Yesterday I showed Star Wars to the English club at the Japanese junior high school where I work. I mean Episode IV: A New Hope, and that was the first thing I had to explain to them, "This is the first movie, I know it says 'Episode IV'. It's from 1977, Episode I came out in 1999." Attending the club yesterday were three second year girls, one second year boy and one first year boy (ages ranging from 13 to 14). None of them had ever seen Star Wars before. Previously, I've shown them Ghostbusters and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, both of which they seemed to enjoy. So I was surprised to find they seemed to be struggling to maintain interest in Star Wars.
Well, one of the girls seemed to be captivated. She told me later her favourite character was Obi-Wan Kenobi. The rest liked R2D2. Everyone seemed more engaged once the characters got to the Death Star and there was bickering between Han, Luke, and Leia. And they all seemed riveted by the finale. It's fascinating just watching the movie with people who'd never seen it. I can't even remember my first time seeing Star Wars and it's very difficult even to imagine the experience of watching C3PO and R2D2 wandering the desert and not knowing what was going to happen next. But now it occurs to me that people who've recently been saying that Star Wars has to stick to certain formulaic elements are dead wrong. The defining element of the first film is that one scene after another throws unexpected elements at the viewer. The very fact that the first movie is the fourth episode, that it drops you into the middle of the story without really holding your hand and explaining anything, speaks to the franchise's broad storytelling possibilities.
Thinking about why the kids liked Ghostbusters and Roger Rabbit better, I came up with a few theories. Ghostbusters and Roger Rabbit are both comedies, so maybe they're easier for kids to latch onto quickly. Also it occurs to me that they'd never seen anything like those two movies before. Neither one is widely seen in Japan and none of the new Ghostbusters movies are really like that first one. Meanwhile, Star Wars has had a lot of exposure in Japan. So while A New Hope may have been unique in 1977, it's now something the kids would already recognise as a certain type of story from its countless imitators in American and Japanese media. Teaching in Japan, I've had a number of teachers and coordinators here try to sell the idea that Japanese students need more preparation and explanation for everything but I've also seen a few people offer rebuttals to this idea, asserting that one of the problems with English education here is that teachers tend to over explain. There's so much emphasis put on sentimentality and nostalgia in the culture that I suspect the compulsion to explain and prepare is partly a means by which adults can feel a certain ownership of the students' new experiences. Also, it masks some incompetence. The reality is, I believe, that Japanese kids can enjoy surprises just as much as kids in any other country.
Another thing I was thinking of watching Star Wars again was a video I saw a few months ago on YouTube called "How 'How Star Wars was Saved in the Edit' was Saved in the Edit", a delightfully blistering reply to another video essay called "How Star Wars was Saved in the Edit". The original video, posted six years ago, offers various weak arguments and phony perspective to argue that Star Wars was in reality the accomplishment of George Lucas' ex-wife and editor Marcia Lucas. There's been a lot of talk of Disney shills lately. I don't know if these people were actually paid by Disney or if they're just a weird group of corporate simps but they do speak with the lame, phony tones of a Disneyland tour guide. Anyway, the original video has over three million views while the rebuttal, from two years ago, has only 217k. I urge you to watch the rebuttal.
So when I was watching Star Wars again, I was specifically thinking of "How Star Wars was Saved in the Edit"'s argument that the whole idea of the Death Star attacking Yavin IV was something that Marcia Lucas came with and cobbled together with creative editing. The rebuttal video points to the footage of Tarkin referring to "our moment of triumph" which seems to throw cold water on the idea. But I would have to ask further questions, like, before the supposed edit, what was the point of a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon, which was clearly referred to in unedited dialogue? Anyway, please watch the video above.
X Sonnet #1798
Exchanging looks, the elves would sort the bows.
A present mind repeats the morning's past.
A rare and golden gift's a nose that glows.
And here, some fame would hold a monster fast.
Wasabi bears retained the key to home.
Remembered palms were swaying over graves.
Attackers drove the years ahead of Rome.
The face of love submerged beneath the waves.
A child's break became a woman's dream.
Across the sand, a golden servant steps.
Combining fruits unites the scurvy team.
The flattened skirt has lost its vaunted pep.
For trading stars, the gods were put to bed.
The darker space has faded up to red.
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