Pre-Digested Experiences,

Or,

Why I Won't Listen to the Damn Star Wars: Phantom Menace Soundtrack Before I See the Movie

By Jon A. Bell

Over the last six months, as I've watched the furor over "Star Wars: Episode I" reach a fever pitch, I've been filled with a mixture of fond recognition, bemusement, and dismay over the attitudes of the fans.

The recognition comes from reminiscing over my original "Star Wars" experience 22 years ago. I was 16 years old, and when my high-school friends and I saw "Star Wars" on its opening weekend, we were blown away. It was genuinely a life-changing experience to see this SF spectacle that made us feel as if anything were possible, and that embodied many of the wild SF concepts that we had seen in books and comics ever since we were children.

The bemusement derives from the recognition: it's amazing to contrast the near-instant "info-gratification" of today's wired world with the one 22 years ago. Today, you can see solid information, rumors, gossip, speculation, pictures and sound files on your favorite subjects on a daily -- hell, an hourly -- basis. Genre subjects such as fantasy and science fiction, of course, are given special appreciation, since the young computer-literate crowd who adopted personal computers and the 'Net tend to gravitate towards these hitherto ghettoized fields. In the late 70s, before the days of VCRs, widespread personal computers, nationwide cable TV, and especially the Internet, SF fans relied on a precious handful of magazines, fanzines, occasional news programs, and one-time-only viewings of movie trailers. A copy of Mediascene Preview (now defunct) which featured Ralph McQuarrie's conceptual art for an upcoming movie called "Star Wars," the novelization (out five months before the film), a couple of printed photos, and the original SW trailer (in front of the movie "Silver Streak") had to keep us going for literally months.

Be that as it may, we survived in those Media Dark Ages, and we still ended up having great experiences when we saw movies such as "Star Wars," regardless of the almost total lack of supplemental information and merchandise.

However, the dismay I sense today isn't just that the near-insane hype and merchandising over "Star Wars" is cheapening the experience. (An easily argued point, but that's another discussion.) What's dismaying is how, in the fans' efforts to absorb every single scrap of information about "Star Wars," many of them are almost certainly setting themselves up to destroy the very thing they most desire: having the experience of seeing this movie be a positive one.

It's astonishing that so many SF fans are so obsessed with this film that they're willing to pore over the Internet and fan magazines for every single shred of gossip, rumor and speculation, every single spoiler, and every single picture, sound clip and music cue for this movie, months before it comes out. Before May 19th, they will read every single review and analyze every single news clip of "Episode I" and George Lucas as if they were NASA scientists interpreting incoming Hubble data. They'll buy the novelization and devour it in one sitting. Grab the illustrated screenplay and try to memorize all the dialogue. Camp out in front of toy stores to grab every action figure and playset that comes out.

And, buy the soundtrack and listen to it dozens of times before the film is released.

Then, when that magic moment arrives, when they're actually sitting in the theater and the movie unfolds, are most of these people going to be enjoying the movie more because they've had their entire experience of this film pre-digested for them over a period of months?

Somehow, I doubt it.

There are going to be fans, of course, who will argue that hyping themselves up for this movie for months simply made the experience all the more intense, that knowing every single plot point and line of dialogue and musical cue didn't actually ruin the film for them. Perhaps; if they can do that, then congratulations.

But for me, for the next few weeks, instead of trying to absorb more and more of this tidal wave of hype over the movie, I actually intend to avoid as much of it as I can. You see, I want to like "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace." I want to see it as a cinematic entertainment that simply transports me to amazing places for a couple of hours.

What I don't want is to sit in a movie theater for two hours and be disappointed because my own imagination -- which can dwarf any ILM special effect ever made -- has been so fueled by hype and out-of-context informational cues that the film itself cannot help but be disappointing and anticlimactic.

My fear is that this exact thing is what too many fans are setting themselves up for. That, by the time you're actually watching the movie, you've been so supercharged with hype that you can't just sit there and enjoy the film as a new experience, but as the culmination of a six-month (or 16-year, if you count "Jedi") delayed orgasm that may never arrive. Several years ago, noted techno-thriller author Michael Crichton wrote a non-fiction book called "Travels." It's an interesting read as he talks about how "traveling" both to the far corners of the globe, and exploring new areas of the human mind (including some bizarre paranormal experiences) have changed his outlook on the world, humanity, and himself. And, one observation he makes is that, all too often, people today don't want to experience something cold; they want to have their experiences pre-screened, pre-digested, pre-reviewed -- hell, pre-experienced! -- before they're ready to take the slightest leap of faith and encounter something that just might be completely unexpected. As an experiment, he suggested the following: pick up a book you know nothing about, and start reading it. Try to go see a movie that you know almost nothing about, and simply watch it as it unfolds. Travel to a place you've never been to before, and don't bring a map or a damn guidebook to point you the way as you explore. Go on a journey, and leave behind your magazines, books, sketchpad, notebook computer or Walkman. Just try to improvise your enjoyment with whatever is at hand, wherever you are. In short, try to remember again how it feels to have experiences completely raw, and unfiltered by a given set of expectations.

...So, what the hell does this have to do with film music? Just this:

I'm a big John Williams fan, and I love his scores.

I have fond memories of "Star Wars" from my adolescence, and I'm hoping that the new film will recapture at least some of that original magic.

And, there's no way in hell that I am going to buy and listen to the "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" soundtrack until after I see the film.

Of course I'm interested in hearing Williams' new score… but I can wait. I've waited 16 years to hear a new John Williams "Star Wars" score, and I can wait a few weeks more. Because, at its core, I would like to see the movie as a fun, fresh entertainment, and not simply as an almost-certain anticlimactic last gasp of a giant hype machine in which the object of affection ends up actually being the least important part of the final mosaic.

If you want to listen to your "Episode I" soundtrack now, then go right ahead; this little diatribe isn't going to stop you. But, even if you're a huge John Williams/"Star Wars"/film music fan, I still suggest this: want to make your experience of seeing the film even more thrilling? Then hold off listening to the score until you've seen the film. See the film fresh, as new and as "un-pre-experienced" as possible.

You might be surprised at how much more you might enjoy it.

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com