Friday, October 28, 2016

The Star Wars One: Princess General



                 David Bowie has an honorary doctorate from the Berkeley School of Music.  Kermit the Frog has an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters from Southampton College.  Both of these celebrities, upon receiving their respective degrees, gave a commencement address and then went home.  Of course that’s what they did.  Bowie wasn’t going to hang around teaching bonehead guitar to a bunch of freshmen, and Kermit wasn’t expected to work toward tenure up in New York.  It’s just a way of getting someone cool to make a speech at your school.
                So what’s up with Princess Leia in Star Wars?  She’s a general now.  She is General Leia Organa.  I had to look up her last name and was surprised to find Organa.  I thought it would be Miss Skywalker, or Mrs. Solo, or Miss Jackson is you're nasty.  As near as I can tell the only thing close to generaling that she has done is stand around the glowing table while the fish-head “It’s a trap!” guy seems to be running things.  So is she really a general or is it more of an honorary thing?  Did she get her honorary generalship for defeating Darth Vader and the Galactic Tea Party using just pistols a Care Bears, and after giving a speech just stick around like a house guest that never leaves?  Is she wandering in and out of meetings, napping on the couch in the X-Wing pilot's break room, looking in the fridge for leftovers, getting free coffee from the Tatooine cafeteria? 
                I’m thinking that if you’ve got her in the movie and call her a general, have her strategize.  Have her put together a brilliant plan on how to defeat the Empire/First Order/One Direction.  I need to see a scene where the smug leader of the bad guys, quips something like, “That’s what happens when you send a princess to do a general’s job,” right before she pulls a tactical rabbit out of her hat, and his huge space-battle-destroyer-dreadnought-ChevyTahoe explodes into flames and crashes into yet another Deathstar.
                Oh, and if she has to sacrifice C3PO to do it, I'm good.