Hello World

I literally can't believe I hadn't seen this before today, but you have got to check out iharthdarth. Here's a sample to whet your appetite:
( click to see )

My man, Neal Stephenson, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times about how Star Wars has gotten a bad rap. Here it is. I got the link from the dependable BoingBoing.

Which reminds me. After seeing ROTS for the second time, I felt a strong need to watch the original three movies. So I did, and here are my impressions:

A New Hope
First of all, I had basically forgotten about the first 30 minutes or so of this one. I'm so used to running across this movie while channel-surfing and getting sucked in that I feel like I've got the last half memorized, but I've really only seen the beginning 2 or 3 times, total. So it was fun to watch the introduction of Ben Kenobi, and see how dumb and whiny Luke is at first (actually, for this whole movie, basically). Anyway, this movie is the simplest of them all, in a lot of ways, which works pretty well since its writer/director is barely competent enough to handle it and (as we know now) would choke horribly on anything more complex. Anyway, it's a good movie, except for Greedo firing first, which is total bullshit.

The Empire Strikes Back
This one's pretty awesome, except for Leia kissing Luke to make Han jealous (because later on in the next movie, when she finds out she's his sister, she says "somehow I've known all along"--WTF???). Mark Hamill, coming off of a near-fatal car accident, actually looks like the badass Luke is supposed to be--except for when he finds out Vader is his father and gets his hand cut off and lets loose with the cheesiest "nooooooooooooooo!" in the galaxy (a close second, of course, is Vader's own from 20-some years before). But, come on, this flick is good stuff. The dialogue is much better than in the other movies, there is some interesting moral conflict, Yoda shows up and fucks with Luke, Han and Leia get together, Vader gives Luke the beatdown he so richly deserves... There's a reason everyone calls this one the best of the series. A qualm, though: Luke is a total jerk. He tells Yoda that he's totally committed to his training, and will do whatever he says, but then as soon as his friends get in trouble he abandons his promise and heads off to get his ass kicked. What kind of lesson is this for the kids? At any rate, I love this movie--as long as you don't think too hard about it, it's very entertaining.

Return of the Jedi
This movie was so much better than I remembered. Except for the despicable Ewoks, this one's solid from beginning to end. Luke finally gets to kick ass, choke people from afar, stop whining, and wear a sexy jedi outfit. Yoda dies, with a typically cryptic note to Luke that he's got a sister (maybe you should have told him sooner, huh? Jedis sure can be obnoxious to padawans). Han is cooler blind and shivering than poor Billy Dee Williams could ever be. Jabba gets his. So does Boba Fett, who had a pretty rough life from beginning to end, when you think about it. Leia wears that hilarious metal bra. Speeders race through the forests of Endor. The Emperor is betrayed by Anakin, who dies with a Mona Lisa smile. People cheer all over the galaxy, even in the heart of the Empire (yeah, right--like they aren't buffetted with pro-Empire propaganda constantly--those people would be rioting/panicking/rending clothing). It's all happiness and love and peace. So, great ending, right? Well, not exactly. Vader killed millions (billions?) of people as the Emperor's right-hand man. One good act he makes in order to save his son's life is enough to get him back into the force's good graces, so much so that he gets to play backgammon with Obi Wan and Yoda in Jedi Heaven? I don't buy it, and I don't like it. It would have been better if he knew he was damned and still saved Luke. George Lucas is too much of a pansy to write that, though. Anyway, the cloyingly-sweet ending is lame but expected, and doesn't ruin the movie or the franchise.

Yes, another Star Wars post. This one has no spoilers from ROTS, though, so I won't put it behind a cut.

David Brin, a sci-fi author whose work I am completely unfamiliar with, wrote a stinging condemnation of George Lucas's Star Wars universe back in 1999, when The Phantom Menace (Star Wars episode I) came out. He also wrote another piece focusing specifically on Phantom Menace's flaws, inconsistencies, and fascist tendencies. Then, he put together an addendum which is fascinating. If you are a Star Wars nerd, and you haven't already done so, I encourage you to read each of those pieces, in order. The last piece includes the following:

All evidence points to Yoda as co-villain with the emperor all along -- one lightside of the force lying-pompous-schmuck and one darkside heavybreathing-sadist-schmuck. QuiGon was dimly aware of this problem, which is why he tried bypassing Yoda -- twice! -- and yearned for balance. So did Obiwan. And their student? How esthetic it would be for QuiGon and Obiwan to turn out to have been right and Yoda wrong!

How about this? Annakin self-hypnotized an inner core of himself to hide behid a mask while pretending to be the emperor's lackey, getting ready for a day of reckoning with BOTH of those sanctimonious bastards, Yoda and Palpatine! It works!

Here's part of the SALON article that never got included:

Oh, wait. I get it. Annakin was actually a secret agent spy all along! Here's the secret facts:

Vader's the one who sent the secret plans to Leia's ship! He arranged for the droids to get away, and coincidentally land just a few miles from his hidden son! (It explains why Obiwan "hid" Luke on the one planet Darth (I mean Anniken) was most familiar with in the whole universe. The same PART of that planet. It only makes sense if the two were really in cahoots!)

Remember how, a little later, Vader talks Tarkin into "letting them go so we can trace them"? Likewise, he's the only close-up witness to Obiwan disappearing, when he supposedly "killed" his master in that sword fight! (Maybe he actually helped Obiwan pull a vanishing act.) Note that the "fight" with Obiwan distracted the guards & helped let Luke get away!

But there's more! Remember how Vader "chased" Luke in that Tie fighter... which had the chief effect of turning off all the antiaircraft guns and giving the boy a clear shot to blow up the first Death Star! (From which event, Vader is conveniently the only Imperial survivor.)

Recall how in The Empire Strikes Back Vader offered to make Luke co-ruler? (Presumably it would thus be a nicer dynasty than the emperor's). Then in Jedi recall how Vader brought Luke aboard the second Death Star? Could it be because he knew the kid would irritate the emperor and get him upset enough to finally let Darth get a crack at him from behind?

I knew there had to be some reason why Vader didn't seem to detect his own daughter -- all filled with that magic force shit -- when he grabbed her arm and looked into her eyes in Episode... um... IV is it? Then he drug-interrogated her, without detecting any Force? Can there be any explanation except that he already knew?

Pah! He let them both get away deliberately! And whenever they needed guidance, there were the droids... his own special droids, assigned to help and guide his children to their destiny.

Now THERE is an explanation that could get Vader into Jedi Heaven! Maybe Obiwan, too.

But it CANNOT be the same place as Yoda!

Oh, but I forgot about the billions of people Vader helped kill. So never mind. (Too bad. It was starting to look like I could make the Star Wars Universe actually make sense. Alas, it cannot be done. Some miracles are beyond authorial skill. Sigh.)

I agree with a lot of what he has to say, if you're curious, but ultimately my biggest complaint about the movies is in the logical inconsistencies (like the ones I've already written about) and the mind-bendingly-terrible dialogue. I can put up with bad acting--good dialogue can save bad acting--but even great actors can't do much with wooden, expository, clichéd, stupid dialogue.

And as far as I'm concerned, Phantom Menace never happened. The pod race was okay, but overlong, and the light saber fights were supercool, but everything else about this movie sucked. Amidala as a maternal figure to the boy who grows up to knock her up? A plot based on TAX POLICY and TRADING TARRIFFS? Jar Jar's clumsy stupidity winning the battle? For that matter, Annikin destroying the big bad ship by randomly mashing buttons? UGH.

And yes, I am still planning on seeing Revenge of the Sith again.

Yes, more Star Wars stuff. But this will be significantly shorter than the 2500 word abomination I unleashed this morning.

The Billboard Country Music Top Ten If Kenny Chesney Were Anakin Skywalker and Renée Zellweger Were Padmé Amidala
"You're So Beautiful (Only Because I'm So In Love With You)"

"Do It To Me One More Time (Like You Did By The Lake At Naboo)"

"You Had Me At 'I Will Not Condone A Course Of Action That Will Lead Us To War'"

For the rest, click here for the FameTracker article, which is so hilarious I want to paste it all here, but I won't, because that would be unjust.

Here's one I just made up, though: "I Love You So Much (I'm Going to Betray Everything We Believe In)" Not bad, but not so catchy.

So, let's talk about the OC.

( Spoilers ahead! )

And now, let's talk about Star Wars.

( More spoilers. )

A selection from The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster

The crippled freighter sailed into my view from the bridge, crossing the crescent of Bespin and making for black space. In moments we would have them!

"This will be a day long rememebered," I said.

...Which is pretty much when the Millennium Falcon escaped to hyperspace.

I sighed. Why me?

I was even too dispirited to crush Admiral Piett's trachea.

Now I am in my hyperbaric chamber, listening to music (Rotan's Sonata for Holotyne) and trying to get a grip on things. Betrayed by a mimbo, surrounded by incompetence, my soul in knots; lost Skywalker, lost Organa, sold Solo...

The Emperor is going to barf when I tell him.

I know I should try not to get too excited about the next (and, theoretically, last) installment of Star Wars... but I can't help myself. The previews look awesome, and Tom Stoppard rewrote all the dialogue so it might not suck, and, oh yeah, Anakin turns into DARTH VADER.

Tom Brokaw retired. Whatever. A couple notes, nonetheless.

His replacement, Brian Williams, was on the Daily Show on Monday, and he is hilarious. He won't, of course, be funny as the anchor on NBC, but at least we know that under all the boring he is secretly a funny guy (and thus on the side of good and sunshine).

More importantly, however: I thought Dan Rather was the crazy one who said weird shit (i.e. "if a frog had sidepockets he'd shoot firecrackers in May" or whatever), but apparently he's gonna have to share that title with Peter "Yoda" Jennings: 'Over on ABC, anchor Jennings said he was watching Brokaw's swan song out of the corner of one eye. "Yes, we all keep an eye on one another," Jennings said. "Friends we are, but compete we do."' Thanks, Peter. Now will you teach me the ways of the force so I can be a Jedi like my father? I'm sick of shooting all these womp rats!

After all these chumps are retired, I think cable news anchors are going to be the ones who replace them in the public eye. There's a lot of talk about the effect of blogs and internet news and all that jazz, but what it comes down to is that there will always be a few individuals who shape the way we see the world. The men or women who do that in the future will be those who can take information from these thousands of disparate sources and distill it into a form palatable to the morons who vote. The networks still reach the largest audience, but I'm not sure that'll last too much longer. Cable news reaches not only a rising number of viewers but more importantly those viewers who care just enough about the news to babble about it incessantly in their offices and at their social engagements, boring but informing their dumb friends. Those viewers, with their short attention span, taste for the sensational, and ear for the shallow sound bite, are America. The guys who feed them their pabulum will shape our worldview. Fox News, I am (unfortunately) looking at you.

But maybe I am wrong. I certainly hope that appealing to humanity's baser instincts doesn't work forever. The day we stop paying people to eat bugs in prime time is the day I see a light at the end of this awful tunnel.