The independent expose website Wakileaks has gotten hold of the original contractual agreement the Disney Corporation demanded that Director Abrams agree to before filming the new, highly anticipated and already over hyped Star Wars movie. Wakileaks then leaked it out to us, the rabid Star Wars film fanatics who are waiting with baited breath and fanged teeth for its Dec. 18th release.
Highest on the list was there had to be a love story inherent in the plot; a device Disney has used ad nauseam since it began making feature length films in the forties (with the exception of Old Yeller, Tron, a couple of its cartoons and that Living Desert film from the ’60s.) For this latest instalment in the series Abrams chose to have the black storm trooper be infatuated with a Bantha (the huge beasts of burden from the very first film with the curly-cue horns), which definitely will add a new twist to things (perhaps twisted would be more like it.).
Second there must be a ridiculously silly creature as a sidekick as there has been in every Disney film since Sleeping Beauty. In this 7th film outing that part will be taken by that idiotic looking droid in the ads that looks like a double-dipped vanilla caramel ice cream cone minus the cone. It resembles a cheap Chinese knock off of R2D2 minus a few parts.
A third clause is that all the original characters from the first film must be dredged up and prettified for a reappearance no matter what condition the last 30 odd years had left them in. Leia, Luke, Solo, Chewbacca (he should have bald spots by now) and the two droids are all in the show. You would think the two robots would be rusted tight like the Tin Man was when Dorothy found him in the beginning of the Wizard of Oz movie. Leia had to get off the booze and Solo had to get off Calista Flockman.
The fourth clause insists that the movie be promoted shamelessly on every venue and product possible within the known world. The endless ‘sneak peeks’ Yahoo.com has provided us with for the entire past year and a half has been so over done that they have enabled the most devoted Sci fi fans to actually piece together their own version of the movie and release it in China two months ahead of time. Virtually every sports game, every movie theater and every magazine possible has been having their own little ‘Star Wars Moments’ to ram down our goggle eyed consumer throats.
The sixth clause you have probably already guessed- the endless merchandise marketing. There has been and there will be for perhaps the whole next two generations enough Star Wars memorabilia for fans to make their own private planet if they could somehow catapult it all out into space. Plastic manufacturers in China are rejoicing.
You will not only not be able to get the theme music out of your head; it will be implanted in your brain via every television ad, radio show, department store background music, elevator muzak and overly loud Ipod that you come across. There is even a secret agreement between the highest level of the Disney Corporation and the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies to have it embedded in most of the medicinal pills that you ingest, to be made audible when it reaches your eardrum via the blood system.
Of course, there must be bad guys. That won’t be hard in the Star Wars universe what with thousands of planets to chose from, some of them teeming with evil creatures just itching to get off their rock and go bumming through other galaxies sharing their mayhem. Rumor has it Disney is sneaking Maleficent in it as the first female Sith Lord and the big, bad wolf from Pinocchio just to prop up their old movies. Also Jar Jar Binks will be making a cameo as the first trans-gender bad person in the series (he’s not only gone over to the dark side but over to the feminine side as well.).
As it is in the Disney world, the Dark Side of The Force cannot be too dark. In this film there can be no hand-cutting-offs, no Tauntaun disembowelments, no sneaky Greedo-shooting-under-the-table, no Gamorrean guard munching by giant Rancors, no Jabba the Hut strangling, and no Darth Maul cutting in half. Everything has to be as clean as a Sunday School floor and as nice, which, quite personally, really ruins it for me.
It looks like Abrams has a tall order ahead of him. Let’s see what he does with it. Or doesn’t do. May the Force of Marketing be with you!