SANTA BARBARA, CA -- In response to mixed reviews and profitable but not earth-shattering response to Star Wars Episode I: The Phatom Menace, George Lucas has vowed in a press conference today to make Episode II of the series even better and gayer than Episode I.
   
   

The new voice of Darth Vader (INSET)

Lucas has repeatedly said he believes the Jar-Jar Binks character to be his "greatest acheivement in the film – a completely digital character in a motion picture," the next installment of which is scheduled to be released in a dead heat with Toy Story 3 on May 1st 2002.
   
    The director also said he was changing the subtitle of the film to "The Emporer's New Groove", repeating history when he changed the title of "Revenge of the Jedi" to its final moniker, "Return of the Jedi" shortly before its release, citing the fact that Jedi Knights, Lucas’ imaginary force for good, are not vengeful.
   
    Lucas, whose Star Wars masterworks are some of the most popular of all time, gave insight into how he selects a title for his films. 20th Century Fox executive Roger Arbit said, "He chose ‘The Phantom Menace’ (for episode I) because it sounded like a Hardy Boys mystery, which means it's either really cheesy 50's pseudodrama or raw, hardcore gay porno, both of which were goals of his in this film."
   
    The film's title had originally been "Episode II: Attack of the Clones."
   
    Though he never gave any details to the role that LeVar Burton would play in the film, Lucas did confirm that David Hyde Pierce would fill in the voice of a young Darth Vader.
   
    The creator of the Star Wars dynasty emphasized that all digital characters would be brightly colored, overly reflective and would undulate wildly, "just like they do in real life." "Characters like Chewbacca were not good," he said, "because "they were too big and heavy. He (Chewbacca) also was kind of dangerous- he could hurt someone. I don't want anything like that in any of my films.
   
    "Instead, I think viewers want irritating purple characters that bound weightlessly across shimmering iridescent surreal skies with rainbows and unicorns and shit like that."
   
    "Also I don't think audience like good scenes - you know, really gripping memorable action and dialogue, said Lucas, chuckling, "We can let the computer graphics take care of that."
   
    He went on to describe some of the superior technology involved in the movie’s production. "All flat surfaces have been eliminated and will be replaced with wet-look, purple, undulating texture-mapped voxels that will make pika-chu like noises when touched or rubbed by any character in the film," said Lucas.
   
    "What movie-goers hate the most is characters that are not purple and whose texture-maps do not oscillate in soothing patterns," said special effects director Arnold Hamis. "They loathe even more when a character's body appears to exhibit physical properties of our universe such as weight or momentum. We tried to avoid any of that kind of gratuitousness from this project."
   
    In a conclusion to the meeting, Lucas said he carefully reviewed the original trilogy when he was writing the new episode. "I looked at a lot of aspects, the cold, lumbering technology, the swift striking undertones, the things that were cool. Everything seemed so powerful and dangerous. Well thank heavens I got rid of all that."