had in 1977, as Lee implied when he linked the Lord Stinkious resembling 1977 serial killer, Son of Sam-played by Badalucco-in his Stinkious addressing allegorical film, SON OF SAM (1999). Not surprisingly, given the thumbs down that STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE received, the CGI enhanced, Lord Stinkious supporting and STARSHIP TROOPERS, STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE and THE LAST STARFIGHTER evoking allegorical Chris Roberts film, WING COMMANDER (1999), which joined Lord Stinkious in rising up in defense of the humanity of film art with a determined and desperate ace space fighter attack on a Besson linked invasion of Earth by Evil CGI Kildathi, also did poorly in 1999.
Nothing summed up the lack of interest in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE and WING COMMANDER than the fact that low budget and effects free THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT-which implicitly came to the support of Palpaberg and roasted Besson and Cameron for their twin successes of 1997 and predicted that they would be destroyed by time and fate like Mike Williams and Josh Leonard, in the end-was the big hit of 1999, reminding us that equally low budget, effects free and Zonebusting film art like BLUE VELVET, CROCODILE DUNDEE, LE DERNIER COMBAT and PLATOON was also preferred by audiences for years after the TZ disaster. An effects free film that also made more of an impact that year was Kubrick’s final and equally effects free, haunting and Lynch addressing allegorical artbuster, EYES WIDE SHUT (1999), which alluded to such twilit and allegorical Lynch film and telefilm art as BLUE VELVET, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, WILD AT HEART and the telefilm series, TWIN PEAKS (1990-1), to implicitly affirm its interest in Lynch.
Significantly, EYES WIDE SHUT implicitly linked the successful establishment coverup led by the implicitly Palpaberg linked Victor Ziegler-played by Pollack-of the death of Amanda ‘Mandy’ Curran-linked to the film art of Lynch, and played by Julienne Davis-to the death of serious film art at the hands of successful and CGI enhanced blockbuster film artists like Spielberg. Given that Ziegler persuaded Cruise’s FBI Special Agent Cooper evoking and, hence, Lynch linked amateur sleuth, Dr. Bill Harford, to give up on trying to solve the mystery of the death of Mandy and on forcing the establishment to face justice, Kubrick implied his cynical and pessimistic conviction that it was pointless for Lynch to use his film art to denounce Spielberg and others of his ilk like Lucas for killing film art with CGI enhanced blockbusters-and that was his last allegorical contribution to the cinematic conversation, for le General passed away in March of 1999. Even THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999), the equally low budget and effects free first allegorical feature film of Sofia Coppola-another neo-Old Hollywood film artist like Kubrick who learned from her father and the school of life rather than a film school-which likened film artists like Cameron and Lord Stinkious to a bunch of uncreative and impotent teens who never really lost their artistic virginity by truly becoming one with their film art, was also received more favourably than STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE.
And how appropriate that Besson released his twilit and allegorical film, THE MESSENGER (1999), that same year, as if warning Coppola that her life in the embattled and male dominated world of film art would be as difficult and possibly as doomed as that of Jovovich’s Joan of Arc in the male dominated world of war. To make matters worse for Lord Stinkious, he was painted as a lying and manipulative Great Oz windbag soon after the release of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE in the John Baxter biography, Mythmaker: the life and work of George Lucas (1999). The fact that Pollack noted sadly that he was not allowed to interview Stinkious for his revised version of Skyrocking: the life and films of George Lucas-the updated edition, which was also published in conjunction with the release of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, as he was deemed too critical of Coppola (?) in the first edition, also reflected badly on Lord Stinkious. Curiously, however, not all big budget and effects bursting film art was rejected in 1999. For the twilit, CGI enhanced and allegorical Dean Parisot film, GALAXY QUEST (1999)-a humourous fusion and roast of STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT, STAR TREK GENERATIONS, STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, THE LAST STARFIGHTER and WING COMMANDER released by Dreamworks SKG was quite popular that year.
For, despite the creepy, ominous and TZ disaster evoking Dreamworks SKG logo, GALAXY QUEST allowed viewers to laugh and free themselves from the TZ disaster and the post-TZ years as in GROUNDHOG DAY with the help of Allen’s implicitly Lucas linked and pentultimate Can-Am Commander, Jason Nesbitt aka Peter Q. Taggart-his surname evoking Morrow, Nikko and Tagge as well as braggart-his indomitable crew of the NSEA Protector-or was that nausea protector?-and the healing power of the CGI linked Omega 13, just in time for the new millennium. GALAXY QUEST underlined this sentiment by focussing on the desperate quest by the reunited cast of the STAR TREK-like television series ‘Galaxy Quest’ to ‘…never give up, never surrender’ by being the last hope who would save the Matheson evoking Mathesar-played by Enrico Colantoni-and the rest of the Thermians of the Klaatu Nebula from Robin Sachs’ exuberantly insidious and Xur evoking General Sarris-possibly linked to Besson, given the allusions to THE FIFTH ELEMENT in the film, despite the fact that his name evoked American film critic, Andrew Sarris-and his Evil, Mangalore-like and Ko-Dan armada evoking extraterrestrial gremlin minions.
Significantly, ‘Galaxy Quest’ was a mythical series that supposedly originally ran on television over the course of the pivotal 1979-82 years. This link implied that the series had been quietly cancelled as part of the public rejection of fantastic films and television after the TZ disaster, underlining that GALAXY QUEST was addressing the TZ disaster and urging Questarians like Justin Long’s indomitable Superfan, Brandon, to move on now that the new millennium and its CGI enhanced film art that would prevent film set fatalities was dawning. Indeed, the final showdown with Sarris and his thugs took place in the 23rd quadrant of the Gamma Sector, openly linking the film to the twilit and disastrous 23rd of July, 1982. The triumph over Sarris also involved finding a new beryllium sphere for the Protector’s quantum flux engine, a load of b.s. found on a planet of dimunitive CGI gremlins, reiterating the film’s implicit interest in using CGI to free film art from the TZ disaster. However, while GALAXY QUEST and SLEEPY HOLLOW joined THE MATRIX in celebrating CGI liberation from the Zone in 1999, the return of the Lord Stinkious and Palpaberg linked Buzz and Woody for more shameless toy schilling with the sight of shelves bursting with Buzz Lightyear dolls in Al’s Toy Barn-owned by the Knight voiced and Landis linked Al-in the allegorical Lasseter sequel, TOY STORY 2 (1999), reiterated the Dark filmmmercial Side of CGI enhanced film art. A curious but perhaps fitting link of the blockbuster profit lusting Al to Landis, given that Landis returned that year and, in the murder of Adrian Paul’s implicitly Landis linked Paul Holland by a group of bumbling and film artist linked conspirators-such as Biehn’s Cameron linked Bill or Zane’s Kubrick linked Sam-implicitly mocked the continued murders of characters linked to him in the film art of other film artists in his allegorical film, SUSAN’S PLAN (1999). Which turned out to be the last hurrah for Landis, for he soon disappeared like the haunted, tormented and Landis linked Phantom at the end of the pop opera, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.
Criticism of Lucas and STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE was not long in coming. Indeed, it implicitly began in 1999 with the triumph over the Evil and implicitly Stinkious linked Tyler-voiced by Ironside-in the allegorical Michel Lemire and Michael Coldewey film, HEAVY METAL 2000 (1999), a CGI enhanced hand-animation film which tried but failed to keep alive the dream of hand-animation, and which came across as a fusion of ‘Neverwhere’ and ‘Taarna’ from HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE. Ang Lee also implicitly roasted Lucas and the latest STAR WARS film in his allegorical, hung fu and Ozian themed film, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000).
For in the sight of Chow Yun Fat’s implicitly Great Oz and Lucas linked Chinese Master Wudan fighter, Li Mu Bai, failing to succeed with Michelle Yeoh’s fellow Wudan fighter, Yu Shu Lien, a Glinda and Leia linked woman in his past, or Zhang Ziyi’s ‘indomitable sword goddess’, Jen-whose named evoked the plucky Gelfling, Jen, in THE DARK CRYSTAL-an implicitly Dorothy and Portman linked younger woman in the film’s present and one in the insidious control of Cheng Pei-Pei‘s implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked Jade Fox, Lee reminded us that Lucas had failed to succeed with STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI in 1983 and STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE in 1999. Indeed, the Green Destiny sword that Li Mu Bai carried evoked not just the Emerald City, confirming his status as a symbolic Great Oz in this Ozian themed film. For the sword also evoked the Springing green lightsaber that the Le linked Skyrocker showed up with in STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, and the Springing green lightsaber that the young, naïve, green and Lucas linked Jedi Knight, Obi Wan Kenobi, used in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, confirming the link of the aging and weary Wudan fighter, Li Mu Bai-as bald as Luthor and THX 1138-to the equally aging and weary ex-Jedi Master, Lord Stinkious.
Incidentally, this was a most timely appearance of the Ozian themed film, given that CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON was released in the 100th anniversary year of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. And it was not the only allegorical Lee film that addressed Lord Stinkious and STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE in 2000. For Lee’s long lost twin brother and NYU film school classmate Spike Lee also returned to the Temple Theatre that year with the allegorical and Lord Stinkious thrashing film, BAMBOOZLED (2000), apparently convinced that the big eared and goofy Jar Jar was a racist stereotype rather than a bit of Palpaberg mockery, and that STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE was just a Twentieth Century Pox.
However, not everyone was anti-Stinkious. For throughout the allegorical Michael Bay film, PEARL HARBOUR (2000), the sight of Ben Affleck’s USAAF fighter pilot Rafe McCawley returning from the dead after being believed to have died fighting in the Battle of Britain and going on to play a pivotal role in the aerial ldefense of Pearl Harbour and on the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo reminded us that Stinkious came back from the ashes of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI to play a new part in the dread allegorical Zone Wars with his Tragic Trilogy. However, this implied support for Lord Stinkious did not last, as Lea Poole implicitly blasted him and his ultra-commercial STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE in her allegorical film, LOST AND DELIRIOUS (2001). Indeed, the closing Olympic fencing duel which saw Piper Perabo’s perhaps Pool linked Pauline ‘Paulie’ Oster defend the purity of Jessica Pare’s possibly Portman linked Victoria ‘Tori’ Muller by impaling the wealthy and implicitly Stinkious linked Jake Hollander–played by the fittingly named Luke Kirby–Pool implied that she was rising to the defense of the purity of film art with a symbolic light saber duel and impaling Stinkious in righteous revenge for leading film astray with the first uber-commercial installment of the Tragic Trilogy, in the end.
In the sight of the implicitly Stinkious linked Bilbo Baggins-played by Holm-being persuaded by Wizard, Gandalf the Grey-played by Ian McKellen-to give up the One Ring of Power to his nephew, Frodo-played by Elijah Wood-and leave Bag End in the Hobbiton section of the Shire for Rivendell, Sir Peter Jackson implied his hope that Lord Stinkious would pass on the torch to a younger and keener generation of film artists and retire, at last, in his astoundingly good, moving, memorable and twilit allegorical film, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001), inspired by the equally allegorical J.R.R. Tolkien novel, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954). Indeed, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING was so exultantly good that audiences forgot all about the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy and the Matrix Trilogy and now thought only about THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Perhaps explaining why audiences were also lukewarm to Palpaberg’s haunted, surreal and Lynch addressing allegorical film, A.I.
Significantly, the animated, ominous and twilit boy fishing from a waxing crescent logo for Dreamworks SKG that preceded this film again linked everything that followed to the TZ disaster. And what followed was a film that constantly alluded to the surreal dreaming without dreaming film art of Lynch, reminding us that E.T. looked vaguely like the mutant child of Lynch’s allegorical cinematic nightmare, ERASERHEAD (1977). A pensive and Kevin Kline evoking father named Henry Swinton-played by Sam Robards–underlined A.I.’s link to ERASERHEAD, recalling Jack Nance’s equally pensive father Henry in ERASERHEAD. This tribute to Lynch was also underlined by the film’s Angelo Badalamenti evoking soundtrack by Williams-a soundtrack that also alluded to Philip Glass and to the soundtrack of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY-reminding us that Badalamenti had worked with Lynch since BLUE VELVET. The appearance of Hurt as the Eldon Tyrell evoking Mecha creator Professor Alan Hobby reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch. For Hurt had been linked to Lynch since playing the Lynch linked Dr. Edward Jessup in Ken Russell’s allegorical and Lynch addressing film, ALTERED STATES (1980).
This interest in Lynch was reaffirmed by the weird and Lynch linked android ‘Mecha’ boy named David-played by Haley J. Osment-who was banished in the wilderness by his surrogate and Cates evoking human mother, Monica-played by Frances O’Connor-after two unsettling and potentially dangerous incidents. Indeed, wanting to get rid of the weird Mecha kid, David’s Cameron linked human brother Martin-played by Jake Thomas–tricked him into trying to cut off a lock of Monica’s hair while she was asleep, cutting her in the process. Later David accidentally almost drowned Martin at his birthday party when he unknowingly dragged him underwater in the family swimming pool, not realizing that a human could not survive long without air. Significantly, a crowd of boy birthday revellers watched David almost drown Martin, recalling the crowd of revellers that watched the TZ disaster on that fateful night. Thus, with the abandoned David linked to Lynch, Palpaberg implied that David’s Pinocchio/Replicant quest to find the Blue Fairy and be transformed from violence linked machine to violence free human in order to embraced by Monica again symbolized the quest of Lynch to not be dismissed as an equally weird film artist and be truly embraced by audiences.
Significantly, A.I. ended with David failing to succeed in his quest to become a violence free real boy, evoking the similar failure of Batty and his fellow Replicants to get more life and humanity in BLADE RUNNER, implying that Palpaberg felt that Lynch was too idiosyncratic to ever be embraced by huge audiences. A.I. also joined THE LOST WORLD in exhibiting more signs that Emperor Palpaberg was having misgivings about the growing use of CGI in film. Indeed, the film implied that Palpaberg now wondered whether CGI was indeed the ‘Mecca’ and solution for film or whether CGI had made film as sterile, nonhuman, blank, uncomprehending and ‘Mecha’ as David. In fact, with its obsession with violence and its effects on children, the film clearly wondered if the ability to kill people safely on film with realistic CGI was really the solution, and if violence in film should simply be avoided entirely. This uneasy undercurrent was summed up in the Flesh Fair sequence, where a new group of symbolic film thugs dismembered, decapitated and burned abandoned and captured Mechas with carefree abandon for the pleasure of baying mobs of spectators, in a way that again recalled the crowd of revellers that watched the TZ disaster.
Significantly, the crowd rose up to free David and Jude Law’s sex Mecha, Gigolo Joe, from destruction by acid in a way that did not happen for Chen and Le in reality, underlining that Palpaberg was still desperately trying to redirect the reality of the TZ disaster. A Lynch addressing redirection of reality that made it appropriate that Lynch returned that year and replied to EYES WIDE SHUT and SUSAN’S PLAN by implicitly insisting that film art was alive and well in his own surreal and allegorical film, MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001). For his part, having a mysterious stranger named Mr. Tuttle-his surname evoking William Tuttle, make-up wiz from the original Twilight Zone television series, as in BRAZIL-finally disappear after stubbornly haunting a remote country house implied that Don DeLillo was wryly hoping that the dread allegorical Zone Wars would also disappear in the new millennium in his allegorical novel, The Body Artist (2001). A sentiment that Lord Stinkious did not share, as he returned to the Wars full Force throttle in his Ozian themed and allegorical contribution to the twentieth anniversary of the TZ disaster, STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES.
Given that the title of the film evoked the allegorical and Burtt directed, CHAPTER 12: ATTACK OF THE HAWKMEN adventure of the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures, Lucas reaffirmed that he continued to mull over Spielberg, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and the TZ disaster in his new film as he had done in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE and the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES telefilms. The fact that STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES began with a deadly explosion of a CGI spaceship that almost killed Portman’s new Senator Padme Amidala when she returned to Coruscant from taboo Naboo for Galactic Senate duties also immediately implied that Lord Stinkious was still brooding unhappily over the equally explosive TZ disaster. Lord Stinkious then re-introduced us to McGregor’s Tin Man linked Omahan Kenobi and introduced us to the Scarecrow linked Ani Skywalker, now on a Journey of Self Discovery as a Padawan apprentice of Kenobi-and played by Hayden Christensen, a fellow Ontario born and raised Canadian like Cameron, increasing the likelihood that young Skywalker was linked to Cameron-who were assigned to act as security for Senator Amidala after the attempt on her life.
Significantly, Lord Stinkious also quickly introduced us to Morrison’s Jango Fett and Leeanna Walsman’s Zam Wesell-her surname evoking ‘weasel’ as much as ‘we sell’-a deadly pair of assassins out to kill Senator Amidala implicitly linked to Ang Lee and Luc Besson by way of Jade Fox of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and Nakita of LA FEMME NAKITA. Intriguingly, they also evoked Rathe and his sister Dribb in YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES, while the name of Jango evoked the character with the jangling Keys played by Peter Coyote in E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, and Targo in CHAPTER 17: MASKS OF EVIL of the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures, implying that the two were trying to kill Senator Amidala on the orders of Chancellor Palpatine. Not very well, as the second attempt to kill her with a pair of presumably poisonous and centipede-like CGI bugs also failed, thwarted by Skywalker. After reassuring himself that Amidala was fine, Kenobi leapt out of her bedroom window in a towering Coruscant skyscraper and caught a ride on the robotic device that had delivered the two bugs, evoking Bobster’s psychedelically induced suicidal leap from his apartment at the beginning of YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES and the dismembered mannequin tossed out of a window of Delta House at the beginning of ANIMAL HOUSE.
Obi Wan’s ride on the robotic assassination drone and Ani’s pursuit in a Yellow Brick Speeder after La Zam Wesell then took them both into frantic Coruscant air traffic that evoked similar air traffic in the New York of the futures in the ‘Harry Canyon’ episode of HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE and THE FIFTH ELEMENT, reaffirming La Zam Wesell’s link to Besson. Indeed, Wesell’s status as a changeling reaffirmed her implicit link to Besson, reminding us that the CGI enhancement of THE FIFTH ELEMENT was a startling and massive change in direction from CGI free film art for Besson. Kenobi and Skywalker caught Wesellout in a ground level neo-Club Obi Wan that evoked Taffy’s bar in BLADE RUNNER and the Tech Noir club where Sarah Connor was first attacked by the Terminator in T1, reiterating that the film was obsessed with the 1982-84 years and Cameron. However, before she could reveal who she worked for, La Zam Wesell was killed by a poison dart from Fett that evoked those used to deadly effect by Jade Fox in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. This allusion to Jade Fox reaffirmed ‘Ango Fett’s implicit link to Ang Lee, and also evoked the hallucinogenic darts of Dribb, reiterating the film’s links to YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES. But not before the surname of Wesell prepared viewers for the sight of a human male clone CGI army that had been secretly sold to and created for the Jedi Council without their knowledge, a mass produced and lookalike CGI human army that implied the worry of Stinkious that CGI enhancement was slowly but surely stripping film art of its humanity and originality. Ironically, nothing in the film conveyed this implicit worry more than the fact that the puppet form of Yoda had been eerily replaced by a CGI Yoda-voiced again by Oz.
This clone CGI army was tracked down by Obi Wan on the planet Kamino when he tried to find out who hired La Zam Wesell. This detective effort linked young Sherlock Kenobi to young Sherlock Jones in a way that reaffirmed the link of STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES to YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES-and that reaffirmed that Kenobi was the Nishi alter ego of Lord Stinkious in the Tragic Trilogy as Jones had been in the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures. Indeed, Kenobi was given the information that allowed him to track down Fett on Kamino by Ron Falk’s old, chubby and avuncular Dexter Jettster, a DJ friend of his that ran an intergalactic Mel’s Diner on Coruscant whose name evoked Corbin Bernsen’s suave and smooth talking announcer Dexter Morris, one of the six murder victims of THE RADIOLAND MURDERS. With its red and silver interior colour scheme, Dex’s Diner evoked the red and silver colour scheme of the Tech Noir night club in THE TERMINATOR, linking the diner and its insights to Cameron-indeed, Cameron could be seen and heard in the name of the planet Kamino. This Fifties diner linked Kenobi to AMERICAN GRAFFITI, implying that he was indeed the alter ego of Lord Stinkious, and implying that Stinkious had also been an intrepid, clue following and murder solving Nishi in friend’s clothing since the TZ disaster. Indeed, the help Jettster gave Kenobi led the Jedi via hyperspace facilitating Stargate beyond the Rishi Maze to Kamino, openly evoking the character of Nishi in THE BAD SLEEP WELL in an implied confirmation that Lord Stinkious had been a twilit fact finding and mystery solving investigator all along.
‘Rishi’ was also a Sanskrit word for ‘sage’, linking the film to INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, and evoking the illusory maya of CHAPTER 15: DAREDEVILS OF THE DESERT of the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures. The planet Kamino itself evoked a murderous character called Mr. Canino in the allegorical Raymond Chandler novel, The Big Sleep (1939)-and the allegorical Howard Hawks directed film, THE BIG SLEEP (1946)-confirming the detective path of young Sherlock Kenobi. Significantly, the Chandler novel and the Hawks film were both set in Spielberg’s stomping grounds of L.A.-and both were big influences on BLADE RUNNER-underlining that Kenobi was on the Wolf’s path indeed in STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES. Significantly, while young Sherlock Kenobi followed the clues to Kamino, Ani accompanied Amidala back to taboo Naboo to act as her new head of security in the latest split in a Lord Stinkious narrative. From here disturbing nightmares of a possible future led Ani to soon return to Tatooine to find his mother Shmi, disturbing nightmares that anticipated a precognitive vision obsessed film to come from Palpaberg later in 2002. Ani’s attempt to find Shmi also linked him to Smee and HOOK again, reiterating Ani’s links to Palpaberg.
While Ani tracked down Shmi, young Sherlock Kenobi followed the clues beyond the Rishi Maze to the CGI planet of Kamino and the tall, stately and Chinese like citizen cloners of Kamino. The CGI army of human clones of Fett-which evoked the CGI Gunkin army of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE-built by the cloners of Kamino reaffirmed their link to China, reminding us of the Chinese love of creating cheap copycat knockoffs of the goods of other nations. Indeed, the fact that a mere Taiwanese director made CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON incensed China so much, they had Zhang Yimou top it with an entire twilit, hung fu and allegorical trilogy in the form of HERO (2002), HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004) and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006). Meeting Fett on Kamino led to a bitter battle between Good and Evil Tin Man. Fett overcame Kenobi, fled Kamino, and led the trailing Kenobi to another CGI planet called Geonosis, a name that evoked Los Angeles even more than Kamino. Of course, the name of Geonosis also evoked the brave new CGI world of Genesis planet in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN even more, confirming the film’s implicit interest in the twilit and disastrous events of 1982 and in the development of the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art.
And in BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, as the red planet evoked a similar red planet in the allegorical Daniel Haller directed telefilm, ‘War of the Gods’ (1979), from the first season of that series. Not surprisingly, more links to Palpaberg awaited Kenobi on Geonosis. Indeed, here young Sherlock Kenobi discovered that Gunray, Haako and their fellow blockbuster loot lusting Neimoidians were back, this time with fully spherical spaceships that evoked the Universal Studios logo and anticipated the Death Moon, and were building a new CGI combot army with the help of conniving financiers. The plot was led by Lee’s sinister Jedi traitor, Count Dooku, who resembled Landis. Indeed, the name of Dooku reminded us of the duplicitous Duke brothers in TRADING PLACES, affirming that the Count was possibly linked to Landis. However, as the hyperactive and dimunitive insect-like beings who lived on Geonosis that Dooku was secretly plotting with looked like a cross between E.T. and a gremlin and were as well armed and as fond of combat as the Commando Elite dolls of SMALL SOLDIERS, there was also a possibility that he was linked to Dante. The fact that Lee had appeared as the quintessential mad scientist, Dr. Catheter, in GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH supported the possibility that Dooku actually symbolized Dante. Time would tell…
The allusion to films like JURASSIC PARK and THE LOST WORLD also confirmed that Lord Stinkious was becoming more worried about Palpaberg given the insidious and twilit revelations in his later film art. This worry was underlined by the fact that Anakin began to fall prey to McDiarmid’s Chancellor Palpatine and the Dark Side in STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES, a fall that overwhelmed the light hearted Comedy narrative of Artoo and Threepio and his stirring Romance with Senator Amidala, and turned his Journey of Self Discovery into a Journey of Dark Descent. This Dark Descent was affirmed when he returned to Tatooine to rescue his mother from a village of Tusken Kid Monsters in a scene straight out of THE SEARCHERS, returning the Western narrative to the Tragic Trilogy. For Ani zoomed across the Monument valley-like desert landscape of Tatooine on a BMX speeder bike like Darth Mull did in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, linking him to the dead Sith apprentice. Unable to save his dying mother, Anakin furiously mowed down the village of Tuskens with his blood red rotorsaber, evoking the Terminator in a way that brought Stinkious closer to implicitly affirming whether Skywalker symbolized Cameron or Palpaberg. Significantly, while this was happening, Kenobi was discovering that the pesky Neimoidians had returned and were constructing a new combot army on Geonosis with Dooku and other financial interests. This linked Ani’s twilit slaughter of the Tusken Kid monsters with murderous new CGI action figures, confirming that Lord Stinkious ironically continued to worry about beastly blockbuster filmmercials as he had done in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, despite the massive movie tie-in merchandise campaigns that accompanied both films.
Curiously, after failing to rescue his mother, Ani and Amidala tried to make up for it by rescuing young Sherlock Kenobi from imprisonment on Geonosis, a lunar world which evoked the Genesis planet before it was hit with a bomb that caused that brave new world of CGI enhanced film art to be born. Unfortunately, Ani and Amidala were soon captured like Kenobi by Fett and the flying and dimunitive denizens of Geonosis. The new twilit trio of one female and two males were then sent to their doom in front of thousands of jeering and raucous gremlin-like Geonosians in an Arena of Doom that evoked a similar arena in HEAVY METAL 2000, and the cinema and its packed audience of equally jeering and raucous gremlins who watched SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS at the end of GREMLINS. Here the new twilit trio barely escaped being killed by another twilit trio of vicious blockbuster CGI beasts that reaffirmed that Lord Stinkious was ironically worried about CGI enhanced blockbuster beasts being inflicted on unsuspecting audience. Significantly, one was a wolf-like creature, one a red bull-like creature, and the third a praying mantis-like creature. These creatures evoked the werewolf of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, the red and bull headed Lord of Darkness of LEGEND, and the bugs of STARSHIP TROOPERS, implying that Lucas was lashing out at Landis, Sir Scott and Verhoeven in the scene.
Around the time of the gladiator battle, Lord Stinkious was seen in a floating pod trio in one of the Galactic Senate scenes applauding approvingly as McDermid’s Chancellor Palpatine was given emergency dictatorial powers to embrace the lookalike CGI human clone army to deal with Dooku and his schlockbuster separatists, underlining that Stinkious felt film art was losing its humanity due to CGI and that he felt responsible for the insidious emergence of the CGI enhanced schlockbuster beast with the CGI ILM supplied for JURASSIC PARK and THE LOST WORLD. Curiously, it was the new CGI Yoda who brought the clone cavalry to Geonosis just in time to save the Jedi at the end of the film, leading to the dismaying sight of the Good Jedi Master commanding eerily Impious CGI clone troopers, reiterating again how guilty Lord Stinkious felt about his own role in the resurgence of beastly and CGI enhanced schlockbuster madness since 1993. Indeed, seeing Yoda with the Impious clones reminded us that Qui Gonn Jinn was linked to Kid monsters throughout STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, setting us up for the destruction of the Jedi in the nightmarish trimax of the Tragic Trilogy. Dooku’s victory in the closing light saber duels with Ani, Kenobi, and Yoda also underlined the unease Lucas felt about CGI enhanced film art, and prepared us again for the destruction of the Jedi by the Sith in the truly Tragic trimax of the Trilogy.
After partly rescuing themselves and partly being rescued by Windu and the rest of the J.D. Jedi, an epic CGI battle that pitted human and mostly non-CGI alien Jedi and CGI human clone troopers against CGI combots and bipedal and Terminator-like destroyer droids (termbots) broke out in the Temple Arena of Doom. This battle and the larger and chaotic battle that continued outside the Temple Arena evoked the smaller battle between organic CGI Gunkins and machine CGI combots and desbots at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, linking the two films and reiterating that Lord Stinkious was even more worried that beastly schlockbuster CGI enhanced film art-particularly that linked to Emperor Palpaberg-was destroying the humanity of film art. Indeed, the film ended with Star Destroyer anticipating CGI spaceships taking off for battle from Coruscant filled with Imp anticipating CGI human clone soldiers under the pleased gaze of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, implicitly affirming that Lucas was worried that Palpaberg’s commitment to the CGI schlockbuster beast was destroying film art as surely as a commitment to the blockbuster beast did decades earlier with the arrival of JAWS. Palpatine’s growing control of young Skywalker, increased inability to control his Dark Side and his marriage to Padme, in the end, also implied that Stinkious was worried that the increase in size and cost of the Zonebusting film art of Cameron was defeating his Light Side and turning Cameron into just as much as a Sith Lord as Emperor Palpaberg. Making it appropriate that Cameron returned that year when he teamed up as a co-producer with writer/director Steven Soderbergh to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the TZ disaster with the Landis supporting allegorical film, SOLARIS (2002).
Indeed, Cameron and Soderbergh reached out to John and Deborah Landis in the implicit form of Chris and Rhea Kelvin-played by George Clooney and Natascha McElhone, respectively-and may have released them from their twilit nightmare or trapped them in it forever at the end of the 2010 evoking, memory haunted and ambiguous film. Indeed, the many scenes in which the Kelvins stared into the camera and out at the audience reminded us that the only New Hollywood era film artist famous for having characters break the fourth wall was Landis, supporting the implication that the Landises were being addressed in SOLARIS. The brave new world of CGI enhanced film art was definitely being addressed in the film, symbolized by the sentient and mischievous CGI world of Solaris, floating in cyberspace like a massive digital brain or a CGI planet Arous. A world so advanced it could read the minds of Terran astronauts studying it from their orbiting space station and haunt them with loved ones created from their memories of Earth. The memories that haunted Kelvin of his dead wife, Rhea, evoked the dreams that haunted Kessler in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and Reese’s dreams of the blockbuster machine ruled future in THE TERMINATOR, affirming Kelvin’s implicit link to Landis. As with planet Geonosis in STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES, SOLARIS was a fittingly moody meditation on the brave new world of CGI film art, as 2002 was also the twentieth anniversary of the arrival of the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art in the transformed lunar form of Genesis planet in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. A moody and mystery filled reflection on the brave new world of CGI enhanced film art that returned when with the release of Emperor Palpaberg’s own prominent Dick pic, MINORITY REPORT, a strange, troubled and twilit twentieth anniversary meditation on the TZ disaster that was haunted by memories of the future.
Significantly, an even more eerie, ominous and implicitly TZ disaster linked Twentieth Century Fox and animated Dreamworks SKG logo preceded MINORITY REPORT. It was a curious grey green and watery tinge that made the logos resemble faded photographs seen under the water of the Santa Clarita River at Indian Dunes Park, the site of the TZ disaster. Fittingly enough, for MINORITY REPORT was a strange and implicit rumination on the TZ disaster that implied that Spielberg knew that a possible fatal disaster was about to occur on the TZ set and did nothing to stop it. This implied that Palpaberg had in fact lied to Stinkious about the TZ disaster, and that the reputation of Lord Stinkious had indeed suffered due to a stab in the back from a Stefan in Wolf’s clothing, just as Lord Stinkious had feared since CHAPTER 17: MASKS OF EVIL of the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures. In fact, that MINORITY REPORT was obsessed with the twilit and disastrous events of 1982 was underlined before the film began. Indeed, the film was based on a rambling and barely coherent allegorical short story by PDK called ‘The Minority Report’ (1956). This reminded us that BLADE RUNNER was inspired by PDK’s allegorical novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, immediately linking the film to 1982. Basing the film on a short story of PDK also reminded us that he died in March of 1982, several months before the release of BLADE RUNNER and the TZ disaster.
Significantly, the first full image that came into focus of this faded film was of a man and a woman who resembled LUH 3417 and THX 1138 kissing passionately, evoking the strangely androgynous love scenes of THX 1138, immediately linking the film to Lord Stinkious. Indeed, we quickly discovered that these first images were of Department of Pre-Crime murder Case #1108, openly linking the opening scenes to THX 1138. The black shaven head of Steve Harris’ Jad reaffirmed the link to THX 1138, as he evoked SRT. This immediately established a THX 1138 cadence and style to MINORITY REPORT that was maintained for the rest of the film. This open link to THX 1138 also linked Cruise’s bitter and brooding bachelor and Department of Pre-Crime Captain John Anderton-an actual name from the PKD story that neatly evoked Captain John Miller of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, John ‘Neo’ Anderson of THE MATRIX, John Connor of T1 and T2, John Valentine of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and John Landis-to Lord Stinkious, and implied that his THX 1138 evoking escape from society and his colleagues in the Department of Pre-Crime that followed was linked to the equally desperate attempt by Lord Stinkious to prove his innocence of twilit wrongdoing since agreeing to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM since 1982.
The dreamy and faded images of the two THX 1138 lovers were soon intercut with the image of a man in a suit-Ayre Gross’ Howard Marks-surprising them and killing them with a pair of scissors in a dreamy and murderous vision also evoked the dreamy and surreal scissor murder of Meg Mundy’s Wicked Witch of the East linked Doris Spenser that began EYES OF LAURA MARS. However, unlike the opening murderous vision of EYES OF LAURA MARS, this vision was fittingly choppy, cut up and erratic, as if someone was editing it or remembering it rather than experiencing it in one single linear shot. This link to EYES OF LAURA MARS was reaffirmed when the images faded into the right eye of Agatha-who evoked LUH 3417 in another allusion to THX 1138, and was played by Samantha Morton-one of a truly twilit trio of one woman and two men who were precognitive crime dreamers, for the opening murderous vision of EYES OF LAURA MARS had faded into the left eye of Mars. This eye shot also evoked the eye shots that began FUTURE WORLD, BLADE RUNNER, STRANGE DAYS, TWELVE MONKEYS, and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN-as well as an emphasis on eyes in ‘Eyes’ and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. The eye of Agatha also immediately linked MINORITY REPORT to the theme of sight as in these previous films. Indeed, the eye of Agatha prepared us for her soon articulating the film’s obsession with sight when she said ‘…can you see?’ to a startled Anderton. Palpaberg confirmed this theme by also quickly alluding to ‘Eyes’ soon after the allusions to THX 1138 in Agatha’s precognitive visions at the beginning of the film, a link to ‘Eyes’ that confirmed the film’s implicit interest in Serling and the Twilight Zone.
The allusion to ‘Eyes’ involved a child’s spinning merry-go-round, spun by a boy in a park close to a man-Joel Gretsch’ Donald Dubin-already seen as the male lover in the Pre-Crime murder vision. This man waited in the park across the street from the house where Marks prepared to leave his wife Sarah-played by Ashley Crow-and head off to work in the film’s future Washington, DC. The spinning park ride was a significant sight indeed, for the Kubrick linked Resnick had talked to his mob connection while seated on a child’s merry-go-round in a public park playground and gloomily told him about finally being able to pay off his mob debts after being paid for an operation that would relieve him of his eyes. This allusion to Resnick’s eye operation also prepared us for Anderton’s own eye operation later in the film. Significantly, this link to ‘Eyes’ was joined with allusions to A.I., EYES OF LAURA MARS, PSYCHO, STRANGE DAYS and the Dunne murder, for the man waiting near the merry-go-round across the street from the Marks house entered the house and began making love to Sarah soon after her husband and son had left for the day as we had already seen in the earlier precognitive visions.
Unfortunately for Donald and Sarah, Marks did return as in the precog vision and like ex-boyfriend John Sweeney returned to haunt Dunne, and attempted to stab the two adulterers to death with scissors in the stabbing attack already seen in the precognitive visions. This stabbing attack evoked the shower scene of PSYCHO, the visionary stabbings of EYES OF LAURA MARS, Scissorhands’ fears of cutting people in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and the sight of David inadvertently stabbing the face of his sleeping surrogate human mother Monica with scissors while trying to cut off a lock of her hair in A.I. As Sarah also looked like Gwyneth Paltrow, the implication was that Palpaberg was also about to unleash some frustration on Paltrow with his vaguely Palpaberg resembling Dark Side Marks for playing Lady Viola in the allegorical John Madden film, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998), which took the Best Picture Oscar from the Emperor and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN like GANDHI had in 1982. Indeed, Marks caught the two adulterers when he returned to the house to retrieve his glasses, reminding us that Emperor Palpaberg wore glasses. Luckily for Donald and Sarah, his Light Side in the form of Captain Anderton and his fellow Department of Pre-Crime officers acted on some precognitive visions of the double murders before Marks committed the murders.
Indeed, the Department of Pre-Crime pinpointed the location of the Marks house with their trio of precognitive visionaries presciently dreaming of possible future murders like Smith in THE DEAD ZONE. Significantly, the twilit trio did so in a sensory deprivation tank straight out of ALTERED STATES that also recalled the almost deadly birthday swimming pool of A.I. and the Santa Clarita River that was located in a twilit, hive-like and cavernous room called the Temple and linked to a projection screen that showed their visions-creating a literal Temple Theatre. The names of the three precogs also affirmed that the film was a sly fi cadenced murder mystery, for Agatha, Arthur and Dashiell-the latter two played by the fittingly surnamed Michael and Matthew Dickman, respectively-evoked murder mystery writers Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dashiell Hammett, respectively. Significantly, Anderton aided the three precogs, shifting and arranging their prescient visions of the crime and its location on a large, horizontal neo-Esper Holosphere screen that evoked the new digital editing systems for film art in a room located just above the Temple Theatre while wearing curious black gloves that covered the thumb and first two fingers of each hand. These three appendaged gloves evoked the three appendaged hands of Yoda, E.T., the gremlins and the raptors, and prepared us for the three appendaged gremlin Martian invaders to come-as well as linked Anderton to the three floating and dreaming precogs.
Significantly, Anderton was supervised in his arrangement of the visionary facts of the case by the Barrymore resembling Dr. Katherine James and Chief Justice Frank Pollard-played by Ann Ryerson and George Wallace, respectively-evoking Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall and linking foreknowledge of possible murder to foreknowledge of possible trouble on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE in the weeks before the TZ disaster. After figuring out where the Marks house was, Anderton and his fellow Pre-Crime officers then descended on the house in twilit jet helicopters that evoked the flying police spinners of BLADE RUNNER as well as the TZ disaster, bursting into the house and successfully stopping Marks before he murdered the two adulterous lovebirds like the similarly invasive police officers of BRAZIL. And so Case (THX) 1108 was successfully nipped in the bud by the Department of Pre-Crime. Thus, by immediately linking MINORITY REPORT to THX 1138 and Anderton to Lord Stinkious, Emperor Palpaberg implied that he was addressing the attempt by Stinkious to discover the truth about the TZ disaster. Given that Anderton not only wanted to find out the truth about possible murders but use CGI linked technology to prevent them, Palpaberg also implied that he was addressing the hope of Lord Stinkious that CGI enhanced film art would prevent further film set fatalities. Given that he also alluded to ‘Eyes’, EYES OF LAURS MARS, ALTERED STATES, BLADE RUNNER, THE DEAD ZONE, the Dunne murder and the SAVING PRIVATE RYAN Best Picture Oscar loss, Emperor Palpaberg also implied that he was brooding over the good years before the TZ disaster in the film, and the haunted and troubled years after the TZ disaster.
Indeed, the allusions to BLADE RUNNER and the Dunne murder underlined that far from being set in the Washington, DC, of the near future, MINORITY REPORT was set in the nightmarish past of 1982 like all of his post-TZ disaster film art. The fact that Cruise made his feature film debut in 1982 in Paul Brickman’s smash allegorical comedy, RISKY BUSINESS, reaffirmed that the film was obsessed with the twilit and disastrous year of 1982. We also slowly discovered over the course of this murderous and mysterious film that Anderton was an embittered divorcee bachelor and troubled neroin as his marriage had broken up six years before the start of the film due to the kidnapping and murder of his son, Sean-played in older and younger versions by Tyler Jones and Dominic Kay, respectively-a son he keenly missed. Of course, Anderton’s status as a lonely and embittered divorcee bachelor reminded us that Stinkious was an equally lonely and embittered divorcee bachelor at the time of the release of the film, linking Anderton to Stinkious. The missing and presumed murdered Sean also evoked the child victims of the TZ disaster-and Sean Young’s Rachael in BLADE RUNNER, reiterating the film’s interest in the twilit and disastrous events of the summer of 1982-while Anderton’s neroin addiction evoked Nero and his sad lament for his lost Faith in STRANGE DAYS, reiterating Anderton’s link to Lord Stinkious. The revelation that Dr. Iris Hineman-played by Lois Smith-was one of the key founders of the Department of Pre-Crime also reiterated the link of Anderton to Stinkious, reminding us of Iris in THXI DRIVER and Iris in STRANGE DAYS. Anderton’s link to the Stinkious linked Caul in THE CONVERSATION reaffirmed his status as a symbolic Stinkious.
Unfortunately, Spielberg also provided viewers of MINORITY REPORT with the strongest implication yet that he had had foreknowledge of the decision to illegally use two children on the Landis set that fateful night. For the caretaker of the Temple Theatre at the Department of Pre-Crime was a young man named Wally, played by Daniel London. While the name and the character appeared in the original PKD story, his name evoked Wally, the Lord Stinkious linked character in 1941. This time, however, instead of being a character implicitly linked to but not resembling Palpaberg, Wally looked like a beardless young Palpaberg circa 1982, openly linking him to Palpaberg and reminding us of the beardless young Palpaberg sniper in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. As caretaker of the precogs in the Department of Pre-Crime’s Temple Theatre, Wally also watched all of the prescient visions projected by the twilit trio of precogs, ominously linking Palpaberg to watching murders again. Wally was also the only other person in the Department of Pre-Crime to watch the prescient vision that linked Anderton to the murder of Leo Crow. However, instead of arresting Anderton, Wally allowed Anderton to flee the Department of Pre-Crime and begin the Logan’s run that would ultimately prove his innocence. Wally did this after saying, ‘…I like you, Chief. You’ve always been nice to me. I’ll give you two minutes before I give the alarm’. Thus, and for the first time ever, Emperor Palpaberg openly implied that he had not only had foreknowledge of the TZ disaster in this twentieth anniversary film, but had been on the Landis set and done nothing to stop it.
Significantly, a trio of mysterious murders of two men and one women stumbled upon by young Sherlock Anderton reaffirmed the twilit interests of MINORITY REPORT, starting with the unsolved and forgotten drowning of a woman by a masked assailant. This drowning was shown to Anderton by the haunted and troubled Agatha on the ceiling film screen that projected the prescient visions of the precogs in the Temple Theatre after the Marks case was stopped, soon after she asked him ‘…can you see’? This drowning vision led to the shock prescient projection that Anderton would also commit the murder of a man named Leo F. Crow in Case #1109, a name that evoked the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow in a way that reminded us that this was another Ozian themed film. Of course, Crow’s name also evoked THE CROW, a film that led to the film set death of Lee, reiterating that MINORITY REPORT was obsessed with film set fatalities. As anyone seen in a prescient precog vision committing murder was insanely found immediately guilty of murder despite the fact that the murder had not actually happened in this twilit future, Anderton was forced by this shock vision to run from his Pre-Crime colleagues-their Boba Fett evoking jet packs making them the film’s symbolic flying monkeys-for the rest of the film in an epic run that evoked the run of Michael York’s Logan from his fellow Sandmen in the allegorical Anderson film, LOGAN’S RUN (1976), as well as the run of THX 1138 from the robocops in THX 1138 and Nero from the police in STRANGE DAYS. This led to the articulation of the film’s second main theme, ‘…everybody runs’, an all too ironically fitting theme that evoked Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg’s run from the TZ disaster since 1982. Indeed, it gave Lord Stinkious a chance to allegorically feel what it was like to go on the run when you have been accused of murder.
The Pre-Crime investigation of Anderton as he went on the run with Agatha-a run with a powerful psionic female that evoked McGee’s run with his powerful pyrokinetic daughter Charlie in Firestarter and FIRESTARTER and the run of Dallas with the equally powerful Leeloo in THE FIFTH ELEMENT-also led von Sydow’s implicitly Kershner linked Director of Pre-Crime, Lamar Burgess-his first name Lamar evoking THE EYES OF LAURA MARS and the appearance of von Sydow reminding us that he played S.P.E.C.T.R.E. head Blofeld in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN to affirm the implicit link of Burgess to Kershner-to murder the lead Federal Department of Justice investigator, Danny Witwer-played by Colin Farrell. Somehow fittingly, given the film’s similarity to FIRESTARTER, Witwer resembled an actor who played a minor role as a government agent in FIRESTARTER, a character whose name was Don Jules in Firestarter. Witwer also resembled and acted like Landis, but significantly was not linked to any murderous wrongdoing in this twentieth anniversary meditation on the TZ disaster. Indeed, Witwer was on the side of the Good guys in the film, implying that Palpaberg had changed his mind about Landis and now embraced him as a brother film artist again. However, despite being on the side of Good, Witwer was murdered by Burgess due to the fact that he had discovered that Agatha’s repeated projection of a mysterious murder of a woman by drowning on the Temple Theatre screen-a repeated projection that evoked the repeated projection of Princess Leia by Artoo to Luke in the garage of the Lars homestead on Tatooine in another link of Anderton to Lord Stinkious-was not another possible preventable murder or an echo of an already prevented murder-evoking the echo that Andy McGee’s J.D. Jedi like mental domination powers could cause in the minds of weak victims in Firestarter, creating psychotic ricochets in their heads that could kill them-but a real and unsolved murder that evoked the haunting drowning of DEMENTIA 13 that was hidden in the Pre-Crime system and that Burgess did not want to be solved by the Department of Pre-Crime. For the drowning victim was Agatha’s mother Anne Lively-played by Jessic Harper-a neroin addict who had to be killed by Burgess so that he could steal her neroin altered and precognitive daughter away from her and use her in his Department of Pre-Crime.
Significantly, this murder and abduction recalled the murder of Mrs. Victoria ‘Vicki’ Tomlinson-McGee-played by Heather Locklear in FIRESTARTER-and the abduction of her pyrokinetic daughter, Charlie, for use in battling communist evildoers by Cap Hollister and the rest of his twisted and scheming colleagues in the secretive U.S. government agency simply called the Shop in Firestarter and FIRESTARTER. The character name Anne Lively and the presence of von Sydow reiterated the film’s link to the early Eighties, reminding us that little Anne Freeling was trapped in the family television in POLTERGEIST, and that von Sydow played Emperor Ming in FLASH GORDON, King Odric in CONAN THE BARBARIAN, Brewmeister Smith in STRANGE BREW, and Dr. Liet-Kynes in DUNE from 1982-84. The appearance of von Sydow also confirmed the film’s link to Lucas, reminding us that he had played Sigmund Freud in Chapter 3 of the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures. Of course, his new character Lamar Burgess reminded us that Anthony Burgess had written the allegorical novel, A Clockwork Orange (1962), which inspired the film by Kubrick-which was alluded to in A.I., reiterating the link of MINORITY REPORT to A.I.
Curiously, Anderton was able to prove himself innocent of the murder of Crow, solve the murders of Lively and Witwer, and indisputably prove that Director Burgess had murdered Lively and Witwer and caused the murder of Crow so as to remove all opposition to the successful establishment of the Department of Pre-Crime, in the end. Iroincially, this allowed Palpaberg to exorcise the bleak and cynical ending of EYES WIDE SHUT, which cynically implied that Palpaberg’s coverup of the deaths of Chen, Le and Morrow in the TZ disaster was so effective nothing would ever come of their deaths. Anderton accomplished this task with the help of a new pair of eyes, eyes that reiterated the film’s emphasis on eyes and seeing and given him in an illegal eye replacement operation performed by Peter Stormare’s Dr. Solomon Eddy-linked to Cronenberg again as was Stormare’s character Dieter Stark in THE LOST WORLD-that allowed him to fool the eye scanners and get back into the Department of Pre-Crime, liberate Agatha and continue on his run. Anderton was also helped by the Kubrick linked wildman, Rufus Riley-played by Jason Antoon.
Curiously, the Director was so overwhelmed with grief by his murderous actions and his attempt to pin the murders of Crow and Witwer on Anderton that he committed suicide when confronted by Anderton in the end with the evidence that proved his misdeeds. Significantly, Anderton faced down the Director in the end with a shaven head like THX 1138 and watched Burgess shoot himself in front of him like Mars watched Neville shoot himself at the end of EYES OF LAURA MARS, openly affirming Anderton’s link to Lord Stinkious and the link of Burgess to Kershner. The fact that Anderton, once the keen devotee of the Department of Pre-Crime, then led the way in shutting down the Department also implied the hope of Palpaberg that Stinkious would finally give up on his obsession with Zonebusting CGI enhanced film art, and return to effects free reality-a curious implication, given Palpaberg’s own embrace of CGI. A return to the real world seen in the liberation of the precog trio from their twilit tank-making MINORITY REPORT another post-1982 Palpaberg film that wistfully freed Chen, Le and Morrow from the Twilight Zone, in the end-to a life in a secluded cabin in a verdant Eden. A secluded cabin in a verdant Eden that Brosnan’s implicitly Stinkious linked Bond also wound up in after vanquishing the implicitly Ang Lee linked Zao-played by Rick Yune-and the implicitly Andy and Larry Wachowski evoking pair of Vlad and Gustav-played by Michael Gorevoy and Tobey Stephens, respectively-at the end of the allegorical Lee Tamahori adventure, DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002).
Curiously, and no doubt due to the fact that the twilit and allegorical Sir Jackson film, THE TWO TOWERS (2002), swept all comers that year, everyone ignored the ominous implications of MINORITY REPORT and STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES. For his part, Stuart Baird and the indomitable crew of the storied USS Enterprise agreed with unimpressed audiences. For they took on and took out Lord Stinkious and the new Tragic Trilogy with their allegorical film, STAR TREK NEMESIS (2002), their implicit intent underlined by all of the allusions to STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE in the film. And literally took out, for the USS Enterprise took out the ship of the bald and Lord Stinkious, Luthor and THX 1138 linked Shinzon-played by Tom Hardy-in a spectacular and deliberate head on collision at the end of the film that saw STAR TREK symbolically trash STAR WARS. As for Zhang Yimou, with the implicitly Landis linked King of the kingdom of Qin-played by Chen Dao Ming-allowed to escape assassination by a twilit trio of assassins and bring harmony to all of China, in the end, Yimou implicitly reached out to Landis, freed him from the ghostly grasp of Chen, Le and Morrow and urged him to do his best to bring harmony to film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre in the twentieth anniversary year of the TZ disaster.
A sympathetic message to Stinkious that was not implicitly sent by Coppola, for she implied that the Tragic Trilogy was not as all conquering as the Classic Trilogy and that she was gently roasting him and his inability to connect with audiences in the form of Murray’s equally befuddled and Great Oz linked Bob Harris in her allegorical and Ozian themed film, LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003). Lee was also dismissive, implicitly dismissing him as a newly CGI enhanced blockbuster beast in the symbolic form of Doctor Bruce ‘Hulk’ Banner-played by Eric Bana-in the twilit and allegorical film, HULK (2003). Twilit meditations that continued in the allegorical, implicitly Landis supporting and Ozian themed hung fu Wachowski Siblings films, THE MATRIX RELOADED (2003) and THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS (2003) in the Spring and Winter of 2003.
These two films continued the battle against the beastly CGI enhanced blockbuster machine world in an attempt to finally free viewers from CGI enhanced pacification, the TZ disaster, the Twilight Zone and the dread Zone Wars. Indeed, the last remnants of free humanity desperately fought off a massive schlockbuster CGI machine assault on their hidden underground fortress city of Zion-a Fremen Sietch evoking city that was truly in Oz-in the two films, underlining how serious the Wachowski Siblings were about defeating CGI pacification and the TZ disaster, breaking free from the Zone, ending the Zone Wars. Huge burrowing drill bits accompanied the alienated and biomechanical CGI machine assault on Zion. These burrowing behemoths reminded us that helicopters instantly turned into huge, out of control and whirling drill bits that plummeted straight down at the speed they were flying when their stabilizing rear rotors were knocked out, as in the case of the TZ disaster.
As this was not bad enough for the beleaguered remnants of humanity, Weaving’s Agent Smith was back from the dead and stronger than ever. This implicitly affirmed his link to Morrow, reminding us that the minor player in the film art world ironically had far greater status and power after his death in the allegorical art of the dread Zone Wars. Luckily for the freedom loving citizens of Zion, Reeves’ Neo again defeated the all pervading Agent Smith-who had grown so powerful he had taken over the Matrix and even threatened the blockbuster machines-in the final battle at the SCANNERS evoking end of THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS. Of course, this pentultimate victory recalled Neo’s first SCANNERS evoking triumph over Agent Smith at the end of THE MATRIX. Significantly, the final battle was so draining that, unlike Maud’dib and the Buddha, Neo also died in the end like Darko and Jesus, dying so that others would live, dying so that Landis could finally atone for the TZ disaster.
However, despite his death, Neo’s triumph over Smith impressed the machines so much that they ended the twilit invasion of Zion and began a hopeful truce between humans and blockbuster machines that implied that the Wachowski Siblings were just as hopeful about achieving a balance between humanity and CGI in their film art as Lord Stinkious implied he was in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE. This harmonious truce cleansed the universe and allowed the Matrix Trilogy to end in broad daylight, underlining how eager the Wachowski Siblings were to leave behind the twilit TZ disaster dominated era and truly begin a daylit new millennium of harmonious and uplifting CGI enhanced film art. However, the deafening silence that greeted THE MATRIX RELOADED and THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS joined up with the silence that greeted STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES and MINORITY REPORT to confirm that 911 and the war with Al Queda was now more important than the dread Zone Wars as far as audiences were concerned. And that audiences were more concerned with THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, which concluded that year on an epic note with the twilit and allegorical Sir Jackson film, THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003).
Significantly, THE RETURN OF THE KING saw no balance achieved between man and CGI machine as in THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, but noticeably ended with a complete and eucatastrophic triumph of organic Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, Humans and Wizards over CGI gollums, oliphaunts, Ringwraiths on dragon mounts, trolls and Dark Lords. In fact, the film was so eucatastrophic that THE RETURN OF THE KING became the first and only fantastic film to sweep the following year’s august Academy Awards and exultantly raise high no less than eleven Oscars. The dread Zone Wars were indeed over, Kid, and we were all free from the Twilight Zone at last! Not that Lord Stinkious and Emperor Palpaberg shared this sentiment, for the duel of the mates continued unabated with one more film from Lord Stinkious and four more films from Emperor Palpaberg by the end of 2005.
In fact, THE MATRIX RELOADED prepared viewers for the next attack by Palpaberg, for a flock of black clad and resurrected Smiths that attacked Neo in the film evoked the attacking crows of THE BIRDS and Palpaberg’s love of Hitchcock. A fitting reminder, for Palpaberg flapped down from the skies and returned to the Temple Theatres again in 2003 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE with his curious allegorical film, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2003), inspired by Frank Abagnale jr.’s Catch Me If You Can (1979).
Curiously, with the eerie and TZ disaster evoking animated logo for Dreamworks SKG again preceding the film, the initial implication was that CATCH ME IF YOU CAN took an allegorical look at someone close to or responding to the TZ disaster. And since the film revolved around a tragicomic, clean cut, well dressed, suave, persuasive, devious and womanizing young criminal mastermind and high school dropout named Frank W. Abagnale jr.-played by Di Caprio-who evoked the Needle, the implication was that he symbolized Landis, also a clean cut and well dressed high school dropout. However, unlike Landis, Abagnale jr. also posed variously as a passenger airplane pilot, a doctor and a lawyer when he went on the run, and romanced the ladies along the way. These characteristics reminded us that Cameron also did not graduate from high school as a teen, was a keen undersea explorer as well as a writer/producer/director, and also liked to romance the ladies, with five wives along the way to prove the point, linking Junior to Cameron. The fact that a teenage waiter who resembled Cameron-played by Jeremy Howard-pointed out to Hanks’ pursuing and Palpaberg linked FBI agent Carl Hanratty that Abagnale jr.’s first alias, Barry Allen, was the real name of the Flash, the DC Comics superhero, reiterated Junior’s link to Cameron.
That another of young Frank’s aliases, Frank Conners, evoked world saviour John Connor of the Terminator films also linked Abagnale jr. to Cameron. The fact that Abagnale jr. was played by Di Caprio, who was inextricably linked to Cameron at the time due to his role as Dawson in TITANIC, implicitly reaffirmed Junior’s link to Cameron. Thus, with Abagnale jr. and Hanratty burying their differences at the end of the film and working with each other at the FBI to capture fraud artists for the betterment of the USA after Hanratty finally tracked down and captured Abagnale jr. in France after had he eluded the police and the FBI for years, Emperor Palpaberg implied his hope that he would top the success of TITANIC with another big film given that no one had noticed his ominous admission of wrongdoing in MINORITY REPORT, allowing Cameron and himself to put aside their differences over the TZ disaster and work together for the betterment of film art. A desire to break from the past and start anew that returned in Palpaberg’s next twilit and allegorical film, THE TERMINAL (2004).
Significantly, the film began again with the creepy and TZ disaster linked animated boy fishing on a waxing crescent moon logo for Dreamworks SKG, immediately linking the film to the TZ disaster. A fitting link, for Palpaberg likened his haunted, hunted and terminal trapped in limbo-like post-TZ disaster existence to being akin to being a stateless Eastern European visitor to New York trapped in the La Guardia Airport by a civil war back home and bureaucratic red tape in the U.S. throughout the film. Indeed, the Eastern European background of Hanks’ Palpaberg linked Viktor Navorski reminded us that Palpaberg’s grandparents came from Eastern Europe. Of course, the name Viktor Navorski evoked Victor Morrow and had the same syllabe cadence as Steven Spielberg, implicitly confirming Navorski’s status as the alter ego of Palpaberg-implicitly reaffirmed by the fact that Navorski was played by Hanks-and the film’s link to the TZ disaster. Navorski’s embattled homeland of Krakozhia also reminded us of Krakow, Poland, a city featured in SCHINDLER’S LIST.
It was also important that the real airport set was built to resemble the labyrinthine underworld of THX 1138, complete with escalators, banal muzak and listless crowds of travellers buying more at all the convenient and prominently displayed brand name airport outlets. And that the airport’s chome dome Director, Frank Dixon-played by writer/director/actor Stanley Tucci-resembled THX 1138 and spied on Navorski in a television screen filled control room that resembled the control room of THX 1138 and allowed Director Dixon to, ironically-but fittingly-ponder the terminal existence of Navorski in a computer terminal. For this interest in Lord Stinkious implied that Palpaberg used the film to strike back at the roasting Lord Stinkious was giving him in the Tragic Trilogy. Of course, with a name like Frank, Palpaberg implied that he was also struggling to break free from the grasp of Director Marshall in the film, as he had also implied in CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. Indeed, Field Commisioner Frank was yet another Frank in the post-TZ disaster films of Palpaberg, stretching back to Sheriff Frank in GREMLINS.
Significantly, Frank also confirmed that Navorski’s unplanned hiatus in the La Guardia Terminal was linked to the TZ disaster, and hence a metaphor for Palpaberg’s own twilit and terminal post-1982 existence. For he told Navorski right at the beginning of the film that the fighting back in Krakozhia that annulled his passport and caused the bureaucratic red tape that prevented Navorski from leaving the terminal and heading into New York had trapped the baffled Eastern European in the Twilight Zone. Indeed, Frank mentioned the ‘Nightmare at 30,000 (sic) Feet’ episode as an example of the Twilight Zone, directly linking the film to the Miller episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVE and the TZ disaster. Thus, by finally resolving the bureaucratic impasse and at last being legally able to leave his terminal existence for New York, Palpaberg implied his hope that the lack of outrage over his open admission of wrongdoing in MINORITY REPORT had freed him at last from the TZ disaster and from a fear of flying as a director.
By sending Navorski into a local jazz club to complete his dead father’s autographed coaster collection with the autograph of saxophonist Benny Golson, Palpaberg also expressed the hope that he was now free to be an independent film artist again. But still a haunted and sobered film artist, for Golson and his bandmates launched into a tune called ‘Killer Joe’ for Navorski, a tune that reminded us of Killer John. An allusion that continued in the strange twilit and allegorical Gibson film, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004), who unfortunately linked Jim Caviezel’s betrayed and abandoned Jesus to the equally betrayed and abandoned Landis throughout the film in perhaps the worst analogy of the dread Zone Wars. No doubt contributing to the wrath of Lord Stinkious, who soon exploded in righteous and full Force fury in the last film of the Tragic Trilogy. Indeed, a distraught and furious Stinkious returned to the Temple Theatre in 2005 to reply to the infuriatingly ominous implications of MINORITY REPORT with an anguished and allegorical trimax whose twisted title-STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH-summed up his conviction that he had indeed been betrayed by a Wolf in friend’s clothing.
For the dark links to Palpaberg began immediately, with Christensen’s Skywalker recklessly and dangerously blasting and scraping a crawling plague of ship destroying CGI gremlin Buzz droids off the space fighter of McEwen’s Kenobi with his laser cannons and Yellow Brick Spacefighter wings in the impressive and massive CGI space battle above Coruscant that began the film and linked STAR WAR EPISODE III: RETURN OF THE SITH to the epic battles at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE and STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES. Significantly, these CGI Buzz droids evoked the spiders of ARACHNOPHOBIA as well as the gremlins, reiterating the film’s interest in Palpaberg. After saving Kenobi, Kenobi and Skywalker landed in and fought their way through a combot and terbot filled ship to rescue McDiarmid’s Chancellor Palpatine from the sickly clutches of the implicitly Lasseter linked cyborg, General Grievous-voiced by Michael Wood. A lightsaber duel with Lee’s Count Dooku broke out, a saber fight that also evoked the end of STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES and the lightsaber duel between Kenobi, Skywalker, Yoda and Dooku.
Soon Ani had the head of Dooku stuck between the ‘X’ created by blue and red crossed rotor sabers. Significantly, at the insidious and sibilant urging of Palpatine, being held hostage by Dooku, Ani callously sliced off the head of Dooku with the rotorsabers. Of course, this decapitation of Dooku evoked the decapitation of Morrow, implying that Dooku was indeed linked to Landis. This shocking decapitation also implied that Lord Stinkious was horrified by Palpaberg’s implications of wrongdoing in MINORITY REPORT. Indeed, the decapitation implied that Lord Stinkious was now convinced that Palpaberg was indeed a Wolf in sheep’s clothing who had had some part in the TZ disaster. The decapitation also caused Ani to unknowingly take a big step towards the Dark Side, implying that Stinkious believed that Cameron had also unknowingly taken a big step towards the Dark Side by creating bigger and bigger film art after the success of THE TERMINATOR. Significantly, Ani’s unknowing embrace of the Dark Side soon became knowing when he saved Palpatine from Jackson’s Windu-allowing Palpatine, openly transformed into Lord Sidious by the intensity of the battle with Windu, to kill Windu in the process-and then bowed down to his hideously transformed new Master, Lord Sidious, as his new Apprentice, Darth Vader. An open transformation into Darth Vader that implicitly affirmed that Stinkious felt that by trying to beat such films as EMPIRE OF THE SUN, HOOK, JURASSIC PARK and SCHINDLER’S LIST with bigger and bigger Zonebusters like THE ABYSS, TRUE LIES and TITANIC, Cameron had embraced the same schlockbuster philosophy as Palpaberg, causing him to lose his J.D. Jedi film artist integrity and to turn into a puppet Dark Lord of the Shit Sith Hits himself.
Slowly young Sherlock Kenobi learned the terrifying truth that Ani had now embarked on a Journey of Dark Descent and was the new Anikkostein of the Emperor. Over the course of the film Kenobi also discovered that Ani was actually Skyfaller, the remorseless murderer who cut down the rest of the Jedi-including the Jedi younglings, evoking the child victims of TZ disaster-at the Jedi Temple with his blue rotorsaber-a colour linked to good in the Classic Trilogy, now, sadly, linked to insidious Evil. The horrifying and depressing sequence evoked the equally remorseless Terminator gunning down the police officers of an L.A. police station in THE TERMINATOR, implicitly affirming the link of Skyfaller to Cameron. Skyfaller’s Journey of Dark Descent had now swept away the Journey of Self Discover, killed off any Romance between Skyfaller and Amidala, and completely overshadowed any Comedy or Western narratives in the film. Thus, it was inevitable that Kenobi face down and ultimately defeat Skyfaller in the end in the pentultimate saber duel of the Tragic Trilogy.
Significantly, this final Duel of the Mates occurred on a fiery and hellish planet that evoked the fiery and hellish Temple of Doom in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and the fiery and hellish planet seen at the end of THE BLACK HOLE. This flaming hell implied that Lord Stinkious now bitterly, despondently and sadly agreed with the prediction of Disney in 1979 that an embrace of effects filled films had led Palpaberg and himself straight to hell. The name of this hell planet was also significant, for Mustafar evoked General Mustafa Kamal and the secret intrigue in Istanbul that led Jones to lose Molly to his ‘friend’ Stefan, the backstabbing German Wolf, in CHAPTER 17: MASKS OF EVIL of the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures. Indeed, these two links to INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and the YOUNG SHERLOCK JONES adventures strongly reaffirmed that, after watching EMPIRE OF THE SUN, HOOK, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and MINORITY REPORT, a furious Lord Stinkious was convinced that Palpaberg was a backstabbing evildoer who lied to Stinkious about his foreknowledge of the use of Chen and Le on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE so as to continue to advance his career with INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, an association with Stefan that cost Lord Stinkious his wife and his reputation. In fact, Skyfaller’s final and violent argument with a pregnant Amidala that ended their relationship occurred on Mustafar just before the showdown between Anakin and Kenobi began, openly linking the final battle to the end of a marital relationship. Thus, Lord Stinkious defended the honour of Marcia as much as his own in this last battle with Skyfaller.
Significantly, we had been prepared for this final duel and defeat of Skyfaller years earlier, for the sight of Kenobi rising to the defence of Amidala after catching Skyfaller throttling her with a Force choke reminded us that Frankenstein had badly beaten Machine Gun Joe Viterbo after catching him choking his beautiful blonde navigator Annie to death in DEATH RACE 2000. Kenobi’s defense of Amidala also evoked Bickle’s defense of Iris in TAXI DRIVER. This linked STAR WARS EPISODE III: RETURN OF THE SITH to 1975-76 and those relatively happy days after the success of AMERICAN GRAFFITI when George and Marcia Lucas were still married and George was beginning work on a new film called STAR WARS. The link to DEATH RACE 2000 also reminded us that Skyfaller’s dimunitive Ani was a nod to Annie and DEATH RACE 2000. In addition, the link to DEATH RACE 2000 evoked the Death pod race of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, and the Kenobi versus Mull saber battle that closed that film. Kenobi’s long and running battle with, and defeat of the four armed General Grievous and his four whirling rotorsabers earlier in the despairing film-a four armed figure that reminded us that Maximilian and Reinhardt merged into an equally four armed Manbot at the end of THE BLACK HOLE-also recalled the final saber battles of STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES and STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, preparing us again for this pentultimate showdown between lightsaber and nightsaber.
Ironically, but fittingly, after the longest and most fierce saber duel to end all of the STAR WARS films, Kenobi cut down Skyfaller with his deadly rotorsaber like a human helicopter, in the end. The sight reminded us that Kenobi had also sliced Maul neatly in half at the end of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, bringing the Tragic Trilogy full circle. This rotoring strike left Skyfaller a dismembered torso that dragged itself forward like the dismembered torso of the Terminator at the end of T1, reaffirming the implicit link of Skyfaller to Cameron. And so Lord Stinkious defeated box office king Cameron and his TITANIC Zonebuster beast. And so Lord Stinkious underlined what a difficult undertaking this had been for him with the mutual blue of their sabers, for this was the first and only time in any STAR WARS film that Jedi and Sith fought to the death with lightsabers of the same colour. And so Lucas Kenobi lamented this, sadly saying to the Skyfalling Cameron that he was supposed to ‘…bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness…you were my brother, Anakin. I loved you!’ after he cut down the young Sith Lord. And so this sad and moving triumph allowed the film and the Tragic Trilogy to end on a trimatically eucatastrophic, sobering and vaguely healthy note, with a new Sith apprentice and potential Dark Lord defeated, Amidala and her Stinkious evoking Jedi twins saved, the insidious Dark Side of New Hollywood thwarted, and the Jedi and the Light Side victorious, in the end.
However, Darth Sidious rescued and revived the dismembered torso of Skyfaller, transforming him by a twisted robotomy into the full Anikkostein Manbot of Darth Vader. Significantly, this dark transformation was supervised by a 2-1B medical droid, evoking STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK in a way that underlined that the Classic Trilogy of Light and hope had been transformed by the TZ disaster into a truly Tragic Trilogy of Darkness and despair for Lord Stinkious. Significantly, Vader’s mask was turned into the camera and so encompassed the audience as it fell down on his scarred face at the end of the film, implying that Stinkious believed that audience support of Cameron since 1984 had made audiences just as responsible for the CGI enhanced schlockbuster beasts taking over the Temple Theatre as Darth Cameron. Indeed, Lord Stinkious clearly believed that Cameron and audiences who had turned against him since 1982-83 were all one Darth Cameron. And just as responsible for the death of his film art, as Amidala died giving birth to Jedi twins Leia and Luke shortly before Ani’s transformation into Vader-twins that laid out the possibility of redemption for Stinkious in the future. A pessimistic optimism also seen when Palpaberg fused E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL with GREMLINS for an invasion of extraterrestrial CGI Martian gremlins that reiterated what a nightmare E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL had become for him after the TZ disaster in his twilit and Kennedy co-produced allegorical film, WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005), based on the The War of the Worlds.
Significantly, the eerie and TZ disaster linked animated logo for Dreamworks SKG again preceded the film, immediately linking the film to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982. A link to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 openly affirmed by one of the main characters of the film, Rachel Ferrier-played by Dakota Fanning-as she evoked Rachael of BLADE RUNNER. Of course, the choice of Cruise to play Rachel’s father, embittered New York divorcee and dock worker Ray Ferrier, also reaffirmed the film’s implicit interest in 1982 via his role in RISKY BUSINESS. Significantly, while implicitly linked to Lord Stinkious in MINORITY REPORT, Cruise’s character was more likely linked to Emperor Palpaberg in WAR OF THE WORLDS. For Rachel and Robbie-played by Justine Chatwin-his two children from a previous marriage, evoked Palpaberg’s children from his first marriage to Irving. His omnipresent Yankees baseball cap not only evoked Palpaberg’s fondness for baseball caps, but the equally omnipresent Yankees cap of the Palpaberg linked Short Round in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, reaffirming his implicit link to Palpaberg. The fact that Rachel also evoked Lou Jean Poplin in THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS also reiterated the link of Ferrier to Palpaberg.
Thus, Ferrier’s desperate bid to save Rachel and Robbie from the Martian invaders when they soon arrived-driving them away from the invaders and watching over them like Officer Slide drove and watched over Clovis and Lou Jean Poplin throughout THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS-suggested that Palpaberg was trying to save his own children and audiences from something or someone. Given that the Martian invaders arrived in New York in a CGI enhanced lightning filled storm, the implication was that Palpaberg was striving to save his children and audiences from the next CGI enhanced Cameron film, as the light storm evoked Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment film production company. The black and bio-mechanical appearance of the Martians and their tripod invasion craft and the long heads that the Martians and their craft had reiterated this link to Cameron, evoking the bio-mechanical and long headed aliens of ALIENS. A murderous fight that Ferrier had with Tim Robbin’s Cameron evoking Harlan Olgivy-his name evoking a plagiarism lawsuit Cameron lost to literary artist Harlan Ellison over the similarity of THE TERMINATOR to one of his stories-at one point also reiterated the film’s interest in Cameron. Clearly, the hoped for reconciliation with Cameron implied in CATCH ME IF YOU CAN had disappeared, and Palpaberg was now very worried about a new Cameron film.
It was also noticeable that the Martian invaders were linked to CGI throughout the film as in MARS ATTACKS!, reiterating the cautionary message Palpaberg had been ironically making about CGI since he used CGI to such successful and blockbuster effect in JURASSIC PARK. Indeed, one of the first New Yorkers killed by a Martian tripod death ray at the beginning of the film was recording their arrival on a digicam. When he was vaporized and dropped his camera in the road the camera kept filming the invaders, allowing audiences to watch the Martian tripod continue to attack behind fleeing New Yorkers in the digicam’s screen, openly affirming the link of the pitiless Martian invaders and their black, biomechanical and film camera like tripods to CGI enhanced film art. This ironically underlined that Palpaberg was now even more worried than he was in JURASSIC PARK about the use of CGI in filmmaking-particularly, no doubt, in the film art of Cameron-and that he wondered if CGI had been the right response to the TZ disaster. Indeed, the sight of the tripods vaporizing people implied that Palpaberg was now very afraid that CGI enhanced film art was wiping out the humanity of film. A CGI invasion linked to Cameron that definitely needed a desperate uprising from humanity to stop it, a desperate battle seen throughout the film in the battle of humanity in general and Rachel, Ray and Robbie Ferrier in particular against the Martian invaders. A battle that Emperor Palpaberg hoped to win, given that the Martian invaders were beaten by humanity and its bacteria at the end of the film. Desperate and twilit battles that returned when Palpaberg completed his Stinkious Trilogy that had begun with MINORITY REPORT with his second allegorical film that year, MUNICH (2005), as serious and mostly CGI free as his second films of 1993 and 1997, and co-produced again with Kennedy and based on the George Jonas book, Vengeance (1984).
Significantly, the creepy and TZ disaster linked animated Dreamworks SKG logo that preceded the film also immediately linked MUNICH and its shadowy world of terrorism, secret and state sponsored anti-terrorist hit teams, intrigue and duplicity to the TZ disaster. Just as significantly, the television control room at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the coverage of the Palestinian terrorists-who evoked the terrorists in TRUE LIES, linking them to Cameron-who attacked the Israeli contingent and killed eleven Israeli athletes that was seen on the various television screens at the beginning of the film evoked the television monitor filled control room in THX 1138 and in the control room of THE TERMINAL, linking the film to Lord Stinkious, as the allusions to THX 1138 had done at the beginning of MINORITY REPORT. This link was reaffirmed by the Israeli meeting presided over by Lynn Cohen’s Prime Minister Golda Meir that led to her decision to strike back at the leaders of the Black September terrorist group that planned the Munich attack. For Prime Minister Meir and her advisors evoked Yoda and the rest of the Jedi Council on Coruscant in the Tragic Trilogy. As such, it was no surprise that Eric Bana’s Avner, the young, naïve and idealistic Israeli Mossad agent haunted by the Munich disaster who agreed to head the hit team that would go to Europe and hunt down and kill eleven Black September leaders-three of whom evoked Coppola sr., Ramis and Reitman-evoked a young and clean shaven Lord Stinkious haunted by the TZ disaster.
Indeed, Avner evoked the equally secretive and increasingly paranoid Caul of THE CONVERSATION and Anderton of MINORITY REPORT throughout the film, and his young wife, Daphna-played by Ayelet Zurer-evoked Portman, affirming his link to Lord Stinkious. In addition, the crowded, dark, labyrinthine and mysterious streets of Athens, Beirut, London, Paris and Roma evoked the similar streets of Istanbul and Venice in CHAPTER 17: MASKS OF EVIL, reiterating the link of Avner to Lord Stinkious. The seven assassinations carried out by Avner and his all to human, fallible, quarrelsome and increasingly doubtful and guiltstricken hit team also evoked the six murders of Allied agents in Istanbul in CHAPTER 17: MASKS OF EVIL and the six murders that beset twilit new radio station WBN in THE RADIOLAND MURDERS, reaffirming the implicit link of Avner to Lord Stinkious. Thus, the implication was that the retaliatory murders committed by Avner and his four man hit team-Hanns Zischler’s Hans evoking Hitchcock, Ciaran Hinds’ Carl evoking Landis, Daniel Craig’s Steve evoking Christopher Nolan, and Mathieu Kassovitz’s Robert evoking Truffaut, respectively-after the Munich attack shattered the harmony of Israel in 1972 symbolized the film artist thrashing allegorical film and telefilm salvoes that Lord Stinkious had launched since the TZ disaster shattered the harmony of Hollywood in 1982-particularly the Tragic Trilogy, given the love and support the Portman evoking Daphna gave Avner throughout the film. Indeed, in many ways MUNICH was Emperor Palpaberg’s most honest allegorical film, the one where he made implicitly clear more than in any other film that he and his fellow film artists were using their film art to constantly blast each other in a neverending dialogue that Coppola summed up in the title of his film, THE CONVERSATION. In fact, after Black September responded to their first hit with some attacks of their own, Carl told Avner over the phone ‘…they’re talking to us…in a dialogue’, openly acknowledging the embattled allegorical conversation.
Thus, given this implicitly open admission, it was appropriate that that Avner’s contact and overseer at Mossad was Geoffrey Rush’s Emperor Palpaberg linked Ephraim. For the presence of the Palpaberg and McDiarmid resembling Ephraim affirmed candid nature of the film. Seeing Ephraim and Avner together also reminded us that Lord Stinkious had been working with Emperor Palpaberg on twilit cinematic salvoes in the dread Zone Wars since INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. Significantly, the relationship between Avner and Ephraim was not only tense and duplicitous, it also evoked that between Darth Vader and the Emperor in the Classic Trilogy and in STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH. Indeed, not only did the bigger Avner carry out the violent orders of the smaller Ephraim like Vader did for the Emperor, Avner was almost an anagram of Vader-Vaner-making the implicit link clear. And while Avner broke free from the hit team, Ephraim and Israel and moved with his wife and daughter to the U.S. by the end of the film in a way that Vader never did, he was not able to erase the violence he had committed in the name of peace. Thus, Emperor Palpaberg did his implicit best to counteract the anti-Palpaberg message of the Tragic Trilogy and persuade audiences that Lord Stinkious was the violent and deadly Vader, not him, and underlined that point by having Ephraim staying out of the fray and Avner doing all of the shooting and supervising all of the bombings. An ironic implication, given that by so doing he linked himself to the insidious Emperor, confirming that he was, indeed, Emperor Palpaberg. A link to the insidious Emperor confirmed by Palpaberg’s implied admissions in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, HOOK and MINORITY REPORT that he had been on the Landis set the night of the TZ disaster but did nothing to prevent it from happening.
The dread allegorical Zone Wars continued after 2005, of course, the flames of war whipped into greater heights by the dire implications of the Tragic Trilogy and the retaliatory film art of Palpaberg. The refusal of Lord Stinkious to mention the TZ disaster, the audience outrage over the decision to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and the film itself, or even the Great Divorce in 1983 in the official biography of Lord Stinkious, The Cinema of George Lucas (2005) by Marcus Hearn, published in conjunction with the release of STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH, did not help either. Some came to the aid of Lord Stinkious, like James McTeigue and the Wachowski Siblings in their allegorical and implicitly Stinkious addressing film, V FOR VENDETTA (2006).
For Weaving’s haunted, haunting, spectral, elusive, mysterious and implicitly Stinkious linked V triumphed over the implicitly Palpaberg linked and dictatorial British High Chancellor Adam Sutler, the implicitly Kennedy linked Deila Surridge, the implicitly Marshall linked Dascombe and the implicitly Zemeckis linked Lewis Prothero-played by Hurt, Sinead Cusack, Ben Miles and Roger Allam, respectively-in their sympathetic film. Indeed, McTeigue and the Wachowski Siblings affirmed their implicit intent with Portman’s shaven headed Evey Hammond, who evoked the implicitly Stinkious linked John Hammond in JURASSIC PARK and THE LOST WORLD, LUH 3417 in THX 1138 and Padme Amidala in the Tragic Trilogy.
Others roasted Lord Stinkious, with Burton ironically dumping the implicitly Stinkious linked Mr. Salt and his spoiled and Princess Leia evoking daughter, Veruca-played by James Fox and Julia Winter, respectively-down the garbage chute for failing to impress audiences yet again with the Tragic Trilogy in his allegorical and CGI enhanced remake, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (2005). Two years later, Burton also implicitly linked Depp’s Sweeney Todd to Stinkious in the dark and allegorical film, SWEENEY TODD (2007). This implied that the sight of Todd destroying himself in his righteously furious quest to kill Allan Rickman’s implicitly Cameron linked Judge Turpin symbolized Stinkious destroying himself in his efforts to kill the implicitly Cameron linked Skywalker in the Tragic Trilogy. However, perhaps the most personal attack came from Coppola in her allegorical film, MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006), the second film in her Lord Stinkious trilogy. For his ‘niece’ implicitly linked Lord Stinkious to the psychologically impotent and ineffectual last French King, Louis XVI-played by Jason Schwartman-implying that she felt him to be impotent and ineffectual, as well.
Christopher Nolan implicitly predicted that Cameron would triumph over Lord Stinkious and the STAR WARS Tragic Trilogy with his next Zonebusting film as surely as the implicitly Cameron linked Bruce ‘Batman’ Wayne triumphed over the implicitly Stinkious linked Ducard-played by Neeson-and his Jedi evoking League of Shadows at the end of the twilit and allegorical film, BATMAN BEGINS (2005). Perhaps the most original and quirky sympathetic response came from Julian Jarrold and company in their allegorical film, KINKY BOOTS (2006). Which, as it saw the implicitly Lucas linked Charlie Price-played by Joel Edgerton-dramatically improve the fortunes of his Northampton shoe factory when he switched from his tired and traditional shoe line to red, sexy and dangerous boots, implied the hope of Jarrold and company that Stinkious too could succeed again if he only dropped his tired old STAR WARS line and took up a more sexy and exciting line of film art. Indeed, the choice of Edgerton to play Price affirmed the implicit intent of KINKY BOOTS, for he had played the ridiculously and impossibly young Owen Lars in STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES and STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH.
Rushdie was also implicitly roused from his twilit torpor by the Tragic Trilogy to address Lord Stinkious again in one of the greatest novels ever written, The Enchantress of Venice (2008), before bringing his Stinkious Trilogy, which had begun with Haroun and the Sea of Stories, full Force circle in his trimatic allegorical novel, Luka and the Fire of Life (2010), whose title openly evoked the Lucas linked Luca and Luke to affirm the implicit intent of the novel. The same year that Rushdie completed his Stinkious Trilogy, Alexandre O. Phillipe and company blasted him in their documentary, THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS (2010). As for Cameron, he fulfilled Nolan’s confident prediction by implicitly roasting Lord Stinkious in the symbolic form of Stephen Lang’s Colonel Miles Quaritch for the implicit roasting he received in the Tragic Trilogy, and Scorsese in the form of Giovanni Ribisi’s Parker Selfridge for the implicit roasting he received from Scorsese in the allegorical film, THE AVIATOR (2004), when Cameron discarded insidious liquid metal for freedom loving and iconoclastic HEAVY METAL by fusing ALIENS, DUNE, the ‘Neverwhere’ and ‘Taarna’ episodes of HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE, POCAHONTAS and SOLARIS with a generous dash of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO and the Matrix Trilogy in the allegorical four hundred million dollar Zonebuster, AVATAR (2009).
In response to AVATAR, CGI enhanced allegorical remakes of films from 1981-82 like the Louis Leterrier film, CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010), and the Joseph Kosinski film, TRON LEGACY (2011)-but, curiously, not a CGI enhanced remake of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, which would be a perfect way to address the eagerly submarining Cameron-were released in a desperate attempt to reassure audiences that CGI enhancement had brought film art to a new level of humanity so advanced and so full healing circle that over were the dread Zone Wars. Indeed, Bigelow even implicitly declared the end of the dread Zone Wars, symbolized by the death of Osama Bin Laden, and the triumph of a new CGI enhanced film art era at the end of her allegorical film, ZERO DARK THIRTY (2012).
As for Lord Stinkious, he yet again terminated any sympathy for his cause created by the Tragic Trilogy by inexplicably working with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg again on the dismal and instantly forgettable Emmerich and Christopher Nolan bashing allegorical film, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008). Lord Stinkious also teamed up with Anthony Hemingway on the allegorical film, RED TAILS (2012), to petulantly bash Francis and Sofia Coppola for working together to bash him in her allegorical film art, including SOMEWHERE (2009), the final film in her Stinkious Trilogy. However, perhaps the best final word on Lord Stinkious came from Howard in his thoughtful allegorical film, FROST/NIXON (2008). For Howard linked Frank Langella’s bitter, despondent and sad eyed ex-President, Richard M. Nixon, to the equally bitter, despondent and sad eyed Lord Stinkious throughout the film. Indeed, the fact that the film focussed on a Fourceful quartet of interviews that Nixon-played by Langella-gave to British television personality David Frost-played by Michael Sheen-in May of 1977-the last on May 26, 1977-affirmed the link to Lord Stinkious, reminding us that STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE was released on May 25, 1977.
Significantly, this link transformed aspects of the cross-examination that the possibly Landis linked Frost gave Nixon in these famous interviews. For it implied that Nixon’s haughty and angry insistence that ‘…when the President (breaks the law), that means it’s not illegal’ when he defended the pardons he gave Colson, Erlichmann and Haldeman for their parts in the Watergate affair symbolized the haughty and angry insistence of Lord Stinkious that he too had done nothing wrong when he aided the coverup of TZ disaster wrongdoing on the part of Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg in 1982 as President of Lucasfilm Ltd. Thus, the vague apology that Frost finally got from a reluctant and evasive Nixon for his part in Watergate symbolized a vague apology at last from Lord Stinkious for his part in the TZ disaster coverup, in the end.
And then it was all over, and Nixon was left as old and miserable and defeated and all alone at La Pacifica, his Skywalker Ranch evoking Sacramento area mansion, staring sadly and silently out into the Pacific Ocean in the gathering twilight, as old and miserable and defeated and lonely Lord Stinkious up at Skywalker Ranch, thinking of all of the might have beens. Thinking wistfully of the New Hollywood dream to transform the Temple Theatre with non-commercial film art, a dream that had been as long forgotten as the Paleolithic paintings-some of them studies of animals in film like motion-in the Temple Theatre evoking Chauvet cave in the allegorical Herzog film, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (2009).
A knowing and prescient ending indeed, for four years after the release of FROST/NIXON, it was all over for Lord Stinkious too when he resigned his position as well and sold the moisture farm to Disney in 2012, as he had been hinting that he wanted to do for years with all of the Disneyesque touches in the STAR WARS Special Edition Trilogy and the Tragic Trilogy. Curiously, it was an embarrassed exit stage left that had been hoped for the year before by Disney. For Bridges’ Lucas linked Flynn and the Cameron linked Clu both disappeared when Flynn’s son, Sam-played by Garrett Hedlund-unleashed the power of the light disc, thus implying that Disney had mastered the brave new world of CGI enhanced digifilm, at the end of TRON LEGACY.
Unfortunately, before Lord Stinkious left in 2012, he also persuaded Kennedy to take over as head of Lucasfilm and lead it into its new union with the ‘White Slavers’ at Dis. This final bizarre and infuriating development enraged true fans one last time, furious that the Wicked Witch whose instrumental role in the illegal hiring of Chen and Le had led to their deaths in the TZ disaster was now not only rewarded for her Evil actions by being named head of Lucasfilm, but also made a prominent member of supposedly kid friendly and nurturing Disney. The fact that Dis and Kennedy promptly hammered the final nail in the STAR WARS coffin with their horrific STAR WARS schlock only made this nightmarish union more enraging. Screamin’ Stephen King was one of those outraged fans implicitly infuriated by this insane development, for he implicitly linked Disney, Kennedy and Lord Stinkious and their crass fondness for living off the energy and money of young audiences to three insidious psychic vampires named Rothman, Rosie and Grandpa Flik who tracked down, fed off and drained the spiritual essence of unfortunate children-recalling the Lord Stinkious linked and spiritual essence draining Emperor Skeksis in THE DARK CRYSTAL, openly linking the novel to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982-in his twilit and righteously furious allegorical novel, Doctor Sleep (2013). Christian Petzold also implicitly roasted Stinkious for this final betrayal of his film art, furiously and implicitly linking him to a young German named Johannes-played by Ronald Zehrfeld-who betrayed his Portman resembling Jewish wife, Nelly-played by Nina Hoss-to the Nazi authorities for money in his allegorical film, PHOENIX (2014).
Significantly, the misbegotten union of Lucasfilm, ILM and Disney also roused an equally and implicitly outraged and despondent blast from Rushdie in the form of the misbegotten union of ‘Lenny’ Nero Golden and the scheming enchantress Vasilisa in his allegorical novel, The Golden House (2017), making for a truly Foursfull quartet of literary meditations on Lucas for Rushdie. While King, Petzold and Rushdie made their opinions of Disney, Kennedy and Lord Stinkious implicitly clear in their art, only time would tell which New Hollywood film artist would be remembered by audiences: the one despised as the Dark Lord Stinkious for turning film art into blockbuster and effects filled filmmercials for movie tie-in merchandise and product placement, for working with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, for allowing ILM to help Emperor Palpaberg reboot his career with CGI enhanced schlockbuster beasts, and for choosing Kennedy to lead Lucasfilm and ILM into their merger with Disney; or the one looked on fondly as Lucas, the sincere and shy film artist who used his early films to triumph over the blockbuster lusts of Old Hollywood and emerged as an independent and idiosyncratic J.D. Jedi Film Master, who strove to prevent fatal film set disasters by insisting that ILM perfect CGI, and who strove to clear his name and to uncover the truth about the TZ disaster in Nishi fashion to prove to viewers that he was indeed a wonderful Wizard of Force.
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