As much as we can give George Lucas plenty of shit for
ruining his own Star Wars franchise with the subpar prequel films, the guy
knows how to keep that machine moving forward. His latest bid to make sure Star
Wars (and all of its ancillary products, now available at all fine retailers
near you) stays in the public eye is to essentially take over the Rose Bowl
Parade on New Years Day.
Lucas is going to be the grand marshal of the parade, and he’s
going to bring a “Star Wars Spectacular” with him. The Spectacular will include
two floats – one representing Naboo, the other representing the Forest Moon of
Endor, complete with Ewoks swinging from trees, 200 storm troopers, eight Twi’lek
dancing girls and the 176 piece Grambling State U marching band, who will be
playing “Main Title,” “Imperial March” and “The Throne Room” from the Star Wars
soundtrack (now available at all finer record stores near you).
The storm troopers won’t just be any old dudes in costume –
they’ll be members of the 501st Legion, a national group of people
dedicated to making Civil War re-enactors look cool – these people buy and
maintain their own completely accurate replica Star Wars outfits, which costs
them in the hundreds and hundreds of dollars. They then gather and discuss what
a mockery they have made of the life God has given them. At the parade many of them plan to stand very near the Twi’leks but never actually engage in any conversation with them.
Lucas put out a call to his Legion, and he got 700 audition
tapes. This isn’t the first time that Lucas has mobilized his personal army of
IT professionals and comic store employees – he had members of the 501st
show up at Episode III premieres around the world. What’s disturbing about
this, though, is that Lucas can activate these people at any time – essentially
he’s the Osama bin Laden of a great, unwashed sleeper cell of Al Queera
terrorists all over the world. While our attention was overseas the real threat
was forming right here at home. What Star Wars movie did I see that in, anyway…
(BTW, yes, those are really the members of the 501st drilling for the parade. Photo by Roy Wuang from their home page)