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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."
Randal: So they build another Death Star, right?
Dante: Yeah.
Randal: Now the first one they built was completed and fully operational before the Rebels destroyed it.
Dante: Luke blew it up. Give credit where it's due.
Randal:And the second one was still being built when they blew it up.
Dante: Compliments of Lando Calrissian.
Randal: Something just never sat right with me the second time they destroyed it. I could never put my finger on it-something just wasn't right.
Dante: And you figured it out?
Randal: Well, the thing is, the first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army-storm troopers, dignitaries- the only people onboard were Imperials.
Dante: Basically.
Randal: So when they blew it up, no prob. Evil is punished.
Dante: And the second time around...?
Randal: The second time around, it wasn't even finished yet. They were still under construction.
Dante: So?
Randal: A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.
Dante: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at.
Randal: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.
Dante: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction?
Randal: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed- casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. (notices Dante's confusion) All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia-this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.
(The Blue-Collar Man (Thomas Burke) joins them.)
Blue-Collar Man: Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt, but what were you talking about?
Randal: The ending of Return of the Jedi.
Dante: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.
Blue-Collar Man: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... (digs into pocket and produces business card) Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.
Randal: Like when?
Blue-Collar Man: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.
Dante: Whose house was it?
Blue-Collar Man: Dominick Bambino's.
Randal: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?
Blue-Collar Man: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.
Dante: Based on personal politics.
Blue-Collar Man: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished shingling.
Randal: No way!
Blue-Collar Man: (paying for coffee) I'm alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. (pauses to reflect) You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this... (taps his heart) not his wallet.
So that's what he's doing these days...
Luke just said that Chewbacca is a monkey, not a Wookie. That makes it cannon! Oh man, I'm gonna have to go rewrite my fanfic, now that I know he was born on Earth and not on Kashyyyk.
As Johnnie Cochran once said, "If Chewbacca is a monkey, you must acquit!"
Janatorial staff? I thought that's why they invented droids.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
All I know is that there are people we all know (generally male) who claim to have a large wookie, but when the time of truth comes it ends up looking like Yoda, small stout and green. Let's see if the not so hidden meanings sneek past the moderators!
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 can you find the translucent x-wings flying through each other?
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
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
it's 'minutiae' not 'minutae'
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The recent spate of kidnappings in Iraq represent a horrific, real-world example of the situation laid out by the parent. A number of friends/associates of mine have been offered exceptionally high paying jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan. None of them have accepted as they regard the risk as too great, but I have found myself wondering:
* The pay is high because the risk is high - anybody who takes on such a job must realise this. Is it thus their fault if they are harmed/kidnapped/killed?
* Also, since they are working for/in-the-name-of people whom some Iraq's would regard as the enemy (they do this knowingly) and since by mutual admission of both sides, this is a war - are they legitimate targets?
I would like to point out that I am referring to people working for western corporations, rather than people performing aid work - the fact medecins sans frontiers and aid workers are being targeted is in my opinion, one of the saddest aspects of this conflict.
That's why R2-D2 is shaped like a trash can.
... 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.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Clearly Chewbacca needed a nice Hawaiian print pair of bermuda shorts. :-) Or maybe some dockers...
Leia: "Could somebody get this walking carpet out of my way... Hey, nice pants." ;-)
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
yes, girls read /. too...
I don't know what scares me more: that someone would know this, or that it gets modded "+4 insightful"...
You will live in your mother's basement. You will never kiss a girl. The only girls you will ever see will be prOn on the internet. You will have no outlet but playing with your own light saber.
Don't cross over to the dork side.
How ya like dat?
* The Death Star plans were secret, but rebels managed to obtain them anyway.
* Windows is closed source, but people keep managing to steal bits of code anyway.
* The Empire was confident that The Death Star was secure and couldn't be compromised.
* Microsoft is confident that Windows is secure and cannot be compromised.
* Occassionally, rebellious hackers stumble across Windows vulnerabilities that nobody noticed before or thought was important.
* The rebels discovered a vulnerability into the Death Star that nobody noticed before or thought was important.
* Windows slowly positions itself to wipe out the competition.
* The Death Star slowly positions itself to wipe out the competition.
* Microsoft analyses virus attacks and discovers that there is some danger... albeit too late.
* The Empire analyzed the rebel attack and discovered that there was some danger... albeit too late.
* Script kiddies sometimes take devastatingly accurate shots at these backdoors and weaknesses.
* Luke Skywalker took a devastatingly accurate shot at the Death Star's exhaust port.
* Microsoft is attempting to rebuild Windows from the ground up, promising to make it better than before although it looks pretty much the same.
* The Empire tried to rebuild The Death Star from the ground up, promising to make it better than before although it looks pretty much the same.
Therefore... we can conclude the following:
* Luke Skywalker is a script kiddie.
* The Apple switcher campaign should feature Harrison Ford shouting, "Great shot kid, that was one in a million! Let's blow this thing so we can go home!"
* When Windows explodes... oooohhh... pretty.
* Hackers should have medals presented to them by Carrie Fisher.
* Bill Gates is Linus Torvald's father.
* And finally: Microsoft should not put too much faith in this technological terror they've constructed... the ability to destroy the competition is insignificant next to the power of open source.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."