STAR WARS XXX-A PORN PARODY (2012)

Tenderloin parody king Axel Braun is back with this lovingly-crafted and insanely visually-accurate porno version of the original STAR WARS (1977), and while I support pornographers' right to do parodies of familiar properties, what I'm not down with is aping the source material to such a degree that the only difference between the original and the porn version (other than considerations such as the budget, decent acting and kickass special effects) is the inclusion of "you are now a gynecologist" closeups of the performers in action. This production is a textbook example of what I'm on about, being practically a scene-for-scene remake featuring different actors in the parts of the space heroes we've known and loved for the past thirty-five years, getting it on in numerous ways.

Opening with the expected text crawl — which amusingly identifies the film as "Episode IV: A NEW HOLE" — the movie retells the entire plot of the 1977 classic, only with rather uninspired hardcore sex shoehorned into the proceedings when possible. The problem with that is that the original film features only four women that I can think of off the top of my head: Princess Leia, Aunt Beru and those two twin sister from the cantina sequence. That's it, and of those only Princess Leia is truly focused on in the narrative, which reduces the possibilities for the porno iteration rather limited, unless the filmmakers have the princess take on every character in the film in what would amount to an Annabel Chong-style one-woman marathon session set in a galaxy far, far away. To remedy this, the XXX version gives us a Tusken raider who is revealed to be a horny and eager woman, the cantina twins re-imagined as lesbians and an assortment of other random females dropped into the cantina from out of nowhere (including a Twi'lek woman straight out of Jabba's palace in RETURN OF THE JEDI), and a pair of very accommodating female stormtroopers. The result is involving only to the most desperate and STAR WARS-obsessed of fanboys.

The classic cantina sequence, now with orgy.

If you've seen the original STAR WARS — I refuse to call it "A NEW HOPE" — there's really no point in me bothering to describe the plot particulars, other than to note a few items of interest:

• With the exception of the over-the-top flaming C-3P0, all of the characters are performed with an uber-straight delivery that makes their stilted and occasionally clever parodic dialogue and goings-on periodically laugh-out-loud funny. The joke with Threepio is incredibly obvious and it wears out its welcome almost immediately.
• The film's CGI special effects are quite good and help to place the viewer into a suitable re-creation of the Lucas galaxy.

The classic opening spaceship chase, re-created with very good, relatively low-budget CGIeffects.

• Porn veteran Tom Byron's Obi-Wan Kenobi is a hoot, thanks to him interpreting the character as a dryly-snarky and rather jaded "been there, done that" asshole, and his Alec Guinness impression is spot-on. (I cannot believe Byron, the stalwart of countless tenderloin pieces, is currently fifty years old!)

The venerable Tom Byron as Obi-Wan Kenobi, working the Jedi Mind trick...

...on a formerly-wrapped sand person (Jennifer White) who turns out to be quite attractive, and with whom he immediately gets it on with atop the hood of Luke's landspeeder.

• Seth Gamble takes Luke Skywalker's dorkiness/quasi-stupidty to new comedic heights and he's very funny in the role.

• The same cannot be said of Rocco Reed's Han Solo, though some of his efforts are worthy of checking out. His reaction when Luke points out Solo's error in citing a parsec as a measure of time rather than distance is great, but what happens during the re-staging of the Solo/Greedo firefight is hilarious and goes a long way toward making up for the damage done in the so-called "special edition" of STAR WARS.

When Greedo has him at gunpoint, Solo pretends to see something interesting and exclaims "Gods of Alderaan! Look at the tits on that stormtrooper!", which distracts Greedo long enough for Solo to shoot him dead. Solo then walks over to Greedo's corpse, unloads another two blaster shots into it and proclaims, "Shoot first, shoot often!" Following that, Solo ushers Luke and Obi-Wan onto the Millennium Falcon with "Can we get a move on? I just just killed a guy back there and I'll feel a lot better about everything once we're outta here."

• There is a lengthy three-way beejay scene involving Chewbacca, the beloved Wookie co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon, and a pair of very friendly female stormtroopers, and I can't speak for you but I can unequivocally state that I've never once entertained thoughts of Chewie getting it on with anyone, let alone two eager human females. I'm well aware of the concept of "rishathra" — sexual relations outside of one's own species — but this ain't a Larry Niven novel and the sight of Chewie giving the "come and get some of this" sexy face while enticingly gesticulating is full-blown nightmare fuel. That may appeal to the "furries" out there, but what is this doing in what's supposed to be a porn parody geared for the enjoyment of a general porn-lovin' audience?

Everyone's favorite shaggy space alien makes with the "come hither" moves...

..which are well received by a pair of curvy Imperial stormtroopers...

...who swiftly doff much of their armor and grant Chewie a tag-team "chewie" on his all-too-human ween that's guaranteed to be seen in your nightmares for weeks afterward.

• I rather liked Princess Leia as portrayed by Allie Haze, late of the classic FOOT FUCKERS (2011), who is cute in a normal, girl-next-door kind of way and displays a body refreshingly free of the mammalian augmentation common to today's porn actresses (though she does retain the Barbie-like "smoothie" that has lately supplanted the "landing strip" as the favored style of pubic topiary). She pulls off Carrie Fisher's signature attitude and is right up there with Tom Byron as the best of this cast's actors during the non-explicit portions of the narrative.

That said, the role of the princess poses one of the biggest and most off-putting problems in the film. Since the revelations in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), everyone and their dog knows that Luke and Leia are twin siblings, which has led to over three decades of queasy incest jokes and the endless generation of fanfic and amateur erotica depicting the pair in flagrante delicto. In some corners, incest may fly as spank-fodder but, much like rape and sexual torture fantasies, it's a touchy subject and very much down to the individual's taste when it comes to enjoyment thereof. We know the actors are not really brother and sister but we are nonetheless grossed out by the concept of them taking their relationship and affection into the realm of taboo, so things get really gnarly when that imagined scenario is allowed to play out in a movie whose very point is to depict up close and personal sexual congress. And let us not forget that Darth Vader (here played by impressively-endowed ebony cocksman Lexington Steel) is Luke and Leia's father, so this film's version of Vader's interrogation of Leia in her jail cell on the Death Star becomes especially distasteful as Vader offers to "work out a deal" with his captive daughter. Though she's not explicitly stated to be Vader's little girl, the film does play with the incest angle throughout its running time, relying on the audience's foreknowledge of the genetic connection between the father and children in question to hopefully provide a certain titillating frisson, so it was really rough to endure the sight of the princess sucking the Sith lord's girthy kidney-scraper during a spirited beejay/masturbation sequence that seems to last for a short eternity until the predictable DNA-meets-face denouement. But that bit of nastiness is completely eclipsed at the film's end, when the trio of heroes celebrate after their victory against the Death Star. Yes, it's a three-way with the princess, Luke and Han Solo, and I assure you that it's nothing less than disturbing when one cannot help but recall the sibling element. It's one thing for the scenario to feature three friends enjoying sharing each others' bodies and the pleasures they can provide, but when two of the participants are brother and sister pop cultural icons it's just, well...Yecch.

Gaaaah!!!

The bottom line on STAR WARS XXX is that it's clearly one of the most ambitious adult films ever made, especially among those in the now-ubiquitous and largely terrible parody sub-genre, but its attempts at finding the perfect balance between respectful re-creation of a cinema classic, parody and explicit sex just don't mesh into a truly entertaining smut confection. Sure, there are those who will enjoy having one off the wrist while seeing the STAR WARS gang rutting like crazed weasels dosed on a fistful of Stud City animal stimulants, but for most of us that novelty will likely wear off after around ten minutes. I've watched a lot of porn since I was younger than I care to admit, so maybe I'm particularly jaded, but I've seen more enjoyable efforts that were made in the early 1970's for a minute fraction of this film's budget, shot in a basement somewhere and starring two out of shape hippies with dirty feet fucking on a sheetless mattress. I understand what Braun and company were attempting to do, but you can't necessarily hew this close to the source, which, let's face it, was pretty much a wholesome kid's film, and expect it to work well as something with which to facilitate the emptying of the wank-tanks. (Braun's exceptional BATMAN XXX is a rare exception to this rule.) Sadly, I rate STAR WARS XXX as a well-intentioned failure and I'm curious to see if it makes enough money to warrant a skin flick remake of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Aaah, who am I kidding? It totally will, so when it happens I earnestly pray that we are spared the sight of Yoda's wrinkly green nutsack smacking back and forth against some randomly-introduced female character's ass. When all is said and done, the sci-fi classic I would be much more interested in seeing rendered into a full-on porno version is BARBARELLA (1968), which was already pretty much there anyway. Please alert me when that one inevitably happens.