121 Days of Star Wars
Minute 37:00 of 121:00
I gotta be honest. I’m tired of all these scenes in the sand.
Oh, you are too? Good, because during these 60 seconds, after 40 minutes of desert that would even tire Moses, we finally see the DEATH STAR.
The Death Star is basically a Bond villain’s wet dream. Usually, the bad guys in James Bond movies have an evil weapon and a secret base. Blofeld, for instance, always has a laser or a plague at his disposal while hiding out in the Alps or Las Vegas. Scaramanga, from the oh-so-serious masterpiece, The Man with the Golden Gun, has a solar-powered super-gun, a gold-plated pistol, an island funhouse hideaway, and a third nipple. They really broke the mold with this guy.
But the Death Star is both. This moon-sized waste of government funding can house the population of a planet while destroying said planet.
But how could a member of James Bond’s rogues’ gallery compete with Grand Moff Tarkin’s giant overcompensation for his tiny space-peen? It’s actually quite simple.
Blofeld’s dormant Japanese volcano from You Only Live Twice could easily be equipped to shoot lava at specific targets. If aiming at, say, Hackensack, NJ, you could magma the shit out of that place. You’d just need to account for the trail of ash between Tokyo and the Eastern United States.
But enough of this Imperial stuff. When this minute starts, we’re still on Tatooine. After listening to Leia’s voicemail, Obi Wan suggests that they both hightail it to Alderaan. This old master just gave Luke the best job offer this side of the Outer Rim Territories. The last known Jedi is offering to teach Luke, a prospect-less pilot pushing 20, a thing or two about the Force. And what does Luke say? He whines, complains he’s got too much to do on his uncle’s farm (on which most droids handle all the chores anyway), and he moves for the door.
In fact, Luke is such a whiner in the original Star Wars, you can compile all his complaints into a single, handy video; like this one by Youtuber SufferingFoolsMusic:
Obi Wan Kenobi gives Luke a look of disappointment and says, “you must do what you feel is right, of course,” with the guilt-inducing delivery of a Jewish grandmother. This makes sense, since he was a certified matchmaker back in the homeland.
With Luke on the fence, the scene wipes from sunny Tatooine to ice cold space. Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer zooms toward us, and the reverse angle gives our first introduction to the Death Star!
We haven’t seen the Empire since Minute 9:00. Twenty-eight minutes is a long time since our last encounter with Vader — that’s a quarter of a Star War ago! And just to remind us how evil they are, that huge ship that took forever to pass overhead at the opening of this film, is just a tiny blip against the Empire’s ultimate weapon.
Once inside, we see we’re in the type of meeting room you’d find if Nazis held a conference inside a Sega Genesis.
And while two lesser commanders bicker over those pesky rebels, Grand Moff Tarkin, Regional Governor and Death Star Activities Coordinator, enters to shut everyone the hell up.
Maybe they quiet down because of Tarkin’s sharp, can-opener face — his bone structure has the kind of angles that could crack open a beer bottle — but the real force to be reckoned with is Vader. Now we’re on his home turf, and even his Imperial subordinates don’t know how to work with him.
Rating: 3.7 out 4 actors who’ve played Blofeld. (Because of Luke’s whining, I docked this minute one Charles-Gray-Blofeld-decoy.)
Best Performance by a Human: Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin exceeds the cool, calm, and collective quota to qualify as the ultimate gentleman villain. He enters to inform his subordinates that the Imperial Senate is no longer of any concern.
Best Performance by a Non-Human: The Death Star nails it’s entrance. The star field backdrop moves slowly in the distance as this massive structure presses itself through space.
Best Performance by a Wise Old Man:
Originally published at mindctrlaltdel.tumblr.com.
