While catching up with IMDB info on the various actors in Revenge of the Sith, I noticed an appropriate set of ads on Ewan McGregor’s profile:
For those who haven’t heard of it, Ewan is the male lead in The Island.
(At the moment, Natalie Portman gets a Windows XP ad, and Hayden Christensen gets… Amazon.com. I assume they’re on the standard rotation.)
Spotted on a movie theater marquee:
STAR WARS EPISODE III
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Sorry, no photo, though if it’s still there the next time I drive by, I might be able to get one.
Phil Foglio once again illustrates the Myth Adventures universe in the next book in the series: Class Dis-Mythed.
I don’t know how much of it is Jody Lynn Nye’s influence and how much of it is just Robert Asprin being re-energized about the series, but since they started collaborating the books have improved drastically. The new ones have much more of the feel of the early series, before Asprin burned out on it and spent a decade working through writers’ block.
(via the Studio Foglio newsletter.)
I don’t know if it was the show time we picked or just a matter of who sits where in the theater (we were about halfway back), but the largest demographic group in the audience when we watched Revenge of the Sith was not teenage boys, thirty-something men, families with kids, or twenty-something couples, though there were plenty of all of those. It was teenage girls. And they weren’t tagging along with dates or with families. They were out with their friends on a Friday night, willing to pre-order tickets and wait in line for an hour, looking for people they knew and chatting on their cell phones during the interminable bad-music-and-advertisement pre-show.
This was hardly a geek-only audience. If anything shows that a sci-fi movie has hit the mainstream, it’s the presence of thirteen-year-old girls with Hello Kitty blankets in the audience.
A collection of comments, thoughts and images, some highly spoilerish and not all of them canon.
1. I framed through the end of the Vader vs. Obi-Wan battle in A New Hope after being a bit confused by it last night. Watch closely, and you’ll notice two things. First, Vader’s lightsaber appears to go through Obi-Wan’s, about an inch above the hilt. This I can pin on imperfect special effects and then get on with my life. However, the second thing is that Obi-Wan’s robes start collapsing before the lightsaber even touches him. Kelson, watching it, said, “Does Vader even connect with a body?” I don’t think he does. Which looks like a very plausible solution to the disappearing-Jedi conundrum: if Obi-Wan wasn’t actually killed in action, then all evidence points to non-violent death being the only way to disappear.
2. This time through A New Hope, I had the strange experience of mentally hearing a parallel voice track for Vader, with Hayden Christensen speaking many of his lines. I don’t know how much of this is my own overactive brain (fueled by coffee and Honey Smacks, no less) and how much is a reflection on the acting/directing/writing, but it’s very cool.
We went out to see Star Wars: Episode III last night. And for once, we weren’t disappointed. This is the kind of movie the last two should have been. There was a feeling of urgency throughout this movie that wasn’t present until the first battle of the clone army in Attack of the Clones. A lot of it does depend on having seen the original trilogy, particularly where Anakin/Luke parallels appear… but I have to say, the final shot was absolutely perfect.
We re-watched the previous two movies and the Clone Wars cartoon over the last few weeks, and having seen the entire trilogy, I look at it this way: Lucas gave us 4 hours and 20 minutes of prologue to Revenge of the Sith. That’s all Episodes I and II are: Palpatine setting up his dominoes and getting everything ready to trigger his ascension to Emperor and elimination of the Jedi.
We had already planned to pick up the original trilogy this week or next, and finish the entire series by the end of the month. On the way home I remarked, “You know, I’m not completely insane, so I won’t suggest watching Episode IV now.” Katie replied, “Actually, I was thinking about it.” We ended up watching Star Wars: A New Hope (second-worst title in the series, but it gets a pass since it was tacked on in re-release) starting at 11:00.
It’s strange. The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones didn’t really change my perspective on Darth Vader much, aside from wanting to add “Now this is pod racing!” to the Death Star trench. Having actually seen the transformation, I really do see Vader differently. Probably closer to the way Luke sees him in Return of the Jedi. Especially in the first movie, where Tarkin is pulling all the strings and Vader is more of an enforcer than a leader, he really seems like someone who is doing what he has to do, like Londo in Babylon 5. Katie said that he’s gotten used to power, and is unwilling to give it up.
One of the great things about the prequel trilogies is seeing the Jedi in their prime, at least as far as their martial arts are concerned. The climactic duel between Obi-Wan and Vader above the volcanoes of Mustafar is no exception. Unfortunately, going from this movie to the original makes the rematch on the Death Star look pathetic by comparison.
Oh, yes: Ewan McGregor is seriously channeling Alec Guinness in this movie.
On to spoilers. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Continue reading
I had set this spam sample aside without really looking at it back at the end of March. As I checked the folder this morning, the scammer’s supposed name jumped out at me.
VADER DARTH
CO-OPERATIVE BANK PLC
UNIVERSITY BRANCH, GROVE HOUSE
OXFORD ROAD MANCHESTER UKI AM WRITING TO LET YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL AND ALSO EXPLAIN THINGS TO YOU THROUGH THIS LETTER AND WILL APPRECIATE IF YOU COULD ADVICE ME ON THIS ISSUE. MY NAME IS VADER DARTH. I WAS BORN IN TENNESSE AND RAISED IN EUROPE AND I NOW WORK WITH THE CO-OPERATIVE BANK IN THE MANCHESTER CITY, UNITED KINGDOM. I HAVE A VERY GOOD FRIEND WHOM I MET IN MY UNIVERSITY YEARS BY NAME FAURE EYADEMA, THE SON OF THE LATE PRESIDENT OF TOGO…
It continues on with the standard Nigerian scam pitch (relocated to Togo) about the relative of the deposed/late leader who needs to transfer a large amount of money through some random person’s account.
Yes, people fall for these scams… but come on, who do they think they’re fooling with an alias like “Vader Darth?”
Perhaps it’s a long-overdue response to the now-infamous 419 Eater successfully baiting a scammer as “D’arth Vader” of Dark Side Industries. More likely someone else didn’t recognize the name when they chose to use it.
I suppose it fits in with the 419 scammer from Tatooine who posted to The Darth Side last month.
