So, how about that Star Wars, huh? It's a good thing that I happened to pick up a newspaper this week, or else I wouldn't have even known that it was coming out.

They really should have done some kind of advertising for this film. I mean, you know, try to create some kind of media hype.

Or at least tried to do some advance merchandising.

Yeah.

I saw Episode I at Hollywood's famous Grauman's Chinese Theater on Sunday night. Was there a big crowd? Let me put it this way: by the time that I got to the end of the line, my car was closer to the box office than I was.

Anyway, speaking of things that happened a long time ago in a place far far away, this weekend I also saw Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Having seen both back to back, I was struck with how similar they were. If you should find yourself unable to get into Star Wars this week, go and see Midsummer instead. It's essentially the same movie.

No really. Stop laughing. I'll prove it.

Now this Star Wars thing is tricky business. There are those that would say that telling ANYTHING that happens in the film would be giving away spoilers. Of course, those people who say that have seen the movie at least seventeen times by now, and it really doesn't matter.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was written over 300 years ago. If you don't know what happens by now, you might as well let me tell you.

At any rate, to be safe, I will be conducting this lecture in the Spoiler Lounge if you care to join me.

Ever since George Lucas announced that the first of the Star Wars prequels was going to come out in 1999, the internet has been simply abuzz with people desperately trying to scrape together the details of just what thrilling things could possibly happen in Episode I.

I don't want to sound condescending, but "Hey! Rent A New Hope! Read the trademark yellow scroll! Duh!"

Okay, so the scroll doesn't tell you that there's going to be a pod race, or that Queen Amidala is a total fox, or that there are aliens in the universe more obnoxious than Ewoks, but you get the gist of it. Dennis the Menace sets down that road to becoming Darth Vader.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, however, has been kicking around theatres and libraries for over three centuries. Totally available to the public. You don't have to sell your first born to some underhanded security guard at Skywalker Ranch to see it. Familiar with it?

That's what I thought.

After this, you'll be changing your tune. You'll be reading so much Shakespeare that even your most pretentious friends will tell you to give it a rest.

The Phantom Menace begins near the planet Naboo, known the universe over for quasi-'70s retro-future uniforms, weirdly inconsistent Kabuki makeup, and a name that sounds vaguely like it was George Lucas's baby's first word.

The planet Naboo is essentially being held hostage by a bunch of green spongy puppets that speak like the villains in dubbed Jackie Chan movies. I think one was named Roy.

They are careful to mention that the Trade Federation's blockade is perfectly legal in the eyes of the Senate. Why it is legal to form a full blockade of an entire planet for no apparent reason is beyond me, but then so is that with all of the technology at ILM's disposal, these green things still have less articulate faces than the Teletubbies. Naboo's dreamy teen Queen Amidala is, as they say, up Beggar's Canyon without a T-16.

The same is true for Midsummer's poor lovestruck bride-to-be Hermia. The time period of the movie has been bumped up to the turn of the century, and the setting has been moved from its traditional Athens to a place called Mount Athena. The practical upshot of this being, of course, that you get to throw in a lot of bicycles.

I don't know. I just review 'em.

Hermia is madly in love with Lysander, but has unfortunately been arranged to marry Demetrius. As if this didn't make it suck to be her enough, Hermia's father has decided to be a real jerk and call into effect a bizarre quirk of the Athenian law that calls for her immediate execution if she does not comply with her arranged marriage. Bugger all.

Shakespeare - Damsel in distress / Star Wars - Damsel and entire planet in distress

Enter the Jedi - our old pal Obi-Wan Kenobi, and a new guy, Qui-gon Jinn. Like all good married actresses, all good Jedi need a hyphenated name. Episode I has introduced to me my new favorite Star Wars character.

No, not Qui-gon ("Qui-gon! Take me away!"), but the standard-issue Old Republic Battle Droid. I love these things! With their slender arms and legs and exploding body armor, they're so ludicrously unsuited to their line of work that one must assume that Palpatine got a good bargain on them.

INT. SENATOR PALPATINE'S BOUDOIR - NIGHT
Palpatine - (Leafing through a Best Buy flyer) Let's see... I'd really like to build a standing army for this shifty takeover of the Senate that I'm planning, but I can't really afford to get any men...

Darth Maul - (Rubbing Palpatine's feet) Why don't you get some droids, my master?

Palpatine - (Whacking Darth Maul with rolled up newspaper) Do I pay you to think? Now shut up or I'll send you back to Prodigy.

Darth Maul - Sorry, my master.

Palpatine - (Noticing an ad on the back of the paper) Saaaaay, what's this? I can get these Dustbuster head droids for only 10 bucks a dozen! And the more I buy, the cheaper they are! Score!

The two Jedi take apart about seven hundred droids with no more effort than one expends in a game of badminton, and then swiftly take flight into the woods of Naboo.

It's nice to have the Jedi on your side.

Poor Hermia has to settle for Lysander. Without a lightsaber to his name or an ounce of the Force in him, the best poor Lysander can do is to come up with the brilliant plan of leaving Mount Athens, and the jurisdiction of its laws, to live happily ever after elsewhere. Sure it smacks of B.J. and the Bear, but it's still Shakespeare so you've got to respect its brilliance, right?

And the plan would have worked too, had it not been for you meddling kids... er, kid... er... Helena.

In the way that Shakespeare loves to write characters named "Edgar" and "Edmund" into the same play, and "Gremio" and "Grumio" into another, the Bard has confused centuries of high school students by naming the two female leads in Midsummer Hermia and Helena.

It's easy to remember who is who, because Helena is Ally McBeal, and Hermia is not.

Shakespeare - Confusing names / Star Wars - Confusing names with hyphens

Helena is Hermia's best friend, an emotional basket case, and an avid bicycle rider. She is madly and obsessively in lust with Demetrius, thus forcing him to avoid her like the plague, probably out of fear of getting his bunny boiled.

Hermia confides in Helena that she and Lysander are going to take off and get hitched. Rather than just letting Hermia and Lysander get the hell out of Dodge and then pouncing Demetrius hardcore like a reasonable lovestruck maiden, Helena for some reason decides to tell Demetrius all about the planned flight, and before long all four of them have chased each other deep into the woods.

Shakespeare - Girls who fall apart emotionally in the woods / Star Wars - Droids that fall apart physically in the woods

Now it doesn't matter what part of the universe you're from or how damn long ago it was, when you go into the woods you're going to meet up with an obnoxious otherworldly being.

Enter Jar Jar Binks.

Any character that either speaks in the third person or uses "me" in the place of "I" needs to be slapped outright. I don't care if you are an alien. This goes for you too, Elmo.

The Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Mushmouth pidgin isn't doing him any favors either. "Obey kaybe, Obi-wanbe!"

Jar Jar is the Gilligan of the Star Wars universe. If they had just tied him up to a palm tree for a while, they would have gotten off the island in two days... er... broken the trade blockade. But no, Jar Jar is allowed to run free and make everything that he touches turn to crap around him (such as droids, pod engines, dramatic tension...).

And he's got the same catch phrase as the kids from Full House. "How rude!" And not just once either. That line was being groomed to be programmed into a talking doll.

This is where Midsummer starts to pull ahead. Our otherworldly source of annoyance in this movie is Puck, the balding and knavish sprite. Compared to Jar Jar, Puck is like Sir Lawrence Olivier.

Whereas Puck muses such eloquent lines as "Lord what fools these mortals be," Jar Jar just keeps squeaking drivel like "Thasa doggie ate minen ouce cream, Unca Jesse!"

But just because he had Shakespeare backing him up instead of Lucas' kid, that doesn't make Puck any less of a screw up. While Jar Jar just kind of befouled everything that he looked at, Puck actually had a mission to accomplish that he totally botched.

Oberon, Puck's boss, sends Puck to put a love potion on Demetrius's eyes so that he would fall madly in love with Helena upon awakening. Quite frankly, I don't think that even a jerk like Demetrius deserves a girl like Helena. In a mad fit of self-destructive lust, she proclaims:

And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,—
And yet a place of high respect with me,—
Than to be used as you use your dog?

This girl doesn't need a boyfriend, she needs counseling.

However, in a misogynistic sort of way, it was still kinda sexy to hear Ally McBeal saying it. I found it very difficult to believe that Demetrius would so despise a girl this cute so wholeheartedly that she would have to resort to this. This part would have been better cast with somebody like Jabba the Hutt, or Rhea Pearlman.

This is where Star Wars regains the turf it lost in the sidekick category.

Queen Amidala may be naive and easy to push around in the Senate by that thrifty bastard Palpatine, but you put a Princess Slimline blaster in her hand and she's going for the throat. Try to call her a spaniel and her and her twin bodyguard will go "long long time ago" on your ass.

Shakespeare - Weak women, strong sidekicks / Star Wars - Strong women, weak sidekicks

Is anybody actually still reading this?

Shakespeare - The guy who played Willie on Alf / Star Wars - The guy who played Willow in Willow

Shakespeare - Mud wrestling / Star Wars - Pod Racing

Shakespeare - The lovers all get paired up, happy ending with a ceremony and a show / Star Wars - The blockade gets blown up, happy ending with a ceremony and a show

Need I say more?

At the end of Midsummer, the young lovers are discovered nude and in a tangled heap of debauchery by the very forces that had only days before condemned them to death. Said forces say, "Ah, screw it. Why don't you all just get married?"

At the end of The Phantom Menace, the Trade Federation is found guilty of starting an illegal aggression against the planet Naboo, and the Senate says, "Ah, screw it. You'll never sell another toaster on this planet."

Thus, in conclusion, it should be patently obvious that there is no discernible difference between A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Phantom Menace.

We'll see which one is still remembered in another three hundred years.