Andrew Rilston was Right, I was Wrong!

Rey is clearly Leia's doughtier.

And just in case you think I bought that "reveal",  no I am not being sarcastic.

First Thoughts on The Last Jedi

There is a nice little 120 min Star Wars movie in there...unfortunately you have to wade through half an hour of pointless stupidity to get to it.

Who is The Last Jedi?

Is it Luke, Rey, Finn, or perhaps Osoka Tono?
I think it is probably Luke. I do not think Rey or Finn become Jedi. To understand why, we must ask why Luke is on Auck-To. Conventional foolishness suggests that he is there just moping around, depressed that Kylo destroyed his new generation of Jedi. However I think this is problematic; First, it would be very out of character for Luke to just mope around wile the galaxy goes to the dark side, and if he just wanted some hermetic place to mope around, there must have been at least a few billion such places in the galaxy that did not have a map leading to them.
Luke is at the first Jedi temple because he is looking for something…looking? Or perhaps found something he has hum?
There is a set photo from Pinewood studios, where TLJ is being filmed; showing an enormous set of an island similar to the one Rey finds Luke on the end of TFA. However, instead of steps leading up to a Jedi temple, they lead up to a large dead, or perhaps dormant, Tree. It is hard to imagine building such an enormous set for an inconsequential scene. The tree must be important. Could it be the very embodiment of the living Force itself? Dormant for eons since the Force first went out of balance? Is Rey there to heal it with the cyber crystal shard she found in the basement of an old woman with peculiar eye sight? Well, that might be a bit blatantly plagiaristic even for Star Wars, but I think we may be on the right track.
The original trilogy was a morality story about a farm boy who seeks connect with his dead father, finds out he is actually alive but evil, and strives to bring him back to good side. As such, Return of the Jedi was a good end to the story; with everything on a trajectory for happily ever after with Luke reconstituting the Jedi order.
The prequels, however, did not introduce Anakin as an unusually strong, idealist, crusading Jedi, who happened to fall to the dark side; but rather a long prophesied Chosen One, messiah figure destine to bring balance to the Force. At first this just seemed like narrative larceny - using unearned mythological language to make one of the characters seem more important than he is - as Anakin does not follow and discernable Chosen One arc (he is really just an above average Jedi, who happens to be at the right place at the right time), and no one seems to have any real notion of how exactly he is supposed to bring balance to the Force. Obi Wan does suggest that the chosen One was to "destroy the Sith", but if that is the case, someone really should have told Mace Windo, who, when going to confront a suspected Sith lord specifically did not take Anakin with him (I know, would that that were the worst problem with the prequels). Anakin did, of course, eventually destroy the Sith when he gave Sheave the shaft at the of ROTJ, but did that bring balance? It is difficult to see how this could be the case as all he really did with this was restore the status quo from the beginning of Ep.I, with the Jedi in the midst of an apparent millennial hegemony with the Sith thought to be extinct. Yet it was in this state that the Jedi were looking foreword to the coming Chosen One bringing balance. Also messiah figures don’t generally come to make minor repairs or cleanout one little problem. They typically come to bring a complete metamorphosis, a total transformation, tearing down the whole house to build a new one in its place.
So if we are to take the "balance" story arc seriously ROTJ can no longer be an adequate end, enter the ST. The first dialog of TFA (after a three movie hiatus) connects back to the balance arc with words  "without the Jedi there can be no balance" - words that will likely turnout to be ironic - so now the saga is one big balance mythos. Now the gold standard for the balance mythos in film, as I alluded to earlier, is The Dark Crystal (although if you prefer a 40 minuet version of the mythos, check out Star Trek: The Enemy Within). In the Dark Crystal the Skeksis are unquestionably the bad guys and the Mystics are the good ones. However, the mystics do not seek to overthrow the Skeksis and rule in Mystic hegemony, but rather the Mystics realize that both they themselves as well as the Skeksis must cease to be in order for the truly balanced being to return and insure in a new golden age. The prophesied catalyst for this were the gelflings, a male and female (gender balance is a common motif in the balance mythos). The male gelfling, though razed by the mystics was distinct from them as they realized that his destiny lay along a different path from theirs. The female gelfling knew nothing of the mystics and was raised by adoptive parents in another part of the world (sound familiar?) So in this analogy Anakin would initially be the catalyst destined to not only bring about end of the Sith but the Jedi as well, in order to make way for a new balanced order to bring a new golden age to the galaxy. So what happened? Well, the Mystic analogs in this case, the Jedi, like typical established elites of the currant system, failed to grasp the true purpose of the catalyst/messiah figure (a prophecy that misread could have been?) and instead ended up trying to co-opt and even undermine him by training him to be a Jedi against the counsel of their oldest and wisest member. Why did they think he was meant to be a Jedi? At least partly because Qui Gon thought "finding him was the will of the Force". But wait, Qui Gon did not find Anakin, Padme did. So perhaps the Force thought it was more important for Anakin to get involved with Padme than the Jedi? What were the fruits of Anakins involvement with Padme? As I recall it was twin children, a male and female, and the fruits Anakins involvement with the Jedi? A few decades of galactic tyranny and bloodshed...hum. It actually seems that the person who may have come the closest to putting Anakin on the right track was actually chancellor Pallpatien, when he told him to "embrace a larger view of the Force". It seems rather ironic that though Yoda harped on the dark siders for "spreading lies, deceit" and "creating mistrust", it actually the Jedi who seemed to need interesting "points of view" to justify their words, while the Sith lords seem to be the ones who just tell it like it is.
Moving on to the OT, the Mystic analogs are down to just Obi Wan and Yoda, with Luke and Leia as the catalyst. So how did they make the same mistake again? It is noteworthy that Obi Wan just told Luke to "learn about the Force" becoming a Jedi was actually Luke's idea, and Obi Wan's expression when he announced it was anything but ecstatic. Still, they did train Luke as a Jedi, caped by Yoda's now enigmatic last words "when gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be". In any case they apparently did not have access to whatever Luke has found on Auch-To. Which brings us to the ST. Luke is now the lone Mystic analog with Rey the winged gelfling (but don’t worry, I am sure she has a male counterpart) and now Luke has the whole picture of what must be done to bring the balance, but not by a Jedi. Rey and her cousin will be the catalyst, to finish what their grandfather started.

Rant One – A Star Wars…something

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
 “Who ordered that”, I ask myself after watching Lucasfilms latest Star Wars offering, Rogue One. I mean Rant One – A Star Wars…somethingwe do have a definitive pronunciation of “Whills” now (nothing on AT-AT though) but was that worth a whole movie?  I just wonder if there were any people coming out of the cinemas in 77 saying, “you know what I would really like to see now, a movie about those rebel spies – the ones that stole the plans to the Death Star during the Rebels’ first victory over the evil galactic empire.” … Victor? Victory did you say? Ok, lets see; the Rebels lost one capital warship, several support vessels, a few landing craft (with troops) and a full squadron of X-wings, against the Empire’s loss of two capital warships and a somewhat significant base on the planet – I guess that counts as a “victory”, but given the relative resources of each side, a few more Rebel “victories” like that one and the Imperials wont need the Death Star.  
The story of Galen Erso and his daughter, and how he intentionally designed the weakness the Rebels eventually end up exploiting, into the Death Star was ok. But it was more or less relegated to the background, while the fan-boy fest-o-gasm waltzed across the screen like a special addition dinosaur. Could someone please tell me what Bevis and Butthead were doing in this movie? They totally strike me as the kind of devout Force followers who would be on Jeda in the first place. Not to mention, if I had the death sentence on twelve systems I would of course hang out in a city under imperial occupation – full of check points, curfews and lockdowns - I mean where else would I go? Then there is R2 and 3PO just hanging out at the Yaven base for no apparent reason except to disrupted the continuity between Ep. III (where the last line of dialog was spoken by C-3PO on the Titan V) and Ep. IV (where the first line of dialog is spoken by C3PO on the Titan V). But we don’t actually get to see all of them, they were cut off at the knees for some reason…rather like IG8 not being able to complete the traditional “I have a bad feeling about this” line, and none of the familiar motifs in the score being completed. Perhaps they thought it would make the movie too “Star Warsy”., since it is not an episode after all. Fair enough, but then why put it in there at all? Why go half way? Prior to the movie’s release, there was a bit of consternation among some fans about the news that the movie would not have an opening scroll. But surely all can agree that that is better than having a scroll that ended mid sentence half way through the second paragraph? And just in case we needed one last reminder that it was not a Star Wars movie, human dialog ten seconds from the closing credits (personally, I do not think we needed that).
Oh, and there is also Darth Vader’s castle, built on top of a giant volcano (which I would think would be the last place Darth Vader would want to build his castle),  I am sure it will be significant in some future movie, but served no real purpose in this one. Darth Vader himself was rather shoehorned in to this movie, as its main focuses are power politics and constructing a technological terror – neither of which are Vader’s forte – they are much more Pallpatien’s gig (and last I checked Ian McDermott is still alive and well) but I guess Sheave is not as powerful when it comes to selling T-shirts and coffee mugs so Jones got the call. And what was the point of that ridiculous chase scene at the end?  I mean besides giving the fanboys their lightsaber/telekinesis fix. Was there really any reason for Vader to go lone wolf?  This was not a confrontation with his old master or checking out some potential new Jedi threat. These were just some rebel soldiers; why not let a squad or two of stormtroopers handle them? And if he is going use telekinesis to toss guys around the cabin and pull weapons out of their hands, why does he not just pull the guy holding the Death Star plans over to him? I guess because then David Powers would be retroactively out of a job.  
And, of course, there is CGI Tarken. Now, it does make sense for Tarken to be in this movie, however, he was not really necessary, and it is a bit ironic that as TFA made an overt effort to return to the practical effects of the old days, its successor is now using CGI to portray the most fundamental element in storytelling since humans have been telling stories, namely the human person. Though it has been a quarter century since scientists developed the technology to bring dinosaurs extinct for millennia back to life on the big screen, and that technology is now being used on humans, Dr. Cramner’s observation is more relevant than ever - “they were so obsessed with whether they could, they forgot to ask whether they should”. The answer to the last question is now clearly a resounding No.
May Carrie Fisher rest in peace, Not in pixels.      
                                                                                                                                                                                     aJ,

The Host with the Boast

Mark Levin likes to boast that his radio talk show is the most substantive of the genre, and by and large he has a point. However, when it comes to his trite and tedious apologetic for the Electoral College (one which he apparently shares with his comrade at Hillsdale) I must say, I was very disappointed.  It is the same one that has been making the rounds at least sense I was in the fifth grade. Supposedly, according to this theory, the founders came up with the Electoral College as a means of keeping the presidency from becoming the plaything of a few large population centers, and including a larger sampling of the American constituency in the process.  Excuse me, but where are they getting this?

“Oh, well, you see, in Federalist something something Hamilton clearly thought that pig farmers in Iowa should pick the President…” 

 Umm, yah, I don’t think so. Why would the founders be concerned about the presidency being monopolized by major population centers when, at the time of the founding, America’s rural population dwarfed its urban population? Such a concern would have been further mollified by the fact that many states only gave the vote to landowners. But supposing for the sake argument that the founders did want to thwart major population centers, such as we have today, from having plenary influence on presidential elections, the Electoral College was certainly not a consistently effective way of doing that. The current configuration of  “swing states” scattered hither and yon across the American landscape with relatively few of the first order population centers in the mix, is a fairly coincidental and probably transitory set of circumstances. It could just as easily have transpired that; Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Texas, California and Washington were the swing states with all those in-between being firmly in one camp or the other. Who would bother to campaign outside the major population centers then?  Hint, nobody.  On the other hand if the founders had decided to have the President elected by a “national popular vote”, yet statistics showed that urbanites were recalcitrant in their voting habits but voters in rural areas were easily swayed, it would be the rural areas that receive the lion’s share of the attention. The bottom line is, politicians will go where ever they have to to get the votes they need. In a dynamic situation any attempt to “fix” the system to favor/protect a given group will be transitory at best.  

Now it is true that states with fewer people have a higher per-capita number of electoral votes, but even so it is not always rural states that reap this benefit. In fact, in the east, the smaller states are basically just smaller slices of the vast coastal urbia. If we were drawing the lines today we would probably just make Delaware part of Maryland and perhaps not feel the need for two Dakotas, on the other hand California, Texas and even Florida could probably be made into multiple states each. However, even though it is constitutionally permissible to combine and divide states, the last time we did so over half a million people died, so perhaps we should stick with the map we have. In this map few stats are purely urban or purely rural but rather some mixture of the two.

So dispensing with talk radio’s argument of third grade drivel (that’s right, I said it! or rather typed it) let us look for a moment at the real reason for the Electoral College – it is an elegant reason…from a more civilized age. It is of course Federalism. That’s right Federalism.

                         Fed-er-al-ism

Federalism is the principle that we are a federation of sovereign states rather than districts of a national unity government or provinces of an evil continental empire. Federalism has been under attack from nationalist and imperial forces for over a century but elections; with the over arching backbone of the Electoral College remains one of federalism’s last real strongholds. Although there have been some constitutionally mandated universal expansions to the franchise, states continue to hold fundamental control over their own elections – something that is inherently foundational to any form of self governance. However, if states are truly to have control over their elections they must be insulated from the influence of other states, and to this end the Electoral College is an ingenious interment. If Wyoming wishes to give women the vote, the other states have nothing to complain about as they still have only the electorals they are entitled to under the Constitution to do with as they see fit. This same principle holds true for; felons in Virginia, illegals in California and aliens New Mexico. States are also free to keep the polls open late or not, indulge in early voting or not, as they see fit. A state could even let children vote if in wanted to. Since none of these things has any affect on anyone in any other state.

Some like to talk about the “national popular vote”, but this is simply a media fiction. There can be no national popular vote because there is no national voting standard. But if there were such a thing, we might all be highly suspicious of California taking two weeks to count their votes when the other states took less than two days. Fortunately, thanks to the Electoral College, its nobody else’s business what they were really doing for those two weeks. As far as I am concerned, California can keep counting their votes until next election if they like – federalism, it is a beautiful thing.       

The New Look Disney Princess and the Feminization of Star Wars

As I sat in the theater the trepid anticipation seemed to grow with each passing minute.   The Battlefront commercial (the one with the original R2-D2 action figure - clearly a retro nostalgia commercial for those of us who want to relive our childhood) distracted for a moment, but afterward the reminder only made it worse.

Ever since I heard that Disney had obtained the franchise I had been wondering how the film would open. Would we see the magic kingdom, perhaps with stars twinkling in the background, and a rendition of "when you wish upon a star" spilling over into the Luckasfilm screen. In another universe perhaps that might be cute, but not in this one, Gemini Cricket has no place in this movie. Then after many trailers, silly enough to be annoying but not interesting enough to be distracting came the feature presentation screen. I took a deep breath. But there was no magic kingdom, no Tinkerbelle waving her wand no wistful strands, no sound at all. then in the silence, as if from a dark primordial mist came the Luckasfilm icon. Then the blue words, silent as always but seeming somehow different with no sound coming before them. At last came the stars and the fan fair. I sighed, we're home. 

In time this new opening will seem normal as more episodes come on line. No doubt eventually the original opening will seem quaint, a manifest relic of the twentieth century. Rather like myself, and a movie I liked as a child...a movie called Star Wars. It was an elegant motion picture, for a more civilized age.

It has been thirty-nine years now since that movie first hit theaters. In many ways it is remarkable how little has changed since then, at least in the area of human space travel and general culture...or the lack there of. Thirty-nine years in the other direction and it is quite a different story. If we do that we find ourselves in a time when man had not yet sent a single item into orbit nor flown a craft past the speed of sound, jet propulsion was still highly experimental and the "old" aerial combat footage Lucas used to previsualize the Deathstar assault had yet to be shot. And it was in almost all ways more civilized.

It was a time when the modern motion picture was just beginning to immerge - the sound track was still fairly new, and color more novel still. Into this time came a film with full score and vivid color and featuring a delightful heroin happily doing menial domestic chores in ragged peasant clothes while cheerfully singing of the day her prince would come for her. I am of course referring to Snow White, who, even before captain Rogers took the super soldier serum to become the first Avinger, was the first Disney princess. Disney has thrived on princess stories ever after.

 Snow White was actually a quality movie which pretty much everybody could enjoy, many of her successors unfortunately, not so much. however, Disney's twenty-first century renaissance did embody a serious campaign to expand beyond the juvenile chick flick mill the company had degenerated into. Captain Jack Sparrow and his Pirates of the Caribbean led the charge...the first movie was ok, the rest were just plain bad. Then they acquired Marvel and its impressive MCU - an epic weave of stories and characters, an immensely satisfying journey I have no doubt for anyone nerdy enough to actually know which order to watch the movies in...an achievement I cannot personally clam at the moment. Then came the crown jewel of entertainment, Gorge Lucas' Lucasfim and its coveted Star Wars franchise.

Gorge Lucas was not very good at female characters. This is not really a problem as long as you do not focus on them too much or have too many of them. The OT basically just had Leia (Mon Mothma is in a total of one scene and aunt Brue is pretty much just a generic mom) and after dumping the plans into R2 she was mostly just a football. Kasner, Ford and Fischer cooked up a romance, but mostly it was up to hair, wardrobe and John Williams to express Leia's femininity. In the PT Padme had a bit more company; Shmi took the place of Beru but had more dialog, there was Padme's bodyguard (whatever her name was),  and I guess the librarian, and young Brue (did she actually even say any thing?), young Mon Mothma actually had two scenes in ROTS  - unfortunately they were both cut to make room for footage of Obi Wan and Grievous battling it out on a unicycle and giant iguana,  and then there is Shaak Ti (the only female Jedi who actually got to say something) yes, she got to apologize on her knees just before Grievous killed her with her own lightsaber - I don’t know Rey, bar is pretty high there - mercifully her scene was cut as well.

Naturally when Disney took possession of all things Star Wars it seemed like an obvious win/win, Lucasfilm would help the magic kingdom manup it image wile uncle Walt would help the galaxy far far away with its girl problem. Well, it sort of worked. First I would like to say that an old wise woman was long overdo and though Maz is no Galadriel, she works well enough. A girl droid is also a nice touch, and yes BB-8 is a girl - I mean come on, you cannot get more yonic than a ball. As for Captain Phasma? Well, Disney does like its villainesses, but this one...let us just call her a work in progress. The female first order officers and the spy in Maz's castle, ok what ever. Female stormtroopers? Ya, ya, I know, the first order is so egger to swell their ranks they will stop at nothing...blah blah what ever. Come on, were there really a lot girls out there that were having trouble connecting with Star Wars because of the lack of female stormtroopers? I don’t think so. Need this we did not...unless it is the last episode of Pinky and the Brain...Hello Nurse! 

But of course, what every one spends most of their time talking about is the new heroin. Many in fact, consider her to be the mane protagonist, I personally think Finn beats her on points but then being comatose at the end could be considered a TKO. In any case, I do find Rey to be a rather attractive character despite the fact that she runs around the galaxy in grubby sweats. It is interesting however, that the heroin who may bring some real femininity to Star Wars is the first who has yet to put on a dress. But then Leia and Padme needed their clothes to remind us they were feminine, or lest try to make us think they were. Rey's femininity is a more intragale part of her character. Oh yes, she whacks people with her stick, works on starships and when pressed even wields a lightsaber, it is a rough world and she is a survivor. But what is she like inside? There is certainly no closet of neglected gowns in her boudoir, if she had a spare wrap I did not see it. Instead she has a roughly but carefully crafted doll and a decorative plant, wile eking out a subsistence of quarter portions on desert planet even the huts did not want these are her treasures. By seemingly sheer force of will she has carved a modest girl's room out of the belly of an engine of war. Modesty is not a word you would associate with Leia or Padme, but Rey seems to have a portion - I know, it is the spoon full of surge that makes the omnicompetence go down...but you knew what? It works, and in a rather delightful way. Even in a life and death situation, we get the feeling she was bypassing the compressor not so much to keep peaces of her and the others from ending up in three different systems as she was to get Han Solo's approval. In short, she is a hyper feminine character in a Tomboy's body. But the most fascinating thing about her hast to be her devotion to her family. How she is willing to endure grinding poverty and hardship just for the memory of being able to hope that she would see them again. It is so sad, yet delightful when she confidently tells BB-8 "they'll be back, some day" - she does not start singing, but still, this is a Disney scene, not a Star Wars one.

Going Rouge

"Not, I devoutly hope, into the kind where we leap forward to a date at wh(ich) space-travel has become as common & dull as tramways and within that framework we get an ordinary spy-story, or wreck-story, or love-story wh(ich) might as well, or better, be located in present-day Hampstead."       - C. S. Lewis

How about a long time ago in a galaxy far far away?

 Judging by this trailer Rouge One is a rather generic espionage thriller. Does the fact that it takes place in that rather quaint galaxy really bring anything significant to the table? I mean, if you want to watch AT-ATs shooting at stuff devoid of content, there is always Battlefront.

The essence of Star Wars is light-sabers, the Force and of course, John William scores. unfortunately this film does not seem to have any of those. oh yes, there will probably be a few classic themes mixed in there and we will probably get a cameo of Darth Vader but is that really worth making a whole movie for?

I am not saying I wont watch it, probably will, just out of curiosity as to how it opens...there is obviously not much suspense as to how it ends. But how much about this galaxy do we really want to know? How many gritty details can we consume before the wonder begins to fade? The mundane and rustic elements in the episodes - cleaning gunk out of droids or fixing diner in a make shift kitchen in a wrecked AT-AT - are there to contrast the mythic themes and fantastical elements that follow them.  However, if we binge ourselves on ordinary and commonplace of that world (even if it involves a lot of shooting and explosions) how can the mythic and fantastical not become as strange and out of place there as it seems to our own daily lives in this galaxy? And then, will there really be any reason to make the trip?