Stop reading now if (a) you hate Star Wars, (b) you’ve never seen Star Wars or (c) you’ve had a bellyful of Star Wars parody and satire these last 34 years.
The rest of you, strap on your Millennium Falcon seat beats and prepare to be taken into Hyper-farce. Both of you.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, but coincidentally one with humanoid life forms, the same political concepts as Earth and common use of the English language (my God those Victorian missionaries got everywhere didn’t they)...
(cue music)
Star Wars opens with these two robots being shot at by laser guns. Your first thought is that the technology is pretty bloody advanced for 1977, until you realise that the guns don’t shoot straight. C-3PO and R2-D2 walk through the cross-fire and don’t even get hit. C-3PO commences his bleating and belly-aching, a galling habit he maintains without respite for 6 films. Clearly he is homosexual but his circuitry refuses to acknowledge this (it recognises binary though) and consequently he is suffering from a crisis of sexual identity, which makes him socially awkward and generally uptight. R2-D2 just beeps. The original novel was written in the first person singular from R2’s perspective, which is why it didn’t sell very well.
Princess Leia is now seen downloading some tunes from her USB into R2-D2, before running away at the sight of C-3PO (like he’s actually scary) and then getting captured by the film’s ultimate bastard, Darth Vader.
Now here’s a complex character amongst all the 2-dimensional ones. So complex in fact that 5 actors have to play him over the two trilogies of films, including a creepy brat of a kid, Hayden Christensen (so wooden he uses Pledge as a deodorant), the Green Cross Code Man, the Lion King’s dad and finally some innocuously avuncular-looking Johnny Morriss type who’d make a great Worther’s Original advert star if it wasn’t for the horror-film scarring to his head.
The scene shifts to Tunisia, where the two robot droids have landed and are captured by some of the dirtiest children you’ve ever seen, even smellier-looking than a kid I went to school with who we called Flump. This parentless band of shabby juveniles is named after the film which George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had been planning to work on together previous to this, called Jaw-Wars. (Artistic differences caused a rift and they went their separate ways until teaming up later to write the script for a Han Solo spin-off sit-com.)
The droids are then sold to Luke Skywalker’s uncle. They live on a moisture farm, which is like a real farm but without trampled cow shit and a suspicion of incest. Water is a rare commodity in this part of Tunisia, although you wouldn’t think it from the amount Aunt Beru uses to boil her vegetables in the next scene.
Luke discovers Princess Leia’s music downloads inside R2-D2, who then runs off (as far as that is possible with wheels that go a top speed of 2 mph) to find his favourite English actor, Sir Lawrence Olivier. Instead, he has to make do with Alec Guinness who suggests that they all go and rescue this Princess because she sounds hot. She isn’t, but that’s not the point; Luke is pissed off living on a moisture farm in the arse end of beyond, as you would be, and thinks fuck it, why not?
They drive into town, play a trick on some dumb Stormtroopers and find a pub. Luke gets ID’d as he looks about 17 and acts even younger, so Alec Guinness take out one of those fluorescent strip-lighting bulbs and burns off some ugly bastard’s arm. He then persuades a mini-cab driver called Han Solo to take them to Alderaan, Princess Leia’s home planet. Obviously, he should have rung a proper cab firm, because there’s no guarantee that this Han Solo is even insured to drive a spaceship. Furthermore and rather disconcertingly, Han’s BFF is a growling bear (or a bare growler, one or the other) named Chewie, a bit like the sweets. Chewbacca (his full name) really challenges the audience’s ability to suspend its disbelief, because in reality an animal that hairy would either have a prominent pair of pink buttocks protruding from beneath its fur or it’d have dry, hardened clagnets of shit stuck to the back of its thighs.
This motley crew of misfits then fly out of Tunisia’s main airport towards what remains of Alderaan. The government had actually blown up the planet earlier in the film as an austerity measure and tortured Princess Leia with one of those old globe-shaped security cameras you used to get in Boots, only with needles sticking out of it.
On the flight, Alec Guinness converts the impressionable young Luke to the same religious cult of which he and Luke’s dad were members. He basically tells some lies to Luke about the father he never knew, because it’s Darth Vader and well, how do you tell a kid his Dad’s such a horrible cunt?
Anyway, they get sucked into the government’s huge sports complex, the Death Star, which was built for the Galactic Olympics and cost a bloody fortune, but at least its huge planet-destroying laser gun works. Once inside our band of heroes split up to look for Princess Leia, thinking that the first to find her gets to ask her out. C-3PO is not interested, for several reasons, but Luke is. Luckily he never ends up shagging her; although with that farming background he probably wouldn’t have flinched to discover later that she’s his sister.
After some running around and shooting lasers they manage to get her back to the spaceship, but Alec Guinness has wandered away to turn off the Death Star’s sucky device and finds himself confronted by Darth Vader. They both take out their fluorescent strip-lighting bulbs and have a sword fight. By the standards of any such contest, this would never have been worth the £15 SKY charged for Pay-per-view. Audley Harrison dances better than this. In the end, Darth Vader wins because Alec Guinness lets him, but clearly disappears down a trap door in the floor-tiles. In his place, wearing his brown hoody and holding his bulb is Debbie McGee. Darth Vader thinks to himself WTF?
The others escape and fly off to the rebel base. The rebels are essentially an anti-government organisation, a bit like UK Uncut, but with X-Wing fighters. They have a space battle with government troops in Thai-fighters, which are smaller and a little spicey. In the end, Luke blows up the Death Star and Darth Vader escapes vowing to build an even bigger one once they’ve raised enough taxes to do so.
The film ends with everyone getting a pat on the back, except Chewbacca, who has a pat on his arse. A dry, hardened Wookie pat.
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