Maybe the very last post about Star Wars that I ever make

To: Star Wars producers and fandom

Re: The Acolyte and social media insanity

I can't even anymore.  I feel like I've officially become an old man who can't keep up with the youngsters.  I went through enough of this crap twenty-five years ago. God only knows what it would have been like if there had been Twitter and YouTube back in the day.  To paraphrase the final line of a famous movie: "Forget it Jake, it's Star Wars."  This entire drama along with The Acolyte itself has taken the wind out of my fanhood's sails, and my fanhood goes all the way back to the late Seventies.  I shall always treasure the good memories along with the various trophies I've accumulated along the way (signed copy of Heir to the Empire, my self-designed and constructed lightsaber, the Yoda puppet autographed by "Weird Al" Yankovic...) and I can watch the classic trilogy in their original form anytime on my VCR.  But this is it.  I've already been on the bad side of a few breakups.  Now I'm finally finding out what it is to be the one who picks up and leaves behind something that won't get better.

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Happy 80th Birthday George Lucas!

 

It was on May 14th, 1944 that a little boy was born in Modesto, California.  Growing up he was a restless young man, with no clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life.  He finally settled on being a race car driver.  But a near-fatal car crash a few days before graduating high school put a damper on that idea.

Our hero eventually decided he wanted to go to college.  He enrolled in a junior college and studied everything from anthropology to sociology to literature.  While there he began experimenting with filmmaking.  He then ended up at University of Southern California, choosing to continue his studies in cinematography.  And he discovered that he enjoyed it, a lot.  A series of student films followed, and many of them gained notice for their groundbreaking and breathtaking visuals.

The young lad graduated from college and tried to enlist in the Air Force.  Unfortunately his many speeding tickets, of all things, disqualified him.  He was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War but was again disqualified from service, for medical reasons.

He then returned to University of Southern California as a graduate student.  After producing the short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB he came under the wing of Francis Ford Coppola.  It wasn't long after that when the young man was given the opportunity to make a full-length adaptation of his film, and in 1971 came the release of THX 1138.

It was not a box office success.

Undaunted, our hero decided he wanted to make a different film.  One drawing from his experiences coming of age in Modesto.  That became the genesis of 1973's American Graffiti: a film that has become as classic as any.

Then, around 1974, our young hero sat down with a pad of paper and began writing the first draft of what he roughly titled "The Star Wars".

And the rest, is history.

On this very special day, The Knight Shift and its eclectic proprietor wishes a Very Happy 80th Birthday to George Walton Lucas Jr.  A man who perhaps more than most in our lifetime has impacted the world in so many positive ways than can ever be counted.

And I like to think that he still isn't finished with his craft.

Someday, I hope George Lucas once again shows us something we haven't seen before.

Before I close out this post, I want to share one of my favorite photos of Lucas.  It's from the filming of American Graffiti.  Here is Lucas, sitting on the floor beneath the countertop at Mel's Drive-In, directing Ron Howard:

I just love the pose Lucas is in.  That, my friends, is directing with dedication.

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God, sacrifice, and Yoda

The other week I shared on here that I had put my beloved Yoda puppet signed by "Weird Al" Yankovic up for auction on eBay.  It was something I had never, ever thought I would find myself doing.  I had outright declared that it would never happen.  When I asked Weird Al to sign this, it was always with the intention that it would be just for me, a real treasured prize for both my Star Wars and Yankovic collections.

 

But real-life circumstances had forced me to make some difficult decisions.  It was compelling me to betray myself and go back on what I had promised to never do.

 

Since posting about that, there have been a number of developments.  Some things transpired and, well... let's just say that for once, I have been seeing the hand of God at work and I am not doubting Him, that He provides even when all seems hopeless.

 

So yesterday I had my smart speaker set to the "Weird Al" Yankovic station.  And one of the first songs it played was "Yoda".

I took that as confirmation that I should de-list the auction for the Yoda puppet.

 

Maybe I merely needed to be ready to sacrifice it, like Abraham had to prepare to sacrifice his son (recorded in the Book of Genesis, chapter 22).  Now a forty-some year old toy signed by a musical artist is NOT the same thing as one's own child.  But I think God sometimes asks us to be ready to sacrifice something precious, so that He can make something wonderful of that.

 

In my case I learned a little bit more to trust in Him.  I think He knows what value this puppet has for me: it's something Mom bought for me when I was going on seven years old.  I like to think she was a Yoda fan too and delighted that I was crazy about the character.

 

But unfortunately that is one of the few truly happy memories that I have about my mother.  She and I had a very difficult relationship.  It was absolutely monstrous at times.  Along with the bipolar disorder, what happened between Mom and I is something that has demanded its own strategy in counseling.

 

This puppet is one of the few tangible reminders I have left that Mom could be a good person, too.  That she wasn't always consumed by the kernel of cruelty within her.  It took me a very long time to be able to forgive the memory I have of her.  That finally happened this past year.

 

I guess, maybe God knows that.  And knows that my faith in things isn't really based on anything a person can own.  But sometimes God winks at you, and maybe the provision He's made in so many ways is more appreciated because I was ready to give up something.

 

Just some thoughts I'm having this evening.

 

So, I've de-listed the puppet.  I'm confident now that things are going to work out in my circumstances.  And God has taught me some things from this particular side tale of the larger episode of late.  I can and will be thankful for that.

 

Besides, if I really did have to sell Yoda, I did NOT want him going to someone I didn't know.  I'm gonna try to "keep it in the family", with someone from among my many friends.

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My Yoda puppet signed by "Weird Al" Yankovic is now listed on eBay

Well, I'm now a liar and worse.

A little over ten years since I vowed that I would never, EVER do it, I am indeed selling my much-loved Yoda hand puppet signed by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

It's really out of my hands (no pun intended).  For reasons which I don't care to disclose publicly, some financial resources have come to be required.  That's just the way things are right now.

So last night the listing for "1980 Star Wars Yoda Hand Puppet Signed By "Weird Al" Yankovic went live on eBay.

Mom bought me the puppet in 1980, a few months after The Empire Strikes Back came out in theaters.  I was six years old and distinctly remember that night at the toy store.  Long story short this puppet - which has maintained PERFCT condition despite the years and miles traveled - went with me to a book signing by "Weird Al" Yankovic in June of 2013.  Al's eyes lit right up when he saw it!  And he was very glad to sign it.

It's Star Wars.  More to the point it's Yoda.  And it's been on the hand of and signed by the greatest parodist in the history of the arts.  For those reasons and more, it's a very precious possession of mine.  And now I'm prepared to let it go.

I thought long and hard about how much I'm asking for it.  This is such a unique item, and it really does matter to me that this will go to a good home.  In the end I had come up with a substantially larger figure.  However eBay's system doesn't think I'm a "power seller" just yet and it's restricted me to bidding starting much smaller.

So if any of this interests you, click on the link above and learn more.  If you would like to bid on it, I wish you all the best.

 

 

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Another article from the college newspaper. And it's not controversial either!

 See?  I really do know how to write an op-ed piece that doesn't honk off many readers!

This edition of Elon's student newspaper The Pendulum came out right before spring break 1999.  I didn't want to be on the cusp of that and deliver something that would be overly provocative.  There had been an article for Christmas a few months earlier and this new one needed to be on a happy note too.

So here it is, from two months before the premiere of Star Wars Episode I.  Note the special photo we used for the essay: me brandishing a toy lightsaber and wearing the helmet from a Darth Vader mask.  Click on the pic to enlarge and read!

 

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AMERICAN GRAFFITI turns fifty years old this week

George Lucas's movie - the first for his own company Lucasfilm - American Graffiti was released fifty years ago tomorrow.  It premiered at a film festival and was followed with wide release soon after.  If you've never seen American Graffiti you really should do yourself a favor and watch it.  It's a film spanning the course of a single night, in the lives of a group of friends who are spending the final hours of summer break in 1962.  I don't know if "plot" is the right word to describe this movie as having.  But it's a mighty monument to a way of youth that isn't there anymore.  American Graffiti has a solid cast and a soundtrack that is just as much part of the film as those appearing in it.

Well, I thought that for the occasion we would go WAY back into The Knight Shift's archives, to when it was less than a year old in 2004.  At the time my friends and I were working on our very first film together Forcery.  The final scene takes place at Mel's Drive-In, from American Graffiti.  Short Sugar's Barbecue in Reidsville, North Carolina played the part of Mel's.  We shot the scene at the drive-in part of the restaurant, and then... this idea hit for something we could do as a homage to George Lucas's classic movie.  I told Chad Austin, who was playing Lucas in Forcery, about it and he was game for it.  He was already wearing the costume and makeup for the part anyway.

So here is Chad Austin as George Lucas in September 2004, in a recreation of the famous behind-the-scenes still from American Graffiti showing Lucas crouched beneath the counter while directing Ron Howard:

Wow.  That was September of 2004 when we made that photo.  So much has happened since then but it seems like just yesterday.

Of course George Lucas - the real one - got a lot of respect and admiration for American Graffiti and would use that goodwill when he was shopping Star Wars around to the studios.  I'm glad that he did, but part of me also wonders what it would have been had he made more films like American Graffiti.  The Star Wars franchise arguably stymied a lifetime of potential movies from this talented filmmaker.  But I like to think that Lucas still hasn't forgotten his greatest career passion.  Maybe someday we'll see him return to what makes him happiest in life after his family.

 I hope that he will.

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I've waited 32 years for this day

I should probably preface what you're about to see with something.  For the past few months, well...

There's really no other way to put it: I've lost my interest in Star Wars.

I can't finger any one particular reason why.  But what Disney has done with the franchise, what Disney has done period, is a major factor in that.  I find myself no longer able to support a company that apparently no longer desires me or my hard-earned cash.  It's much worse than that even: Disney is now trying to rewrite and redefine history so as to advance an extreme leftist agenda.

How do I in good conscience, as a citizen and as a Christian, find myself able to support that?  I can't.

Which makes what I'm about to post seem direly hypocritical.  But I think that this once, the good memories can take priority.  I mean, I have spent almost two-thirds of my life waiting to see this.

Disney's upcoming Star Wars series Ahsoka dropped a new trailer today, and for a few fleeting seconds in it we get our first look at how Grand Admiral Thrawn appears in live-action.  Thrawn first appeared in Timothy Zahn's 1991 novel Heir to the Empire.  Thrawn became such a respected character that he was one of the few elements to be adapted from the "Expanded Universe" and into the current Star Wars canon.  He has probably become even more popular as a result.

So how does Thrawn come across in our first live-action glimpse of him?

Pretty darn close to what I've always imagined he would look:

That's Lars Mikkelsen in the role.  Mikkelsen previously voiced Thrawn in the animated Rebels series.  I'd say he seems to be projecting the gravitas and dignity (for a major villain) that the Thrawn of the books has always presented.  I could accept this as being Grand Admiral Thrawn, if I ever find that I'm getting my love for the saga back.

Well, like I said, I've waited a very long time for this day to come.  And to be honest I had come to believe it would never happen.  But it has.  It's enough to pique my curiosity, at least.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 43

Wow.  Where did the years GO to?

A few weeks ago, for whatever reason, I popped in the Blu-ray of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.  It had been quite some time since I'd watched the second chapter of the saga's prequel trilogy.  Actually, I think it might have been since before The Force Awakens premiered, and that was in late 2015.

A few minutes into it, I realized that this May marks the twentieth anniversary of the film's release.  A week and a half before Episode II premiered, I was at Star Wars Celebration II in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Not just as an attendee but as a member of TheForce.net's staff.  We had our own booth and everything.  We even got to attend the dinner with a lot of Star Wars notables on the night before the event's opening (Kenny Baker, thank you for forgiving me for almost stepping on you).  After the dinner Bonnie Piesse (Beru in the prequels and in the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series) joined the staff for a really nice pic that resembles the "Scarlett and her suitors" pose from Gone with the Wind.  A jolly time was had by all!

Of course, Celebration II was the big lead-up to Attack of the Clones.  A movie that for various reasons, will forever be a curious touchstone of my younger life.  As a TheForce.net staffer I was privy to just about EVERY "spy report" that got leaked from behind the scenes.  It's safe to say that I knew far more about the movie as it was being made, than what we saw in the final cut of the movie itself.  In one especially memorable incident, another staffer and I almost flew to Sydney, Australia to take part in a sting operation involving a stolen copy of the Episode II script.  But that's all I should probably say about that...

Maybe for that kind of stuff and others, I'm forever going to be looking at Attack of the Clones through rose-colored glasses.  Instead of seeing it for what most perceive the film to be: perhaps the most mediocre and problematic of the entire Star Wars movie library.  It's not without reason that Episode II gets that reputation.  For one thing, it's the LEAST quotable Star Wars film.  The ONE line that sticks out - when Anakin says "I hate sand..." - is only repeated when mocking the film.

For another reason, the very title is somewhat of a misnomer.  It's not a very good title at all when you think about it.  At the time though the official PR line was that the phrase "attack of the clones" hearkened back to the B-movies of the Fifties: "The Attack of the Monster that Ate Minnesota" etc.  As one who was "in the know" about Episode II more than most, I found the title more than a little ludicrous.

Personally, I think that the biggest reason why Attack of the Clones is so derided, is that it looks the least like a Star Wars movie.

This was the first installment of the saga to be shot digitally as opposed to traditional film.  George Lucas got his grubby little paws on a sweet new camera system and he was eager to put it to use.  Digital was the wave of the future and Lucas wanted Episode II to be the movie that blazed that path to glory.  But going all digital came with an unforeseen price: the finished picture looks, well... too DIGITAL.  There is no real warmth or film grain that had come to be expected of a Star Wars movie.  It's jarring, to be honest, to go from the analog look of The Phantom Menace to the almost sterile tone of Attack of the Clones.

And on top of THAT, there was ALL of the computer-generated effects that Lucas ladened the movie with.  There were very few practical effects.  Again, it was almost completely digital work, done on a workstation at Industrial Light and Magic instead of in-camera or with miniatures and pyrotechnics.  There were even CGI costumes (and the clones themselves are completely computer rendered).

It is a movie rife with problems, and I don't know why I pulled it out of my "Star Wars shrine" to watch again.  But I did.  And maybe some fresher eyes would better appreciate the film.

And now?

Having watched it again for the first time in awhile, I'm more forgiving of Episode II's shortcomings.  In hindsight it builds well upon the foundation laid by The Phantom Menace, and some have argued that Attack of the Clones makes Episode I an even better film.  It also raises the stakes, and sets up things to come in Revenge of the Sith.

I now think that Attack of the Clones is a worthy Star Wars motion picture, that unfortunately suffers from some significant production choices.  It is glaringly obvious that Lucas went mad with power in making this movie, and was hellbent on bringing EVERY toy in the box to bear on his endeavor.  That was not a good thing to have done at all.  Sometimes "less is more".  Not everything has to be a 3D model to be rendered on a Silicon Graphics mainframe.

For all its faults though, and as noted for various reasons which shall remain personal, I like Attack of the Clones.  Warts and all, it's still a Star Wars movie.  And the franchise has yet to completely go off the rails.  If it ever does, it will be for far worse reasons than any that Episode II represents.

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New post on Substack: about The Book of Boba Fett

 

Just a friendly note that I have posted another article on my Substack page.  This one is a "review" of sorts about the new Disney+ series The Book of Boba Fett.  Maybe others will read it and chime in and let me know: what am I missing from this series.  Because so far it seems to have wildly misplaced... something.

Maybe it's the fact that it has violated forty years of tradition by showing us Boba Fett without his helmet?

From the article:

Maybe it’s because The Book of Boba Fett doesn’t fully understand who it is that it’s being made for. Or maybe it does, but it has forgotten its roots. See, Boba Fett was my generation’s most iconic man of mystery. We had no idea who that was beneath the helmet. And we liked it that way. Heck, for all we knew that could have been a woman in the armor posing as a man (no offense meant to the memory of Jeremy Bulloch). The only thing that mattered is that Boba Fett was the most infamous of the bounty hunters who answered Darth Vader’s call, and he succeeded in his mission to capture Han Solo. Come to think of it, Fett was the only character in The Empire Strikes Back who accomplished his purpose.

 Mash down here for more.

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New article at American Thinker: Disney's cancelling of Gina Carano

I have a new article up at American Thinker this morning.  "Cancelling Gina Carano: Work Worthy of an Evil Empire" addresses what happened last week in regard to Disney firing one of the lead actors of its series The Mandalorian (image: Disney).  Gina Carano made a post on social media that some allege was anti-Semitic and overly controversial.  But was it really?  Especially in light of the fact that others associated with the Star Wars franchise have made statements just as "controversial" and saw no repercussion.

In short: was Carano let go because she leans conservative?

As always, comments are welcome.

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If you only watch one YouTube video this month...

 ...make it this one.  This is GENIUS.  Wish I'd have thought of it :-D

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"Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars..."

 Look, I love Star Wars as much as anyone (maybe far too much more than anyone.  But what came out of the Disney Investor Event a few days ago worries me:

Ten... count 'em TEN... new Star Wars projects going on for the next few years.  Those are in addition to The Mandalorian.  Most of these are likewise going to be streaming series on the Disney+ service.  Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic are said to be spinoffs of The Mandalorian.  We knew that Obi-Wan Kenobi was coming (it begins filming next month) as well as the series about Andor from the movie Rogue One.  Ditto the animated series about the Bad Batch (introduced in the final season of The Clone Wars).

Do we really need... or were we at all asking for... a series about young Lando Calrissian though?  No offense to Donald Glover, I thought he nailed it in Solo: A Star Wars Story.  But seriously, it's going to have to  be something special to keep me tuned in every week.  The Rogue Squadron movie to be directed by Patty Jenkins piques my curiosity.  Done right, it could be a real homage to the fighter pilots of World War II (which George Lucas based the space fights in the original trilogy off of).

But to be honest, the only ones from this list of Star Wars projects - along with The Mandalorian - are the Star Wars: Visions animated anthology series (I have long argued that Star Wars needs an anthology series of fresh stories and new perspectives) and The Acolyte.  The latter said to be set some two hundred years before the time of the Empire, and focusing on the Dark Side.

THAT is what I want most from Star Wars right now.  Some new eras to open up and explore.  Instead it's as if Disney is to afraid to move away from the well of the Clone Wars-Empire times.

How much more are they going to milk that?  When there is some twenty thousand years of potential Star Wars lore to draw from and expand out into?

I want more Star Wars, no doubt about it.  But of greater import I want good Star Wars.  I want a saga that is fresh and full of surprises.  And what came out of the investors event fell short of fueling anticipation for anything like that.

The good thing about Star Wars though, is that you don't have to imbibe of all of it.  There's a lot of freedom to pick and choose which parts of the saga you will follow along with and which don't really satisfy your appetite.  So I can maybe skip some and still thrill to The Mandalorian.  Just like I have come to disavow The Rise of Skywalker almost completely.

(Hey Disney, give us that rumored "Lucas cut" of that movie instead!)

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Couple of hilarious music videos I came across

Awright, we could all use some laughter right now, no matter who you are.  And in the past few days I've come across some really good videos worth sharing.

First there's this parody of "Sweet Child O' Mine", performed by Guns N Helmets featuring Axl Rose Grogu aka "Baby Yoda":

And then there is this fine piece of work: heavy metal guitar accompanying televangelist Kenneth Copeland (who has always been pretty creepy to me):

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Star Wars: Squadrons has Chris feeling like he's 20 years old all over again

For the vastest part I have moved on past video games.  These days if I play any game at all it's going to be something like a rewarding round of Go against a human opponent, or the miniatures game Warhammer 40,000 (either of which provides for keen exercise of the tactical mind).  You know, something physical with tactile sensation.  A few months ago I reviewed Gears Tactics, but then again Gears of War for me isn't so much a game franchise as it is an epic tale (along with the BioShock games and Halo).  And that came when we ALL needed something to keep from going totally bonkers from COVID sequestration from society...

But about that same time came word of Star Wars: Squadrons.  Electronic Arts' foray into what seemed like the first truly dedicated Star Wars flight sim since perhaps X-Wing: Alliance all the way back in 1999.  Oh sure, there have been others involving an element of space warfare.  But the still much-beloved X-Wing series went beyond "aiming and shooting" by adding power management, ordnance selection and other elements that made it truly feel like you were responsibly flying a real ship.  And then there was how 1994's TIE Fighter somehow made you glad to be blasting those Rebel insurgents into space dust!

No Star Wars game like that has come about in the more than two decades since X-Wing: Alliance.  In fact, the entire flight sim genre has seemed pretty much dead or at best in deep coma.  Would one be welcomed with eager arms today?

Based on the wild reviews and raving word of mouth about Star Wars: Squadrons, the answer to that question is an emphatic "Yes!".  So yesterday evening I took the plunge and bought the game.

And now?  I have felt like a 20 year-old kid all over again, that very first night when X-Wing installed on my MS-DOS machine (running on a 486-SX CPU with 4 megabytes of RAM and a 70 megabyte hard drive... yes, I'm ancient).

Star Wars: Squadrons is the X-Wing games all over again, updated to the nth degree.  I've played through the prologue and just a few missions into the main game but that's been enough to bowl me over.  It looks so new, and yet it is so beautifully familiar.  The cockpit layouts look almost exactly the same as they did for the X-Wing games over a quarter century ago: if you ever played TIE Fighter, your first moments inside Squadrons' standard TIE will be a rapturous return to warm surroundings.  The ever-trusty X-wing starfighter looks almost precisely as it did circa 1993.  Even the cargo vessels - those boxy ships we all thrilled to scan for legal goods or Imperial war materiel back in the day - make a faithful return to form.

Maybe I'm missing it so far, but the ONLY aspects from the X-Wings series that I've found absent from Star Wars: Squadrons are the ability to direct more power to front or rear shields, and getting to cycle lasers between one blast or the (slower but more powerful) four blasts at once.  Or maybe they're in the game and I've missed them.  If it hasn't been implied enough already, I've felt like a wide-eyed kid in a candy store playing this game.  It's been reliving a phase of my life that was well before all of the griefs and heartbreaks came over the years since.

Who'd have thought that a video game could make someone feel so spirited again?

There is the single player story mode.  There is also a multiplayer cross-platform function, which I haven't tried yet but some friends are due to be getting Squadrons soon and we'll likely be playing it together.  Which, I'm looking forward to hooking up with them and shooting those Rebel scu... errr, Imperial swine out of the sky.  Until then, there's plenty of time to practice with the single-player campaign.

Game studio Motive deserves a heap o' praise for not just delivering a solid combat flight sim, but making what some are hailing as one of the best Star Wars games in a very long time.  And from me especially, they get mega high marks for tapping into the vein of the X-Wing series and bringing that same spirit back to Earth for a new generation of gamers to discover and enjoy.

X-Wing: Squadrons is available now for XBox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows.  I know it's on Steam for PC users and it may be for sale on the online stores for the consoles.  It's perfectly playable via keyboard and mouse but for a more realistic feel I'll recommend a moderately priced flight stick.  I'm using an older Microsoft SideWinder Precision joystick and it works perfectly fine.

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I am a bad Star Wars fan (for abandoning the sequel trilogy)

There is a rumor... rumor mind ya so take this with an industrial sized salt lick... that somewhere in the Disney Vault there rests a cut of Star War Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker that is drastically different and better than what was released theatrically last Christmas.  This cut was allegedly assembled by George Lucas: the Maker himself.  This edit supposedly adds new material, removes several elements we saw in The Rise of Skywalker's theater version and perhaps even has a new ending.  The result is a film that is at least forty percent altered from the original cinematic release.

It is supposed to fix the problems that The Rise of Skywalker has, as well as many of the problems that the entire sequel trilogy is rife with.

It is the hope of many fans that "the George Lucas Cut" - IF it exists at all - will be released eventually, and sooner than later.  One possible venue would be Disney+ (where The Mandalorian and the complete The Clone Wars series have made their home).  One must wonder how much the Disney execs will be watching the upcoming release of the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League on HBO Max.  Success for that cut would certainly compel Disney to cast an eye upon potential product for its own streaming service.

I bring up the Lucas Cut rumor because I am increasingly finding myself hoping and praying that it's true.  And that it will get released.  And that it is just as magnificent as it's being made out to be.

Because at this point that's what it's going to take to make me respect the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Yes folks, there it is.  I am going to always and forever be a Star Wars fan.  But going forward... I'm going to try to forget that Episodes VII, VIII and IX ever happened.  Because there are substantial problems with what should have been a final fulfilling arc in the Skywalker saga.  Problems which can not be ignored any longer.  As far as I'm concerned the Skywalker tale on film ends with Vader's redemption, the Emperor's death and Luke's reunion with his friends amid the celebration on Endor.

Because it is now abundantly clear that Disney had no idea what it was doing when it produced the sequel trilogy.

It was Daisy Ridley's comments this past week that made the kill shot.  It seems that even after the cameras stopped rolling there was indecision about Rey's parentage.  At one point or another she was related to Obi-Wan Kenobi, or was Palpatine's granddaughter, or just what Kylo told her in The Last Jedi: "no one".  I wish she had been nobody special.  It would have made Rey a much more potent character.  Better than that: it would have reinforced the notion that the Force belongs to anyone and everyone.  That it was not the sole provenance of favored lineages like the Skywalkers or the Palpatines.  One of the major themes of A New Hope was that a hero can come from the most humble of beginnings.  Rey was set to follow that theme.  And then they made her a granddaughter to Palpatine...

Did these people seriously understand Star Wars at all?  Did they even care?

Blame can be assigned across the board.  I'm not going to bother divvying it up.  But mistakes were made.  Atrocious mistakes.  The components were there for a majestic trilogy, the one we had been long promised but had come to believe would never be made.  All of the pieces were within ready grasp.  They even had the cast of the original trilogy willing to sign aboard for the project.

The sequel trilogy had everything going for it, seemingly.  And they messed it up.

Personally, what was most unforgiving about what happened in the sequels was how Snoke was treated.  Here was a new character - a fantastic character - perfectly set up to be a truly horrific and fascinating villain.  Snoke brought about the reaction that Darth Vader evoked during his first onscreen appearance: even without knowing anything about him, we knew he was evil.  And we hated him for it.  And we wanted to see more of him.  Snoke had presence.

I can look past how Snoke was killed in The Last Jedi.  What I can not look past is how sloppily it was made out to be that Snoke was just a puppet for Palpatine.  It was complete laziness, and trepidation, and a failure to give Snoke the respect he deserved.  He deserved much better.

Star Wars deserved better.  It still does.

Could I somehow come to give the sequel trilogy enough lenience that it takes a rightful place with the six core saga films that came before?  Yeah.  Yeah, I could.  And I think that many if not most of the Star Wars fans put off by the sequels - and there are loads of them - could accept the sequels.  But not like this.  They treasure this mythology too much than to accept second or third best.  And Disney erred grievously when it took those fans for granted and saw their wallets more than their hearts.

If the rumors are anywhere accurate, there is a cut of The Rise of Skywalker that is a true chapter of the Star Wars saga.  A film that addresses the problems of its immediate predecessors and not only complements them, it makes them better.

I hope that rumor is a true one.  Because if Star Wars has taught us anything, it is that nothing is beyond redemption.

EDIT 09/14/2020:  Had a moment of realization this morning.  Obi-Wan Kenobi said that a ship the size of a TIE Fighter could not get so far out into space on its own.  Yet in the sequel trilogy we see TIEs swooping in and out of lightspeed all the time.  They even follow the Millennium Falcon, aka "the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy".  What kind of consistency is THAT?!?!?

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Unreliable Narrator, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Sequel Trilogy

Many of you  by now are hearing the rumors: that Kathleen Kennedy is on the way out as matriarch of the Star Wars franchise.  That the operation will soon be run by either Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni.  That the entire sequel trilogy is going to be scrapped and "re-made".

Personally, I doubt that last one is going to happen.  Because I can't but think of all the little girls I've seen dressed as Rey for the premiere of the past few Star Wars movies.  Rey is a true heroine to them.  Heck, she is for me too.  But especially to young girls who look to Rey as a role model.  Not I or anyone else should take that away from them.  Besides, Star Wars was ripe for a female character on par with Luke Skywalker and young Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Rey fits the role perfectly.

But I won't deny that the sequel trilogy is the worst of the three.  I first had a bad feeling about this when it became clear that too much of The Last Jedi was going to be spent on the Resistance fleet fleeing from the First Order.  And then Snoke getting killed.  And then the reveal that the enemy of The Rise Of Skywalker would be a resurrected Emperor Palpatine...

I've had a theory for many years.  It's about Star Trek, the original series.  So many episodes of that show are timeless classics.  And then there were the utterly hokey ones like "Spock's Brain".  You know, the episode where aliens run off with Spock's gray matter so it can serve as the new computer running their indoor plumbing.

How hokey can you get?  But it begs the question: did the over-ridiculous premise of the episode disqualify it from being canon?  Because it just doesn't seem, you know... "Star Trek"-ish.

I've a solution to that.  How the bad Trek can co-exist with the good.  Those episodes are actually fake captain's log entries that James Kirk made when at times he was feeling extra bored.  And then decades if not centuries later the data dump of the U.S.S. Enterprise is being researched by historians who don't know any better.  And they find the stuff about the brain stealers and the space Nazis and whatever else and they assume that those things "really" happened.  When in fact it was just Kirk having his fun.

That's my theory and I'm sticking by it.

So what bearing does that have on a post about Star Wars?

I've re-watched The Rise Of Skywalker at least a dozen times now since it became available on iTunes and then Blu-ray and now on Disney+, and... how should I put this?  It's frustrating the heck out of me.  Part of me likes it.  Part of me is "meh" about it but the larger part of me can't stop thinking how much makes no sense.  Like travel times through hyperspace: it shouldn't be that instantaneous.  And how Palpatine is brought back so late into the entire saga.  A lot of small issues that accumulate.  Plenty enough of them lingering from the previous film The Last Jedi.

And now... I sadly lament that the Star Wars sequel trilogy - episodes 7, 8, and 9 - are the weakest of the entire series.  When they should have rivaled the original trilogy in greatness.

But then something hit me.  And this is going back a ways...

George Lucas was saying as early as 1982 how the entire Star Wars saga was one story being told by the droids Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio.  It was the tale of the Skywalker Family, being shared with the Whills: a mysterious sect that among other things recorded the history of the galaxy.  And their collection of such stories became "The Journal of the Whills": something that Lucas later described was a larger work of which Star Wars "was just a piece".

Let's assume that was and is and ever shall remain George Lucas' notion about how the story of the core Star Wars legend came about.  We can be assured that hundreds of years after the events of the Skywalker saga, Artoo and Threepio are passing it along to the Whills.  We can trust their word.  They were THERE during that time.  They saw it all happen.  Especially Artoo.  At least, they saw everything from The Phantom Menace through Return Of The Jedi.

But did Artoo and Threepio necessarily witness the later events with such clarity?

No.  They did not.  Apart from traveling aboard the Millennium Falcon during Rey's search for Luke Skwyalker, Artoo went nowhere.  He had been in near-total shutdown for years prior to Rey and Finn's arrival.  And Threepio?  He certainly wasn't off on any cosmic adventure.  Not without his little blue buddy.  Threepio was just hanging around the Resistance base, in Leia's company.

It can be safely assumed that the true chronicle of that part of the Skywalker legend ended with Return Of The Jedi or thereabouts.

So does that mean the sequel trilogy is all trash?  Nope.  Not at all.

Because there was another droid who was witnessing those events.  From the first moments of The Force Awakens, BB-8 was an active and integral part of the sequel trilogy.  And we can rest assured that he chronicled as best he could the larger events around him.

The thing is, BB-8 might well be what is termed an "unreliable narrator".  And if he is sharing his knowledge with Artoo and Threepio (who go on to share it with the Whills) it may not be entirely accurate.  BB-8 is a plucky little droid but he seems confused at times.  Maybe he has a circuit burn out in his memory, as a friend has suggested.  Maybe he's just in way over his cute lil' head.  However it is, BB-8's accounting of history might be severely handicapped when compared to that of Artoo and Threepio.  Those two have a counterpart-level base of understanding.  They are check-summing and error-correcting each other.  BB-8 has no such advantage.  And so it is that, sadly, BB-8's recording of many details is spotty at best.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that BB-8's part in the chronicle is ALL bad.  In a general sense his chronicle is accurate.  And if he tells Artoo that Rey goes to Tatooine to bury Luke and Leia's sabers and that she assumes the Skywalker surname, we can be confident that's what really happened.

It also allows for a lot of leeway of interpretation.  Snoke?  He could have been "made" by Palpatine.  He could also have been some Dark Side shlub who existed long before Palpatine was even born (and The Last Jedi novelization indicates that he was).  Hyperspace travel?  That's BB-8's interpretation of what he was told by Rey and others.  The casino?  Okay we can take BB-8 at his word that's what happened.  There are dozens of elements of the sequel trilogy that defy logic... unless we can accept that they're being conveyed by an unreliable narrator.

I put it to the test.  I re-watched The Last Jedi and The Rise Of Skywalker, per my new paradigm.  And lo and behold it works.  It really, honestly works!  The sequel trilogy is much more palatable now.  After fanwanking my synapses to the breaking point trying to "suss it all out" with the problems of the final three movies, suddenly there is a silver bullet for it all.

But in a funny way, I can still accept the quirks and at times misfires of the sequel trilogy as being part and parcel with being true Star Wars films, even without having BB-8's flaws being the cause of it all.  Because in the end, Star Wars is a legend.  And legends are rarely if ever clean cut affairs.  They don't need to be, either.

It's just that it's nice now to have a reason to accept the sequels as belonging with the other six movies after all.

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FORCERY is fifteen years old!

It really does seem like just yesterday when we were slathering that fake blood all over Chad's legs, and making a springtime drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway look like blizzard in the Colorado mountains.  And turning a cousin's living room into Skywalker Ranch.  So much happened since then and yet, our cast and crew became a family that has endured.  More than endured even.  And for that, I'm thankful that this project got seen through to the end.

Yes, it has indeed been fifteen years since the release of Forcery: that Star Wars fanfilm parody of the Stephen King movie Misery.  I'd wanted it to be ready before Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith but it didn't quite make it.  Still, it was late May of 2005 when it was first unloaded onto the Internet and about a year or so later it was "serialized" (because of time restrictions at the time) onto YouTube.  And then everyone could behold the tale of George Lucas (Chad Austin) being held captive by Star Wars-obsessed uberfan Frannie Filks (Melody Hallman Daniel).

I will be the first to admit: it looks a little dated now.  We shot it with a couple of standard definition camcorders, and I did my best to color grade it to look more cinematic.  The car going off the road in the blizzard well... no doubt someone could CGI that easily today.  And there is one effect that I wish we could do over again because it would be ridiculously easy to fix and that's my faulte entirely.  Sometimes I wonder if it could have been edited better but again, that's on me.

All the same, quirks and all, Forcery was a little film that could.  And it made its way from the living room of a few friends' houses to the big screen and some bigtime media recognition.  Clips of Forcery were heavily featured in the acclaimed documentary The People vs. George Lucas and I've been told that some of it was even shown on Japanese television (which would be one of two times that this blogger's work has been on TV in the land of the rising sun... but I digress).  Knowing that's your lifelong best friend being projected onto the screen at Cannes: it was more than a little startling.  Like, "we did THAT?!?"

But most of all, Forcery was a binding and bonding experience for those who came together to make it happen.  It would take reams of virtual paper to chronicle all the good that came of it.  And I'm too infamous already for writing long stuff, but here's one example that took place a few years ago.  Know this though: that I am now and will forever be proud of the effort that so many made to turn this little film idea into a reality.  THEY are the ones who Forcery is accredited to, far more than it ever could be to me.

Anyhoo, Happy 15th Birthday to Forcery!  And if you want to see it right now now now, you're in luck!  You can watch it in fairly large scale via the Forcery page on this blog and some nice chap uploaded it to YouTube.  So strap yourself in and prepare for fifty-four minutes of a film that some said couldn't be done and others said should not have been done.  They don't count though (but that's another story :-P )

And one last bit of fun: I turned what is arguably the most-quoted line of dialogue from Forcery into an animated GIF.  Feel free to use it elsewhere :-)

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Forty years later and still the greatest...

Happy Fortieth Anniversary to Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, premiered May 17th, 1980 at the Kennedy Center and then wide release a few days later.

Now and probably for all time, the very best installment of the entire Star Wars film franchise.

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"The Honeybunnies", or: What if George Lucas had REALLY socked it to the fans?

An independent-minded scribe of stories wants nothing more than to produce the works that mean most to him.  And then one of his minor creations becomes a raging monster that takes control over almost every aspect of his life.  The fans won't leave him alone, they won't let him be free to find his own happiness.  And it's driving him insane...

Sound familiar?  Perhaps the tale of a certain plaid-flanneled filmmaker who made a small movie once upon a time but saw it instead become a franchise upon which fans pinned their hopes, their dreams, sometimes their entire meaning of life.  But alas!  It isn't George Lucas we're talking about here.  But it could be.

Way, waaaaay back in 1985 there was a new series on CBS called George Burns Comedy Week.  It didn't last very long and George Burns himself had very little to do with it apart from providing the intro to the show and lend his name.  It was something that had never been done before and to the best of my knowledge hasn't been attempted since: a humor anthology series.  Each episode was basically a short film by a different director, and they tended to have pretty good casts to them.  John Landis directed "Disaster at Buzz Creek" starring Don Knotts and Don Rickles.  Another memorable entry was "Christmas Carol II: The Sequel".  But the series only lasted thirteen weeks.  I dunno, maybe it was too ahead of its time or something.

So what does this have to do with George Lucas, and Star Wars?

One of the episodes of George Burns Comedy Weeek was "The Honeybunnies", starring Howard Hesseman a few years after his run on WKRP in Cincinnati.  Hesseman portrays a struggling playwright who only wants to see his work given a proper Broadway opening.  But that's not what is interesting the people around him.  They instead want his characters the Honeybunnies: a warren of pink anthropomorphic rabbits with cutsie names and dripping with saccharine sweetness.

He gives them the Honeybunnies.  And the Honeybunnies become a mega franchise spiraling out of control and derailing his own life and aspirations.  But the fans won't let him quit: they want their Honeybunnies and they don't care about anything else.

So what does our hero do?  He gives them the Honeybunnies in as big a way as possible, with their own motion picture.  And he freakin' MURDERS them before the fans' horrified eyes.

Can you imagine that being George Lucas, just finally sick and tired of Star Wars and then in the middle of Episode I the camera cuts to him telling everyone "Sorry folks, the franchise is over, get a life"?

It is HILARIOUS television and if "The Honeybunnies" wasn't produced with Lucas at least a little in mind, it will genuinely astonish me.  This seems to be a story tailor-made about his being the creator of a zillion-dollar franchise when he just wants to be an artist.  In fact, switch out the characters' names in this for those of Lucas and other real-life individuals and it practically DOES become the story of Star Wars if its creator decided he was going to honk off the fans once and for all in order to reclaim his life.

So without further ado, here in two parts found on YouTube is "The Honeybunnies":

"The Honeybunnies" Part 1

"The Honeybunnies" Part 2

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This is the way: "New Beskar Steel" wrapping for your iPhone!

Disclaimer: Adam Smith is a friend of mine.  He's not paying to advertise his product on The Knight Shift and I didn't ask for any compensation whatsoever either.  I'm only sharing this because... well, because it's kewl!  And sharing cool stuff is just how I roll on this blog.

Inspired by the hit Disney+ series Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Adam has forged the "New Beskar Steel" iPhone Case and Cover.  Imitating the much-coveted metal sought by the tribe and just about everybody else, the New Beskar Steel case looks like a real ingot of Mandalorian alloy.  And it will probably do just as well in protecting your iPhone from anything shy of an E-Web blaster cannon.  Complete with rich lustrous sheen and stamp indicating its previous imperialish possessor.  Admittedly it won't make for much of a full-metal pauldron but if you need a real pauldron anyway, you've got bigger problems.

The case is available for every model from the iPhone 4S on up through the latest iPhone 11.  Click here to visit the product page.  I have spoken.

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