|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 251--5/18/99 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 20  ||  -------> (Cup OWis251, Created v3 (10/3/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ------------------- OSOAWEEK Ezine of Obliviana Issue 251, 5/18/99, copyright 1999 by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana ----------- ------------------- HEMISINISTER REVIEW ----------- ***STAR WARS EPISODE ONE: THE PHANTOM MENACE*** A very strange and wonderful feeling shot through me as the 20th Century Fox logo came, and then the Lucasfilm Limited logo, and then "A long time ago..." and then of course, STAR WARS. This moment came after many, many months of information and anticipation. I followed Phantom Menace info on the Internet very closely, to the point that I was very familiar with most of the movie before I saw it. Then, a few weeks ago, the toys and the books and everything came out. And the bad reviews also started coming out. Reading those bad reviews was very upsetting, and along with the premature peaking of excitement with the release of all the toys and books, I got really bummed-out and depressed. But as the days wore on, and the prospect of actually seeing the more came closer and closer, I started to get excited again. When tickets went on sale last Wednesday, I had no luck getting through to MovieFone either online or on the phone. But when I got home from work, I went to the box office of the new theeater which just opened up five minutes from where I live, and I got tickets to the very first show. I also found out that this theater would be showing the film 24 gours a day, every hour on the hour, till the following Monday. As I approached the zero-hour, I was excited, but the feeling was tempered by all the waiting, all the ups and downs, all the bad reviews, all that. When the movie began, and I got those weird, awesome feelings I still didn't know what to expect. Two hours later, as the credits began to roll, there was a big smile on my face. The Phantom Menace surpassed all of my expectations. Like the other Star Wars movies, there were so many hundreds of awesome elements in this film that it reached a "critical mass" of awesomeness in my mind. The movie is friggin' COOL. Cool robots. Cool aliens. Cool monsters. Cool fights. Cool vehicles. Cool weapons. AWESOME characters. AWESOME quotable dialogue. The computer-generated images in Phantom Menace are not merely "special effects". The artistry and design is breathtaking. Compared with the other three Star Wars movies, Phantom Menace is, I would say, equal to Star Wars and Empire, and of course, far superior to Jedi (which is an awesome movie, but quite inferior the others). Cinematically, the tone and feel of Phantom Menace is very different from the other films, but it is absolutely a Star Wars movie through and through. The early bad reviews were total bullshit, in my opinion. Jake Lloyd was AWESOME as Anakin. Everyone in the movie was awesome. Like I said, there are HUNDREDS of elements in the film that are intensely interesting. And the whole thing comes together, cinematically. I give this movie a 10, an A+. In my opinion, it is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. I saw it again this morning (Thursday) at 6 AM, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I plan on seeing it several more times this weekend. I am a Star Wars fan and a kid at heart. People who aren't Star Wars fans, and who have lost the wonder of childhood will most likely not "get" this film. There are million of people out there, though, who feel the same way about Star Wars as I do--and the fact that this movie is awesome means a heck of a lot to me and to all those people. I had several nighhtmares in the past few months that I saw Phantom Menace and it sucked. If it did suck, it would have been horribly disheartening. And let me say this--my judgement was not clouded by my intense hope the the film would be good. After all those bad reviews, I was ready for anything. But like I said, it very much surpassed my expectations. Perhaps the only negative aspect of having seen Phantom Menace is that now, the next really big thing I have to look forward to is Y2K. At work, I have one of those millenium countdown clock, but for the past four months, I had it set for Star Wars. Now, it is once again set for Y2K--225 days to go. With the specter of worldwide disaster, the next two Star Wars films have an element of "if" rather than "when". But as it stands right now, the prospects for 2000 and beyond are for a mild to severe economic depression, as opposed to a total "Road Warrior"-level collapse of society. And as was the case in the Great Depression, escapist cinema was needed all the more... ------------------- LORD OF OBLIVIANA ----------- Thu 5/20/99 * 10:45 PM Well, there's my review of Phantom Menace. As I said, the movie is totally awesome, but its arrival brings the prospect of a Y2K disaster into much sharper focus, for me at least. It seems to me that people are tired of Y2K disaster talk. In this age of diminished attention spans, Y2K has become a "tired" subject. I myself am in heavy denial on the subject, emotionally. But rationally, I know there is great danger. The specific "Year 2000" computer problem is just one of the dangers of Y2K. For a heck of a long time, people have looked at 2000 as the "end of the world" in some way. The dynamic of the "self-fulfilling prophecy" is germaine here. One example of this would be an increase in suicidal terrorism. But this aspect, as well, is only part of the problem. America has been consistently losing moral ground since the 1960s. And whatever anyone has to say about morality in intellectual terms, the hard, cold reality is that reduced morals mean death, injury, and suffering for huge numbers of people. And beyond even all these problems, America is suffering from a major problem that many people wouldn't even view as a problem--peace and prosperity for several generations. It is perhaps a quirk of human nature, but without major wars and other disasters, people get lazy and apathetic and totally self-centered. These days, it seems like people shrug off scandals and moral outrages and ill-conceived military operations like water off a duck's back. "So what if it doesn't affect my life" seems to be the big mantra these days. Well, evil exists, and it is very real, and it is very dangerous. And I'm not just talking about Bill Clinton. Evil must be fought, it must be beaten back, it must be limited. But people have stopped fighting. Ayn Rand wrote "Atlas Shrugged" way back in 1950 or so, and in it, she predicted a slow decay of American society, until the country was reduced to sub-Third-World status. In the book, a group of the world's greatest minds "dropped out" with the intent of accelerating the decay, so that the rebuilding could take place sooner rather than later. In the real world here, nothing like that happened, so the decay is continuing on, slowly but surely. All of these factors, taken together, point to Y2K being a trigger for serious societal degradation. Let me step back here a moment and take a look at what I'm saying. First of all, predictions about the future are almost always wrong. And whereas there will definitely be problems with Y2K, they may be relatively minor. And indeed, the seemingly inevitable dyamic of societal decay may be going a lot slower that I am making it out to be. So, there could be many more decades of peace and prosperity before the modern civilized world collapses. My gut feeling is that Y2K will be worse than people are expecting, but nowhere near the kind of disaster some people are talking about. I think it will be a cold, hard slap in the face--and maybe this will be a good thing for the numb populations of America and the civilized world. I do believe will almost total certainty that there will be a relatively severe economic downturn in 2000. But again, at a gut level, I think things will go on, in general, as they have been. So, the situation will not be a cathartic armageddon, but rather, a continuation of the slow societal degradation that's been going on for a long time now. So, where does Obliviana fit into this scheme of things? If indeed there is economic depression and an increase in perceived meaninglessness in the world, then Obliviana could be in a good position as an entertainment/cool supernatural practice kind of thing. But I want to make it very clear that my primary goal is to make Obliviana into something that is GOOD. I want Obliviana to counter that forces of societal degradation. In the past, I might have asserted that Obliviana can save the world. But I have been humbled by years of lack-of-success, and I have gotten quite jaded and all that. I know that many people are beyond help. But I do believe that Obliviana has the potential to be a very good thing for SOME people. To be a little specific, Obliviana can open people more to Primal Wonder. And in my theories, psychological depression is the closing off of Primal Wonder. So in this context, Obliviana can be seen as a force which acts in a way opposite to depression. But this way of looking at Obliviana is flawed, in that it has been shown that "mania" is somewhat the opposite of depression, as in "manic-depressive" or "bi-polar". I would that that in mania, a person is blasted by a blinding and confusing level of Primal Wonder, which is also not a good thing. But we may be dealing with something analagous to light. Total darkness and total light are equally blinding. Inbetween the two, there is an optimal level. Perhaps Obliviana can bring a person more toward that optimal level. But I am short-changing Obliviana by speaking of it only in terms of its affect on an individuals openness to Primal Wonder. Cuz it does involve a lot more than that. Wow. Rambling about wild stuff. Yes indeed! This is what the "Lord of Obliviana" feature is all about! I gotta go to bed soon. Get all Obliviana. ------------------- SONG OF THE WEEK ----------- John Williams, "Duel of the Fates" (Album: "Star Wars Episode One Soundtrack") ------------------- END ----------- -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----