In a recent Marginal Revolution post, Tyler Cowen posed an intriguing hypothetical: what if David Lynch had directed the film Return of the Jedi? Not a purely academic question: we learn that there was at least brief talk on the subject.
Coincidentally enough, a few years before the second set of three films showed up, I had posed the question to my wife of David Fincher directing a remake of The Empire Strikes Back. Imagine how the mind behind Alien3 and Se7en would handle the story of a gifted resistance warrior who keeps hearing the voice of his fallen master. Just before an assault on their base, he suffers a full vision of his old teacher, then collapses from exposure to the cold. In the hallucination the old man had given instructions, which the warrior remembers hazily: he is to head a remote outpost for further training. The assault comes, lead by the dictator’s second in command, who — unbeknown to all — is the warrior’s father. So the warrior heads into deep space: not in an explorer craft, not with a crew, but in a tiny, short-range fighter, alone. With an android. In deep space.
When he arrives at last, a centuries-old, reptilian creature appears: his new master. His training begins, but the warrior is still plagued with hallucinations and terrible anxieties, and with what may be visions of the near future. This way his father is able to lure him from his training, set an expected trap, then make an unexpected offer: kill the tyrant with me and we will restore peace to the universe.
I’ve taken pains not to alter the details, but nevertheless, is this the film you saw? Are you sure?
And by the way? She hated the idea of David Fincher directing the remake.
It would be hard to think up a film that more whitewashed its own gravity than The Empire Strikes Back. That is to say, hard until George Lucas produced Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The tyrant, years earlier, to no other ends than the expansion of power, openly sets one army against another in a war that tears a horrible swath across the galaxy and engulfs entire worlds. The first army is underwritten by a deceived separatist movement. Their soldiers are battle droids, true believers, and the occasional Sith assassin. The opposing force is a clone army, so their recruitment goals are no object, either. It is simply a matter of spawn, deploy, spawn, deploy, spawn, deploy. It is the perfect mix for the emperor’s endless war and seizure of power.
Again, are those the films you saw? Maybe David Fincher should direct remakes of episodes II, III and V.
All that said, don’t even pretend for a second that you don’t want to hear this piece of music:
