Last weekend the title of the next movie in the Star Wars saga was officially announced: "Revenge of the Sith." The thing is named. Soon, very soon, we will have closure.
Actually it's not a bad choice, although I was holding out for "How Vader Got His Groove Back." "Revenge of the Sith' resonates nicely with the third movie of the original trilogy, 'Return of the Jedi,' which, as true fans know, was originally supposed to be called "Ewok Dance Party."
The announcement of the name has become a rite of passage for a Star Wars prequel. When the name was announced, thousands of fans at the Comic-Con International convention cheered, jumped for joy and hugged each other, delighted that after months of eager anticipation they finally knew what to make fun of.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
Good article. You express my frustrations exactly.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
*saves*
*emails to fellow Star Wars-obsessed geek friends*
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
You rock.
That's all that needs to be said.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
*wipes tears* Oh Chris, if you didn't exist someone should invent you. Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I wonder why he's changing the ending of the 6th Star Wars movie... Somehow that just seems...WRONG!
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I thought that was myth, Synth. Has it been confirmed that he's doing it yet?
Dagonee
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Yes, Darth Lucas is the dark side.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
It's obvious why he's changing it, it doesn't fit his new vision.
It's called Sithuational ethics.
[ July 28, 2004, 11:01 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
"Sithuational Ethics" Bwahahahahaha-snort-hahahahaha! I am SO stealing that!
Also loved this part:
quote: ("Special Edition" meaning "I can screw these up too and you can't stop me, mwah ha ha").
I think he may be some bizarre test case (backed by the feminist mafia) to see if they can get public support for the mercy killing of 'creative' men over 50. *lloks around shiftily*
Posted by ballantrae (Member # 6731) on :
There's something I'm not too clear about in the movies theme.
Darth Sidius a.k.a Chancelor Palpatine is foisting a war by playing on several league planets dissatisfaction with the Republic.
Hokay.
Wasn't the Civil War mainly about trying to keep the Union together? I remember being told by some friends that technically the entire war wasn't exactly legal. That the South did have a right to secede.
So does this mean that Lincoln was really a Sith Master and that Grant was his Apprentice? Does that mean that Mark Twain was really formerly a Jedi since he was with the South, but then went over to the Dark Side by writing Grant's autobiography? Does that therefore make all the former black slaves Ewoks? Or are they Calrissians?
Is there a point to this post of mine? If there is one, please let me know, thanks.
-ron
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
The more I learn of Lucas, the more I realize that it's not a fluke that the prequels are horrible -- it was a miracle that the original three weren't.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:I remember being told by some friends that technically the entire war wasn't exactly legal. That the South did have a right to secede.
The Civil War is really complicated. Yes, they did. It was a war meant to conquer and impose a moral agenda.
An agenda I certainly agree with, but it was a shameful war for many reasons.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Fascinating - I understood the US Civil War to be an issue of States' rights and whether or not they had legal authority to secede from the Union in addition to continue slavery in defiance of Northern (Federal) law.
I'll have to give this some more thought.
-Trevor
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Technically, it wasn't about slavery, although fear that Lincoln would free their slaves was the immediate cause of the secession. The South seceded, Lincoln claimed they had no right to, and there was a war. The immediate shooting was started in Charleston by the South.
Ultimately, of course, the war WAS really about slavery. Had there been no slavery, there would likely have been no war.
Dagonee
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
Chris, that was a fantastic column! Very funny. I am at odds with my Star Wars fandom. I can't stand the new movies, can't stand the way he re-edited the old ones (and it gets worse with Special Special editions on the DVDs...more tinkering...can't believe I am going to sadly miss the OLD tinkerings over the newer, bolder ones). Yet. Yet. I will still go gaga over a new movie. I think Charles Schultz, way ahead of his time, captured it best with the Lucy/Charlie football kicking scene. It is repeated over and over. Lucy holds the football for Chuck to kick. He runs to it and at the last minute, she pulls it away and he falls to the ground in pain. She promises she won't, he believes her, and does it over and over.
That is me. Replace Lucy with George, me with Charlie and the football with my hopes for a better movie.
And I will be kicking at it one more time next year.
Auuuugggh!
fil
PS Why can't the movies be as good as those Clone War cartoons? Those few minutes of television packed more Star Wars goodness into 3 minute movies than all the bloated minutes of the prequels combined. Sheesh.
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
To be fair, it was really only the first 2 that were great. The third one wasn't nearly as good. Pretty much the more Lucas had to do with the movies the worse they got.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
Too funny! Too true...
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
The gold bikini redeemed it.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I loved RotJ. I pretty much didn't breathe from the moment Luke salutes and jumps off the diving board until the Emperor goes down the pit. Of course, I was only what, 12, at the time?
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I think we may be onto something here.
Slavery was just a red herring.
States Rights was spin.
The real truth behind the American Civil War? Not the need to sell boring documentaries on the Discovery channel.
No.
It was the age old story of ultimate good verses the darkest of evil. Sith Lord Lincoln and Darth Grant against Jedi Master Davis and his Jedi Knights, Jedi Lee, Jedi Jackson, and other.
Alas, the the Sith lords, with their legions of dark clothed semi-clone marching soldiers defeated the noble Jedi. In fact, if it were not for the heroic actions of Paduwan Booth in personally defeating Lord Lincoln, we would probably be under some dark Sithian/Republican leadership today.
I can picture that scene now. Jedi Booth sneaks into the perverted pleasure palace that Lord Lincoln has gone to. Using simple Jedi mind tricks he passes the gaurds, sneaks behind the dark lord, and one quick thrust with a light saber...
but wait. Lord Lincoln is aware of a disturbance in the force. He reacts.
Great is the battle that ensues in that theater box. The audience, however, is entranced by the great performance on stage, so does not notice. Paduwan Booth is all but destroyed until the spectral image of Jedi Jackson distracts Lord Lincoln. I flick of the mind and a bullet sized stone flies out of the wall and kills the dark lord.
The disturbance is heard and the wounded Jedi does one of those remarkable Yoda-esqu jumps to the stage and makes his mistake.
Alas, the other Sith lords round him up and dispose of him and the remaining Jedi that are not successful in their hiding.
Yeah.
I like it.
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
Dan Raven...isn't this a Harry Turtledove novel already??
fil
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
How do you think Lucas is going to consolidate the fact that the clone wars were only 20 years before Episode IV but nobody seems to know about Jedi?
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
20 years is plenty. I doubt the average citizen saw many Jedis, and stories about their powers could easily be twisted until the common folk feared them and welcomed their downfall. If you'd never seen a Jedi, it would be easy to dismiss them as religious fanatics.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
The War of Northern Aggression.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
I dunno - it seems like the Jedi were pretty much a defacto way of life.
They are supposed to have functioned as diplomats and police long before the advent of the Clone Army - which just screams "yeah, right."
20 years is less than a generation to forget such a large factor of society.
-Trevor
Posted by suntranafs (Member # 3318) on :
"Wasn't the Civil War mainly about trying to keep the Union together? I remember being told by some friends that technically the entire war wasn't exactly legal. That the South did have a right to secede."
uh nice theory but I don't think the south waited to find out chump, they struck first did they not? I know I sure wouldn't have in their situation, strike first!
Posted by suntranafs (Member # 3318) on :
Anyway Constitution's the supreme law of the land, anything else is nullified, and nowhere in the constitution does a state have the right to secede not in compliance with the constitution, so only if you think the slaves had no legal right to be free under the first ammendment can you say that the south had a legal right to secede, because it was through that threat that they did, otherwise wouldn't have happened.
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
sun,
eh?
I dig.
fallow
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
Sun, arguably the Constitution is, or was originally, a creation of the states, not vice versa. They submitted themselves to it for their own purposes, and a case could be made that they had the right to change their mind and leave--same way you don't have to stay in the same town or the same church all your life, so long as you submit to its rules while you're there.
Obviously this is not to say the Civil War wasn't worth fighting, or that state's rights were the real cause, but the South did have a case, and if their motives for leaving had been legitimate I'd have said let them go.
This is a strange mutation for a thread about Star Wars, though.
Posted by suntranafs (Member # 3318) on :
Yeah indeed oh well.
"same way you don't have to stay in the same town or the same church all your life, so long as you submit to its rules while you're there."
Except that even if you help build the church or town or donate land, once the church or town is established, you must either move off the land that it is on or abide by its law, or of course declare revolution, in which case you say screw the old law. It's all about land you see, that's what makes a sovereign nation-borders. Citizens can leave the US whenever they wants to, and take personal movable property with them.
[ July 29, 2004, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: suntranafs ]
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
In this case, however, the states pretty clearly retained their land and their own borders. If the growth of a town were to proceed by individual families affirming that, yes, my property is part of the town, with the right to its benefits and the responsibilities of its laws, then clearly the same families could later say, we have had enough, this property is now outside the town. In our history, of course, that is not how towns have grown--but it is how the U.S. started and (theoretically) has continued to grow. (Not to get into a debate about whether the decision to become states has always been voluntary, etc.--though doing so might suggest that many states have been taken by conquest and ought to be allowed to leave. Just don't tell the U.N.)
There is nothing inherently sacrosanct about national borders or even nation-states. They are a product of the way people have decided to organize--an accident of history, really. Fortunately they are reasonably effective and convenient ways to live, but there is no inherent reason to imagine that they are the best, and they are certainly not the only.
Posted by suntranafs (Member # 3318) on :
"In our history, of course, that is not how towns have grown--but it is how the U.S. started and (theoretically) has continued to grow."
No sorry, that's not how towns work and it's not how federations work either, and the confederation ended once and for all in 1789 with the establishment of the United States Constitution as the supreme law.
"Fortunately they are reasonably effective and convenient ways to live, but there is no inherent reason to imagine that they are the best, and they are certainly not the only."
You are essentially wrong here as well. James Madison, Federalist #51, arguing for the establishment of the constitution: "If men were angels, no government would be neccessary" That pretty wells out attempts at utopias and thus eventually confederation aka loose aliances of States. Proved when Sparta and Athens wrecked each other and not to long after Macedonia conquered Greece, A fate long prolonged but nonetheless inevitable. The options are simple:unification under good government, unification under bad government, serious isolation, or total chaos.
[ July 29, 2004, 05:10 AM: Message edited by: suntranafs ]
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
You keep talking about the Constitution, but the Constitution is first and foremost a definition of what the nation as a whole can and cannot do. Only some of the later amendments (after the 14th and 15th, which are of course after the Civil War) say anything at all about the states beyond their retention of the right to do anything not assigned to the federal government or to the individual. Nothing in the Constitution specifies any way into or out of the union. (Or if it does, please refresh my memory.) Except, of course, that in the process of joining each state must ratify the Constitution--clearly intended to be a voluntary process on the state's part, even if that is not what it has become.
quote: The options are simple:unification under good government, unification under bad government, serious isolation, or total chaos.
So does this apply, in turn, to nation-states? Must we all become unified under some international organization or live in indefinite chaos? The options are not so simple as you suggest, because good government all too easily becomes bad government.
The southern states seceded for a bad reason, but in history we just as often find similar bodies seceding from their nation-states for good reasons--the breakup of the USSR is one. Would you be so quick to say that the secession of the Baltic states was bad and illegal?
[ July 29, 2004, 05:15 AM: Message edited by: Mabus ]
Posted by suntranafs (Member # 3318) on :
You keep talking about the Constitution, but the Constitution is first and foremost a definition of what the nation as a whole can and cannot do.
Yeah rule number one it can't cease to be a nation. the definition of a nation being something with some humans with sovereignty living on a land with established borders. We da peeps of da usa, in order to FORM a more perfect UNION blah blah do ordain and establish this constitution for the UNITED States of America
"Nothing in the Constitution specifies any way into or out of the union. (Or if it does, please refresh my memory.) Except, of course, that in the process of joining each state must ratify the Constitution"
Hmmmm, there's a provision to get in, but not one to get out, now why in the heck do you suppose that is? I CAN'T IMAGINE.
"clearly intended to be a voluntary process on the state's part"
yes on the way in.
"even if that is not what it has become."
It's the same as it always was, else I might already be campaigning for demanding alaska's independence, UNDER the Constitution, but it simply doesn't work that way, and there's no use trying to do that because a house divided shall not stand, and any house that can divide will.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
I'm going to wait for some outside commentary on this discussion. If it doesn't come, fine, but there's no point in continuing to argue past each other. Let's let in some fresh insight.
In the meantime, ask yourself whether it is always better for a house--any house, no matter what its nature--to stand.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
This is some mighty strange derailing!
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
"I fear to look, yet I cannot turn away"
*snicker*
Oh, Chris! I wondered if you'd gotten any emails 'correcting' the ages of the characters in Phantom Menace. I emailed this thing to several friends and one of them posted it in her live journal. One of her friends pointed out the ages were wrong. *giggles*
I was like, "It's a JOKE, man." But it made me think, given the nature of SW fandom, how many "That was great! Right on the money, man! BTW, you got their ages wrong" emails you'd gotten. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
The legality of the American Civil War is, in all honesty, a moot point. International law at the time didn't attempt to regulate what sort of war was legal, only how war could be fought.
Now, either the States were sovereign, in which case they had a perfect right to secede and Lincoln had a perfect right to declare war on them. Or the States were not sovereign, in which case they were territories in rebellion against their rightful ruler, and Linclon could not only DOW them but also boil Davis in oil and eat his testicles for breakfast, should he be so inclined. Assuming he could enforce any such decision, of course.
In practice, the question was resolved, as most matters of international law are, by superior force. The North won, ergo secession was illegal.
Posted by MacBeth (Member # 5670) on :
On a similar vein wouldn't the selkath pretty much be switzerland? With The sith being the axis and the old republic being the allies?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
back to Star Wars...
This video makes me want to hurl.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
And they changed ALL the voices of the storm troopers in the originals to the voice of that dude from Attack of the Clones.
Which is SO freaking stupid because at that time the Imperial Army was made up of normal conscrips... as the ability to make clones was supposed to be banned or lost decades prior.
So insulting too for the voice actors that gave the storm troopers their original voices.
And it changes the moral quality of the story... a pacified, PC version where it is ok to kill the enemy troops because they are faceless souless clones or droids. Stupid. Lucas really should be kept away from his own works.
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
I think you're wrong, Telp. I mean, the stormtrooper voices in the OT were all the same (or at least all the same in each movie). Lucas ALWAYS planned on them being clones, I'm fairly certain. ("Aren't you a little short for a Storm Trooper?" Would be meaningless otherwise, unless you want to believe that ST were only recruited from people who were the same height.)
I always thought it was funny that the two talking in the background while Ben shut down the tractor beam had the same voice. The thing with the "Cloning being outlawed" was all from the books-- and Lucas himself has said that the movies are the only real cannon. He didn't tell the SW writers anything much because he didn't want to give away his surprises.
I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm not saying it isn't as annoying as hell to people who've read the Star wars books. Just that Lucas himself probably hasn't read them, and doesn't care what they say.
And it's still a shame that he doesn't have more people to tell him when he's wrong (I mean, ones he might listen to).
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
quote: The more I learn of Lucas, the more I realize that it's not a fluke that the prequels are horrible -- it was a miracle that the original three weren't.
That's because Lucas didn't write them. Stupid Hack.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
quote:I dunno - it seems like the Jedi were pretty much a defacto way of life.
They are supposed to have functioned as diplomats and police long before the advent of the Clone Army - which just screams "yeah, right."
20 years is less than a generation to forget such a large factor of society.
How long was it between WWII when American soldiers were honored for valor and sacrifice and Vietnam, where they were babykillers?
Possibly a closer example: how long ago was it that priests were automatically assumed to be holy, trustworthy, and good? What does the average person now think of when "priest" is mentioned?
Public opinion can be swayed awfully damn fast, especially if someone in power acts to encourage it. I maintain that it is unlikely that the average citizen ever met a Jedi - how many people ever meet an American diplomat? - and the more people heard the stories of their abilities, their philisophical/religious beliefs, and their high moral standards, the easier it would be to paint them as mythical, or dangerous, or fanatical.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Olive - unless the STRC had minimum height standards.
quote: Ya must be this tall before we stick you in armor, hand you a blaster, skip teaching you how to use it and throw in en masse against a handful of rebels where you'll be slaughtered by the squad.
Chris - I didn't say you couldn't distort the image, although considering it's a pretty large galaxy, that would be a feat unto itself.
However, forgetting they existed might be a tad harder. If we wiped out every last Catholic Priest tomorrow, in 20 years I'll be...well...really old, but I'll still know what one was. Granted, the kids won't, but that's ok.
And given the hypothetical level of medical tech, I think it's safe to assume a generation lasts more than 20 years.
On a completely unrelated note - anyone else remember the Bill Moyer joke, "Daddy, what's an Arab?"
-Trevor
Edit: Chris - didn't they also say something to the effect of no armies prior to the Clone Wars? Or am I just remembering that bit incorrectly?
[ July 30, 2004, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: TMedina ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"He didn't tell the SW writers anything much because he didn't want to give away his surprises."
Yeah, right. He didn't tell 'em anything much because he hadn't come up with any of his own ideas yet. I'm not one of those people who ever bought into the whole "I planned out all nine films before the first one even aired" line of bull.
Posted by Olivetta (Member # 6456) on :
Yeah, anybody could tell that most of TPM was pulled out of his, erm, ear. But I DO think he always had the Stormtroopers as clones, even in the beginning.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Chris! Great column.
Actually the last few columns were great. I've finally had a chance to go check them out.
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