Tag: Geek Stuff

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May the SQUEEEE be with you!

So of course I watched it:


Random reactions:

:: Interesting how the first couple of trailers were about revving up the excitement level for the return of Star Wars, with money shots like the crashed Star Destroyer, the Millennium Falcon in combat, and Han Solo’s line, “Chewie, we’re home.” This time the focus is on setting the mood that this is a new story and that our heroes of old are just that, heroes of old. We’re into Star Wars: The Next Generation territory here.

:: First dialogue exchange in the trailer, via voiceover:

“Who are you?”
“I’m no one.”

Was anyone else expecting the first voice to reply, “A lie!”?

:: I like the quiet mood at the start. Interesting choice. Muted music, the creaking of the rope as our masked heroine descends into what looks like an abandoned landing bay.

:: Setting up characters: an anonymous junk collector on a desert planet. A stormtrooper whose ship has crashed. A villain who seems to be worshipping Darth Vader (wonder how he got the mask — was he on Endor at the time of the battle?).

:: The music swells and suddenly we’re seeing the Falcon as the old Love Theme from The Empire Strikes Back surges. Cool.

:: Han Solo is bearing witness about the events he witnessed. He is bearing witness about The Force. Remember how he was when we first met him, blowing off the Force as “simple tricks and nonsense”? Calling it a “hokey religion”? This is the weathered, wiser Han Solo.

:: And speaking of that, anyone now agreeing that Han should have died in Return of the Jedi can shut it.

:: Lots of interesting action shots….

:: Very brief shot of a droid that looks like a direct homage to the robots from Castle in the Sky. I’m interested to see this film’s visual look. Might Hayao Miyazaki have been an influence? How awesome would that be, to see another Japanese master’s work echoed in Star Wars!

:: “The Force is calling to you. Just let it in.” I wonder who is hearing this?

:: No Luke Skywalker. We know he’s in the movie, but he’s been almost completely absent from the film’s marketing. Obviously there’s some kind of surprise in store regarding Luke.

:: The trailer ends, musically, with an ethereal chord and a single French horn sounding the Star Wars theme. Great moment.

Obviously, a trailer isn’t a movie, so we won’t know if JJ Abrams has delivered until December. But this trailer sure gave me the old familiar goosebumps. Man, what a great couple of months November and December are shaping up to be! James Bond, Star Wars, and The Song of Forgotten Stars all get new installments! Wow!

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Six Kadam High (in which I prove what I giant geek I am)

So, among my many tools at work, I have one that we lovingly call the Staff of Ra. It’s a telescoping pole, about six feet tall at its shortest, that extends to eighteen feet; we use this tool to attach magnetic hooks to our ceiling from which we hang signs. Years ago we lovingly dubbed this tool the Staff of Ra, after the six-foot-long stick one uses in Raiders of the Lost Ark (in conjunction with the crystal-studded Headpiece) to focus a sunbeam onto the floor map of Tanis, thus revealing the location of the hidden Well of Souls, where the Ark of the Covenant resides. Remember that? Sure you do!

Anyway, this week at work we start a big modification project that involves installation of some extra refrigeration infrastructure on the roof, which in turn means that today, those technicians had to cut a hole in the roof. Late in my shift I’m walking back to my work area and I stop, because I saw the sun shining down from the roof and making a sunbeam.

So I grabbed my Staff of Ra, and took this picture.

When they cut a hole in your roof at work, OF COURSE you reenact the Map Room scene from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK!!! #indianajones #SorryNotSorry

Yes. That is how giant a geek I am, folks!

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Let’s talk about STAR WARS!

Some random thoughts on recent Star Wars stuff (or not-so-recent Star Wars stuff that is nevertheless new to me:

As Episode VII draws nearer and nearer, we are seeing more groundwork being laid for the fictional state of affairs in the Star Wars universe, with only the new materials being produced from this point on being considered “canon”, along with the original films and the Clone Wars animated series. I assume that Episode VII will be written so as not to assume knowledge of everything that’s already happening, but the non-film media stuff has been essentially rebooted, with a lot of new stuff scheduled to come out soon (or has come out already, in the case of many comics).

The first big release appears to be a novel by Chuck Wendig, called Aftermath. In this book, we apparently get to see the shifting in Galactic politics after the defeat of the Empire at Endor. Starwars.com has released a sample of the new book, and I did read it. My reactions?

Well, it’s definitely well-written. It moves along briskly and sets up some story stuff that I’m curious about pursuing. However, there are a couple of tonal issues I have. The first is pure taste on my part: Wendig writes the novel in present tense, and quite frankly I have never liked present tense in my fiction. It takes some very good writing indeed to pull me into a story that’s been written in present tense. I don’t know why this is, but it’s just the way I’m wired.

Slightly more troubling to me, though, is the tone of the story. We begin with the celebration on Coruscant and the toppling of the Emperor’s statue, which is shown to us at the very end of Return of the Jedi (the Special Edition, that is). In the movie, we cut from this back to the party on Endor. Wendig, though, reveals that while we’re watching friends hug Ewoks, smile at Force ghosts, and then listening to the music as the end credits roll, the remaining forces of the Empire are cracking down and the people have to arm themselves with chunks of stone from the statue to defend themselves. I suppose that’s a logical thing to assume happening, but…I don’t know. There’s something about the tone of Wendig’s excerpt that makes me worry about the grimdarkification of Star Wars. Gritty fighting in the streets amidst political chaos is a fine trope, but I’m just not sure it’s the kind of trope I look for in Star Wars, which is to me about the mythic and the fantastical.

But we’ll see. It’s entirely possible that I’m wrong. It is just a short sample, after all.

And then there’s the video footage that was screened by the Star Wars people at San Diego Comic Con. It amounts to something of a third official trailer for Episode VII, and here it is:




I’m of mixed mind here. I do like what I’m seeing, and I hope that this video is roughly indicative of the overall “look” of Episode VII when it drops. This stuff looks great, and I can’t wait to see it. But something bugs me here, too: this video is a bit heavy on the anti-CGI commentary, constantly coming back to the “Look! Practical effects and models!” mantra, almost like the refrain of a song. I’m generally of the mindset that there is no inherent superiority to practical effects, or to CGI, as long as the story is good and the effects are artfully done. Yes, I’ve seen a lot of bad CGI, where shots are composed for no other reason than to say, “Look what we can do!”, but I’ve seen my share of awful “practical effects” over the years as well.

So why the “Yay! Practical effects!” cheerleading in the video? Well, this is where the conspiracy-theorist in me comes out. I wonder if this isn’t code-speak for Star Wars fans who hated the Prequels. One of the most common complaints about those movies (unfairly, in my mind) is the overreliance on CGI, so I’m wondering if all that talk about practical effects isn’t just the current Star Wars producers’ way of saying to the fans, “It’s OK. We got this. George Lucas isn’t involved. We’re giving you what you want.” I’m getting this faint whiff of this movie, and the Star Wars stuff to come, as being fan service to those who hate pretty much everything since 1980.

Another piece of evidence here? In an interview apparently consisting of yes-no questions, JJ Abrams was asked if there are midichlorians in the new movie. He said “No”. Now, that’s not in itself a bad thing; if there’s no story reason for midichlorians to be mentioned, then they shouldn’t be mentioned. To maintain otherwise would be similar to demanding that every Star Trek story must include Klingons. But many of the articles (case in point) I’ve read on this have taken exactly the tone that bothers me: “It’s OK, we’re going to ignore as much of what George Lucas did as we possibly can.” This might be wishful thinking on the part of the people writing these articles, but JJ Abrams and the rest of the Episode VII crew have not exactly been expending great effort to suggest any admiration for the Prequel Trilogy at all, which reinforces, in my mind, the idea that the goal is to let those films be “out there” but pretty much ignored completely. And that irritates me.

(Besides, people tend to be spectacularly wrong about the damn midichlorians, anyway.)

Let’s see, what else? I watched thirty minutes or so of a documentary called The People vs. George Lucas, which is pretty much what it sounds like: an exercise to air complaints about George Lucas. The first fifteen or twenty minutes are fairly benign, providing something of a background on the degree to which Star Wars has shaped culture the last 38 years. A little of this goes a long way, but there it is. However, about twenty to twenty-five minutes in, we get to the complaints, starting with the Special Editions. After about five minutes of listening to people bitch about Han shooting first, I turned the thing off and didn’t watch the rest. These complaints were just embarrassing to listen to. One guy said something about how it was like George Lucas gave us all the best coloring books as kids but then he showed up and took away our coloring books and…come to think of it, that complaint might well have been when I stopped watching. It was so nonsensically over-the-top, and the tone was so persistently whining, that I just wanted to punch everybody in the movie.

And I agree that Lucas should never have changed that scene.

The degree, though, to which “Han shot first!” has become a shibboleth amongst Star Wars fans is kind of creepy to me, though. Leave me out of it.

So I shut the documentary off, well before it could get to the Prequels.

However, the news is not all bad or troubling! Years ago, when The Phantom Menace first came out, there was a series of articles on Space.com called “The Phantom Heresies”, which delved into that film’s mythic structure (under the assumption that it actually did not suck ). I greatly enjoyed those articles, which shaped a lot of my thinking about the Prequels over the years, including when I wrote the “Fixing the Prequels” series. Well, it turns out that the person who wrote those articles, one Paul Hamilton, has a blog called The Star Wars Heresies. I’ve started dipping into it, and it’s interesting stuff, albeit from a more academic-style viewpoint than I usually take when writing about this stuff. Hamilton also wrote a book on these same types of issues, which I will probably check out at some point. (It’s a bit on the expensive side, even for an ebook, but I’ll get it eventually.) And from his blog I found another, The Star Wars Prequel Appreciation Society, which also seems to be full of interesting stuff. (I’ve not dug much into it yet.)

Let’s see, what else? Not much, really. Just waiting for the new movie and to hear what John Williams does with the music. I hope that the disturbances I’m feeling in The Force come to nothing, but you never know….

Oh, and this is a pretty nifty image (from the international trailer for The Force Awakens):

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A few random thoughts on STAR WARS stuff

::  I am officially in SQUEEE!!! mode for The Force Awakens. That’s all about that.

::  How about Star Wars: Rogue One? I’m more intrigued by this than SQUEEE!. I’m not really sure that this is a story that needs telling, but it might be interesting. I’m more on the fence about the idea of a gritty war movie in the Star Wars universe. The gritty. shades-of-gray type of space opera war story has already been done to perhaps canonical effect in the Battlestar Galactica reboot series. As always, the proof will be in the doing.

::  The newest news this week (‘newest news’ is a really bad turn of phrase, but I’m going with it) is that the next “Anthology” movie (which is what they are collectively calling the stand-alone, non-episode Star Wars movies) is a Han Solo movie. I’m guessing that this will be something of an origin story, showing us the young Han. This will be interesting stuff, to be sure; it’s clear in the original movies that Han has quite a history, and we didn’t learn much of it at all. This could be very interesting, indeed.

The real issue with the Han Solo movie will be tone. It seems to me that this one might need to be the most purely fun movie of the coming flood of Star Wars movies. I hope that we don’t get a story that posits some kind of traumatic childhood for Han, or that postulates some other kind of massive tragedy in his youth that leads to him being the cynical pirate he is when we meet him in A New Hope. The thing is, he’s not all that cynical; it really doesn’t take much to get him to stick around long enough to bail Luke out at the Battle of Yavin. Han’s cynicism is more selfishness than the defeated fatalism of Captain Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly.

In fact, I wouldn’t mind not having much of an “origin” story at all. Why not just have an early adventure of Han’s? We don’t necessarily need to see Han meet Chewbacca, either. All those story beats are really obvious, aren’t they? Not that I wouldn’t be happy seeing them, but I think it would be a blast to have the movie open with Han and Chewie already together, already having adventures, and maybe — in the very first scene, maybe the very first shot — Han plays the hand at cards that wins him a new ship. Maybe he doesn’t like the new ship very much at first.

I hope there’s a lot of the Millennium Falcon in the Han Solo movie.

::  Oh, and one more thing? The Han Solo movie must be titled Star Wars: Never Tell Me The Odds. This is not negotiable, Disney and Lucasfilm!

I also have some thoughts on the current run of Star Wars comics, but those deserve their own post.

It’s a fun time to be a Star Wars fan, innit?

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Ranking the Bond Songs!

You know what this blog needs? More lists of things ranked in reverse order of how much I like them! So here is a ranking of all the James Bond theme songs.

Before I start, a brief proviso: by “theme song”, I mean, “song that plays over the film’s opening credits”. This is necessary because there are some places where the particular movie’s most memorable song plays at some other point, and in some latter cases, the films have multiple songs. So that’s my definition of “theme song” for this post, and even that definition will have an exception or two along the way.

Why do this? Well, as I noted in a post a while back, I’ve been listening to a podcast about the Bond films, so this lore is often fresh to mind in some way. I remember an LP album I had when I was a kid that had all the Bond theme songs on it, up to For Your Eyes Only, if memory serves. I played the hell out of that album, which I got when I had only seen a few of the Bond films at all; thus I came to know some of the songs before I saw the films. I found “Under the Mango Tree” from Dr. No particularly baffling and un-Bondlike, but…well, anyway, let’s get started! I’m going in reverse order here, and as in all such lists, I find that my bottom group and my top group are pretty well set, and everything in the middle is changeable.

23. Quantum of Solace (Jack White and Alicia Keys)

This is just a nothingburger of a song. It goes nowhere, it does nothing. Listening to it is outright unpleasant. I can’t say much more than that about it. It actually opens promisingly, with a bass line that calls back to the opening guitar smash of the previous film’s song, Casino Royale, but the vocal lines are awful and there is no real melody at all. I was glad when the opening credits were done running when I saw this movie.


22. Die Another Day (Madonna)

I gave some thought to whether this song or Quantum was my least favorite, and this one wound up not quite dead last because the song’s disjointed nature actually does mesh fairly well with the disjointed nature of the film’s credits sequence, which depicts a captured James Bond being held captive and tortured for more than a year. I can accept the song’s nature on that basis, but still, it too is just plain unpleasant to hear.


21. Goldeneye (Tina Turner)

As I look over the list of all the Bonds, it appears that Pierce Brosnan really didn’t fare well in the theme song department. This song suffers in a number of ways, first by not being very tuneful (I’ve seen the film any number of times and I can barely summon up the melody in my head), not memorable in the lyrics department, and it’s written in such a way that it really doesn’t do much justice to Tina Turner’s voice. I’m not the world’s biggest Turner fan, but I don’t think this song does her any favors.


20. Dr. No (special case)

This feels slightly unfair, since the very first Bond movie underscores about half of the credits sequence with nothing other than the James Bond Theme in its original incarnation. That’s pretty cool. But eventually the Bond theme fades out, and it’s replaced with some calypso-sounding percussion (again, not bad), but then a very bizarre calypso rendition of “Three Blind Mice”. This ends up referring to the three blind assassins who start the plot off in the first scene, but then these fellows are never seen again and the whole “Three Blind Mice” thing ends up just seeming weird. The whole effect is pretty disjointed.


19. Moonraker (Shirley Bassey)

Bassey did three Bond themes, and here’s the last. She sings it gorgeously, so the problem here is the song itself. It’s a very slow, ponderous ballad that just slides by without leaving much impression at all. The Bond films did a string of slow songs for themes in the late 70s and early 80s, only two of which really worked. This isn’t one of those. It’s telling that they recorded a faster, kind-of discofied, version for the film’s end credits.


18. The Living Daylights (a-ha)

Lots of people always assume that the producers were trying to capitalize on a-ha’s short-lived MTV popularity here, but it’s worth remembering that the Bond films are made by Europeans, and a-ha was a much bigger deal over there. They actually had a long career in Europe which you’d never know about if your view of the music world never extends beyond the American top-40 list. This song is OK, but it’s not especially memorable, it’s not even the most memorable actual song from the film, and John Barry didn’t like it all that much, so he didn’t make a lot of use of it in his score.


17. Tomorrow Never Dies (Sheryl Crow)

Another instance of the producers grabbing a contemporary popular name for the song, this one is again an OK tune, but again it’s not especially memorable and it doesn’t fit the rest of the movie. The problem here is that composer David Arnold drew a lot of melodic inspiration from the other song in the movie, by kd lang, which was supposed to be the main title song in the first place but ended up getting bumped to the end credits. It does fit the TRON-esque credits sequence, but that’s about it.


16. The Man With the Golden Gun (Lulu)

I have a soft spot for this song because it’s so goofy in the lyrics department (“Love is required/whenever he’s hired/he comes just before the kill!”), and because John Barry did a lot of neat things in the actual score using this song as inspiration – some terrific action writing, for instance. The song’s got a good beat to it, but ultimately it just feels like it’s trying too hard. It feels almost like a parody of a Bond theme song.


15. A View to a Kill (Duran Duran)

After Golden Gun, we’d go ten years before another up-tempo Bond theme. This song just reeks 80s pop to me, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s a fun listen and the melody pops up in the score, which listening to the song the first time isn’t something you’d initially think possible. I mainly rank it down this far because the lyrics make absolutely zero sense. Seriously. You could sing a Sarah Palin speech to this tune and have as coherent a set of lytics.


14. You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra)

It’s gorgeous and lush and Nancy Sinatra has a wonderful voice. The problem is that it might be too lush, at times feeling repetitive. This song comes after the Bond films have been ratcheting things up in the song department, and though I like it a lot, it’s not my favorite thing in the world.


13. Octopussy (Rita Coolidge)

Another in the string of slow ballads that dominated the Bond series right around the time I was starting to cultivate my 007 fandom. Notably, one of the few times the song doesn’t use the film’s title in any way, which I suppose was the right decision to make, since I doubt anyone really felt like taking on the challenge of using “Octopussy” in the song. It’s a nice ballad and I like it, particularly the little guitar licks toward the end, and I love Coolidge’s husky voice. But for Bond, the song may be just a bit too nice.


12. Licence to Kill (Gladys Knight)

This is a weird song. I like it a lot, actually, and like the movie itself, I think it’s terribly underrated. The song goes on a bit too long, but I dig the way Knight really sinks her teeth into it. It’s a good Bond-type of ballad, even if it tries to rip off Goldfinger a bit with those big opening chords.


11. Goldfinger (Shirley Bassey)

Yes, Goldfinger doesn’t even make my top ten. I know, I know – it’s the most iconic of all the Bond theme songs, but iconic or no, I simply don’t like it all that much. It’s good, but like the movie, I think too much is made of it.


10. From Russia With Love (John Barry)

Unusual case here. FRWL has an honest-to-goodness song, with a singer and everything (a fellow named Matt Munro), and it’s really quite good. It starts off almost sounding like a lounge song, but it gets bigger and bigger and at the end it’s pretty dramatic. Problem is, it’s only heard during the movie’s end credits. For the opening credits, we simply have a John Barry instrumental arrangement of the same song, as the credits are projected over the undulating features of a belly dancer. That arrangement is pretty awesome, though, starting with very fast and staccato chords in the brass. The arrangement really sets the tune for some action and adventure in an exotic locale. That instrumental is terrific stuff, and would later be quoted by David Arnold in his score to Tomorrow Never Dies.


9. Diamonds Are Forever (Shirley Bassey)

My favorite of the Shirley Bassey songs. This ballad is haunting and evocatively scored, with that wonderfully mysterious open and some nifty 70s synth stuff in the middle. John Barry even gets in some of his trademark staccato brass stingers in the midst of this lush bit of mysterious romanticism. I love this song. Too bad the movie doesn’t rise to its level. (Or anywhere near it, really.)


8. The World Is Not Enough (Garbage)

This is one of those Bond movies that no one much talks about, which is a shame because it’s loaded with good ideas and good performances and is pretty much done in by the ridiculous inclusion of Denise Richards as a complete nothingburger of a character. This song is really quite good, too, in my opinion. I don’t know anything about the band Garbage other than this song, but this is just a terrific Bond song. David Arnold does some Barry-esque things with the sound (brass stingers, again), the chorus is ear-wormy as hell, and the overall sound is one of exotic mystery. This is a deeply underrated gem of a Bond song.


7. For Your Eyes Only (Sheena Easton)

Here’s some Bond trivia for you, next time you’re in a bar and you need a James Bond fact to stump people: What’s the only Bond film in which the theme song’s singer appears in the titles sequence? That’s right, it’s FYEO! Cool, huh? Yup, Sheena Easton is right there on screen, belting out this early 80s ballad. And it’s a good one, with some exotic sounds from the synths, and lyrics of the oft-used “lonely woman singing to the secret agent who has come to save her” genre. This is a terrific song.


6. Casino Royale (Chris Cornell)

The Daniel Craig reboot era begins with the blood-soaked gunbarrel animation giving way to this hard-driving rock song. It’s really a nicely-crafted film sequence, in which Craig’s Bond appears in two separate black-and-white sequences, one of which is muted and quiet, the other of which is harsh and loud and garish – and then this song kicks in with driving opening chords and explosions of color as the titles begin. As for the song itself, I like it a lot. It’s got a very ear-wormy aspect to it, and it sounds like a new version of Bond while still being Bond.


5. Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney and Wings)

Once upon a time I hated this song, but over the years it has relentlessly climbed up my list. It’s a very different kind of Bond song, really – John Barry was not involved in this film, and so the sound of the music is quite different. LALD starts right off with Paul McCartney singing, and then we get those wonderful smashing chords when he reaches the words “Live and let die”. I had a problem for years with the fact that probably half the song is instrumental, but all that stuff works. To this day, though, I can’t quite get behind the weird funky middle section (“What does it matter to ya? When you got a job to do, you gotta do it well!”), because it’s just so weird and out of place. It’s very McCartney-esque, as sticking mismatched sequences into the middle of songs is something he likes to do, but I still don’t care for that tiny bit. Still, this song is terrific. Not enough to redeem the movie, though, which is by far my least favorite Bond movie ever.


4. Thunderball (Tom Jones)

Oh, this wonderful, weird, gonzo song! Listening to it, you can just hear the producers telling John Barry, “We need a song even bigger than Goldfinger!” So out comes this strange number, in which Tom Jones sings ever-so-lovingly of the world’s most narcissistic and misogynist asshole. Seriously, listen to the lyrics and imagine what it would be like, to be in the company of a guy like that. But Jones sells it, doesn’t he? Just don’t ask what it means to “STRIKE [bum bum bum bum BUM] like THUN-DER-BALLLLLL.” (For added fun, listen to Jones’s voice as he holds that last high note and imagine the colors his face turned before he finally collapsed into unconsciousness.) This song is like the movie: bloated, over-the-top, and huge. It makes the most liberal quotes from the James Bond Theme itself, and…I just love it to pieces.


3. The Spy Who Loved Me (Carly Simon)

The song is titled “Nobody Does It Better”, and it’s just an outstanding song – so good that it’s probably been overplayed through the years, and it’s a staple of many a karaoke bar. The film’s music score is a regrettable mishmash of disco-sounding crud, but this song is outstanding, quite easily the best of Roger Moore’s films. Just the way Carly Simon sings it is amazing: in the first verse she sounds small and hesitant, backed by little more than a piano, but then she gets to “Baby, you’re the best”, and as she sustains the word “best”, her voice seems to double in size, and it keeps growing and growing throughout the song. I’m not the biggest fan of the movie, but this song is fantastic.


2. Skyfall (Adele)

Adele may be the first person to ever do a Bond song where I thought, “I’d like her to do more of them.” This is the Bondiest of the Craig songs, with its lush sound, its big vocals by a big-voiced singer, and even its way of making almost-coherent lyrics out of a made-up word (“Skyfall”). It’s a wonderful song, and it even goes so far as to suggest the film’s somewhat downbeat ending in its constant references to the sky falling and tumbling and such. I really like it.


1. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (John Barry)

I suppose this is no surprise, coming from me, is it? I make no apologies. This movie’s opening titles sequence is scored not with a vocal song but with a driving instrumental by John Barry that doubles as the film’s main action-sequence music. It begins with Barry-esque staccato stingers in the brass, and then there’s a driving downward pounding motif my bass synths before the main melody kicks in with an amazing rhythm in the background. It’s the perfect music for the film’s ski-chase sequences, and it musically suggests speed and danger as well as anything Barry every wrote for a Bond film. I’ve always been amazed that the producers made no attempt to convey the film’s “Bond-ness” through the use of a song, but rather just gave the job to John Barry, who then delivered perfectly. No piece of music, other than the James Bond Theme itself, screams “007!” to me so well as this one, which is why I put it at the top of the list.


(At some point I’ll look into some other songs and musical oddities from the Bond films.)

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A Big-ass STAR WARS quiz thing!

Jason did a Star Wars quiz thing, and you can bet I’m gonna do it too! Let’s jump right in!

1. Which film is your favorite of the Original Trilogy?

The one that started it all, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. I know, most people consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the greatest of the Star Wars films, but for me, it’s the first one that always has that special something, the one that took us into that amazing universe for the first time. All the conflicts are laid out in the first forty minutes or so. The swashbuckling fun, which gives way to that amazing Battle of Yavin…as much as I love ever single Star Wars movie, A New Hope is the one at the end of which I always find myself smiling with a sigh of contentment and the thought that if I could once, just once, tell a story that makes someone feel the same way at the end…I’ll be a happy man.

2. If you enjoy the prequels, which one is your favorite?

I’m on record as loving the Prequels. The one I enjoy watching most? Attack of the Clones. I love its changes in mood, its structure as a mystery story, and that incredible battle at the end, when the battlefield is shrouded in dust and smoke and the whole field is a hellscape of blasterfire blazing through it all. I love that movie, the weakness of the Anakin-and-Padme lovestory notwithstanding.

3. How old were you when Episode 1 came out?

I was 27.

4. Which of the movies have you seen in the theater?

Every single damn one! A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, I saw at the Westgate Theater in Beaverton, OR, which is long-since demolished (but whose long run of showing the first movie is something of legend. By the time Return of the Jedi opened, we had moved to Western New York, so I saw that one at the Cinemas III at the Olean Center Mall in Olean, NY. I would later see all of the Prequels, all three of them, at the Regal Cinemas in Orchard Park.

Where will I see Episode VII? We’ll see!

5. Did you go to any of them on opening night?

It’s interesting. A New Hope was out for several months before we saw it, but I was five, so I had no idea. I’m not sure how long The Empire Strikes Back was out before I saw it, but it was a couple of weeks, at least. Jedi, I saw in its third day of release. We saw TPM on opening day, after seeing a stage production of The Phantom of the Opera the night before, so we’ve always called that “Phantom Weekend”. AotC and RotS? Both of those, I attended midnight showings. Both were unforgettable.

6. Who is your favorite character from the Original Trilogy?

Who else? Han Solo.

7. Who is your favorite character from the prequels, if you have one?

Who else? Obi Wan Kenobi.

I also like Anakin and Padme a lot more than most do, apparently. And Mace Windu. And Queen Jamilla.

And I don’t hate Jar Jar.

8. Have you read any of the books or comics?

I was reading the Marvel series way back while the original films were coming out. I should do a longer blog post on those someday, but some of those stories still hold up pretty well, especially the ones they did between ANH and TESB, when nobody knew anything. The Marvel writers did things like have Han pay off Jabba, only to learn when they got the TESB script that they had to reinstate the price on Han’s head, and so on. Fun stories, from the days when Star Wars was more swashbuckling space opera adventure than the Campbellian fantasy it would turn out to be.

As for novels, I read one of Brian Daley’s Han Solo books back then, and then some of the “Expanded Universe” novels, when that started up. I quickly fell behind and then stopped entirely when they got to the point of releasing three or four novels a year. It just got to be too much. But I’ll never forget walking into Walden Books, seeing a new Star Wars book sitting there by some guy named Zahn, and thinking, “Wow, Star Wars is a going concern again?”

9. Favorite book or series? Favorite SW author?

Timothy Zahn, I think.

10. Favorite comic?

As mentioned above, the Marvel series, most likely. I haven’t read that many of the comics since then, and as I write this, Dark Horse Comics’s long history of Star Wars comics is coming to a close, which is a shame. All those comics will still exist, of course.

11. Favorite character from the Expanded Universe (EU)?

Mara Jade.

12. Favorite villain from the EU?

The standard answer here is probably Admiral Thrawn, but you know who I really liked? Captain Pellaeon. I liked how he wasn’t really evil, so much as a guy who just couldn’t find a reason to do anything other than just keep working at his job, even when it was unlikely that his job even existed anymore.

13. If you had your own ship from the Star Wars Universe (SWU), what would it be? It could be a mash-up/ugly.

The Millennium Falcon. Is there another possible answer?

14. Would you rather be Sith or Jedi?

Sith are evil and Jedi are stilted and a bit dull. Can I be a Corellian instead?

15. Would you rather be a Rebel or a member of the Imperial Navy? What would your role be?

I’d like to be a Rebel mechanic, one of the guys who fills and fixes the ships. That would be cool.

16. If you could be any species from the SWU which would you be?

If I have to be non-human, probably a Twi’lek. You can wear those tentacle things like a scarf.

17. If you could date any species from the SWU which would you pick?

A Twi’lek, obviously!

18. If you could date/marry any character from the SWU who would you pick?

Yeesh, this is getting a little fan-service-like, innit? If I didn’t think that Domina Tagge would kill me, then…maybe Domina Tagge.

19. If you were going to bone just one Star Wars character and you never had to see them again, who would you pick?

Oh, come on.

20. If you could BE one SW character, EU or not, who would you be?

You know who I like? Dex, the giant fat alien who runs the diner on Coruscant and has information. That would be cool.

21. What would your SWU name be?

Darth D. McDartherson III. (Sorry, this quiz is getting a bit silly.)

22. What color would your lightsaber be, what kind would it be (double-bladed, single blade), would you dual-wield, and what kind of grip would it have?

How about yellow? Nobody did anything with yellow.

As for grip…just a standard straight grip, I guess. Or the curved one like Darth Tyrannus’s.

I wonder why they only had lightsabers? Why not light-daggers or light-lances? A teeny Jedi-army knife with a three-inch lightblade might be cool!

23. Do you own SW merchandise?

Yup.

24. How much, to date, do you think you’ve spent on SW merchandise?

Books and a few toys and some art…maybe a couple hundred bucks. Not all that much, since it’s been spread over thirty years or so.

25. What is your favorite SW possession?

My die-cast Millennium Falcons, most likely. Or my copy of The Art of Star Wars, which dates back to the late 80s. JW Rinzler’s three Making Of… books are indispensible.

26. Do you have a favorite SW artist? If so, who?

Ralph McQuarrie, obviously. Honorable mentions to Drew Struzan and the Brothers Hildebrandt for their poster art.

27. Are there items you do not own but covet? What are they?

It might be memory playing tricks on me, but I remember seeing in 1980 or so a die-cast Millennium Falcon in a toy store that was about four or five inches in diameter. (The ones I own now are two inches.) I’d love to have one.

28. Are there items that are not made but that you wish were made? What are they?

No idea, really. I’m not much into collecting that kind of thing, really – I’m mostly happy with what I have.

29. Did Han shoot first?

Yes, but in all honesty, I don’t really care all that much. I object to Lucas changing this because it destroyed one of the movie’s biggest laughs. I reject, completely and utterly, any notion that this somehow changes Han Solo’s character in any way.

30. Did Boba Fett, in your opinion, ever leave the Sarlacc or did he die there?

Maybe once, but I’d hate to think he was some kind of superhuman who kept surviving anything and everything ever thrown at him.

31. Are there things about the movies you wish you could change? If so, name three.

Erm…see my Fixing the Prequels series: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. As far as the original movies go, maybe change Boba Fett’s demise a bit to give Han some intentional action that does him in, as opposed to an accident. Other than that, not really. Maybe cut out a little of the “funny” stuff with the Ewoks.

32. Which era would you want to live in?

There doesn’t seem to be huge difference between the eras in the films (and why would there be, they’re only separated by about twenty years), so sometime in there would be fine. Preferably on one of the outer worlds where the Empire hasn’t quite got ‘round to totally taking over yet.

33. What SW games have you played?

None, since the arcade games. I’m a terrible gamer.

34. Do you play/own Star Wars Miniatures?

No.

35. Favorite SW costume for men?

Han’s get-up in TESB. He had a jacket on in that movie, not the vest.

36. Favorite SW costume for women?

Honestly, while everyone else is ogling Princess Leia in the gold bikini, the dress the Ewoks made for her always stunned me. Still does, actually.

37. Have you ever dressed up as a SW character? Who/When/Why?

No. Cosplay isn’t really my thing. I could do it, but I just don’t have the time to invest in it.

38. Do you ever have SW sex fantasies? If so, have you ever acted them out?

Like I’d tell you.

39. Do you Ship any SW characters who aren’t together? Who/why?

No.

40. Have you ever written SW fan fiction? Can we read it?

Funny you should ask, because in a way, you CAN read it!

41. Have you been to a Celebration or plan on going to one?

Haven’t, but would love to. They’re never anywhere near Buffalo, though.

42. Have you ever been to Star Wars Weekends at Walt Disney World?

No, but I would, if the stars aligned!

43. Do you wish they had Star Wars Weekends at Disneyland?

No. (Simply because California’s on the other end of the country from me. I have no problem with them having them, I just don’t care.)

44. Best section you’ve experienced on Star Tours?

I don’t recall it much, other than the ominous feeling when you’re falling toward the Death Star.

45. What initially brought you to the SW fandom?

I saw the original when I was six years old. I was done-for from that moment on. Everything since then for me, creatively, has been colored by Star Wars. I see the world through Star Wars-colored glasses!

46. Do you consider yourself a SW Fanboy or Fangirl?

“Fanboy” tends to be a term of derision, so no. I prefer “geek”.

47 Have you seen Fanboys? Favorite character and/or quote?

Nope.

48. Do you wish they would make 7, 8, and 9 or do you think they should be done with it?

Obviously this quiz originated before the Disney sale and the announcement of Episodes VII, VIII, and IX. I’m fine with it, but at the same time, it feels like an add-on to me. I’ll see it, you bet, but I could have lived perfectly happily with Star Wars being done.

(Interestingly, it’s always worth going back to George Lucas’s actual thoughts on Episodes VII, VIII, and IX from back in the late 70s. The “He always said it would be nine movies!” trope isn’t quite accurate.)

49. If they ever made 7, 8, and 9, do you think it should continue the Skywalker Legacy or use entirely new characters? Or something different?

As long as there are Star Wars stories being filmed under that include “Episode [number]” in the title, they should be about some generation of Skywalkers. Other tie-in movies? Fine. But I want Skywalkers. They’re totally central.

50. Do you watch The Clone Wars?

I’ve watched several episodes and been impressed with them. I need to watch more, obviously.

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