The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, November 28, 2004

News 2020

News so new it hasn't happened yet

The Commander-in-Chief and First Lady of the USA took time out from their onerous duties last night to attend the world premiere of Mitch Glander's remake of the sci-fi classic Attack of the Clones.

The original version, intended as part of Lucas Playhill's unfinished seventeen-part epic series, was recently voted one of the British public's favourite films of all time, after Brief Encounter, Casablanca and Carry On Camping.

Glander's much-awaited remake has been criticised for leaning too heavily on special effects and thus sacrificing some of the original's subtlety of characterisation and multilevelled complexity of dialogue; but the Commander-in-Chief pronounced it "very enjoyable and stimulating".

The Commander-in-Chief refused to comment on whether he had been inspired to adopt any of the futuristic methods of warfare depicted in the film. "Life does not always imitate art," he said.

But national security adviser General Abimelech K Limburger said that experiments with cloned troops had been considered by the military authorities for use in "initiative non-urgent situations".

Cloned soldiers could be bred with a set of simple instincts which would enable them to do whatever work was necessary without undue time and expense being spent on basic training, the General said. This would leave "genuinely human" troops free to undertake more complicated or demanding work, or simply to be discharged in a new "peace dividend".

A few soldiers have objected to the rumoured plans as being likely to put them out of a job. At least one veterans' association threatened to picket the Attack of the Clones premiere, but the Enhanced National Guard put up wheelchair-proof barriers confining the protesters to a "free speech zone" some two and a half miles from the theatre.

"Of course, in the movie the clones are used by an evil empire to try to suppress a plucky little republic, and in real life the situation's the exact reverse," said Mr Glander on hearing of the general's comments. "Sort of like life holding a mirror up to great art, rather than the other way about."

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