Readers of my blog - or, more likely, friends of mine on Facebook - got a surprise earlier this month. Out of nowhere on a Friday appeared this video, in which I star in a reenactment of the interrogation scene from the The Dark Knight:
Many of you may have wondered how - or why - this came about. Is this just what I do in my spare time? Well, only on certain weekends. But this reenactment - created with the help of Jared Van Dyke, my college friend (and noted Batman expert) as Batman, Jule Van Dyke, his wife, as the camerawoman, Tony Van Dyke, his brother, as Commissioner Gordon, and with other members of the Van Dyke family (though not Dick) in production roles - has been a long time in the making.
The story begins whenever it was that I first realized I could do a more-than-passable Joker impression, which I believe was sometime in high school. In college, when I met Jared, and we bonded over our mutual love of Batman (and argued over our different philosophical approaches to societal decline), we eventually started characterizing our relationship - in jest, of course - as Batman vs. The Joker.
With this goal in mind, we made a few preparations. Over Christmas Break, we watched the original scene and memorized our lines. When we returned to campus, we rehearsed a few times and did some blocking. Jared procured a pair of boxing gloves, and I told him to hit me convincingly hard (and, if he ever forgot his lines, just to hit me again and shout "WHERE ARE THEY!"). A few hours before our performance, we went out to the local Wal-Mart and bought flour and green food coloring; not wanting to buy lipstick, I borrowed a tube from a girl on the track team who didn't mind the use. I then borrowed a vest from a friend, but already had a good shirt and green pants; Jared had already assembled his costume. We were ready.
When we finally went on stage, we were a hit. Jared and I (and Elliott Murphy, our teammate whom Tony succeeded in the role of Gordon) thought it went well when we did it. We thoroughly terrified our audience, won the talent show, and received many compliments for a long time thereafter. There was only one problem: It wasn't filmed. Unlike every other talent show act I performed in college, this one, arguably my best, was not. I was crestfallen. The only evidence that the performance ever happened at all is the memories and reactions of those who witnessed, the sternum I briefly bruised from Jared's punches to it, and this photo:
Pictured: BFFs
But this was hardly enough. I tried to satisfy my acting bug in other ways. One of those ways was by, well, actually acting. I auditioned for and won a part in a one-act play on campus that year called Degas C'est Moi, playing an unemployed New York man who wakes up one day and decides that he is the deceased French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas, and goes throughout his day to see if anybody "notices."
My actor's portrait for Degas C'est Moi. The caption references my role "in a reenactment of the interrogation scene from The Dark Knight." (Better view here.)
The first scene of Degas C'est Moi. Photo credit: Caroline Kennedy Green.
Assessing the aesthetics of a toothbrush in Degas C'est Moi. Photo credit: Caroline Kennedy Green.
Marveling at the beauty of a homeless man in Degas C'est Moi. Photo credit: Caroline Kennedy Green.
Even this, however, was not enough. I wanted to reenact the interrogation scene from The Dark Knight, ideally with Jared, Elliot, and myself all reprising our roles. And this time, I wanted it filmed. As time went on, however, the dream became ever more impractical. Elliot and Jared both graduated, married, and moved away. Soon, I graduated, and moved far away from both of them. The three of us did reunite for our college's homecoming in 2015, but we were not prepared to take advantage of the opportunity as we perhaps should have. It seemed my dream was lost, and I would just have to keep telling people how great it was in lieu of having some proof to show them. Not having some live video proof had become one of my greatest college regrets.
But I am the sort of person who does not let a dream die. I may take a while to get around to realizing it, but I can be Ahab-like in my determination and persistence (see, e.g., my first foray into competitive eating). And so it was with this. Around February of this past year, I learned that my family would be vacationing in July in South Haven, Michigan, a town right on the coast of Lake Michigan, and about an hour away from Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids just so happens to be where Jared lives now. Realizing the opportunity, I mentioned it to Jared, who wholeheartedly agreed to it. I then blocked out vacations days, and Jared made sure he would be in town during that period. At last, the dream wold come true! All we had to do was practice our lines, gather our costumes, and wait.
As the appointed time drew closer, our preparations became more serious. Two weeks out, I began to read my lines every night to ensure memorization. When I finally escaped the wilderness of the Cleveland Republic National Convention, I returned to Cincinnati and began to assemble a costume and make-up: green pants and a purple shirt from Good-Will; a green vest (ordered online); green food-coloring (Wal-Mart). Jared, for his part, procured a Batman mask and shirt, and found some pretty convincing pants and boots. He also managed to conscript Tony, his brother, Julie, his wife, and other family members of his to be involved in various capacities, and found a good restaging location: his parents' garage. We were ready.
When the day and the hour had come, I drove out to Jared's residence. Upon arrival, he and I ran through the script a few times without doing any physicality or blocking. Confident that we had the script down, we then went onto blocking. Again, with the original as our guide, we divided the scene into five distinct sections. We would film each of these separately, since each one had a roughly internally consistent yet unique set of attendant angles and positions that would make transitioning from one to the next relatively seamless. We then had a nice dinner together. Since I had heard that Heath Ledger achieved his Joker's excessive tongue movement by dehydrating himself, I, too refused to drink water for most of the day leading up to the shoot (despite running 11 miles that morning), including at dinner. Satisfied with our meal, we then suited up (Jared fully, I declining to put on my makeup), and drove over to our shooting location. At the time, I looked something like this:
"Hello, ladies."
And Jared looked something like this:
#Batmanselfie
At the Van Dyke residence, we prepared for our shoot. We had to block of
all sources of natural light in the Van Dyke garage, and remove all
unnecessary debris that could get in shots. We also had to set up our
camera, figure out lighting, and other such technicalities. Before we
began, I realized we didn't have any flour; the Van Dykes graciously
supplied corn starch, which worked just as well. I applied all of this to my face (much as Heath Ledger applied much of the Joker's makeup himself). You have already seen
the final result, but here is a different picture.
"Hello, ladies. Hey, why are you running?"
With everything up and ready, we now only had to film. We confronted technical problems and filming issues as we met them, adjusting positions and angles based on how things looked on the camera. We improvised frequently along the way, often to wonderful results. Instead of starting in mostly darkness, we used a single lightbulb, cut to black when Gordon left the scene, used this a transition for the next scene, and had Batman appear behind the Joker when all the lights turned on. Lacking handcuffs, we decided to use a zip-tie instead.
Filming of the first scene about to begin, with the Joker (me) and Gordon (Tony Van Dyke)
The fun result of this was that Gordon (played by Tony Van Dyke) released the Joker from his bonds by brandishing a knife, giving the scene a momentary edge there that the original did not have. I did something smaller and subtler when I decided to give the Joker an "oh crap!" look upon Batman's angrily grabbing him, something also lacking in the original (this is a face probably more suiting Cesar Romer's Joker than Heath Ledger's):
"Oh crap, I made him mad!"
To create the noise of the Joker hitting his head on the table, a member of the Van Dyke family banged his hands off camera on a similarly-textured object in timing with when my head appeared to hit the table. Many such adjustments and improvisations marked our filming process; while it was a challenge, all were met successfully. That's not to say filming went perfectly, mind you; we had many, many bloopers, some of which you can see in this video:
Probably the trickiest scenes to film came at the end, when the physicality of the scene and the angles required to capture it vastly increased. But these we captured to our satisfaction as well.
"For the last time, Batman, I don't have your lunch money."
"Sorry, it's naptime."
"Could you hold on a second? I have to take this call."
"Say, what are you doing after this? You wanna hang out?"
One of the most unexpectedly difficult parts of the shoot was punching me in the face. We wanted to recapture as much of the physicality of the original as we could (though I did not ask Jared to hit me as hard as Batman actually would hit the Joker, as Heath Ledger reportedly asked Christian Bale during the filming of that scene). To do that, we did some trial-and-error punching-me-in-the-face to determine how hard and real-looking a blow I could sustain and not mind; the bloopers video above contained footage of these tests. This obstacle we also overcame.
Wham!
Sock!
Though I did say above I was not prepared for Ledger's purported level of physicality, I did achieve one result close to it. At the end of the shoot, after multiple punches in the face, I did, in fact, end up bleeding from the mouth; one of Jared's punches forced one of my teeth up against my gums. It didn't hurt. But it was so, so cool.
The bright red spot on the floor, directly below my hand, is my blood-infused saliva.
After filming roughly an hour of footage - a process that took far more than an hour - we completed principal photography. By this point, I was bloodied, sweaty, and most of the corn starch had come off my face anyway (which I think is appropriate, since the Joker's makeup in the original had to be applied and could easily smear or come off.).
But this was only the beginning of our little video. As Jared - and, to a much lesser extent, I - learned over the next month or so of editing, principal photography is only one stage of production. Editing is just as important, requires just as much effort, and has just as much impact on the final product. Jared had to look through the hour or so of footage (compare to the shot-to-used footage ratio of other major Hollywood productions) to see what went best with what. We had some discussions about which angles for things looked best, and how things should be cut, but, on the whole, I yielded to his judgment. Unlike most movies these days, we didn't add to much in post: Just the Joker voiceovers that bookend the video, the punch noises (if you thought those were real, I apologize), and the audio from the actual scene (which we don't own, Warner Bros., so please, don't sue us!). And with that, the final product was born. Here it is again, if you want to watch it again with renewed appreciation after learning its history:
So, there it is: the production history of our little video. Perhaps it is too insignificant to deserve such a history, but I've given it one now thanks to this blog, so there's no turning back. I am happy we finally managed to realize this dream of mine, and to erase one of my biggest regrets from my college (now if I only I could do something about that trip to Tijuana...). My only regret now is that I forgot to say "to them, you're just a freak...like me" in the final footage we used, but oh well. The important thing is that I now have this video to point to people should the need ever arise. I hope this is the last Joker impression I have to do; I'll be happy to have this character out of me. Although he may never really go away. Maybe Jared and I are destined to do this forever. Because madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little...push...
"If you think I look good now, imagine how much better I will look when I'm evil."
I have written a lot about Star Wars for this blog (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here...). That was not necessarily my intention when I started it; I don't think Star Wars is even my biggest nerd passion. But hey, it's fun, it gets the clicks, and it's current, so why not?
Filming for Star Wars Episode VIII is currently underway. What will happen? No one outside of the cast and crew knows. And frankly, I don't want to know. I deliberately - and with much difficulty - went into Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens with as little knowledge of it as possible, and my first viewing was one of my best cinematic experiences ever as a result.Therefore, I won't trawl the Internet for rumors, leaked scripts, drone footage, etc of Episode VIII. When the trailers come out, I'll probably watch those, but that's it. As of the writing of this post, I know nothing about Episode VIII, not even the title.
But I did accidentally encounter a headline somewhere on social media recently that asked a simple question: What if Rey turned to the Dark Side? Well, this got my imagination firing. And it made me realize that Rey turning evil might be the best thing that could happen to this new trilogy.
I've defended the character of Rey from what I think are unfair accusations of her being a Mary Sue (a Mary Sue is a, basically, a perfect character who does nothing wrong, impresses everyone with her skills, and is even perhaps wish fulfillment for her creator). But much of my opinion of the new trilogy will still depend on what it does with her. She has to have at least some major failing to have a full arc. The safe way to do this is either to have Luke train Rey and have them both go take on Snoke (and, presumably, lose, in Episode VIII at least, because otherwise how can there be an Episode IX, unless Ren is somehow the only villain, or some other villain[s] pop up); or have Rey foolishly go take on Snoke herself without Luke and have her defeated soundly, only rescued from certain death at the last minute by a timely intervention by Luke or somebody else. But neither of these is very interesting, and would be difficult to stretch for a whole movie. What if, instead, Rey becomes evil? This, to me, is the most interesting scenario, and so I decided to sketch out how it might happen.
The Force Awakens ended with Rey tentatively handing Luke's old lightsaber back to him, having finally found the old master. What if VIII begins with Rey, at first in awe of Luke, starting to lose respect for him as she asks him what has been on all of our minds: Where have you been? Do you know that Han is dead because of you? Do you know that the Hosnian system is destroyed because of you? Let's assume, based on Han's remark in TFA that Luke has gone to the site of the first Jedi temple, that Luke, now a mature Jedi master, had fled there to try to discover the secret of defeating Snoke, whom he learned was an ancient, powerful, once-defeated but now-resurgent evil out of the far-distant past of the Jedi-Sith conflict. Not knowing how to defeat him in the present, he returned to the site of the first Jedi temple to seek the ancient wisdom necessary to defeat the equally ancient evil of Snoke. Had he stayed and fought without this secret knowledge, he knew he would have been defeated, and with him would have died the only hope of defeating Snoke. His long yet necessary time in exile has been full of investigation, excavation, study, meditation, and preparation for taking on Snoke, in stark contrast to his brash actions in The Empire Strikes Back. There is also an element of hopelessness and futility in his exile, though he doesn't want to admit it; to a small extent, he is simply tired of the effort required to keep the galaxy safe, a la Mr. Incredible:
Meanwhile, Rey, confident and a bit arrogant from defeating Ren, can't believe that, as she sees it, Luke is just sitting on his hands while Snoke and Ren threaten her friends and the galaxy as a whole. She trains with Luke for a bit, but Luke sees his old, rash self in her--too much of it, perhaps. She is impatient, reckless, and, at times, angry. If she could, she would march into Snoke's lair and take him on herself. After a frustrating time with Luke, who constantly demands patience from her (as Yoda asked of him), she upbraids him, thinks he is weak, and leaves him behind, despite his warnings.
Meanwhile, during all of this, we see Ren trying to complete his training under Snoke, as was said at the end of TFA. But he is having trouble doing so (this creates an interesting comparison/parallel between Rey and Ren as
they both struggle with their training under their respective masters; you could even cut back and forth between the two of them regularly during this part of the movie, at parallel points in their training, to further the connection).
Killing his father has not given him the closure he had sought (a stage direction for the official script of The Force Awakensreads "Kylo Ren is somehow WEAKENED by this wicked act"). It has,
instead, added to his inner turmoil, which he cannot seem to control and
channel in the manner of the truly powerful Sith. Flashbacks
during/as part of this training period give insight into why Ren turned,
who the Knights of Ren are, and how they with Snoke forced Luke into
exile. They also perhaps hint at Snoke's origin without outright
revealing it; the physical person of Snoke himself, moreover, is not
seen. Only his disembodied voice and the massive hologram are visible to
us (perhaps with some enticing, Vader-esque exceptions here and there).
Something like this, to parallel Empire.
We also see some hints, perhaps, of ancient creatures that always seem
to be around Snoke, much as Voldemort was always flanked by Nagini;
perhaps Snoke makes Ren face one of them (they will be this movie's main "creature feature," as every Star Wars movie has at least one bizarre creature). Frustrated by his inability to
complete his training, Ren becomes convinced that the only thing that
will give him the closure he needs now is killing Luke--and maybe Leia as well.
Back at the Resistance base (which can either be the same location as in TFA, or a new location, much as the Rebellion moved to Hoth in Empire), Rey convinces Finn and a small coterie of willing Resistance members to join her in a secret effort to take on Snoke in his own lair, the location of which Luke has revealed to her but on which he won't act, adding to Rey's frustrations. Notably, she tries but fails to convince Chewbacca to come with her; in a typically-humorous Han Solo-style conversation, Chewbacca says it seems like a bad idea (Chewy: "Rawwr!" Rey: "What do you mean it's a bad idea?"). They steal some Resistance ships, since they don't think they would get Resistance approval for this mission (or it is explicitly denied them), perhaps because its fleet, much reduced by the carnage of The Force Awakens, is stretched thin fighting to a standstill against the also-reduced forces of the First Order. Then, with the Millennium Falcon leading, they sneak onto Snoke-world (which should be really unique among planets thus far encountered, but I'm not sure exactly how...ideas welcome). They do this undetected, because they have a small fleet, and thanks to covert means, the exact nature of which I haven't determined but should at least be mentioned somehow (the hyperspeed trick from TFA?).
From here, I can see two potential paths. I can imagine Rey, Finn, and her team finding Snoke's lair, making their way past the First Order troops guarding it (as well as some of Snoke's ancient creatures?), and then confronting Ren (and his Knights?), with all but Rey and Finn slaughtered along the way, and those two disarmed. I can also imagine a scenario in which Rey, unknowingly tapping into her Dark Side urges, takes on those same forces (including Ren) and defeats Ren once again. In the first scenario, Ren and his Knights would bring the two of them to Snoke himself against their will. In the second scenario, which I think I like better, Rey (and to a lesser extent Finn) defeats Ren again and make their way into Snoke's inner sanctum (maybe here, instead of earlier, Snoke unleashes his ancient creatures, which act similarly not only to Nagini but also to Flotsam and Jetsam in service of Ursula in The Little Mermaid).
There's just no way Snoke ends up being this fabulous.
The movie then cuts to Luke, who is now bearing the weight of the guilt of all the deaths his inaction has let happen. In a self-deprecating monologue with R2--whom Rey had left with Luke--that hearkens back to the Original Trilogy (interspersed with beeps and whatnot), we see his thoughts and his guilt add up, until he finally decides to return to the Resistance base (whose location Rey has revealed to him, if he didn't know it already), even though he is not sure yet that he can defeat Snoke. He finds his old X-wing, says "I hope this old thing still works," jokingly asks R2 if R2 (and he himself) still knows how to fly, and, with R2 in the cockpit, flies back to the Resistance base. Here he has a powerful reunion with Leia (Luke wanting to see Leia, and gather a force to take on Snoke, are my responses to the objection of why he doesn't just go straight to Snoke if he already knows where Snoke is).
He also briefly mourns Han, confirms what Rey has done, and gathers another team to rescue her--this time with Leia's approval--including Poe and Chewy. In a scene reminiscent of this one from Return of the Jedi, we learn that Leia wants to go, but Luke, being overbearing and over-protective of his sister, forbids it. Leia protests, asking Luke to think of all they have done together, and reminding him that she has more than held her own in the past, even saving him on at least one occasion. But Luke stresses that the Resistance--which is still fighting pitched battles against the First Order all over the galaxy--needs her, that he is the one Ren and Snoke want, and that he can't let any more deaths happen because of him--or let any more deaths weigh on his conscience. Leia, though annoyed, agrees.
Now we cut back to Rey and Finn, who are in Snoke's inner sanctum, which seems very old and is covered in undecipherable symbols, hinting at Snoke's ancient origins. Rey and Fin armed and ready to take him on (assuming the second scenario in which they go in having defeated the First Order and the Knights to get in). As they approach, there is a man behind the curtain-style revealing that the real Snoke is, contrary to his massive holograms, a tiny, seemingly-decrepit ancient figure, much resembling the old woman from the "Chocolate" episode of SpongeBob, in fact. This is a parallel to the reveal of Yoda in Empire, although this time the figure is evil instead of good (so basically a misdirection on par with what Darth Jar Jar would have been, if Lucas had actually intended it, and actually gone through with it).
Pictured: What I think Snoke will actually look like. Idea credit: Rooney Columbus.
Rey and Finn, seeing this, go to attack Snoke, but are immediately flung backward by a powerful Force push (or attacked and restrained by Snoke's serpentine servants, Laocoon-style; if so, Finn and Rey should ask "what the hell are those!?" before they are attacked), knocking out Finn (even though this already happened in The Force Awakens). Rey tries to get up, but she is immobilized. She then finds herself floating, still immobilized, toward the tiny but powerful Snoke himself. "You have come to defeat me, I see? How very brave. And how very stupid," Snoke says. "You have no idea who I am. I hold an ancient power, beyond your reckoning." Rey struggles, then looks back at Finn. "Ah, your friend? I have no use for him. I care not for him. You, on the other hand..." Snoke, without lifting a finger, spins Rey around like she's a model at an exhibition. "You have great power in you. And I shouldn't be surprised, given who you are." Rey is shocked. Snoke notices. "Oh, he didn't tell you? I should have figured. He is the one who abandoned you in the first place [note from Jack: This is assuming that I have correctly inferred from The Force Awakens that Luke trained Rey as a child but then abandoned her on Jakku when he fled into exile. It doesn't have to be; this is a somewhat dispensable element of my plot. I could see Rey being mad enough at Luke without this being the case]. "I'm sure he didn't tell you that either." Snoke then reveals to Rey that she is:
a) Obi-Wan's granddaughter
b) a Palpatine clone of some kind
c) the child of Luke or Han
d) Somehow an offspring of Snoke himself (I hope not this; a bit too Empire Strikes Back).
e) Something else that explains her strong innate Force abilities in a satisfying yet also surprising manner (this being the key necessary element of her identity and the reveal, in my mind)
Rey refuses to believe it, of course, but Snoke proves it to her with a vision of the sort that she had in TFA when she touches Luke's lightsaber. It functions as a kind of flashback, revealing Rey's origins. Rey is distraught, and her anger at Luke increases. "Yes, you are angry. You should be." But then Rey remembers where she is, and in whose clutches she finds herself. "That doesn't matter. You are evil. You have killed millions. I don't care what Luke did. I hope he comes here and kills you himself." But Snoke, confident as ever, gives an evil smile and begins a classic villainous monologue. "He won't do it. He's too weak. Just like all the Jedi. Including his father" (this is a reference to a deleted scene from TFA, one that appears in the novelization,in which Snoke explains that Darth Vader was weak because he never fully embraced the Dark Side).
Pictured: A Jedi kills a Sith.
Snoke goes on to explain that the Jedi are incompetent, weak, spineless, and incapable of keeping peace and order in the galaxy (much as Jonathan V. Last of the Weekly Standard has argued). "Only the Sith have brought order to the galaxy. Look at your history, child. Again and again, the Jedi have let this galaxy fall into chaos. Only under the guidance of the Sith has it maintained order." Snoke could even say that the Empire was a force for good and order (again, as Jonathan Last has argued), which would help explain the First Order's desire to recapture the Empire's glory (and its obsession with giant space weapons). Rey is still angrily denying it, but when she begins to think about what Luke has (and hasn't) done, a small portion of the idea begins to penetrate her mind. If Ren is in the room at this point, he begins to wonder what is going on.
We then cut to Luke, Poe, and their Resistance band, who have to go through an aerial battle before they land on Snoke-world (their fleet is larger, and they don't use whatever technique allowed Rey and her group to get there undetected). This allows Luke to show off some of his rusty but still extant piloting skills, though perhaps he is outshone somewhat by Poe's youthful dexterity (maybe leading to some "I'm too old for this shit"-style self-deprecation from Luke, expressed, again, in an Original Trilogy-style "conversation" with R2). On the ground, they have to fight through whatever remaining First Order troops (and Snoke creatures; when Luke and his group see them, one of them remarks something like "I though all of these things were extinct!," further reinforcing the ancientness of Snoke) stand between them and Snoke. Snoke, Ren, and Rey, meanwhile, all sense the presence of Luke. Snoke tells Ren/his Knights to confront them and to leave him alone with Rey. Ren, chomping at the bit to get the closure he so desperately seeks, barely needs to be told. Ren comes out to confront Luke, lightsaber blazing, in the midst of a temper tantrum (if Ren's Knights are with him, perhaps he tells them to leave Luke to him). The now mature, wise, confident, and patient Luke puts up a defense in a style suiting his new self. Call it Jedi rope-a-dope. It hearkens back to Obi-Wan's calm, confident parrying of Anakin in Revenge of the Sith. But Luke and Ren are still evenly-matched.
Yes, I do think some callbacks to the prequels would be OK in this new trilogy.
As they fight, we cut back to Rey's mental struggle with Snoke. Remarkably yet believably, she begins to accept some of his premises. He shows her Luke struggling with Ren, whom she has managed to defeat already (either once or twice, depending on which scenario above you go with). "You see? He is a weak old man. This is the man who is supposed to be save the galaxy? He can't even save himself. The galaxy is not safe with him. It is safe with me." Snoke then begins to elaborate on his relationship with Ren. "In truth, he is not the best pupil. There is an inner turmoil in him that will forever keep him from greatness. But I sense no such turmoil in you. There is a purity in you, one that you now foolishly direct toward that which you think is good, but which, under my teaching, can act in service of the greatest good of all: order."
This is all a development of Snoke's interest in Rey in The Force Awakens; recall that, before Ren and Rey battle, Snoke asks Ren to bring Snoke to her. Rey starts thinking, then, stunningly yet credibly, says yes, she'll join Snoke. Snoke lets her go. For a moment after Snoke releases her, Rey looks at her lightsaber, and Snoke, his back to her, is almost tempting her to cut him down at his most vulnerable. But, entirely of her own free will, she demurs, and joins Snoke in a vessel to escape their current hideaway (Snoke, playing it close to the chest, is secretly a bit concerned that Luke actually has found out how to defeat him and wants to make sure an evil, all-powerful Rey is standing between the two of them before Luke finds him again). At this point, Finn awakes and calls after Rey. She briefly stops, looks back, and then either simply turns forward again and ignores him, or uses the Force in some cruel way to knock him out (Force lightning would be the least believable but also the most cool-looking and provocative; a simple Force push across the room would do fine).
We cut back to Luke and Ren, still fighting. They are also in a war of words. Something like this:
Ren: "Han Solo was a weak old man! Just like you. So easy to kill."
Luke: "He was a great man, he was my friend, and he was your father, however much you want to deny it. There is still good in you."
I could also see them arguing over who is the proper inheritor of the legacy of Darth Vader, with Ren zeroing in on Darth Vader's evil, and Luke focusing on his redeeming good in his final acts.
Luke: "You think my father was an evil man. But you didn't see what he did for me in his final moments. He saved my life. Without him, I wouldn't be here."
Ren: "And that was his only mistake!"
But as they continue to fight, they both turn to see a vessel blast off from Snoke's inner sanctum; being Force-sensitive, they both know that Snoke has left with Rey. For Luke, this is saddening (and distracting), another failure. But for Ren, this is infuriating; he has been abandoned by his master for a superior pupil. How will he get his closure now? In a reinvigorated tantrum, he fights Luke furiously, much as Luke himself once used his anger to defeat Darth Vader. Through a combination of lightsaber fury and Force rage, Ren defeats but does not kill Luke (maybe Luke loses another hand? Or maybe he does kill Luke, though I think that would be too much).
He then summons the remaining First Order soldiers/Knights of Ren and leaves on his own vessel in a furious exile of his own, a parallel of sorts to the one Luke has just left. Luke, meanwhile, battered and bruised, retrieves Finn, who confirms for him what has happened. Together, they gather up the remaining Resistance soldiers, and, defeated, return to the Resistance base, where they tell Leia the bad news (which she may already have sensed). The movie ends with Luke and Leia embracing in front of a makeshift grave for Han Solo, with Finn, Poe, Chewy, R2, and C-3PO alongside them. They are sad but, at the very least, happy to be together once more, a complicated set of emotions communicated in smiles that somehow force in through their pain. Cue credits music.
How's that for dark? I want the sequel to The Force Awakens to be dark, and I think this definitely fits the bill, without being an outright copy of The Empire Strikes Back, as many people think The Force Awakens was of A New Hope(notably, though Rey in my version of VIII goes on a similar quest to Luke's in Empire, she fails the test Luke passed in that film, and her quest was much more selfish in the first place anyway). There's also plenty of interesting character arcs: Rey goes from good to evil; Ren goes from evil to pissed but neutral; and Luke goes from hesitant exile to returning warrior. Not as well developed in my imagined sequel is what exactly is happening with the First Order and the Resistance (basically they're just still fighting, both in reduced states from the previous movie, as they both suffered major setbacks. But, to be fair, the First Order/Resistance conflict wasn't well-developed in TFA, which is fine, because it's not the most important thing anyway). An Episode VIII that goes like this could shoot off in all sorts of directions for Episode IX.
Understandably, my Episode IX is a bit less thought-out than my Episode VIII, but I can see a few things, with the first act being clearest. The first act of Episode IX would have Luke, Poe, Finn, Chewy, etc. mounting a mission together to try to confront and persuade the now-neutral (and very angry) Ren to join them, since he is one of the only remaining powerful Force-sensitives in the galaxy now that Rey has turned to the Dark Side. This would be a parallel to Luke, Leia, and Lando's mission in Return of the Jedi to rescue Han (since Ren is, after all, Han's son). In this first act of IX, the mission has to slay some more weird creatures (because of course) on the remote planet where their intel has determined Ren is hiding out, defeat the First Order and Knights of Ren soldiers still loyal to him, and, finally, confront Ren himself.
They get to Ren, and then, after Luke fails to convince Ren to join them, Luke and Ren begin to fight again. As they duel, Ren, in his anger, perhaps ends up getting the better of Luke again (or not). Leia, whether Ren is winning or she simply is tired of the fighting, arrives and whips out her secret weapon: motherly love. She convinces Ren what Luke could not: That he'll never get the closure he seeks or end the inner turmoil that torments him by acting in this way. He'll only get that by helping them. By being the son she knows he still is. As she approaches him, unarmed, risking her life, as Han did, and offering many chances for him to kill her, this time, he drops his lightsaber to the ground and embraces his mother, while a tired Luke looks on (from the ground, if Ren had gotten the better of him).
Meanwhile, Snoke is training Rey, who is dressed much differently (and darker) from how we last saw her, and who is just oozing power, making Snoke proud at every step; she and Snoke preside over a reinvigorated First Order that is close to recapturing the Empire's glory. At some point in Episode IX, we would get a full reveal of who Snoke is; as I've hinted at above, I think he should be some ancient evil out of the distant past of the Jedi-Sith conflict, thought defeated long ago but now resurgent/reawakened (maybe how he got to be reawakened could be detailed, as part of Luke's continuing investigation into how to defeat him). I wouldn't mind if he's Darth Plagueis, Darth Sidious' master, as long as they go with the idea--expressed in Revenge of the Sith--that Plagueis was himself accessing some kind of ancient, long-forgotten power (again, not all prequel callbacks are inherently bad). Abrams and Andy Serkis, Snoke's motion-capture actor, have both denied this, but Abrams lied about Khan being in Star Trek Into Darkness too, so who knows.
Pictured: Darth Plagueis, and, as some theorize, Snoke.
You could maybe toy with the idea that Rey pulled some epic, Snape-as-Voldemort's-lieutenant-but-actually-Dumbledore's-mole switcheroo, waiting for the right time to turn on Snoke, (much as Luke, though tempted to the Dark Side in Return of the Jedi, wearing black when he confronts Vader and the Emperor, and indulging in anger at the Emperor's urging to defeat Vader, resists the temptation, and is revealed to have been wearing a white shirt beneath his black overclothes all along). But I would prefer Rey's evil to be played straight. Maybe she only backs away from it when she confronts Finn and finds herself unable to torture him (Snoke does it anyway)? I don't know. Again, I haven't thought this through as thoroughly, and while it's hard to speculate about something that hasn't happened yet, it's even harder to speculate based on your own speculations.
Will I be right about any of this? I have no idea. It would be pretty risky to make Rey go dark, but I think the reward in terms of creative payoff would be immense. I will say this, however: I have been a J.J. Abrams obsessivefor some time. I am pretty confident that I understand roughly how his creative brain works, enough such that I am often able to predict or anticipate what he does with certain material (this was especially the case with Fringe, which he created and executive-produced; in a Newton-and-Leibniz-both-create-calculus-independently scenario, I actually sketched out many of the ideas for the show Fringe before I ever watched it or even knew what it was). All I know is that, if I am right, I apologize for ruining the next two Star Wars movies for myself and for everyone who has read this post (so, fortunately, not many people). Again, for future reference--whether I'm right or wrong--I wrote all of this with no knowledge of Episode VIII, not even its title (which, if I were to choose, should be something like "The Ancient Fear," a rumored title of The Force Awakens, or "The Gods of the Past," both in reference to Snoke's primeval nature and the threat he poses). If I am right, I would certainly enjoy the next two movies; aside from being eerily vindicated, I think I would also enjoy the story. And since I am in the habit of giving suggestions to Disney/Lucasfilm, here's another: You are welcome to use any of this material; I wouldn't even mind not getting credit. At any rate, what do you think of my theories? Am I 100 percent right or full of crap? What do you think will happen in Star Wars: Episode VIII? Let me know in the comments below.
Outrage followed in the immediate aftermath of the killing. Suddenly, just about everyone in the world became an expert on parenting, zoo security, and gorilla behavior. How could the child's mother have lost sight of him so egregiously? How did the Cincinnati Zoo not prevent the child from falling in? Why did the zoo act so quickly when it could have been just as likely that Harambe was trying to protect the child, not injure it? All of these arguments, however, dwelt on circumstances, and thus became both retrospective and hypothetical. The brutal reality of nature and gorilla strength compelled quick action from Zoo officials, whatever Harambe's intent was; regardless of how the child got in there, his fellow humans concluded that his life mattered more than the gorilla's. Without a time machine, anything else was just speculation. And so the frightening combination of the Eye of Sauron, the Borg, and the Death Star that is modern Internet outrage culture moved on from the death of Harambe.
But then, a curious thing happened. Harambe came back to life--he was resurrected, if you will. The same Internet that, after its initial obsession, typically displays all the attention span of a cocaine-addled monkey, returned to something it had discarded. According to Google Trends, Internet search interest in Harambe has now reached a sustained level almost equaling the peak reached in the immediate aftermath of his death.
This renewed interest has taken many, many forms. Perhaps the most depressing and emblematic of the Internet's hive-mind, sarcasm-as-argument, trolling culture has been the seemingly playful but disturbingly persistent Twitter harassment of the Cincinnati Zoo. Despite the Zoo's retrenchment of the gorilla habitat to prevent future Harambes, entreaties from Zoo Director Thane Maynard to stop the harassment because it's making it harder for the Zoo to move on, and similar urges by the Zoo to honor Harambe by donating to gorilla conservation efforts in the wild, the pestering continued. Hackers even took over Maynard's Twitter account and began spewing Harambe memes. Eventually, the Zoo had enough, and removed its Twitter account.
"When you see another gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo"
And thousands, perhaps even millions, more. If you're curious, knock yourself out.
So, why is this happening? Why all this obsession with a gorilla? Why has Harambe defied what Mark Twain once allegedly said about Cincinnati--that he would go there if he learned the world was about to end, because the city is always 20 years behind the times--and put the Queen City at the forefront, for once, of a global trend? Many reasons. Not to be ignored is the name "Harambe," which is rather felicitous and fun to say (a la "Mufasa"). The circumstances of Harambe's death also lend themselves well to an adoption by a highly sarcastic and often callous collective Internet mind, and to a trolling at once ironic in affect and earnest in persistence.
The Internet, moreover, seems incapable of doing anything other than absolutely loving or hating something. Like the show Stranger Things, Harambe has fallen on the side of absolute love (for an example of the "hate" side, see Turner, Brock). Our divorce from the brutal realities of nature, and decades of romanticizing of animals in film, has also given man an elevated fondness for most animals. The closest we got to Harambe before Harambe (the proto-Harambe, if you will) was Cecil the Lion, killed in Africa by a trophy-hunting American dentist who became the object of momentary Internet outrage, while Cecil himself is now united with Harambe. And now that Harambe has become popular, people are starting to enjoy the comforting thrill of cool conformity (a contradiction, by the way, but one our age ignores as frequently as we indulge in it) by participating in the meme and making it their own. All of this, and much more, could be at work in the apotheosis of Harambe into every bro's inside joke with every other bro.
There seems to be something a bit more to all of this, though. Even Cecil, Harambe's nearest precedent, inspired mostly anger, not Harambe's intense--even if weirdly post-ironic--devotion. What if instead of a meme, Harambe were actually the start of a new religion? What if we, right now, are witnessing the taking-root of a new faith, are at the ground-floor of a new creed's emergence? An article I read in The Economist some time ago (but that, alas, I cannot find) noted that many of the world's most popular faiths--Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism--became popularized in a compact period by historical standards, in an age of then-unprecedented global diffusion of trade and knowledge. From this, the article wondered, given our own diffuse age: Where are our new religions? One need not turn to the words of G.K. Chesterton--"where there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice"--to conclude that Harambe may have given us an answer.
Pictured: A new generation's Crucifixion?
Viewing Harambe as a religion allows us to see the phenomenon in a new light. His devotees are the Internet age approximations of disciples. Cecil was his Protoevangelium, or his John the Baptist, prophesying or preparing the way for his arrival. His death was the crucial moment of the upstart faith. Cincinnati, the site of his death, is this new faith's Jerusalem, or its Mecca. And Harambe's "resurrection" was his renewed search interest, and is soon perhaps soon to be literalized. Will Harambe start appearing to his closest followers, in isolated cases at first hard to believe?
Harambe? Is that you?
Meanwhile, as this new religion crops up, many of us--like yours truly--are left feeling a strange mix of confusion, envy, and stubbornness. Why don't we get it? Why is everybody joining this new faith? It's probably a bit similar to how the Roman Emperor Julian felt in author Gore Vidal's historical novel Julian. Vidal's novel portrays the late, post-Constantine Roman Emperor Julian, known to history as Julian the Apostate, as believing Christianity a frivolous religion, at best, and potentially ruinous for the Roman Empire, at worst (sentiments he no doubt shared with other non-Christian Romans in the early Christian period). Vidal's stubbornly pagan Julian, unversed in and resistant to this upstart faith that is now purportedly the creed of the Roman Empire after Constantine, considers it a "death-cult" of the "back-country" obsessed with a "triple monster" (i.e., the Trinity) and "charnel houses" (i.e., relics). Julian just didn't get it.
Now, my contempt for Harambe-ism does not rise to this level (and, for the record, I think Julian was wrong). Harambe is, in all likelihood, a harmless diversion, a momentary obsession that will continue to manifest innocuously until Harambe and the incident of which he is the center pass into history and curiosity. But now that we are on the subject of religion, heresy, and false gods, it is worth considering another possibility. What if Harambe is neither a fad nor some would-be new deity? What if he, instead, is the anti-Christ?
You may scoff at this bold pronouncement. What evidence is there for such a claim? As much evidence, I submit to you, as there is for Harambe's being the Messiah that the Internet has made him out to be. And perhaps there is even more. Consider the widely-acknowledged-as-prophetic (by me, anyway) words of Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. In The Last Battle, the final volume of his Chronicles of Narnia series, Lewis tells the story of that world's Apocalypse. In The Last Battle, Narnia falls prey to a false prophet, who goes about Narnia with a false Aslan in the form of a donkey dressed as a lion--the real Aslan being this world's True God--to sway that world into sin. The false prophet's name is Shift.
Is Harambe the literalization of this fictional character, the anti-Christ in the flesh? Was C.S. Lewis warning us about the future, as he did so many times? Again, what evidence do you have that Harambe is not the anti-Christ, the popular, charismatic figure who will entrance the masses in the end times to lead them away from the truth and into the Evil One's grasp, that he has not faked his own death the better to accomplish his diabolical ends? He has already become in death more influential than he ever was in life. Imagine to what ends either he, acting behind the scenes, or some intrepid follower can put this newfound cult status? Might it be something similar to how the anti-Christ is described in the Book of Revelation?
And he had power to give life unto the image of the
beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as
many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Is this too far-fetched? I think not. We have already seen to what lengths the Internet will go in Harambe's service. Perhaps Harambe's memory is already being used to sway man to sinfulness. Might not #dicksoutforharambe be an elevation of sexuality above the human person (out of alignment with what is proper), much like one theory explains the profane images on the Stone Tower Temple as literal rebukes to the proper gods in the Legend of Zelda game Majora's Mask? Is there not something devilish, something very "We are Legion"-esque, about the Internet itself (and, worst of all, Anonymous), but especially the Harambe trolls and their treatment of, for example, the Cincinnati Zoo (trolls, by the way, could be considered a form of demon)? Is there not something darkly ironic and perverse about a modern-day anti-Christ using the Internet to spread his message and cement his influence, in a simultaneously trivial and obscene mirror of how Christianity spread via the Roman Empire? Is there not something mockingly parodic about salvation coming to man through a Man, and damnation threatening him through an ape? Maybe so.
