Because someone noted we haven’t had an open thread in some time, and because I wanted to point out that someone stole my post title. The ObWings legal team is busy examining our options. Please remain calm.
Because this isn’t just another deep space [blog] franchise. We stand for something.
For some reason I absolutely detest the original Star Trek series; I find it unwatchable. I thought TNG was fairly good, didn’t like Deep Space Nine, thought Voyager started out well and then went downhill, and didn’t see much of Enterprise. Don’t know what it is about the original series though.
But at least all is good and right in the world as Tiger won the Open Championship and the Buick Open yesterday (if you don’t count Iraq, Lebanon, the Bush administration, etc. etc. etc.).
“if you don’t count Iraq, Lebanon, the Bush administration, etc. etc. etc.”
And today’s shutdown of 8% of our oil production for months on end, which seems to be the dog not barking in the blogosphere.
Part of the legal team thinks you are out of luck. 🙂
Oil’s up $3 per barrel since saturday.
Ugh: and according to the WSJ, it’s now within 5 cents of its all time high.
Six years in which we could have been working on alternative energy sources and serious conservation. Six years…
To pick up a late-breaking theme in an older post’s comments–I hail from Anvilania.
Polka Dot? Again? (cue music).
hilzoy–
you aren’t old enough to remember the days when the White House had solar panels?
On the other hand, if Pollkatz’s theory is accurate, it could mean Republican chances of holding on to Congress this fall are fading.
Bonus points to anyone who can find the three (three!) B5 references, btw.
Isn’t the ObWing legal team basically, well: Sebastian, Katherine, and a kitten with a gun?
Sebastian and Katherine will never agree on anything, and while they are occupied disagreeing, the kitten will probably shoot you and escape. Sorry.
Can we use this thread to condemn things we’ve never condemned on Obsidian Wings before? If so, I wish to condemn the substitution of John Sheridan for Jeffrey Sinclair, West Wing after Aaron Sorkin left, most of 11th season M*A*S*H apart from “Goodbye, Farewell, Amen”, and Jane Austen’s death having only written six novels, dammit.
I think you already condemned the Sheridan/Sinclair switch, Jes.
On the other hand, if Pollkatz’s theory is accurate, it could mean Republican chances of holding on to Congress this fall are fading.
Certainly the folks in Bizarro World™ version 2.0 (or at least one of them) are worried.
I strongly dislike condemnation–it makes people grumpy.
The kitten with the gun (and the unusually long right paw) is a senior partner and therefore isn’t involved in making actual legal decisions.
Katherine and I actually agree about a lot in the law. We just don’t talk about it. 🙂
And don’t forget von!
Jane Austen’s death having only written six novels
… Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, and Jimi Hendrix for not making enough albums for us to see their abilities start to wane.
Sebastian: The kitten with the gun (and the unusually long right paw) is a senior partner and therefore isn’t involved in making actual legal decisions.
Ah. Well, it’s probably safer that way.
And don’t forget von!
I think of Von as the kitten with the gun. 😉
Hmm, and that is the unusually left paw. Sinister I say!
Ugh: and according to the WSJ, it’s now within 5 cents of its all time high.
Though, apparently still below the inflation adjusted all-time high of $90 per barrel, also according to WSJ.
I condemn George Lucas for Episodes I, II and a good deal of III; plus his money grubbing habit of releasing and then re-releasing the original trilogy in different versions, forcing me to purchase them again and again. The next iteration of this senseless outpouring of funds will occur in September.
Argh, preview is my friend. Unusually LONG left paw. Sheesh. Where is my proof-reader?
Me, too. I grew up with it; never missed an episode. But I go back and look at it today, and it’s unwatchable. Bad acting, bad screenwriting, cheesy special effects, simplistic philosophy, bad science. Times change, tastes change.
Star Trek was one of the few television shows that was actively optimistic. The classic discussion of this is David Brin’s comparison of Star Trek and Star wars, “Star Wars” despots vs. “Star Trek” populists. Mostly, he disses Star Wars, but it’s a good discussion of Trek, too.
I believe that when used in this context, the proper term in geek shui. I also am under the impression that both Ugh and Dantheman are also members of the Obsidian Wings Bar.
Charley,
If we count mere commenters, you and Francis also count.
I am a member of the Obsidian Wings Bar.
If it’s a wine bar.
I also am under the impression that both Ugh and Dantheman are also members of the Obsidian Wings Bar.
We, like you, are outside counsel, though I only do tax work so suing for trademark infringement is right-out (now if you want to do a highly-structured, tax-efficient, cross-border financing, I’m your man, or at least the partners I work for are).
If it’s a wine bar.
I’ll play if I get to mix drinks!
We, like you, are outside counsel
Well, you got to the thread before I did, and Francis still hasn’t noted his appearance. (And of course there are others: LizardBreath off the top of my head . . .) I didn’t intend a roll call; merely postulating the existence of an OWBA is work enough for the day.
And for a little geek fu, I’d have to say the TNG had much better trial scenes than the original.
dmbeaster too.
I personally think talking about the kitty’s limbs is a bit of a four paw.
lj – BOOOOOOO!!!!
CharleyC – just meant that the legal department is the lawyer-bloggers and outside counsel is the lawyer-commenters.
Speaking of geek fu (or shui, as appropriate), I have to say that anyone can watch, and care about, a TV show. The true talents of geekdom, imo, are the folks who can handle exercises like this.
I stand in awe.
Anderson.
to be pedantic beyond all reasonableness, while Mr. Holsclaw has his JD and has passed the California Bar Exam, he is not a “lawyer”, because he is not a member of the California State Bar (see here).
(gotta pay those dues. [literally].)
A little truth-in-advertising: I am a civil lawyer working in a two lawyer firm and specializing in representing land developers and local governments in complying with California’s environmental laws. Today’s problem, for example, is working with a city on complying with its municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) permit obligations.
what other professions are out there among the commentariat? what’s fun / interesting / difficult about what you do for a living?
Michael Berube liberal literatura perfesser and scourge of all thing Horowitz, searches for someone to his left and discovers fool’s gold in the form of defenders of Hezbollah.
But he might have looked to his right and seen Bill Arkin.
When I read Berube, who calls for the disarmament of Hizbollah, I asked myself:”In Lebanon? With their history? Do I ask for the Sunni to lay down their arms in Iraq? Am I a bad person, Mr Berube?” Bill Arkin, as far as I can tell, reassures me, and tells me Condi is the fool at the UN today. It is so confusing.
This possibly doesn’t belong in an open thread.
No, I’ve been admitted, I’m status active and they cash my checks.
(the extra ‘b’ is a typo aided and abetted by MS line completion and PW memory)
Setting aside the original, which is sui generis, the best next generation Star Trek series was Deep Space 9. Absolutely. Vastly deeper and far more complicated and rich plot lines and characterizations, and serial evolution of both, than either Next Generation or Voyager.
I have spoken.
“And don’t forget von!”
That’s easily done — the forgetting — given the hit&run style he has with this place these days (I know, he has a baby). But it’s frustrating; for instance, he dashes by to chastise Hilzoy for her post regarding the Raw Story link, when he obviously hasn’t read the comments, and thus doesn’t have the facts to realize that his comment makes no sense. I pointed this out to him, but I imagine he didn’t read that, either.
I’d write him to ask him to address the facts as noted, but I don’t have an e-mail address for him. (And note that his claim has been proven wrong: of course no one emerged today to deny the story they didn’t deny in 2003.)
Where’d Edward go, by the way?
Edward is still posting regularly about art at his blog.
I find myself agreeing with Gary. DS9, season 1 excepted, was a deep and spiritual story, well-told and well-acted. The relationship between Ben and Jake Sisko was one of the best portrayals of a father-son relationship that I’ve ever seen on TV.
TNG was, to a large extent, an updated clone of the original series. It was good, but not really special. Voyager was pretty much a complete mess and Enterprise had promise but it couldn’t really hold my interest.
“Edward is still posting regularly about art at his blog.”
Yeah, I meant that he disappeared from here right after I pointed out a couple of things to him, which is, again, kind of frustrating.
CharleyCarp: “And for a little geek fu, I’d have to say the TNG had much better trial scenes than the original.”
As I recall, TOS only had the one, “Court Martial,” so that’s not saying much. Melinda Snodgrass, who was a lawyer before starting to write sf, wrote the episode about the hearing as to whether Data has human rights, which is the TNG episode I suspect you’re thinking of to compare to.
ya know, you’d think that if I link to the State Bar website, I could bother to double-check. but noooo.
my apologies, Sebastian. Welcome to overly high dues and abusive MCLE obligations.
“DS9, season 1 excepted, was a deep and spiritual story, well-told and well-acted.”
Yeah, I meant to say “particularly the last four or so seasons of DS9.”
The first season was fairly lousy, particularly the first dozen or so episodes. The same is true of all the Next Generation Treks; they all took a while to shake down, though Voyager was far and away the worst series, period. (although it had some moments towards the end, and before that).
It’s hard to establish quality in an sf tv series at the start; one has to build and show a universe, and that’s not easy. The first season of B5, despite having a planned arc, was a lot rougher, too, and particularly the pilot (say, remember Delenn being bald, and having Magic Rings?).
The exceptions to this dynamic are very rare. Neo-Battletar Galactica is a stand-out exception. And Firefly.
“Enterprise had promise but it couldn’t really hold my interest.”
I think the serial third season had some good stuff, but it really became fan heaven in the fourth season, when it began delving into all this pre-TOS stuff, and going with mostly three-part stories. (Although the three-parters often had weak endings, alas.)
The Vulcan trilogy was generally excellent, and the Khan-type Augments trilogy (with Brent Spiner) was also quite good. A number of other episodes were also quite fun. The Mirror Universe duo, for instance, with the Original Enterprise, er, Defiant, seen again.
A shame there was no fourth season, where we would have seen the creation of the floating cities, and other TOS homages, and more about the founding of the Federation.
remember Delenn being bald
Delenn was bald throughout the first season, as are all Minbari. (A little geek-jitsu there.)
Can I just say — and the musicians here will know what I mean — that auditioning drummers is the absolutely worst thing ever in the history of ever? I mean, it’s just an awful, awful process. It makes me wish the band could just use a metronome instead.
Ugh, re: Star Wars, I still maintain — as I tried to slip in on another thread the other day, that Episode III is the third best film after Empire and Star Wars. I rank them: V, IV, III, II, VI, I.
As far as re-re-buying the original trilogy, unless you absolutely have to have them on a DVD, don’t. The versions being released in September are non-anamorphic transfers in Surround 2.0, not Dolby 5.1. They are, in fact, ported from the “Definitive Edition” laserdiscs of the mid-90s. Which I have, and not that I condone copyright violations or anything, but they can easily be put onto DVDs as-is.
Concur w/Phil. VI was horrid, and that’s a real shame when you consider it’s the grand finale.
No, Gary, there were others in TNG I liked better. An episode I remember was The Drumhead, but there were others.
“VI was horrid, and that’s a real shame when you consider it’s the grand finale.”
I wrote the following momentarily thinking you were referring to Revenge Of The Sith. Rereading, I realize you were referring to Return of The Jedi. So I’ll leave what I wrote, and pick up after the next paragraph.
———————
Disagree strongly, but as it’s purely subjective, I can’t argue. All I can say is that I liked it a lot, and aside from Jar-Jar, and dialogue through the trilogy often ranging from mediocre to poor, most particularly as regards between Anakin and Padme, I like the prequel trilogy very much. I am well aware this is a minority view. Yet it is mine.
As I said, if nothing else, as a set of silent films, it’s absolutely beautiful, visually.
—————————
Okay, Return of the Jedi: yeah, the problem there is that it’s so much a remake of the first film. I understand that Lucas was happy to get a chance to go back to what he tried to do the first time, as regards the Death Star, when he had only a buck twenty, but, really, that was just such a wrong decision artistically. We really didn’t need to see another Death Star blown up again. Boring, relatively speaking.
Whoops, sorry about the italics.
Yeah, that’s exactly it, Gary — if one reads the lengthy, early SW screenplays that Lucas wrote, one finds all the elements that appeared in all six films in some form or another, and particularly in the OT. For whatever reason he couldn’t drag himself away from the idea of returning to those elements for VI instead of trying to do some new things with the story; plus he had painted himself into some narrative corners that he obviously had trouble getting out of.
However, I will say this, to all the latter-day Lucas haters: Think of all the parts of Jedi that you hate. Now think of all the parts you love. The former were almost certainly directed by Richard Marquand. The latter were almost certainly directed by Lucas, uncredited. He definitely directed the Vader/Luke/Emperor fights, which were the best of the OT.
As for the OT, my rankings shouldn’t be taken on any sort of absolute scale. I love all six films unreservedly — that’s just the in-universe scale of quality for me, as it were. If nothing else, the Obi-Wan parts of Episode II are a really interesting sort of Star Wars noir story.
what other professions are out there among the commentariat?
programmer. i work for a large, err, legal information company on a product that’s probably very well known to many of the lawyers here. on the side, i’m a programmer specializing in 2-D graphics toolkits.
auditioning drummers is the absolutely worst thing ever in the history of ever?
it’s been a while, but yeah, i remember the pain. specifically, i remember thinking “ugh. why don’t they just play the songs like they are on those tapes we gave them (and obviously didn’t bother listening to)) ? and does this mean our songs will never again sound the way they used to ? ”
“…if one reads the lengthy, early SW screenplays that Lucas wrote….”
Which I have. I also wrote four very lengthy posts examining what dropped out of Revenge of the Sith compared to one posted version of the screenplay. It starts here.
what other professions are out there among the commentariat?
I operate a moderately-sized particle accelerator and I do various freelance computer geekery on the side. My lady love edits science fiction and fantasy novels.
Ugh, re: Star Wars, I still maintain — as I tried to slip in on another thread the other day, that Episode III is the third best film after Empire and Star Wars. I rank them: V, IV, III, II, VI, I.
I don’t know, I have a hard time choosing between VI and III, I certainly don’t think II is better than VI, though it could have been. I read the novelization of I (I’m a glutton for punishment), which was much much better than the film.
As far as re-re-buying the original trilogy, unless you absolutely have to have them on a DVD, don’t. The versions being released in September are non-anamorphic transfers in Surround 2.0, not Dolby 5.1.
I don’t have the full-on home theater surround sound (at least, not yet), is it that big a difference if I’m just watching with TV speakers or only two big stereo speakers?
They are, in fact, ported from the “Definitive Edition” laserdiscs of the mid-90s. Which I have, and not that I condone copyright violations or anything, but they can easily be put onto DVDs as-is.
Well that’s good to know, I was worried that they weren’t “cleaned up.” I actually have the laser discs as well, any links to instructions on putting them on DVDs? Not sure its a copyright violation if I make a single copy for personal use, but I’m sure the hollywood studios would disagree.
The former were almost certainly directed by Richard Marquand. The latter were almost certainly directed by Lucas, uncredited.
Really? I always assumed that the fall off from V to VI was due to Lucas reasserting creative/editorial (if not full directorial) control, and leading to my conclusion that of the five films he’s primarily responsible for, he made one great one, SW, two okay ones, ROTJ and ROTS, and two horrid ones, AOTC and TPM. And the Ewoks were totally his, were they not?
specifically, i remember thinking “ugh. why don’t they just play the songs like they are on those tapes we gave them (and obviously didn’t bother listening to)) ? and does this mean our songs will never again sound the way they used to ? “
Yes, yes, a million times yes. We auditioned two guys last night, and while one of them gets credit for actually having a clue as to the arrangements of the TWO WHOLE SONGS we asked them to learn, neither of them (as was once said of Doors’ drummer John Densmore) could spell “rhythm” if you spotted them an “r,” an “h” and two “m”s.
I don’t have the full-on home theater surround sound (at least, not yet), is it that big a difference if I’m just watching with TV speakers or only two big stereo speakers?
Not at all. 2.0 is going to give you pretty much the same effect through either one, with differences in loudness, I think.
Personally, I think the falloff from V to VI was attributable to 1) major script problems, 2) not keeping Irving Kershner as director (and/or failing to secure Spielberg, who was otherwise occupied), and 3) soft-pedaling, via the use of the Ewoks (who were originally Wookiees in the screenplay), the intensity of the violence in the ground war against the Empire’s forces on Endor.
In both V and VI, Lucas was by all accounts watching both Kersh and Marquand quite closely, every day. And he did direct a lot of sequences himself, including second unit stuff. But pretty much all the stuff on Death Star 2 was directed by Lucas himself, and it appears to be taking place in an entirely different movie from the Harrrison-and-Carrie-phone-it-in stuff directed by Marquand. I suppose Carrie gets some benefit of the doubt for being on coke at the time, but Ford has little excuse for his craptacularness in the Endor sequences.
Open thread, I can talk about other political issues.
Thus, this post. Excerpt: […] This is another very dangerous provision that would dramatically change the historic balance of power between the states and the federal government. Everyone should write or call their Congressional representatives to oppose it.
Note that Huckabee is a solid loyal Republican.
But if the President achieves direct control over the National Guard, he has ever so much more power to take us directly into war. That’s without getting into paranoia about civil insurrection scenarios or civil strife.
I can’t imagine how any real “conservative” could support this provision, nor why any liberal would.
Spread the word, please.
“My lady love edits science fiction and fantasy novels.”
For what company?
“not keeping Irving Kershner as director”
Irvin.
Gary: re your post @ 7:18:
I would disagree with you about the Battlestar Galactica 2.0 – the Mrs. and I are big Sci-Fi Channel fans, and have watched the show from the beginning; and we would both put it squarely in the takes-time-to-improve category. The pilot and first half-dozen or so episodes, were, imho, teh suck: but after mid-first season got considerably better. It’s still far from ideal – the cheapo costumes and murky lighting, frex; to say nothing of its irritating lack of exposition at times: but all in all, vastly improved over the beginning.
“The pilot and first half-dozen or so episodes, were, imho, teh suck”
Okay. I wildly disagree, but you’re entitled to be wrong. 😉
No, seriously, obviously you’re as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine.
No matter that you’re wrong.
😉 😉 😉 🙂
And back on the serious front again, three more stories of soldiers, good and bad. I’ve not seen any mention of these cases here. They’re all big stories, with the sort of moral issues Hilzoy tends to blog about.
I think everyone might be interested.
Discuss.
“The moon is bright… over Lebanon tonight, the Lebanese moon looks down, shim sham shacam, cattle explode, cow shrapnel drips off tree into mother’s tear for little boy who goes on into battle and comes back dead, or worse, a man.”
Bruce, from the Kids In The Hall
no, it’s funny
For what company?
That would be telling.
Gary, those stories make me feel sad more than angry, don’t know why. Maybe because it’s so predictable.
The results are predictble,too: rightwing denies it happened, blames the whistleblower, accuses the reporters of undermining the effort, whistleblower gets defamed, etc. Fifty years from now the right people will be recognized as heroes, the others as villians, and the whole war will be recognized as a fit of national insanity but by then we’ll be on to the next war…
“That would be telling.”
Let me put it this way: are we talking major company or minor company, NYC-based or not, inhouse or freelance, full-time or part-time? Line-editing or copy-editing? Acquiring or not?
That’s what I both love and hate about you, Gary — that you actually took the time to post a unique, one-word reply correcting my misspelling of Kershner’s name. Only you . . . 🙂
“Gary, those stories make me feel sad more than angry, don’t know why.”
The last one, the one with Colonel Steele, I first read about last week (or earlier?), and I was so depressed and stunned by it that I just couldn’t blog about it.
After these other two stories today, I went back to it to put them together, although I still couldn’t bring myself to write anything at all insightful or useful about them.
But the story of PFC. Watt has a pretty positive aspect to it, I think, that he spoke up, at what’s arguably likely risk to his own life, and I think that’s always worth celebrating.
Crimes are inevitable in war, as elsewhere — perhaps particularly in war, arguably, so I’m glad to find something positive to cling to, as well.
“…that you actually took the time to post a unique, one-word reply correcting my misspelling of Kershner’s name.”
I have a thing about spelling people’s names correctly; I plead guilty. I’m not sure why; something about respect I think they’re due, perhaps.
Or making them more googleable.
See, it’s all part of my duty to be helpful. Yeah, that’s the ticket….
Gary: I had also read your last story, and couldn’t think what to say. Likewise, the rape/killing/buri the bodies case.
And then there’s this, from the rape/killing etc. trial:
(via Americablog)
“After the rape and murders, he wrote that he began to grill chicken wings.”
This seems like a good development, insofar as it goes.
Of course:
But that’s to be expected, and seems entirely livable with. Of course, the Lebanese are still also demanding a prisoner exchange, withdrawal from Shebaa Farms (on which they have no claim at all, of course; it’s Syrian territory), and so on, but we’ll see what happens. This proposal at least seems to be progress.
New poll:
That’s fair enough, I think.
Full results here. 55% approval for your own Representative over 37% disapprove is still, of course, majority approval.
Here’s an interesting figure that didn’t make it into the story:
“Should do more” to avoid civilian casualties took a big jump, from 82/15% to 58/39%. News of the various criminal allegations has clearly had an impact.
What motivates the Republican base.
For those who think I’m nuts for suggesting that government is going to get into the diet and exercise business as health care is taken over by the state, read the last two paragraphs in this story. For now, of course, it will be voluntary.
Andrew: part of my skepticism is just that I think that mandatory programs telling us what to do and how much to exercise, as opposed to public education (e.g., TV spots), making voluntary stuff available, etc., would be politically impossible. Another part, of course, is that I don’t think that there’s any intention of enacting mandatory programs, but the political uproar that would result from anything resembling mandatory exercise programs doesn’t require speculation about legislators’ intentions.
I should also say: I have to give a talk, so will be out of town until Thurs. Maybe there will be internet access, maybe not; who can say? In any case, have fun.
hilzoy,
Have fun.
While I concur that such programs would be politically difficult, I think you underestimate the logic of politicians. How many people get sick and/or die every year because they don’t eat right? I don’t know, but I’m sure that some interest group will come up with a sufficiently high number that Congress will be ‘forced’ to take action to save X number of lives a year.
It’s for the children, don’t you know?
Andrew: For now, of course, it will be voluntary.
Can you find any instance in any of the countries with universal health care systems of the government of that country forcing people to eat what the government tells them to eat, or do exercise according to government rules?
For those who think I’m nuts for suggesting that government is going to get into the diet and exercise business as health care is taken over by the state
Not “nuts”, Andrew. You just prefer people to suffer and die rather than get healthcare, on the Nineteen Eighty-Four-ish fantasy that if the government provides healthcare, the government will force you to eat healthy foods, avoid unhealthy activities, and do regular exercise. I doubt you can come up with any example of this actually happening in any of the countries where healthcare is provided by the government – but nevertheless, you think your fantasy should be regarded as a legitimate fear and should trump real people actually suffering and actually dying.
Whether or not this prioritising of fantasy over reality actually makes you “nuts” is left as an exercise for the reader.
insurance companies in the US have persuaded employers to get into the fitness game – setting rates and benefits according to the number of times employees go to the gym per month, for example. it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that the govt (should it become responsible for paying for health care) would want to do similar things.
I strongly suspect the coercion would come from a more typical government outlet–sin taxes. This could lead to hilarious/tragic outcomes as the government fell behind on which foods were bad and which were good.
I strongly suspect the coercion would come from a more typical government outlet–sin taxes. This could lead to hilarious/tragic outcomes as the government fell behind on which foods were bad and which were good.
You already see this at the state level where food is generally exempt from sales tax but “bad” food, generally candy and the like, is not. IIRC there was some huge battle waged recently (maybe more than one) over whether a certain kind of food should be subject to sales tax (maybe in California).
Ugh,
IIRC, it was for snack foods, such as potato chips, in California. This nonsense is not limited to food or health reasons. PA’s sales tax generally exempts clothing, but certain items deemed luxuries, such as bathing suits and expensive shoes (I think the threshold is $75).
For that matter, the list of items exempt from seizing personal property to pay a judgment in PA is also bizarre, including sewing machines.
Well, if a man can’t keep his sewing machine, he has nothing.
I think Jes is being more than a little unfair to Andrew. One of the defining attributes of the right (up until recently, anyway) has been a strong, healthy mistrust of the government. I’ve often thought that that’s a valuable trait.
Andrew, of course, is being silly. Every other western, industrialized nation has some form of universal health care and none of them, as far as I know, have any sort of mandatory exercise or healthy-eating programs. I don’t think you could get even the Japanese to go for something like that, forget about getting it off the ground here in US.
That isn’t to say that there wouldn’t or shouldn’t be healthy living and eating programs sponsored by the government; things like healthier school lunches, subsidized exercise programs and nutritional counseling. There are similar things now, but I would expect them to be more widespread and popular.
Andrew’s 1984ish scenario does have merit as fiction, though. Imagine a dystopian future where TV use is strictly regulated, there are mandatory, government-run, fat farms for the obese and a thriving black market in Ring Dings and Snickers bars. It almost writes itself.
Well, if a man can’t keep his sewing machine, he has nothing.
i think that was the moto on the PA militia’s battle flags during the Rev. war. the British tax on sewing machines was quite burdensome.
It should surprise no one to learn that I am the seamster of the house. I actually own and know how to operate a sewing machine.
“This could lead to hilarious/tragic outcomes as the government fell behind on which foods were bad and which were good.”
Here is another minimum wage piece for you, Andrew. Not particularly to start debate again; just offering it as reading matter.
I vaguely remember some sort of milk controversy in California schools recently. I think the anti-milk side was focused on fat content and (strangely) lactose intolerance. The pro-milk side talked about calcium. Anyone with good economics training would have asked about the health benefits of realistic replacements (cola or highly sugary fruit juices anyone).
That vaguely reminds me of a discussion I had with a militant vegan friend (he really is. Going out to eat with him is very annoying). It went something like this.
Sebastian: (Ordering milk at breakfast)
Friend: You shouldn’t drink milk, it’s bad for you.
Sebastian: What? Why?
Friend: 45% of adults are lactose intolerant.
Sebastian: I drink 2 gallons of milk a week. I think I’d notice if I were lactose intolerant.
Friend: It’s bad for you.
I wish conservatives would have used their “mistrust” of the government when Bush and Company claimed they could spread “democratic values” by way of the American State.
militant vegan
Militantveganofacsists!!!!11!1!!! Quick, somebady invade some country somewhere!
Somewhere, hopefully, there is a fairy godmother that will hear your plea.
Would the proper term be “aggressively prosteltizing vegan”?
Would the proper term be “aggressively prosteltizing vegan”?
Dammit Sebastian! You’re losing the war already and it hasn’t even gotten started!
proselytizing?
“You’re losing the war already and it hasn’t even gotten started!”
You might think that, except my comment was more in the vein of “Is the proper term ‘handicapable perdaughter of differing-but-certainly-not-worse vision characteristics'” 🙂
There must be something in the air, because I stumbled across another marvelously stupid snippet on Kant.
From noted sunstar scholar G.H. Arinday, in the midst of discussing a judge that claimed the ability to read minds and channel spirits:
“If psychic phenomena have no place in the judicial plateau, then how would we explain the “a priori” of Immanuel Kant, who called his theory as “transcendental philosophy”?”
I think Jes is being more than a little unfair to Andrew.
Jes is more than a little unfair to everyone with whom she disagrees about something. She has precisely two tools in her arsenal: The fallacy of the excluded middle, and poisoning the well. Oh, and a mindreading machine. She’ll hit you with them again and again and again, then pretend she won.
I’m sure I’m probably violating the posting rules here, but I grow weary both of seeing Jes constantly tell other people what they think, feel and want; and of getting away with malarkey like pretending that the bad consequences of paths she wants are incidental, while the bad consequences of paths others want are their actual preference.
Ah, I see we must be getting close enough to the election for Rove to release the hounds:
The FBI has issued an urgent nationwide alert for 11 Egyptian students who entered the United States last week but failed to show up for their courses at Montana State University.
(hounds being scary alerts, not Egyptian students)
Liberal Bloggers: Changing the face of elective politics one senate race at a time.
is it bad manners to talk about the Lebanon war on an open thread? (Like it would be bad manners to talk about it at a cocktail party)
Cleek: it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that the govt (should it become responsible for paying for health care) would want to do similar things.
As Chuchundra pointed out, it does make for an easy-to-write skiffy fantasy. And the confusion many right-wingers seem to have between what people may do and what the government requires people to do (as for example, the constant mad confusion among so many right-wingers about how if same-sex marriage is legal, as it is in the US, this means same-sex marriage is being imposed on people by the government). So maybe Andrew has just got confused about how if the government tells people about healthy lifestyles, this will mean imposing a healthy lifestyle by main force: just as if public schools tell schoolkids that being gay is OK, this means they are imposing a “homosexualist lifestyle” by main force.
Chuchundra: One of the defining attributes of the right (up until recently, anyway) has been a strong, healthy mistrust of the government. I’ve often thought that that’s a valuable trait.
True: unfortunately, the “strong, healthy mistrust of the government” seems to have only applied when the administration was Democratic, and not when it was Republican.
True: unfortunately, the “strong, healthy mistrust of the government” seems to have only applied when the administration was Democratic, and not when it was Republican.
Or as John Yoo said in Con Law I one day about his fellow comrades-in-arms: Don’t think that if they get their hands on ultimate power they won’t use it.
1. I am quite concerned about behavior modification plans such as those cleek mentioned.
2. While I am less concerned about being forced to exercise, not being permitted to eat what I choose, etc., I never forget that this country was founded in part by Puritans who were big believers in using the power of government to modify people’s behavior. I shouldn’t have to remind most of the commenters here about the love many Republicans have for the state when it comes to making sure people live their lives properly.
3. I mistrust government power in anyone’s hands, including my own. Which is why I’d like to see a much more stringent reading of the Constitution than the courts have held for the past 70-100 years.
“So maybe Andrew has just got confused about how if the government tells people about healthy lifestyles, this will mean imposing a healthy lifestyle by main force: just as if public schools tell schoolkids that being gay is OK, this means they are imposing a “homosexualist lifestyle” by main force.”
Maybe. Or perhaps there would be “sin taxes”. I think someone mentioned that…. 🙂
“True: unfortunately, the “strong, healthy mistrust of the government” seems to have only applied when the administration was Democratic, and not when it was Republican.”
Historically, no. It was very much there when Eisenhower was President, and being denounced as a Communist tool of the Soviets by the more rabid McCarthy followers, the John Birch Society, and all of their ilk, which is to say, a massive number of extremist “conservatives.”
Fluoridation of water was a commie plot, and of course the UN, and pretty much everything the government did, except for building nuclear missiles; we won’t even discuss the State Department, traitorous then as ever.
And the same extreme, in smaller numbers, opposed the horrid “liberal” policies of the Nixon Administration.
And through Reagan and G. H. W. Bush, there was still a fair amount of denouncing from Committee On The Present Danger types for them not taking the Soviet Threat seriously enough, and so on; the outrage at Reagan for negotiating with Gorbachev was palpable and visceral, as was the same at both Reagan’s and G. H. W. tax cuts, their non-elimination of the Department of Education and other Departments, etc.
And, for that matter, even now we see some distancing and denouncing of G. W. Bush as Not-A-Conservative.
But while the skepticism had been much less under our current Bush, it’s always been more issue-oriented as to what it is and isn’t blind to, than personality-oriented, and only party-oriented to a certain degree. To say it’s been “only applied” to one party is so ahistoric as to be totally wrong.
Oh. My. God.
I’m only 31, but I don’t really know that I’ll ever again get to do anything as cool as interviewing Rush Limbaugh
It’s a shame when the Republican Party doesn’t always agree on everything, then.
Misc. notes:
1. So, Andrew, you are specifically requesting that the Court be more active in overturning Congressional acts?
2. The 13th Amendment, along with the innate laziness of most of the species, means I don’t worry too much about being required to exercise. If I fail an annual fitness test and my co-pay goes up, that seems to me to be the correct result.
3. Before we all get paranoid about Congresscritters deciding what we eat, there are a number of govt agencies and govt-chartered corporations that operate with limited Congressional oversight. The Fed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. PBGC. It is possible for the US to charter a federal not-for-profit universal insurer and fund it through payroll taxes.
Francis,
1. Yep.
2. That is certainly how I’d interpret it. The courts, however, have shown remarkable creativity in their ability to interpret the Constitution. (Frex, I’d argue that the 13th Amendment also protects you against the draft, but I suspect that would be, or more likely already has been, laughed out of court.)
3. Given the issues with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I’m not sure I see that as particularly good news.
“It’s a shame when the Republican Party doesn’t always agree on everything, then.”
What is this in response to?
I’m only 31, but I don’t really know that I’ll ever again get to do anything as cool as interviewing Rush Limbaugh
interesting. i could name hundreds of things i’d rather do.
also interestingly, i know one jeweler who won’t be getting my business simply because i had to listen to Rush yammer away while i was browsing for an anniversary present in their store. there are jewelers in town who try not to distract their customers with Rush’s inanities.
cleek – to paraphrase Michael Jordan, Democrats buy jewels too.
And my inability to completely decipher your and cmdicely’s comments over at Drum’s place in frustrating me to no end.
Posted by: Phil | August 08, 2006 at 01:06 PM
I don’t think I have ever read Jes claim to read minds, however she assumes what you mean. She seems to force a lot of folks to explain their meaning, in other words “Do you really mean that? The way I read it, it seems you mean _____.”
(I could be wrong, get my meaning?)
Francis,
I’d also note that I would be in support of some Constitutional amendments that would ensure, for example, the ability of the federal government to impose costs for negative externalities like pollution. I think we would be much better off today if FDR had proposed some changes to the Constitution rather than bullying the courts into letting him do what he wanted.
Democrats buy jewels too
they try… sometimes they just can’t figure out if the simple blue diamond trio is better than the fancy platinum band.
And my inability to completely decipher your and cmdicely’s comments over at Drum’s place in frustrating me to no end
mine said (in effect) “the conservative function for deciding when to change force levels is the inverse of the current force’s effectiveness – increase when not working, decrease when working”.
cmdicely’s said: “if we’re losing and you can blame the loss on liberals then cut, run, and blame it on liberals; otherwise increase the force level”
cmdicely’s is better.
cleek – Thanks (and the original comments would be appropriate for this “Geek-fu” thread).
the original comments would be appropriate for this “Geek-fu” thread
i’m not that happy with my little function. it’s a nice idea, but poorly executed.
was anyone else seeing ’51’ as the comment count all day, up until a few minutes ago ?
“She seems to force a lot of folks to explain their meaning, in other words “Do you really mean that? The way I read it, it seems you mean _____.”
Typically it goes more like: How can you be such a vicious and horrid person as to believe [semi-ridiculous interpretation of something with a fairly evident regular meaning]!
Michael Totten’s photos from Hezbollahland taken on his last trip there.
One of his accounts of his visit.
For those who are convinced a Constitutional crisis is in the offing, you may enjoy this interpretation of the latest administration proposal.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | August 08, 2006 at 06:18 PM
Link, please.
God, you guys, why aren’t you obsessing about the Lamont/Lieberman race? I’ve been up all night worrying. I drank a whole glass of wine. I think I’m going to have a heart attack from the stress of watching the returns come in. I even made a deal with the god I don’t believe in that I would give up the job I just interviewed for if only Lamont would win.
Gotta get back to MyDD.
“…the latest administration proposal.”
I already blogged about the National Guard here; I assume you still can’t access my site?
“God, you guys, why aren’t you obsessing about the Lamont/Lieberman race?”
Don’t have anything to say I haven’t already said. Saying nothing won’t change anything.
It isn’t so much a matter of having something to say as it is a matter of surviving to the result without grinding my teeth down to the gums. Oddly enough the one pundit who really seems to understand the importance of this race is Joe Scarborough. He wrote a very insightful email to Kos, which also seems odd to me. A sort of brother-journalist thing? Or may the fellowship of soldiers even though they are on opposite sides? Anyway I really do believe this could be the shot heard ’round the nation. If he wins I’m going to go out on the deck and smoke a cigar. Then I’m going to send Webb some money. Well, I’ll do that anyway.
Okay, here is a contrarian view on Lamont/Lieberman from Democrat Alec Oveis.
Return of the Jedi is worse than any of the prequels? In what universe?
I understand that there’s a lot of Ewok-hatred out there. But really, an entire army of warbling Ewoks can’t approach the suckitude of Anakin Skywalker as portrayed by either Lloyd or Christiansen (not that I fault the actors in particular). Or any of the scenes in which Jedi, precognitive superbeings with such lightning-quick reflexes that they can deflect blaster bolts with melee weapons, are gunned down by droids or proto-stormtroopers. Or Vader’s ridiculous “Nooooooooooo!”. Oh, lets not forget C3PO, whose involvement in the plotlines of the prequels defies logic in a perhaps a thousand different ways.
Admittedly, I can’t say I’ve really “seen” Episode III, since the venue in which I saw it was just awful. But, dear god, the things Lucas did to the Jedi, or to any beloved characters in those prequels would have him hauled before an international tribunal, were there any justice in the world of cinema.
Yeah, I saw that. I even commented! I wasn’t as offended as some people. I usually read TAPPED and TNR as a pair, just for the contrast.
Greetings from scenic Bar Harbor. Now that my talk is over, I am watching the Lieberman/Lamont race, as well as what looks to be the great news that Cynthia McKinney is losing.
Lily, some of us are obsessing. That’s why we haven’t been on ObWi.
Lieberman concedes, but says he’ll run as an independent.
Also, “Henry C. “Hank” Johnson declared victory about 11:05 p.m. in his campaign against U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.
Johnson had 59 percent of the vote compared with 41 percent for McKinney, with 89 percent of precincts reporting.”
(From the AJC.)
Hallelujah on the latter. Yay to Lamont and feh! to Lieberman, on the former.
Lieberman concedes, but says he’ll run as an independent.
Also, “Henry C. “Hank” Johnson declared victory about 11:05 p.m. in his campaign against U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.
Johnson had 59 percent of the vote compared with 41 percent for McKinney, with 89 percent of precincts reporting.”
(From the AJC.)
Hallelujah on the latter. Yay to Lamont and feh! to Lieberman, on the former.
I guess I can unclench myself now.
I didn’t mean the obessing remark to be a crack at anybody.
God I am so grateful for this. By the way, if you haven’t read Scarborough’s email to Kos, do. Republicans shouldn’t be so overjoyed about this. The conventional wisedoms about this race have been consistantly wrong and will probably stay that way.
This race was inspiring.
“…the great news that Cynthia McKinney is losing.”
I’ll grant McKinney her stubbornness; she’s not politically dead until there’s a stake through her heart. (Naturally, I have lefty friends who think her a Great Hero; but I frequently take a different view from them.)
“Lieberman concedes, but says he’ll run as an independent.”
Predictable. I’m wondering how that will hold up over the next couple of months as, I assume, considerable Democratic pressure will be brought to bear on him, though. Obviously, seeing where establishment figures come down here will be extremely interesting.
“By the way, if you haven’t read Scarborough’s email to Kos, do.”
It would be helpful if you linked.
Scarborough’s letter.
Wow, an election night that ended well for me. I literally can’t remember the last time this happened.
For reference….
Democratic Senators who voted for the Graham Amendment stripping habeas corpus last November: Landrieu, Lieberman, Nelson of Nebraska, Wyden.
Democratic Senators who voted against Jeff Bingaman’s attempt to get the Graham Amendment taken out of the appropriations bill: Bayh, Conrad, Lieberman, Nelson of Nebraska
Democratic Senators who voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales as AG: Landrieu, Lieberman, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Salazar.
Here’s a link to Lieberman’s floor speech on the Gonzales nomination.
I think this was completely swamped by the war in the primaries; only deranged obsessives remember those votes or speeches and most of those who do opposed Lieberman on other grounds.
But it might have had an indirect effect, because the NY Times editorial page staff are deranged obsessives on these issues. They tend to endorse incumbents, it takes a lot to get them not to. So Lieberman’s position on these issues could have been decisive in the Times endorsement.
“Scarborough’s letter.”
Thanks. Seems reasonable, though I’m a little vague on why it was so urgent to read it. But whatever.
The Times gave the story a pretty big top headline on their current front page.
I think Lieberman is going to have a pretty tough time selling this to a lot of the Party in CT., although, of course, he’ll get lots of Republicans:
Yes, very noble, isn’t he?
Meanwhile:
Of course there’s this to keep you from feeling too good, Katherine.
If it’s true, this thing about Lieberman paying for a cheapass web host turning out to be why their site went down is pretty funny.
There are simply no Democrats anymore who have an ounce of crdibilty on national security issues. Ok, you disagree?, name one.
Wes Clark.
Now you can explain what George W. Bush’s national security credentials were in 1999, Dave.
Then you can point to his national security successes as President, and explain why he has national security credibility today.
Would you say it was Iran or North Korea that was his most outstanding success?
Still thinking, Dave?
DaveC: There are simply no Democrats anymore who have an ounce of crdibilty on national security issues.
Thanks, Dave: open threads are the place for jokes like this.
I don’t think I have ever read Jes claim to read minds . . .
The nth iteration of “Andrew wants people to suffer and die rather than get healthcare” or any analogue to same should have disabused you of this notion, but whatever.
SomeOtherDude: I don’t think I have ever read Jes claim to read minds, however she assumes what you mean. She seems to force a lot of folks to explain their meaning, in other words “Do you really mean that? The way I read it, it seems you mean _____.”
Correct.
But, starting the fight again about Andrew’s preference for free market health care (and what that means were he to have the power to impose his preference on people who cannot afford the health care they need) on this thread was a bad idea.
The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father. Protect the Family. Obey. Trust the Corps. Maternis, Paternis.
I’m certainly comfortable advocating Revenge of the Sith as better than Return of the Jedi.
First of all, of course, its plot is not essentially a retread of any of the others.
Second, and this is actually a virtue of all three prequels, Palpatine is one of the great pulp movie villains of our time. He comes perilously close to running all sides of every conflict he has a stake in, and his plans fail only because of really remarkable heroic effort. He is a good villain, and in great form in episode III.
Third…okay, this one takes a little setting up. I am really un-wild about the changes to Jedi culture and metaphysics introduced in the prequels. I don’t think they enrich the story or improve the entertainment value of the movies. But the handling of the Jedi order as ossified in the galaxy’s moment of greatest need, filled with fears its leaders can’t prove, is really, really good.
Fourth, the pulp hero buddy stuff with Obi-Wan and Anakin works great, at least for me. We saw in Attack of the Clones what confident Jedi in good form can do, including jumping off skyscrapers and such. This builds on that in sensibly fun ways. The collapse of the partnership and friendship is the more poignant precisely because it’s been just so darned cool along the way. Tarkin’s line in episode IV, “Their fire has gone out of the universe,” in retrospect refers not just to the moral authority of the Jedi but their constant rekindling of the spark of joy in adventure.
Fifth, the relationship between Anakin and Padme isn’t just sick and twisted, it’s very plausibly sick and twisted. I’ve had relatives in relationships like that.
It really worked very well for me, and while I think there’s a significant gap between episodes IV and V and all the rest, I put III at the top of the lower tier.
Congratulations to Lamont and Johnson. I don’t have the kind of distaste for Lieberman that many of you seem to, but I do revile McKinney. Lamont I’m not hard over one way or the other; the Kos commercial was a little too Mentos-ish for me, but the will a the peeple and all that.
I’m against this. I’m against even doing this to make a point. If the governors are being recalcitrant in mobilizing the guard for themselves, you can always counter with a constitutional crisis of more limited scope. Just step in, then step out.
Or are there some other ideas on how to get the guard into place without the cooperation of those presently in authority to do so?
If you’re going to snipe, the shotgun is not your best choice of weapon.
Oh, and from a strictly utilitarian point of view, I don’t see the point of Lieberman running as an Independent, unless he’s thinking that he can spend the rest of his career as the swing vote.
Which, come to think of it, might just work if the balance is tight and Congress preoccupies itself with wedge issues.
DaveC:
“There are simply no Democrats anymore who have an ounce of cr[e]dibilty on national security issues”
Y’know Dave, even though this is just a blogthread, if you are going to make broad-spectrum accusations like this, it would help your case immensely if you would define your concepts a little more sharply: like WTH you mean by “national security”.
If by “national security” you mean all the various, serious factors that go into actually protecting the nation (i.e., things like port security, first-responder-readiness issues, military/law-enforcement/civilian coordination, counter-intelligence efforts, etc.) the proper policies to follow are a worthy (indeed, vital) subject for discussion.
But, if, to judge from the context of you comment,, you seem to define “credibility on national security issues” as “mindless, reflexive and uncritical support for the Bush Administration” – that’s another matter.
Oh, and if you really mean to equate “national security” with “cheerleading for the war in Iraq”; why don’t you just say so?
Oh, and from a strictly utilitarian point of view, I don’t see the point of Lieberman running as an Independent, unless he’s thinking that he can spend the rest of his career as the swing vote.
it would make him one of the most important persons in the Senate. everybody would have to stroke ol’ Joe.
DaveC, that was a mighty bold troll. i’ll give you that.
I’m sure Jeffords thought the same thing. It’s possible, I imagine, that Jeffords is getting his stroking privately.
Oh, Johnson over McKinney, 59%-41% with 98% of the precincts reporting.
I think we can stick a fork in this one. McKinney thinks of herself as Bush’s worst nightmare; now we can think of herself as Bush’s worst acid flashback.
…we can think of her as…
Step AWAY from the Post button.
I’m sure Jeffords thought the same thing
but doesn’t Jeffords hang with the Dems pretty consistently ? Lieberman , on the other hand…
hilzoy,
You didn’t mention you were heading to Bar Harbor. That’s not far from where I was born. Lovely area.
Gary,
Nope, all blogspot blogs are still PNG to me, and will be for the foreseeable future, as I found out yesterday that I can’t get my billet wired for internet even on my nickel.
…hangs with the Dems pretty consistently.
Can you say where you are, Andrew? Or is that a no-no?
I’m at Fort Riley, Slart. I don’t get to go to the exciting places.
hangs with the Dems pretty consistently
not on a lot of the big things, the things that seem to matter. that was, like, the problem with Joe.
I think you’re just about as far away from excitement as it’s possible to get. Sure, parts of Saskatchewan might be more remote, but that’s probably more than made up for by varied and occasionally hazardous wildlife.
Well, maybe this will be a new leaf in Connecticut, cleek. I’m not at all happy about his enabling of Jackson and Sharpton, but maybe that’s not an excessive lapse in principles.
Or, it could be that it’s right in line with his principles, and that he’s a-ok with that crowd. It’d be nice to know which.
I’ve got a number of other things that I take issue with him on, but much of that I can probably throw in the “freshman Senator” bin for now.
Slarti, from the point of view of a lot of Democrats (including me), Leiberman is like the guy who pays his neighbhorhood association dues on time and keeps the yard looking clean and great and shovels snow for the little old ladies and, oh, yes, he butchers neighborhood children from time to time. All his good works don’t quite offset the crucial support and enthusiastic promotion he’s given to stuff we regard as seriously harmful and undesirable.
Back at Revenge of the Sith, it was very nice to see a Star Wars film open with cool action again, too.
Fort Riley…you’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany.
OTOH, the PX has soft-serve ice cream!
P.S. My problem with the first three SW movies is how rushed they were not with the plot arc. I thought the plot arc was pretty good. But it was too fast and too forced. The emotion in the climactic scene of TROTS (heh) was good, but I was like, where the hell has this been?
If I’d said something like that in public, I might have to cry drunk. That was way, way, way over the top.
The emotion in the climactic scene of TROTS (heh) was good, but I was like, where the hell has this been?
There’s the rub. When Obi-Wan starts screaming at Anakin, it was perfect. It was also about two movies too late. Very disappointing; I expected the entire duel to be filled with that kind of emotion.
And the Riley PX does not have soft-serve ice cream.
Slarti, I intended to push it a little. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch for someone who helped lie us into a war and is responsible for tipping the balance of power on the Supreme Court really dangerously and helped set up the conditions for the calamitous response to Katrina and a bunch else – he bears a direct responsibility for playing a key part in any of the most immoral tragedies of this administration. Particularly when it would not have been hard for him to avoid all this by the simple expedient of standing pat.
So, Joe in blackface be damned. Joe holding aloft a bloody tenderloin of four-year-old, instead.
Bruce,
I think it is over the top, as well as not being accurate. Lieberman’s flaw is closer to being the person at the community association meetings who defends the manager who has been caught skimming some of the community center’s funds, saying that he’s the guy the community trusted with the money, and we undercut him at the community’s peril. Except Bush’s actions are a little more serious than a touch of embezzlement.
Andrew, I had the same general feeling about the emotional pacing in the prequels. I kept itching to see what anyone moderately competent at human emotion could do with the overall directive to get from here to there in three movies – not brilliant, mind you, just competent.
“I’m certainly comfortable advocating Revenge of the Sith as better than Return of the Jedi.”
Revenge of the Sith has a lot of wonderful moments. Yoda entering the Emperors office, brushing back the guards with a gesture, as they knock into the walls and collapse. Followed by “if so powerful you are, Emperor, why leave?”
Jimmy Smits in his flying car at the smouldering Jedi Temple as the Clone Troopers/Storm Troopers-to-be tell him “It’s time for you to leave, sir!” and he murmurs “and so it is.”
Followed by the adolescent boy Jedi leaping in to battle troopers before being cut down, and Jimmy/Bail Organa flees in horror.
Anakin and Padme’s best moment in the trilogy, which is, of course, silent: the cross-cutting between them as Padme waits in her apartment, her anxiety growing as to what Anakin will do, while Anakin paces in his aerial chamber at the Jedi Temple, commanded by Mace to stay there while the Emperor is arrested; they both, we know, are thinking of each other, as the tension grows, but not a word is said; only the music swells.
Speaking of which: the great John Williams score.
Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s fight across the blazing lava, as structures collapse around them has to be the best Force-and-light-saber battle of them all. Compare it to the feeble swatting in the and original, and the original no longer looks remotely credible (the only contender for second best one-on-one fight is the one against Darth Maul in TPM; none of the original trilogy lightsaber fights compares). (And, of course, the massive Jedi battle in the arena at the end of Attack of the Clones is a fantastic group fight, the only one we ever see, but a great one.)
And Ewen MacGregor is always watchable; it’s particularly enjoyable in this film watching his Alec Guiness stylings.
Only a droid would disagree.
Oh, yes, the music! Maybe the best overall score since episode IV.
Oh, and everything Bruce said at 6:40 AM. Absolutely.
However, I’d also agree that ROTS in particular was way overly rushed and compressed (I wrote about this in my long, long, long, four posts on the movie.) Grevious came and went far too quickly, and the casual viewer had no idea who he was.
The key is that you have to go watch both Clone War DVDs: they’re the rest of the prequels, and some of the better Star Wars around; if you’ve not seen them, the whole prequel story is semi-incomprehensible.
That’s unfortunate.
The Darth Maul lightsaber battle was my favorite, if only because it was so violent of a departure from earlier battles. They’re as different as Brandon Lee’s fight scene with Al Leong in Rapid Fire is from old-fasioned fisticuffs.
Rapid Fire probably wouldn’t be in my top 100 list (if I had one), but that fight would be in my top ten hand-to-hand combat scenes. Again, if I had one.
“Link, please.”
Dude, I invite you to search just about any post on abortion on ObsidianWings, the recent post on health care, most posts on the Israel/Palestine issue, etc. Other people who have been reading a while can judge the accuracy of my observation themselves (in the privacy of their own minds, I’m not really interested in a Jesurgislac pile-on).
So I probably should have just stayed quiet.
Oh, yes, the music! Maybe the best overall score since episode IV.
I’d have to disagree, Empire’s score was tremendous, what with the Imperial March and the music as the Millenium Falcon was chased through the asteroid field. Great stuff.
Sir Spamalot is me.
The way I think of Lieberman is he has appeared on tv at least once a week for the last 6+ years, for every appearance he had something bad to say about Democrats, and usually something good to say about Republicans.
Republicans rightly would never tolerate behavior like that.
The Darth Maul lightsaber battle was my favorite, if only because it was so violent of a departure from earlier battles.
I too liked the Darth Maul battle, especially when he and Obi Wan go at it after Maul’s taken out Qui Gon (though how Maul was finished off was lame). However, I thought the Luke Vader fight on Cloud City (after they leave the carbonite room) was pretty vicious, with Luke all bloodied from having things hurled at him.
Gary,
I enjoyed your four-parter about III. Quite entertaining. And I concur that III had some excellent visuals. My biggest disappointment, as I alluded to above, is that the emotion that Obi-Wan showed after defeating Anakin should have been there throughout their saber duel. I think that would have made that fight all the more interesting and meaningful.
Such feelings: of the Dark Side are they.
I’ve been watching Season 1 of neo-BSG (hooray for Netflix), and though it’s not really original, it’s certainly enjoyable.
Also, lightsabers are cool. I wish I had a lightsaber.
Slart,
Indeed, but we’ve established that Obi-Wan and Anakin were like brothers, having for all intents and purposes grown up together. If you don’t feel anything about that level of betrayal, you don’t feel anything at all.
I’ve been watching Season 1 of neo-BSG (hooray for Netflix), and though it’s not really original, it’s certainly enjoyable.
Speaking of which, have they released the second half of season 2.0? Lemme go check amazon…
And I enjoyed it too.
I don’t really think you can judge the final film from either of the trilogies in isolation. Revenge of the Sith was completely sunk by the previous films’ lack of investment in its characters, just as Return of the Jedi was boosted by the first two movies’ hard-won affection. Luke, for example, goes from being an impatient kid to being a Jedi in the truest sense, choosing at a critical moment to lay down his weapon in forgiveness rather than strike down the mass murderer who has caused him so much personal pain. Anakin, on the other hand goes from being an obnoxious do-gooder to a brooding, petulant oaf, and a really gullible one, at that (OMG Padme’s going to die? And becoming the personification of evil is the only way to save her? If you say so!). Of course, Anakin has to end up evil, but the way to do this isn’t to have him simply plummet non-stop into the abyss, but to first build him up as a virtuous, if brash, hero much like Luke, then have him fall. We need to like him before we can appreciate the tragedy of his fall, and I never once liked him.
So much about the prequels was just plain wrong in this way. Why did Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon attack Darth Maul without so much as a word, when their mission was to find out his identity? Why was Mace Windu willing to execute a vulnerable Palpatine on the spot (I’m sure Gary will chime in with something about Mace skirting the boundaries of the dark side but this sort of thing needs to be established on-screen, not just in script notes and what-not). And the provenance and ultimate employment of the clone army makes no sense whatsoever. Palpatine/Sidious commissioned this army with what resources, exactly? And the Jedi Council decided to use this army, which was pretty obviously commissioned by a shadowy jedi-like character, no questions asked? And the Kamino let them? Presumably the Republic could pay the balance, sure, but don’t they require some ID or something when handing over an entire army, particularly given the nature of the clients?
And did I mention how easily the clone troopers (not Anakin/Vader, as we are led to believe in the original trilogy) slaughter the Jedi?
As for the lightsaber battles, I have to strongly disagree with Gary here. The Darth Maul fight was spectacular, but it had none of the motional resonance of any of the fights in the original trilogy, in large part because there was no dialogue. Every good cinema sword fight is as much a battle of wits and a battle of wills as it is a test of acrobatics, and this was somehow lost on Lucas the second time around. That duel will never stand up to either of the Luke/Vader duels for this reason.
The battle on Geonosis was just confused and murky, and involved Jedi being bested by droids. What more needs to be said?
And Yoda’s antics in either of his duels were completely out of character.
Of course, the biggest sin of all is that the prequels just weren’t all that fun. Whatever its flaws, Return of the Jedi not only had several rip-roaring battles, but it also had an emotionally powerful climactic duel. I was underwhelmed by “Revenge of the Sith” in this regard.
He had to, so that the Emperor could appear to be hideously disfigured later on.
C’mon, get with the program.
“My biggest disappointment, as I alluded to above, is that the emotion that Obi-Wan showed after defeating Anakin should have been there throughout their saber duel.”
But he was emotional right from the start. Also, Jedi aren’t supposed to use their anger; the dark side, that way lies.
“Speaking of which, have they released the second half of season 2.0? Lemme go check amazon…”
Check not there, need you. Find what you need here, you will, yes. Mmmheennnhnnee.
September 19th. Advance order here for $32.49, instead of the list price of $49.98, and I’ll supposedly get a few pennies cut.
Extras include an extended version of the cliffhanger season finale “Pegasus.”
Slartibartfast: He had to, so that the Emperor could appear to be hideously disfigured later on.
C’mon, get with the program.
Heh!
And that part really stuck in my craw, too. I always thought Palpatine’s disfigurement was the result of decades of being poisoned by the dark side.
But he was emotional right from the start. Also, Jedi aren’t supposed to use their anger; the dark side, that way lies.
I didn’t see it, sorry. And I’m not asking Obi-Wan to use his anger to best Anakin, only to express some of his sorrow and frustration as they’re dueling. As Gromit correctly notes above, part of what makes duels interesting is the dialogue tied to the fighting. Yes, the duels in I-III are more cool to watch, but they tend to be drained of any emotional meaning.
I wonder if real-life duels work that way? Somehow, I doubt it; that attention being diverted away from the fight and into witty repartee might just be the death of the chatty one.
Slart,
I’m sure they don’t. But in fiction, duels are supposed to advance the story, so conversation is de rigeur.
Extras include an extended version of the cliffhanger season finale “Pegasus.”
Dear god, I don’t know if I could watch that. I nearly had an aneurysm watching it during regular broadcast — hell, I nearly had palpitations just reading a recap of it last week! — and having the tension ratcheted up still further just can’t be good for me…
“Of course, Anakin has to end up evil, but the way to do this isn’t to have him simply plummet non-stop into the abyss, but to first build him up as a virtuous, if brash, hero much like Luke, then have him fall.”
He was; what do you think Attack of the Clones was, for goodness sake? The whole darn film is nothing but that!
“Why did Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon attack Darth Maul without so much as a word, when their mission was to find out his identity?”
Self-defense; when Qui-Gon first enountered Maul and first attacked, Qui-Gon barely survived. Then, even with both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan fighting Maul, Maul still managed to kill Qui-Gon, the far more experienced fighter; another option, such as slowing down and taking Maul prisoner, simply wasn’t an option. Wishing wouldn’t make it otherwise. This is quite clear.
“Why was Mace Windu willing to execute a vulnerable Palpatine on the spot (I’m sure Gary will chime in with something about Mace skirting the boundaries of the dark side but this sort of thing needs to be established on-screen…”
It’s true that off-screen Mace is established as using a Jedi style that goes up to the border of the dark side without going over, but we see the most relevant point on screen, and it’s given in verbal exposition: Mace concludes that Palpatine is too dangerous to keep alive, that he controls the courts, and he’s just almost effortlessly killed three powerful Jedi. It’s that simple. (My question is how much Palpatine is playing possum to suck Anakin in versus actually defeated by Mace?; I tend to think the former, myself, but I’ve not chased down whether this is grounded in canon or semi-canon.)
“Palpatine/Sidious commissioned this army with what resources, exactly.”
Hey, he’s the Dark Lord, and he’s in league with all these factions he’s put together into the Confederation (including the Banking Guild, hint, hint), not to mention that he was an Imperial Senator twenty years ago; I can’t see that coming up with some scratch would be any problem at all (not to mention that it’s reasonable that the Sith have all sorts of ancient resources and connections to draw on, including those of his former Master that he killed).
Besides, everyone knows about the famous Kamino Layaway Installment Plan. Buy your clones now, pay later while we grow them! Special two clones for-the-price-of-one sale this weekend only!
“And did I mention how easily the clone troopers (not Anakin/Vader, as we are led to believe in the original trilogy) slaughter the Jedi?”
Not Yoda. Otherwise, they’re not perfect, as Qui-gon both tells us in the first prequel, and then demonstrates for us. They were surrounded and surprised. It’s one thing to hold off several blasters, but another to try to hold off fifty at once from all sides.
“The Darth Maul fight was spectacular, but it had none of the motional resonance of any of the fights in the original trilogy, in large part because there was no dialogue.”
But we agree that dialogue is the lamest part of the trilogy, for the most part. (And in the original trilogy, it was still pretty much just snappy one-liners and not much more.) (Odd, because Lucas’ dialogue in American Graffiti was fine.)
Sometimes there’s more suspension of disbelief in the name of fiction than there is in all of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Gromit correctly notes above, part of what makes duels interesting is the dialogue tied to the fighting. Yes, the duels in I-III are more cool to watch, but they tend to be drained of any emotional meaning.
And just think how ridiculous it would have been if Alec Guinness and David Prowse, through movie magic, had started doing cartwheels and backflips. Part of what made them seem like such powerful Jedi is that they acted their age. This stuff is fine for the young Jedi, but for Yoda to start bouncing off of walls and letting out war cries was simply laughable. And I did laugh, while watching “Attack of the Clones”, and moments later thought “This has to be the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a Star Wars film yet, bar none!”
Hell, Obi Wan deliberately let down his guard. Where was this sort of stuff in the prequels? Nowhere, that’s where. Qui Gon’s moment of meditation prior to being skewered by Darth Maul comes close, but that’s it as far as I can recall.
“The battle on Geonosis was just confused and murky, and involved Jedi being bested by droids.”
Not bested; just infinitely out-numbered.
“Of course, the biggest sin of all is that the prequels just weren’t all that fun.”
That’s purely subjective. I won’t argue that you had fun or should have if you won’t argue that I didn’t.
“I always thought Palpatine’s disfigurement was the result of decades of being poisoned by the dark side.”
Perhaps the battle with Mace merely uncovered and revealed Palpatine’s true appearance.
“I nearly had an aneurysm watching it during regular broadcast — hell, I nearly had palpitations just reading a recap of it last week!”
Not having cable tv, of course all I’m familiar with is what’s on DVD; I’ve not yet seen the second half of season 2. (The first half, 2.0, disks are full of long deleted scenes, by the way; I believe 2.5 will be, as well; if you’ve not seen those, you’ve missed a lot; it’s not minor, fleeting, stuff, but substantive.)
“Sometimes there’s more suspension of disbelief in the name of fiction than there is in all of the Golden Gate Bridge.”
You have to force yourself to suspend your natural disbelief in the Bridge?
😉
(Is believing in the GG Bridge like believing in Tinkerbelle?)
Besides being busy fighting for their lives against Maul, it’s pretty clear that Maul is not exactly a sparkling conversationalist. Fictional duels tends to fall down where one of the duellists is both boorish and quite a lot more able than the other(s). Maul is but a stand-in for Palpatine; why on Earth (or elsewhere) would anyone expect him to speak for Palpatine as well?
As usual, pretty much all of my posts this morning are at least a few words shy of being sensible. None of this, though, is a result of having imbibed any propellants.
Incidentally, has everyone seen this famous Star Wars character?
Slart,
I have no objection to the lack of dialogue in the duel between Maul and the Jedi. It’s the climactic battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin where I think it really hurt the film.
“…why on Earth (or elsewhere) would anyone expect him to speak for Palpatine as well?”
As I recall, Maul has but a single line of spoken dialogue, or close to that: “At last, the Sith shall have their revenge!” There may be an additional “yes, master.”
He doesn’t even speak when he sends off his flying monkeys, er, droids.
Cat’s probably got his tongue.
AQndrew, did you go to the Royals game last night? Are you going tonight?
Charley,
No, I’ve been sick as a dog for several days now. Given how the Sox played last night, it’s probably for the best I didn’t go. I might try to make it to tonight’s or tomorrow’s game, though.
Thanks for the pointer to Season 2.5 Gary, for some reason I couldn’t find it on Amazon. Sept. 19th, which means I’ll have to delay my 10,000th repurchase of the original trilogy. (AND NO SPOILERS ON 2.5 IN THIS THREAD PLEASE!!!11!!!)
What stuck in my craw about the prequels was that Yoda/Mace/Obi Wan/Etc. could sit there right next to Palpatine and not know he’s the dark lord. The scarring part got to me too.
He was; what do you think Attack of the Clones was, for goodness sake? The whole darn film is nothing but that!
The most salient part of AOTC in this regard was Anakin’s massacre of the Sand People village, in perhaps the most crassly manipulative setup of the entire saga. That’s when we discover that Padme/Amidala (what the heck is her name again?) just digs psycho killers. I didn’t like his character before this act of vengeance, and I liked him even less afterward.
Not Yoda. Otherwise, they’re not perfect, as Qui-gon both tells us in the first prequel, and then demonstrates for us. They were surrounded and surprised. It’s one thing to hold off several blasters, but another to try to hold off fifty at once from all sides.
Han Solo never seemed to have this problem, and he isn’t a master of The Force. Jedi being massacred with blasters by grunts simply goes against the grain of Star Wars. It’s much like the Knights of the Round Table being killed by a bunch of foot soldiers with pikes, or Gandalf being taken down not by the Balrog, but by orcs.
Oh, and Qui Gon was killed by a Sith, not by the armies of droids he and Obi Wan faced throughout the movie.
That’s purely subjective. I won’t argue that you had fun or should have if you won’t argue that I didn’t.
Yes, opinions are subjective. Sorry for that brief diversion from our purely rational and empirical discussion of which Star Wars movie sucks more.
Ugh: What stuck in my craw about the prequels was that Yoda/Mace/Obi Wan/Etc. could sit there right next to Palpatine and not know he’s the dark lord. The scarring part got to me too.
Yeah, that too. Of course, I could probably name hundreds of things, given the time and a second viewing of the trilogy to refresh my memory. But yeah, and the way they waved that off with a simple line of exposition about their vision being clouded was super lame. The Jedi’s powers seemed to expand and contract to suit the plot throughout the prequels.
If the Sith weren’t constantly in stealth mode, there wouldn’t be a story, period.
I was watching a showing of either Phantom Menace or Send in the Clones about a year ago. I think it was the former. There was a distant shot of a battlefield scene. I calculated back-of-the-envelope style that the energy bolts being fired by hand and heavy weapons were travelling about 500 mph. I’m still trying to decide if that’s as dumb as the parsecs line from the original show. There’s no doubt it’s pretty dumb, though, IMO.
Andrew:
I went last night and although the final result wasn’t great, it was a nail-biter all the way to the end. I’ve been torn about it for hours — my son suggesting that I’m an idiot if I don’t take the opportunity to go with Beckett on the mound, and my sister-in-law thinking that it’d be nice to make a nice dinner for visiting uncle CC. I’ve just finally cast my lot with Josh and the Boys.
If you decide to go, drop me a line, and I’ll buy you a beer.
(You can’t read my blog, but I’m in KC for a couple of days for a case.)
Torn, obviously, about whether to go tonight.
“What stuck in my craw about the prequels was that Yoda/Mace/Obi Wan/Etc. could sit there right next to Palpatine and not know he’s the dark lord.”
Ya gotta watch out for them Dark Lords. They’re sneaky. And the Dark Side: it clouds everything, it does.
“That’s when we discover that Padme/Amidala (what the heck is her name again?)”
Amygdala. Princess Amygdala.
“I didn’t like his character before this act of vengeance, and I liked him even less afterward.”
So you’re saying that Darth Vader turns out to have a dislikable side? I’m shocked, just shocked.
“Han Solo never seemed to have this problem, and he isn’t a master of The Force.”
Standards in Troopers fell once they were no longer all clones.
“Sorry for that brief diversion from our purely rational and empirical discussion of which Star Wars movie sucks more.”
It’s okay. Soon you will admit that you are objectively wrong.
Did I mention that I finally saw Free Enterprise for the first time the night before last, and thought it was hilarious?
Life isn’t complete without seeing William Shatner rapping the musical version of the “et tu, Brutus?” monologue.
“I was watching a showing of either Phantom Menace or Send in the Clones about a year ago. I think it was the former. There was a distant shot of a battlefield scene.”
I think it was the latter, since unless I’m having a fit of amnesia (always possible, and I’m, as usual, feeling a dire need for a nap just about now), there are no large battles in TPM. But there certainly is at the end of AOTC, and it’s really cool.
But one thing you won’t catch me doing is defending the physics or science or realism of Star Wars, no matter what the film. It’s all nonsense, and that’s why these films aren’t science fiction, any of them. They’re science fantasy, classic fantasy in a pseudo-science-fiction setting. There’s no development of a scientific idea in any of them; instead, there is nonsense pseudo-physics.
Eh? I must have dreamed that whole robot/Gungan conflict, then.
Yes. Bank-to-turn spacecraft! Spacecraft that slow down when you shut down the engines!
I tell you, though, that I nearly reinvented Fourier analysis at a very young age, trying to come up with how a lightsaber could possibly function, and that didn’t explain how come they bounce off each other as if they were solid objects.
The battle on the plains of Naboo is pretty large. But yeah, that’s hardly the most ridiculous bit of physics in the movies. For instance, in the attack on the first death star, the squad leader says something along the lines of “accelerate to attack speed” when they just traversed at least a quarter of the orbit Yavin IV in the span of a few minutes. I don’t have a problem overlooking this stuff, either.
I don’t have a problem overlooking this stuff, either.
Most people don’t even see it. Why, just yesterday I get this from my brother:
Ok, hello: Mars is roughly twice as big in diameter as the Moon is, and the closest they can ever get (speaking in terms of current orbital parameters) is about 34 million miles, so Mars could, at most, subtend abuot 130 microradians of arc. The Moon is about 2100 miles in diameter and about a quarter of a million miles away, so it subtends approximately 8.4 milliradians of arc, or almost half a degree.
I didn’t know the exact numbers when I got that email, but I did know he was off by about two orders of magnitude, which is a pretty instant BS indicator.
“I don’t have a problem overlooking this stuff, either.”
I don’t when it comes to comic book-based movies, but for some reason I do when it comes to sci-fi-trappings movies. No idea why, I seem to have developed an allergy at some point. For those amused or bemused by contemplation on such matters, allow me to mention stupid movie physics. Their reviews of movies they dislike can be particularly enjoyable in their biliousness.
Mars could, at most, subtend abuot 130 microradians of arc. The Moon is about 2100 miles in diameter and about a quarter of a million miles away, so it subtends approximately 8.4 milliradians of arc, or almost half a degree.
And I thought my head hurt before…
I think bad science bothers me in direct proportion to the extent to which the science itself is meant to be a character in the story. So movies about the perils of cloning, or virtual reality, or whatever that get the science badly wrong bugs the heck out of me, whereas those that simply use the science as a textural element get more a pass. Star Wars is a sort of collage of all sorts of cultural references that have been uprooted and rearranged to create a somewhat believable world, and I view the science and technology content in this light.
“Star Wars is a sort of collage of all sorts of cultural references that have been uprooted and rearranged to create a somewhat believable world, and I view the science and technology content in this light.”
I gotcha. (Or, if you prefer, I grok it. 🙂 ) I seem to have developed a sort of puritanism along the way. I don’t like historical movies or books that play fast and loose with history in any significant way–it’s excusable when the author explicitly states it, as when Patrick O’Brian notes in preface to _Surgeon’s Mate_ (I believe) that he kept Sir James Saumarez in the Baltic somewhat later than he actually was there. But, say, _Gladiator_, with its numerous mischaracterizations of Roman life and the history, led me to a 20-minute rant after seeing the movie (that either bored or distressed or both my co-viewers).
I guess my sense is that there’s a kind of cheating going on–you want to take advantage of cultural/historical/scientific references without dealing with their actual implications; this abandonment actually guts, if invisibly, their real value. Not to mention miseducating people. It seems to me in the end a kind of unclarity, and since life is hard enough to figure out _with_ accurate information, I dislike these kinds of things.
But that’s just my view. And I recognize it takes a lot of work to be a Dorothy Dunnett, after all.
Well, it also helps when the movie is enjoyable to start out with. That Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics site is great, though. Their review of Episode III is brutal, and I agree with most of it:
Someone noted that watching Last Samurai with Japanese was an eye-opening experience, because he had a strong familiarity with the history and there were so many out and out distortions, that by the end of the movie, he was really upset, but was then shocked to find that the Japanese he watched it with were non-plussed, because they viewed the movie like one of the samurai TV dramas that are equally non/mis representational.
Another factoid, Claude Berri (I think), when he made Germinal, got a lot of flak for ahistoricisms, and said in an interview that it was so bizarre to give him hell over that, yet make not comment with a movie like Reversal of Fortune (about Claus von Bulow) makes up large chunks of dialogue that implied guilt with no evidence that they were said or even thought.
Reminds me of an old joke about Picasso. A guy goes in and looks at a painting of Picasso’s mother and says ‘look, I’ve seen your mother, this doesn’t look anything like her’. Picasso says ‘ok, do you have something that looks like your mother?’ and the mam triumphantly pulls out his wallet and brings out a snapshot, saying ‘here is a photography of my mother and this looks exactly like her’. Picasso looks at it and says, ‘my, she has a very tiny head…’
“Eh? I must have dreamed that whole robot/Gungan conflict, then.”
Well, aside from that.
🙂
“Bank-to-turn spacecraft! Spacecraft that slow down when you shut down the engines!”
Also, we see in ROTS, but first in Return of the Jedi, huge spaceships that when crippled, begin to “fall down,” no matter that they’re in freefall. Regardless, if there is another ship (or Death Star) nearby they can “fall” into, they will.
My own theory is that when injured, they seek the comfort of clutching a fellow ship.
Ships in the movie that’s allegedly of Starship Troopers did the same, but don’t get me started on that piece of sh*te.
“Mars will appear as large as the full moon in late August and will closer to the Earth than ever in recorded history”
That’s been going around for some years. Also, Craig Shergold is dying and wants your postcards, and have you heard the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe?
Regardless, if there is another ship (or Death Star) nearby they can “fall” into, they will.
It’s an illusion; they’re SO incredibly huge that they actually exert substantial gravitational attraction on each other. Or they use spheres of neutronium for something-or-other. But yes, that peeves me a little, too. I mean, how massy can the Death Star be, given that it’s mostly empty space, that an Imperial Star Destroyer would just be sucked right into it?
That’s been going around for some years. Also, Craig Shergold is dying and wants your postcards, and have you heard the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe?
It’s a reflection on my character that I deliberately refrained from Snopesing it until I’d established for myself that it was irredeemable bullshit. While I was doing that, my younger brother replied with a you idiot email; of course he went straight for Snopes. The only bit of truth to that whole thing is that Mars IS exceptionally bright (not quite as bright as 3 years ago, but still quite nice) and is worth a look if you’ve got a friend with a decent telescope. Or if you’ve got a friend with a decent observatory. Or friend with access to a decent observatory.
Holy gazonkers, it’s staggering what a P.Z. Myers link can do (pray forgive me for another self-centered comment, though it is an open thread):
That “last hour” is kinda not typical of the number of hits I get absent a link like that.
Mind, that’s about ten minutes worth of hits. He posted 12 minutes ago.
I thought that Super Star Destroyer simply lost control when its bridge was destroyed. Is there any reason to assume otherwise?
“He posted 12 minutes ago.”
No, actually, that’s my mistake. His time-stamping seems to be off; it says he posted at 04:36 PM, which is 03:36 p.m. my time, which hasn’t happened yet (5:36 p.m. Eastern time). Not that anyone cares, but me. Sorry.
“I thought that Super Star Destroyer simply lost control when its bridge was destroyed. Is there any reason to assume otherwise?”
So it lost control. Why would it head into the Death Star like it was falling?
And, again, see the beginning of Revenge of the Sith for lots of other ships suddenly “falling down,” including, of course, the ship Our Heros are on.
So it lost control. Why would it head into the Death Star like it was falling?
Why not? Why would turning up and heading away from the Death Star be any better? Plus, it was cool.
And, again, see the beginning of Revenge of the Sith for lots of other ships suddenly “falling down,” including, of course, the ship Our Heros are on.
Isn’t there at least a plausible explanation for that given that they were fighting near a planet?
“Isn’t there at least a plausible explanation for that given that they were fighting near a planet?”
No.
They weren’t fighting near Coruscant in that? I mean, they could be far enough away such that the gravitational pull had no effect, but isn’t Coruscant clearly in the picture?
Isn’t there at least a plausible explanation for that given that they were fighting near a planet?
While, admittedly, Star Wars is space opera and not science fiction, orbits do not decay at anything approaching that degree of rapidity. Yes, eventually a ship that lost power would hit Coruscant’s atmosphere, but it would not immediately begin to descend. (At least, not noticeably.)
While, admittedly, Star Wars is space opera and not science fiction, orbits do not decay at anything approaching that degree of rapidity. Yes, eventually a ship that lost power would hit Coruscant’s atmosphere, but it would not immediately begin to descend. (At least, not noticeably.)
Aha! But Coruscant’s atmosphere is not made of air, except near the surface, but transparent wookie jello, and clearly once a ship lost power and hit the atmosphere, said jello would suck it down much faster than plain old air.
…
Ok, I made all that up. It’s been a good day, star wars on this thread and muppets on the other.
Why would turning up and heading away from the Death Star be any better?
Which way is “up”, in zero-gee?
Which way is “up”, in zero-gee?
Above your head.
“I mean, they could be far enough away such that the gravitational pull had no effect, but isn’t Coruscant clearly in the picture?”
Let me put it this way: you can see the moon in the sky, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be “falling down” anytime soon. This isn’t the way orbital physics works.
Unless the ships were already directly on a trajectory plunging into the atmosphere at the speed we saw them enter at, they wouldn’t, you know, enter the atmosphere plunging towards ground at the speed we saw them at. This is known as “Newton’s Laws of Motion.”
It’s quite possible that, given the right trajectory, they might have started to enter the atmosphere in a few months. Or years. Hard to say without more information.
But plunging down at that speed is absolutely and completely and utterly impossible, unless they were already doing so before they lost power.
Ditto Super Death Star hitting the Death Star. This is the most elementary and basic physics there is. It doesn’t get any simpler.
“Ditto Super Death Star hitting the Death Star.”
Super Star Destroyer, that is.
So nobody but me has seen Free Enterprise? Okay, then I recommend it to any of the Star Trek/pop culture “sci-fi” fans here.
Goldarnit, I don’t have access all day long, when the SW discussions get really good!
Well, Gary has done a fine job defending the prequels in my absence. All I’ll add to his fine comments about ROTS is that my favorite acting moment — perhaps my favorite in all six films — come at the end of the scene in which Obi-Wan tells Anakin that he has to spy on Palpatine for the Council. When Anakin asks why Obi-Wan is asking him to do this, he simply replies, with a look of pain on his face, “The Council is asking you.” I think he realizes at that point just how poorly the Jedi have dealt with “The Chosen One” for nearly 15 years, and sees the writing on the wall. McGregor does a great job of selling it.
BTW, the “in-universe” explanation — to the degree any of this needs an explanation, which isn’t much for space opera — for the Seperatist ship plunge in the beginning of ROTS is that the ships were actually fighting in the highest reaches of Coruscant’s atmosphere. Which is also why Anakin’s and Obi-Wan’s ships behave as if they are facing air resistance; e.g., the dead “buzz droids” being swept off of Anakin’s wings as he speeds away.
Gary – I suppose you don’t buy my “transparent wookie jello” explanation either, what with your “Newton’s Laws of Motion” and “elementary and basic physics” science mumbo-jumbo. And what about intelligent space design, I ask you?!!? Clearly there must be some explanation for those ships falling down like they did, and if “physics” and “Newton” and the like can’t explain it, it must be a higher power (or a higher love, like Steve Winwood).
In other news, I see CNN’s reporting on its front page that 15 Israeli soldiers were killed today (if I’m allowed to say it: ugh).
Gary Farber: So it lost control. Why would it head into the Death Star like it was falling?
I took it to be accelerating, not falling. Am I misremembering, or doesn’t the sound editing bear this out?
And, again, see the beginning of Revenge of the Sith for lots of other ships suddenly “falling down,” including, of course, the ship Our Heros are on.
I’m not sure what one thing has to do with the other.
But plunging down at that speed is absolutely and completely and utterly impossible, unless they were already doing so before they lost power.
Ditto Super Death Star hitting the Death Star. This is the most elementary and basic physics there is. It doesn’t get any simpler.
Only if you assume the ship isn’t being driven into the Death Star by the power of its own thrusters, which has always been my read.
ugh: you’re not.
Gromit – that’s much better than transparent wookie jello, thank you, my childhood (and adulthood) have been saved from Gary’s nefarious clutches. 🙂
And with that, I’m off to the Nationals game. If you see a bald guy 8 rows up behind home plate with glasses and a goatee wearing a US Open (golf) t-shirt, that’s me. I promise not to get on my cell phone and waive.
On preview I see Francis. Sorry, too late, but I won’t do it again.
“Clearly there must be some explanation for those ships falling down like they did, and if “physics” and “Newton” and the like can’t explain it, it must be a higher power (or a higher love, like Steve Winwood).”
I did explain that when the ships are wounded, they seek the comforting embrace of their fellows. And perhaps a planet looks like their mother.
“Only if you assume the ship isn’t being driven into the Death Star by the power of its own thrusters, which has always been my read.”
Yes, but if you look at what happens, the Super Star Destroyer gets its bridge hit, and as a “result” starts suddenly “falling down.” It’s quite clear that it’s acting as if there is gravity present, just as the way the X-wings and TIE fighters fly in the great battle at the end of Star Wars is also impossible without gravity and an atmosphere.
(One of the lovely things about neo-Battlestar Galactica, as well as Babylon 5, is that they almost always get the physics more or less perfectly correct — it’s not as if you can’t do that and still be completely exciting.)
Slart, any comment on this?
ugh: what will you be waiving? your right to a disciplinary hearing when you get fired?
oh. you meant “wave”. my bad.
😉
Jeepers, I was impressed by a certain page-views-per-hour number earlier, but now it’s:
Last Hour 655
So, tonight’s Netflix movie (or maybe tomorrow, actually): Bubba-Ho-Tep. I’ve heard many good things, and am a longtime Joe Lansdale fan, so I have positive expectations.
And while we’re on skiffy-movie type stuff, everyone see this item about Paul Giamatti wanting to do a Phil Dick biopic?
And my brief post on seeing Elektra.
And Harry Potter slash writers get made fun of again.
Gary,
Must you rub our noses in your success? Some of us D-list bloggers have learned to accept our place in the cosmos, but that doesn’t mean we enjoy having it pointed out to us. 😉
Gary Farber: It’s quite clear that it’s acting as if there is gravity present, just as the way the X-wings and TIE fighters fly in the great battle at the end of Star Wars is also impossible without gravity and an atmosphere.
Opinion being subjective and all, I’d say that were it so very clear, the thought would have occurred to me at least once in the dozens of times I’ve viewed that scene since 1983. Am I really going to have to dig my copy out of the VHS graveyard and dust off ye olde video cassette recorder just to verify that the thrusters could be heard powering up at the time? Doesn’t anyone else remember that sound?
Anyway, whoever wrote this wikipedia article agrees with your take, while the authors of this one favor mine.
Gary, color me curious about your response to Bubba-Ho-Tep. I think I can say without spoilers that I loved the great dignity it invested in its main characters, and the way the story works so that this present quality matters regardless of whose tales are true or false about the past. This is something that matters to me in real life, and I like seeing it handled well on film.
“Must you rub our noses in your success?”
Hey, that sort of thing happens to me once in a blue moon; that’s why it’s remarkable. (Stunning, actually.)
Besides, I figure I’m a C/D-list blogger, and you’re E-list.
😉 😉 😉
A-List: DailyKos, Instapundit, Atrios, BoingBoing, and their ilk.
B-List: Pharyngula, Wonkette, Jeff Jarvis, Digby, etc.
C-list: ObWi, Tbogg, Protein Wisdom, Jim Henley, most of the “popular” but not top-rated blogs.
D-List: me, and other slightly popular blogs.
E-List: you. 🙂
Most blogs: H and I List.
Of course, this is just pulled out of my rear end, pretty much, and perfectly arguable. Not to mention that one can argue either for measuring by links or hits or regular readers.
Gromit: “Am I really going to have to dig my copy out of the VHS graveyard and dust off ye olde video cassette recorder just to verify that the thrusters could be heard powering up at the time? Doesn’t anyone else remember that sound?”
Do I even need to mention the problem here, with citing the sound heard in the vacuum to justify the versimilitude? 🙂
Gary Farber: Do I even need to mention the problem here, with citing the sound heard in the vacuum to justify the versimilitude? 🙂
Verisimilitude doesn’t enter into the question for me.
Complaining during the space battles in a Star Wars film that there’s no sound in space seems akin to complaining during the narrative voiceovers in a Mafia film that there’s no such thing as a disembodied voice that’s loud enough to be heard by the audience but not by any of the characters. Just think of it as part of the sound track: there’s your TIE fighter music, there’s your ion bolt music, there’s your Super Star Destroyer thruster music that does indeed turn on just before the thing crashes into the Death Star.
“Complaining during the space battles in a Star Wars film that there’s no sound in space seems akin to complaining during the narrative voiceovers in a Mafia film that there’s no such thing as a disembodied voice….”
Well, look, on the one hand, I don’t take the Star Wars films remotely seriously; as I said, they’re science fantasy from the get-go, and that’s all there is to it.
On the other hand, your analogy is quite awful, and it fails completely. In point of fact, if you want to make exciting space opera with no sound in space, again, look at Babylon 5; or if you want to look at good science fiction that realistically has no sound in space, look at 2001. Noting that something impossible is going on is not the same as pointing to a dramatic convention, such as a voice-over; the two things simply are not analogous. The sound in space is not being presented as something outside the reality of what we are seeing. Claiming otherwise is false.
Now, if you want to suggest that one sort of ignore the point, fine. But that’s different than claiming that the sound in space presented in these and other films is a convention like a camera angle or a voice-over. One thing is internal to the reality we are presented with and the other is external; these things are entirely distinguishable, and should be distinguished, for any useful analysis.
Inasmuch as the Star Wars films have consistently employed it, sound in space is most definitely internal to the reality presented. If a certain whine reliably predicts the appearance of a TIE fighter, then a certain hum can be adduced as evidence that a Super Star Destroyer’s engines are firing.
More generally, I think the convention is just that things should sound good to the audience. For example, when a pair of conversing characters stroll through the camera shot, the volume of their conversation typically does not vary with distance from each other or from the camera. It’s as if each character carries a separate microphone whose gain is adjusted during audio mixing.
Same thing in space. Everything makes some noise, it’s just that the sound doesn’t propagate through vacuum. So think of it as having separate microphones in physical contact with each spacecraft (or in some pressurized vicinity). Mix their output till it sounds good.
Or you can resort to the Babylon 5 figleaf: there may not be any sound in B5 space, but there sure is a lot of music synchronized to the supposedly silent explosions!
In any case, when it is easier to list the few films (i.e. 2001) that don’t use sound in space than to list all the films that do, it seems that sound is pretty well entrenched in cinematic space. When something is impossible in reality but standard practice in film, to me that’s a convention the same way a voiceover is.
Isn’t that “wookieee”?
Other than it’s got some glaring inaccuracies in it? Not really.
Acquisition for space-based defense programs pretty much died out completely in, if memory serves, 1992. Not 1997. I know this because I was working on one of the larger programs at the time. Sure, some programs continued into 1993, because they were smaller and hence had lower profile, or involved SDI hardware reuse (like this, which I was also involved in). Still, most of the development money for programs like that was spent by, oh, 1994 or so. Much of the space-based strategic defense funding went away by the mid 1990s. Prior to the Clinton administration, most likely, considering there were serial, drastic threat redefinitions prior to Clinton’s even throwing his hat in the ring. The fact is that the design-to threat began to slide from the massed Soviet attack to anything with a longer range than a Scud as far back as GW1.
On the technical side, I have no idea whether THEL has got merit or not. Probably the single most important thing is to make it small enough so that it can truly be of use in defending smaller groups of people. Since they seem to be gearing it toward small missile and mortar defense, geometry says there’s either got to be a lot more of them (because the target has to be in the line of sight) or it’s got to be airborne. I have some incidental familiarity with ABL, but I have no idea to what extent it’s been demonstrated.
I know: lengthy non-answer. It’s all I have, though.
Which is not to say that no missile defense was funded during the Clinton administration. There was quite a lot of work done on THAAD and PAC-3, which are (to make an important distinction) tactical missile defense systems, and some nonzero and useful work done on NMD (which is strategic defense) as well.
no sound in space, again, look at Babylon 5
I’m sorry, but that’s incorrect. JMS originally wanted to do the space sequences without sound effects, but the test audiences hated it. So you now do hear the sound of thrusters firing, pulse cannons pulsing, etc.
And really…E list? Jeebus, I’m going to run out of letters at this rate. And, must I remind you, I was there at the dawn of the second age of the blogosphere?
Isn’t that “wookieee”?
Wookieean? Though if its made out of wookiees, then transparent wookiee jello works just fine (yes I left out the second e in my post, I was infected by my suggested in the Lieberman/Muppet thread that cookie monster should be SecDef).
And I’ve never seen B5, is it really that good Andrew? What makes it so?
Ugh,
Obviously, good is in the eye of the beholder. There are many here who aren’t at all fond of it. For me, I enjoyed it most for two reasons: because it’s basically a novel put in TV form over four years, and for the character development.
The first season can be somewhat frustrating to watch, because the series puts a lot of balls in the air and resolves very few of them. It is rife with foreshadowing, to the degree you’ll be watching an episode in the third season and realize that a first season incident precipitated it. It rewards viewers who pay attention, and by stretching the story over four years, it allows things to develop at a reasonable pace. It would have been even better if the arc had spanned the full five years, as was originally intended.
Then there are the characters. If you were to watch only the pilot and the final episode, you’d walk away tremendously confused, because the characters have changed so much as a result of their experiences. Again, this is something I really enjoyed, because you can watch the characters realize the results of their actions and see how it changes their outlook on life over time. Two of the aliens, G’Kar and Londo, are particularly fascinating to watch because their characters move the furthers over the series, but none of the characters is the same at the end of the series as they were at the beginning.
Having said all that, I’m sure there are plenty of people who will throw out their own reasons for disliking the show, and since it’s all subjective, I can hardly counter them. I think it’s the best TV show ever made, but I don’t expect that to be even a plurality opinion.
I think it’s the best TV show ever made, but I don’t expect that to be even a plurality opinion.
Better than 21 Jump Street?
More seriously, thanks for the info, maybe I’ll check it out sometime.
Well, I never saw 21 Jump Street, so perhaps I should be more precise and say it’s the best show I’ve seen.
21 Jump Street was teh suck.
Wow, there sure are a lot of people who like even the Star Wars prequels. Myself, I hated the first, watched the second only because I was bored late one night and couldn’t sleep, and hated it, and have seen no reason to investigate further.
But then, I seen ot be among the very small percentage of bloggers who have only a very limited interest in — oh dear, what’s the OK way to say science fiction? I don’t know…
hilzoy,
I think ‘science fiction’ is a reasonable way to phrase it, although I’ll defer to Gary for the official nomenclature. 🙂
And can I just say that the top post on redstate.com right now is despicable? Thanks.
And as to the interest in the first three Star Wars movies, I explain that as follows: human beings are not good with sunk costs. In general, people loved the first two Star Wars films, and they’ve been waiting 20+ years for Lucas to replicate that success. hilzoy, unlike most of us, figured out that after three failed attempts, the odds of Lucas making a good movie out of III were low enough to make seeing the film a bad idea. But the majority of people couldn’t shrug off the sunk costs of watching the other five, and so went to see it.
At which point cognitive dissonance set in. Nobody wants to admit they paid $10 to watch crap, so the mind comes up with reasons to like I-III.
These are sunk emotional costs, yes?
I’m that way with Lost. Even when it’s pissing me off, I harbor the illusion that someday there will be closure.
These are sunk emotional costs, yes?
Yes. If you’re in a certain age group, Star Wars was a formative experience for you, and you’re so deeply invested in it, it’s very hard to let go.
If you’re in a certain age group, Star Wars was a formative experience for you, and you’re so deeply invested in it, it’s very hard to let go.
That would be me. Hence my bleating about buying the original trilogy for the umpteenth time.
Andrew: I learned the lesson of sunk emotional costs via the Red Sox. I had just turned eight during the wondrous 1967 season. I waited for ages for something like that to happen again. Hah. Nothing like the Red Sox to drive that little point home.
hilzoy,
Yes, I remember getting ready to go to school the day after Game 7 of the 1986 World Series and hearing a song on the radio that I believe was called ‘Every Loser Wins’ or some such. It wasn’t until I was a few years older that I really appreciated what we had lost in Game 6.
But, it was all worth it in 2004. Even the bone-crushing pain of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.
Not much different from “Weak and Wrong: Meet the Defeat-ocrats” on the RNC front page, Ugh. The RedState folks are just following their marching orders.
The RedState folks are just following their marching orders.
Very true.
And now I am reminded of the discussion that went around the right-wing blogosphere a couple years ago about how the Rebellion was a bunch of terrorists and the Empire was not so bad.
“I’m that way with Lost. Even when it’s pissing me off, I harbor the illusion that someday there will be closure.”
That is why I haven’t watched it. All of my friends say I’ll love it. It sounds interesting. But I strongly suspect that it will go the route of the X-Files with more and more complexity until it just gets crushed under its own weight. At that point they will have a wrap-up that will be totally unsatisfying. I’m not interested in that. Furthermore, it was on an inconvenient day and I didn’t get Tivo until last week.
There is something to be said for the Japanese TV convention with long story arcs (sometimes multi-year) that nevertheless have definite endings built in.
Ugh: for me the top three must-see’s are B5, SW 4-6 and Firefly.
21 jump street was nice, but became much of a muchness after a while, so I stopped watching.
My current must-see’s are neo-BSG, dr Who and Lost, though about the latter I agree with Slarti.
There is something to be said for the Japanese TV convention with long story arcs (sometimes multi-year) that nevertheless have definite endings built in.
I think that’s why B5 worked so well: JMS went into it with an idea for an arc built to last five years, and stuck with it.
Oh, and I really hated SW-III. It was really really bad. The conversations between Anakin and Padme made me long for…. I don’t know…. even the average kitchen novel has better dialogue I think.
dutchmarbel – I recently purchased Firefly and Serenity based on recommendations from friends, but haven’t watched either yet, but hope to soon.
At least you see firefly in the right order…
I liked Serenity, but firefly was better. It had so much potential….. all the good series are killed early these days and fast-food SF like Stargate gets season after season…. *sigh*
I eagerly await the President’s sure to be mind-numbing statement on the disrupted terror plot. Drink each time he mentions 9/11 and terror/terrorist; finish the glass each time he mentions Iraq.
Ugh,
I’m curious, do you think that there is any chance that this plot was, in fact, real?
We’ll keep this thread fun and talk about the terrorist threat on the other thread.
Seb – yeah, moved my comment over and Andrew moved his follow-up.
Does anyone know if BSG is signed up for a third season (or more)? I guess it must be if the end of the second was a cliffhanger (though I think the final season of Benson ended with a cliff-hanger and they never came back to resolve it, IIRC).
Sebastian, I feel the same way about Lost, but it’s too late for me; I’m already hooked. Even worse, I’m having to catch up with season 2 this summer, and ABC has preempted it with crappy sitcoms four weeks in a row, and looks to be skipping a bunch of episodes in the process.
As for sunk emotional costs, I’ll cop to that for Episode I (which did have some really neat moments, amid a sea of tedium and annoyance), but I cut my losses after seeing Killer Klones from Outer Space. It was such a godawful mess, it became quickly evident that Anakin was going nowhere as a character, the Jedi were being neutered, Yoda was now a punch line, and it didn’t even have Episode I’s exquisite score to recommend it (the Anakin and Padme theme was just wretched, and it was played for what seemed like a full third of the movie). I ended up seeing Episode III at a drive-in. A truly awful way to see a truly awful movie.
Ugh,
Benson ended with Benson and the Governor waiting for the election returns together, but I don’t recall it being played as a cliff-hanger, as we all knew that it was the show’s finale.
So…who remembers the show Benson was spun off from?
Benson ended with Benson and the Governor waiting for the election returns together, but I don’t recall it being played as a cliff-hanger, as we all knew that it was the show’s finale.
We did? I guess I was a little young to know that (and hence have no idea what show it was spun-off of). I was pissed off when they didn’t come back the next season and tell us who won.
The royal ‘we’, of course. 😉 I may be projecting my current knowledge back over what I knew then, however.
It was a spin-off of Soap.
Interesting side note–(by way of background my family is firmly fundamentalist Christian) we weren’t allowed to watch Soap when I was young (it was too racy) but I think we saw every episode of Benson. I loved that show.
Very good, Seb. If only you’d worked harder on defending my intellectual property from the Toronto Star. 😉
I’ve never seen Benson, but I loved soap. I still love it actually :), the other day I contemplated buying the series to share it with my kids – but I don’t know where to put more dvd’s. Buying them is cheaper that going to the film and paying for the babysit weirdly enough.
If Benson is a watered down version from soap I might hate it – it was the exaggeration that made it so much fun IMHO.
Benson’s relationship to Soap was only that of moving Robert Guillaume’s character. He became the butler (and ultimately, the Lieutenant Governor) at the Governor’s residence. It was less absurd than Soap, but then…what wouldn’t be?
It was less absurd than Soap, but then…what wouldn’t be?
And isn’t the absurdity the feature we fell in love with? I most certainly did. Sebastian: maybe try Soap now?
I remember Katherine Helmond’s character making at least one appearance on Benson. I believe she was a ghost or an astral projection in the episode I’m thinking of.
Does anyone know if BSG is signed up for a third season (or more)?
Yep, it starts in October.
“Yes, I remember getting ready to go to school the day after Game 7 of the 1986 World Series and hearing a song on the radio that I believe was called ‘Every Loser Wins’ or some such. It wasn’t until I was a few years older that I really appreciated what we had lost in Game 6.”
I was in law school at the time, and my tax professor was a big Red Sox fan. The day after Game 6, before the professor got to class, a classmate of mine from Long Island wrote on the board:
“Q. What do the Red Sox and the French Army have in common?
A. Neither has been any good since 1918.”
I do not believe I ever say a blackboard cleaned faster than on that day.
“I know: lengthy non-answer. It’s all I have, though.”
Thanks, though.
“And I’ve never seen B5, is it really that good Andrew? What makes it so?”
I’ll mostly agree with Andrew’s answer, though not entirely.
I’m of mixed mind as to whether to recommend someone sample it, for starters, at the beginning, or at the beginning of the second season. If there’s any doubt at all that you’re not just going to go watch the whole thing, I’m quite inclined to recommend you sample the second season first; I’m one of those who, unlike Jes, found Bruce Boxleitner as Captain Sheridan, who became the primary protagonist with the second season, replacing Michael O’Hare as Commander Sinclair of the first season, to be a far better and more interesting actor; and in general, the show was much better developed by the second season; the first season tends to suffer a lot, in my view, from this very stiff, expressionless, actor (which is why he was fired), and a general sense that the show hadn’t yet found its stride.
On the other hand, if you get into the show from the second season, you absolutely must go back and watch the first season to fully appreciate the story; and if you’re willing to just bite the bullet, and endure starting from the pilot, I’d say that’s ultimately the best way to watch the show, linearly, just so long as that experience won’t make you go, well, “ugh,” and give up entirely.
I’d say that the strength of the show was JMS writing for characters; Londo and G’Kar are great characters, whose relationship and characters developed and changed wonderfully over the years, and JMS wrote terrific dialogue for them. Ivanova was also fine, and the rest of the characters were mostly pretty good, too (save for occasional misfires, like the Telepath Leader of the fourth or fifth season, who was so boring I forget his name).
On the sf side, eh. Okay for television, but strictly a rehash of basic concepts from written sf of the Forties and Fifties and Thirties that JMS read as a kid, along with an excessive dose of Tolkien and a bit of D&D and other obvious sources, and an occasional dash of more recent sf tropes, making the whole thing entirely derivative. But he mixed up the mish-mosh in an entertaining way, even if it was a bit kitchen-sinky at times. But for tv sf, it was an excellent job, and the serial nature of the story was, at the time, almost unique. So while never as remotely good or original as its enthusiasts who were unfamiliar with actual (written) science fiction credited as, I did call it the best serial space opera on tv ever done to that point, and I have no problem standing by that.
Basically, it was a fine 1940s space opera story, with quite good characterization and dialogue, stretched over four years, with an unfortunate bobble in the fifth year, due to the series not being renewed in time, requiring JMS to prematurely finish the story at the end of the fourth year, and then, oopsie, restart it again for a somewhat flawed, though still watchable, fifth year.
Oh, and this is a valid point from Andrew: “It is rife with foreshadowing, to the degree you’ll be watching an episode in the third season and realize that a first season incident precipitated it.”
Yes, JMS is one of those writers who is good at using the little points as big offshoots later.
“I think it’s the best TV show ever made….”
Yeah, I wouldn’t go remotely that far myself; I wouldn’t even put it as top ten; I wouldn’t compare it to West Wing, Hill St. Blues, LA Law, , neo-Battlestar Galactica, Buffy, Firefly, or a number of others. I’d put it in the top ten sf tv series.
“- oh dear, what’s the OK way to say science fiction? I don’t know…”
“Science fiction”? Or “sf.”
I could rehash the whole sf/”sci-fi” thing, but I’d just as soon not bother if I don’t have to.
“At which point cognitive dissonance set in. Nobody wants to admit they paid $10 to watch crap, so the mind comes up with reasons to like I-III.”
My theory is the opposite: most people who fell in love with Star Wars, the original, did so as kids, as did so uncritically and with no analytical or critical context, and thus engrained upon it purely emotionally.
Thus their approach to the later films, as grownups, is nothing but pure nostalgia and emotion. And thus they have no grounding whatever, or at least relatively little, to analytically judge what is good or bad about the prequels, and are instead simply either entirely or largely overwhelmed by pure nostalgia and emotion, and no matter what the content of the films was, they’d be rejected, simply because the viewer is no longer ten years old or so.
“Yes. If you’re in a certain age group, Star Wars was a formative experience for you, and you’re so deeply invested in it, it’s very hard to let go.”
And very hard to accept anything new as comparable, let alone remotely equal, let alone possibly better.
“I recently purchased Firefly and Serenity based on recommendations from friends, but haven’t watched either yet, but hope to soon.”
Quit waiting. Start with Firefly.
It’s shiny.
“Does anyone know if BSG is signed up for a third season (or more)?”
Yes.
And the answer is “yes.”
🙂
Also, there’s a spin-off prequel coming, a sort of family dynasty that tells the story of the creation of the Cylons, set on Caprica, as well.
Lost: I thought it sounded pointless and uninteresting from the start, but at the start, no one even told me it was supposed to be sf; it just sounded like a straight version of Gilligan’s Island. By the time I’d heard it was at all science fictiony, everyone was also complaining that it was ridiculous, and it sounded even more uninteresting.
So far as I can tell, having finally tried watching about three episodes, and a few minutes more out of a few more, and watched one of the summary shows, and read more, it still seems utterly uninteresting to me; it gives me the impression of just taking the worst and most pointless tease aspects out of X-Files (which really exemplifies the “we have no idea what we’re doing or where we’re going, but we’ll fake it for as many years as we can con you” technique), to get people to watch a show with no point or idea in it, for no reason other than to make them watch the commercials and waste time for as many years as they can before people get disgusted and quit.
I’m sure I’m missing many vital aspects of why that’s wrong, and that people can like the characters and all. But myself: I resent having wasted those three hours giving credence to the notion that I was wrong in the first place. Okay, I don’t resent it much, but I have no interest in investigating further. (Chris Carter has a lot to answer for, though at least I never took the least interest in the X-Files “mythology” in the first place; I always watched the show despite that crap, rather than because of it; I watched it because a) someday Gillian Anderson will see the light and marry me; and b) good dialogue and goofy situations in the early non-mythology episodes.)
“I liked Serenity, but firefly was better.”
Dutchmarbel gets it right.
“fast-food SF like Stargate gets season after season….”
Oh, but SG-1 is fun; not deep, not brilliant, not nearly as good as Firefly or neo-BSG, but fun and enjoyable and likable, IMO. Even a little moving now and again. And I’m catching up to the first season of Stargate Atlantis on Netflix DVD; also watchable. (I’ve never figured out the appeal of Farscape, on the other hand; it just seems to 100% derivative and boring to me; I’ve tried numerous episodes, and not a single one has held my interest remotely, and neither do any of the charcters appeal to me in the slightest.)
Farscape is good. I tried the full first season of SG hoping that I would like it… but ‘elas – no such luck. With Farscape the main problem seems to be getting past the stage where you see the puppets as puppets. But it has some really really greats eps.
Fast food for me is not immediately condemning it. I actually like fastfood 🙂 I regularly have fast-food and like superficial exiting supernatural books too. Big Jim Butcher fan here 🙂
It’s just that I sometimes really loath that the easy series keep on going whilst the really good series (like firefly, but also Odyssey 5) are cut short.
“I tried the full first season of SG hoping that I would like it… but ‘elas – no such luck.”
As I was saying, most sf tv series’ first seasons are their worst. SG-1 is no exception.
Farscape: “But it has some really really greats eps.”
Every episode I tried was a completely hackneyed idea/plot I’d seen a zillion times before, unfortunately. But, ironically, since you like Farscape, Ben Browder and Claudia Black have been the main stars on Stargate SG-1 for a couple of years now (the seasons I’ve not seen, since they’re not yet out on DVD).
Of course, if we want to talk really gawdawful tv “sci-fi” of recent years, I’d mention Andromeda, which went from a perfectly promising show in its first year, under creator Robert Hewit Wolfe (formerly of ST:DS9) to utterly unwatchable, incomprehensible, garbage, in its second and later seasons, after Wolfe was fired for making “overly intelligent, overly complicated” shows, and the show was put under the control of star Kevin Sorbo, resulting in utterly nonsensical plots that, however, did feature lots of explosions and people hitting each other. Boy, did it turn into crap.
I’ve not seen Odyssey 5, since again it was only on pay cable here. It’s on my 450+ long Netflix list, though not near the top.
I just got a call inviting me to be in a focus group in a couple of weeks. Most of the questions they ask are objective, to determine whether one is in the target demographic. This time, they had an extra: if I could interview any living person, who would it be and what would I ask them.
“I tried the full first season of SG hoping that I would like it… but ‘elas – no such luck.”
It belatedly occurs to me to emphasize: good lord, that was ten years ago. Although I gather a lot of the fans don’t like the changes in the last two seasons, it and the the other later years of SG-1 would seem a lot more relevant to judging it than what it was ten years ago.
CC: you’re going to keep us in suspense as to your answer?
Gary: I’m an active member of the Dutch SF&Fantasy&Horror newsgroup, so people try to convince me all the time 🙂
I actually hardly ever watch tv, so real live broadcasts usually don’t have an impact on what I see and when I see it (exception made for dr who – and in advace about torchwood).
And I have not seen many series that had an S1 as awfull as SG, but you managed to find one that had an even worse one. You saying that the first season of Andromeda was not so bad suprises me – and makes me slightly more doubtfull about your recommendations :^). Brrrrr….. what horrible frivolous nonsense… I forgot most of it thankfully, except that I bought the dvd’s of the first half of the season and immediately gave it away…
I knew about BB and CB in SG – it almost made me watch some more of it. I’ve been told that it gets slightly better after S3. So who knows, if I have more time, somehwere in the future…
Charley: yes, I’m curious too…
(I’m suffering from …-syndrom. A well known condition that affects those who are too busy preparing their holiday to write coherently and phrase adequately)