GEEK PITCH: Star Wars Spinoff

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bryar_pistol

We already have a Star Wars movie coming out about the theft of the original Death Star plans. It’s called Rogue One, and it’s been described as a “heist” film. Other than that, we have little to no details on the story, characters, or structure of the film. It’s doubtful Disney will utilize the Expanded Universe (now called Legends) as a source to pull ideas from on this endeavor, but that doesn’t mean fanboys and fangirls can’t dream. With that in mind, I’ve presented a fun film pitch below incorporating one of the Expanded Universe’s most legendary characters, Kyle Katarn, into this new Star Wars canon. This won’t be a dream pitch for Rogue One, mind you. It’s a pitch for an all-new film to fit alongside Rogue One and the rumored direction of the new trilogy.

 


 

Open on a prisoner in some remote Imperial facility. He’s a human, male, with brown, disheveled hair and a scraggly beard. Day in and day out this prisoner finds himself working in the mines, dreaming of a handful of times in the past when life was tolerable. One of his recurring visions is of a woman, a redhead whose name he never learned, with whom he boosted stolen goods on the lawless world of Nar Shaddaa. There was the briefest of intimacy between them, one that’s all but gone, looping itself like a waking nightmare as time blurs the days together. The only breaks in his mental torment are when some of the other human-hating inmates pick fights with him. He fights back some days. Other days, our protagonist takes the pain. Because it’s all he’s got left. His is a life sentence.

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Why I Don’t Trust Broadcast News

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I was twelve years old when the world was supposed to end. They called it “Y2K,” and due to a potential computer glitch, expert analysts predicted massive blackouts, food shortages, and riots. The 21st Century was to be wholly different than the 20th Century, and the news advertisements leading up to this brave new world only intensified analysts’ fears. Chilling music underscored spooky graphics. Unanswerable philosophical questions scrolled across the screen as a cold, calculating voice told us when and where to tune in for an update. Was it true? Were we all going to die?

If the television was correct, my calm suburban upbringing would descend into George Miller-inspired levels of post apocalyptia on New Years’ Day. Entire neighborhoods would fall to a siege of less fortunate souls who would do anything for canned vegetables. These desperate people could kill, and if by some stroke of luck we weren’t invaded by the mobs, the icy chill of winter would freeze us to death.

It was a no-win scenario, and we, the viewers, were frightened into a corner, clinging tenaciously together as our boob tubes beat us over our heads with a combination of petrifying sermons and empowering sales pitches. In the final days before New Years’, our collective mortification swelling to a crescendo, there were a few lucky opportunists making bank, selling to the masses tools, gear, and survival equipment they would never need.

Anyone who lost a wallet during these final hours would call these opportunists “predators.” The newshounds who fed us our infotainment night after night called them “sponsors.”

It was on a cold January morning I realized I had been had. I woke up to find my home clean, well-kept, and perfectly normal. The television worked. My video games worked. My neighbors’ television sets and video games worked. And all our collective parents were their happy selves. None of the adults on my block had to go to work, and so they spent the first few hours of post apocalyptia sleeping in.

And the news?

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From The Archives: Letter to Marcus Theatres

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I originally mailed this letter off to the corporate headquarters of Marcus Theatres on February 14, 2014. I included my home address with the letter but never received a response (probably for good reason). It was in response to an advertisement they played before every movie, one they have since removed and replaced.


 

Dear Marcus Theatres,

 

There was something about your advertisement, nestled after the previews and before the feature film, that seized hold of my attention. My head was locked into place; my eyes were pried open, directed solely at the screen as that wondrous spot of theatre shimmied its way into the deep recesses of my brain…

 

…and my heart.

 

I’ve seen it at least once a week, and like clockwork, the same performance grapples me snugly, like a plummeting Gotham-ite clutched tightly by the Batman amidst a free-fall from Gotham’s tallest clock tower. Like Hooper, submerged in that cage in Jaws, my world was rocked. Shattered. Split in ‘twain from Sir Robin of Locksley’s arrow. Nestled in those comfy theater seats, it was as if I were a fair maiden on Ryan Gosling’s couch.

 

But I’m not. I’m a man. Rugged. Testosterone-fueled. I eat my fried chicken with my fingers, and I’m heavily Reptilian-brained, like any filmgoer raised during the height of 80’s action cinema. And even I, this hardened, steroid-raging meathead, was sold on a Magical Movie Rewards Card.

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Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

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“If the real world is a crisis of confidence and limitless possibility, Star Wars is the cure. It always has been. Since 1977, this film has been rousing the human soul from its slumber and demanding that it snuff out the silent acquiescence of fear. Because fear is the mind-killer. Because fear is the manifestation of evil.”

My Star Wars write-up is LIVE over at Drunk Monkeys today. This was one of my favorite film essays to write, and it was also one that took me forever. I wrote several different drafts before deleting them all and trying again, eventually consolidating all of my thoughts into this hopelessly optimistic reading of one of the greatest films ever made. Please read it. Please share it. Please enjoy.

 

UPDATE: The discussion around Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is now LIVE as well. In it, a few of us have an in-depth conversation about the film, its lasting impact, and key memories we took away. Check it out HERE.