Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
dir. George Lucas
Opens Thurs May 16 at various theaters.
When I arrive at the Cinerama, Jeff Tweiten and John Guth are out of their folding chairs and up on their feet, talking to some men from a web company about faster downloads. Moments later, a deal of some kind is in place, and the two men rejoin their two-man queue. On January 1, these avid Star Wars fans began a four-and-a-half month “art project” that has attracted the attention of media outlets as diverse as the Today show, CNN, and yours truly.
Their project: waiting in line for the release of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, scheduled for release on May 16. That’s 134 days, y’all. The Guinness people are on the phone.
“What inspired me was a book called Art on the Edge and Beyond,” explains Tweiten. “As we went into the new millennium, I realized that no one wants to wait anymore. Like, the whole journey of waiting for a movie, waiting for fries, waiting for anything… it’s like, ‘We need it now and if we can’t have it now, it’s not worth having.’ And you know what? The journey is what makes things great, not the end product. So I decided to create an art piece called ‘Waiting For Star Wars,’ which would capture that through photography, video, and audio clips.”
Guth, president and co-founder of the 1,200-strong Seattle Star Wars Society, liked what he heard. “It was one of those situations, like, ‘What can we do that’s big?'” Guth enthuses. “We can accomplish this art project, but at the same time we can get other members involved and stir up excitement.”
I ask if it troubles them that this “excitement” is largely engineered by one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates.
Guth, who looks a bit like David Duchovny and talks like a dot-com pitch man, sympathizes. “A lot of people give us flack that we’re helping to increase revenue in something that’s already going to be successful. I like Star Wars. I have a passion for it. And there’s really nothing I can do about that. I mean, do I stop liking something I have a passion for because somebody’s making a lot of money off of this?”
For his part, Tweiten is focused on the art project, which is all about recording the wait so viewers can know “That’s what happened on that day, that’s what it was like being here.” I ask him, nine days in, how different one day has been from the next.
“It’s really been a roller coaster of ups and downs,” he sighs. “A lot of highs, a lot of lows, a lot of times I wish I wasn’t here, I wish I’d never started this project. And other days, it’s like, this is the greatest project, this is fun, this is exciting, this is new… so it’s really day by day, hour by hour. You wouldn’t assume there would be down times this early on. I didn’t assume that.”
While we’re talking, a promotions rep brings the boys a case of Thomas Kemper soda, because she’d heard one of them was wearing a Kemper logo and thought they “might be fans.” This leads to a lengthy discussion of the merits of Thomas Kemper Ginger Ale, during which I notice the van, donated by Fox Communications, where Guth and Tweiten store their things. On the wall above them is a banner for iClick, who gave them digital cameras. Given all this attention, I wonder if their enthusiasm for Star Wars itself (they both admit to being a bit underwhelmed by the “too long, bloated, and fat” Episode I) ever wanes. Do they really believe Attack of the Clones–which may not even play at the Cinerama–will be worthy of all this waiting?
“We don’t know,” Guth admits. “We can only go by what we’ve heard. But there is that hope, that anticipation. There’s a lot of nostalgiability to it. You remain true to that nostalgia of the era you grew up with. That’s what this is, too. Like your parents say, ‘They don’t make music like they used to!’ Well, they don’t make Star Wars like they used to! Maybe we’ll be chanting that after we see Episode II.”
Somehow, I doubt it.
