Why "Star Wars" fans are dumbasses

From page xiv of the introduction to the book A Galaxy Not So Far Away: Writers and Artists on Twenty-five Years of Star Wars, by that volume's editor Glenn Kenny:

Kevin Kline's character in The Big Chill has a much quoted "no good music since year X" line that I can't bring myself to quote accurately, as it would mean looking at the movie again...

The accurate quote is actually this exchange of dialogue from Kline's character and Jeff Goldblum's:

Michael: Harold, don't you have any other music , you know, from this century?
Harold: There is no other music, not in my house.
Michael: There's been a lot of terrific music in the last ten years.
Harold: Like what?

I pulled that from the IMDb page, but I could've done it from memory, because even though as a rule, I hate boomers, I happen to love that movie. Go figure. I am large, I contain multitudes. For example, the title of this entry notwithstanding, I'm something of a Star Wars fan.

But anyway, that Kenny clearly doesn't love a movie which I do is not why I've made him exhibit Z (or whatever) in my case for why Star Wars fans are dumbasses. For that, we have to go two pages later, and read this from page xvii:

Empire's dialogue was a lot snappier than Star Wars' (I like to think that a lot of what I enjoyed in Empire was due to the participation of veteran screenwriter Leigh Brackett...

Glenn, Glenn, Glenn. You're making this all too easy, Glenn.

If I may hit you with a few more quotes, these are from the Lucas bio Skywalking:

Lucas had one lengthy meeting with Brackett to outline the story and turn his notes over to her, and by March 1978 Brackett's first draft was done. It was also her last-she died of cancer two weeks later.

One meeting. One draft. Still, I'm sure Brackett's participation is what paid off in enjoyment for Kenny and most others, including myself. Except that:

Lucas shelved Brackett's script and started anew. If he could get a new first draft done, he could turn it over to a new writer, and they could pass versions back and forth until Lucas was satisfied.

But who would be his new writer? Well, a few months later, one Lawrence Kasdan turned in a screenplay Lucas had hired him to write for something called Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he and Lucas went to lunch...

Lucas abruptly launched into the story of Leigh Brackett's untimely death, his problem with Empire, and his need for a writer to polish the new draft. He'd be happy to give Kasdan screenplay credit in Empire (Lucas planned to take none himself) but asked whether Kasdan would mind sharing it with Brackett. He wanted her estate to benefit from a profit percentage of the film.

And that was, indeed, how the writing credits for Empire ran: Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, (screenplay); George Lucas, (story).

So then, who's responsible for the snappier dialogue and other joys missing from Star Wars that appeared in The Empire Strikes Back? Well, clearly, demonstrably, Kasdan.

Who is also screenwriter, co-screenwriter and/or the director of a dozen-plus other movies, including, what?

The Big Chill.

I repeat: Star Wars fans are dumbasses.

Quick quiz: How many of you remember...

...when I mentioned that Jennifer Connelly's husband is sexually insecure?

On a completely unrelated matter, his next role will have him playing, and called, a "Master of Sex."

I'm sure I wasn't the only one

But for the record, yesterday I sent the Keith Olbermann show's contact email address a link to this story about Ford's Theater "banning" Bill O'Reilly's Lincoln book for factual inaccuracies.

I figured it was right across Olbermann's strike zone (did I use that metaphor right?)

Sure enough, on tonight's show...



Now, as I say, I'm quite sure I'm not the only one to have thought of that. Plus Keith and/or his staff probably would've found it anyway. But...

Happy Birthday, Wendy Carlos!

I've seen Tron Legacy three times now. You know how with some movies...you like them when you first see them, especially if it's one you've been looking forward to for a long time. But then with repeated exposure, you realize they're not terribly good movies (cough, Saw V, cough--although Saw 3D makes Saw V look like Saw III. But I digress.)?

My point is, Tron Legacy ...is not one of those movies. I still like it a lot, at least as much as the original; in some ways, even more so. But one place in which it doesn't even come close to topping the original is in its score. If I had the know-how and the equipment, I think I'd dub myself a version of the new movie that used Wendy Carlos's music in place of Daft Punk's, as much as possible.

Nothing against Daft Punk. It's just that, as most of you know, I'm a big fan of Carlos' score for the original Tron, and consider it a key factor in shaping my love for electronic, synthetic music. So naturally here, in celebration of Carlos' 72nd birthday, is a theme from Tron played by hand on a genuine guitar.

This I've got to see

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus defended the GOP on Sunday against the notion that its policies only favor the rich, arguing that Republicans are out to create jobs and cut taxes for people of all income levels.

Really? Right, well let's see him then.

"Of course the party doesn’t favor the rich, but what the party does favor is reducing taxes on every single American out there," Priebus said on CNN’s "State of the Union." "Making sure Washington is focused then on job creation, on cutting spending, on reducing the size of government -- these are things that will spur the economy and these are things that are cornerstone to the Republican Party."

I count about five empirically provable lies in that paragraph. How many can you name?

A recent CBS/New York Times poll showed that 69 percent of Americans believe Republican policies favor the rich. Only 9 percent believe they help the middle class.

Priebus blamed that perception on President Barack Obama.

Oh please, Reince. We wish...

What kind of fools could be foolish enough to fall for this fool's foolishness?

Kim Kardashian Wedding Made People Feel Like 'Fools'

By the same token: There are billions of people the Manson family *didn't* kill...

Cain responds to accusations. For every woman who says I harassed her, there are “thousands” who say I didn’t.

Fucking well good.

Okay. One reason I'm taking a particular interest in this Joe Paterno thing is because it's reminded me of something. Something which I should know full well, but due to the whole "my not giving a fuck about sports" thing, I sometimes tend to forget.

This is namely, just how deep up the ass of sports my country has its head. Case in point:

Nike has no plans to change the name of the Joe Paterno Center, a child day care facility on the World Headquarters Campus near Beaverton, in response to a sexual abuse scandal involving one of Paterno's former Penn State University assistants, a Nike spokeswoman said this evening.

Really, that's just sad.

But on the bright side, it looks like my curse is taking.

Penn State football scandal will cost school millions

Good.

Now let us pause for this very important message

I'm sorry, you can't what?

Okay. As most of you know, I don't give a fuck about sports. So, the first I heard about the Penn State University/Paterno scandal--

Former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been charged with 40 criminal counts accusing him of sexually abusing minors. As the scandal unfolded, it became known that Penn State officials, including Joe Paterno, had known about Sandusky's unlawful behavior.

--was yesterday when Keith Olbermann made Paterno his "worst person in the world" and called for his immediate firing, both of which he repeated today. A few hours later, Paterno was, in fact, fired, along with the school president.

You would think the Penn Board of Trustees would've done this because it is--clearly--the right thing to do in this situation. I would say this was a no-brainer: Coach fails to follow-up on reports that his employee raped children (in the coach's own locker room, no less) coach loses his job. At least.

Yes, I would say this was a no-brainer, but I want to reserve that honorific for the football-lovers who care more (they really do) about a game, a team, and/or a coach's career than they do molested children.

This brings me back to the Penn Board of Trustees. Dig this quote from an AP story on the firing.

Asked what Paterno did wrong, [board vice chair John] Surma said: “I can’t characterize that. We thought because of the difficulties that have engulfed our university, it was necessary to make changes.”

You can't characterize what he did wrong?

Think. Try to stretch your mind. Take a minute if you have to.

Or in other words, you fired this man not because he committed foul sins, but because people knowing he committed those sins is making your school look bad.

Metaphorically speaking, I hope your school gets stomped hard in the face with football shoes, every game for the next 30 years.

On the other hand, people do get good and irritated whenever sex rears its ugly head around The World's Child Star.

Wait a minute...

...a new ad for Marc Jacobs' fragrance Oh Lola!, starring "Twilight" actress Dakota Fanning, has been pulled from the British markets after consumers complained that it was sexualizing children.

Am I the only person who thinks this ad is not sexualizing children much if at all (Fanning is 17); not provocative, shocking or sickening?

You bastards!

sometimes my conscience kinda bothers me...

Derbyshire!

Oh, happy day.

You longtime members of my vast reading audience may remember an utterly creepy fella named John Derbyshire, a writer for the conservative National Review's The Corner.

He's the guy who said he thought women should have the vote--in 2009 (how generous!)--but never use it. He's the guy whose reaction to the shocking killings at Virginia Tech was to call the students cowards for not rushing the killer, as he's quite sure he would've done.

Yeah, that guy. I love him. He's just so perfectly fucked in the head.

So now, he's weighed in on the whole "Herman Cain/sexual harassment" thing (about which, for the record, I really couldn't give that much of a fuck. Except to observe that as always, it's not the offense that sinks you, it's the covering and backpedaling and filling ).

Brace yourselves...

Is there anyone who thinks sexual harassment is a real thing?

Um, well, there's the law...ah, but Mr. Derbyshire has anticipated me here, for his next statement is:

Is there anyone who doesn’t know it’s all a lawyers’ ramp, like “racial discrimination“?

I'm not totally sure what he means by "lawyers' ramp," but I think I can get the gist. Which doesn't really matter because I'm still reeling from his assertion that "racial discrimination" isn't a real thing either.

Across the country right now, Republicans are trying to fix the laws so as to make it harder for blacks to vote.

You pay a girl a compliment nowadays, she runs off and gets lawyered up.

You know what I think the difference is between paying a girl (or a woman, ahem) a compliment and sexual harassment? Respect. I'd like to believe that most of the time, women do know the difference.

Is this any way to live?

Well yeah, John, yeah it is, unless you're living in the 1950's. Oh, wait...

There has never in the history of the world been a people better mannered and less inclined to insulting acts of prejudice than today’s Americans,

Well, except for the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Canada, or pretty much any place where they practice Buddhism, I'm sure he's quite correct.

yet we’re supposed to believe that the nation is seething with “harassment” and “discrimination,” women being groped in every business office and crosses burning on every lawn.

Um, no. You're supposed to believe that harassment and discrimination are real things that do go on and need to be taken seriously when they do. As for women being groped in every office or crosses burning on every lawn, so far as I'm aware no one's asserted that. I think you might be projecting a little wish fulfillment there, John.

Aren’t there any grown-ups around?

You wouldn't think he'd be talking too much about grown-ups, would you, considering he's the guy who publicly asserted that only pubescent girls are attractive...

What must this do to one's self-esteem?

Playboy Unhappy With Lindsay Lohan Nudes

"The People vs. George Lucas"

"The People vs. George Lucas", a photo by lucbyhet on Flickr.

Attention, Star Wars fans: You need to see this movie. It's for us but does not pander to us--and not pandering to an assumed audience is more than you can say for roughly half of the Star Wars films.

The People vs George Lucas, a photo by Danny Choo on Flickr.

And besides, where else are you going to see a Japanese stormtrooper getting down with his funky self?

Please God...

new polling data shows that a Cain collapse could trigger a Gingrich surge.

Personally, I'm seriously hoping that Romney and Gingrich are the GOP ticket...just because I really like saying "Mitt/Newt."

Today's contestant on "Who's Searching For Me Now?"

...comes to us from Slovak Telecom, Leopoldov, Trnava, Slovakia.

They searched my name; didn't stay long.

Right, here's the thing...it wasn't an affair.

Wrong again, media.

Okay. You guys remember how I cursed the way the story of an "adult" harassing a 13-year-old girl into committing suicide somehow got spun into "The Myspace Suicide Case," simply because that "adult" used MySpace to do her harassing?

Well, it's happening again, and by some sick coincidence, there's a 13-year-old girl involved here, too. A conservative politician in Virginia has admitted to a homosexual affair in the past (but they're feeling much better now, having "prayed the gay away."

By itself, this isn't really news--as my friend Turner is fond of asking, are there any straight conservatives anymore? But this has an unusual, "sexy" twist in that the politician in question is a woman.

Linda Wall, a conservative independent Virginia candidate for the House of Delegates, admitted on Wednesday that she had an affair with a female student as a junior high gym teacher in the early 1970s, but said she has changed.

Every headline I've seen on this--and I just looked at five or six-- describes it as "an affair." Sometimes they add the word "lesbian," and sometimes they mention in the banner that it was with a student, but still call it "an affair."

When an "adult" has sexual contact with a minor, it's not an affair. It's child molestation. And when you add it that as a teacher, Ms. Wall was in a position of authority and trust...well, just imagine if she were a man. You think they'd be calling it "an affair" then, whether gay or not?

Okay, this is becoming increasingly incredible

Today's contestant on "Who's Searching For Me Now?" comes to us from an Android, the IP of which reveals itself to come from the Ministry Of Communications...in Kuwait. They searched the URL of this blog specifically, not just my name, stayed a couple of minutes and left on the Evan Rachel Wood image below.