Fresh Loaf

DRESSED TO KILL: Linus (Chris Marquette, left) and Zoe (Kristen Bell) hydrate after a long day of role playing.

For a certain breed of dedicated, Jedi-robe-wearing, Boba Fett-imitating aficionados of George Lucas’s sci-fi franchise, Kyle Newman’s Fanboys is the most eagerly awaited film since Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. And we know how well that turned out.

Fanboys takes the 1999 release of Menace, the first new Star Wars film in 16 years, as a generational tipping point, particularly for four Lando-quoting friends in their early 20s during late 1998. When Linus (Chris Marquette) reveals he’s dying from terminal, unspecific cancer, the foursome road trip from Ohio to California, intent on breaking into Skywalker Ranch to see a rough cut of the film.

First scheduled for release in August 2007, Fanboys became an online cause celebre when the Weinstein Company reshot the film to cut out the downbeat cancer subplot. The fans struck back (in part by threatening to boycott last summer’s Superhero Movie) and the sickness storyline was restored. The cancer subplot unfortunately proves mawkish and contrived, but at least it helps justify behavior that would otherwise be illegal and stalkerish.

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Perhaps the best thing you can say about Star Wars: The Clone Wars (reviewed here) is that it’s not as bad as 1980’s “Star Wars Holiday Special.” It’s certainly the worst theatrical film with the name “Star Wars” attached to it and represents a hyper-leap backwards for the Star Wars prequels of the past decade.

The prequel trilogy, namely The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, qualify as one of the most reviled pop culture franchises in modern memory. Aggrieved fans on-line describe Phantom Menace, in particular, as a national trauma and loss of innocence in terms better suited for the Kennedy Assassination. They’re unquestionably deeply (if decreasingly) flawed films encumbered with misguided comedy, tin-eared dialogue and robotic performances. If you only knew Natalie Portman’s work from these films, you’d think she was one of the worst actresses of her generation.

Yet despite the flame wars against creator George Lucas’ prequel trilogies, they actually contain underappreciated virtues. I actually prefer Revenge of the Sith to Return of the Jedi, the final chapter of the beloved original trilogy. (Incidentally, here are 50 Reasons Why Return of the Jedi Sucks.) In addition to the generally gorgeous CGI designs of alien planets, space ships and creatures, prequel trilogy deserves a little more credit that it gets — and certainly doesn’t deserve The Clone Wars as a send-off:

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This might come a little late, but amid all the obituaries for and tributes to late Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (Salon.com said he “may have been the 20th century’s greatest artist”), there has also been a resurgence of interest in “De Düva,” a hilarious black-and-white Bergman parody from 1968 that stars Madeline Kahn and George Coe (the latter also directed it). It’s about 15 minutes long, and you can find it not only on this blog but also at Slate.com here.

Perhaps people have been remembering “De Düva” so fondly because it harks back to a time when heavy, highbrow foreign-language cinema had enough of a following that you could make a parody of it and enough people would get the joke to make it worth doing. It’s hard to imagine someone doing a similar spoof of, say, Iranian cinema today.

I can’t help but wonder: Years from now, when George Lucas becomes “one with the Force,” as one might put it, will there be a sudden resurgence of affection for “Hardware Wars“?

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