A Pilgrim’s Digression

Summer is winding down. Within two days, Brendan will be back at school; Lynn has already been back to school since early last week. Not much changes for me, since I am not on an academic schedule, but my life, too, becomes a little emptier without wife and son around on my days off.

Other than school beginning, it isn’t really the end of anything. But over the years I’ve become accustomed to marking the end of one year and the beginning of another with the start of the school year rather than on January 1st. It’s an old habit I will probably never lose.

When I was a kid, I actually loved this time of year. For about one week after school started, I was excited about school. It passed. But I still love the Fall and view it as both an end and a beginning.

One thing I wanted to do this weekend was to make this final weekend before school begins special for Brendan, so I had plans for us on Saturday. Although she was off the clock, so to speak, Lynn still had work to do at the high school. Thus I had Brendan all to myself for the day.

First, I took him to Wal-Mart to pick out a toy (or two as it turned out). I bought him a couple new Star Wars figures. Then we met his mother for lunch at the Waffle House. I have to add at this point that I am impressed by how Brendan’s taste in food has improved since he was a toddler, especially compared to our 19 year-old foster son, who won’t eat anything but chicken nuggets, bacon, sausage, and various dairy products.

At Waffle House, Brendan ordered a cheeseburger, but he also asked for a salad instead of the house specialty, hash browns. He actually looks forward to salad as part of his meal, now, and usually requests it as his side dish.

After the Waffle House, our intention was to go to the library to check out a book. I wanted to begin reading the “Little House” series to Brendan. He could probably read most of one of these books himself, but I don’t quite want to give up that stage of his development where I read to him. Well, the library was closed. It closes at one on Saturday, apparently.

So instead we walked down the street to a bookstore and I bought a paperback copy of Little House in the Big Woods, the first and probably the best book of the whole series. I’ve probably told this story before, but when I was in elementary school, I loved these books, but I was afraid of being teased for liking books written (so I believed) for little girls. On library day, I would choose one of these books, then hide it under another book. Specifically I remember a biography of Martin Luther that I used for this purpose.

Then we went to our local coffee shop, the Daily Grind, and I read the first chapter aloud to Brendan as he enjoyed a peach smoothie and I enjoyed a cup of coffee.

I think he was a little shocked at the butchery of animals that goes on in the first chapter. There is a scene–one I remember particularly enjoying as a little boy–in which Pa butchers a pig he has been raising, and he inflates the pig’s bladder and gives it to the girls to play with as if it were a balloon. I had to explain to Brendan that a bladder is the organ in which a creature stores its pee prior to eliminating it. He laughed at the picture of the two girls throwing the bladder back and forth.

Other than that, he was fascinated by the image of a family living completely alone in the woods of Wisconsin, with nothing but miles of trees and wild animals between them and the nearest town.

After finishing our reading and our drinks, we headed up the street to the small three-screen movie theater, where the new Star Wars movie is playing. Brendan has been anxious to see “Clone Wars” since he first started seeing it advertised, and frankly, I was pretty excited as well. The promise, or perhaps the curse, of animation is that we may never see the end of the Star Wars franchise.

And franchise is the proper word. It’s about making money, now; however, even when I was a kid it was about making money. It’s hard to remember, but Star Wars was the first film to make millions off a line of toys. There were other toy tie-ins in the seventies; specifically I remember the Mego Star Trek dolls, of which I had three–Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. But the Star Wars toys made Lucas richer by far than he would have been with only the rights to the movies. In that way, his genius, or perhaps just his luck, surpassed that of a mere filmmaker. Lucas is nothing if not a financial whiz.

Clone Wars is a good film, though. If Lucas is financially astute, he also does not allow his creation to become diluted by the infusion of inferior talent. It is as fast paced as Lucas at his best, and the fact that it is animated really doesn’t detract from the story in any way. Compared to the Cartoon Network “Clone Wars” series of a few years ago, it’s detail is very sharp and not really cartoonish at all. The action is fast-paced, and there are no dreadful Lucas love scenes to make the viewer wince.

The movie is probably a preview of the new Star Wars animated series supposedly in production. I haven’t read much about it, but I suspect that Anakin’s apprentice is probably going to be the star of the show, and this feature film is a way of introducing her at length. Also, I noted that the John Williams score we’ve all become used to has been changed somewhat, and there is no longer the characteristic (some would say clichéd) screen crawl at the beginning. Instead, we are treated to a god-like voice narrating what would be the text of the screen crawl as we are shown images matched to the words, 1940’s newsreel style.

The only thing that really confuses me about this movie is the “why” of it (other than the obvious money-making reason). Why go back and revisit the Clone Wars? It seems to me there would be far more potential in filling in the gaps in the story between the third and fourth movies, when Darth Vader is tracking down and killing the last remaining Jedi.

The only thing I can think of is that perhaps Lucas intends to do that, and (maybe) Anakin’s apprentice becomes one of those last remaining Jedi herself. Thus Lucas needs to fill in her back story.

That’s only a guess. Maybe it’s a good one, though.

Anyway, we enjoyed the movie immensely. And I think Lucas would be happy with the intended consequence. Every time I saw a new character, or a new variation on an old character in the film, I had this sinking feeling and thought to myself, “Oh god, there’s another action figure.”

And sure enough, Brendan is now itching for a return to Wal-Mart to buy more of the figures and vehicles he doesn’t have now. George Lucas is going to single-handedly keep the American economy out of recession, I think.