Heroic yuckiness

I think what I like about the ending image of the current version of Star Wars redux (astronaut being connected to tubes) is its heroic yuckiness. It's something I don't recall seeing in film before before—the feeling of something that's both heroic and repulsive. I think the idea comes from having been to the March air museum in Riverside a few weeks ago. What struck me was how small and fragile the vintage fighter jets looked. Somehow I imagined that being in a small plane would be like being in a car where you feel snug and secure. But when you see those old jets you can sense the vulnerability of the pilot. All that separates you from the wind outside is a thin piece of glass, sheet metal and cables. Part of it is the primitiveness of the device—rivets, hydraulics, pounded sheet metal. What I expected was something that looked like today's aircraft—design first, then metal. But these planes looked as if they were designed around how metal could be shaped; cones, tubes and sheets pounded together by hammers—and not that well.

In film, warcraft are either romanticized—or made literal, in which case there is no way to turn the machine into metaphor. Even The Right Stuff, which tried its hardest to show what it's like to be "spam in a can," was unable to adequately and phenomenally convey vulnerability and claustrophobia. The emotions were acted and described, but never made present.