Category: Star Wars

(h/t +Doyce Testerman)

Reshared post from +Joke of the Day

Reshared post from +James D.

Interesting!

"Rare Star Wars footage shows real reason Obi-Wan kept Vader's identity secret" – http://www.blastr.com/2013-11-6/rare-star-wars-footage-shows-real-reason-obi-wan-kept-vaders-identity-secret

Reshared post from +Yumekui Merry

Just bored in the middle of night so I find something fandom … and now 3 hours later I still awake .. Hello Monday.

To me, the sweet spot will be finding a sense of simple awe and wonder from the originals — finding a way to make kids as excited as adults (and vice-versa) and that doesn't smack of a commercial ploy to introduce yet another cute set of toy-ready races/robots.

I think Abrams can capture the whiz-bang and the actual writing skills that Lucas fumbled in the prequels. The question is, can he find the emotional heart?

What he actually said was that he though the ending kind of sucked.

'"Empire committed the cardinal sin of not actually ending,” Whedon declares. “Which at the time I was appalled by and I still think it was a terrible idea. It’s a Come Back Next Week, or in three years. And that upsets me. I go to movies expecting to have a whole experience. If I want a movie that doesn’t end I’ll go to a French movie. That’s a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself, it can’t just build off the first one or play variations.”'

And, I must confess, that while I like "Empire" the best of the original trilogy, I completely agree with Whedon here.  It's not even a cliff-hanger in the traditional sense.  Nothing has been resolved save mere survival, and things are only getting worse, which is fine — except there's no urgency about the reversal, nothing to make you take it seriously.  Our team (except Han) are safe and snug. Lando and Chewie jetting off on a road trip, and Luke and Leia and the droids having a comforting hug standing in front of the picture window and ROLL CREDITS!  There's no finish, just a big, relaxing pause, which is the worst of all worlds.

That doesn't mean I hate "Empire." It means I think the ending kind of sucked.

But definitions are fuzzy things, especially when you have a variety of people doing the defining, and especially when there's an incentive to keep expanding those definitions.  The citizenry shouting loudest to stop terrorists don't necessarily understand who's being defined as a terrorist (or what actions are prosecutable as terrorism) today. 

Which brings us to the NSA's surveillance programs, and the idea that they okay, because, well, it's only being used on terrorists ("But zey vere all bahd!")  Terrorism is a fuzzy label, though, and, worse, once you justify use of pervasive surveillance techniques on terrorists, then who's next?  Child pornographers?  Murderers?  Drug dealers? Movie pirates? Inside traders? Income tax evaders?

The pressure to use these tools, when available, is always there, and "Well, right now we're only use them for X, we'd certainly never use them for Y" is unpersuasive, especially when some folks hear that and start saying, "Well, hey, Y is pretty bad, too, and we've already made the investment, maybe we should …"