Salem Watches Star Wars: On The Last Jedi Weekend

OK, there's actually spoilers in this one... for a month-old movie.

I saw it. So, after my trepidation last week, how did it measure up?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is... a movie. Goodnight, everyone!

[Salem's attempt to sneak out has been intercepted with Erin carrying a very large shotgun.]

Thanks, Erin. That brings to mind the perfect metaphor. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is what would happen if you took a bunch of Star Wars, dropped it down the barrel of a very large shotgun, and fired it one-handed without aiming at a theatre screen. Minus the monetary damages and police inquiry, of course. Now please put the shotgun down?

There's a lot to love here. There's a whole lot of things that work really, really well, but there's also a lot that either doesn't work at all or could have been easily avoided (and made for a tighter, more focused film). Let's talk about the good, shall we?

I have found my spirit animal, and it is Grumpy Luke. Grumpy Luke, living on his own on an island, surrounded by the bones of an ancient religion and waiting to die. Grumpy Luke, who so casually tosses his (and his father's) lightsaber over his shoulder and stalks away. Mark Hamill may have voiced reservations about how his character was handled, but I think he did a magnificent job with what he was given, and I feel what he was given wasn't all that bad. I've heard complaints about how he wouldn't have tried to kill Ben, given his choice to save Vader, but in the context of the scene, he faltered for a moment and that's what caused the whole thing. "Just one faltering moment causes catastrophe down the line" seems to be a running theme with Jedi, as what created Vader was Obi-Wan's cockiness and underestimation of Darth Maul that caused a worthier teacher to die. The entire sequence with Rey and Luke on the island is really great, and I wish the movie would have focused more on this.

And speaking of Rey, she has finally grown some kind of character with the revelation of her parents being absolute nobodies that sold her for beer money, and is starting to earn what she was given in the first film now that her defiant self-image has been shattered. Something seems visually off about her, though, and I can't put my finger on it; given that it's been 2 years between movies but mere seconds on-screen, the difference is a little jarring.

Most of the rest of the cast does well. Leia, Finn, and Poe are well done, Poe especially getting a lot of character arc, and you can't screw up Chewie and R2. I've heard complaints about Leia's "Mary Poppins" moment, but given we saw her Force sensitivity first flare way back in Empire and it's been 30 years, I'm more than okay with her having a strong Force moment.

Kylo Ren finally becomes interesting, with a more fleshed-out backstory and real personal vulnerability. His moments of flirting with the Light really make me hope that by the end of the next movie he and Rey switch places, with Rey falling to the Dark side and Ren redeemed, but having to live with the atrocities he's committed. The throne room fight scene, with the most hilarious red herring of the entire series, is fantastic. Hands down, the best fight scene in all of Star Wars, topping my previous of Chirrut taking apart a squad of Stormtroopers in Rogue One. When I try to explain what I like about fight scenes to people, I always point to Liam Neeson in Rob Roy. Swinging a sword for more than a few seconds turns into hard work, and Rey and Kylo take a real beating from Snoke's guards, nearly losing several times.

Now onto the things that don't work.

Admiral Holdo. Look, I was going into this biased, as Holdo herself is a meme already, but I'm going to look past the joke of Vice Admiral Gender Studies and criticize her by her actions and her words. From the moment that Poe first speaks to her, she takes every opportunity to be insufferably smug and snide. I understand that Poe was recently demoted and has a reputation as a hothead, but I've been in a position of leadership. I wasn't the admiral of a military, but even I know that if you have a recently disciplined hothead under your wing, you let him know that you're aware of that, but you keep him at least somewhat informed and you give him something to do. Holdo basically blows him off and at no point even drops a hint that she has a plan other than "Keep flying that-a-way." All she had to say was "Thank  you for your input, Commander, there is a plan, and this is what I need you to do" and then tell him to go make sure all the ships are properly fueled or something in case we need them. Holdo reminds me of those Civil War generals that were promoted because they contributed monetarily and became war heroes, but were absolute disasters when it came to actual leadership.

Which brings us to Canto Bight. If Holdo had told Poe there was a plan, there would have been absolutely no need for Finn and Rose to go there. There would have been no need for a Disney film to bash rich people, no need for an alien horse race, and no need for us to pretend that Finn and Rose have any chemistry whatsoever. And no need for Benicio Del Toro's squinty, stuttery face to show up and be absolutely pointless. The entire casino planet subplot was unnecessary, and only served to distract from the opportunity for more quiet character moments and training sequences between Rey and Luke, or the opportunity to maybe make the already tech-savant Rose the one that breaks the security on the Imperial ship.

I'm torn on the salt planet. It was a neat idea, and those crystal foxes are adorable, but there were parts that worked and parts that didn't. The face-off between Luke and Kylo Ren was hilarious, as the movie turned into an absolute anime by the end of that sequence with Luke's casual "See you around, kid." The salt-speeders were terrible, though. They had no guns, no offensive capabilities on display, and couldn't even fly, instead just sort of skimming on a single ski. They weren't even really big enough to damage anything they crashed into, despite how bad of an idea Finn had.

Also, let's stop fooling ourselves. Captain Phasma is not a good character. Captain Phasma is a waste of a character. She shows up, looks cool, gets smacked down in a humiliating way, and exits the movie ingloriously. I give up. They're not going to do anything with Phasma.

There was a good movie in there, somewhere. The Force Awakens was a better movie, even if it did play it safe, but I'd have left a good third of this movie on the editing room floor, as it's so incredibly uneven in its current state. This is still worth a watch to keep up with the Star Wars mythos, but it's a hard sell.

Salem (has not) Watched a Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

That wasn't a typo. I haven't seen it yet.

Spoilers? I don't know. Can I spoil a movie I haven't seen?

I'm not boycotting it or anything. I literally don't care enough about Star Wars to worry that they're casting the wrong types of people or pushing the wrong types of messages. Hell, I was there for the prequels. Whatever they do, it can't be worse than that.

There's a woman at work who is a massive Star Wars fan and was part of the training process for my new job. She's asked me several times and gets increasingly frustrated when I tell her I haven't yet. Curiously, she's a little confused as to why she hasn't gone to see it a second time, but we'll get to that.

I meant to go on Christmas, when I had a 3 day weekend. I meant to go on New Years' Day, when I had 5 days off. I meant to go this last weekend when I had another 3 day weekend, and every other weekend in between. And granted, I'm in the middle of a major depressive episode, but I went to go see Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League. I even had a $5 movie ticket coupon that could have gotten me into a 3D showing, and I kept putting it off until it expired.

I've quite enjoyed watching the YouTube criticism videos. The memes are fantastic. Luke's Milk and Swolo Ren in particular, and I have no idea if she's a good character or not, but I get a giggle out of Vice Admiral Gender Studies.

What I haven't enjoyed are the conspiracy theories about an insidious plot to undermine western society. Granted, while there are some things to criticize (such as the one-of-each casting that looks like the attractive, yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show - thanks, Cat Grant), I don't think Alex Jones needs to worry so much about Star Wars. On the flip side, I also do not enjoy the hyperbolic two-pronged assault of "Star Wars being a triumph in diversity" and "anyone who criticizes it is an evil Nazi Gamergater MRA Drumpfist manbaby." Seriously, knock it off. Stop being so obnoxious about your celebration, and stop attacking anyone who disagrees with you over it.

The Chinese have a word for this now, by the way: "Baizou." This translates roughly to "white lefties" and translates literally, or so I'm told, to "libtard." I don't know if it's related in any way, but despite casting an Asian in a prominent role and putting her front and center in the marketing (which China usually loves), China went to go see The Last Jedi once and never went back.

I guess you could say The Last Jedi had a little trouble in big China.

I'm so not sorry for that.

I think the thing that spurred me to write this was this incident. One guy, somewhere, anonymously edited a cam version of The Last Jedi to remove the prominence of the female characters, which probably took maybe just a few hours, uploaded it to ThePirateBay, and set off yet another internet firestorm. No declaration of intent, just a description of what he did, and some jumped-up lefty lifestyle blog gave him exactly the reaction he was assuredly looking for.

I really should go and see it sometime this week, but I can't help but shake the feeling that I've already had the Star Wars: The Last Jedi experience.

My Thoughts on the Disney Star Wars Movies

The Force Awakens
Essentially a retelling of A New Hope: a force-sensitive orphan on a backwater desert planet finds a lost astromech droid, escapes on the Milennium Falcon, and gets caught up in an insurgency against a superior military force with a planet-busting weapon. Her mentor is killed by a loved one who has gone to the dark side and who serves an ominous holographic master, but in revenge she blows up the superweapon and gives new hope to the insurgency.

And I'm fine with this. In 2015 it had been 10 years since any Star Wars film and 30 years since a good Star Wars film, so I recognized the necessity of going "Hey fans, it's going to be okay. We know how to make a good Star Wars movie. Look, we're following the comfortable formula."  I like TFA because it was fun and exciting and I wanted to know more about the universe. Surely Episode 7 would explain all of my unanswered questions, right?

• Why is the First Order a Diet Empire?
• Why isn't the New Republic stomping them into dirt?
• Who is Supreme Leader Snoke?
• Will we see more of Commander Phasma?

Rogue One
I refer to R1 as "the best film that I've ever hated." It's true, and I'll tell you why, but first let me address this:

Me not liking a movie is my opinion. You are free to think I'm wrong, but arguing with me isn't going to convince me otherwise. You can't debate people into changing their minds over matters of taste, and opinion of art is taste. 

The biggest fault that R1 had is that unlike every single other Star Wars movie, it wasn't fun.  There was no joy in it at all. There were some cool scenes, yes, some very thrilling heroics, but everything was so goddamn grim.  Now I realize that this was meant to be a gritty film, the franchise's version of Dirty Dozen, but for crying out loud that doesn't mean everyone needs to die!

The whole thing just felt very 90s grimdark, where happy endings are verboten and people die horribly because "it's all, like, realistic and stuff."  Well, I don't watch Star Wars for the realism! Would it have be so terrible for this to have happened?



Okay, maybe not with EVERYONE surviving, but definitely with K-2SO making a backup and rescuing Jyn and Cassian.

And then that bit with Vader... okay, I can appreciate Vader being a badass, but having the Tantive IV literally at the battle changes the entire tenor of the beginning of ANH and not in a good way, I feel.

See, this is my other objection to R1: it alters canon and doesn't explain why.

• Who are the stormtroopers in black armor, and why have we not seen them before or since? No explanation given. 
• What are these new TIE fighters called? How are they better than regular TIEs? Why have we not seen them before or since? No explanation given. 
• That guy wearing a white uniform, is he a Grand Admiral like Thrawn? No, he's just a "Director". Huh, okay. So I guess directors wear white uniforms because they're awesome? No, Grand Moff Tarkin is wearing gray and he makes Director Krennik his bitch. Then... why? No explanation given.

So to me, R1 was just a bundle of dissatisfaction. I could have accepted the unanswered questions if it didn't have such a depressing "Everyone Dies!" ending, and I could have accepted a grimdark joyless ending if there had been more attention paid to continuity. But I didn't get either, so I didn't enjoy it. If you enjoyed it, that's cool. 

The Last Jedi

Remember all those questions from TFA I hoped would be answered? Yeah, the answer seems to be "Fuck you, that's why."  They not only don't answer any of them, the movie then seems to take a massive steaming shit on the original trilogy by destroying all the things we like. 

• Hey kids! Did you like Luke Skywalker, Jedi? Guess what, he's back to being whiny old Wormy from Tattooine, only with force powers! Oh, and we're going to kill him too, because we don't want him to actually accomplish anything in this movie!
• (and seriously, he didn't. Sure, he delayed Kylo Ren long enough for the Diet Alliance to escape from the Diet Empire, but he could have done that and more if he'd actually come back with Rey and Chewie on the Falcon.)
• Hey! Did you like the battle sequences on Hoth with speeders against walkers? Sure you did! So we're going to make a sequence like that, only it'll be a salt planet instead of snow, and the speeders will be incredibly lame, and at the end the rebels will have accomplished fuck-all!
• Hey! Did you like the lightsaber battle at the end of Return of Jedi in the Emperor's throne room?  Sure you did! So we're going to do it again, only we're going to murder the Emperor stand-in and then have an almost-Sith and a sorta-Jedi kill a bunch of kinda-Imperial Guards!
• I have to tell you that I was actively rooting for Rey to take Ben's hand after that battle. When she saw him shirtless I realized that the writers were suggesting a romance between them, and so when he asked her to join him ("So we can rule the galaxy as father and son together") I thought "Yes! Do it! I want to see what happens when a Dark Side user loves a Light Side user. That is one hell of a mixed marriage. Will the have children who use both sides and are therefore Gray? Dammit, show me something new!"
• Instead, we got... what we got. Sigh. 
• I also had a moment of extreme being-impressed-ness when the command ship was hit and Leia was sucked into space. I was all "Holy crap, no wonder the writers didn't seem bothered that Carrie Fisher died before the trilogy was over! This is BRILLIANT!"... and then you know what happened. 
• So now we have Han murdered, Luke disappearing into the Force (he might turn up as a Force Ghost. If so, I'd sure like to know where the fuck was Anakin's force ghost as his grandson was being turned to evil? I mean, Yoda can come back but not Anakin? Bullshit. Someone go get Hayden Christiansen and beat him with a stick until he gives a non-wooden performance) and now with Fisher dead and the writers saying they won't CGI her, she's going to die offscreen. I think the writers should have changed the script and re-shot some scenes -- they had the time, Fisher died a year before the movie was released -- so that Leia would have a meaningful death. 
• But I don't think they want meaning. They want what Kylo wants: to kill the past, to burn it all down. I fully expect that in episode 9, the Falcon is going to be destroyed and Chewbacca is going to die. 
• And don't even get me started on Laura Dern's dumbass admiral who should have communicated her plan to her CAG, who should have had the other ships doing lightspeed kamikaze runs, and who should have interposed her ship -- you know, the one with the shields that could withstand ISD turbolasers? -- between the Diet Empire's fleet and the escaping shuttles. 

At this point, I think I'm done with this storyline. I'll give the upcoming Solo: a Star Wars Story a try because it's got a good pedigree (written by Lawrence Kasdan, who gave us Empire Strikes Back) and because how badly could they fuck up a one-shot prequel (don't answer that), but after that I'm not likely to watch more. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take some geritol and yell at some kids to get off my lawn. 

A Short Thought and a Shout Out

I'm mulling over some news from a doctor, and also have no real, tangible thoughts on anything this week (and there's Rifftrax Live tonight!), but I do have a small, important thing I'd like to say on a topical issue. And after we've got the serious thing out of the way, I'll end it on a fun note.

Bathrooms
They're a big, nasty topic these days. There's a lot of misinformation and a lot of anger. Personally, I'm unconcerned with who uses what bathroom. I'm not sure why there's a differentiation, anyway. Bathrooms are bathrooms to me, and the only real difference is the number of stalls and presence of urinals. That said...

• To the extreme far left: moderate conservatives are not calling trans women men in dresses.They're expressing a concern, perhaps poorly worded, that actual scary cis-het males are going to dress in drag to assault women and children in restrooms. Given your usual statements regarding cis-het men, I'm surprised you aren't more aligned with them.
• To the extreme far right: please calm down. Who is allowed in the toilet probably isn't going stop a predator from entering a restroom just like a gun-free zone isn't going to keep a badguy with a gun out. In fact, the this fear of cis-het men entering restrooms dressed like women is starting to sound a lot like the androphobia expressed regularly by radical feminists.
• To the moderates on both sides: Talk to each other, for crying out loud.

Something a little more upbeat
Remember when I said I wasn't really a Star Wars fan? I've sort of softened a bit, mostly in part to The Force Awakens. So, even though I was posting the Fourth Doctor like a jackass yesterday, here is a concession. May the Fourth be with you, even if I'm a day late.

Salem Watches a Movie -- Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The spoilers are calling to you... just let them in.

It's 2:17 pm Mountain time, Sunday the 20^th of December. I've just left the theatre after seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens. You may have noticed that I'm not in a state of either euphoric bliss nor am I fuming with rage. As I've shamefully admitted before, I'm not really a fan of Star Wars. I'm not big on sword and sorcery type of fantasy to begin with, and setting it in space doesn't do it any favours, as I tend to see background characters and objects and want to know more about them than I do the flashy Jedi and Sith that are prominently in the foreground of the story.

And so, with The Force Awakens, has the story been brought to a level that I can appreciate? Yeah. Yeah, I think it has. One thing that the original films had over the prequel trilogy is that the characters were relatable. Every character in the prequel trilogy, without exception, was either dull and aloof or ham-handedly overacting, but those in the original trilogy were easily identifiable: the wide-eyed, naive farmboy; the haughty but tough princess; the cocky jackass space pirate.

The characters in The Force Awakens definitely veer more towards the original trilogy than the prequel trilogy, and not just the ones returning from the original films. Poe Dameron is the biggest smartass in a galaxy far, far away, Finn's got great comedic timing, and Rey is really likable. I can't think of a single character that could have been replaced with a block of wood to no detrimental effect to the film. (Hayden Christiansen, I'm looking at you.) And most importantly, there was not one comic relief character! Several characters had great comedic moments, yes, but there was no character dedicated to comic relief. Even C-3P0 was toned down from the original trilogy, and not a hint of Jar Jar or Ewoks in sight, anywhere. Even in the big alien bar scene, there were no “funny aliens”; in fact, the only really strange one was a meaningful character.  But on characterization, there are a few points that have been rather controversial lately.

In my opinion, Rey is a little bit Mary Sue. She's a little OP. Given her background in scavenging on a lawless desert planet, I can buy her combat expertise and engineering, but she's piloting a notoriously stubborn spaceship in incredibly breathtaking maneuvers after it has been parked for years, successfully using the Jedi Mind Trick with her first real try, and going toe to toe with the badguy by the end. I think I have eyestrain at this point from rolling my eyes so hard at people defending Rey by saying "Well Anakin was a Mary Sue, too!" People, if you have to compare your character to Anakin Skywalker to defend her, that's not a good thing. That said, Daisy Ridley pulled it off. I still like the character, and am willing to overlook her flaws (or lack thereof, considering that a flawed character is an interesting character) because of her performance. I just feel that people are praising her for the same reason they bashed Clara Oswald over on Doctor Who.

The special effects have advanced to a point where, when watching the dogfights in this film, you really feel like you're watching real spaceships shooting at each other instead of just advanced CGI. Possibly because of the practical effects and model work, and partly due to advancements in technology, this time around it really feels like you're watching actual things and not just a digital approximation of things. Seeing the Millenium Falcon swooping and diving in such visceral style was stomach-lurching, and the first time in the entire series I really felt like I was watching a spaceship in flight. The dogfights between X-Wings and TIE fighters have never looked better.

Choreography is a real sticking point for me as well. Granted, it can be easily explained away by saying 'That's just how the Jedi Order taught people how to fight and Luke wasn't trained by the Order” but in the prequel trilogies, it never felt like any particular swing of a lightsaber blade was aimed at anything but another lightsaber blade. With Luke and Vader, you could tell Luke was really trying to take Vader out. Likewise, in the climactic lightsaber battle of this movie, Finn and Kylo Ren, and later Rey and Kylo, really feel like they're trying to carve bits off of each other and barely care that the other has just as dangerous a weapon. Whereas in the prequel trilogy any strike of a lightsaber felt as if it had no impact, here I cringed every time one made contact. 

And speaking of Kylo Ren... while I don't particularly like him, at least he was a character. Unlike Darth Maul in the prequels, who had two lines and then just glowered menacingly before twirling his baton and flipping through the air like a majorette on whatever they were feeding Simpson over on Jessica Jones. Kylo Ren's character had a purpose, and almost had a story arc (and might still), but overall, he fell in with the other baddies in this film as my main disappointment. Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma got a ton of pre-release hype, but just turned out... less than impressive. The First Order officers came across as comically, over-the-top evil, with uniforms an imagery that unsubtly screamed Nazi allegory, and when the Stormtroopers gave their salute to their leader (whose name I don't think I actually heard at any point), I swear I heard somebody in the theater mutter “Hail Hydra.”

It might have been me.

Erin says: I like to call this scene Triumph of the Whills.
If you don't get that reference, you aren't a proper nerd. 

I'll tell you who my favourite character in the whole thing was: that Riot Control Stormtrooper. The one who spotted Finn, shouted “TRAITOR!” and dropped his weapon, then proceeded to throw Finn a beatdown with an electrified nightstick while Finn was holding a lightsaber.

That guy. Yeah. I want his action figure. Shame he's only available in a 2-pack.

Overall, this movie is certainly worth your time. It's not the most fun space opera I've seen in recent years (I'm sorry, Guardians of the Galaxy still has that spot), but it's close.

Update: I bought the 2-pack. Riot Trooper now stands proudly on my desk.

May the Weather Be With You (tonight)

Salem isn't going to have a post for tonight, because he claims he has a long meeting before work, and that's when he writes his article. Myself, I sorta suspect he's sneaking out to watch the new Star Wars movie.

Ne that as it may, here is a delightfully nerdy and punny weather forecast performed by a charming and pretty Nottinghamshire lass.


There are supposed to be 12 puns in that forecast, but I only counted nine:

1. "if you Luke farther west"
2. "if you're Wookiee"
3. "the Force is strong though"
4. "the weather strikes back"
5. "Don't be a trooper"
6. "if you're forced to awaken"
7. "it will be on the Dark Side"
8. "Far, far away"
9. "there's a New Hope for some sunshine"

Which ones did I miss?

WNW: Jerry Shot First

Since I didn't do anything gun-related on Monday, and Star Wars opens this week, here is my apology:  a video of champion shooter Jerry Miculek dressed as Han Solo and shooting an actual Broomhandle C96 Mauser made to look like Solo's BlasTech DL-44.


I think it's actually more impressive seeing the slide rock back and kick out the live round than it is to see a CGI laser blast from the muzzle, but that's just me and I'm strange...

A Brief Musing about Star Wars

It's no wonder the Jedi Order fell, what with its ridiculous practice of taking small children, training them with laser swords and psychic abilities, and then telling them "Look, I know you're going through puberty right now, but you aren't allowed a boyfriend/girlfriend because that would be a distraction. Instead, meditate through it."

Frankly, I'm surprised no one pulled an Anakin-style "I want to get laid and I'll kill you all if I have to" massacre sooner.

You want to know how the Dark Side gets its recruits? The Sith let their apprentices fuck. It's that simple.

Star Wars Anime

The Star Wars franchise has basically been dead to me since George Lucas' runaway goiter* took control of his mind and directed him to make the fractally execrable** prequel trilogy

But this?  This is cool. The Empire always did have the coolest uniforms and equipment.


Like Andew Eldritch said: "I think the great lesson of the 20th century is that you have to separate the ethics from the aesthetics. The Nazis did have the best uniforms, there's no denying it."

More information about the characters can be found in this PDF by the creator. Example: the Star Destroyer captain "is a big fan of fruit, and always offers fruit to underlings during briefings."  I find this oddly hilarious.



* Look, judge for yourself:

** Not merely execrable, but execrable on every scale, with pockets of small execrableness concealed within larger execrable masses; execrable from any analytical viewpoint, self-similarly execrable.

Salem's Shameful Sci-Fi Secret

I'm going to be upfront here. I don't like Star Wars.

Let that sink in. I'm a big Doctor Who fan (obviously, if you've been keeping up with me here). I love Star Trek. Especially Deep Space 9. I've been reading Marvel, DC, and a few of the indie companies for decades now. I even keep up with the lore behind Transformers (not the Bay films, pls). But Star Wars has never really resonated with me for some reason.

I remember, as a kid, seeing the films on television around Christmas or Thanksgiving, depending on what part of the world I was living in at the time. I'd seen, through bits and pieces, but probably never the whole way through, the entire original trilogy, albeit not in the proper viewing order either due to never actually having sat down to watch them and whatever various bits got cut out for commercial breaks. I got a bit swept up in the Episode 1 hype. I mean, being a nerd, I was supposed to be excited, right? Star Wars, in the theaters, for the first time in my lifetime. I didn't camp out waiting in line or anything (I hate queueing. Avoid it at all costs), but I visited some friends who did on opening night. And when my friends and I went to go see it, we threw popcorn up in the air and cheered appropriately when a giant spaceship flew across the screens for the first time. I pity the usher who had to clean up after that showing.

The hype died shortly after seeing Episode 1, of course. Didn't end up seeing either of the latter films in the prequel trilogy until much, much later. I still don't think I've seen Attack of the Clones the entire way through, due to falling asleep pretty much every time I attempted. I've probably seen the RedLetter Media Plinkett reviews more than I've seen the actual movies. For the record, they're right. Lucas is a maniac that needs to be reigned in sharply.

Only.. I think I might like Star Wars. A little, at least. I clearly know that I'm not fond of the aspects of it that are Sword & Sorcery In Space. I can't stand the Jedi Order. They strike me as hypocritical, repressive, overly judgmental, and prone to propaganda at least as much, if not more, than Palpatine during his power play. I've never been fond of stoic warrior monks at the best of times, and when they have a council with executive power in government, that just rubs me the wrong way. I have a feeling that I'd need fitting for a cybernetic arm regularly if I lived in the Star Wars universe for very long. Temptation to mouth off to a Jedi would just be too much for me.

And I won't even get into my theory about how movies 2-5 could have been avoided if Obi-Wan hadn't been such a dumbass right now.

So I recently sat down and watched the Classic Trilogy and, worryingly, I could clearly identify things that I enjoyed. Mos Eisley. Jabba's Palace. The Millenium Falcon. The Cloud City of Bespin. Lando Calrission. Boba “What Exactly Did I Do To Justify All This Fan-Worship” Fett. The bounty hunters on Vader's ship. And the lynch-pin of all of these elements: puckish rogue Han Solo.

I realize that while I dislike a majority of Star Wars, what I'd really like is a series of films about Han Solo. The world of smugglers and bounty hunters, alien crime lords and blockade runner ships. I want a movie where Han didn't so much shoot first, but didn't even give Greedo the chance to fire. Given my relative unfamiliarity with the Star Wars canon, I'm open to suggestion if anyone's got a good recommendation on any Solo-centric stories, visual or print, I might enjoy.

In the meantime, I made a physical concession to the series.  

WNW: the R2-D2 Bra

Because, really, why not?





There are also instructions on how to make your own pair.

Nerd Trifecta

Day 2 of Allergy/Sinus hell. Cannot accomplish anything due to all the sneezing and headaches.  Here, have a collection of awesome geeky videos.

1) My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
My Little One Piece -- We Go




2) Star Wars
Tie Fighter Anime




3) Team Fortress 2
Needa Dispensah Heeah

WNW: The Imperial March as it was destined to be interpreted

Many thanks to Phlegm Fatale for letting me know about this gem.

WNW: The Star Wars That I Used to Know

Apparently this is a parody of a video or something. I just like it at face value.

WNW: Galaxy of Passion

Watch, and your loins will burn with passion.

WNW: For the Sun

Via The Gloss and submitted without comment:

A tip of the hat to Ricochet for the link.

WNW: Guns n' Wookies

This seems to be making the viral video rounds. Happy Geek Day, everyone!

Oh, right...

... today is Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you, and all that.)  I can be forgiven for its having slipped my mind because I wrote off SW as a lost cause back in the early part of the previous decade (OH GOD I FEEL SO OLD HAVING SAID THAT).

Anyway, have some Simon Pegg taking the piss out of Star Wars.

Henceforth I shall be called "DJ Wicky Wicky Woo"

(with apologies to MC Chris)


My rucksack doth bear me skyward;
Verily, thou mayest call me Boba of Fett.
I doth seek the blood-price of men on behalf of the Huttese Jabba,
For mine Corvette needeth payments.

Wicky, wicky, woo!

Verily, I resideth in the cold outer darkness;
A barbute obscureth mine countenance;
And whilst I receiveth bounty for blood,
Mine eyes still narroweth,
For cunctation be not within my purview.

Upon thy knees, varlet!


For those who need context:

WNW: Roundabound

Dear Chris: I see your  "Original Star Wars Trilogy in LEGO" and raise you one "Gag Reel of Darth Vader doing GPS".


 


Roundabound!