6th time thoughts: don’t be the people who missed seeing Star Wars in the theater. you’ll regret it.
1. I was lucky enough to see Star Wars in the theater when it came out. I cannot TELL you how many scifi & film fans I’ve talked to since who deeply regret never having seen it on the big screen, let alone having had the chance to see it before anyone really understood what it was, what it would do to genre film, how that effect would ripple out to mainstream cinema. To see Star Wars before you were prepared for anything remotely like it…it wasn’t an experience that could be duplicated by watching it at home, or by watching an indie theater big screen showing years later.
Fury Road is that experience.
Don’t miss seeing it on the big screen. Don’t be all those people who say, ‘Damn, I can’t believe I didn’t see this game changer action art-house rock opera (say it with me now) FUCKING MOVIE…in the theater.’
2. By this point I sit in strung anticipation silencing my phone and tucking away my purse…and when the first soundtrack cues hit the speakers I slide down in my seat so that all I can see is the screen. It feels like a friend, like a presence. I am transported.
This is ridiculous. No other piece of visual media has ever done this to me. A few rare and precious fics and books, but nothing on a screen. Nothing through speakers.
But I have surrendered. I don’t care that it seems ridiculous. I just don’t care. Because it makes me so deeply deeply happy.
3. I had to get my phone fixed before I went to the theater today. I ended up striding around the store with out flung arms describing the practical effects to the phone guys. I think I alarmed them. (one decided to go on that recommendation. the other dismissed the movie as whatevs)
4. More and more I see this complete polarization in reactions to the movie, and I find myself wondering how much of it stems from visual processing differences and how much of it arises from..hmm..for want of a better term I’ll have to say film literacy (no intent to sound snobbish – some people do not gain any enjoyment for movies by saturating themselves in commentary tracks and comparisons of cinematography and such. either you’re obsessed or you’re not. those who are not probably have more peace in their souls.).
I can completely see how people who process visuals in a different way than I do, could look at the movie and see ‘motion, sand, more motion, visually full of sameness. also? sand.’
i can also see how people who haven’t spent endless fascinated hours pouring over the language of film, the intricacies of building a visual story, the subtleties of character development in acting rather than scripting, could look at this movie and say, ‘Plot? what plot? Character differentiation? There was none!’ They respond to a different kind of story telling, and Fury Road doesn’t hit the beats they need.
reaction A: ‘all I saw was sand’
reaction B: ‘UNBELIEVABLE. WORK OF ART. [say it with me now] THIS FUCKING MOVIE’
…not many reactions in between.
5. Similarly, I keep reading reviews that dismiss the ongoing obsession so many of us have with Fury Road under the heading ‘it’s all about the women for them – that’s cool, whatever.’
This is one area where I feel pretty heated – because its NOT about the presence of fully developed women in this film, or the lack of gender slurs in this film, or the absence of microagressions of any kind in this film, or the lack of male-gaze camera work in this film, or even that it passes the Bechdel test, the Mako Mori test or any other test one could care to drum up that denotes excellent representation of women in film.
I don’t love this movie because of those things – the cultural course correction of those things allow me to be completely undefended before this movie. I don’t have to have my genre-savvy-female filter turned on. Because the movie isn’t hurting me, I am free to see the phenomenal piece of work that it is.
I love the movie for the movie itself – for everything it is as a visual masterpiece; stripped of all distracting character inconsequentials to reveal the people themselves; a story so fundamental to accumulated millennia of human myth that it resonates for absolutely anyone – the journey, the struggle, and the return home with new wisdom.
This movie welcomes me with complete integrity, with George Miller’s delighted child-like smile, ecstatic to share the experience.
‘Come and play!’ it says; and I do.
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