Fun:Star Wars
Star Wars is a trilogy of science fiction movies (AND THERE ARE ONLY THREE OF THEM AND NO MORE) that took place [sic] a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Despite the fact that it took place a long time ago and really far away, almost everyone was humanoid and spoke perfect English.
After absolutely nothing happened whatsoever from 1998-2008, the creator of Star Wars[1] finally decided to sell off his studio to Walt Disney in 2012 so it could try to revive the franchise from certain death repeat the successes of the trilogy.
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[edit] Characters
[edit] From the prequels ahem, "unpleasantness"
- Anakin Skywalker - the main protagonist, Anakin was a
rat-tailed assholesnotty, unappreciative, narcissistic megalomaniac, and his actor won a bunch of Razzies. - Obi-Wan Kenobi - the sexually nonthreatening father figure, played by one of the sexiest Scotsmen around. One of the few characters that no one hates.
- Quaigon Gin -Wait, Ned Stark was in this?
- Darth Sidious (Supreme Chancellor Palpatine) - the main antagonist, preys on Anakin's daddy issues. The only one who looks like he's having a good time.
- Master Yoda - the really sexually nonthreatening grandfather figure, he was.
- Padmé Amidala - the love interest of Anakin, Padmé was also the love interest of every heterosexual teenage male who watched the series. She dies because she gave birth to Leia and there's only allowed to be one woman in the Star Wars universe at any one time. (Her actor was probably the only first-timer to come out of the Unpleasantness unscathed.[2])
- Darth Maul - a lobster/devil thing who was good at martial arts and was soon made irrelevant.
- Mace Windu - just one "I have had it" monologue would've been fine for us. But no, we couldn't even get that.
- Jar Jar Binks - the greatest Star Wars character of all time. Seriously. It takes a special kind of character to unite the fandom in any way.
[edit] From the Clone Wars ahem, "Fall of Lucasfilm"
We don't talk about the dark times. Even if the TV series was halfway decent until it was cancelled and replaced by another halfway decent television series.
[edit] From the original trilogy
- Darth Vader - the main antagonist, Vader enjoyed long walks on the beach, killing his generals, and editing Conservapedia. In a previous life he had been well-known to British viewers as the Green Cross Code Man,[wp] exhorting children to 'stop, look and listen.' Actually played by three actors — one for the voice, another for the stunts, and a third for him dying (who also played his Force Ghost). Why?
- Luke Skywalker - the main protagonist and second in a family of assholes, Luke would only have sexual relations with his sibling.
- Obi-Wan Kenobi - still sexually nonthreatening; while waiting for young Luke to grow up, Obi-Wan spent his time meditating and surfing the galactic internet PMing Yoda.
- Han Solo - a maverick (similar to John McCain[WTF?]), was always stroking his own Wookiee
- Princess Leia Organa - was a snotty, unappreciative, narcissistic megalomaniac with nice boosters. Her golden bikini scene in Return of the Jedi was a formative experience for many adolescent boys in the early 1980s.
- Yoda - still the New Age-y green dwarf who had been Fozzie Bear[4] in a previous life. The giveaways were his voice, and enjoying swamp life. Offered more platitudes than Kermit though.
- Chewie - a furry seven foot yeti/bigfoot thing named after chewing tobacco. Sort of like a giant superintelligent bipedal Yorkshire terrier. Used to yelp and gurgle a lot, and went through the Millenium Falcon's shampoo by the barrel.
- C-3PO - a surprisingly camp golden robot, who had odd gestures and posture. R2-D2's soulmate.
- R2-D2 - a short dumpy robot who made unintelligible bleepy noises which, bizarrely, everyone in the film (and the audience) could instantly understand. Either that, or he was continually swearing.
- Jabba the Hutt - a fat, sluggish nightclub owner. Another character who didn't speak English.
- Peter Cushing - I mean, Peter Cushing was in it! As a naval commander of some kind of grey planetary structure.
- Admiral Ackbar -
It's a frapSorry, I just left Starbucks. It's a trap! - Ewoks - teddy bears who lived up trees and spoke Kalmyk (the language spoken by the Kalmyk people of Russia). Blatantly invented to sell toys. Probably the first sign that Star Wars was going horribly wrong.
It's worth watching Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, to see where the inspiration for several of these characters came from. Snotty princess — Check. Camp pair of retainers — Check. Evil emperor — Check. Samurai who gains in confidence — Check...
[edit] From the sequel trilogy
Apart from the fact that we know the original cast is (mostly) returning, we don't know much right now.
[edit] The RationalWiki angle
| —April 2014[5] |
- Star Wars explores how a small determined cabal of
neoconsSith Lords can use an invented "crisis" to manipulate a democracy through fear into acting against its own interest, thus becoming an Evil Empire. And all thanks to Jar Jar. - Star Wars presents a distilled version of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Christianity under a generic religion called The Force which grants magic powers to its initiates.
- Star Wars has one of the more hilariously self-contradictory ethics systems ever: Luke is fine with slaughtering legions of Imperial troops, henchmen, and everyone on the Death Star,[6] yet when he reaches Darth Vader, killing his former father would be "giving in to the Dark Side." However, there is a crucial difference: the Death Star is not defenseless (and is about to destroy an inhabited planet), but by the time Palpatine tries to goad Luke, Vader is already helpless and disarmed.[7][8]
[edit] Fundies
Unsurprisingly, some Christian fundamentalists caught on to the popularity of something other than the Bible (and that "something" drew a bit of influence from Asian religious belief systems, no less). They denounced Star Wars as Satanic, compared it to Nazis, and promoted the New World Order.[9] Shoehorning, that is. The irony is that the trilogy is an anti-Nazi project; Lucas based the empire on the Third Reich and Darth Sidious on Hitler.
[edit] Parodies
There are too many to count, but only one (in film format) has stood the test of time: Mel Brooks' Spaceballs.[10][11][12] Released four years after Return of the Jedi and deemed pointless by critics, it is now recognized as the last good moment of Brooks' cinema career.
[edit] Video games
Battlefront, KOTOR, and Rogue Squadron. Play them.
There's also an old MMORPG named Star Wars Galaxies, and a newer MMORPG named Star Wars: The Old Republic. As with all MMORPGs, you should only play them if you don't ever want to have any free time again.
The LEGO Star Wars series did a surprisingly good job of retelling the prequel trilogy. Turns out that the story becomes substantially more entertaining once all the dialogue has been removed, and the more worthless characters given useful abilities. Plus you can pummel Jar Jar Binks and Anakin Skywalker into dismemberment as much as you like with no penalty.[13]
[edit] External links
- Were the Sith really the bad guys?
- Fun with Star Wars quotes
- How Vader lost the Battle of Hoth (and with IR analysis!)
- Cantina Band, because John Fucking Williams.
- The Force Skeptics page
- Say No to May the 4th
- Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. I exist, and I find it nauseating.
- Patton Oswalt's Episode VII Filibuster
- Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox have a nerdfight on the possibility of real-life lightsabers.
- The Star Wars That I Used To Know
- When I thought about midi-chlorians, only one thought kept me going...
- What if Episode I and II were good? - See how simple that was, Oh Great Mansioned One?
- How The Phantom Menace Should Have Ended and its 3D Trailer
- 10 Reasons the Mansioned One Should Have Quit After Jedi (Only one reason for us.)
- And then there are these video reviews of the Unpleasantness:
- The First Unpleasantness
- The Second Unpleasantness
The Third UnpleaIt seems that the reviewer lost his patience with the Unpleasantness after the first two installments.[14]
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ We must not speak his name... (NSFL)
- ↑ Natalie Portman on 'Star Wars': 'No director wanted to work with me afterwards', NME
- ↑ And it's not just Leia.
- ↑ Or perhaps Grover
- ↑ Thank you.
- ↑ Stormtroopers 9/11
- ↑ This is never explored in the movies. AT ALL. The few Expanded Universe authors who have drawn attention to this issue (Matthew Stover, Karen Traviss) are alternately loved and flamed by
ravenous rancorsfanboys. And even worse, the EU is effectively retconned now. - ↑ Another possible difference is not ethical but psychological. Luke is tempted to kill Darth Vader out of anger, rather than simply as part of a necessary war. Anger is apparently an emotion that leads Jedi to the Dark Side.
- ↑ Here, here, and here.
- ↑ Opening scene
- ↑ Comb the desert!
- ↑ Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
- ↑ Seriously! They explode into Lego pieces when killed.
- ↑ Okay, okay, here you go.