Diaries From Death Star II: A Star Wars Story (Matt Haviland)
I would love to see Noah Baumbach do Star Wars, but I would love to see Kevin Smith do Star Wars, too. The whole idea in Clerks about how Death Star II was destroyed while hundreds of innocent contractors must have been working on it was glorious. However, Smith’s style is too breezy for my current needs. Therefore, I would love to see a movie where the second Death Star blows up at the end. It would be like the deleted ending to Clerks, and really, the whole thing would be like Clerks, except the director would be Noah Baumbach in black-and-white (and it would be black and white), New Wave–revival mode.
Imagine, if you will, two or three contractors working on the side of an interior section of the ship. Imagine this done in a fleeting montage of dialogue, like Coffee and Cigarettes edited faster in space. Now imagine the contractors run around the ship, and enjoy little talks about how they wish they could be somewhere else. They’re all basically drones with different levels of satisfaction, so the contracting work is the same. Maybe Hank in lasers has stuff figured out, while Cindy in accounting doesn’t, and she feels like it’s already too late to get off the ship (which turns out to be the case for everyone). But maybe Cindy takes the last pod back home before the end and silently sees the ship explode before the credits while she thinks about her future and her friends. They will have conversations about Star Wars lore the Clerks way, but the film will be sad and wonderful, like Baumbach at his best.
The stars would have to be no-names. I love great actors such as the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, or of this generation, Miles Teller (have you seen The Spectacular Now?). But when one of my favorite actors shows up, or someone I love in a television role, half the time I fall away from the movie. I love Bryan Cranston, but it’s tough not to think of Walter White. I’m not saying he won’t break out of that, or hasn’t started to, which he could do with a couple more landslide performances that are different or good enough to burn your memory, and blur the actor a bit. But when John Slattery was in Spotlight, my excitement at him being there was waterlogged by feeling like he was a cameo. Meatier roles are helpful for these actors, like Jesse Eisenberg in Cafe Society, where he plays his usual self, but the role is so rich that we’re crying by the end.
If I were to go with actors for this that I know, I would hesitate to choose, but how about Benji (Michael Zegen) from Frances Ha, Ivan (Rhys Ifans) from Greenberg (a movie Ben Stiller nails, even though I’m not sure he transcends his persona on the low-hum level), as lost souls. The cast of Kicking and Screaming, they might work too. Also, the younger brother from The Squid and the Whale, Owen Kline, as Cindy’s heartfelt friend, who doesn’t make it off because he’s sincerely devoted to the job. How about Jeff Daniels as an authority figure, one of the middle managers. Cindy? Laura Linney. She’s spent her life working accounting on these jobs, and now she surrenders to the current inside her that says something else would be more authentic.
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