Plonk outside the PVR 'plex at Lower Parel, the mood was getting infinitely Higher. Desi rockers, scraggly bearded dudes and sombre-faced young women - all in night black Tees -- were about to strike up the classic Star Wars theme.
In a bid to update John Wiiliams' classic composition, they plunked at electric guitars, banged a drum set, cymbals clashed. A synthesiser acted up.Screech, hiss, kaplonk, boinggg.
Add to that reggae riffs which rasped out from the nearby happy hours cocktail bar. Lady Gaga purred from the Starbucks speakers. An X'mas carol was being warbled by a designer store's resident Santa Claus. Here was music to chill by, music to celebrate, music for the unveiling of the seventh edition of the grandpapa of all blockbusters.
It's no trade secret that of late, Hollywood has been Happeningwood, giving Bollywood a run for its ticket stubs. Fast and Furious 7, for instance, was one of of 2015's heftiest cash gobblers in the Indian metros.
Steadily,franchise pix have been amassing a lusty, till-boredom-do-us part audience, especially among the campus moviegoers. Jurassic Park, was back in 1993, was such a kickstarter that even my household help persists in inquiring, "Woh badi badi chhibkaliyan (lizards!) kab lautengi? Irrfan Khan to mar gaya lastwalli Jooorassic mein. Ab Nawazuddin ko lenge kya?"
Don't be silly, I shush him up. Pushing his luck, he wants me to buy him a ticket to the naya Ishtaar Waarz. Done,if he attends to the dopiaza about to burn on the gas. Go!
More: The first Star Wars was conceived and delivered by George Lucas, till then the indie wizard of the futuristic cautionary tale THX 1138, and American Graffitti the fab flick about a boys' night out. From the minor league he spaced out to create the now 38-year-old franchise. Nothing compares to the original one, of course, for oldie nostalgiawallas like me.
Hang on though, I'm about to change my cotton-pickin' mind.
So bring on the bugles please. The just-premiered Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a zinger because of its hi-enterainment quotient, inventiveness and powerful potency.
Above all, it has as much heart as it has hardware. The magnum carta helmed by J J Abrams (credentialed with some of the Star Trek movies and Mission Impossible, too) coerced me to wish I was back in my knee-pants, if not diapers.
Truth be told, I'm not a fan of VFX, zip-zap zazmatazz, 3-D glasses which weigh heavy on my bifocals and far-out, prosthetic-enhanced creatures. Despite that hang-up, The Force Awakens is as irresistible as an X'mas stuffed turkey topped by plumcake, which dear ole Ernest Hemingway would have called a moveable feast.
Age and Hemingway actually have nothing to do it. This space adventure caters to and seduces viewers of all generations.
What with internet sites bristling with spoiler alerts already,any attempt at a plot synopsis would be a travesty. Every twist and hair-pin bend has to be experienced to be believed. In the line of reader-friendliness, suffice it to be a bit vaguish.
So, it's back to that legendary clarion call, "A long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away", serious trouble's hubbling, bubbling, toil and troubling. Apparently three decades later (presumably, the exact number of decades is essential to bridge the time-travelling in the sequel-'n'- prequels), the Galaxy is under threat from a fearsome three-dimensional adversary, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). This K-Company creepo is a nuclear law unto himself. And is about to embark on unimaginable destruction. Shudder, he said.
Don't worry,though, go yippee. A defector could just save the day. That's stormtrooper Kenn (John Boyega, Nigerian-British actor, uber impressive) who meets up with tough girl Rey (Daisy Ridley, oozing fire and ice). Aha, mercy be, she's in possession of a droid which contains a top secret planet. Don't ask "How come?", just go with the flow. Enter Han Solo (Harrison Ford, age hasn't dimmed his charisma). Indeed as soon as Han Solo arrives, the pace quickens.
Next: the address of the last of the Jedi Knights, the one and only Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammill), has to be detected. Pronto.
In effect, to find Skywalker is to find Mackenna's Gold. Naturally, the conflict between the virtuous and the vicious escalates. Read: sheer dazzlery involving Destroyer crafts, manic monsters, light sabre duels, nail -chewing suspense and a climax to beat all climaxes. Gratifyingly, the human factor punctuates this joyride throughout to strike that key emotional connect.
If I'm sounding like a kid on a Disneyland joyride, so be it.
To be sure, over time, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T, Avatar and Gravity have weaved in humane subtexts of the more gravitas kind than the Star Wars series.
Yet, that doesn't subtract from the wallop of The Force Awakens at all. On the contrary here's a combo of myriad influences- comic books, westerns, swashbuckers, screwball comedies, James Bondish one-liners, not to forget Stanley Kubrick's The Clockwork Orange as well as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Result: a feelgreat pleasure dome of a movie.
A budget of gazillions of dollars, on occasion, does make for an extravaganza to be cherished for a lifetime. No heavy-duty pretensions here.
Without a doubt, you do wonder if you're likely to reunite with the timeless adorables, be it the hairy Chewbacca, the Mutt and Jeff droids R2D2 and C-3PO, and the feisty Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). Are they back on the scene? Erm, go find out for yourself.
If there's anything amiss, it's just that the screenplay's excessive plotting does challenge your attention span sporadically, the drama's grip loosens, and one of the greatest baddies of all time, the long-deceased Darth Varder is sorely missed.
Such nitpicking aside, the seventh edition is spectacular in the most complimentary sense of the word.
Postscript: Long long ago in 1977, the first Star Wars was dismissed by superstar critic Pauline Kael as "an assemblage of spare parts..with no emotional grip." Overall, critics grumbled that the film was nothing more than a spectacle of "giant baubles manipulated by an infant mind."
However, Gary Arnold of Washington Post had predicted that it would beat the collections of the record-breaking hit Jaws, alter the business grid of American cinema and transform the little-known Harrison Ford into a mega-star.
Arnie was right, Kael wasn't.
Not all the seven Star Wars have been up to scratch. Midway through, the franchise was floundering and how. Auspiciously, it's back in form.
May the force be with you, then. Miss at your own peril.
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