The Secret History of Star Wars

lennier writes "How exactly did George Lucas develop the script for the first Star Wars? Why were the prequels so uneven when the originals were so good? Did he really have a masterplan for six, nine, or even twelve episodes, and why did the official Lucasfilm position keep changing? And just how big an influence were the films of Akira Kurosawa on the whole saga? Michael Kaminski's The Secret History of Star Wars, Third Edition is a free, thoroughly unauthorized, e-book that brings together a huge amount of literary detective work to sort fact from legend and reveal how the story really evolved. Download it or have your nerd credentials revoked."

Comments

Sour Mods Today

[DwarfGoanna]

This made me Laugh Out Loud. Today's mods should LURK MOAR.

Hydrogenated Vegetable oils

[midnighttoadstool]

"Why were the prequels so uneven when the originals were so good?"

Margarine! Brain matter is fat, on the whole. The body does what is can with what it is given. Margarine has fats not found in nature, so you can imagine that margarine eaters are not entirely rational. All those synapses popping and fizzing randomly: it makes a nice light show, but don't ask what it all means.

I blame margarine for atheism, after all atheists are by definition irrational. And that would explain Lucas's silly reduction of jedi powers down to the level of tiny critters. You really have to be a margarine-head to be that ridiculous.

[In case you are wondering about that atheism thing, the dictionary definition of Atheism is "One who denies the gods/God" and was coined a few hundred years ago. It has never been defined as "Lack of belief", despite the sense of the greek. In other words: one who believes there is no God. But for belief, rather than merely an opinion, one requires proof, and as any agnostic knows: no one has proven the non-existence of God (and it is probably impossible anyway). By his own admission Dawkins, for example, is really a form of anti-religious agnostic rather than a genuine atheist since he acknowledges the "tiny possibility that God exists". However many modern agnostics of Dawkin's ilk prefer to call themselves atheist and are insisting that atheist can also be defined as "one who has no belief" even though it clearly crosses in to agnostic territory. After all, those definitions pivot around 'belief' and that is binary: you either do or you don't, there are no degrees of belief. 'Opinion' serves for that. Agnostic is the null case.]