Speedrun: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Don't have time to watch the original Star Wars? This one will be finished in a minute. (Warning: mild profanity.)

Star Wars Blooper Reel from "The Making of Star Wars"

While Harrison Ford almost lost his head in one shot, some of these are LOL funny.

Star Wars Downunder

Amusing. Complete with boomerang light sabers.

Star Wars: The Backstroke of the West

Oh, this is funny! Someone had given subtitles (in English for an English-language film!) for Star Wars III (Revenge of the Sith). It's almost as if someone got more and more stoned as they wrote out the "subtitles." The last few lines are almost complete gibberish.

Long time ago in the faraway galaxy
Star war
The third gathers
The backstroke of the west
The war came! The republic encountered
Two squares fight the vehemence
The improbity fills the world
The space general of the alliance is skillful
Kidnap the D the speaker the conduct
The proper abruption alliance troops tries
ratio prosperous drive with the

HT: Topless Robot

Silent Era Star Wars

Classic! Love the solitary piano playing the soundtrack.

Darth Schwarzenegger

A humorous "recasting" of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars. NSFW (profanity).

Star TrololoWars

I've only just heard about the Eduard Khil Trololo meme, but I've found these two video mashups of the song I Am Glad To Finally Be Home (Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой) terribly amusing. Enjoy!

Star Wars vs. Star Trek

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, giant yellow letters float off into space at the beginning of each Star Wars movie. But what ultimately happened to those letters? Thank goodness the U.S.S. Enterprise shows up to the rescue! ;) Love the last line of the vid! :) My thought exactly.

Star Wars - Longest Crash Ever

Just crash already, darn it! ;)

Miscellaneous Links (18 June 2009)

Astronomy & Science:
SNR 0104: An Unusual Suspect (A supernova remnant (a star that blew up) with an unusual shape.)

Stars at the Galactic Center (The center of the Milky Way galaxy, as seen in infrared (heat) light.)

Streaming Dark Nebulas near B44

M13: A Great Globular Cluster of Stars (One of the better pictures I've seen of M13.)

NGC 6240: Merging Galaxies

Discovery Magazine: Holes of Silence (Sonic black holes. Cool!)

Science @ NASA: Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

Climate change is already having an impact in the Midwest and across the US (The good news: a longer growing season (by one week) for crops. The bad news: temperature and humidity increases, more winter and spring rain, less rain in the summer (i.e., more droughts), more flooding, lower water levels in the Great Lakes, reduced air quality, more insect-borne diseases, pollen and fungi. But don't worry: global warming is just a hoax, doncha know?)


Comics:
Dilbert ("Too crazy too fast.")

One Big Happy ("Big deal! I know how to say, 'What's the matter with you? You're getting on my nerves," in Italian.")

One Big Happy (Grandma vs. Grandpa.)

One Big Happy (That's right, kids! All us daddies eat breakfast in our underwear. Don't puke while you watch! ;) )

Working Daze (I had a supervisor like this, a guy who kept calling me "Jim." (Not my name.) I could never get him to remember my real name, but when he asked for "Jim" I knew he was asking for me. :P )

Working Daze (Survivor's remorse.)


Science Fiction:
io9: The Composers That Make Space Adventures Epic (Can't disagree with a single one.)

ListVerse: Top 10 Survival Tips For People In Horror Flicks (#11: Teenagers should never have sex! ;) )

SciFi Scanner: Mary Robinette Kowal - Fantasy's Male Warriors Kick Butt (While Baring Butt)

SF Signal: It's Time For Indy To Hang Up His Hat, For Good

SF Signal: Do Literary Awards Affect Your Reading Choices?

The Architects' Journal: The architecture of Star Wars (pt I) (See also part II.)


The Truly Miscellaneous:
APOD: Pyrenees Paraselene (Every now and then, APOD publishes photos that have little to do with Astronomy. This beautiful picture looks down at the Pyrenees mountains, which separate Spain from France, from a local observatory.)

BWG: Asinine Assertion

Google Fusion Tables

IZ Reloaded: Laptop Uses AA Batteries

Kottke.org: 50 Films You Can Wait to See After You're Dead (I've seen three, "Son of the Mask" and "Catwoman," only because they were on TV, and "Rocky V," which was surprisingly good and shouldn't be on this list.)

The Mad Logophile: Foreign Words & Phrases (This diary over at Daily Kos examines the meanings of several hundred foreign words and phrases, including twenty-three from the Middle East, in Arabic, Persian and Turkish.)

WTF Is It Now?!?: Brett Favre, missing the spotlight, to torture country again

Yet Another Web Site: Are audiophiles really this stupid?

Yet Another Web Site: A really stupid article

Lightsaber

And now in the "It's so stupid it's funny" category. :)

Han Solo, P.I.

In the "Funny but someone's got waaay too much time on their hands" department, not one but two videos have been created for a "Han Solo, P.I." intro, based on the old Tom Selleck TV series Magnum, P.I. intro. The first video is the Han Solo, P.I. intro by itself, the second compares the two intros side-by-side, the video editor wanting to show how closely he or she was to the original. There are some other mock Star War intros on Youtube as well, most notably MacGuyver and Dallas.

Darth Vader Throwing a Tantrum in the Death Star Canteen

Someone's taken Lego Star Wars characters and made a stop motion animated video of an Eddie Izzard's routine: Darth Vader throwing a tantrum in the Death Star canteen. Cute.

The Death Star vs. the USS Enterprise

"Military force was authorized yesterday minutes after the E.T.'s 48 hour deadline had passed. The E.T's were given an ultimatum to stop their whale poaching and leave Earth or face military action."

Death Star Over San Francisco

Awesome!


HT: IZ Reloaded

If Star Wars Had Come Out in the 60s

These are cute; I'd be curious to find out IZ's reaction, seeing how much he's into Star Wars.





HT: Jim Chappell

Comments About the "Top 20" SF Novels

This happened to be an interesting topic, and I do appreciate all the comments that the previous post generated. In preparing to write about the top 20 science fiction novels I'd choose, I thought I'd go over the earlier listing and discuss why I agree (and disagree) with those choices. Please feel free to chime in and criticize my criticisms, if you'd like.


1. The Lord of the Rings (1954/55) - Technically not SF, but fantasy. However, the two genres are very much related to each other, and some authors like C.J. Cherryh bounce between the two fields. While I'd prefer not to have LOTR on a list of the best SF novels, the book is so influential that you can't really not have it on the list.

2. Time Enough for Love (1973) - Enjoyable book, especially for "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long," but I wouldn't rate it #2 and, in fact, I'd drop it from the "top 20" altogether. (This is a book I've reread recently as well.)

3. The Martian Chronicles (1950) - Another book I've reread in the past few months. Influential book? Absolutely. Worthy of being in the "top 20?" Not a chance. And the writing is very dated at this time.

4. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) - Sad to say, I haven't had the chance to reread this one in a long time. I remember Heinlein's use of a Russian "accent" to be off-putting at the beginning, but it grew on me as I continued reading the book. I'm not sure I can remember enough about the book to say whether it's worthy of a "top 20" honor, but I'll be conservative and say "no." I expect I'll need "room" on the list for other books.

5. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) - Another book I haven't read in a long time. Another book that, while influential and speaking on an important topic (censorship), I'll also pass on.

6. Ender's Game (1985) - Worthy of a "top 20" listing; worthy of being made into a major motion picture. Until about 10 years ago or so, making this novel into a movie would have been extremely difficult (a lot of wirework at the very least); in today's realistic CGI world, the "battle scenes" that are at the heart of the novel should be a breeze for today's filmmakers to do. A movie based on this book should pull in "Harry Potter" numbers at the theaters.

7. Second Foundation (1953) / 8. Foundation (1951) / 12. Foundation and Empire - One of the things that struck me about this list of "top 20" SF novels is that the books seemed to be picked either because the plot was based on a strong conceptual idea or because the book was a sentimental favorite. The Foundation series is another one of the former. I had originally read the Foundation trilogy when I was around 20 years old; about a year ago, I reread "Foundation." Such terrible writing. Isaac Asimov became a great writer, but the first book is not representative of his eventual skill. However, once again, yes, an incredibly influential series. (George Lucas' planet of "Coruscant" was obviously based on Isaac Asimov's "Trantor.") Worthy of a "top 20" honor? No, not today.

9. Dune (1965) - This is a book that I often reread (actually, I'll go through all of Frank's Dune novels in one go, from start to finish). The writing remains fresh, even though the book was written in the early 60s. Most definitely top 20. To be honest, I'd probably rate it #2, behind LOTR.

10. Starship Troopers (1959) - Another book I've reread in the past year. As a Heinlein "juvenile," it's better than most. It's worthy of a "top 20," but I'd place it in the last quarter.

11. Rendezvous With Rama (1973) - Haven't read it in a long time, but it's worthy of a "top 20." I read this for the first time when I was in my early teens and, well... it made a great impression on me (as did several other of Arthur Clarke's novels).

13. Pet Sematary (1983) / 14. Farnham's Freehold (1965) - I haven't read either of these books, so in all fairness I can't really say whether they should belong in such a list; however, I'm going to exclude them from my own listing.

15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Read the short story (The Sentinel), read the novel (several times), watched the movie (don't know how many times). But is it really worthy of a "top 20" in today's era? I don't think so.

16. Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) - I consider this novel to be the last and best of Heinlein's juveniles (although it's obviously not one of the "official" Scribner juveniles). Although certain aspects of the writing have become somewhat dated (and Heinlein's various discussions about Islam are both accurate and completely off the deep end in equal measure), it remains, IMO, one of Heinlein's best works. I would rate it higher than either of the other Heinlein books discussed above.

17. Speaker for the Dead (1986) - It's been a while since I've read this novel; I think it resonates with people the most for the semi-spiritual aspect, the "speaking" for the dead. Although it's a direct sequel to Ender's Game, it's written in a completely different frame of mind. (Imagine George Lucas following up Star Wars with, say, Solaris, using the same characters.) I'm not sure whether it's still "top 20" material, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say "yes."

18. Have Space Suit - Will Travel (1958) - No. Another Heinlein juvenile. OK plot. Purely in this list for sentimental reasons. Nice to read, but not anywhere close to "top 20" material.

19. Childhood’s End (1953) - Yes. It's been ages since I've read this, but some parts of this novel have remained vivid memories.

20. Glory Road (1963) - No. Haven't read it since '83 or so. Who were these guys who voted for this novel trying to kid? It's OK, but it's nowhere near "top 20" material.

Darth Vader in Love

This is rather funny. Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, finds his knees turning to jelly when he meets Commander Ada Larkin, who wears a pink near-replica of his outfit (I love the little bangs curve on the front of her helmet, over her forehead).

"I am such an idiot!"

From the Peter Serafinowicz Show, on BBC Two:



(HT: IZ Reloaded)

Turn off your freakin' hand phones!

Reason #1138 why you should put your hand phone on "silent mode" during meetings (and at the theater):


(Run time: 0:52)

Wired: The Making of Star Wars

IZ Reloaded brought to my notice a new book coming out for the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. Wired's got a gallery of 20 photos and various snippets of information about the making of the movie. Below are a few of the photos, and some of the more interesting snippets of information:


Storm troopers wore all-in-one black leotards over which the front and back of the body clasped together. The upper and lower parts of the arms were held together with black elastic. The belts had suspenders that attached to the legs. They wore ordinary domestic rubber gloves and black boots painted white with shoe dye.

Mark Hamill says of the storm trooper uniforms, “You couldn’t sit down. They built us some sawhorses to sit on and that’s the most we could rest all day. It was terrible. You got panicky inside those helmets. I only once freaked out and said ‘Get me outta here.’ It really was uncomfortable.”

Harrison Ford clearly enjoyed playing the trigger-happy Han Solo. The earliest incarnations of the character depicted Han as an actual monster. He said of his character, “I always knew that I couldn’t get the girl. Han knows if he gets the girl, it will just be a one-night stand.”

Early character sketches had Han Solo sporting a cape and beard. That’s not all. At one point, in the second draft of the script, Lucas got rid of Princess Leia and turned Luke into a girl. A month later he restored Luke’s gender and decided to make Leia his twin.

The Dark Lord of the Sith was conceived in Lucas’ imagination under the original name Dark Water. He then became Prince Valorum. Similarly, Luke Skywalker started off as Annikin Starkiller.

Day one of principle shooting in the Tunisian desert: robot malfunctions, uncooperative weather, transport trucks catching fire, not to mention concerns by neighboring Libya that the sandcrawler, based on NASA-designed vehicles, was part of a secret military weapons buildup on its border. The crew did manage to leave Tunisia on schedule, after two weeks.

Carrie Fisher tries on John Mollo’s design for Princess Leia for the first time. Original sketches on the left.