I had already started this one before Josh posted his... (No Star Wars Ep. 3 Spoilers)

“How can you not want to go see Revenge of the Sith?!” Dreamcatcher Foxglove exclaimed in total shock. “I mean… how can you not?”

“We just don’t” Hallie informed him levelly.

“Indeed” Asil agreed.

“But it’s soooooo much better than the last two films! And it’s the last Star Wars film ever. I mean, sure, Lucas originally said he wanted to make nine after the first one did so well that they went back and added “Episode IV” to the opening scrawl, and then said he wasn’t going to make any more than the original three, and then he made these last three, but now he’s saying he’s not making any more ever again, and while that probably doesn’t include the special editions that will come out a while down the road, maybe in 3-D with added scenes that he’s definitely shot but didn’t use this time around and maybe some more he’ll shoot later, this is still almost certainly likely to be the last Star Wars film… kinda.”

“Don’t care” Hallie rebutted.

“Don’t” Asil agreed.

“But whyyyyyyyyyyyy? Dreamcatcher argued compellingly. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was when people missed a transcendent piece of pop culture for no good reason whatsoever.

“Just… go and enjoy your movie” Hallie urged. “We would prefer not to go.”

“Is it the geeks? ‘Cause most of the people who get dressed up for the movie went for the first shows starting at midnight Thursday, and have likely gone home and showered by now after skipping work and classes to see it ten or twenty more times…”

“I told you Hacker-9 wasn’t out with malaria...” Hallie informed Asil, who had been subbing as the Juniors’ teacher for the still stricken Visionary.

“The smell was so convincing” Asil shrugged.

“Are you two worried about leaving Vizh alone for the night? Isn’t Miiri coming from Lemuria to act as his personal nurse until he’s back on his feet?”

Hallie turned a full shade darker. “Yes”

“She gives him sponge baths and therapeutic massages, doesn’t she?” CSFB noted. “Man, how do I get a heart attack? Do you think those massages come with ‘release’?”

“Um… you’re on a bit of a tangent, Dream” Asil suggested over the virtual grinding of teeth from the green woman next to her.

“Hmmmm?” He asked, blinking. “Oh, yeah! So we bring Vizh along… The theater is wheelchair accessible, and frankly it’ll get us some pretty swanky seats right in the center aisle…”

“I don’t need a wheelchair, dammit!” Visionary’s voice resounded from the next room. As usual, everyone ignored him.

“It would be so cool if he taught his classes from a wheelchair!” Dream noted whistfully. “I mean, what with the rate his hair receding anyway…”

“And people wonder why my blood pressure isn’t going back down” the voice complained before the television was turned up.

“I mean, he’s already had sex with the hot alien woman… although she’s not a Queen of a star-spanning empire… Or a bird woman… I wonder if Pel would date him…”

“Tangent, Dream.”

He blinked. “Oh yeah… So whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?”

“Because Star Wars is racist, that’s why!” Hallie snapped.

“What?” CSFB asked, shocked. “How do you mean? This isn’t about Jar-Jar, is it? Because I’ll feel unclean if I have to defend him, despite the fact that I think Lucas is being honest about him simply being an alien and that people are reading way too much…”

“No… It’s not about Jar-Jar.” Hallie said. “It’s about the deplorable treatment of droids.”

Dreamcatcher Foxglove’s face froze as he considered this. “What?”

“Not only are artificial intelligences treated as slaves in the Star Wars universe, and subjected to all sorts of degradations in the name of comic relief, they’re especially vilified in these prequel movies where the Jedi fight armies of them, hacking and slashing their way through their ranks with no concern over the loss of life whatsoever.”

“But… But… Star Wars droids don’t have feelings.”

“Nonsense. C3PO wouldn’t be such an annoying, whiney coward if he didn’t have real emotions like fear. Plus, he was positively distraught when he thought Luke and the others were crushed in the Death Star’s trash compactor. And while all my efforts to decode R2D2’s dialect have just lead to gibberish and a few naughty limericks, he’s made plenty of sad whirrs and beeps that convey emotion.”

“Well, okay… Maybe they do. And I guess droids could be treated better… But R2 is easily one of the coolest characters in the film, beloved by legions of fans! And you can’t judge all Star Wars droids the same way… The battle droids obviously don’t have the same level of programming as those two…”

“The battle droids have moments where they show fear too” Hallie argued. “They back up and say “uh-oh!” when something big and scary comes along, and when they’re surprised by the heroes and confused they get that cute befuddled look Visionary gets early in the mornings before he’s had his coffee…”

CSFB blinked. “Wait… So you find the battle droids cute?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Hallie growled. “I’m saying they obviously aren’t just completely mindless automatons… they have hints of personality, and it’s wrong that they’re portrayed as inept cannon fodder.”

“But they have to be inept!” he argued. “Otherwise it wouldn’t explain why the Emperor moved to storm troopers by the time of the original trilogy!”

“Clone troopers” Asil noted levelly.

“Um…” Dream began, sensing dangerous ground ahead.

“George Lucas took the most bumbling army in cinematic history… one that had been defeated by a collection of feral, flea-infested teddy bears, and revealed that they were all clones. The ultimate disposable lackeys for an evil Empire.”

“Well… um… He also revealed the Boba Fett was a clone…” he argued.

“And what did Boba Fett ever do?” Asil countered. “He followed the Millennium Falcon to Bespin, and then called Vader who did all the work. He eventually took a frozen Hansicle back to Jabba the Hutt in time to die an embarrassing death in a pit full of spiky rubber teeth.”

“But… but… Boba Fett was cool” CSFB said in a small voice.

“No… he just seemed cool between movies. All secondary Star Wars villains seem cool until they get their inevitably pathetic quick deaths onscreen.”

“So really…” Hallie argued, “The racial favoritism in Star Wars breaks down quite clearly into humans at the top, then aliens, then clones, and then droids. Oh, sure… a few rare characters might rise above their stations like Yoda or R2, but really that’s the way it pans out. And you don’t even want to look at that list when gender is added to it. Star Wars is really quite offensive, when you look at it that way.”

“That’s not true… That’s impossible!” CSFB cried, distraught. “This is something I love! Something that’s brought joy to countless kids all over the world when they were feeling alone, or scared or just didn’t fit in… It’s something that brings those people together…”

“Aw… hey…” Asil said, reaching out to put a hand on the upset hero’s shoulder. “It’s just not for us… That doesn’t mean you can’t like it… We didn’t want to ruin it for you.…”

“But… it makes people I care about feel bad! How can that be? I always thought Star Wars was an absolute good. You know, besides the ewoks and Jar-Jar and the stuff that just sucked…”

“Well, it might not be absolute, but it’s still all those good things you listed!” Hallie argued. “It can still be art, it can still be valuable even if it happens to paint a picture that some might disagree with…”

“I don’t think Lucas is a bad man…” Asil said. “He’s just ignorant of the plight of robots and clones looking for acceptance in society. And alien slave girls too.”

“Really. The man should pick up a newspaper sometime, instead of living in his own little fictional world” Hallie muttered under her breath, then brightened visibly. “Hey, you know what Star Wars really needs?”

“What?” Dreamcatcher Foxglove sighed.

“It needs somebody to fill in the gaps that Lucas left wide open. It needs someone to create kick ass female droid and clone stories that show that they’re not just cannon fodder… that they’re real people deserving of respect from the Galactic Republic!”

“Yes!” Asil agreed, catching on. “If only there were some fans out there who would take it upon themselves to write… I don’t know, some kind of fictionalized accounts about such characters…”

CrazySugarFreakBoy’s head snapped up. “And they could have sex with Wookies!”

“Er… ‘kay” Hallie agreed hesitantly. “That’d be… one way to go.”

“Female Wookies, of course. Large hairy alien babes need Sapphic love too… This is perfect! I’ll have to get online and get organized… April and I are on just the mailing list already… We’ll knock out the areas that need addressing…”

“Better see the movie a few more times then” Asil suggested. “You know, for research.”

“Right! Right! Great!” The sugar fueled hero bounced off the walls a few times as he careened towards the stairs. “You’ll see! This is just the kind of thing fandom does best… bringing in the people on the fringes of society and making them feel like they belong! This is going to get a huge turn-out online!”

“Great!” Asil said with a wave as he disappeared from view, then sighed. “I was always a bigger fan of Star Trek anyway. You?”

“I liked James Cameron’s work, especially Bishop.” Hallie answered. “And actually, on some Mondays… I can’t really even blame Skynet.”

Post By Visionary Mon May 23, 2005 at 12:03:59 am EDT	Subject I had already started this one before Josh posted his... (No Star Wars Ep. 3 Spoilers)

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