Of Job Interviews and Star Wars Toys
Today was a day like any other for a lot of people out “there.” It was, however, an unusual day for me. For one thing, instead of waking up at 7:55 and running outside to move my car in a state of undress, I arose at precisely 7:00 A.M. and avoided the long and water resistant arm of the law by a healthy margin. I actually avoided the citation twice because with so much time on my hands I decided to go put gas in my car so I could actually make it to my job interview and when I got back home I promptly parked it in the exact same spot I’d gotten up to vacate. Then I went about trying to convince these people I could look professional and not only that, but that I probably look professional all the time. As time wears on, the perceived gap between looking a lot like something and being that thing continues to shrink; I’m convinced that pretty soon instead of passing a fireman’s test you’ll just have to show up in your own gear.
To give you an idea of the last time I wore dress shoes, I didn’t recognize the box at first because it was full of shooting targets from when I went to summer camp. I assembled an outfit that I like to think projected, “I’m wearing this sweater because I value unrestricted limb motion” and not, “I don’t have a jacket and I wanted to cover up the fact that I don’t have a belt.” I have no idea what the cut on my forehead I inflicted upon myself while trying to shave said, but, thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice. I’d say there’s some room for improvement with my morning routine but all in all I can do this professional, be-seen-in-public thing.
I’m not going to say where this interview was because A. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to be publicly associated with someone who can’t shave properly and B. I don’t want to increase the odds of them coming to know that I can’t shave properly. The fact that I even had an interview was out of the ordinary for me at this point but the interview itself was actually relatively standard in that, while being interviewed by another man of similar age, Star Wars became a topic of discussion early on. One of the things we talked about was the superior quality of the original versions of episodes IV-VI. Nothing ground breaking there. (I’m pretty sure there are people who have no idea who Greedo is that can tell you Greedo shooting first was a mistake.) As the discussion progressed I had a new insight into why I probably liked them better besides the obvious reasons that they were what I knew first and they were aesthetically consistent throughout.
I recently found the bulk of my Star Wars toys cached away in my brother’s home office and these were probably the finest children’s toys ever produced. The fact that you could tell that they were using models in the films didn’t make it less realitic, it made it more realistic because I actually had all of those space ships in my room! When I think of an X-Wing, I actually think of the behind the scenes footage of the Death Star run where they’re moving the fighters with wire. I don’t want to say that the props used weren’t detailed, because they were, but that’s never been the point with Star Wars fans. For every obsessive that goes out and buys an official piece of merchandise their are dozens more that make their own. Polish has never been the point. This is a fantasy franchise that is, perhaps more than any other, rooted in its fans’ ability to bring about physical manifestations and see it in reality. The more I think about it the more confused I am as to why merchandisers and film makers ignore this aspect of it’s success. I am not a toy collector or fanatic. I don’t buy any real collectibles at all. Not even those vinyl figurines people who like urban art seem to enjoy so much. But I’m pretty sure a common complaint (from children) is that these toys are poor representations of the films’ subjects. It’s probably a relatively alienating process to play with a toy from a more recent movie franchise. Not because the toys are bad, imagination is always going to be inherent in playing with a toy. It’s actually the best part. That aspect let’s you have the fun of putting Han and Chewie in Sherwood Forest, only to be “bat-a-ranged” by Batman. If anything, I’m saying the movies are getting too good.
I haven’t seen Avatar yet but from what I understand this movie is all about polish. It’s supposed to be immersive on a level we haven’t seen yet and apparently Cameron has set his sights on Lucas’ franchise in terms of producing a back story and universe to rival the one present in Star Wars’ literature, games, encyclopedias, and what-nots. But it’ll never happen; because, while Avatar might be more fleshed out with it’s scientifically accurate planet descriptions and it’s professionally created and documented languages, the film was made with the intention of being realistic to an unrealistic degree. It’s hard to say a movie that has brought in over 1.3 1.9 billion dollars worldwide is a failure. Especially considering how close it is to eclipsing Episode IV’s revenues (adjusted for inflation.) A film as financially successful as Avatar will surely have an impact on the industry and will probably always have a certain type of pop culture cache as the first of it’s kind technologically. However, there is no way a fan can take a piece of a movie like Avatar home and, in my mind, that’s going to kill it.
Although they probably don’t see it this way, even Avatar’s most rabid fans are admitting that this is a problem.
The more I think about it, the more benefits I see to treating a film project like open source software, at least if you’re trying to foster a community surrounding the work. I think about a show like Pure Pwnage which has become wildly successful for a web series (and is making a switch television.) They have done an amazing job monetizing the form. Part of that is due to the fact that they have a relatively uniform audience with a shared, targetable, interest — gaming. Online advertising is really only part of the puzzle, merchandising has got to be at least three of the corner pieces here. In the beginning the characters wore distinctive (sometimes copyright infringing) shirts that were obviously home made. You can buy those shirts. You can wear your FPS Doug shirt and feel like you have a piece of the show. Even if Jeremy isn’t rubbing each shirt on his balls.
Pure Pwnage is also a show that has the spoof factor. It’s actually gotten pretty sophisticated now and has aspects that would be difficult to reproduce but when it started out they were literally walking around with keyboards and using a PSP with a chord hanging out of a pipe to “open” security gates. I’m not saying everything has to be that rudimentary, there are plenty of large scale productions out there that allow people to get the same sense. Indiana Jones had a huge budget and tons of action scenes but what do people love most about Raiders of the Lost Ark? They love a hat, a whip, a bag of sand, and a dude getting chased by a big rock.
And fans go out and make stuff like this.
The fact that this Lego boulder got busted on Mythbusters doesn’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter that I’ve never heard of a boulder booby trap in real life or that the motorcycle scene from The Last Crusade got busted. These films don’t have to be realistic, they just have to make you feel like a real part of something.
A quick search will yield some awesome non literal star wars interpretations…
yoda oragami
and they’re all more satisfying than this
