You didn’t think I’d let Phantom Menace Day (TPM was released 13 years ago today!) pass without something special, did you??

If you like it, feel free to download it and put it on your “PODRACING ANTHEMS” playlist!

lyrics:
I’m betting heavily on Sebulba
I’m putting my cash on the champ
don’t like the odds against Gasgano
can’t take a chance on this Skywalker tramp

Ratts Tyerell is not for me,
nor Mars Guo or Neva Kee
and Clegg Holdfast,
I’m told is past his prime
“Bumpy” Roose cannot produce
Quadinaros’ pods are loose
and Mawhonic is a chronic waste of time

So, I’m betting heavily on Sebulba
each Boonta Eve, he comes through
I dig the Dug, ‘cause there’s nothing he won’t do—
Sebulba, I’m betting heavily on you

 To celebrate 10 years of Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Prequel Appreciation Day,  please enjoy this series of pictures of how things changed (or didn’t) from The Phantom Menace to AOTC. For more AOTC/Prequel celebrating, visit The SWPAS!

Happy Birthday, George Lucas!  I think you’ve become a better artist with the passage of time. In 100 years, nobody’s going to care about or remember the braying boy-men in “Han Shot First” t-shirts, but they’ll still care about you and what you’ve created.

thanks,
a fan of your work and of YOU

As I threatened in the very first post I made back in January, I finally have pictures of the Phantom Menace holiday decorating I started doing shortly after Christmas. Generally with Star Wars stuff, I don’t like to make our whole house feel like a toy store, and usually will only put one or two small SW things on display in the living room/dining room—it maximizes the impact of my studio/office, which is a never-ending rotating Star Wars palace.I kept everything in the photos up from January through the end of April, when it just felt that the time was right to take it all down. The eventual Part 2 will feature the stuff in the studio, which I’m keeping exclusively TPM throughout the rest of the year…until I rotate that out in early 2013 for Attack of the Clones Stuff!

So please check out the link to the Flickr set to see how this:


…turned into THIS:

                                 
Phantom Menace Holiday Decorations, Part 1: January-April, 2012 on Flickr

Before I get into MASKED MENACE, I want to remind everybody that next month is “Jar Jar June”…I’ve got plenty of different things planned, but if you have any Jar Jar-centric suggestions, I’m all ears—just comment here or on the TPMTH Facebook page.

As you probably know by now, I love all the cheap kitsch that came out during the TPM blitz in 1999. There was an endless assortment of everything from slap bands to rubber balls to lip balm featuring TPM characters, and the quality of these items ranged from surprisingly nice to utterly chintzy. I would definitely place these TPM “Party Favor” masks on the chintzy side of things, but they’re not without their charms!

     
The best part of these was that when I bought them in late 1999 or early 2000 (from the erratic close-out store “Factory 2 U”, which I think was owned and named by Prince), they were only 99¢! Each pack included 4 cardboard “masks” : Darth Maul, Queen Amidala, Podracing Anakin, and good ol’ Jar Jar:
     
There’s no string or little elastic band involved, it’s all cardboard…and since these are for kids, they’re tiny. The only one that actually fit me, appropriately enough, was Jar Jar. I’m sure they’d last about 10 minutes at some kid’s birthday party before they started ripping and falling apart, and the whole party turned into a maelstrom of disappointment and tears, but they are nice and colorful. My final verdict is that they’re worth every cent of the 99¢ I paid for them—but not a penny more!
      
                                              I’m wizard!

     
                                              I’m Regal!

         
                                         I’m mean!

        
                                       Meesa…clumsy.
       

As always, thanks for reading, and check back this weekend for the first part of a special feature!

Welcome Home, Jar Jar

Over the past few months, I’ve laid out in (nauseating?) detail various shopping missions to find Phantom Menace treasures. They’ve been fun (mostly), but nothing could ever compare to the rush of May 3rd, 1999, when TPM merchandise went on sale at 12:01am…the legendary first MIDNIGHT MADNESS! Ever since starting TPM:TH, I’ve been waiting to present my very first “Phantom Phindz”—this is it.

Second only to the excitement and anticipation of May 19, 1999 (the day TPM opened in the U.S.), May 3rd was like having physical proof that there was actually a new Star Wars movie coming out—if there were toys, it must be real. I know I’m not alone in saying that growing up with the original Star Wars movies, playing with Star Wars figures was an intrinsic part of the whole experience, and for me, the movies and the merchandise are inseparable to this day…Even collecting this stuff as an adult, it’s never been about having a collection for the sake of having a collection, or to “have more toys than the (figurative) kid down the street”, it’s about having tangible pieces of something I love; and if I can still do goofy things with these figures now and then, all the better!  Not that the TPM movie trailers were mass hallucinations or anything, but it just took everything to the “Wow, this is really happening” level to actually hold a Jar Jar or Darth Maul figure in your hand. I had sent away for the Mace Windu preview figure,  bought the Battle Droid and STAP at first sight, and grabbed the Galoob Sneak Preview set that had all come out in late 1998/99, but May 3rd was different, as it was an onslaught.

               (scan of the actual flyer from my then-local TRU)

These photocopied flyers started appearing in Toys R Us stores in April 1999, and of course I grabbed an extra or two for posterity. Though there was a ring of TRU stores surrounding the Seattle metro area (and beyond) that I would regularly hit, I chose the Northgate store which was closest to the city center, where Valerie and I lived. I guessed right that it would be the most crowded TRU that night due to it being located so close to Downtown Seattle, but in order to trick convince my future wife to go there with me at an ungodly hour on a work night, I had to compromise with proximity. As the day drew closer, I started to worry about being shut out by showing up too late, so we got there at around 7pm…and there were already about 10-15 people in line in front of us.
   
Even without seeing it all through rosy nostalgia, it really was a far more pleasant time to be a Star Wars fan—it was before the rot of the half-fans and hateboys had set in. The people lined up at the TRU that night were almost all friendly and in good spirits, even if some of them were sooooo obviously “scalpers” who were there to buy stuff up and sell it on the secondary market…but the joke was on them, as nearly everything available that night was soon omnipresent in most retail stores—for years, in some cases!

The most absurd scalper there was this big-talking, good-naturedly sleazy dude who was a few people ahead of us in line. His strategy was to go on and on to anybody that would listen about what a HUGE fan he was, but he wasn’t convincing anybody. Still, people were just smiling and nodding at him, even when he’d say something demonstrably and laughably untrue. He hit his peak ridiculousness when he started talking about the vintage Rocket-Firing Boba Fett figure, which outside of a few prototypes, was never available to the general public—but of course, he had one when he was a kid, and not only did he have one, but he had TWO! He then attempted to put some maudlin spin on his fictional tale about trading his “double” Rocket Fett to another kid for some Battlestar Galactica figures. I was wordlessly elbowing Valerie so much (she even knew that he was completely full of it) that she almost gave me up by yelling, “Stop it!” It goes without saying that when we all finally made it into the store after midnight, he went straight for every Darth Maul figure he could carry, and only Darth Maul figures—as he was the “rare” TPM figure…for about a week.

As it got closer to midnight, the line swelled into something insane. I walked over to our car to grab a soda around 11pm, and just kept walking through the parking lot to check out the line—which was wrapped around and behind the TRU! I was super-glad that I’d insisted on going so early. Another atypical good move I’d made was printing out a list from one of the Star Wars collecting sites of everything expected to be on sale that night; I wanted one of every figure that would be available (18 on that first night), and I can’t imagine how I would’ve done that without the list.

After Valerie came back from a quick trip to a gas station to use the bathroom, she was like, “I feel so bad for all the kids in the very back of the line, the store is going to be sold out of all the ‘good’ characters by the time they get in the store!” I said something about there being plenty of figures, and she goes, “I think we should buy a couple of extra figures and give them to kids at the end of the line.”. In a moment of mid-20’s cluelessness, I said, “To sell them to their parents?” “No,” she said, “just to give them to them. I’ll buy one, and you buy one—we’ll get an extra Jar Jar and a Darth Maul”. Rolling my eyes, I was like, “Okay—if there is an extra Jar Jar and Darth Maul”. Seeing how close to the front of the line we were, there’s no way we wouldn’t have been able to get a couple extra figures of those characters, but at the time, I was just wondering why my girlfriend wanted to give free $7 toys away like we were millionaires and not a low-paid social worker and failed musician/also a low-paid social worker! It was one of the first times, but hardly the last, where I had to concede that she was a better person than me.

A few minutes before midnight, the anxiousness and excitement to just get in the store and get on with it all was nuts. The TRU employees were nervously addressing the line, telling us all that they had plenty of Star Wars stuff, not to panic or trample each other, etc., etc.,. When they finally did open the doors just after midnight, unfortunately, a few people didn’t take heed of that advice—but I guess that if you’re the type of person who’s going to claw and push other people aside to get at plastic toys, moral advisories from a TRU cashier probably aren’t going to keep you from your true nature.

It was a Phantom Menace wonderland inside the store—red and gold TPM packaging EVERYWHERE. Aside from the few pathetic souls who were pushing past people to get to that oh-so-desirable Ric Olie figure (that could still be found hanging on many stores’ pegs in 2003), most of the good will that people had displayed in line was still present once we all got into the store…people were helping each other find all the figures they wanted, and generally being pretty decent to each other. Our actual time in the store is what I have the least clear memories of—it’s all hazy and dream-like to me now! It was easy to go through the list and get all the figures I wanted, but I’m pretty sure I made Valerie compare the list to what was in our cart at least three times, because I didn’t want to walk out of there cursing myself for missing out on one figure after spending five hours standing in line! Valerie got her kind-hearted way, and as we walked triumphantly out of the store towards the end of the still-huge line, she gave a Darth Maul figure to a little boy, and I handed a Jar Jar figure to his sister—their parents thanked us profusely as we walked away, but I don’t think they knew what was going on!
                         
                             (click here for a much larger image)

As you can see on my original receipt, festooned with an image of a demonic Geoffrey the Giraffe, I walked out of there with a couple of bags bulging with TPM toys. That was more than I’d ever spent on toys at once in my life up to that point, but in hindsight, it really wasn’t that much. Because I’m crazy, I recently tracked down the assortment numbers, and matched everything that I bought that night. Here’s the breakdown:

Episode I figures 685585 = Jar Jar(x2), Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Tatooine Padme, Padme Amidala, Battle Droid, Darth Maul, Anakin
Episode I figures 685623 = C-3PO, Darth Sidious, Ric Olie, Senator Palpatine, Watto
Episode I figures 685666 = Boss Nass, Chancellor Valorum, Gasgano, Mace Windu, Ki-Adi Mundi
Episode I Pod Vehicle 685348 = Sebulba+ his Podracer (the only way to get Sebulba on May 3rd!, 1999!)
“Star Wars Naboo S 235784” = the LEGO Naboo Swamp set, my first SW LEGO’s ever
Episode I Collect 468924 = Star Wars Episode I MicroMachines Collection III—chosen over the other ones because it had Jar Jar!

Here’s everything I bought that night, which I quickly threw together for a picture this evening (except for Chancellor Valorum, which I stupidly forgot to throw in the pic…Sorry, Chancellor V…and the packaged Micro Machines set is an extra one I had, as I tore open the original that night):
     

That was everything I bought at Midnight Madness, but I remember hitting Borders to buy TPM books and the soundtrack CD that evening after work. Oh, and at least two different Taco Bells, though I don’t remember if their promotion had started on May 3rd or not. Overall, it was such a thrill to buy weird new Star Wars characters that hadn’t been living in my head since age 4. I can still look at Boss Nass and laugh, the only thought in my head being, “WTF!” It’s a big part of why I love the Prequel era so much, I’ve never lost the sense of ludicrous delight in these characters.

There were three more Star Wars “Midnight Madness” events at stores (in 2002 for Attack of the Clones, in 2005 for Revenge of the Sith, and in 2008 for The Clone Wars), and while they were a lot of fun, there was no way that they could ever be expected to capture the magic or innocence of the TPM event. The subsequent MMs felt more like everybody was re-enacting the first one; fun, but not organic. Maybe someday, Star Wars fandom will get so weird that there will be Midnight Madness re-enactors, just like the dudes replaying the Civil War. Maybe next May 3rd…!

*****************************************************************
As a sad little post-script, when I was looking for pictures of the Northgate TRU last night, I was chagrined to see that it had closed a few months back! I emailed my friend Sharon, who accompanied me on so many Star Wars hunts in Seattle back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, and demanded to know what happened (she lives only a few miles from the store). She offered to swing by after work today and take a picture of the desolate husk of a store, and added that it was raining, which just added to the bleakness. RIP, Northgate TRU! (and thanks, Sharon!)
      
    Now, only home to the broken dreams of thousands of Seattle-area kids!

Wait, that’s a lousy way to end this celebration of Midnight Madness! Instead, check out Lazy Padawan’s May 3, 1999 reminiscence on my absolute favorite Star Wars site on the internet, the Star Wars Prequel Appreciation Society: Christmas in May on the SWPAS . LP’s piece is far more succinct, but no less effective than the word explosion above!

And if you want to re-live, or experience TPM Midnight Madness for the first time, these youtube videos capture it perfectly:

  In Florida:
                               All aBOOT MM in Canada:                             …and if you really want to see something incredible, watch the full 17 minutes of Midnight Madness at the FAO Schwarz in NYC!:

Thanks for making it this far!

                                   (click here for larger image)

Rayno Vaca, taxi-cab driver of the Coruscant skies—he takes on such illustrious fares as Anakin Skywalker and The Great One, but no matter how many high profile passengers he transports, it’s never enough to make us forget how much he looks like one of the “Predator” aliens (sans nightmare mouth). Still, you’d never see a Predator wearing an outfit as stylish as Rayno’s smart blue cabbie uniform, so I guess that counts for something.

Tomorrow, a special feature that I’ve been waiting months to do—-see you then!

People often talk about how important the “used universe” aesthetic is to Star Wars, but equally important to creating an immersive reality is the sheer amount of life teeming in the background. Whether it’s Banthas, Dewbacks, and Womprats running around on Tatooine (RIP Krayt Dragon), or Wampas and Tauntauns on Hoth, or Dragonsnakes and Bogwings sliming it up on Dagobah, animal life is all over the place in Star Wars (even the Death Star has a Dianoga swimming through the trash!). Of all the planets in the Star Wars saga, we’ve seen the greatest breadth and diversity of life on good ol’ Naboo, and in 1999, you could hold some of it in the palm of your hand…after cleaning all the ooze off.

There were 4 different Battle Bags—2 different “Sea Creatures” sets, and 2 different “Swamp Creatures” sets (I’ll get to the Sea Creatures sets at a later date). I get the need to have a catchy product name to sell something to kids, but how is there a “battle” aspect to any of this?? In the Swamp Creatures sets at least, I’d bet that most of those creatures pretty much mind their own business, and none of them seem particularly violent. Maybe it’s a battle of biodiversity?? The gimmick of these sets is that they come in a magical black bag that you plop into water, and then cut open with a plastic cutting tool that’s meant to look like a Gungan electropole:

(picture of JJB with the cutting tool taken in a Peace Lily that my wife has kept alive, Darth Plagueis-like, for a few agonizing years)

When you slice open the magical bag like a Gungan surgeon, out flows a bunch of life-giving (or life-ending…?) green OOZE, and 4 plastic animals from the wilds of Naboo. Like any newborns, you have to wash all the slime off of them; unlike (most) other newborns, some of them still have green ooze residue 13 years later, as you’ll see in some of the pictures below.


I love that, according to Wookieepedia,  Nuna are “commonly” called swamp turkeys. If you eat some Nuna meat, you’ll fall asleep really fast! Even though they’re native to Naboo, Nuna are most visible in TPM when Jabba flicks one to its death off the ledge of his balcony at the Boonta Eve Podrace. You can also see Nuna in Attack of the Clones, where a game of Nuna-Ball rages on one of the screens in The Outlander Club. You’ve done pretty well for yourself, swamp turkeys.


The Pikobi’s name is spelled wrong on the package, and I get the feeling that that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the disrespect they’re shown…something about their faces just screams “schmuck”. Sorry, Pikobi. You should get the same agent as the Nuna have, maybe they can get you a gig on The Clone Wars.


Not only does the Mott have cool paws and an orange creamsicle hide, but his self-assured smile suggests that he has a sense of self-worth and confidence far greater than, say, the Pikobi. Though they can’t boast of being in 2 different Star Wars movies, their applesauce empire is the crowning achievement of their species.


The Ikopi looks pretty much like a swamp gazelle; you can see one running from the MTT when Qui-Gon first encounters Jar Jar.


Of all these Naboo swamp creatures, the Kaadu got the most screentime in TPM, serving as the Gungans’ duck-faced spacehorses of choice. In my fantasy world where TPM merchandising was even MORE overwhelming, kids would have ridden around their streets on Hobby-Kaadu in the summer of 1999, fighting with each other about who was going to play Captain Tarpals. The weirdest thing about this figure is, why is it wearing a saddle?? Every other creature in this set is “as it would be in the wild”, so why not the noble Kaadu? Are they born with their saddles on?


Poor Falumpaset, they spelled your name wrong on the package, too. Maybe the same lousy speller who worked at Tiger Electronics transferred over to this department? Not only did a Falumpaset pull the ammo wagon that Jar Jar so haplessly tried to hitch a ride on during the Battle of Naboo, but one served as Boss Nass’ steed at the big parade in Theed at the end of TPM.


The Shaak only had a “blink-and-you-miss-it” appearance in TPM, but went on to become the breakout star of Attack of the Clones, when Anakin Skywalker rode one in a particularly thrilling sequence set on the grasslands of Naboo. I can’t see inside of Padme Amidala’s heart, but that may have been the very moment when she fell in love with Anakin…we’ll never know! Shaaks were also seen elsewhere in AOTC, notably floating through the asteroid field, and had a tragic story arc in the “Blue Shadow Virus” episode of The Clone Wars.

Finally, the majestic Fambaa. If the Kaadu figure in this set has his saddle on, then why doesn’t the Fambaa have his shield generator or plasma cannon on his back?? Bizarrely, the Fambaa is also one of the smaller figures in the whole set of swamp creatures, when the (cinematic) reality is that he’s a massive dinosaur that could probably eat all of the other creatures combined in about two big chomps!! He wouldn’t, though—Fambaa are herbivores. I get that Hasbro couldn’t make these animals in the right scale to each other, but it’s still weird that the swamp turkey in this set towers over the Fambaa. No matter what scale they’re in, I’m glad to have them, as I love Star Wars animals—even if the whole “Battle Bag” concept is just an obvious rip-off of the Trash Bag Bunch!

There’s always a bigger bigger fish…

In this “Phantom Phindz”, a return to far-flung Victor, child flash mobs at the LEGO store, and the poisonous pill of false hope!


Last Sunday, Valerie and I hit the new LEGO store that opened in the mall in Victor, NY a week prior…bad move!! It was like walking into a Chuck E. Cheese 9 months after Valentine’s Day, and there was really no navigating the store. I found what I was looking for quickly—the Watto and Ani podracer keychains above—and Valerie decided that the best time to visit the LEGO store was probably about fifteen minutes before the mall closes on a weeknight. I did find it curious that for the huge profits LEGO earns, and for how popular their retail shops are, they thought that one cashier would do the trick, but I guess that’s just European frugality.

As I’ve detailed before, I haaaaaate when otherwise cool little figures have ugly metal keychains sticking out of their heads, and so the first thing I did upon returning home was perform surgery on them. Since LEGO’s Star Wars sets are so expensive these days that they kind of price me out, buying the mini-figure keychains is a great way to get some characters from over-priced sets, like the Watto and Ani that come with the new version of the LEGO podracing set (of which I already have the first version from 1999). The keychains are between $3.99-4.99, which is right around my favorite price-point of $5.

If you want to remove the keychains from their heads, you can’t unscrew them or use brute force…but it’s simple if you’re careful. Take a pair of needle-nose pliers, and hold the tips over an open flame (I use a burner on our gas stove) for a few minutes. Hold the LEGO figure securely in your other hand (I put on a rubber dishwashing glove so it wouldn’t fly out of my hand), and with the pliers, gingerly grasp the metal ring connected to the metal fixture embedded in the figure, and start to pull—be careful not to let the heated pliers touch the plastic of the LEGO figure. It’ll take a few minutes of pulling, and you may need to reheat the pliers over the open flame of your choice, but eventually, the heat will transfer from the pliers to the metal keychain fixture, which will soften the plastic inside the figure, and with enough pulling force, will pop out of the LEGO figure.

If you’re really fussy and can’t handle little holes in the LEGO figures’ heads, this surgical procedure isn’t for you—but if you don’t get hung up on perfection, you’ll have some great, cheap Star Wars LEGO figures!

After the LEGO store, we hit the nearby Walmart, where I finally bought the newest “Movie Heroes” Darth Maul and yet another Jar Jar. The Darth Maul is just an updated version of an old “gimmick” figure, where you squeeze his legs together, and he swirls his lightsaber around. It’s not terribly exciting, but the gimmick works well enough, and a kid would probably love it. The best part of this figure is his face, which looks to me like he stole a pie that was cooling on somebody’s kitchen windowsill, and ate the whole  thing in one famished swoop!! At LAST, he will reveal himself to the hot pie.
                  
I had wanted to buy another of the new Jar Jar figure to keep carded for my JJB sub-collection, and they had at least 4 of that figure at the store—but I had to buy this one because of the perpetually-shocked look in his eyes…which also forced me to open him!!

It would’ve been criminal to keep a figure with so much personality (even if his eyes[and his vest!] are the wrong color) in plastic prison.  I guess I’ll just have to get another one to keep packaged…and this is how I habitually end up with multiple versions of the same JJB figures.

This past weekend, I wanted to break out of the usual Target-Walmart-Toys R Us cycle, so we hit a few garage sales (no luck), a Salvation Army thrift store (nothing), and a KMart (barren). Every time I’ve gone into a KMart in the past few years, I’ve felt like it could be my last time inside one, because they seem like an anachronism from several decades ago. There was nothing worth finding in there, but we did see a guy working there that I dubbed “Pauly (lowercase) d”, because he was Rochester’s answer to ‘The Jersey Shore’s’ Pauly D, complete with shellacked ‘Eraserhead’ hair.

The “false hope” I alluded to in the first sentence of this post came courtesy of craigslist.org. I kind of forget that craigslist exists most of the time, but since I had fantasies of garage sales stuffed with weird and dirt cheap Star Wars stuff, I was on there sifting through the local garage sale listings. I searched “Star Wars for sale” stuff, and got excited when I saw this:

Though I was skeptical right away of this guy having “1000’s” of SW figures for sale (“100’s” is far more plausible), I was eager to see what he had. I emailed him when I saw this ad on Friday evening, visions of cheap Battle Droids dancing in my head, and waited patiently for a reply. Nothing came by the time I went to bed, and there was no reply in the morning, either. Since I remain smartphone-free, Valerie emailed him from her phone, so that if he replied while we were out running around, we’d be able to just go down there. Again, no reply. The problem was that by this point, I had already been daydreaming about finding all kinds of cut-rate TPM figures, and was writing the rapturous “Phantom Phindz” in my head! I sent one more cordial email on Saturday night, and of course, heard nothing. Maybe I was just being naive, but the whole thing reinforced why I don’t bother with craigslist most of the time—either people seem to want laughably high prices for stuff, or it’s time-wasters like this, dispensing nothing but false hopes and broken dreams!

I didn’t come up completely empty this past weekend, though—I’d been looking for these for awhile, and found them at Target:

The only previous “Jedi Force” figures I’d bought was the two-pack with Clone Wars Anakin and Jar Jar, and consciously decided to only buy TPM characters in this toy line. It’s not that I haven’t been tempted by the Han and Chewie or Luke and Yoda sets, but after buying so many Star Wars “Galactic Heroes” figures over the past decade, this feels like “been there, done that” to me. Also, I’m not terribly fond of the way human characters translate to this aesthetic…but I wasn’t about to pass up Qui-Gon Jinn!

Too bad that Hasbro’s Phantom Menace offerings are usually so centered on only these three characters for the most part…I love the “Duel of the Fates” as much or more than anybody, but there was a whole other two hours of TPM filled to the brim with fun and colorful characters! I’ve said it before, but it would probably be a great thing if the target audience for these—boys ages 3-6—had a cool little Padme figure to play with (and it would likely draw more young girls to these toys, too); after all, she’s far more important to the movie and the entire Star Wars saga than Darth Maul.

“Jar Jar, I only wish that I could have lived long enough to see you accessorize with such chic purple gloves!  And that scarf really brings out your eyes!!”

I read this article titled “10 Ways Self-Hating Fans Make Genre Entertainment Worse” yesterday on hipster sci fi site io9.com. Though the author says right off the bat that she’s probably been guilty of each point on the list, it’s still pretty rich for io9 to post this article, as editorially, they’ve been textbook Half-fans for awhile now…and particularly so in the past few months, running almost regular features trashing The Phantom Menace. We all knew that the 3D release of TPM would bring out all the jackals, but what’s kind of sad to me is that when I first stumbled across io9 back in 2008 or so, it wasn’t that kind of website—it seemed to cover a lot of different things I was into in an interesting and thoughtful manner , and I don’t remember any sour half-fan invective in regards to the SW prequels. Over the past couple of years, though, something changed there—the site became more popular, and the caliber of readers/commentors declined drastically…which appeared to drag down the whole site. What was once something fresh and free of typical fanboy ranting and raving now seems to cater exclusively to that crowd and their predictably cookie cutter “geek™” orthodoxy. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

This part of the article jumped out at me, of course:

4. Getting squirrelly when people want to analyze what’s really going on in these stories.
Moff’s Law. It’s not just a suggestion, it’s a law. It’s right there in the name. As the TVTropes page helpfully explains, Moff’s Law doesn’t mean that you have to analyze or deconstruct things to death — just that you shouldn’t get upset when other people want to do it. If you’re secure and self-assured in your love of The Phantom Menace, then you shouldn’t care if other people want to bring up the weird subtext of Jar-Jar.
…But don’t let your insecurity dictate how everybody else can talk about the stories you enjoy. Because yes, sometimes, in-depth analysis can contribute to making stories better, in the end.

The notion of Jar Jar’s “weird subtext” aside (whatever), what makes this a fatally flawed  example is that both the volume and frequency of hatred spewed at TPM is unlike anything else. At this point, being “secure and self-assured in (y)our love of The Phantom Menace” has nothing to do with the sheer amount of venom we’ve all had to deal with over the past 13 years. I’ve been unwaveringly “secure and self-assured” loving TPM since 1999, enough so that I could tolerate anybody’s dissenting opinion, no matter how much I may have disagreed with them. However, when dissatisfied opinions about TPM turned into an entire pathetic way of life for some of these rabid half-fans, who’ve been repeating the same tiresome screeds for over a decade without any new or original insights, it’s become intolerable—and it’s not about me having any “insecurity”, it’s just a case of not wanting to listen to their tired bleating any longer. I’ve heard it all already—a BILLION times.

Also, the assertion that “in-depth analysis can contribute to making stories better” is all fine and good if you’re talking about some writers’ workshop or chain story, but it has no bearing on an artist producing THEIR (not anybody else’s—sorry, half-fans!) vision.

It’ll be interesting to see if, after publishing this article (authored by one of their co-founders), io9.com runs another cheap potshot at The Phantom Menace. Unfortunately, with the past as prologue, the question isn’t really “if”, but “when”.

(p.s.- I know the title of this post is kind of misleading,and isn’t about the half-fans’ “weird subtexts”— I just thought it sounded so ridiculous in regards to Jar Jar, that I couldn’t not use it!)

                     taken on-location in Montour Falls, NY
                                    April 14, 2012

      
                                    (click here for larger image)

Poor OWO-1. Always in the shadow of OOM-9, the celebrity Battle Droid Commander who’s had multiple action figures and other pieces of merchandise available over the years to sate his rabid fan base. OWO-1 (or “Oh-WHOA-One” as I like to call him— think of a young Joey Lawrence saying it) was the droid commander on the Trade Federation flagship at the very beginning of TPM. Unlike OOM-9, who lost the Battle of Naboo when he was shut down by remote control, OWO-1 was sliced apart in glorious combat by the blades of two of the greatest Jedi who ever lived, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Look, I like OOM-9, and I feel bad that he went out like such a chump, but it’s time for OWO-1’s moment in the sun (or on some rarely-read tumblr page). The whole time I was drawing him today, I couldn’t get this song out of my head; I know in my heart that it’s his theme.