I met George Lucas one summer in an Acme supermarket. It was your standard meet-cute: we both reached for the same box of mushrooms at the same time when our hands brushed against each other. I noticed the man’s hands were smooth as a baby’s ass. “Oh,” I said, chuckling. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” the man said. “They’re just mushrooms.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“You don’t have to worry about germs,” he said.
“What?”
“From my hand just now. You don’t have to worry about germs. I wash my hands real good.”
“Say,” I said, “You look kind of familiar.” It dawned on me slowly; this fellow was more than just a shapeless blur of plaid and denim. I studied his tiny mouse face trapped inside a thicket of white hair. I heard his unmistakably strained voice, like someone was constantly pressing a knee into his balls. All at once it hit me. “Uncle Pete?” I said. “Is that you?”
“No,” the man-rodent said. “It’s me. It’s George Lucas.”
My eyes went wide. “Oh my God!” I said. “You ruined my life!”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s fine,” I said.
GEORGE GETS GROOVY
Later that day I introduced George Lucas to LSD. Amazingly, he had never tried it before. We swam naked together for a couple of hours and George told me all about his hopes and dreams. “I want to make Star Wars,” he said.
“George, you already made Star Wars,” I told him. “A bunch of times.”
“I want to make Star Wars,” he repeated.
I didn’t know what he meant at the time, or if it was just the acid talking. He was sweating like an Italian and his eyeballs were black as sin. Acid ramblings I figured, and tried to forget about it.
But later on, even after George had come down, his desire for more Star Wars remained. And I soon realized that he would not be dissuaded. “I want to make Star Wars,” he said again, like a broken machine.
I still didn’t understand. “What are you talking about?”
“I have more ideas. For alterations.”
“Oh,” I said. More of this business. “You mean more alterations to the original trilogy?”
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, George. I mean how many passes do you really need at this thing? At a certain point maybe you have to consider that this whole Star Wars thing just isn’t gonna take off.”
“But don’t you get it?” he said. “That’s just it. I see now why it was a failure. My third eye has been scrubbed clean.”
“And what changes were you thinking?” I said. “More doodads in the backgrounds?”
“Oh, there will be doodads,” George said. “But this time it’s more than that. I want to tell a story… inside the story.”
“Fine.”
“I just thought of a character that I always wanted to put into Star Wars. His name is Jex Wenzler, and he’s a space pirate/bounty hunter. Oh, and sometimes he smuggles things. His ship is called ‘The Smuggler’.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Didn’t you sell Star Wars to Disney? Do they even know about this?”
George Lucas grabbed me by the balls. “Who the fuck is Disney?” he asked while he squeezed. I could smell the beer on his breath and the soy sauce on his shirt. That was the last time I brought it up.
We got to work.
JEX WENZLER
In the weeks and months that followed George grew increasingly unhappy with the product. In virtually every scene he would stop the replay and turn to me and ask, “Where the fuck is Jex Wenzler?”
“Well, George,” I would say calmly from the editing console, “he’s not in this scene.”
Then George would pace around the suite like a mental patient, hands clasped behind his back. “Well, he should be. We should be wondering about his story at all times. What’s Jex up to? Where does Jex come from? Is he related to one of the main characters in some way? Is he someone’s uncle? A nephew? Is Jex Wenzler someone’s nephew or uncle? Does he use the Force? Would he get along with Chewbacca?”
I searched the tabletop for signs of George’s medication. Nothing…
Foolishly, I tried to talk him down. “I think people will have those questions already. I know I do.”
“No,” George said, shaking his furry head. “We need more. More Jex Wenzler. If I don’t see Jex Wenzler in every single background of this entire trilogy, standing there, looking ominous, or mysterious, doing this or that, I am totally going to lose my shit.” He was right on the edge now; the slightest breeze would have done him in.
When he finished his chipmunk-like chittering I said, “Well, we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
I got back to work, looking for more shots to cram George’s totally awesome new character. At some point he put his hand on my shoulder. “When you think about it,” George shouted into my right ear, “Star Wars has really always been about Jex Wenzler.”
A LITTLE FAN FIC
As long as we were headed down the road of even more pointless alterations I decided to show George some of my own Han Solo/C3PO erotic fan fiction. “Get that shit out of my face,” he said, slapping away the pamphlet. “You bring that shit up again and I’ll shave your nuts.”
“I’m just saying, George… there was something between them… there was a spark…”
“Goddamn it!”
But after George had shaved my nuts he gave the matter further consideration. “Hey, you know, I’ve been thinking. Maybe we can get Han to digitally pat C3PO’s metal ass. But just once, okay?”
“Digitally?” I said. George nodded. “And will it look all jerky and unnatural, and be totally distracting?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh, good,” I said. “I was worried.”
A VICIOUS CYCLE
Truthfully this lone sign of compromise from George Lucas was the surest sign yet that there was something terribly wrong with him. He’d never before given me an inch, had never once taken to one of my ideas, no matter how simple or reasonable, like the time I once said to him, “Couldn’t we just stop?”
He broke my nose with a mug and called me a dork.
Oh, he was all apologies afterward. There were always such elaborate gestures and so many little gifts to tell me just how sorry he was. “Don’t worry about a thing, baby,” George would whisper into my ear, cradling me close. “I’m gonna get you out of this life one day. I’m gonna save up some money for us. But first you have to do right by daddy. If you don’t do what you do, daddy can’t do what daddy do. Ya dig?”
“I just… I need this to be over, George.”
“It will be,” George assured me, brushing my hair with the back of his hand. “It will be.”
I started to feel better about things, before I recognized the strange manner in which he was combing my hair. I asked him, “Are you trying to make me look like Mark Hamill in Return of the Jedi?”
“Shhh…”
IS THIS GUY JUST FUCKING WITH ME?
By mid May the image of Jex Wenzler had infested a good sixty percent of the original trilogy, but for George it still wasn’t enough. “Goddamn it,” I shouted, pounding my fist into the console. “We had an agreement! Sixty percent! No more!”
“That was before the full saga of Jex Wenzler had revealed itself to me,” he said. “It is now our duty to manifest.”
“Will you at least try one of the many pills I’ve been grinding up into your water dispenser?”
“I no longer drink water,” George said to me. “I no longer require any nourishment at all.”
“Well, what do you call those?” I asked, pointing at his handful of peanuts.
“These are idea cubes,” he said.
I needn’t explain to you that a peanut is not a cube. But you begin to wonder if George knows it, if maybe he’s just fucking with you. No one could be this mad outside of a madhouse.
This is what George Lucas does to you. This is what he does to your mind. You must come to terms with the fact that you will never understand him. You must simply cut your losses. You must disengage.
It is the only way to survive.
REVELATIONS
It was midnight on George’s 68th birthday when the man drunkenly confessed, “I am not the real George Lucas.”
“What?” I said. “What are you on about now?”
“There are many of us,” false George said. “Clones, we are. And each of us must leave our mark on the work.”
“And yours is Jex Wenzler?” I said.
“Correct.”
I decided not to press George on the whole cloning thing, or on anything else for that matter from here on out. The man was hopelessly insane and nothing was ever going to change that. What a fool I’d been to help him.
The way I saw it I was already caught in the white rapids, screaming down river with no hope of slowing, being pulled mercilessly toward the waterfall. My doom was inevitable. I had accepted my fate.
It would be a pleasure to drown.
MARKET FOR SUCCESS
One day George burst into the editing room with an entire can of shaving cream duct taped to his head, the can positioned just over his left eye. “I’m Jex Wenzler!” he shouted, and with his finger on the dispenser he began to shower me in green shaving gel.
“George,” I said, wiping the slime from my face, “I don’t get it.”
“Behold!” And he gave me a shitty drawing of a guy with vaguely ape-like features and some kind of robot eyepiece. “Don’t you see? It’s Jex Wenzler’s signature weapon! Paralyzing eye gel! The kids will love it! Yippeeeeee!”
Then George dove out of a third story window. I thought he was done for but the man hit the ground running like a cat and never broke stride. We found him three days later in a neighbor’s swimming pool. “Sorry again, Tom,” I said to Tom.
“Fuck you,” Tom said. “This is the last time.”
I wrapped George Lucas in a big towel and walked him home. I noticed he was pouting. “You don’t like my idea, do you?” George said.
“Which one?” I said. “No.”
“The eye thing,” he moaned. “You don’t think it’s cool. You don’t think it’ll work…”
“Lots of things don’t work, George. It’s never stopped you before.”
He was blubbering now, wiping away the tears with his hairy wrist. “You don’t think kids will buy it, do you?”
“Kids will buy whatever you tell them to buy, George. And grownups too. Especially grownups. That’s how it’s always been.” But the man was inconsolable.
In the hopes of cheering George up I brought him back to the editing suite, to watch the latest version of his timeless saga unfold.
NOW WITH EVEN MORE STUFF
The new Star Wars trilogy began largely as it had before: an Imperial Star Destroyer bears down on a fleeing rebel ship.
We meet the droids; we watch the failed resistance against the boarding Stormtroopers. Then, as the smoke clears, the fearsome shape of Darth Vader emerges…
Except this time, for no discernible reason, as the classic movie villain makes his legendary entrance, a lone computer generated monstrosity runs out from the background and straight towards camera, accidentally nudging Darth Vader on his way forward into nothing. (The nudge is also achieved with CGI, and looks absolutely terrible.) No new acknowledgements are made by the original characters as to who that was or what just happened, and the movie continues on…
Except this time when Princess Leia is hiding the Death Star plans inside R2D2, the figure of Jex Wenzler is plainly seen looming behind them. It is not at all clear what the character is doing back there, or what he wants, or to which group he is affiliated. And it doesn’t seem to matter.
Because George is happy. I watch George smile. At some point during the famous cantina scene, where the phantom of Jex Wexler can now be spotted in the deep background choking someone out with his patented eye gel, I ask him, “So what is Jex, exactly? Is he like a cyborg or something?” But George never answers my question.
GO INTO THE LIGHT
And as we sat there together watching the new old trilogy, something strange began to happen. Somewhere between Jex Wenzler’s joining of Luke Skywalker in the Wampa cave on Hoth, and the character’s inexplicable appearance onboard the Millennium Falcon in the middle of an asteroid field, I saw the light. It was coming from George Lucas; the man’s every orifice projected a beam of radiant light, until his entire body was made of it, until he began to float into the air.
George Lucas– whichever clone of the man this particular George happened to be– began his ascent into a higher form. It was beautiful. It was right. For he had truly done it.
With the addition of Jex Wenzler the Star Wars franchise had finally achieved perfection. No further improvement could possibly be made. There truly was nothing else this great stuffed sock of a man could do to his masterpiece, and so George’s work on this plane of existence had at long last drawn to a close.
“George,” I called up to him, as he flew steadily higher. “What did it all mean?”
“I told you,” George Lucas said, waving down at me. “It’s about Jex Wenzler.” I watched the living legend fly away, violently shoving aside several fawning nerd angels as he lifted up to heaven.
WHERE IS THE AMBASSADOR?
Then, a loud banging…
I turned toward the door…
And watched it splinter.
They were armed and angry and they forced their way inside the room. One of them began to confiscate the hard drives; another smashed up all the equipment with the butt of his machine gun.
Smoke filled the room. A figure grew inside of it, and I heard his voice. “Bring him to me,” he said in his unnerving high pitch. Before I knew it the guards were beating me and dragging me toward their master. I looked at the chaos around me, at the smoke and fire. Through bleeding lips I asked, “What is this?”
The Mouse squeezed my nuts, hard. “This is Disney,” he said.
Then Mickey Mouse took out one of my balls, which he wears around his neck to this day.
True story.