Star Wars Minutiae

Class Act Dynamo writes "CNN does a story on some of the finer points of making the Star Wars flicks. I like the part where Mark Hamill discusses the theoretical logistics of employing janitorial staff for the entire Death Star. Enjoy."

Comments

I'm sure

[Misinformed]

"theoretical logistics of employing janitorial staff"

I'm sure this is just one of the problems HR staff struggle with every day. Or is he implying that janitorial staff are stupid and unable to follow instructions?

Re:I'm sure

[fermion]

I wish I had mod points, I think this is subtlety insightful. The problem with hiring janitorial staff is that these employees need to be trustworthy and responsible but the employer can't really pay them an amount that fully compensates that level of trust. The employee must be inherently honest, or need the job enough not to risk termination by stealing stuff or goofing off.

Therefore one can't hire the pimply faced teenager as they do at the movie theaters. Theaters get away with this because they watch the employees carefully, count everything at the end of the night, and generally use draconian measures. For unsupervised clean up, one generally hires someone with little skills to do anything else and dependents to support. This is why Good Will Hunting is such a stupid movie. Damon would have never been allowed access to the rooms to clean.

Of course this would be no problem on the Death Star. If they hired private staff, the staff would know they would be spaced if anything came up missing. It is not an issue anyway because, like any ship, the sailors keep it clean.

Meh

[Lisandro]

"I like the part where Mark Hamill discusses the theoretical logistics of employing janitorial staff for the entire Death Star. Enjoy."

Well, similar discussions have been had before (http://imdb.com/title/tt0109445/). Please, will someone think of the contract workers?!??!!

Overcoverage

[Wingchild]

I didn't know when Star Wars was being released. I hadn't been paying attention. I know, I know - I'm a bad geek.

As it turns out, my lack of observance didn't matter at all - I'm a bit oversaturated on news and so I tend to read CNN fairly frequently throughout the day. I guessed something was up after two seperate articles on Lucas (and THX1138) showed up, followed by three more on Star Wars (quote heavy thanks to interviews with Mark Hamill), all posted on the main page and all within a twenty-four hour period.

I've been swimming in Star Wars news.

While I don't normally consider this a bad thing it's interesting to see how heavily the tail is wagging the rest of the dog, with respect to CNN; I don't know if they're being paid to be a corporate shill, or if their tech department doing website updates has a strong love of this movie -- whatever the case, it's had better coverage than Iraq this week. :)

the extras dvd is impressive...

[jpellino]

for the documentary on the making of the other three movies, it's amazing what had to be done to get these things made. Say what you want abotu Lucas' judgement on recent things, he had the brains and the stones to get star wars done - In some ways it's as compelling a story as any of the films. And as the man says, iit has the added advantage of being true.

And for the trailers - they are ruly insufferable - hard to believe anyone went to see ANH on the strength of the trailer - the ROTJ trailer is just tolerable by today's standards,

Also - did I miss something? Wasnt the piece on VH1 last week - with Kevin Smith and lots of others also supposed to be on the DVD set?

Speaking of minutiae, step thru the draw between Greedo and Han ;-) And can you find the translucent x-wings flying through each other?

Re:the extras dvd is impressive...

[puppet10]

or you could just watch the original

It looks like it was mostly copied, and judging from the trailer the orignal looks like a considerably better film.

Monkeys can fly

[cwebb1977]

Quote: As the Skywalker actor put it: "How can you be so serious on a film where you are dodging explosions and running away with Sir Alec Guinness on this side and an eight-foot monkey on this side, and the eight-foot monkey is the one flying the spaceship?" Yeah, monkeys cn fly. And we're taking this too serious. Why do so many people have to overanalyze everything and can't just enjoy a movie?

Re:Mark Hamill talking about janitorial staff?

[Hott of the World]

Actually he's big on voice-overs for american cartoons.

He's quite good as "The Joker" and "Grundy" on episodes of the Justice League.

Re:The logistics of building the Death Star

[Too many errors, bai]

Sorry to spoil the humor, but the Star Wars Databank says the Death Star was built by Geonosians, which are insect-like hivemind creatures and therefore not individual contractors. :p

seeing as it's the directors saying it...

[jpellino]

... there's a bit more credence than if undredentialed fans just gushed for an hour. Granted this is promotional material, and Lucas had this made, but when Ridley Scott and James Cameron can tell you why this opened their minds to doing what they have done so well, you tend to listen. Especially when they're referring to a guy who bucked the system, paid thru the nose to defy the DGA, then eventually quit the DGA and MPAA to retain creative control. He could have pulled an Alan Smithee.

Again - it's less science fiction, more space opera. Not much in the way of history-changing technology or advanced science uncovering deep truth and human potential. OK , there may be a little of it, but it's secondary to the plot and drama and spectacle.

In truth, look at the state of science fiction before Star Wars - you had story or realism, but rarely both, and you forgave the missing one. But you still missed it. 2001, Silent Running were two popular exceptions. Star Trek had passable story, cheesy realism, but it was all we had. This had both.

Ditto the state of computer graphics - like Edison, who didn't invent the light bulb, but did invent the electric *company* - Lucas didn't invent CG but likely invented the CG *shop* as we know it today. And that has changed filmmakiing in a deeper way than we usually realize. The Terminal - a movie about a guy in a couple of rooms - had a visual effects department and hired CafeFx - Ok they did the outdoor parts - but today you don't need to move an entire production company made of meat across the country to shoot 30 seconds of film. You pick up the phone and get the bits moving. To paraphrase Nicholas Negroponte, the movement of bits is easier than asses.

For everyone under the age of 27, Star Wars always existed, like electricity or clouds. Under 37, probably also true if they started paying attention to movies about age 10... and by age 37 you've covered more than half the people in the US anyway... so they're not far off the mark for most people. And that's only increasing.

Slightly offtopic, but...

[ImTwoSlick]

Check out the bonus disk in the new DVD set. There's a section showing behing the scenes pictures of all three movies. I was floored when I saw the caption to a picture showing Han and the actor playing Greedo pointing guns at each other in the canteena scene.

Han Solo (Harrison Ford) prepares to shoot first in the original version of A New Hope.
The Rodian bounty hunter Greedo was portrayed by actor Paul Blake, shown here sans mask.

Re:Mark Hamill talking about janitorial staff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I saw him in anything, it was Son of the Beach.

One of the main characters was being accused of war crimes or something he did in Vietnam.

Anyway, Hamill was a lawyer. If I hadn't seen his name in the credits, I never would've recognized him.

Re:The Iraq Kidnappings

[maxpublic]

At some point you have to realize that it's in your best interest to lay down your guns and MOVE ON.

If some nation invaded America I don't think I'd be looking at it this way, especially if they'd killed tens of thousands of my countrymen in the process and imposed a military dictatorship with a farcical 'representative government' on top of it.

Fact is, I think I'd be out there killing the motherfuckers. As often and as brutally as I could. And I'd brand those Americans who refused to fight for their country as spineless little cowards who don't get any say in how the country will be reconstructed if/when the invaders are driven off.

Max