The Gorko Gazette

Gorko Entertainment Editor Mitchell Kennedy dissects the new Star Wars universe film from Medieval Century Studios, The Phantom Menace, starring Obi-Wan Kenobi, Queen Amidala (disappointingly enough, a white woman), and comedic genius Jar-Jar Binks.

SPOILER ALERTS: mitchell has once again confused the actors with the characters

TRIGGER WARNINGS: CGI ABUSE, GRUESOME SABER FIGHTS, WOODEN DIALOGUE

As delighted as my movie puppy @Todd and I were to score first-row seats for the brand new summer blockbuster The Phantom Menace: A Star Wars Story, and with the new Deluxe Triple-Decker Mushroom Drip Attack Burgers and Diet Cokes (2 extra-larges) and cheesy fries that we smuggled in in @Todd’s Visually Impaired Helper Tote™ (yes I had to pretend to be a blind person to score those seats, sue me!), it was with some dismay that we realized that this latest installment in the Star Wars saga was NOT going to be suitable for any of the grandparents who are fans of my column. TBH (To Be Honest), considering the amount of jump scenes, profanity (shoot, dang, blast it, to name a handful of the colorful metaphors employed in just the first 30 minutes of this epic wreck of a space opera), war violence, assertive cleavage, lustful panting, and excessive CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery), the movie should probably have been called A Phantom Menace to Seniors! The lamentations of old-timers in the audience rending the air of your local cinema are more than likely to include cries for late ’70s X-wing miniatures, tender affections of young Jedi (true love), and the acting of real movie stars the likes of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the impervious-to-lasers Princess Leia.

Take your queens and shove em, we already have a princess! And where is my wookie?

In a courageous move, Medieval Century Studios decided to center the story around the young gay Jedi couple, Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor, played by Qui-gon Jinn and Obi-wan Kenobi respectively, who have been sent to defuse a dangerous situation on the planet Naboo. You read that correctly, the planet’s name is Naboo. Not Dagobah, Endor, or any truly impressive old-timey Star Wars names. Naboo, as in something out of a Hindu storybook for children. These gay Jedis are not up to the task, however, presenting themselves as they do before the Trade Federation Viceroy Silas Carson (played in a motion capture suit, one presumes, by Nute Gunray) on their lonesome. @Todd was barking unhappily at this part of the story, knowing they had been set up! And indeed, the malevolent Silas Carson, apparently drinking from a chalice of blood, proceeds to insult their clothing, make fun of their breathy lisps, and attempt to kill them.

The gay Jedis manage to escape, however, and then proceed to zip around the galaxy making new friends in an attempt to stymie the advance of the evil Trade Federation’s cyborg armies. It is all very confusing because they eventually end up at a place called Tatooine (yes they called the planet Tatooine, as in ‘I just adOOORE your new Tatooine’) where they encounter a boy named James Earl Jones (played half-heartedly by the untalented Anakin Skywalker). This is the very name of the dark side of the force ex-Jedi (this one one presumes NOT gay, since he managed to sire the Jedi hero Mark Hamill) from the 1977 original, Star Wars: A New Boy! Shame on screenwriter George Lucas for recycling the good names from the original Star Wars world when he noticed people laughing at names like Naboo and Jar-Jar!

Todd broke into a mournful howl at this point in the picture, and several elderly moviegoers staggered from their seats, up the aisle, and out of the theater after shouting their objections to the theater manager, Brett, where he sat as usual on his folding chair, eating peanuts and glowing like a ripe cherub.

Several of the actors, in fact, such as the incorrigible scene-stealer Ahmed Best, appear to have been complete CGI incarnations without a single actor behind them! Digging a bit deeper into the WWW (World Wide Web), @Todd and I discovered that even these characters’ lines had been generated using cutting-edge AI tools! What we were watching were in fact preposterous, post-human monstrosities on par with Frankenstein’s most diabolical creation.

I will not bore you with any more details about this movie, especially because the main aim of this column is to avoid spoilers (spoilers are hints or clues about a movie that spoil its ending or an essential part of its plot), and because Brett’s star usher Frowny-Face Charlie (48 yo, 6’2″, 185 lb in his socks, and shockingly still single) caught or perhaps rather SMELLED Ampersat Todd in the act of relieving himself on the not-so-plush moviehouse maroon carpet, and Brett’s no-poop policy is very strict, so we did not in fact see more than 55 minutes of this ugly atrocity, though that was surely enough. This was not your grandparents’ Star Wars.

They simply do not make Star Wars like they used to.

May the Force be with you. You’re going to need it if you see this one!

NO PUPPIES! ZERO PUPPIES!

ABOUT MITCHELL KENNEDY

Mitchell Kennedy (M.F.A. Film Studies 1984, Leonard University) is the Gorko entertainment editor. He writes the weekly film column Mitch’s Movie Mash with his puppy Ampersat Todd.