Brooks Peterson

Monday, May. 10, 1999

Absolute power? Look no further than George Lucas

   If I have learned nothing else in the years during which I have been holding forth in this space, it is that you, my readers, are remarkably tolerant (with, to be sure, a few exceptions).
   You have shown great patience and stamina, bearing with me through innumerable disquisitions on aging British roadsters, barking dogs, harrowing encounters with high technology, lost luggage, accordion music and on and on.
   In recognition of that, I feel I owe it to you every now and then to come up with something beyond such fleeting, ephemeral stuff: something substantial, something enduring. High-concept material, know what I mean?
   OK, then: Herewith, a Meditation on Power - and not just any old power. We're talking absolute, untrammeled power here, power beyond the most fevered imaginings of all but a handful of mortals.
   We all think we know something about power. And we do: We have all experienced the power wielded by our immediate superior, who has experienced the power exercised by his/her immediate superior, and so on up to the very tip-top of the corporate pyramid.
   But is it really all that big a deal in the vast cosmic scheme of things? Of course not. What, after all, is the worst thing your boss can do? Fire you, right? Now, granted, that's fairly serious stuff - but even if it should come to that ultimate sanction, look at what you're left with: your life, your liberty, your health and whatever you may have in the way of material assets. Chances are, you'll get another job, and it could turn out to be a better one. So: Your boss, however much his/her ways may rankle, can in all but the most bizarre situations be nothing more consequential than a petty tyrant.
   The same thing applies to those captains of finance and industry who shove lesser bosses around like pawns on a gigantic chessboard: Their utterances, their maneuvers, can loose havoc in the marketplace, but they, too, are ultimately answerable: answerable to the old bottom line. And if they err, they can be jettisoned every bit as easily as a rookie busboy getting the heave-ho from the maitre-d'.
   Well, then, you say, how about political power?'
   Ha, says me.
   Who is the holder of the most powerful office in the most powerful nation in the world? Bill Clinton. You're going to tell me this guy exercises absolute power? A guy portrayed by editorial cartoonists as wearing boxer shorts adorned with hearts? The guy who's regularly processed into puppy chow by such late-night luminaries as Letterman and Leno? The guy who's building his legacy by devoting his Saturday radio messages to the need for infant car seats? The mind boggles.
   Nor are his opposite numbers elsewhere any more impressive. Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic? Loathsome, to be sure, but by any reasonable standard very small beer indeed. Saddam Hussein? Ditto. Boris Yeltsin? Is to laugh.
   You want to know who does wield absolute power in this funny old world of ours. I'll tell you: George Lucas, that's who.
   Yes, that George Lucas, the father of the "Star Wars" trilogy, and the man who is about to unleash "The Phantom Menace," the first episode in a three-installment "prequel" to the original package, for which Americans will in very short order be queueing up in their millions. Indeed, some are already camped out, waiting to buy tickets for a flick that doesn't open until May 19.
   Obviously, Lucas has a powerful hold on our imaginations and our cinematic loyalties. But absolute power? In his world, yes. If you don't believe it, just ask any theater owner.
   A segment last week on CNN's "Headline News" brought the point home with stunning force: Lucas, whose company, LucasFilm Ltd., covered 100 percent of the enormous cost of producing the film, has a stranglehold on the theaters.
   To qualify for showing what will certainly be a stupendous box-office draw, theaters must have projectors, sound systems and other gear capable of doing justice to "The Phantom Menace." No more than eight minutes of trailers may be shown before the film (and two and a half of those minutes will be set aside for LucasFilm's use).
   More: A cine-complex which opens the movie in its biggest, most deluxe theater must keep it there for the duration. If "The Phantom Menace" opens in two of the venues of the complex, it must continue there until the end of the run, or at least for a specific stipulated time frame (that point was a little muddled).
   No, Lucas doesn't have tank battalions or secret police to do his bidding, nor will cinematic deviationists be shuttled off to detention camps - but that point is, in his realm, he does indeed have absolute, total power.
   Then again, why wouldn't he? This is the guy who invented The Force. And he knows how to use it.
   (Peterson can be reached by telephone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)