President Barack Obama uses a Star Wars light saber as he parries with fencer Tim Morehouse during the U.S. Olympians youth sporting event on the South Lawn of the White House, Sept. 16, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Thursday, October 29, 2009
An Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Would ACORN help Darth Vader track down and kill a Jedi?
From Pajamas Media, a funny commentary on the ACORN scandal:
The Sting: O’Keefe and Giles dressed up as Darth Vader and an Imperial Guard and approached an ACORN office for help hunting down Jedi and promoting the authority of the Empire throughout the galaxy.
The Result: At first, the ACORN staffer was unsure about supporting an evil galactic empire but changed her mind when she was assured the empire would support universal health care. She then shared a story of how she once killed a Jedi.
NOTE: Police looked into the claim and found that the staffer had never in fact killed a Jedi. The staffer later said she was intimidated by O’Keefe’s supposed control of the Dark Side of the Force and thus made up the story.
Friday, July 24, 2009
"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my only HOPI."
I spotted this Princess Leia look-alike outside the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. It's actually a statue of a Hopi woman and not the well-known space princess. Reliable sources indicate that Leia's famous double bun was actually based on the Hopi hairdo. Now you know!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Star Wars Song of the Week: "Trigger Happy Jack" by Poe
This week's song is "Trigger Happy Jack" by Poe. Notable for its mention of Jedi mind tricks.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Lucas: Cheney NOT Vader
The election has been over for months now, but Darth Cheny is still with us. Or not, as George Lucas told Maureen Dowd of the New York Times:
Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” had told me that I had gotten Dick Cheney completely wrong, that Cheney was no Darth Vader. I felt awful. Had I been too hard on Vice?
Lucas explained politely as I listened contritely. Anakin Skywalker is a promising young man who is turned to the dark side by an older politician and becomes Darth Vader. “George Bush is Darth Vader,” he said. “Cheney is the emperor.”
Wait, I though Karl Rove was the Emperor. And again, if Bush is Vader, he'd still have good in him and will eventually throw Cheney down the reactor shaft, right? This is all so confusing.
Friday, April 17, 2009
633 Squadron
Star Wars is a mishmash of mythology, Flash Gordon, World War 2 movies and samurai flicks. One of those World War 2 movies is the 1964 British film 633 Squadron. It tells the story of a small band of RAF Mosquito pilots selected for a secret mission that could change the course of the war.
It’s just before D-Day and the Germans have new rocket weapons that could turn the invasion into a disaster. Fortunately, Erik Bergman (played by George Chakiris; hey, he’s that guy from West Side Story) of the Norwegian resistance is able to smuggle information on the weapon system’s flaw to the Allies. It seems that the rocket fuel is made at a secret, impregnable factory fortress at the end of a fjord in Nazi-occupied Norway. 633 Squadron, commanded by American Roy Grant (Cliff Robertson), is assigned to carry out a daring mission: fly to Norway, maneuver down the fjord to drop bombs in a geologically sensitive spot that will cause a landslide and destroy the factory.
It’s pretty obvious how the plot and action scenes were turned into the trench run at the end of the original Star Wars film. One of those internet wisenheimers even spliced together dialog from the A new Hope with footage from 633 Squadron and the results are quite amusing.
Also, like Star Wars, 633 Squadron is part American and part British for no good reason.
So, is the movie any good? Some of the special effects are not that special. But it was 1964 and we can forgive them. And it is formulaic. You know something bad is going to happen the young airman who just got hitched and the Nazis are standard issue movie-Nazis who love motorcades and torturing prisoners for information. But, the aerial footage with real airplanes zooming around the mountains in Scotland is very well done. Even if the movie had just been 90 minutes of aerobatics without all the subplots, I would have been OK with that. When I watched this film on a laptop on a plane, it distracted the guy sitting next to me from reading his bible, even though I had headphones on and he couldn’t hear any of the sound. Eventually he put the good book away and kept watching. After a while he even nudged my elbow and asked what movie it was and we talked about it for a few minutes. All in all, it’s a good old WW2 movie, the kind that used to be on TV a lot in the seventies.
This is the first of what I hope will several posts about movies that influenced Star Wars.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 09, 2009
Obscure Star Wars Poster
From my postcard collection.
This painting of Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin
and Imperial stormtroopers became a Coca Cola premium poster.Artist: Del Nichols
Curiously, the back of the postcard claims the title is The Empire Strikes Back, even though this is clearly a montage of stuff from the first movie.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Star Wars by a Four Year Old Girl
A stormtrooper, Darth Vader and Yoda, by my four year old daughter.
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