Back to the future.

Thank you so much for Michael Valdez Moses' article ("Back to the Fixture," July); I so rarely have the occasion to read anything worthwhile about the macro-trends in filmmaking.

A minor point from the opening of the article, though: Lucas has actually been rather adamant on the point of there being no third Star Wars trilogy. The series will be complete once episode in (now shooting in Sydney) is finished.

I agree that the story of The Lord of the Rings is essentially anti-modern and parochial, confined to the sensibility of an Englishman, and with a world apparently populated with neither women nor any dark-skinned faces. There is simply no aperture from Middle Earth into the modern world that you and I live in, and for that reason I find it extremely difficult to relate to these films.

The Republic of the new StarWars trilogy, by contrast, is much like our own glittering, Byzantine world--and Anakin is much like the teenager of today. I'm not certain what forces can stop our descent into the same kind of political and moral decadence that corroded Rome, and Lucas seems similarly pessimistic. The problem is inner, hidden, more psychological in nature. The basic idea is that when the final crisis comes, when the tyrant finally takes off his mask, no will be able to stop him. In fact, he will be welcomed.

These problems weigh on me all the time. Generally, however, I don't see them addressed in films at all, and certainly not with any style. Lucas' saga has been, for over a quarter century, a refreshing exception to this trend.

Jason Apuzzo West Haven, CT