Current Reading

Only a couple of weeks before I head back to the classroom so I'm trying to get in some reading for myself before I return to reading Beowulf or Night as well as my students' writings. A week or so ago I made an observation to a friend that Harry Potter is the Star Wars for this generation, so it's ironic, if at least not coincidental that I would be reading The Making of Star Wars alongside Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

As nostalgic as it may be for someone my age to read, The Making of Star Wars is also a look inside the creative and commercial forces that brought the first of the Trilogy to the big screen. Lucas's drive and dedication against all odds is layed out in amazing detail. In fact, it's amazing how so much of the film was truly created by the entire production's collective seat of their pants. Over one hundred pages in, and while sets and models were being built and new technology was being developed, the cast had yet to be hired. And Fox lofted a hefty axe above Lucas's head on a daily basis.

One of the most interesting tangential aspects of the early chapters of the book is how Lucas had originally conceived and wished to film Apocolypse Now, a fact I was previously not aware of. In fact, he was trying to decde whether to follow up American Graffiti with either Apocolypse or (what was then called) The Star Wars. At Coppola's suggestion, Lucas pursued Star Wars and Coppla went on to battle his own demons, as the filming of Apocolypse Now would go on to become infamously legendary.




If you love movies, you must read this book. And by the way, I have the paperbouund version, not the hardback "special edition". As with all things Star Wars, one edition isn't enough, and I can't sport the seventy-dollar price tag of the deluxe edition.


Halfway through Sorcerer's Stone, I suppose I must say that the book is...charming. Knowing what we know now, it's apparent that this is all set-up. I have purposely stayed away from the finer plot points of the Potter saga in case I should ever begin reading the series, so I'm going in fairly clean. I must admit, however, that I'm reading the first two books in order to see the third, fourth, and fifth Potter movies. I tried to watch the film version of Sorcerer's Stone and coudn't make it. Chris Columbus, while a competent enough director, is just too cookie cutter. It's all by-the-numbers and, frankly, boring. He directed the second feature as well, so why watch them when the books are all superior, anyway? Cuaron, who directed the third film, also directed Children of Men, one of the best movies I've seen in years, so I look forward to being able to watch it after completing the first three novels.