From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #197 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Tuesday, June 18 2002 Volume 11 : Number 197 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: sportsmaniax [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Re: Stwars! [steve ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #196 [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #196 [Stewart Russell ] Re: sportsmaniax ["Mike Wells" ] Re: Stwars! [Christopher Gross ] lions and tigers and... ["Natalie Jane" ] like an iron glove cast in velvet [anubis ] Re: lions and tigers and... [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: lions and tigers and... [dmw ] Re: lions and tigers and... ["Natalie Jane" ] Re: sportsmaniax [Michael Godwin ] RE: Intestinal Oxidative Therapy ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: Intestinal Oxidative Therapy ["victorian squid" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 01:37:04 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: sportsmaniax >On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, James Dignan wrote: >> Belgium had the best of the first hour of their match against Brazil, >> and they would have scored several times if not for some marvelous >> work by Brazil's keeper Marcos. It took two individual efforts from >> Rivaldo and Ronaldo to beat the Belgian keeper late in the game. > >I was under the impression that Belgique/Belgie did score once, but the >goal was disallowed for some untenable reason. right. Officially the Belgian player pushed the defender while jumping for the header, but it was a pretty poor decision IMHO. >I shall still be amazed if >Brazil don't win against England. me too, but I'm hoping...! >> nf - nothing. It's cold, it's wet, it's sleety - I wouldn't send a flag out >> on a day like this > >OK, I've got two flag-related questions: >a) What does the inscription on the Brazilian globe mean? 'Ordem e Progresso' means 'order and progress'. >b) When I was on hols, there were loads of Catalan and Provencal flags >being displayed. Both red and gold stripes, but vertical in one case >(Catalonia, IIRC) and diagonal in the other. Why are these 2 flags so >similar? good question. My guess is that it is because of the old kingdom of Aragon. Catalonia's stripes are usually horizontal, but Aragon (one of the former kingdoms in Spain) did have vertical red and yellow stripes - you can still see that on the Spanish coat of arms. I didn't know about the Provencal flag, but historically Provence and Catalonia were once both part of the kingdom of Aragon, so it's likely that both of them got their flags from the Aragon flag. Sicily also has an unofficial flag with red and yellow stripes, for the same reason. >PS quick quiz Q: who scored in every round of the 1970 World Cup? hmm... Gerd Muller scored the most, but Germany didn't reach the final. Jairzinho? James np - S.Korea and Italy James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 09:01:37 -0500 From: steve Subject: Re: Stwars! On Tuesday, June 18, 2002, at 07:40 AM, Jonathan Fetter wrote: > There was no down payment, or at least no complete down payment. The > aliens on > Camino (who comes up with these names?)apparently can't afford to put > any kind > of roofing over their landing decks (unlike the rest of the galaxy > excluding > Tatooine), so whoever lands there gets entirely soaked. Poor Obi Wan > and Fett > Sr. Hey, the Jedi are good for it. And maybe the folk on Camino didn't want to mess up their nice architecture. > Additionally, how long a trip is it for Obi Wan to travel from the > capitol > planet to Camino, a planet so remote that it can be taken off the star > charts > and no one notices? I'm just wondering, because I don't think Obi Wan's > spaceship had a bathroom, standing room, or even one of those little > dorm-room > fridges. Maybe he just meditates while he travels and uses Jedi > bladder- > tricks... I don't know how many parsecs it took, but he did have that little hyperdrive ring for his ship. - - Steve __________ "Miyazaki's latest animation feature (co-winner with 'Bloody Sunday' of the Berlin Golden Bear) more than justifies his status as Japan's most revered culture hero. What starts out as a fine example of the through-the-looking- glass kids' adventure genre becomes almost Shakespearean in its lyricism, breadth of vision and humanity." - Tony Rayns, Sight & Sound ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 02:02:29 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #196 >I didn9t see this here... But a few weeks ago, SF writer George Alec >Effinger died. indeed so - it's been a very bad year for science fiction: Richard Cowper, Damon Knight, George Alec Effinger, Henry Slesar, R.A.Lafferty, Cherry Wilder, Jack (Jay) C.Haldeman II... >Re: Stwars! isn't that the name of a track by Cream? >Well, I hate to get all anoraky about this, but there's only one Great >Central, and it's the railway which crazed genius Sir Edward Watkin put >together in the 1890s from the old Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire, >but with a London extension built to the _Continental_ loading gauge so >that trains could travel through a channel tunnel direct from Manchester >to Paris. I hadn't realised that Kim was a fan. > >Needless to say Dr Beeching closed the GC main line down in the sixties so >that it was unavailable when the chunnel finally got built. I bet you have a whole collection of O.S.Nock and H.C.Casserly books. The main part of the GC ran from Nottingham to Quainton Road (near Aylesbury). My parents almost bought an old railway station that served the GC line somewhere around the Brackley area as a home back in the early 1970s (unfortunately, they were out-bid). James PS - my god they've done it! 2-1! James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 10:15:35 -0400 From: Stewart Russell Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #196 James Dignan wrote: > > they've done it! 2-1! Indeed! I'm told that Yonge St between Finch & Steeles is going completely mental right now as the Korean community whoops it up! Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 16:18:42 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: RIP Fritz Walter, captain of Germany's 1954 world champion team at 81. South Korea - Italy 2:1 - can you believe that? This has got to be the tournament with the weirdest results. With Italy, France, Argentina and Uruguay there are now 4 former world champions out. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Ehrenfeldg|rtel 156 50823 Kvln http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ Being just contaminates the void - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 09:32:23 -0500 From: "Mike Wells" Subject: Re: sportsmaniax > >Please elaborate. I didn't see a single second of yesterday's matches... > > Mexico's appeals for a penalty were turned down when it was clear from > replays that the US defender punched the ball away from the goalmouth. "The Hand of John," though he claims it was an accident...but it still should have been a penalty. Cheater's luck for the dirty way Mexico conducted themselves. For those nutty for footy: Michael Davies, a British expat living in the States, is keeping a quite amusing diary at http://espn.go.com/page2/s/davies/020617.html And boy it's hard watching my home team (Chicago Fire) with its three top players gone to the National Team. Last week's game was atrocious, but it's easier to bear up when we're doing so well over there. Michael "Section 8" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 11:31:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Stwars! I finally got around to seeing AoC on Saturday. (This was actually the first time I had to go by myself to see a Star Wars movie in the theatre, since my few remaining local movie-going-buddies all went without me. This probably colored my perceptions, so if you don't like my opinions, blame Bayard!) > > > will be, but that's in the older, better movies....> Minor quibble: Anakin *is* a fucking prodigy; Luke will just be an even fuckinger prodigy. > > <> the jedi (if not the politicians) have no ethical concerns over > > >using the clones as fucking cannon fodder? > > not using them so as much as *designing* them to be - aside from Boba, it > seems they are made without free will. As Bayard says, the ethical problem is in creating the clones more than in employing them. Fighting in general is in keeping with the Jedi ethos (provided it's a necessary fight), so they'd have no problem with raising a conventional army to handle threats too big for the real Jedi. But breeding people expressly to be soldiers is more dubious. Maybe the Jedi/Republic would salve their consciences by treating the clones like ordinary people from then on, with the right to resign from the army, pension benefits, etc. Anyway, designing the clones was probably a Dark Side-only project, and the good Jedi only used the clones because they had no other force available, a devil's bargain. That's probably what Lucas had in mind. Note that the wrinkliest and wisest Jedi, Yoda, is uncomfortable with using clone army, even though he saw no other choice at the time. (BTW, do the clones have their brains modified to eliminate free will, or is it just indoctrinated out of them?) > all this apologism aside, the film really bummed me out too. the audience > i was with laughed more than at any comedy i've been to in a while - at > all the wrong parts! The audience I was in didn't laugh at *anything*. In fact, they hardly *reacted* to anything, especially in the first hour. Some other notes: - -Didn't Obi-wan say the factory planet, whatever it was called, was only a parsec from Tatooine? A parsec is a tiny distance on a galactic scale (less than the distance from our sun to the next nearest star). That was a huge coincidence for me to swallow. - -Weakest action sequence: the high-altitude car chase. This left me completely unexcited. Best action sequence: the climactic battle and subsequent light-saber duels. - -Weakest CGI: the four-armed fry cook. Best CGI: anything consisting mainly of buildings, with no close-ups of living creatures. - -We're still lacking the love triangle and constant repartee between Luke, Leia and Han that was so important to the original trilogy (whether or not Lucas realizes it). - -The name Shmi Skywalker is a clear Jhonen Vasquez reference. (Schmee is Squee's teddy bear in JV's comics Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee.) - -The young Uncle Owen looks like Bayard's friend Matt. I don't have a good picture of him, but you can glimpse him in the background of this Feg Foto: - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:43:37 -0700 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: lions and tigers and... >There was also alot a goofyness. It was strongest in the first movie >and >has lessened with each new installment. Whenever someone claims that the old Star Wars sucked as much as the new ones, I always remember the classic exchange... Leia: "I love you!" Solo (smugly): "I know." Han Solo was my first crush. Not Harrison Ford - Han Solo. I can't imagine any little girls getting crushes on the current lot. >hell, The Stranger even ran a pro & con; the "con" arguing >that it's good if flawed, and the pro arguing that anybody finding >fault >with it is an asshole. Goodness. The Willamette Week (shitty weekly paper) had a Star Wars pro and con where the con claimed that anyone who *liked* it was a pathetic geek. Then they ran an article where the author ripped into the old Star Wars (fine, whatever), while stroking himself for being such a bad-ass for DARING to speak the TRUTH. Oh man, what a rebel. I still haven't seen "Attack of the Clowns" and I'm not sure I'm going to, except that I sort of feel culturally obligated to do so... >and von trier is...well, >you've just got to love lars, really. Ugh - I walked out of "Breaking the Waves." I couldn't stand to see that little girl-woman shrieking and crying any longer. >as opposed to the large lion population in the greater Detroit area? Why, yes. Didn't you know? We're constantly tripping over lions out there. Tigers, too. Part of the reason why I moved, really. That said, there *are* plenty of red-wings (red-winged blackbirds, anyway) in the Detroit area. Incidentally, Red Wings fans have the wonderfully feggy custom of throwing octopi onto the ice during games. No, really. Real dead octopi. Must make clean-up a drag. n. _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:52:50 -0700 From: anubis Subject: like an iron glove cast in velvet > From: "Natalie Jane" > > Yeah, me too. And records aren't ruined for me because of the > production. I wonder sometimes if they are, but I don't really notice...it's like I hear the production as part of the sound of the record, and don't or can't make the distinction without actively trying. So there are probably some records I dislike, but the problem is not the music itself but how it was recorded. > "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron," with Tina the fish girl. That was > incredibly creepy. I can't even read most of that, it's too disturbing. > Clowes said it was comprised of various nightmares he had following a > bitter > divorce. I believe it. I've read it a couple of times and it doesn't get any less creepy with familiarity. > Speaking of Clowes, the latest issue of "Eightball" (I think it's the > latest) is amazing - brilliant and intricate and carefully constructed You said it. I second your recommendation and would third it if possible. > From: "Voodoo Ergonomics" > well, in a galaxy wherein a twelve-year-old can be elected queen, i > suppose > a bastard-child princess isn't such a terrible stretch. i concede the > point. Or maybe her adoptive dad will be played by a digitally created Jimmy Stewart. "Leia, sweetheart, you'll always be daddy's little princess..." > will be, but that's in the older, better movies....> > > if true, then it wouldn't matter that he succumbed to the dark side. > and he > wouldn't have been chosen by palpatine to be his right-hand man. and he > surely wouldn't have been able to off obi-wan and then to off luke's > hand. Well, both of those hits looked pretty easy, actually. > [Dancer in the Dark] > but the reason i queued up for the DVD was for the commentary > tracks, which didn't in the least disappoint. Hmmm, that might be interesting. > From: bayard > This is perhaps the most common criticism in terms of > continuity. remember though that yoda trains everyone first, when they > start out. (though that would be a slam on luke, if obi wan is saying > luke at ~20 is like he was at five! but i suppose yoda handles the > schooling until the teenage years perhaps, and luke IS a whiny baby...) Well, Yoda does say Luke's way too old to begin training, so they probably do start with the basics. Luke essentially gets the five-day certification course. > remember that luke foolhardily faced vader before finishing his > training. Which Yoda tells him in Jedi is the way to complete his training. Huh?? I finally got around to hearing Tom Waits' Mule Variations. I liked about half of it and gritted my teeth through the other half. I think it's safe to say I'm not a budding Waits fan. Drew ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 17:52:54 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: lions and tigers and... - -- Natalie Jane is rumored to have mumbled on Dienstag, 18. Juni 2002 8:43 Uhr -0700 regarding lions and tigers and...: >> and von trier is...well, >> you've just got to love lars, really. > > Ugh - I walked out of "Breaking the Waves." I couldn't stand to see that > little girl-woman shrieking and crying any longer. I really, really like "Kingdom", and "Idioten" is also good. I suffered throug "Breaking the Waves" and though it was worth it, but I don't see why he had to do the same thing all over again with "Dancer in the Dark"! That time around I would've walked out if I were a person who walks out of movies. I never do that. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Ehrenfeldg|rtel 156, 50823 Kvln, Germany http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 12:39:38 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: Intestinal Oxidative Therapy On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, victorian squid wrote: > Seems ironic now that the first "Star Wars" movie was a phenom precisely > because it transcended genre and attracted people who wouldn't normally > be sci-fi fans. If I'd heard good things about this one I might possibly > have even accompanied Doug instead of plunking down my five bucks for > "About A Boy". But no one cares about attracting new people at this > point with such a huge built-in audience. My five bucks don't matter > among the billions, really. and your five bucks was a bit of a waste, too, wasn't it? i think it was the voice-over narration that sunk it -- a little too spoonfed, although i don't know how i would have approached filming it, since hornby's authorial voice is such a big part of the book's appeal. - -- d. (mw, not your husband, who didn't see "menace" or "clones," and probably won't) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:29:28 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: lions and tigers and... On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: > -- Natalie Jane is rumored to have mumbled on > Dienstag, 18. Juni 2002 8:43 Uhr -0700 regarding lions and tigers and...: > > >> and von trier is...well, > >> you've just got to love lars, really. > > > > Ugh - I walked out of "Breaking the Waves." I couldn't stand to see that > > little girl-woman shrieking and crying any longer. > > I really, really like "Kingdom", and "Idioten" is also good. I suffered > throug "Breaking the Waves" and though it was worth it, but I don't see why > he had to do the same thing all over again with "Dancer in the Dark"! That > time around I would've walked out if I were a person who walks out of > movies. I never do that. yeah, and _zentropa_ (or _europa_ if you prefer) was between the good lars and the bad lars -- squicky, ultimately, but still pretty neat. i actually saw neither "breaking" nor "dancer" but was pretty well convinced i made the right call. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 10:47:03 -0700 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: Re: lions and tigers and... >I really, really like "Kingdom", and "Idioten" is also good. I suffered >throug "Breaking the Waves" and though it was worth it, but I don't see why >he had to do the same thing all over again with "Dancer in the Dark"! That >time around I would've walked out if I were a person who walks out of >movies. I never do that. "Walked out" is actually a slight misnomer in my situation; my friends were watching "Breaking the Waves" on video and I had to leave the room. I think I might have walked out if I had been seeing it in a theatre too, though. The only film I've walked out on in a theatre was "Solaris." I decided to go home and watch some paint dry instead. n. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 18:56:12 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time) From: Michael Godwin Subject: Re: sportsmaniax On Wed, 19 Jun 2002 01:37:04 +1200 James Dignan wrote: > >PS quick quiz Q: who scored in every round of the 1970 World Cup? > > hmm... Gerd Muller scored the most, but Germany didn't reach the final. > Jairzinho? Correct! - MRG ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 14:24:09 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Intestinal Oxidative Therapy On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, victorian squid wrote: > Seems ironic now that the first "Star Wars" movie was a phenom precisely > because it transcended genre and attracted people who wouldn't normally > be sci-fi fans. If I'd heard good things about this one I might possibly > have even accompanied Doug instead of plunking down my five bucks for > "About A Boy". But no one cares about attracting new people at this > point with such a huge built-in audience. My five bucks don't matter > among the billions, really. We can also credit Star Wars for getting Star Trek into the theaters and also the Star Trek: The Next Generation on television. Paramount revived Star Trek and put it on the big screen all because of the impact that Star Wars had on movie goers. Paramount was scratching their heads looking for a response to Star Wars, when they decided to revive Star Trek as their response. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 11:43:42 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Peeing in Hyperspace >>The aliens on Camino (who comes up with these names?)... There's been a case made recently that the Fetts and the clones are "Latino stereotypes" and the fact that they live on Kamino (as in "El Camino") is supposedly evidence of that! Pretty funny. They looked and sounded like a buncha Kiwis to me! >>Additionally, how long a trip is it for Obi Wan to travel from the capitol planet to Camino, a planet so remote that it can be taken off the star charts and no one notices? I'm just wondering, because I don't think Obi Wan's spaceship had a bathroom... One could ask the same thing of Luke's trip to unlisted Dagobah. Funny thing about hyperspace... the duration of the trip is proportional to the amount of exposition the characters on the ship need to unload. Oh, lord, my first post to the Feg List in five years and it's about Star Wars... Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:35:45 -0700 From: "victorian squid" Subject: Re: Intestinal Oxidative Therapy - --- On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 12:39:38 dmw wrote: >and your five bucks was a bit of a waste, too, wasn't it? I had to choose from what was available at that particular multiplex at that particular time. I figure it was a good deal less of a waste than "Enough" or "Spirit of the Cimarron" as I would have been just as bored by those as I would have been by "Clones". >don't know how i would have approached filming it, since >hornby's authorial voice is such a big part of the book's appeal. Well, I didn't dislike it as much as you apparently did. I thought it was a bit manipulative but an enjoyable enough two hours. The main thing that didn't work for me was the "ghost" thing with Grant's dead father. Bleh. I also missed the Cobain resonances, but understand why they had to go. I thought Grant himself was really really good as Will. His emotional transformation was very credible (if perhaps a bit rushed by the demands of the screenplay). Also I liked the kid who played Marcus. He didn't look the way I pictured him from the book but his mannerisms and such were dead on. loveonya, susan Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:46:27 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: Stwars! At 11:31 AM 6/18/2002 -0400, Christopher Gross wrote: >-The name Shmi Skywalker is a clear Jhonen Vasquez reference. (Schmee >is Squee's teddy bear in JV's comics Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and >Squee.) Bah! They're both making reference to the loveable shape-shifting armless white Saturday morning cartoon blob, the Shmoo. As was the "changeling" Anakin chased during the flying car scene. Anakin is also a clear reference to Hanna of Hanna Barbera fame, although his ponytail is obviously a nod to Aimee Mann. Jar Jar is of course is a slight tweak of the name Barbera. In fact, both of the new movies are clearly paying homage to cartoons, that's why they're so... well... cartoonish. I think it speaks volumes that they replaced the more realistic puppet Yoda with the gods-awful CGI version - this signified the slow triumph of bad animation over endearing puppestry in the realm of American children's television entertainment. Howdy Doody slaughtered by Scooby Doo, if you will. It's also important to note that cartoon elf Yoda defeated the human Dooka. It's obvious that Lucas prefers a 2-D fantasy world designed for toodlers to reality and adult relationships, and is in fact advocating a mindless retreat from the world, endorsing the zombie-like trances of the pre-teen TV viewer - especially via the hypnotic brightly colored images of the cartoon. The Dark Side symbolizes the raw, complex humanity and all the "real" intricacies of mature feelings and grown-up interactions. Which, like a 5 year old, Lucas fears and demonizes. The Jedi way is in all actuality the "unrealistic" path, devoid of any real human emotion - repressed are things like sexuality (they aren't allowed to marry or have girlfriends) and family ties (as Eddie noted, it seems they're expected to completely remove themselves from the lives of their loved ones). Love between two consenting adults is shown as a major step down the path of corruption, at least in the new flicks. Even Luke's flirtation with love almost leads him to nearly bedding his own sister. The consequences of average human emotions, like jealousy and anger, are exaggerated and warped, taken to horrific extremes. Anakin's love for his mother is also another factor in his "turning dark." Better to purge oneself of adult emotion than face and deal with typical human reactions. Replacing real feelings are "magical" abilities allowing the Jedi to distort the rules of physics: clairvoyance and levitation and such - much akin to the reality-defying antics of cartoon coyotes who survive major falls off cliffs, float in the air until they realize they're not standing on solid ground, et cetera. Is the Jedi "mind trick" Obi Wan employed against stormtroopers in Episode IV any different from Bugs Bunny's word games which trick Daffy Duck into saying the opposite of what he wanted to? Also, the Jedis are paired off into a "best friends" buddy system, like grade schoolers. The Jedi hierarchy partially mostly resembles the education system, and, at its most disturbing, a TV network or studio, with everything decided by inept committee. Not to mention, the Jedi outfit is markedly similar to a robe worn over pajamas, the uniform of many little kids as they sit down with their bowl of sugar-encrusted cereal to enjoy another episode of the Smurfs. From the first trilogy, we understand the ultimate goal or fate of the Jedi is to eventually completely disappear from the physical realm, and become a ghost-like, insubstantial "energy being" which far too closely resembles a fuzzy television image. Jedis go into an immortal rerun state, rather than physically die. Physical death is another real-world situation that the babyish Jedis don't have to deal with. Other actions denote this retreat from "reality," like Obi Wan teaching Luke not to trust his eyes or mechanical tools. Even technology, an adult creation, is associated more with the dark side and villainy (the slow mechanization of Luke and Anakin, for example - or the assassination robots - or the Death Star). The only tools the Jedi employ extensively, besides flying around in X-wing fighters like they were go-carts, are the pen-like light sabres, which just look like long globs of 'cartoon stuff,' swaths of animation shoved into the real world to slice it open and destroy it. In "Clones," the Jedi is seen as protecting humanity from the mature, responsible, realistic, adult side of itself - traders (business, ie, the work force), armies (a necessary evil) and even medical advancements (like cloning) are all displayed as "wrong"-doing. Note also how all the majority of the outdoor backgrounds in the original trilogy, when the galaxy was run by the "empire," seemed extraordinarily realistic, (shot on location) while in the new movies they are hyper-real and irritatingly implausible - Tattooine in Episode IV looked like a real desert. In 'Clones' it resembled the fantastic desert-scapes of roadrunner cartoons. Even the scene where Anakin is seen riding that horribly fake CGI space-cow denotes the "evil" real world attempting to conquer the safe escapist cartoon one (it was even done to impress an "icky" girl), and the subsequent bucking of our hero/anti-hero shows the inevitable victory of the pull of the cartoon. Hell, Yoda and Obi Wan had to turn to the children entering a big animation replica of the galaxy to figure out where that planet disappeared to in "Clones." And the fucking Ewoks? Don't get me started. Clearly Care-Bears. - --Jason np: I Am The World Trade Center, The Tight Connection "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #197 ********************************