'Star Wars Episode VII: The Nerds Awaken'

These aren't the nerds you're looking for. 

By Dave Pezza           

Brian Crandall, field reporter for Southern New England’s News Channel 10, saunters over toward my direction with his oversized wireless microphone. I cringe visibly, turning my back to check my iPhone for nothing at all, the universal sign for, “please leave me alone.” I briefly thought of chucking my middle finger, but it wouldn’t be keeping with the joyous atmosphere that surrounds the Toys R Us parking lot in Warwick, R.I. at 11:30 p.m. on a Thursday night. Crandall ditched his ‘80s-cut black suit jacket and gaudy necktie, donning instead a laid back open collar and rolled-up shirtsleeves for the midnight event. “Force Friday,” as Disney and Lucasfilm have marketed it, brought all manner of “Star Wars” fans from their parent’s basements, apartment buildings, and domiciles.

Crandell starts at the front of the line, grabbing the brags of those who have been in line since 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m., sitting in their collapsible aluminum chairs. While Crandall makes his way down the line, I notice a police officer at the front of the line near the toy store’s entrance.

“Really,” I say to my brother, pointing to the cop.

My brother is thirty-something, a chiropractor, and has a kid on the way. I can’t help but think he came so I wouldn’t be featured on the news by myself in a herd of "Star Wars" nerds. Then again, he’s probably using me as an excuse to catch a glimpse at the first wave of toys and games from the upcoming “Star Wars” movie, “The Force Awakens.”

“Of course, just in case any of these rowdy ‘Star Wars’ fans try to rush Geoffrey the Giraffe with a lightsaber,” he responds.

It’s growing closer to midnight, and Crandall continues to make his way down the line.

For those of you who have not been on planet earth for the last year or so, “Star Wars” is back. Big time. Disney purchased the rights from George Lucas for billions of dollars and hasn’t stopped throwing money at the franchise since. New television shows, at least six new movies (seriously, six), and endless games, toys, and merchandise. And it worked. In fact it has worked so well that the geniuses at Hasbro and Disney have set aside an entire day dedicated to releasing new Star Wars merchandise, and the movie hasn’t even been released yet. Really the whole thing is a perpetual hype machine. Force Friday, the November release of high profile video game “Star Wars: Battlefront,” all building to Dec. 18 when Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill, finally, impossibly reprise their iconic roles as Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker.

If you’re a normal person, this is all very typical Disney. Hell, two years ago you couldn’t go out in public without “Frozen” advertisements and merchandise kicking you in the balls. But if you are a “Star Wars” fan, specifically one born after 1983 when the last original Star Wars movie, “Return of the Jedi,” premiered, this is the second coming. You’ve waited for these movies, movies not directed by George Lucas and starring the original cast, since  the end credits of “Jedi.” I’ve been watching “Star Wars,” playing “Star Wars,” buying “Star Wars,” quoting “Star Wars,” and talking “Star Wars” for so long it’s hard wired into my first memories. My brother must have been the first person to introduce me to it with his action figures and worn out VHS copy of “The Empire Strikes Back.” And here I am now, staring at my phone, hoping midnight comes before our mugs appear on the morning local news show with an embarrassing tagline like, “Local adult nerds wait all night for toys intended for ten-year-olds.”

In case you haven’t read anything I’ve ever posted on Writer’s Bone, which is entirely possible, I’m not the most accepting of trends and fads. However, I’ve caught the “Star Wars” virus. More accurately, I never lost it, like chickenpox as a child and shingles as an adult. And beneath the haze and allure of marketing, consumerism, and deep-rooted issues of escaping reality lies something that I hadn’t realized until that night, standing in a Toys R Us parking lot. Every close friend I’ve ever had was a fellow “Star Wars” fan. And it’s not as if we all met at Comic Con or anything like that. We all just ended up really liking “Star Wars.” And we’re all really, really, shamefully excited for the new movie. Which means one of two things: either this franchise, with its great characters, intricate imagine universe, and timeless story, is so pervasive that the vast majority of men enjoy it, or “Star Wars” happens to be the cultural aspect that has defined and affected my particular life in such a significant way that it has helped me form every real male friendship I’ve ever had. Not to mention it helped an eight-year-old boy bond and share experiences with his fifteen-year-old brother, a common interest that, obviously, thrives to this day.

The doors to the Toys R Us finally open, and Crandall rushes himself and his cameraman into the store to get shots of the bleary eyed crowd of grown men bustling to purchase overpriced dolls (they're called action figures!). As we approach a “Star Wars”-themed archway set up in the store entrance, Crandall is just beyond, ready to seal our nerd fate. We move closer to the arch, and my brother says to no one and everyone,

“You don’t need to see our identification. We’re just a couple of normies over here. Move along. Move along.”

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and Dealing With Superhero Burnout

Lowlife superheroes I can believe in

By Daniel Ford

Marvel recently released its second trailer for the upcoming summer blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

It actually looks and feels like what a summer blockbuster should be.

Here’s the trailer:

Wonderful. I watch it twice a day.

I’ve complained recently to my nerdery that superhero movies are becoming brooding pieces of rubbish. Batman movies can get away with being über dark and brooding because it’s intrinsic to that character. Peter Parker, however, shouldn’t be so tormented. He loves being a superhero as much as Tony Stark loves being Iron Man (and an alcoholic womanizer). Why does he need to fight off 2,000 CGI under-developed villains while scowling under his Spidey mask?

Superhero movies are quickly becoming the content marketing of the film world. They look slick and pretend to have a story written by actual humans, but in the end they aren’t reflective of anything other than some douchebag advertiser’s overdeveloped sense of worth. The new Spiderman movies play like an extended Taco Bell commercial. Like content marketing, no amount of flash or promises of “real, honest, and meaty content” is going to distract people from believing that you’re trying to sell them total bullshit. Wait, that’s not true because these movies make gobs of money. Damn it.

Anyway, “The Avengers” was clever and fun because of its cast and quality directing by Joss Whedon, but do you remember anything about that movie? Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I don’t think that’s as rewatchable a movie as, say, “Superman II” or the first “Iron Man.” Every movie has to be a set up for the next movie, the next ad campaign, the next press conference. There’s only so much plot and character you can develop before you have to shoehorn your script into the next project.

I let “Man of Steel” off the hook, but that’s because I’m a huge Superman homer and the movie at least tried to touch on themes like alienation, “otherness,” and finding your way in the world. Superman may have brooded in the beginning, but the guy smiles often later on in the film because he’s fucking Superman! He’s got a pulse, which is more than I can say for a lot of superhero movies of late. The director can’t name a movie to save his life, but that’s a topic for another day.

This is turning into a rant and I don’t want it to be. Grantland’s Mark Harris—one of my favorite entertainment writers—published a piece today that asks, “Are We at Peak Superhero?” Harris points out that comic book readers are a small demographic that studios have mined expertly for years now (none moreso than Marvel, he says), but wonders whether we’re in the middle of a boom or at the end of a bubble? I’m inclined to believe the latter, but that’s not to say I want the genre to go away anytime soon. Because I like summer movies. I like superhero movies. I just want them to be done better.

Which is why I’m all in on “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

It didn’t take much to be honest.

Seedy underworld.? Check. Killer soundtrack (based on the two songs featured in the trailers)? Check. Wise-cracking anti-heroes? Check. Chris Pratt from “Parks and Recreation”? Check.

Brooding clearly shouldn’t be an issue in this movie. In fact, I’m hoping this turns out to be a slightly more serious version of Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs.” I can’t be the only one that thinks that this band of criminal heroes would be right at home on Lonestar’s Eagle 5, right?

I’ve never read any of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” books and don’t intend to before the movie comes out (I’ve already made that pop culture mistake with George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series). I reached out to a friend of mine from high school who knows more about the comic than I do who said that the trailer gets it right. “These people aren't heroes,” Christopher Morse, an actor, writer, and director, as well as the host of the podcast “Supervillain Corner," told me.” “They're a bunch of assholes who are in the right place and time, and are just the tiniest bit more likely to do the 'right' thing than otherwise.”

I also reached out to the New England Comics store in Cambridge, Mass., to find out if the comic was generating any extra buzz because of the film’s release. I talked to a wonderfully spirited woman named Hanna who told me that the reason Marvel has been so good at adapting its comics to the big screen—besides the quality acting, directing, and special effects—is that it makes movies that are accessible to comic book and non-comic book fans.

“We had a lot of people come in after seeing ‘The Avengers' asking, ‘Hey, who is that purple guy at the end of the film?’” She said. “People started reading Infinity Gaunlet, which eventually led readers to Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Hanna also told me that she expects more people will come into the store after the movie because moviegoers will want all the backstory and anticipate how “Guardians” will tie in with the next “Avengers” movies.

So, I hope that this movie isn’t an hours-long melody of CGI crap with a dash of Chris Pratt wit and crotch-grabbing raccoon awesomeness mixed in. I hope I’m one of those people that heads directly to my local comic book store after the seeing the film to buy as many issues of Guardians of the Galaxy as possible. I hope it’s a lot like the latest “Godzilla” movie, which I found refreshing and something I might actually rewatch eventually. However, Marvel is all about their long-term plan, so I’m trying to temper my emotions.

I’ll just have this song on repeat until the movie comes out.

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