Darth Plagueis the subject of upcoming Star Wars novel

The news has been out for a few days now but I'm just getting word from the official Star Wars website that James Luceno will be writing a new Star Wars novel that delves into the mystery of Darth Plagueis. I am tremendously looking forward to this book, for two reasons. The first is that it's being written by James Luceno (his most recent entry into the Star Wars mythos, Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader is a rollickin' good read about the early days of Vader's career). The second is that we are going to finally learn about Darth Plagueis: perhaps the most tantalizing subject raised by the prequels. Darth Plagueis, as revealed in Revenge of the Sith, was the Sith master of Darth Sidious. And supposedly his power was so great that he discovered a way to cheat death... until he was killed in his sleep by his apprentice.

I'm going to conjecture that Luceno is going to put Qui-Gon Jinn in this novel somewhere. Why do I think that? Because Luceno said in an interview awhile back that he'd love to examine how both Plagueis and Jinn, in their own separate ways, searched for immortality... but Jinn learned the right way to do it. Whatever it is he's got in store for us, expect the novel to come out in 2008.

Read More

CARS review

Cars is a movie that with each passing hour since we came out of seeing it (at 2:30 this afternoon and it's four hours later now), I'm finding myself loving it more and more. I definitely believe it's a far better movie than anything I went in expecting to see. Once I got over the initial shock of realizing that this entire little computer-animated universe was populated by talking cars and trucks and blimps and helicopters - with nary a human in sight - I settled in and just accepted it for its face value. And that being: just a sweet, fun flick with a lot of heart... maybe even more than anything else that Pixar has done so far.

This is definitely the best work that Pixar has done in the animation department. Now going on eleven years after Toy Story and the studio's digital handiwork has improved markedly (if it needed any at all). From the detail done to the cars to the blur of motion as they race down the track, amid a dizzying amount of beautiful scenery, Cars is a movie with an admittedly silly premise but good lord, it all looks so real! You know how some Pixar movies like Toy Story and The Incredibles has that "Toon-Town" look, that's very good animated but "obviously" animated? That's barely there in Cars at all, folks. And it doesn't look any better than when the action is going fast in this movie.

But what I really appreciate about Cars is the vocal talent, and it indicated to me that the Pixar crew has not only a great sense of casting, but respect as well. Owen Wilson is Lightning McQueen, the main car-acter. He's a hotshot rookiee racer gunning for the Piston Cup. And the first indication that this movie has real class came toward the end of the first race, when McQueen is in a three-way tie with two other cars: Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton) and a car painted a certain shade of blue with the number "43" on its sides, the car known as The King. And sure enough, The King is voiced by racing legend Richard Petty (that's Petty's wife Lynda doing the voice of Mrs. The King). Listen also for the voices of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip and Mario Andretti, among many others. The core cast is rounded out by tow-truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), Sally (Bonnie Hunt), Ramone (Cheech Marin), and what I thought was the grandest touch of all: Paul Newman playing Doc Hudson. Which if you know anything at all about Newman and his passion for racing you'll understand how appropriate this is.

Cars is a wonderful homage not only to the American culture of the car and racing, but also to the days gone by when driving wasn't so much about getting from here to there as fast as you can, but also about enjoying the ride along the way. This movie could have been titled Route 66 (which was its working title at one point) because this movie is very much a loving tribute to that legendary highway. Indeed, after the movie while we were driving around Greensboro it was enough to make me almost sneer in derision at the mighty I-40 that we drove over, which cuts a swath far into the west through Lord knows how much spectacular scenery with not a thought about any of it. Who knows what wonders are waiting to be re-discovered out there, somewhere along Route 66?

This is the second CGI-animated feature that I've seen in the past few weeks (the first being Over The Hedge), and they've both exceeded my expectations. Cars is definitely worth a drive down to the local cinema. By the way, stick around after the movie: there's one last scene tacked on after the end credits that's pretty funny (not to mention all the extra stuff the Pixar crew peppered the credits with).

Read More

New job

I started a new job this past week. But rather than say exactly what it is that I'm doing, I thought it would be more fun to let my readers try and figure out what it is that I've wound up doing this time. So here's the hint: I'm basically doing what this guy does, in very much the exact same kind of place...

Read More

DOCTOR WHO on Sci-Fi tonight: "The Parting of the Ways" as Eccleston bows out in style

"The extrapolator's working, we've got a fully functioning force-field. Try saying that when you’re drunk."

"Worship him! Worship him! Worship him!"

"I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape. And that's okay, hope it's a good death... Have a good life."

"He's fighting for us, this whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips!"

"You are the weakest link... goodbye!"

"**-***-***-***!!"

"Hail the Doctor: the Great Exterminator!"

"I am the Bad Wolf."

"I think you need a Doctor."

"Rose, before I go I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I!"

"Hello, I tremufu... hmmm, new teeth. That's weird. So where was I?"

This evening the Sci-Fi Channel wraps up its presentation of the first (or twenty-seventh, depending on how you look at it) season of Doctor Who here in the States with "The Parting of the Ways". At the same time Season 2/28 of Doctor Who is rolling on in Great Britain this weekend with "The Satan Pit", the conclusion of a two-part story that began with last week's "The Impossible Planet". That episode (the eighth with David Tennant as the Doctor) was classic Who-vian horror with a strong dash of everything from H.P. Lovecraft, the movie Event Horizon and a LOT of what can only be references to the videogame Doom. "The Impossible Planet" had me hooked so much that I had to re-watch it twice, and I'll be downloading "The Satan Pit" as soon as our British friends put it online tomorrow.

But as for Doctor Who in America, tonight belongs to Christopher Eccleston.

This is Eccleston's final performance as the Doctor: a portrayal that he brought just about everything to but especially a personality that was as manic as it was magnetic. After just one season, I think he easily became my personal favorite Doctor. It would have been terrific (or maybe I should say "Fantastic!") to have seen him go an extra season or two, but I'll be thankful for what we did get to see of Eccleston in the role. He'll forever be known as the man who brought the Doctor back into the public conscience. And tonight, he gets to leave in a fashion truly fitting the Doctor, as our hero prepares to face down thousands of his old enemy, the Daleks. Expect some mysteries to be revealed tonight, especially the whole "Bad Wolf" thing that has followed the Doctor and Rose throughout this season. The final scene is something of a tear-jerker, as Christopher Eccleston undergoes the time-honored Doctor Who tradition and regenerates into the new Doctor (David Tennant). All told, some darned fine television tonight at 9 P.M. on Sci-Fi.

Read More

First official piece of TRANSFORMERS art

At this point, I'll remain cautiously optimistic about this movie. But this first teaser poster really has me hoping for good things come next July...

Click image for larger view

Read More

YOU'RE PITIFUL: "Weird Al" Yankovic releases new song as free download!

"Weird Al" Yankovic is supposed to have a new album coming out sometime soon (what he calls "record label politics" kept it from having a June release). But in the meantime, Al is whetting everyone's appetite for what's to come with "You're Pitiful", a parody of the James Blunt song "You're Beautiful". And... Weird Al has made "You're Pitiful" an absolutely FREE MP3 that you can download from his website!! I finished downloading it a little while ago, after it took an hour to retrieve on a broadband connection (Al's servers must be getting slammed right now... maybe this file could be torrented?). But if you have to wait a while, "You're Pitiful" is well worth it 'cuz this is one very funny song! Not to mention the first new Al song in three years. It helps if you've heard Blunt's original, 'cuz Al pokes a lot of fun at "You're Beautiful"'s style (like how Al starts off the song).

If "You're Pitiful" is an indication of what's to come, I think it's safe to say that the art of Al has only gotten better with time. Can't wait for the new album (which reportedly also features a parody of "We Are The World" called "Don't Download This Song"). In the meantime, head over to Al's official site and check out "You're Pitiful" and prepare to laugh a lot :-)

(Oh yeah, I found the "You're Pitiful" faux cover art at Yankovic!)

UPDATE 9:56 PM EST: The official Weird Al site is hosed but BAD!! So many people are trying to get the song that the site is erratic in coming up at all. Fortunately some Al fan sites - notably Al-oholics Anonymous and We've Got It All On UHF have been given permission to mirror "You're Pitiful". So try downloading the song here or here or here or here or here or here, or here if all else fails!

Read More

Al-Zarqawi is dead... so now what?

You've probably heard already Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the real top dog in the Al-Quaeda organization, was killed earlier today in an air raid. This was the guy who was apparently planning and coordinating a lot of the attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers.

Great, we nailed a bad guy. One of the biggest terrorist ringleaders even.

So... when does the "War on Terror" stop?

When do we go back to the America we had before 9-11, when our government didn't run roughshod over the Constitution in the name of "safety and security"? I mean, with Al-Zarqawi out of the picture, there's no more need for anything like our government spying on its own citizens, right? right?

**crickets chirping**

Let's just state the truth of the matter: the "war on terror" is never going to end. It's not supposed to end. It is the perfect example of Orwell's "continuous war", where the state will always have to produce a hobgoblin for its people to fear. Al-Zarqawi has been the big hobgoblin of the past few years. I'm glad that he's gone, if he indeed was doing all of these terrible things... but realistically that only means our government is going to produce another one just like him, and none too soon.

The "war on terror" was the greatest gift that believers in big government ever received. And in spite of today's events, there's no indication that they are going to relinquish that gift in the slightest anytime soon.

Read More

Alan Keyes tells George W. Bush: "We don't trust you!"

I voted for Alan Keyes in two primary elections when I was registered Republican. Keyes was the only person in a presidential race that I felt completely comfortable with giving my support to. Somewhere on my hard disks I've still got a picture I made in early 2000 of Keyes as a Jedi Master: it wound up getting shown to him and it got reported back to me that he got a big laugh out of it.

He wasn't going to be allowed to be the Republican front-runner though... not by the party bosses who really pick and choose who the candidates are going to be, who decide which ones get the media exposure and the big big money. Keyes would have been too great a threat to their power structure.

But in spite of that, Alan Keyes is still showing America that he's a man of principle. Someone with that doesn't need high office or material wealth or elitist approval to make a difference for the better. And once again Keyes is proving that by coming out against the atrocious border policies of President Bush and too many others in this government. Here's the speech Keyes made a few days ago at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Minutemen movement in Arizona. I like this part especially:

"Well, we're taking care of having to deal with the problem of millions of people who have come into this country as a result of the dereliction of duty of these political elites. And they wish us to accept what they told us in '86 and '94 and every time they turned around: 'Trust us! Trust us! Trust us!' I think we need to send them a good, clear, strong message: 'We don't trust you anymore!'

And I want to say it outright. I'm a Republican... but it's about time that we look G.W. Bush in the eye and tell him, 'We don't trust you, either!'

It's hard to argue with Keyes on this at all. The Republicans have been on a roll since the 1994 elections, and they were supposed to have more political capital "to get things done" in the last two presidential elections. Well, what good has it done them? What benefit to the American people has really come out of their being in power? No, I'm not shilling for the Democrats at all: they're just as bad if not worse. But really: why should we trust the Republicans and George W. Bush in particular? What reason have they given us to trust them?

On another note, there are several pictures from the Minutemen event that Keyes was at on the above-linked website, including several taken by Connie Hair, Minutemen publicist and longtime associate of Dr. Keyes. Miss Hair is without a doubt one of the classiest and most thought-provoking ladies that I've ever been given the opportunity to have met, having done so on several occasions. Am really delighted to see her in the middle of the action, as she so very often is :-)

Read More

6-6-6

Today is 62nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. Today is also, by a quirk of the calendar, abbreviated as 06-06-06: six-six-six, the number of the beast according to the Book of Revelation. The number that is supposed to identify the Anti-christ that will arise in the end times.

In my junior year of high school I was assigned locker #666. I opened it several times a day and there were no scenes of Dante's Inferno lurking in there that I ever saw (there was a lot of other junk though but that's neither here nor there). There've been a few times that when I buy something in a story it rings up $6.66. At least twice the cashiers have tried to give me a penny back so it won't be exactly that amount. I always tell them to keep it: to me, it's just a number that falls between 665 and 667. It's got no more special significance or power over me than any other number does.

And today is just another day. It's not even a really sequential numerical, because before it there would have had to be 665 days from the start of the year and followed by 667. Thank goodness the year only has 365 days, I guess. But some of the hysteria about today (one woman in England wanted her doctor to induce labor because the due date on her baby is today and she didn't want it associated with the devil's number) is positively mind-boggling. You'd have thought we as a civilization would be past such nonsense as numerology.

Well, whatever 666 really is in biblical prophecy, however it fits into what's supposed to happen, I doubt this day out of all days has anything to do with it. The only thing really abominable that I've heard is happening on this day at all is the remake of The Omen: a movie that I've heard nothing but bad about. Give me the original version anyday (which for the longest time has been something of a comedy for me, but that's another story...).

Read More

Long live EVERWOOD (while 7th HEAVEN begs for merciful death)

Our TV was tuned in to the final episode of Everwood this evening. Which I never watched as an avid viewer but Lisa's always loved this show, so I watched it with her. One of the classier shows on television, from what I've come to know of it. It's been on the WB Network and was supposed to be carried over next season when that network and UPN combine into the CW... but then the "series finale" of 7th Heaven got big ratings so the suits decide to give that show its eleventh season. Which is an unconscionable act of human cruelty if you ask me. Some shows deserve long runs: M*A*S*H somehow stretched a two-year war into eleven seasons but stayed good and went out on top. 7th Heaven is probably the most anemic hour-long drama in recent memory... something that needs to be shot and put out of its misery. Good shows like Everwood deserve to go for at least five or six seasons, and then retire when nothing else needs to be said. As it is it's going too soon. The execs at CW are making a horrible mistake by not letting it continue at the cost of hideous new life for 7th Heaven. Well, there's a few online petitions going on to save the show, and they've worked before so maybe there'll be hope for Everwood yet.

Read More

King James Onlyism is a Gnostic heresy

I've been meaning to state that for a while.

Some people may not know what I'm talking about. It's this: the belief among a lot of Christians that we are only supposed to use the Authorized Version of 1611 – more commonly known as the King James Version – of the Bible as our text. They further believe that it's a dire sin to use any version of the Bible other than King James.

(For the record, I use the New International Version in my personal study, but 99% of the time when I'm writing something and need to quote scripture, I will use the King James Version… if for no other reason than because it's classier to use a time-tested masterpiece of the English language, despite some problems in it that have been addressed by modern scholarship.)

Here's what I think: some Christians put too much faith in an earthly incarnation of the Word of God, and contend too much for the sanctity of that incarnation, instead of meditating upon the meaning of the Word itself. Instead of letting themselves be changed by the Word of God, they desire to have the Word as something that they can wield as a tool, or a weapon, to be used against the things and even people of this temporal realm.

In other words, some Christians are imbuing the King James Version of the Bible with a power that it does not have and never was supposed to have, on the sheer basis of its linguistics and structure. To them, it's not the truth that is conveyed by the words, but which exact words are used and how they are ordered that is what is more important.

This belief in the complete inerrancy and superiority of the King James Bible above all others is something very much based in one of the most enduring tenets of Gnostic thought: that things of matter can be given power. Indeed, power is the only driving motive behind King James Onlyism and the lust to destroy the credibility of other versions of the Bible. In doing so these Christians have taken the living Word and made it as something sterile, diminishing utterly its power of spiritual nourishment.

I may write more about this later, but I felt led to share that thought here for some reason or another. If anyone disagrees with my sentiment on this, they're more than welcome to make a comment to this post. I won't delete anyone who disagrees with me (unless the comment crosses the line away from common decency).

Read More

Bush's illegals blind man's dog with pepper spray

Awright, THIS is the kind of story that gives me no compassion at all for the illegals entering this country over the Mexican border. Some of them crossed into a guy's land and permanently blinded his dog with pepper spray.

These are the same ones that President Bush is telling us to have compassion toward, the ones he's pushing to grant amnesty for.

This country is being invaded from the south. Hell, 10% of the entire Mexican population is in the United States right now. How the hell does this President get away with calling himself a "homeland security" Commander in Chief when he does NOTHING about our southern border and lets this kind of thing happen to REAL Americans?

President Bush doesn't care one damn whit about you or me, my fellow Americans. And as for the illegals coming over and doing this sort of thing, I'd recommend the following: fire one shot over their heads as a warning, and another between their eyes to take them down if they take one step more over the line. Let the Mexicans take charge over their own country: it's more than enough for us to manage our own.

Read More

It's the big "Bad Wolf": Penultimate Eccleston episode of DOCTOR WHO tonight on Sci-Fi

"You have GOT to be kidding."

-- The Doctor, "Bad Wolf"

Just a reminder for American fans of Doctor Who that the Sci-Fi Channel tonight will be running "Bad Wolf", the next-to-last episode of Christopher Eccleston's all-too-short run as the Doctor.

The less said about this episode to the uninitiated, the better. Definitely one of the best of the Eccleston episodes. From the opening moments when the camera is spinning madly while focused on the Doctor unconscious on the floor, this one is outrageous as all get out. Doctor Who during its long run has done just about every genre imaginable - from sci-fi to horror to western to everything in between - except the musical. Well, tonight they add one more notch to the belt: the reality game show! Want a taste of what's to come? That's Anne Robinson herself doing the voice of "the Anne Droid" on The Weakest Link of 200,000 A.D.! Definitely to be recommended if you're an American fan who's just now able to see the revived Doctor Who and it's an absolutely must-see before Eccleston takes his bow in next week's "The Parting of the Ways".

Read More

"Chipping" immigrants? Don't go there...

To say that I'm against this runaway illegal immigration is to put it all too mildly. Nonetheless, I find this proposal to be something beyond the scary: the head of VeriChip wants to implant his company's RFID tracking microchips into all incoming immigrants and foreign workers.

No doubt he sees a lucrative market here: putting VeriChips into all those people will make the company billions of dollars.

Here's the real danger from where I sit: how long after imposing this on immigrants is this going to be expected that all normal American citizens be "chipped"? "For our own good" of course.

Are we willing to alleviate one serious problem by taking the first step down a very slippery slope toward something that would be altogether worse?

Dear friends, it's not your average American people that are messing up this country. It's a very disproportionately tiny group of individuals in government and political parties and the media and corporations like VeriChip, that are destroying everything that was once good and true in this land. They do nothing to sincerely help their fellow man out of compassion, but they will not fail to act when they discover some new means of shackling and controlling their brother.

Remember: you are not a number. You are not a piece of meat that lives only to spend and consume and screw and die. You have a soul... something that too many in this world would deny you sentience of that fact.

I for one will never relent to being "chipped". As for Scott Silverman, the president of VeriChip: might I suggest that he have his company's largest model firmly embedded far up his own ass.

Read More

No "retirement" after 25 years: BLADE RUNNER getting new DVD and theatrical cut

Funny, 'cuz I was just thinking of Blade Runner the other day. It came while going through some things and I found my old copy of the Blade Runner computer game that Westwood Studios released in 1997. Very good game if you can track it down: it seriously pulls you into the world created by the movie. You even get to run the Voight-Kampf test on suspected replicants.

Anyway, Blade Runner is one of my all-time favorite movies, from the time I first saw it in 1992. I've got the original DVD release but I've never been all that happy with how skimpy it is on extra features... like, there are none. The production of Blade Runner and all the elements at work in this story are just too rich to leave unexplored in a medium that welcomes that like DVD. Plus, I've seen both versions of Blade Runner: the original 1982 one that has Harrison Ford's narration and the 1992 "director's cut" (which may have been the very first-ever "special edition" of any movie) and the DVD we have now is only the 1992 version. I happen to like both cuts for various reasons.

Well, today has been a good day for Blade Runner fans: it's been announced that the 1992 director's cut is being re-issued on DVD this fall, followed by director Ridley Scott releasing "the final cut" of Blade Runner in 2007 for the movie's 25th anniversary. The 1992 edition will hit shelves this September, then be on sale for four months before being pulled, after which this "final cut" will be released in theaters. I'm guessing this edition will include some deleted material (like the scene where Deckard visits Holden in the hospital, among others). Following the cinematical run, Blade Runner will be released on DVD again, this time in a pack that will include all three versions of Blade Runner: the 1982 narrated original, the 1992 director's cut and the 2007 version, along with tons of supplemental material.

What else can be said, but that it's a great time to be a Blade Runner fan! Maybe someday someone will figure out that the world of Blade Runner would make an awesome massive-multiplayer online role-playing game where we pay to be either blade runners or replicants or civilians... heck I'd pay 15 bucks for that! Or at least give us an updated version of the original computer game.

Read More

North Carolina finally gets a real lottery today

I never thought this day would come, not in a million years. But, here we are: Starting today you can buy tickets for the Powerball lottery here in North Carolina. We've actually had the lottery since March 30th, when the scratch-off tickets went on sale. But today marks the first time ever that a real numbers racket has been allowed to operated in this state. Who knows, maybe one of us will get lucky and become a multi-zillionaire off this thing.

Read More

Star Wars Celebration the FOURTH coming next May

As a grizzled veteran of two Star Wars Celebrations, I'll vouch for how fun these things are. So I'm glad to hear that Star Wars Celebration IV has just been announced for May 24-28, 2007: encompassing the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie (before it was called A New Hope).

Next year's event is going to be in Los Angeles, which may be a little too far for me to go (depends on some factors. We'll see... I've never been that far west before so this would make a first time experience for me if I did :-).

Now, last year Lisa and I attended Celebration III in Indianapolis and we saw a lot of kooky stuff, including what was almost a near-bloody riot breaking out after they closed the souvenir store that Friday after only being open for an hour and a half!! 'Twas one of the STUPIDEST decisions I've ever seen enacted by anyone in the history of anything. Well, listen to this from the official announcement:

One of the highlights for fans at a Star Wars convention is the chance to buy unique merchandise, including an exclusive, limited-edition action figure. Because this has led to bottlenecks and long lines in the past, the Celebration IV store will be bigger than ever, self-service, well-stocked with merchandise, have plenty of check-out lanes...and be open 24 hours a day from the opening of the show on Thursday until the close on Monday!

I'll believe it when I see it, if I wind up going.

THIS part puts a damper on my hopes though...

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gen Con LLC will throw the largest party ever for fans of the saga...

I heard from too many people at last year's Celebration that Gen Con was the reason so many things went SNAFU. Compared to Celebration II - when the Lucasfilm crew was managing everything - Celebration III left a lot to be desired. One thing in particular from last year's show still leaves me cringing in disgust... count me as one of those pinning it on Gen Con. I said it before: they can run role-playing game conventions, but not serious sci-fi/fantasy shows (and that ain't a knock on the good people in the Dungeons & Dragons crowd at all, mind ya). It's just that some things require whole different logistics than others, and in last year's case Gen Con wasn't on the ball. But, everyone deserves a second chance to make things right, so maybe they'll learn from last year's mistakes and hit this one out of the park next year. I wish 'em all the best.

So get ready for five days of incessant Starwargasms next year, fellow fans of the saga. Which may be another reason for me to avoid it next year: four days of it nonstop last year left me dead tired by the time I got home :-)

Read More