The First Star Wars VII Trailer Has Arrived!

*Attention!  My geek side will shine through in this post!!!  Don’t say I didn’t warn you!*

 

Today the first advance trailer for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens hit the Internet.  I now sit here at the computer wearing my baseball cap with the little whirly-bird to let you know that with the coming of this trailer I … am still cautiously optimistic.  That’s it.  No confetti; no breathless parsing of each and every frame; no wild speculations about what each disjointed segment could be telling me about the story; and no complete freak-out over the fact that a black man was wearing a storm trooper suit (really?).  Nope.  I’m not going to get sucked in to all the hype.  I dropped down that particular rabbit hole back in 1998 when the advance trailer of the first Star Wars movie in 15 years (if memory serves) hit the airwaves.  I was excited, ecstatic beyond all movie comprehension back then.  I couldn’t wait for the film to arrive in May of 1999.  I was there at the theater with my family as soon as possible and for all my nine months or so of breathless anticipation I was given … The Phantom Menace.  Jar-jar Binks and Jake Lloyd, mailed in performances, digitalized land and cityscapes leading to antiseptic looking scenes, a ridiculous Yoda, and a contrived plot a five-year-old could have written.  Am I bitter?  No; not in the least.  What makes you think so?

 

I’ve been cautiously optimistic about this whole Episode VII thing since Disney’s Lucasfilm arm announced J. J. Abrams as the director.  Yes, he has his detractors and, yes, he’s had a few flops along the way, but, in my opinion (take it for what it’s worth), he’s had more hits than misses and he’s the person who breathed new life into Star Trek.  I seem to be one of the rare birds who actually likes both Star franchises (Trek and Wars).  After the way Rick Berman and Brannon Braga ran Star Trek into the ground (please don’t get me started on the myriad of ways they tripped all over themselves with Enterprise, I still haven’t been able to forgive them for that colossal mess), I’m not sure if anyone believed the franchise could rise from the ashes.  J. J. got it going again.  Argue about his methods, grouse about his crazy camera angles, call him whatever name you can think of, but, in my book, the guy has shown that he at least has the moxie to set the Star Wars ship aright.

 

Nevertheless … no matter how much I may want to get excited about the random images in the trailer, I’m gun shy.  I was one of those youngsters who saw the original Star Wars (before it became “Episode IV”) in the theater and was blown away by the visual effects and characters and story (in that order too, when you think about IV’s story is pretty basic).  As The Phantom Menace approached, I bought into the hype that one of the reasons George Lucas had waited to bring the public his prequel stories was because he was waiting for technology to catch up to his imagination.  Trouble is his “imagination” (if you want to call it that) became one of the main problems with the new trilogy.  As I see it, Lucas pushed his imagination so far into overdrive that it overwhelmed and buried the story he was trying to tell (such as it was).  When he had to scratch and claw and push and pull and tug and punch and kick to get his vision of the far, far away galaxy on the big screen, Lucas made movie magic.  On the other hand, it appears when he didn’t have to work as hard in the sense that he could practically let his imagination run wild, he creatively vomited all over the film (colorfully, mind you).

 

By the release of Revenge of the Sith, a part of me had lost interest in the story (after the stilted “love” dialogue endured in Attack of the Clones, was anyone able to walk out of theaters without a glazed-over look in their eyes).  Of the three prequels, I rank the third installment as the best.  Even so, I’d only give it a solid C.  With letter grades of D- (60%) and F (50%) for the first two prequel installments added to the C (75%), the average is a D- (61.6%)—Peppermint Patty would be proud.  All the hype and breathless speculation being heaped on Episode VII reminds me too much of what I endured back in 1998-1999.  Forgive me, follow Star Wars fans, but after the beating I took from the three prequels, all I can legitimately muster is a somewhat hopeful “yeah,” on the heels of this new trailer.

 

A few immediate impressions upon viewing the trailer: Seeing the Millennium Falcon flying up over the desert landscape in a fight with Tie-fighters was very cool.  I liked the scene with the X-wings skimming inches above the water (I guess it was a lake).  The new Sith light saber reminded me of a medieval sword and I liked the look of it.  All of these things caught my attention.  Now I will quietly wait for more pieces to be revealed by other trailers as the months count down toward the release of the movie next December.  If I feel there is anything worth writing a post about in those months, I will do so.  Otherwise, I won’t say another word about this new movie until it finally reaches the big screen.  My reaction after watching the full movie will indicate if I’m back to being fully engaged in this series, or if for me the cause is lost.

Arsenic and Old Lace

Ben and the cast from the Drama class at the high school presented Arsenic and Old Lace to the public this evening.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Ben was playing the role of Jonathan in the play.  If you’ve never heard of it (Ben hadn’t; luckily we were able to quickly remedy that oversight), Arsenic and Old Lace is a black comedy centered on the Brewster family who have lived in Brooklyn, New York for generations.  Insanity has been a part of the Brewster clan since they came to America on the Mayflower (“Insanity doesn’t run in my family; it practically gallops.”).  As the story begins, we meet the two spinster Brewster sisters, Abby and Martha, and their brother Teddy and it quickly becomes apparent that the family trait is personified in Teddy, who fancies himself to be Teddy Roosevelt.  He treats every visitor to the Brewster home as a member of Roosevelt’s presidency.  When he needs to go to the second floor of the house, he pounds up the stairs yelling “Charge!” as if taking San Juan Hill.  Also, he “travels to Panama” by going downstairs where he digs the Panama Canal in the cellar.  Looks, however, can be deceiving.

As the story continues, we learn that Abby and Martha have a few … eccentricities of their own.  One of the sisters’ latest “charities” is to lure lonely old men with no families into their home through boarding house advertisements and kill them with homemade elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and “just a pinch” of cyanide.  In fact, Abby has just dispatched with their 12th victim, Mr. Hoskins, before the action of the play begins, but had to stuff his body in the window seat because company was coming.  With this revelation, now the only sane Brewster now appears to be the youngest brother, Mortimer.  After accidentally looking in the window seat and finding his aunt’s latest victim, however, Mortimer may be in danger of insanity as his life takes an unexpected side-ways turn.  At first, he thinks Teddy is the perpetrator of Mr. Hoskins untimely death.  When he learns it is actually Aunt Abby and Martha who are to blame, he goes into overdrive trying to figure out what to do with them.

As if all of these revelations aren’t bad enough, the return of the murderous middle brother, Jonathan, a criminal with a short temper who has been on the run from the law, sends Mortimer’s life into orbit.  Jonathan arrives in the house with his associate, Dr. Einstein, a plastic surgeon who operates on his face to keep him from capture by law enforcement.  Only, Dr. Einstein is an alcoholic and the last time he operated on Jonathan was after seeing the movie Frankenstein.  The movie affected him so badly that he shaped Jonathan’s new face to look like Boris Karloff (Karloff actually played the role of Jonathan in the original Broadway run of the play, but was not able to reprise the role in the movie).  Jonathan’s arrival with Dr. Einstein and a dead body of their own, Mr. Spenalzo, turns everything on its head.

I was really happy with Ben’s performance.  I thought he did a very good job.  Almost from the moment the play was announced by the drama teacher, Ben took a shining toward the character of Jonathan.  He seemed to like the idea of playing the villain character and it seemed no one else was interesting in reading for it.  Ben still needed to try out for the part just to get the experience, but the teacher basically told him the role was his if he really wanted it.  When he told us about the play and what character he wanted to try out for, I thought it was cool because this is one of my favorite classic movie comedies.  I tried to explain it, but don’t think I did very well.  Luckily, not long afterward, the movie came on Turner Classic Movies and I was able to show him the performances rather than struggle to tell what I liked about them.  Raymund Massey plays Jonathan in the movie with a certain monotone menace and I think Ben picked up on that and used it well.

Being our resident actress, Jennifer was very excited about Ben’s foray into thespianism.  She helped Ben with his lines and gave him acting tips.  He worked hard to memorize his lines.  That was one thing I noticed during the performance.  Ben struck me as being one of the best prepared actors as far as memorization of lines.  According to him, he messed up on one line.  I noticed, but also saw how he was able to recover and continue with a small amount of offstage coaxing.  There were times when others in the cast would stop and stare as they searched for the next line; most of the time they were able to continue when someone whispered from offstage.  Being that this was the first play put on by the high school in 7 years, I think the cast did a good job.  The flubbed lines and missed cues slowed the momentum of some scenes or the rapid fire nature of the back and forth between certain characters, but, as a whole, these things could be forgiven.  Considering this was most, if not all, of these kids first time acting on stage, I thought they handled it well.

Even though he needed to use his cane, he included it well as a prop and I didn’t find it distracting.  I also thought he also was able to pull off the menace of Jonathan.  He had good interaction with Ryan Thomas, who played Mortimer.  There was one moment when they did a “stare down” with each other where they were practically touching foreheads that made the whole audience laugh.  The other thing that amazed me about Ben’s performance was his physical range of motion.  I know I’ve said it before in other posts, but to see him move the way he’s moving now is such an amazing blessing.  At one point in the play, Jonathan and Dr. Einstein have placed Mr. Spenalzo in the window seat, but Mortimer thinks Mr. Hoskins is still there.  Both characters make a mad dash to sit on the window seat when it looks like someone is going to open it.  Ben and Ryan were on the opposite side of the stage when the “dash” began.  Ben not only kept up with Ryan, he did so with movement that I used to see from him.  That was very cool.  There were a couple of other scenes where Ben needed to be physical and he pulled it off seemingly without trouble.  Those scenes were very special to me because of what they meant and the work that had gone into making them a reality. J

The final interesting aspect of the performance for me was the fact that the gender make-up of the drama class led to changes in the genders of a couple of roles.  The biggest change was with Dr. Einstein.  He became a she (Herman to Henrietta, I believe) as the role was given to Alana Shutter.  Even though I always think of Peter Lorre when it comes to this part, Alana did a very good job of making the character her own.  Both she and Ben seemed to know their lines well and were able to keep the momentum of their scenes moving as they played off each other.  I think Ben really enjoyed being a part of the production, but, as he said in the car as we drove home, he is glad it is over.  According to him, next up is some comedy sketches like Saturday Night Live or Studio C.  I’m wondering if the students will be asked to come up with their own skits or if they will play off work that has already been done.  Ben isn’t sure, so we shall see. J

Meeting With a 70

Elder Christoffel Golden of the First Quorum of Seventy was in the area for a mission tour of the Rancho Cucamonga Mission.  Last Sunday, Bishop Allen gave me a copy of an email stating Elder Golden was going to be speaking at a meeting in a local meeting house not far from where I work and had invited bishops and ward mission leaders to attend.  Since I resemble the latter, I noted the day and marked that it had been requested by our stake president that we all be in the chapel 30 minutes before the start time of 7 p.m. (easy for me since I would be so close).

This week at work, we’ve been given a “casual” week—we get to go from business casual to just casual (within company guidelines, I can’t come to work with holes in my blue jeans and an incendiary saying on my t-shirt J).  I reminded myself mentally last night that I needed to bring a change of Sunday clothes today before leaving the house.  This morning I went through my regular routine, threw on a dark red, pocket t-shirt and black jeans, gathered my lunch and left the house.  Two-thirds of the way down the hill, I received a phone call from Jennifer.  After quickly reminding me of some things, she started to end our conversation by saying, “Good luck at the meeting.”  I thought, “Meeting, what meeting?” and then it hit me, “Right, the meeting with the member of the 70 tonight.”  Then it hit me again … instead of mentally reminding myself, I should have written a reminder note because I hadn’t brought the change of Sunday clothes (cue the “fail” music from The Price Is Right L).

Me and my one track mind.  There are days when I wonder what in the world I was doing when Father in Heaven was handing out gray matter.  Sheesh!  I was way past the point of no return and could not go back home to gather Sunday clothes.  At the same time, I was determined to not skip the meeting based on my being underdressed.  With my red shirt, I had a feeling I would stick out like a flare in a sky of dark suits; I was right.  The main thing that kept me from feeling embarrassed about my attire, however, was I had been invited to the meeting; I was not a gate crasher.  It was also nice that Bishop Allen sat beside me (he didn’t disavow me for my lack of Sunday attire—actually, I had warned him in an email of my goof, but he was good natured about it).  The comfort of belonging pushed any embarrassment out of my head, allowing me to focus on the spiritual feast being offered by those who spoke.  It was a nice feeling.

The meeting consisted of three, brief talks (about 5 minutes apiece) from President Rich of the Rancho Cucamonga Stake, President Hobbs of the Rancho Cucamonga Mission, and Elder Higham, our Area Authority Seventy.  The remainder of the time, about 45 minutes, was given to Elder Golden.  One of the things that struck me as Elder Golden talked to us was how “down to earth” he is.  I think sometimes it can be easy to forget that these brethren are just like the rest of us.  There is, I think, a danger in believing they are somehow better than the rest of us.  They have special callings, yes, and they have the opportunity to travel throughout the world to help the Saints stay close to Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ, but they are really just people like we are, struggling to do their best with their lives and the calling they’ve been given.

Most of the meeting was spent with him giving us several effective ways of doing member missionary work.  A couple things he mentioned that I will share is the need to take care of the “sheep” the Lord has given us if we want to bring more people into the Church (see 1 Nephi 22:25).  That seems like a “no-brainer,” but it is very true.  Why would the Lord allow more new converts if the ward is doing a terrible job with the ones they currently have.  As a ward, I think we are doing a pretty good job of integrating the new converts into our congregation.  We could definitely improve—there is always room for improvement—but overall, I’m happy with what I’ve seen.  The other thing he mentioned was that investigators will do better coming into the Church if they attend church meetings—especially sacrament meeting.  That makes sense to me as well.  I see the benefit of being spiritually feed from the meeting and getting to know other members of the ward through regular attendance.  Even though partaking of the sacrament would not be to renew baptismal covenants for the investigators, the opportunity to remember the sacrifice of the Savior is definitely there and can be of great benefit to them.

He mentioned the recent releases of scholarly papers by the Church in the Gospel Topics section of the Church’s website as a way to counter Internet criticism of former practices (polygamy and blacks and the priesthood—to name two).  He told us that the Church is transparent and that we as members have nothing to be embarrassed about.  He also mentioned to us that “in every conceivable way, the Church is stronger.” He gave us some statistics that he asked that we not share in a blog or on the Internet so I will honor that request.  After hearing these statistics, I would agree with his assessment.

The other significant thing that was mentioned was that “there is no, nor will there be, any doctrinal changes in the Church.”  I think that is very significant.  I have noticed a movement toward looking for common ground with groups whose lifestyles are not in harmony with Church doctrine.  I see this as Christ-like in practice.  The Savior constantly stated that He was on earth for those who needed His spiritual uplift.  At the same time, however, He did not condone sinful behavior.  For example, even though He told the woman taken in adultery that He did not “condemn” her; He also admonished her to “go, and sin no more” (John 8:11).  Even though other denominations appear to be kowtowing to public pressure, the Church says: “Here is the bar.  You need to raise yourself to God’s level; He will not drop it to accommodate you.”

Despite not being properly dressed for the occasion, I am glad I did not allow potential embarrassment get the better of me.  I am very much better off for being in attendance at the meeting. J