Read more...NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT. (Agencies) The scientific world is shocked today as Michael Zeller—a professor of physics at Yale who has been working at the Large Hadron Collider—reportedly misquoted the Star Trek tagline "Where no man has gone before" and, further shattering the Universe time-space fabric, attributed it to Star Wars:
“What did they say in ‘Star Wars’? We’re going where no man has ever been? Well, that’s where we’re going,” Zeller said in declarations to the Yale Daily News about the LHC first beam test last Wednesday. Professor Zeller helped create the zero degree calorimeter used in Atlas, one of the main experiments at CERN's multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider.
Way back when, just after the release of The Phantom Menace, I made a stop-motion animated film called Darth Binks that explored what would happen if Jar Jar responded to all the resentment of him by turning to the dark side of The Force and becoming a Sith Lord. It is made with Lego minifigures and with audio clips found online. Enjoy.
You get bonus points if you can spot IG-88 in the background.
Director's commentary: It was originally going to be much more grandiose with Obi-Wan Kenobi in a lightsaber duel with a spaceship piloted by Binks, but do you have any idea how long stop-motion animation takes?
It’s not the sickly ending, where Leia and Luke Skywalker find out they are siblings. It’s not the unlikely rehabilitation of Darth Vader, or even the way that George Lucas keeps digitally embellishing it with every rerelease. No, it’s those bloody dancing teddy bears. We fought an intergalactic war for this?
Now that over thirty-one years have passed and we have six Star Wars movies in the can and the Star Wars empire has been a huge success, it’s hard to imagine that it would have turned out any other way. But imagine if Star Wars had not been a huge hit in 1977. What if something went wrong in the production or editing or suppose the moviegoers weren’t in the right mood for it? What if it tanked? Or what if it was just good, but not great? What if it went the Planet of the Apes route, with sequels that explored more of the Star Wars universe, but didn’t have ever-increasing budgets and technology? Splinter of the Mind's Eye was originally written by Alan Dean Foster as a sequel to Star Wars that would have been used if the 1977 film was sequel-worthy, but not a huge hit. With its lack of the full cast of original characters, brief outer space action and setting on and beneath the surface of a dark, foggy planet, it was a sort of "Battle Beneath the Planet of Star Wars". But, just as the Ape movies have their own brilliance and high points, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye is a fun read and had lots of items that showed up in later Star Wars Movies:
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye:
Luke Skywalker and Artoo crash land on Mimban, a dark, swampy, foggy planet.
The Empire Strikes Back:
Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 crash land on Dagobah, a dark, swampy, foggy planet. Leia and C-3PO crash on the same planet at a different site.
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye:
Luke meets Halla, a seemingly crazy person who is actually a minor user of the Force.
The Empire Strikes Back:
Luke meets Yoda, a seemingly crazy person who is actually a major user of the Force.
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye:
Luke fights a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. Luke cuts off Vader’s right arm and then Vader falls in a deep hole, but does not die. Luke uses the Force to sense Vader’s survival.
The Empire Strikes Back:
Luke fights a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. Vader cuts off Luke’s right hand and then Luke falls in a deep hole (the shaft in Cloud City), but does not die. Vader uses the Force to sense Luke’s survival.
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye:
The rebels join forces with the primitive Coway, who use their home turf advantage to defeat a technologically superior Imperial force.
Return of the Jedi:
The rebels join forces with the primitive Ewoks, who use their home turf advantage to defeat a technologically superior Imperial force.
So, there is a lot of good material in the book, partly due to its place in the primeval “expanded universe”. It is also just plain fun.
On a final note, check out the cover of the book (featuring an excellent painting by Ralph McQuarrie). Note that it claims to be “From the Further Adventures of Luke Skywalker”.
Nowhere on the cover do the words “Star Wars” appear. It was added on later printings, but it is just not there on the early editions. Hmm.
I first saw “Star Wars” at the Capitol drive-in during the summer of 1977. I was 8. I went on to see that movie in the theater four more times, something I’ve never done before or since (I had understanding parents and gullible babysitters, I suppose).
This was, of course, before cable movie channels and pay-per-view and VCRs. When Showtime first aired as a channel, it spent a week or so giving free broadcasts to entice people to buy in. One of the movies shown was “Star Wars.” Happily, I settled down in front of our TV to watch my favorite movie, only to find myself spluttering, a few minutes in: “They cut it! They cut my movie!” The scenes with Biggs, the scenes I remembered on Tatooine and on the Rebel’s moon base, weren’t there.
George Lucas has created legendary film heroes like Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones, but the US director says that in real life, his hero is Barack Obama.
Lucas was in Japan on Wednesday to promote his latest film, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," as Obama clinched the Democratic Party's nomination for president.
"We have a hero in the making back in the United States today because we have a new candidate for president of the United States, Barack Obama," Lucas said when asked who his childhood heroes were.
Thanks to CGI animation, the "Star Wars" saga is coming back to theaters this summer -- but George Lucas said fans shouldn't get their hopes up about any future films that take the epic beyond the point of Darth Vader's death at the end of "Return of the Jedi."
In other words, it ends with the Ewoks."Whatever it is that happens afterward," the 63-year-old filmmaker said, "that isn't the core 'Star Wars' story that I like to tell."
In the living room, my husband and son are killing each other. "Zat!" cries Henry. "Zat zat zat! I got you with my lightsaber!" "But I am your faaather..." Scott gasps, clutching his stomach. It's too late. Henry, 5, has gone over to the dark side. There's a lot of killing going on in our house. Most of the carnage occurs on Saturday mornings, although occasionally there's time for a duel or two before school. This can be problematic, since once Henry has his dad's attention, he doesn't want to let go. "But we haven't played at aaaall," Henry will moan, even after they've been whapping at each other for the past hour. It's never enough for Henry — if he could play Star Wars with his dad every minute of the day, he would. He recently told me his idea of the Best Weekend Ever: "Dad and I would play Star Wars," he said, "for two days without stopping. We would go to sleep and wake up and still be playing Star Wars." "That does sound great," I said. I pictured Henry nudging Scott awake with his lightsaber at 6 a.m., his Darth Vader mask affixed to his face. "We meet again," he would intone, while Scott whimpered. Maybe I could go away for the weekend while the boys enjoy their quality time? This might be the Best Weekend Ever for me too...
