I was five years old when Star Wars first came out and was hooked immediately. I remember focusing on the numbers counting down on the screen in the movie theater when Luke was flying his X-wing through the trench. I also had the impression that I loved the Death Star because it was powerful and looked futuristic (I hated watching it get blown up). I'm looking forward to episode 3.
I enjoyed it so much that it eventually served as the basis for five quasi-satirical (but still humorous) movie parodies.
A little experiment developed as a joke for a Purim Shpiel (that is, a short humorous play performed during the Jewish holiday of Purim) eventually evolved into five full-length movie scripts (40+ pages of printout each) where two rival congregations try to recruit people and convert each other. Not surprisingly, there's going to be a sixth.
The premise is that roughly around the time of Christ a strong protofeminist/egalitarian movement ("Rebels") emerged in Judea. The authorities ("Empire") considered it heresy and exterminated anyone who didn't practice the "official" practices. In doing so, they destroyed all records that the movement ever existed (so we don't know of it today). Of all of the new movements that started up during the era, only Christianity managed to outlast these purges. The feminist movement stayed on as an underground movement (episodes 4-6) and eventually managed to take over the "Empire" congregation. As a result, the "official" customs fell by the wayside and everyone could practice whatever they wanted.
I've shown the text of the first five episodes to a friend of mine who has a sci-fi and Jewish background. He nearly died laughing. I actually want to make an audiotape out of them. There are actually several scenes which take famous Star Wars scenes and turn them on their head:
1. (RETURN OF THE JEDI, SARLACC PIT) "Luke" walks the plank and nods to "Lando", who puts his hand on Lukes "lightsaber". "Luke" jumps into the air doing somersaults as "Lando" tries to throw the "lightsaber" over -- but drops it. "Luke" comes down with his hand stretched out to catch the weapon, but no weapon falls into it. He slowly turns to stare at "Lando", who shrugs. "Luke" shrugs back and starts punching all of "Jabba"'s henchmen to start the fight.
2. (EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, ICE CAVE) "Luke" closes his eyes and stretches his hand out towards his "lightsaber", embedded in the snow. It starts to jiggle. "Luke" is pleased. Then the huge 20-ton boulder sitting next to the "lightsaber" suddenly dislodges itself from the wall instead of the lightsaber and flies straight at "Luke"'s head.
3. (RETURN OF THE JEDI, ENDOR WITH THE EWOKS): "Leia" is in the forest and a little bear cub walks to her. She starts feeding him, and the bear cub starts squealing happily as a stormtrooper comes up and tries to arrest her. That's, of course, when Big Papa Bear crashes out of the forest and promptly starts devouring the stormtrooper. Everyone starts running ("speeder bikes").
4. (ATTACK OF THE CLONES, ATTACK ON AMIDALA): "Amidala" is sleeping when someone drops two poisonous snakes into her apartment. Just before they're about to bite her, "Anakin" and "Kenobi" sense something wrong and rush in. At this point, we find that both men are mortally afraid of snakes. They jump into each other's arms like in a cartoon and start shrieking. This wakes up "Amidala", who basically does what you would expect when she sees two strange men in her bedroom.
And of course, we have the inevitable:
"Hello. My name is Luke Skywalker. You killed my father. Prepare to die".
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Autism: when you can solve world hunger but not tell anyone.
02 Jul 2004, 11:27 am
