(Photo Courtesy of Lucasfilm)The Good Beer: Lagunitas IPA
Given that it’s the week of initial reckoning, otherwise known as midterms, nothing will serve you better this weekend than a crisp Lagunitas IPA.
It’s possible that I am genetically predisposed to like IPAs, specifically the Lagunitas IPA, but the hop proportion in this gem of a beer is near perfect. As advertised on the company's website, Lagunitas wishes to get “malt and hops working together to balance it all out on your ‘buds so you can knock back more than one without wearing yourself out.” Mission accomplished.
Further, the beer has a nice citrusy tang, giving the consumer a rewarding taste to accompany the masterful hop balance. This is most important with the aftertaste of the beverage, as it doesn’t leave a bitter, nasty taste in your mouth, but a fruity, acidic reminder that you just enjoyed a great brew.
Coming in at 6.2 percent alcoholic content, the Lagunitas IPA is not overwhelmingly strong at all. This makes for a responsible two or three beer tasting session, fit for an enjoyable evening on the porch during this recently beautiful stretch of October weather.
The Bad Movie: Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
All things need balance — and this week I found the yang to Lagunitas IPA’s yin in George Lucas’ straight-to-TV "Star Wars" catastrophe, “Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.”
The movie opens with a young girl walking with a cute, fuzzy Ewok. The first shots of the film are taken from a distance, so the heartwarming idea of the little fuzzball walking with a young human is still intact. This all falls apart once the audience gets an up close view of the Ewok, which goes from playful teddy bear to Chucky-level demon rodent in a matter of minutes. This is only intensified by the Ewok’s dialect, which attempts to maintain the accent of the original "Star Wars" Ewok language, but morphed to speak English. What I thought was going to be a pleasant trip to a nostalgic past turned on me in a matter of minutes.
The two are walking and conversing in the peaceful Endorian wood, coming upon the father character, Paul Gleason, who played the principal in “The Breakfast Club,” to say hello. Gleason’s character is a 1,000 times less cool Han Solo. He’s got the hair and the pistol, but missing everything in between.
In a matter of seconds, this peaceful paternal moment is disrupted by an invasion on the Ewok’s forest village — by Orcs! The Empire is nowhere to be found in this film. The antagonists are a set of growling, mongrel goblins that are centuries behind the technological advances of most of the empire. Even the Tusken raiders from Tatooine seem to have a leg up on these guys.
During the attack on the village, the little girl, Cindel, and the Ewok from the opening scenes (also the main diplomatic Ewok from the “Return of the Jedi”), Wicket, attempt to escape to Cindel’s father’s ship. Upon arrival, the “Breakfast Club” principal is being held at gunpoint by an orcish warlord and an evil sorceress clad in red. He sees Cindel off in the distance and wills a gun from one of the orcish henchmen, buying him space to run after his daughter and protect her from harm. Halfway through his escape, he takes a laser to the arm, dying only moments after getting Cindel to safety. Wicket and Cindel are ultimately captured and taken away, until, of course, they escape captivity and start scaling mountains.
The film sets the threshold for absurdity terribly high. All within the first act, the most heinous absurd indulgences include: the sorceress rubbing her magic ring and transforming into a raven, completely denigrating any logic or canon behind the Force thus far in the "Star Wars" universe, and Cindel being nabbed by a dragon and taken away, until Wicket is able to save her with the hang glider he conveniently found all of the materials to make in the cave and then navigated with physic defying adeptness.
The tone continues throughout the movie. The story goes on to include a convenient run-in and alliance with a grumpy old man who has a heart of gold, a speed-freak rodent that has one of the most horrifying cockeyed, sadistically happy permanent facial expressions in cinematic history; and, naturally, the Ewok zip-line escape from the evil lair of the orcish overlord.
Throughout the film I was confounded by what was happening. It seemed to take an infinite amount of liberties with everything that I had known about the "Star Wars" universe up to that point. After some reflection, I think the film does serve an actual purpose: to distinguish Endor from the rest of the galaxy.
Endor is not like other planets — it’s lush, uninhabited by civilized society and operates under a different thaumaturgical atmosphere than any of the other planets. While this is a stretch, it’s one that can agree with George Lucas’ well known love with the idea of primitive tribes standing up to the proverbial Goliath. Lucas has commented on the legendary Japanese epic “Seven Samurai,” and its influence on his work.
OK, I get this. But George, you accomplished everything you needed to do to satisfy that influence in “Return of the Jedi.” “Ewoks” threatens the entire Star Wars canon.
This movie is a very, very bad movie. Watch it with your friends this weekend. It’ll make you feel better about that paper you wrote last week.
Reach the reporter at zjenning@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @humanzane
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