My Daily Thought From Around The Star Wars Universe

1 July, 1999The other night I sat and wrote down many of the thoughts that have been floating through my brain the last few years as well as some brand new ones. The result was that I came up with enough thoughts to get me halfway through July. So do I type one from my list o plenty today? Nay. I sit down to post some of them and a completely new one comes to mind that must be addressed. This thought regards all the accusations of racial etc. sterotypes "supposedly" found in The Phantom Menace. Now I could go into about how people who think such things go through life with a chip on their shoulders and a glare in their eyes looking for things that maybe in some twisted ultra scrutinizing eye could possibly be offensive to anyone. These people make themselves feel higher by looking for anything to steal something more popular than them's fire. But enough of that. The point I am actually trying to get to is this. Why when all the radically hardcore Star Wars fans, when they couldn't come to the simple and most possible conclusion that the trace made by Darth Maul was a result of the Royal Starship contacting their "friend" Senator Palpatine, immediately accuse someone of being traitor. And who did they accuse? Captain Panaka, the one black character in the whole Royal entourage. Now, I'm certainly not accusing any Star Wars fans of being racist or anything else here, but for the love of god people, please do not give these nit-picking hatemongers anything tangible to home in on. Please in the future be more careful with the specualative accusations. I think we're in the clear on this one, but still watch yourselves.

2 July, 1999This is something really interesting that I thought of the other night. It's about Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. And the thought is about the irony of the fact that Anakin is freed from a life of slavery only to later become a slave again to the dark side. It is also ironic that Anakin's freedom and reenslavement are both results of the events set in motion by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. As I type this another aspect of this line of thinking comes to mind, and that is that Anakin is twice freed from slavery by a Jedi Knight. Or not? Afterall Qui-Gon Jinn only made the bet, Anakin actually won the race. And Luke only appealed to Vader to come back to the light side, Anakin actually had to make the decision himself to abanndon the persona of Darth Vader. More on Anakin and Luke either tomorrow or soon.

3 July, 1999This is more possibly a blooper than anything else, but who knows. Anyways the other night I was watching ROTJ and noticed after seeing this movie so many times that in the end scene where Luke removes Vader's helmet that Vader's chestplate is missing as well. I think this is a blooper because we never saw Luke remove it, but maybe that and the helmet are one unit and the chestplate did indeed come off. Not everyone may be able to catch this since I have the widescreen edition of the trilogy which makes little things like that just a little more noticable.

4 July, 1999Here are my thoughts on the whole Disapearing dead Jedi matter. My thoughts will not explain why George Lucas says the line "if you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" will be a key line as to explaining this, but they will sort of make sense. I believe that Jedi bodies only disappear when the Jedi just plain dies such as Yoda or when the Jedi suffers an instantaneous mortal wound. Here is what I mean by an instantaneous mortal wound, if you get cut in half straight through the middle such as Obi-Wan was then chances are you are gonna die from it right then and there. Whereas Darth Vader and Qui-Gon Jinn's nondisappearing bodies were mortaly wounded but not to the point of which they died instantly. Also I think it may have something to do with the destruction of the body because in the screenplay for TPM it says that after a few minutes on the funeral pyre Qui-Gon's body did indeed disappear. Why? Because the body was finally destroyed I would guess. Another thought on this matter comes to mind right now(damn I love stream of consciousness thinking.) Ok maybe whether a Jedi's body disappears when he dies depends on the strength of his will at the time of death. In other words maybe the dying Jedi actually summons the force to come and consume his body in sort of a spontaneous Jedi combustion. Of course it's not exactly combustion, but you get my point. Don't you? This would really fit in nicely with the theories of a Jedi being prepared to die determining whether they disappear or not. Qui-Gon Jinn and Vader were in too much shock from their wounds to summon the force to come and take their bodies, and they were both also too attached to the here and there(the living force) instead of worrying about dying they were too occuppied with all the by by I love yous. So maybe Jedi who are in tune with the living force don't disappear on death because they don't even realize the grand scheme of their death. Whereas Yoda was old and knew his time was up so he summoned the force to come and take him. And going on this theory then what do you think Obi-Wan was doing in that split second between closing his eyes and being struck down. Plus Obi-Wan and Yoda were both into the binding force, the force that involved the whole big picture of things. Obi-Wan obviously realized the grand scheme of his death. So maybe students of the binding force disappear. So are there two unofficial factions of Jedi then, those who who follow the living force and those who follow the binding force, but that's a thought for another day. Damn another thought just now came to me on this same tangent. If jedi could indeed summon the force to come and take their body because they're prepared to die, then couldn't they do this whenever, for suicide, or kamikaze missions, or being captured with no hope of escape. Of course that's exactly what Obi-Wan did isn't it, because it realy wansn't his time yet chronilogically speaking, he had another good 10-20 years left if not longer since he's a Jedi and all. So really it's a Jedi's time to die or not doesn't matter, just as long as he's knows it's coming. If the Jedi knows that death is coming then he is prepared and can summon the force to take his body. This all seems to be a very spritual concept, which can pertain to many religions. I mean think about how deep this all is. The Jedi is so one with the force that he's ready to give over his body and soul to force at anytime. Every Jedi is ready to give his soul to the force but onlyu the most enlightened and non death fearing are ready to give both body and soul. This is backed up because Obi-Wan's actions showing line of "more powerful", Obi-Wan disappeared. This is also proven when Qui-Gon says in reply to Anakin's question of "but nobody can kill a Jedi" by saying "I only wish that were true". Qui-Gon is brave and ready to give his life, but he still fears death thus he can not summon the force to come and take his body or the force doesn't come for his body or something like that, and his body does not disappear. But what of Vader then? He musn't have feared death to have his helmet removed. Of course we only assume he didn't disappear. And perhaps though he didn't fear death there were still alot of loopholes etc from him being a Sith for such a long time.Wow that was a long thought.

5 July, 1999In ROTJ Obi-Wan tells Luke "do not underestimate the Emperor, or suffer your father's fate you will." as a last warning before Luke goes of to face the Emperor. I find this line to be very intriqueing in light of recent events depicted in The Phantom Menace. It seems to me that in TPM and possibly continuing throughout the Prequels that nobody Estimates Palpatine at all. Why should they have? He's just a Senator from backwater Naboo right? Or is he?

6 July, 1999I think someday when I'm in a postion to build a dream house, that I will put Star Wars styled windows in it. Do you know what type of windows I'm talking about? The multi-paned dealies ala Cloud City or the Falcon's cockpit or the Emperor's throne room. I just always loved those type of windows. Plus it would be a unique way of expressing my Star Wars fandom.

7 July, 1999I don't know how George Lucas or rather the Director of ROTJ(was it gary Kurtz, I oughta know, I have a ROTJ movie poster on my site) did it, but I swear that sometimes you can just see emotion being conveyed in Vader's mask. And that's just awesome considering that's it perfectly static piece of plastic the whole time. Scenes that I'm thinking of in particular are when Vader is talking to Luke on Endor before they go to the Emperor Vader's Face appears to be emotionaly torn. I could say it's the body language, but I swear you can see it in the mask. So maybe it's the lighting. The next scene I was thinking of is when Luke is being zapped to death by the Emperor, Vader's mask looks sad and worn out, again amazing seeing as the mask is completely immobile. WOW!!

8 July, 1999I was thinking about lightsaber duels just now, and posed this question of myself. What seems to be consistent with them throughout the Original Trilogy? Answer, Darth Vader is in each one. After I had asked and answered this I then began to ponder on it. My pondering led my to some interesting conclusions(well no duh this where I post all of my interseting conclusions at). Here's what I came up with. Vader progresses symbolically through each duel much the same as Luke progresses according to the color of his outdfit in each movie. And here is what I mean by Vader's Progression. In his duel with Obi-Wan in A New Hope Vader not only prevails, but arguably kicks ass. Later in his duel with Luke in Cloud City Vader takes a few hits from Luke, and though Vader sorta physically wins the duel, the actual outcome is more of a Tie. Finally in Return Of The Jedi. Vader loses the duel to Luke, and is arguably the recipient of an ass whooping. This progression does a good job of showing the character development of Darth Vader. In A New Hope Darth Vader is confident in his Dark Lord Of The Sithitude and clearly dominates the battle. In The Empire Strikes Back Vader is just starting to have doubts of whether he is Anakin or Darth Vader, and the battle ends in a tie. Which in a way is symbolic of the duality begining to form in Vader's mind. And finaly in Return Of The Jedi Vader isn't having inklings of whether he is Anakin or Vader, but rather flat out confused and unsure of his own identity. As a result Darth Vader loses the battle at hand.

9 July, 1999I always loved in A New Hope when Darth Vader says "Obi-wan is here, and the Force is with him". Well no shit the force is with Obi-Wan, a jedi can't exactly leave the Force at home. Of course maybe Vader was surprised that Obi-Wan still had a detectable Force presence after all of the years. Anyways I always thought that was pretty funny.

10 July, 1999I think a lot of this anti Jar Jar sentimentality is due to Lucas shooting himself in the foot with ESB. ESB was the first SW movie to have a serious tone, and ever since then fans have seemed to have this "god forbid anything unbelievable be put in a fantasy movie" mentality. I personaly don't give a shit whether the Ewoks and Jar Jar are cute and silly, because isn't ANH in it's entirity a bit silly when looked at realistically?

11 July, 1999Jedi are supposed to be negotiators right? Well then in retrospect it's really cool how in Return Of The Jedi Luke is going to Jabba's Palace to negotiate the release of Han Solo. It shows how far Luke has progressed as I Jedi. All he has left now to become a Jedi is all of that killing your Father crap, that I know can't be in the Jedi Handbook, that Yoda and Obi-Wan give him.

12 July, 1999I'd like to say about this whole color of the lightsabers mess, that no duh it depends on the crystal used and preference of the jedi making it, if you're in the SW universe. But in "OUR" universe this is a saga chock full o symbolism. George Lucas himself has siad that "he is very conscious of the symbolism he puts in his movies."

13 July, 1999At first when I found out about Anakin blowing up the reactor of the Trade Federation Ship, I thought cool but hasn't this been done before. However after much thought I feel that it's one of the best things Lucas could have done in TPM. Why? Beacause later on in A New Hope when the Rebels are attacking the Death Star, Vader seems to be concerned when Tarkin isn't. Why? Because Vader knows all too well that small fighters can take out the biggest of ships. Right?

14 July, 1999In A New Hope as Artoo and Threepio go their seperate ways, Threepio says "Don't get technical with me" in response to something Artoo said. Reckon Artoo said well technically we should go this way because 40 years ago when we were here that's where the town that we found you in was. So Threepio having hjad some of his memory wiped, or this is what I think(nobody told them they were on Tatooine in A New Hope, so as usual Threepio doesn't have a clue) So Threepio not knowing what was going on says Don't get technical with me, just so that he can have the last word.

15 July, 1999I bet the silliest scene in the whole trilogy to film was when The Emperor was zapping Luke. Think about it, you have Mark Hamill writhing on the floor pretending to be in pain, you have Ian McDiarmid standing there pointing his hands at Mark Hamill (the lightning wasn't there yet so it must have looked like he was going "I put a curse on you),and then you have David Prowse just standing there watching, he sure was lucky to be wearing a mask or else they would have had to redo the scene so many times due to laughter. Well they would have had to redo it more times then they probably actually had to due to laughter.

16 July, 1999At first when I found out about Anakin blowing up the reactor of the Trade Federation Ship, I thought cool but hasn't this been done before. However after much thought I feel that it's one of the best things Lucas could have done in TPM. Why? Beacause later on in A New Hope when the Rebels are attacking the Death Star, Vader seems to be concerned when Tarkin isn't. Why? Because Vader knows all too well that small fighters can take out the biggest of ships. Right?

17 July, 1999In Return Of The Jedi Obi-Wan tells Luke that "I thought I could train him as well as Yoda". Huh? Last time I checked Yoda didn't want anything to do with the boy. Of course that is also foreshadowing of the cocky attitude that Obi-Wan sort of throws Yoda's way when they are talking privately on Naboo.

18 July, 1999Won't it come in awful handy for Vader that he can speak Huttese fluently? I think so.

19 July, 1999I always felt sorry for Lando. He was put in a no win situation that made him look like a total bastard in the eyes of his best friend. What choice did he have though? Vader probably showed up right before the Falcon did and told Lando "let me entertain your friends, or else I'll blow up Coud City, Or I'll force Choke you, or I'll lock you up in a room with Salacious Crumb." And I'm sure that Vader didn't tell Lando that he was going to torture Han or freeze him or anything, afterall we all saw how the deal kept changing. Right? Lando probably thought alright, he can't do anything that bad to Han can he? I'll let him do whatever if it means they'll leave Cloud City alone. Lando was looking out for the whole population of Bespin basically, so it would have been a little illogical for him not to have sold Han out. Anyway I'm glad that Lando did redeem himself though, because he seems to be a genuine person with no evil in his heart at all. I would have hated to see Lando end up with a for real tranished reputation.

20 July, 1999I got the new Star Wars Halmark ornaments the other day. My mom works there so I got 20% off. SCORE!!! Anyways the the Naboo Fighter and the Queen ornaments are pretty swank, but by far the best ones are Han Solo and Chewbacca. Han Solo is #3 in the ongoing series and Chewbacca is just an extra one, but he is the logical choice for an extra ornament when Han Solo is the other one. The Sculpts on these two are awesome, especially Chewie. Chewie is perfect Wookiee to Human proportion to Han and the coloring and pose on him are as close to authentic as can be. So if you don't have these yet then go get them. And if you don't nessacarily colect all of the SW Halmark ornaments then at least get these 2 you'll regret it later if you don't.

21 July, 1999Speaking of Cool Han Solo's. Has everyone seen the new Han Solo figure from Hasbro. It seems that Hasbro has finally decided to pull their heads out their fill in the blanks, and start sculpting figures that actually look the characters. Plus the figure has some of the best articulation and playability of any figure to date. A good example of this being the gun holster that actually functions. I can't wait for this figure to hit the shelves.

22 July, 1999I went to see TPM for the 4th time yesterday, no I am not a see as many times as possible type of nut. I had to see it at least 4 times though since the most that I have ever seen a movie in the theater is 3 times with Jurassic Park. Anyways I noticed somthing that "I hadn't before. I noticed that when Jar Jar first walks into Otah Gunga that it sounds like a background Gungan says "Oh Boy" in an Oh Crap Jar Jar's back type of tone. It could just be me hearing things, but check it out and see for yourselves.

23 July, 1999I got a new puppy yesterday, well actually I don't get him for another month because he's only a week old right now, but I bought him yesterday. Anyways, it was a given that he would have a Star Wars name. So guess what we settled on? Jabba The Pug or Jabba for short, since he's a Pug.

24 July, 1999Not that it matters much, but what is Palpatine's first name? We only ever hear him being called Senator of Chancellor or Emperor Palpatine.

25 July, 1999George Lucas says that the classic trilogy will not be on DVD until the prequel trilogy has been totally completed so that way he can release it as a 6 film box set. Sounds good to me, as I wouldn't wan't anything less than a sextology box set. Plus I don't have a DVD player yet.

26 July, 1999I've just recently become fascinated with this Whole "Son of Suns" aspect of Star Wars and the prophecy of it etc. I'll certainly be posting more on this subject as I find out more about it.

27 July, 1999It's actually the 30th now. I havn't updated in a while because I was moving from Geocities to Webjump. As if I have any loyal fans anyway.

28 July, 1999Well it's official. Star Wars Merchandise has left me broke. I had $62 in the bank, and $2 in my pocket. So what do I do? I go to Wal-Mart and spend $28 on new action figures, but alas it was the must have Cloaked Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan though.

29 July, 1999When I saw TPM for the fourth time the other day I finally saw the Wookiee Senators. It was cool.

30 July, 1999I think that Yoda's necklace in the origianl triology may the one that Anakin gave to Padme, or rather a similar Anakin made necklace. Maybe Anakin made it for Obi-Wan and then Obi-Wan gave it to Yoda after Anakin turned to Vader.

31 July, 1999Damn, where'd July go to? Anyways I would like to tell the people that hate Jar Jar and the Ewoks,because they feel that they were put in the movies solely to sell toys, what hypocrites they are. I mean why the Hell do you think Darth Maul was put in there then. Solely to scare the bejeezus out of kids and to sell a trillion toys. I bet 90% of the Jar Jar/Ewok bashers own Darth Maul/Boba Fett dolls, lunch boxes, fine art, clothes, underwear, toothbrushes, etc. etc. etc. ad. infinitum.