Family Time -- Steve Smith

With the knowledge that the following statement may generate more hate

mail than I’ve ever received, I am going ahead anyway.

The new “Star Wars” movie is a snoozer. In fact, it ranks right up

there with “This Island Earth,” “Gunslinger” and some of the other movies

that are heckled by Mike Nelson and his robots in the “Mystery Science

Theater” series.

I expect that “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones” will be

front-row fodder for Nelson and the gang in the movie “Mystery Science

Theater 8000” 20 years from now. The “Star Wars” series started going

downhill after the second movie of the first series of three. And

although I thought that the last one, “Phantom Menace,” wasn’t bad, it

still was not the matinee-quality flick I had hoped for.

Clearly, Emperor Lucas has no clothes. And that’s a shame, because our

family had high hopes.

You see, Cay and I don’t get to go to the movies by ourselves that

often. In fact, the year is half over and we haven’t seen even one adult

flick. Not that kind of adult flick, but the kind that may be rated PG-13

or R. We watch movies at home on the VCR, rented from a nearby store.

That store, by the way, gives us five days to watch each movie, not one.

Still somehow, I have spent the kids’ college fund on late fees.

Yes, there I am, week after week, turning them in on day six. When I

walk into the store to rent, the staff gives each other high fives. If

this store were in Las Vegas, I’d be getting a room and dinner comped. As

I write this, “Vanilla Sky” sits in my car ready to go back, the vanilla

getting moldy.

We saw “Star Wars” last weekend at Edwards Big Newport, although we

didn’t see it on the biggest screen. We opted instead for the stadium

seating next door to ensure that our two kids would not have to peek

around a bee hive to get a glimpse of the move. On behalf of all the

little kids in America to the person who invented stadium seating, here’s

a big “thank you” for making the movie experience a thousand times more

enjoyable.

The disappointment of the loser “Star Wars” movie was exceeded only by

the knowledge that one of our rare trips to the movies was wasted on this

bore. Family movies are rare, particularly ones that have a responsible

ending, such as seeing the bad guy get punished for performing his or her

evil deeds.

We took the kids to see “Star Wars” because it has a PG rating. But

movie ratings are not what they used to be, and it’s making it difficult

for parents to know what to let their kids watch. “Star Wars” is rated

PG, even though there is a decapitation, a mother dying in front of her

son (in his arms, actually), a description of Anakin Skywalker (later

Darth Vader) committing genocide and some heavy battle scenes.

The decapitation was the most graphic scene in the movie. It was

lessened by the fact that not a single drop of blood oozed from either

the severed head or the body, a quality I attribute to the light saber

that did the deed. I guess those light sabers cauterize as they cut.

Our daughter, who is almost 12, wanted to see “Lord of the Rings”

badly when it came out a few months ago. The movie is rated PG-13, which

means that it could contain images or dialogue about sex, drugs or

violence that are deemed inappropriate for children younger than 13. It’s

either some of those elements or it contains clips from the last Chicago

Cubs baseball game.

I asked around and found from a few parents that there was enough

content to make us hold off on “Rings” for a while.

Our son, 9, wants to see “Spider-Man,” but that’s rated PG-13, and he

won’t get to go. As faulty as the rating system may be, it does have its

place, and we’ve been using it to determine what the kids should not see.

There was a time when movies, TV shows and CDs did not have ratings

because the content was determined to be free of any objectionable scenes

or language. Today, there just aren’t enough movies for families, despite

the fact that most of them are slurped up and made successful by parents

eager to take their kids to a decent movie together.

So for now, we’ll see the G and PG movies when we can and continue to

rent the family movies from the place that let’s me have them for five

days. All I need now is a loan to pay my late fees.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.