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

The logistics of building the Death Star

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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

Re:The logistics of building the Death Star

[Jugalator]

Actually, Attack of the Clones pretty much says this too.
The geonosians were the funny-speaking bugs right? :)

They show Count Dooku the blueprints they've made, which I suppose later gets leaked to R2-D2. :)

Re:The logistics of building the Death Star

[Sique]

[...] but many of them were probably genuine freedom fighters [...]

It's terrorist, man. They don't wear uniforms, they are not commanded by a government, they are not for open battle, but doing stealth attacks... So they are terrorists, and any support to them is punishable by the PATRIOT act.

Re:The logistics of building the Death Star

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Well I believe most of the construction in that era was performed by large robots.

Well, if by "robots" you mean "droids", then what's the difference? Droids are clearly sentient in the Star Wars universe. Are you saying that the life of an organic is intrinsically valuable but the life of a mechanical is not? I am so tired of this carbon bias on slashdot! :)

Re:The logistics of building the Death Star

[Fnkmaster]

Dear Mr. Lucas,

You are welcome to create new races of aliens to populate your Star Wars universe. In fact, we welcome you to. And we don't even mind if you want to flesh out your backstory with these creatures... well some of us do, but they are zealots, so never mind them.

But if we catch you splicing in Geonosian construction workers in the DVD Extra Special Superpak release next year, we will be waiting for you at Skywalker Ranch with pitchforks and shotguns.

Sincerely,
Your fans

Re:The logistics of building the Death Star

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Don't be silly - they never actually told the contractors that it was a *Death* star.

"Hey, Frank... what in the heck *is* this thing we're building, anyway?"

"They told me that once we're done laying down the linoleum the whole outside of this thing gets fitted with reflective tile."

"You mean...?"

"Yep. Biggest self-sufficient disco ball in the universe!"

"But what for?"

"They gave me a card - here."

"'Our mission - riding the solar wind and spreading the good news and intergalactic funk from event horizon to event horizon.'"

"Yeah, isn't that just the wierdest?"

"Wait, there's more... 'D.V. and The Black Hole Sunshine Band - The Best Bang Since the Big One'. Where have I heard that before?"

"Dunno, Charlie, but I've got a *bad* feeling about this..."

Re:The logistics of building the Death Star

[Twirlip of the Mists]

One person's "terrorist" is another's "freedom fighter".

No, that's precisely where you're wrong. Some folks love to quote that old cliche, but it's simply not true. The difference between a terrorist and a non-terrorist is in the methodology. The minute a freedom fighter --or whatever term you want to apply to a non-terrorist --attacks civilians in a way that's intended to inspire widespread terror, that person becomes a terrorist.

E.G., the Mujahadin were "Afghani Freedom Fighters" when they were fighting the "Evil Soviet Empire". Now they're "terrorists" or "illegal combatants".

You do see the difference, do you not? When the Afghan mujahedeen were fighting Soviet troops who had invaded their country, they were not terrorists. The "mujahedeen" in Iraq, as they sometimes call themselves, are trying to fight the same basic fight, but they're using terrorist tactics to do it. Instead of attacking Coalition troops, they're publicly executing civilian hostages and detonating bombs outside police stations. That's not a war of resistance. It's not a war at all. It's terrorism, and it's unacceptable. No set of circumstances can justify, excuse or mitigate terrorism. It's off limits to civilized human conduct.

See the difference?

Had I spent my life in Northern Ireland, the Basque region, or the Gaza strip such distinctions might prove to be naive at best.

I reject the idea of situational morality. I think that the civilized world as a whole does as well.

The whole concept of "terrorism" is being used now a magical incantation invoked against convenient targets.

I really don't know where you get that idea. It's simply not true. I quote from the State Department's annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report:

The term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

The term international terrorism means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country.

The term terrorist group means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.

The US Government has employed this definition of terrorism for statistical and analytical purposes since 1983.

Emphasis mine. The definition of terrorism didn't change between 1983 and 2002. In 2002, for obvious reasons, the president in his National Security Strategy directive expanded the definition slightly to include any individual, group or nation that provides financial or material support or safe harbor to terrorists. This is not the legal definition nor the one that State uses though; it's just the definition that the executive branch uses to set national security policy with respect to nations or groups that sponsor or willfully turn a blind eye to terrorism.

Mark Hamill talking about janitorial staff?

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's what he's doing these days...

You heard it here first

[Anonymous Coward]

"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?"

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?

[Spudley]

Janatorial staff? I thought that's why they invented droids.

Re:Janatorial staff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, this makes it official: we're fast approaching the end of the universe.

We can have a Starbucks right across the street from another Starbucks. We can sue fast food chains for our own gluttony.

And now, a comment on janitorial logistics for a fictitious planet-killing deathship in a thirty-year-old movie has been rated "Insightful" by the Slashdot illuminati because it makes note of another fictitious element used ealier in the same plot.

This is way beyond pathetic.

Telling quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kershner, who studies Buddhism as a hobby, said the "Star Wars" movies have a homespun wisdom, but that people shouldn't look too seriously to the Force to solve their problems.

"Yoda's philosophy was quite simplistic. 'If you get angry, you're gonna lose.' 'Don't try, do.' He has a basic philosophy that is very charming. Not very profound, although young people consider it profound. I wish they would read more."[emphases mine]

AMEN!

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: and in self-referential news...

[Black Parrot]

> it's 'minutiae' not 'minutae'

That's where we stole the extra 'i' for use in "virii".

Exactly.

[artemis67]

That's why R2-D2 is shaped like a trash can.

Chewie's pants...

[queenofthe1ring]

This character has no pants on!' This went back and forth. They did sketches of him in culottes and baggy shorts.

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." ;-)

Re:The Iraq Kidnappings

[cybpunks3]

If the Japanese kidnapped and shot at everyone who came in to rebuild that country after World War II they never would have gone anywhere as a country.

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

The Dork Side.

[macdaddy357]

Beware of the dork side. Once you step down the dork path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will!

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.

Microsoft Imperial Death Star XP

[inkswamp]

Something just occurred to me.

* 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.

Re:Aarg...

[selectspec]

How about the fact that Lucas decided to name one of his characters "Count Dooku"?

Count Chocula was already trademarked.