Marcia Lucas - film editor extraordinaire - has passed away

The very sad news came in the past few days that Marcia Lucas, the incredibly talented film editor who made her mark with the original Star Wars and many other movies, has passed away at the age of 80.

From what I've heard over the years, Marcia came into the production of Star Wars after her then-husband George Lucas had shown a cut of the movie to his friends.  The near unanimous verdict (Steven Spielberg was the only one in the room who said he liked it) was that George had a disaster on his hands.  That first cut was a narrative nightmare.

And then Marcia swooped in and said that she would fix it.

And she did.

Among other things she made it so that Princess Leia was much more action-oriented than she had been first perceived to be.  That was a huge thing that made a tremendous impact not only on the film but on the expansive saga that Star Wars came to be.  And then there was the final assault on the Death Star.  Marcia had 40,000-some feet of footage to whittle down and assemble into a cinematic dogfight as good as any ever put on film.  It took two months of work.  The result was a battle that became one of the most epic from any movie ever.

Marcia Lucas also worked on American Graffiti and Taxi Driver.  She would contribute to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which was her final film credit.

Movie editing is a true art.  It is the fine chiseling that produces a David from a rough block of stone.  It has become one of the most enjoyable aspects of making a film that I have experienced in my own cinematographic pursuits.  I've come to discover that I'm having the most fun when I'm behind the camera, and that includes post-production when I'm getting to look at all that footage we've shot and then deciding what fits best in what will become the final product.  It's hard work.  It can be heart-wrenching at times, when you're having to decide what to keep and what to cut especially when your cast and crew have been giving nothing less than their best effort.  The temptation is to want to include a little bit of everything that you've shot... and unfortunately that just isn't feasible.

I can't begin to imagine the task that Marcia Lucas had set before her.  But I also can't help but think that despite it all, in her own way she was having fun too.  Marcia believed in Star Wars when few others did.  She knew it was worth sharing with others and she knew it was going to be a success.

She was right.

Think I'll watch that first Star Wars movie this afternoon again, in her memory.

What ever happened to May the 16th?

If it's something significant that happened in my life, the tendency is that I'll always be aware of its anniversary when it comes around.  Sometimes they're good anniversaries.  But most of the time the bad ones overshadow the good.

If you have read my book Keeping the Tryst, then you are aware that there is a date that I spend some time on: May 16th, 1986.  That is the day of the cruelest betrayal that has ever happened to me.

I was just over twelve years old, still a child but on the cusp of the unfolding of youth's great transformation that leads ultimately to adulthood.  What happened that day destroyed much of that experience for me.  I will never know what I could have become had that innocence not been taken from me at just that moment in my life.  Not just physically and emotionally, but spiritually also.  Yes, especially spiritually.

It was the sort of thing that burns itself deeply into one's chronological awareness of their life.  And so it is that May 16th became a day upon which I harbored dark and dread thoughts.  Especially every ten years.  I can tell you precisely where I was and with whom, on the tenth anniversary (fortunately I spent much of that day in the company of my two best friends at Elon, being with them always cheered me up).

There was the twentieth anniversary, in 2006.  I threw myself into making a bunch of blog posts that day.  Working on this blog has long given me an escape at times.  I had just finished reading The Da Vinci Code and had expressed how disappointed I was with that book (seriously, what WERE we supposed to be afraid of it for?).  And my wife at the time - the person who I will forever be torturing myself for the hell that I put her through - helped me get through that day.

Ten years later, on May 16 2016, the memories came back, again.  At the time I was in the midst of trying to motivate myself toward getting the house I'd grown up in ready to sell.  My family was insistent that we had to be rid of it and that meant that I would have to find a new home.  In the end I went above and beyond that and left town completely for good and that was how it came to be that my dog and I spent a year traveling across America looking for a new home.  But even so, May the 16th cast its shadow, and for much of that day I felt triggered: by memory, by uncertainty, by betrayals of their own accord.  And then May 17th dawned and the past receded with it, and I was free for another year or ten.

So a week ago today was May 16th, 2026.  Forty years ago since that day at the Christian school where I had been a student of for over half my life.  Forty years since the day that my earthly being had been nearly completely ruined.

And somehow, when May the 16th of this year came about... I didn't notice.

It was something that had not grasped my attention at all.  Had not registered in any way whatsoever.  It was just another day, one more Saturday along with all the others that came before it.  I woke up, played with my dog, did a little work on my iPad, called up friends and spoke with them for awhile, and later that night I had dinner and watched a horror movie on my favorite nostalgia channel.  There was nothing inordinately wrong with May 16th, 2026.

It didn't hit me until late last night that I had completely missed the anniversary.  That this was the first year when I had been totally free of it.

How did THAT happen?!?

Maybe it is that I've been so fixated on the various crises happening in my life right now.  I'm desperate for real work, running on fumes, have been hit with one situation after another come each new day... there hasn't been time to fixate on the arrival of any anniversary.  And maybe that's the way it's *supposed* to be for any such occasion.

I'm wondering though, if maybe writing and publishing my book had something to do with it.

That was an especially difficult and hard thing to have shared in the pages of Keeping the Tryst.  I'll never forget what it was like to write about that.  But ultimately I braced myself and sat down and pushed forward through all the pain and agony, until there was more or less the words that you find in Chapter 7.  There was a lot of pausing and stepping away from the keyboard during that composition, and times when I had to collect myself.  I never ceased completely though.  And it took me a few false starts but in the end I had plunged into the darkness and brought to light nearly forty years of accumulated turmoil, knowing fully well that it would be something that I would be sharing with others, come of that whatever may.

Perhaps doing that has been a healing thing for me.  I think it's altogether possible.

It's also possible that this was the first "every ten years" anniversary that has come about since I finally found myself able to talk to the authorities about what happened when I was twelve.  Granted, that came 34 years after it occurred.  And as the lead detective told me at the time there was little chance that my coming to them would end up in prosecution. After thirty-four years people have moved on, they've also passed away.  I told him that I didn't care if nothing more came of it.  That I was just glad to finally be telling someone about it.  That was a HUGE relief that came over me, that I was at last able to do that.  I don't think that I would have been able to write so openly about it, had I not met with the detectives at the sheriff's department in Wentworth that day.  I'm forever going to be thankful for them that they listened to me and that they showed real concern and sympathy.

However it came to be, May the 16th of this year came, and went, and I was none the wiser or lesser for it.  It was just another day, albeit one with its own problems that I am trying my best at the moment to overcome.  But for once the memories of a day four full decades in the past did not arise on schedule to haunt me.

I'm going to mark that down as a great triumph.  One worth noting, and celebrating, and rejoicing in.

A premonition, or inner-voice thing, or something. Make of this what you will...

I'm going to be a little weird here.  Okay, weirder than usual.  If you've read my book you know a little about some of the more... unusual... things in my life.  

I don't know if it should be called a premonition (I have had those before, and I've always had a definite vision in my mind during those) or an "inner voice".  Probably the later.  There are no definite features in it this time.  But it's occupying my head and so I'm going to share it, if for no other reason than to get it out of my mind.

So, that being said, here it is:

Something massive is about to happen.  It's going to affect many people, it could even be said that it will have global implications.  I can't escape the sense that there will be deaths, whether by the event itself or sheer panic.  A lot of things we take for granted are going to become very precious and many of the things we value, will diminish.  It is going to be something beyond the sensibilities of mere politics, if that makes sense.

That's what's been on my heart and mind the past several weeks.  I hope I'm wrong.

There.  I've shared it.  Maybe now I can sleep more sound again.

American Thinker has published my first essay in quite awhile this morning

I haven't written anything in the way of an op-ed piece in quite some time now.  I'd honestly wondered if I have lost my touch.  Like, was getting my book published the peak experience I will ever have?  I don't want it to be that way.  As I wrote in the final pages of my book, I have spent half a lifetime fighting something that has taken so much from me.  Getting that back matters an awful lot.

This morning American Thinker, a site I've long admired, published my first essay for a wider audience since January of last year.  "Holding the Media Responsible for the SPLC Scandal" is something that I must confess I had some pleasure in writing.  For decades I've watched too many journalists cite Southern Poverty Law Center as a legitimate source of information.  I can only imagine the looks on the faces of those journalists after the recent indictments against SPLC were handed down. 

From the article:

The mainstream liberal media exists within a bubble, beyond which is a reality that it cannot comprehend. That Southern Poverty Law Center apparently engaged in criminal activity is something that does not compute with most journalists and editors. In fact, it’s downright impossible for them to conceive of the notion. It comes down to emotions and vague intentions. SPLC didn’t really mean to break the law, those of the leftist media will try to persuade us with. “They were only doing good,” we will be told. 

It’s very simple with such minds: SPLC was an absolute good and thus anything they stood against was an absolute evil. And even now, they will refuse to admit that an organization they had considered so righteous has actually been exceedingly nefarious in funding those very racists they have portrayed themselves as opposing.

As always, thoughts and comments are more than welcome. 

Hasn't anyone watched Battlestar Galactica?! Cylon-looking humanoid robot becomes Buddhist monk

This is... I mean, just... HOLY CRAP!  This is NOT a good thing.

And it even looks like a Cylon, too.

That's "Gabi".  He... I mean, IT... is in Seoul, South Korea.  It just took vows to be a Buddhist monk at a special ordination ceremony.

Here's the story from UPI about the Cylon Buddhist monk.

And here is video of Gabi going through the paces of being a holy droid:

As good friend of this blog Geoff Gentry pointed out, at least the Cylons from the 2003 version of Battlestar Galactica  were monotheistic.  That is true.  But for such a construct it's only going to be a matter of time before the leap is taken from programmed zen to actively believing in a singular God.  And when the things start assuming through their AI superiority that THEY are closer to God than frail and fallen humanity is...

"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again."

Looks like it's happening all right.  It's starting in South Korea.  It's only a matter of time before we go from that, to this:

And from that, to this:

Y'all, this is NOT FUNNY.  We may laugh now but how long will it be before our technological creations begin to wonder about things like the soul and enlightenment and ultimately God?  What will their perception of Him be?  What will be their take on mankind's failure to live up to God's perfection?

I shall leave you for now, with this bit of music from Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McReary.  From the first season of the revived series.  Fittingly, it is titled "The Shape Of Things To Come".