Ralph McQuarrie has passed away

I cannot begin to imagine what the Star Wars saga - and a lot of other movie and TV franchises - would have been like had it not been for Ralph McQuarrie.

He started out at Boeing, and then was hired by CBS to create animations of the Apollo program as NASA was preparing to land a man on the moon.

Some years later McQuarrie was approached by a filmmaker named George Lucas, who was planning a movie about a galaxy far, far away and needed to populate it with a unique assortment of heroes, villains, robots and spaceships. And had it not been for McQuarrie's visual conceptions, what was at the time merely "Star Wars" might never have been picked up by any studio.

But thanks to Ralph McQuarrie, it was. And in addition to creating the looks of Darth Vader, Chewbacca and R2-D2, McQuarrie would go on to further flesh out the look and feel of the Star Wars saga. He also worked on the original Battlestar Galactica series and then again for Lucas and Steven Spielberg when they set out to produce Raiders of the Lost Ark. Along with many other movies and television series.

The sad news this morning is that Ralph McQuarrie passed away this weekend, at the age of 82.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this morning.

Thank you, Ralph, for sharing your talents and visions with us...

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THE WALKING DEAD tonight made Chris go freaking bonkers!!!

For the record, that was the MOST intense scene that I have personally witnessed from any television drama. If you saw it then you know what I'm talking about even if I don't say it: the walker down the well at Hershel's farm and how the gang uses Glenn as, ummm... bait.

No kidding: I was screaming HARD and grabbing the sides of my head during that part. Kristen was hollerin' loud too! That was definitely one of the best filmed and edited sequences that I've seen in a very long time.

The Walking Dead has been consistently raising the bar with each passing week and tonight's episode, "Cherokee Rose", upped the ante across the board. Especially watching Shane wrestle with the internalized anguish of the choice he made at the high school in the previous episode. That and the interaction between Rick and Hershel: a character who I am enjoying more and more every time he gets screen time. Sorta reminds me of the "man of science versus man of faith" dynamic that Jack and Locke had on Lost.

And speaking of The Walking Dead, longtime friend and fellow blogger/geek Geoff Gentry directed my attention to the website of Bear McCreary, the composer of The Walking Dead's music. Prior to that he scored Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica series. McCreary maintains a blog on his site in which he discusses his musical work and the process of composing for television, and it's quite a fascinating read! The latest thing he's shared via his site is this very cool video of himself doing an "accordion orchestra" of one of the pieces from Battlestar Galactica. Check it out!

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Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" + BATTLESTAR GALACTICA = Awesome!

This one's going out to all of y'all who are fans of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica. A dude named Katamaran78 on YouTube has created this amazing video using clips from the show and the song "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys. The result? A spectacular shot-for-shot Galactica-style interpretation of Spike Jonez's classic music video.

Here 'tis...

There are bunches of "Sabotage" mash-ups floating around, but this one is probably the best that I've seen yet (and I never even really watched Battlestar Galactica... but this video is making me want to check it out :-)

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The final episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA...

...should go down in history as doing something that had never, ever been done before:

It found common ground between Evolutionists and Creationists. And provided a reason to make peace between the two.

Just finished watching the episode. I'm now greatly enticed to buy up the season DVD sets, and check out what else I might have missed of this apparently very fine show.

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BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: Wait... what?

A considerable amount of e-mail coming in the last little while, the gist of all of it is that I have missed some "fraking damned spectacular television" tonight on Battlestar Galactica, which I admitted earlier that I had not watched at all, in spite of all the good word about it.

I have no idea what the heck it is that all of y'all are trying to tell me, but I suppose I'm now gonna have to break down tomorrow and get Season 1 of this show, and attempt to get up to speed :-)

(I do have Battlestar Galactica: Razor on DVD however: it was part of the swag bag from Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 a little over a year ago. Would it be wise to watch that first?)

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BATTLESTAR GALACTICA returns tonight

I must sadly admit that I have only watched two episodes of this show. And now I am wondering what I have missed, because a lot of people are telling me "Chris, WHY AREN'T YOU WATCHING THIS SHOW?!?"

I know that Battlestar Galactica is in its final stretch, and that the word on the street is that some momentous stuff happens in tonight's episode.

So... would this be worth investing some coin in getting the DVD sets of the previous seasons, in order to finally catch up on things? :-)

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