4/13/2009 - R2D2 in Episode 1

I'm sure there are those out there who have watched the Star Wars movies so many times that they could swear they know what R2D2 is saying. They might think they know, and they might even have some confirmation from George Lucas himself. But I'd like to think that this series of videos has the true subtitled translation of R2D2. Caution... vulgarities lie ahead:

1/29/2009 - Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it)

I never watch the entire Star Wars (original) Trilogy until it was re-released in theaters in 1997. Until then, I never "got" why it was so popular. I had always believed it to be a showcase of special effects and puppetry. Although it's more fantasy than science fiction, the original trilogy was imaginative and it spurred imagination at the same time. It set itself up as a timeless mythology with archetypal characters. Above all that, it was just fun. It's ironic then, that the prequel trilogy would largely devolve into a mere showcase of special effects and (computer) puppetry.

But if you were to ask me before 1997 what the original Star Wars trilogy was about, I'd probably have the same kind of explanation as in this video:

12/21/2008 - Star Wars Vs. Star Trek - DMP Edition HQ

These Star Wars/Star Trek videos never get old. This one is actually more in a humorous vein and addresses the technological divide between the two universes. While Star Wars tech is decidedly less advanced than that of Star Trek, Star Wars has a little trick up its sleeve:

9/6/2008 - Star Trek vs. Star Wars

Believe it or not, not all geeks are created equal. There is no clearer illustration of this expression than the dichotomy between Star Trek and Star Wars fans. Star Trek appeals more to the fan of traditional science fiction. With more talk and less action, it has always been more of a thinking man's show. Constrained by a TV budget, there was always a limit in the number of scope of action sequences show in an episode. On the other hand, the Star Wars movies would have unlimited budgets after the first one in 1977. Having more of an action/fantasy element, Star Wars has a wider appeal, although the more hardcore fans are more cultish in nature. Although George Lucas tried to shoehorn in a more scientific explanation for "The Force", longtime fans pretty much rejected it in favor of the previous magical or even religious connotation. The Star Trek/Wars camps are naturally at odds with each other and one side often treats the other with derision or disrespect. The two sides may never fully come together, but I'm sure fans of both will appreciate this next video:

7/10/2008 - Ascii Star Wars (2 movies)

Back when I was college and majoring in Computer Science, we would program using the good old Terminal screen. Similar to the MS-DOS prompt, it's nothing but text-based input. It's oh-so primitive compared to the graphical input with the mouse and cursor, and more recently touch-based controls. Yet, some people actually prefer the text-based input and can do things much faster than others using a mouse. Text input is one thing... text animation is something different altogether, however. Imagine that your only tool to create a picture on the computer is with what is available on the keyboard: letters, numbers, and symbols. As you can imagine, you'd mostly get stick figures. Sure, there are some beautiful examples of ascii art, some of which you can see at this website: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/

But imagine again, that you only had these ascii characters to work with, AND you were going to make an animation out of it. Let's just say that it would require A LOT of imagination. And yet, there is always a supply of folks who have enough time, dedication, and imagination to create ascii animation -- even animation based on a feature length movie. Of course, such a movie would have to be Star Wars, which has a legion of fans that meet the exact criteria. Through collaborative effort an ascii version of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was made and most of it was captured to YouTube:

6/9/2008 - The New R2-D2

Okay, I'm sort of a gadget fan, but I'm not one of those who must have every new gadget out there, especially if it costs an insane amount of money. I'm also not a huge Star Wars fan... but when I saw this, it made me want to open my wallet and splurge a couple of paychecks for it:



I'd have this playing a scene from Episode IV on a continuous loop... I think you know which scene.

5/27/2008 - Star Wars: No Easy Way Out

Last month, the James Rolfe (AKA the Angry Video Game Nerd) paid tribute to one of his favorite movie series, Rocky and its sequels. In addition to his great documentary about the locales featured in the movies, he gave quick reviews of the movies. I was very curious as to how he would review Rocky IV. I always thought Rocky III, IV, and V were less about the story and the Rocky "legend" and were made just as moneymakers. There was, however, something about Rocky IV that appeals to me as a child of the 80's. Looking at it now, it is quite the period piece with its heavy use of montages set to music, it's almost like a feature-length music video from the 80's. Like James says, "It's all about the montages."

Take the "Driving" montage for example. Here is Rocky, contemplating over the loss of Apollo (sorry if I spoiled the movie for you), and the prospect of going up against the beast Ivan Drago. Not only did this montage contain clips from the previous Rocky movies, but flashback video of something that just happened 15 minutes ago in the movie! Now that's a hardcore montage! It's all set to the song "No Easy Way Out" by Robert Tepper and is frequently parodied on YouTube.

Perhaps the best parody is the one with Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, where Darth Vader is witnessing his son's torture at the hands of the Emperor. Who knows what is going on in his head at that moment... after all, his face is completely covered in that mask. I guess it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that he's thinking about the past... and hey, that's the perfect occasion for a flashback montage!



I like to think of this as "What if Sylvester Stallone directed Star Wars?".

3/31/2008 - Star Wars according to a 3 year old.

I ranted a while back about why the Star Wars prequels pale in comparison to the original trilogy. I neglected to mention one of the other reason: the extra complexity Lucas added to the storyline drove many to confusion about the storyline. In Episode I you have the whole "trade dispute" and political maneuvering... I have to say that any movie with political maneuvering involved disqualifies itself to being a blockbuster summer movie. Then you have the mystery of the creation of the clones and the whole separatist movement in Episode II. Episode III was a bit better, but what was with that whole midichlorian thing? Anyway, what was an almost throwaway few lines in Episode IV about the Clone Wars was enough to explain the entire prequel trilogy. The simplicity of the original movies may have been a key ingredient in what made them so great. Episode IV was so simple, in fact, that a 3 year old could explain it:

11/19/2007 - Halo 3: Star Wars

The more I watch the Star Wars prequels now, the more I think that they are not going to get better with age. I don't know... there something about trying to shoehorn in a backstory which has been told already seems redundant to me. I know that they were trying to humanize and flesh out the character of Darth Vader, but all it does it makes the character somewhat smaller in stature.

They made the same mistake with Michael Myers in the recent Halloween remake. Yes, it was necessary to see him develop his homicidal mania as a kid, but not necessarily the root cause of it. It's much scarier to think that Michael Myers was born a killer, rather than being made a killer only because of a bad home life.

The only movie that bucked this trend was The Godfather: Part II, where we see how Marlon Brando's character in the original movie was made to become The Godfather. In the prequel portions of Part II, they pretty much showed Vito Corleone as being badass from the start. He didn't kill the Blackhand to become Godfather out of revenge or out of desperation. He just didn't want to be extorted and disrespected.

Where was I? Oh, Star Wars... yeah. Well, my rant and general distaste for the prequels should dissuade you from enjoying this next parody of Episode III. They basically took a couple of scenes from that movie and replaced the actors with Halo 3 characters. The way they've done it is very seamless and it's overall very nicely done.

11/1/2007 - Darth Vader being a smartass

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! This video is so cleverly edited that you'll never watch this scene of The Empire Strikes Back the same way again:



The Dark Side has never been so funny.

10/16/2007 - The Simpsons/Star Wars mashup

Wow, I'm surprised 20th Century Fox hasn't sued anyone about this:



Actually, I'm even more surprised that The Simpsons crew didn't do this kind of intro themselves. It's quite well done. My favorite part is when Homer/Darth Vader does his girlie scream in the garage.

8/1/2007 - Monty python - Black knight (star wars)

With the most creative video editing geeks out there on the Internet, you knew this next video had to happen:



Monty Python and Star Wars? Goes together like peanut butter and jelly!

6/10/2007 - Every Star Wars Fan's Worst Nightmare

The title to this video pretty much says it all. This was a prank pulled at the Star Wars Celebration IV convention in Los Angeles where they were celebrating the 30th anniversary since the release of Episode IV. You can bet that all the hardcore Star Wars geeks were out there, all dressed as their favorite Jedi or Sith. For someone to go out there dressed as Captain Kirk in a Jar Jar mask is the equivalent to a KKK member going to a NAACP rally... but uglier...

6/3/2007 - The Saga Begins

Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace is widely considered the worst of all the Star Wars movies. I probably would concur with that, but I wouldn't say it was a horrible movie. Jar Jar is certainly annoying, but I think he was less annoying than the Ewoks. At least Jar Jar was annoying on purpose! What really irks me was how they made the Jedis total stiffs. I think that's why Anakin chose the Dark Side. I mean, look how cool Darth Maul is compared to this guy:

LAME

If you think about it, there weren't any compelling characters on the side of good in the prequels. That's why I think the original trilogy owes so much of its success to Harrison Ford and the Han Solo character. In other words, the prequels are like the X-Men movies without Wolverine.

The one thing about Episode I for me that stood out was the fact that Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song about it before it came out in theaters using nothing but internet spoilers! I think that might have been the first movie to have the entire plot revealed on the internet. Weird Al's song is great, though. Set to the tune of Don McLean's "American Pie", it's a complete summary of the entire movie without reference to Jar Jar. While Weird Al did make a music video out of it, I think this is a better version:

5/24/2007 - What really happened after the Deathstar blew up

It really bugs me that Emperor Palpatine wasn't in Episode IV. We spent the entire first three episodes of Star Wars building him up to be the biggest bad guy in that galaxy far, far away, and he's nowhere to be seen after he's built the Empire. Don't get me wrong, it was a great story of how a measly senator from Naboo came to power simply by having some kind of Sith power to fool ALL the Jedis around him! Alright, that may seem a little far-fetched, but this is George Lucas' universe here where Jedis/Siths can make everything float except themselves (because that would mean flying Jedis, and we can't have that, can we?).

Anyway, back to Palpatine... if Lucas ever decided to digitally insert him into Episode IV like Jabba the Hut, this is how it should be done:



...love the CTU ringtone!

5/13/2007 - Triumph interviews the Dorks

When Conan takes over for Leno in a few years, I certainly hope he brings Triumph along for the ride. Conan is usually on too late for me to watch, but I happened to catch this Triumph bit when it first aired and I was howling with laughter. There are just too many great lines in here to repeat.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, the people who are first in line for any big "geek" event such as the launch of a new game system or in this case a huge sci-fi/fantasy movie are probably the best group of people you'll ever meet. As Triumph demonstrates, it's quite easy to make fun of them because their fan activities wouldn't adhere to the conventions of societal normality for the other 364 days of the year. Generally speaking, they are a bunch of misfits and outcasts who have found this common purpose to congregate, and they can find comfort with each other to display their fan worship knowing that they will not be looked down upon within this inner circle.

Of course, Triumph sort of rains on their parade with a sobering dose of what people really think of them, and that makes for comedy gold. But at least they are still having a good time and they're on TV!