star wars
milhayser | January 11, 2017Serving as an immediate prelude to the very first Star Wars film (A New Hope), Rogue One restores a measure of gravitas to the Star Wars canon that was seriously undermined by the goofiness of 2015's The Force Awakens. Rogue One is still a remarkable nostalgia trip, thanks to the digital recreation of familiar Rebel and Imperial hardware along with the likenesses of actors who first appeared in the original 1977 film. But without the need to consider future franchise opportunities for its stars, Rogue One is free to kill off all of its major characters, marking a narrative structure that is…
milhayser | January 11, 2016It was high times for the Rebel Alliance at the end of Return of the Jedi (1983). Across the galaxy, crowds rejoiced at the destruction of the second Death Star and the apparent defeat of Emperor Palpatine. Princess Leia Organa, who two films earlier had seen her home planet exploded for sport, was re-united with a twin brother she never knew she had, becoming aware of her own Force sensitivity, and in love with a swashbuckling hero who would later father her son. It was a resounding victory, and deservedly so, even if Ewoks had to help.
The Force Awakens begins thirty years later, yet…
aardvarchaeology | December 20, 2015Vague and sweeping spoilers below.
The Force Awakens is fully on a level with the original three films, as far as I remember them. These are four good scifi action movies. The new one is actually better in being much more inclusive of women and non-Europid people. It's quite a loving re-visit to the original material.
My main complaints with the new one are that
The tempo is too uniform and too high
No time seems to pass between scenes, with the main characters never even having a change of clothes
People need no training to operate star ships and military weaponry
The story is a clear and…
gregladen | December 15, 2015With the imminent release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, you might want to refresh your memory by watching the earlier Star Wars films, or even the films and other related productions.
There are two or three philosophies on this. The most obvious is to watch the films in chronological order, or story order, so you are seeing the historical development of the things that happened. This is simple. Watch Episode I first, and work your way in order through Episode VI.
There are objections to this method, however, because the way the story was told, out of historical sequence, involves…
gregladen | July 7, 2015A Guest Review by John Abraham
Wow! I just put down the best science fiction book I’ve read in a long time, and certainly the best Star Wars book I’ve ever read. Just like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones have made fantasy stories hip, the rebooted Star Wars franchise is making science fiction cool again for audiences of all ages.
The new book, which goes on sale today (July 7th), is called Star Wars: Dark Disciple (written by Christie Golden). It is part of a new series of stories that are part of the Star Wars canon and it involves nearly all of the characters we’ve come to cherish…
gregladen | May 26, 2015I've written about The Recompense here, and that writeup includes interviews with the creative team putting the film together. This is just a quick note to remind you that The Recompense has a kick starter project with one week left. So, now, you have to go there and kick in a few bucks!
The graphic above is the budget breakdown for the film, indicating what has already been invested and what the Kickstarter campaign will fund. Here is a note from the film's team:
With just over one week left in our campaign, we wanted to show you how your contributions, if our project is successfully…
gregladen | May 9, 2015I remember joking with my friend Ana about how her name would be attached to the first named storm in the 2015 Atlantic Hurricane season. It turns out Ana is an exceptional individual. Both of them.
Ana Miller as Aisha Lefu in "The Recompense: A Star Wars Fan Film."
Ana, my friend, is an actor and is currently engaged in a project I'll be telling you more about later. But in the meantime, you can visit this page and find out about a new and very interesting Star Wars related crowd-funded production called The Recompense. Give them money.
Meanwhile, back in the Atlantic Ocean, Tropical…
milhayser | February 21, 2014The story starts off predictably enough for a grandiose adventure: a wizard, a prophecy, an unwitting hero. Emmet is just a model construction worker, living his city life to the tee by following every rule in the book. He is manically happy just to be doing it right: greeting his alarm clock with a smile, doing some calisthenics, watching his favorite sitcom before heading out for an overpriced coffee and a fulfilling day on the job. He feels like he has friends, that he's part of something. Then a mysterious woman who's obviously not playing by the rules leads him to fall down an…
grrlscientist | July 5, 2010tags: Monty Python meets Darth Vader, humor, funny, silly, weird, Star Wars, Monty Python, satire, fucking hilarious, streaming video
Is this the ultimate in silliness and hilarity? The combination of Monty Python AND Star Wars?
grrlscientist | July 2, 2010tags: AT-AT Day Afternoon, movies, Star Wars, humor, funny, satire, cute, silly, pets, streaming video
This NYC-dog-walker-on-hiatus-and-star-wars-fan loves this video! If this video doesn't make you pee your pants by the end, well, you've clearly not had enough to drink!
AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.
Music by Blithe Field Bible School.
rallain | May 17, 2010Galactic Binder (a Star Wars fan site) invited me to write an article for them. Obviously, I said "yes". But what to write about? I decided to write a different version of my flying R2-D2 post. What is different? In my original post, I go into a lot of details. Essentially, that post is like most of my other ones where I am thinking out loud. I used to work out the answer and then write the post, but I like it this way better.
Here is the Galactic Binder post:
Aristotle, Newton, and R2-D2
So, in this Galactic Binder post, I don't go into the details. Basically, I just use the flying…
grrlscientist | May 9, 2010tags: A Small Announcement, Star Wars, parody, satire, humor, funny, Jennifer Hays, streaming video
This is a really strange announcement of a pregnancy and impending birth by a couple who apparently thought they'd never have their own kid. I wonder what the relatives think about the entire world tuning in to watch this announcement?
And why aren't they naming the kids Luke and Leia after all that? Hmph.
grrlscientist | April 20, 2010tags: Take Your Daughter to Work Day, Star Wars, Stormtrooper father, comedy, humor, parody, satire, silly, fucking hilarious, streaming video
A funny look at a stormtrooper whose wife demands that he takes his daughter to work with him and the events that transpire as a result.
Read more about the 2010 campaign to bring our daughters and sons to work.
rallain | April 16, 2010If you have been on the internet, you surely have seen this website showing the sizes of different starships. Way cool. Here is a small sample - but it doesn't do the site justice. You really need to go browse around.
Of course, I can't let something like this just go. One of the things I always think is interesting is to consider objects of different size. Perhaps the general idea is that you can just scale stuff up or down as you like. But, it doesn't work this way. Let me start with my own spaceship. It is a sphere with a thruster on the back. It just holds one person.
Now, what…
grrlscientist | March 6, 2010tags: Star Trek: How It Should Have Ended, Star Trek, Star Wars, comedy, humor, parody, satire, silly, fucking hilarious, streaming video
Space: the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, to seek out new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before ... this is how Star Trek should have ended!
rallain | February 2, 2010This one has been on my mind for quite some time. What kind of power source would you need to run a lightsaber? I was actually worried recently about this post when I saw the Discovery Channel show "Sci Fi Science". In that particular episode Michio Kaku talks about how you would actually build a lightsaber. The episode was a little silly, but the science wasn't too bad. In end Michio decides to build a type of hand held plasma torch. Doing this, he estimated that the lightsaber would need a power source on the order of mega-watts.
He didn't do what I was thinking. I am thinking about…
rallain | January 22, 2010Since my previous post on R2-D2 flying was so popular, I thought I would follow it up. I was going to add these two points in the comments, but a separate post seems to make more sense.
Point 1 - R2 flies at a constant speed
Well, he obviously doesn't always have to fly at a constant speed. However, in the clip I was looking at there are two important things in the analysis. What angle is R2's thrusters at? Is R2 flying at a constant speed? I found a much better quality version of the flying R2 from Billy Brook's site. That helped out a lot. So, on to Tracker Video Analysis (I always…
rallain | January 21, 2010You know I can't help but like Star Wars. Even with the new stuff, I watch it. Recently, I was watching the Clone Wars cartoon and noticed something odd about the way R2-D2 flies. I know what you are saying...."the odd thing is that he flies at all. Why didn't he fly in episodes 4-6?" Who knows. Here is the best image I could get of R2-D2 flying (from wookieepedia).
What is wrong? Well, maybe you can't tell from the image I posted. Here is a diagram of flying R2-D2.
If R2 (I can call him that because we are good friends) was flying like that, why would that be a problem? That would…
grrlscientist | November 26, 2007tags: star wars, star trek, lego, streaming video
This is an amusing fan-flick using starships made from legos, showing a battle between the starship enterprise and the x-wing fights from star wars [3:16]