Comments on: Friday Videos, Flu Edition — Week 2

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:48:50 +0000

As a singer, this final Star Wars video blew me away. A young guy turned a number of John Williams tunes from various movies (not just Star Wars movies) into tributes to Star Wars with his own lyrics.

And he did so as his own barbershop quartet. This is definitely called overdubbing. Wonderful stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk5_OSsawz4

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:21:16 +0000

And you really have never experienced the fun of Star Wars until you’ve seen the Battle of Naboo…accompanied by Benny Hill’s theme song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfibSaDHrM&feature=related

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:08:23 +0000

Just found this wonderful spoof of the battle on Ice Planet Hoth. You’ll never think of a certain Christmas carol the same way again.

“Walkers in a Winter Wonderland.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpdsIfzaaLA

By: Harvey

Harvey — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:57:57 +0000

Sometimes I like to pretend the first one was the only movie. The sister thing ruins some of the first one, and the father thing, then makes it so much like a soap opera. The Care Bears were hard to take. Still the serial effect has some appeal. So, I own all of them, and got tickled when my youngsters got into it. If you keep your tongue coated with those zinc lozenges, you don’t have to be so careful. I wonder if there was any cool past like on Happy Days (Fonzie and all that). People laugh out loud when they see photos of my former eyeglasses.

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:19:32 +0000

We are. Our hosts talk about recently viewed movies early and at the end of each radio show, Phil and Steven run really cool open-source music.

Check out the music posted below in the blog.

By: blamybriply

blamybriply — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:31:08 +0000

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By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:19:36 +0000

That final Throne Room scene (along with the fighting on the Moon of Endor and in space) is possibly my favorite in all of the movies.

While his friends are fighting on the Moon and the rebels are fighting desperately for survival against unexpected opposition in space, Luke is trying to save Darth from the Dark Side while controlling his emotions as he sees the Emperor spring the trap, Darth is trying to tempt Luke to the Dark Side so they can team up against the Emperor and take over the galaxy, the Emperor is trying to get Luke to defeat Darth, bringing Luke firmly to the Dark Side and making him stronger and more dangerous than Darth.

This three-way rumble really gets tangled. Everyone has an agenda, and none of them get their wish…except the rebels in a wholly unexpected way.

1. The Rebels are certain they have the jump on Imperial forces. They didn’t.

2. Imperial forces are convinced they have trapped the rebels. They haven’t. At least not completely.

3. Everyone had overlooked the Ewoks, until the rebels stumbled onto them. Big mistake. At least on the part of Imperial forces.

4. Luke’s refusal to fight Darth changes the equation. Darth feels pity for his son. This brings him back to the Good side. Luke hadn’t intended it that way, he wanted to get Darth away from there, but that’s how things work out. Luke did save his father, even though his father dies.

5. The Emperor’s plan of pitting father against son backfires when Darth kills him.

6. Darth’s plans for Luke evaporate.

7. During the fighting on the Moon, Imperial forces get the jump on the rebels, then the Ewoks turn the table with surprising effective uses of low-tech weaponry.

8. When the rebels finally shut down the force field being generated on the Moon, the Imperial forces are VERY surprised!

The story of those final scenes consists surges of surprise after surprise after surprise. Excellent plotting.

I loved it.

By: Phil Bowermaster

Phil Bowermaster — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:48:35 +0000

Sally –

Please let none of my snark be misconstrued. Star Wars has been a big part of my life. But heck, if we can’t have fun with Star Wars, what can we have fun with?

That Lucas saw the first movie as part of a much bigger arc is clear, but there’s an awful lot of rethinking and retconning going on, too — which is fine. But why not admit it?

I really like your analysis of the Star Wars universe and I think you answer Brin pretty well. I still would like for Luke to have done something useful for the galaxy (not just his family) in the last hour of Return of the Jedi. Vader and Palpatine were going to die anyway. His role as a hero gets limited by his bringing Vader back from the dark side.

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:43:15 +0000

On the trailer.

I simply don’t remember it. I probably did glance at it during a TV break, but didn’t pay it much mind. I don’t remember this one at all.

It looks like they were holding back on the very cool tech scenes, like the opening stunner that awed us all, the enormous Star Destroyer passing oh so slowly apparently over our heads. I still remember my astonishment. It was like being pummeled by an incredibly detailed vision. Nothing like it had ever been seen before in SF movies.

Perhaps the work on the special effects scenes wasn’t completed in time for a really good trailer.

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:34:55 +0000

I read the following about Lucas’s original “plan” years and years ago. Warning: this is severely paraphrased.

Lucas began work on the story for a science fiction movie. It was supposed to be the story of how a galactic republic was destroyed and restored.

He kept writing and writing, adding characters and scenes. He transformed the story into a trilogy. 1. Republic falls. 2. Evil Empire is destroyed. 3. Republic is restored.

Then he kept writing more and more, realizing he had material for 9 (count’em, 9) movies.

As the time neared for developing an actual, usable script, he chose the part of the story that he found most gripping–the beginning of the fight against the evil empire. What we now know as Star Wars.

He never counted on being able to do any more with his magnum opus than that, not knowing the movie would be a hit or not.

The rest, as we know is history. He did indeed do the first 6 movies. And other writers transformed his vision of restoring the Republic into novels featuring Han and Leia’s children.

How much of this is true, I’m not sure. I suspect quite a bit of it is. Considering how much real, well done worldbuilding went into the actual story of the original Star Wars movie, I’m reasonably convinced he did write a huge story arc in which Star Wars is embedded.

How much of his original writing remained unchanged in the movies actually produced is probably forever unknowable.

I took umbrage at an essay written by David Brin attacking Star Wars several years ago and wrote an answering essay posted on Scribd. Here’s the link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3299972/The-Magic-Universe-of-George-Lucas

Perhaps I take Star Wars somewhat more seriously than is warranted, but I still really like it.