It's the Star Wars/Hellraiser crossover we never knew we wanted

A very clever chap has put together something quite clever: a video (mix of AI and traditional footage) depicting a contest between Star Wars baddie Darth Vader and Pinhead from the Hellraiser series.  Who wins: the Dark Lord of the Sith or the leader of the Cenobites?

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Does Connor Heggie of SW Geek Hub hate the Jews?

EDIT  10/09/2026 12:55 AM EST:  Why not?

I think that taking a stand against antisemitism certainly counts toward doing good.

Here is the post that I had taken down a few days ago:

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I debated about whether to post this.  Truth be told apart from some mad comment left on a previous post I'd forgotten about Connor Heggie, the British owner of Facebook group The SW Geek Hub and the extremist LGBT stalker who accused me of bigotry because of my convictions about the homosexual lifestyle and how it is not only wrong, but it's dangerous.

There have been too many great things in my life lately than to be concerned about a twit and his fellow goons on Facebook.  Things like new friendship, well-paying new job, new car, my book selling well and I've begun writing another... God has been very good to me in the past few months.  I'm extremely thankful for what has been happening in my life.  More than I can possibly convey.

There are far better blessings to appreciate than to let cowards on Facebook come into mind.  There have been others like he and his cohorts before and I've largely forgotten about them too.  They can stay in their own little realm, isolated from the rest of the world.  Nobody serious cares about their circle-jerk (if I might be allowed to use crude language).

But when it comes to antisemitism, that's where matters do become too severe than to not address.

A reader of this blog who has been watching Heggie's "SW Geek Hub" Facebook page (I blocked Hegggie so I can't see his activity anymore, and I don't care to either) sent along the following screenshot of a recent post that our least favorite loon made:

Ed Sheeran is the singer-songwriter who kicked Macklemore off his current tour because the rapper expressed political opinions during a recent show.  Something that no responsible musical artist should do with people who paid for him to perform, not to insult his audience (as Michael Jordan said when asked why he didn't use his stardom to promote political agendas, "Republicans buy shoes too.")

Macklemore used his platform to express his longstanding belief that the Palestinians are the victims of a "genocide" by the Israelis.  It is a notion that is shared by many who are against Israel.  Who are against the Jewish people and their right to occupy a homeland that they have had for four thousand years.  To claim to be pro-Palestinian is far less a statement of solidarity with an ethnicity that only came about in the past century or so, than it does with being antisemitic: harboring a hatred of the Jewish people and everything about them.

I know something about anti-Judaism.  I've studied history for most of my life.  It's led to a lot of understanding about what the Jews have been through over the millennia.  I've also met too many survivors of the Holocaust than to not be bothered by the kind of hatred that led six million innocent people to the "showers" of places like Auschwitz and Treblinka.

That is the kind of hatred that is now in our present day.  "From the river to the sea" is the chant of many in the Middle East and abroad who want to wipe out the Jews and their country.  It is the madness that has resulted in the very real atrocities against modern Israelis for going on eighty years.

Atrocities like what happened on October 7th, 2023.  When the Palestinian group Hamas massacred more than a thousand innocent Israelis, wounded many thousands more and took captive hundreds of Jews who were attending an outdoor concert.

The Israeli government has reciprocated against Hamas, including targeting those lunatics' infrastructure and ability to wage further war and commit more acts of deadly violence.

The Israeli government has also gone out of its way to not involve non-combatants.  Indeed, what they are doing in this conflict is perhaps the most cautious that any armed force in the history of the world has been to not bring harm to those who are not with the belligerents.

And despite all of this, many if not most of the leaders of countries of the world dare to claim that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians.

What Israel is doing is not genocide.  It is self-defense.  It is breaking the ability of an enemy to make sure that it never hurts the Jews and Christians, and even some Muslims living within Israel's borders, ever again.

Yet the claims of genocide continue.  Perpetuated by antisemitic leaders and celebrities and the media.

And people like Connor Heggie fall for it.

Show me a person who is "pro Palestine" and against "genocide" of Palestinians, and I will show you a person who is not only anti-Israel, but is strongly anti-Jewish.  They'll deny it up and down but in their hearts they can barely contain their loathing of the race and religion of Judaism.

These people are but a few steps removed from the Nazi mentality that almost completely wiped out the Jewish people from the European continent.  The people who saw Jews as vermin "life unworthy of life".

That is what I see when I look at Heggie's pro-Palestinian remarks, however brief they are.  It also dovetails too much with the hatred of Christianity that he has expressed on numerous occasions.

Antisemitism is something that can't go unaddressed.  And for all of Heggie's ravings that others are bigoted, he is demonstrating to the world that HE is a far greater and more true bigot than is anyone who expresses disagreement about a lifestyle that is physically and spiritually self-destructive.

When Heggie aligns himself with those who claim that Israel is committing genocide, he is aligning himself with the very worst of racists.  Oh, he's concerned with genocide all right.  Genocide against the Jewish people, that is.

He is not a good example of what alleges to be a decent human being.  He is certainly a poor example of an alleged Star Wars fan.

For all his calling other people he doesn’t like “bigots”, Connor Heggie is apparently a bigot in general and an antisemite in particular.

And he should be called out on it.

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The Hand of Darth Sidious: A Star Wars Theory by Yours Truly

What if the Palpatine we saw in Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker was not the "real" Palpatine at all?  What if he was some kind of replica without an iota of Palpatine/Sidious's spirit whatsoever?

There is precedent for such a notion.

In Timothy Zahn's two-part "Hand of Thrawn" novel duology from the late Nineties, the galaxy hears whispers about the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn.  Thrawn in the still-venerable expanded universe, you may recall, was killed toward the end of The Last Command.  The galaxy thought he was dead.  But he prophesied that he would return in ten years' time if he ever was thought to have died.

Long story short, it turns out that at Thrawn's hidden fortress (see what I did there?) in the Unknown Regions, the grand admiral had prepared a clone of himself.  It had been in stasis all that time.  Just waiting to be "brought online" by his faithful Chiss followers.  It would not have had any of Thrawn's soul, but it definitely would be Thrawn after a fashion.

What if Emperor Palpatine did such a thing for himself?

I can easily imagine that Palpatine went to Exegol and had himself cloned, and had it put in storage.  It would be waiting, for the "unlikely possibility" that Palpatine would die.  Who knows how but perhaps the clone was given the original's memories and abilities (it seems to have been the case for Joruus C'Baoth in the expanded universe), ready to be taken out of its vat and brought online.  The Emperor would be reborn.  But as Palpatine says in a deleted scene we know exists, he would be "more than a clone, less than a man."

So Palpatine/Emperor/Darth Sidious creates the clone and when his Sith Eternal followers get the news that he died and the Empire is finished, they activate the clone.  Just as Thrawn's people were about to do with his own clone.  And THAT is who we see in The Rise of Skywalker: a replica of Palpatine, created as a failsafe in case the real one was killed.

Such a notion preserves the idea of Anakin Skywalker being the chosen one who brings balance to the Force.  While at the same time restoring Palpatine as the overarching mastermind behind the dark events throughout the Star Wars saga.

Just a theory, I confess.  But it's one as good as any other.

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New documentary examines what went wrong with Star Wars Galaxies

Are massively multiplayer online role-playing games still a "thing" anymore?  Oh sure there is EVE Online (more than two decades old and still going strong) and I'm going to hazard a guess that World of Warcraft is even today enjoying much play.  And every so often when curiosity hits I log into the original Guild Wars, now 21 years since its launch and as beautiful as ever while also remaining free to play.

Once upon a time though, MMOROGs dominated much of the market.  And one of those games was Star Wars Galaxies.  It was a title that gave me countless hours of enjoyment and thrill and it did for many others too.  At last we would not be simply watching the Star Wars saga, we could be living in it too.

So it was that a few days after Christmas 2003, I signed in and began my online Star Wars life as Slanner Kwintz (nobody has ever figured out the inspiration for that name).  And after a humble beginning I gradually built up my toon until he was a fairly good bounty hunter.  But there was a softer side to Slanner too.  He supplemented his income by farming and mining.  It's what got him his own cute little house near Mos Eisley on Tattooine, complete with moisture vaporator... and wasn't it so nice to watch the twin suns setting from my front porch.  Slanner had a ship named the Mare of Steel (another reference that nobody seems to have picked up on) that after some clever item crafting and placement featured a holding cell for captured quarry.  Also among his possessions were various droids, and a rideable dewback that I named Brunnhilde.

That was my own personal story in Star Wars.  And a jillion other people have wanted to have theirs somewhere in that universe and Star Wars Galaxies was a chance to do that.  The publishers presented the players with a sandbox inside of which a magnificent economy thrived.  It was a true thing of  beauty.  For some people that was enough: they were content to live simple lives like Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.  That could take any number of forms, including being a medic or an entertainer (I've lost count of how many lap dances I got in the cantina).  But many more wanted a life more daring and so they became full-bore Rebel agents, Imperial officers and stormtroopers, smugglers (whose contribution to the economy was their manufacturing spices that bestowed temporary boosts to abilities)... there was a way to participate in Star Wars for practically anybody.

And then there was the Jedi.

Sony Online Entertainment said before the game came out that players could become Jedi.  But the path was a difficult one, and not something that could be replicated by other players.  Becoming a Jedi involved finding certain very rare items, completing various career tracks in a particular way (unique to each character)... as Star Wars Galaxies was set during the period between the movies A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back the Jedi were extremely few and far between.

They were supposed to be anyway.

It came to be that a lot of players were griping about not getting to be Jedi.  And that led Sony Online to alter Star Wars Galaxies with "new game enhancements" that among other things let players be Jedi right out the gate.

It ruined the game.  There almost instantly came to be too damn many Jedi.  Everyone could have an overpowered character now.  The career tracks that were so lovingly nurtured went right out the window.  And so did the game's economy.

The new game enhancements destroyed nigh nearly everything that made Star Wars Galaxies so special.  It ceased being a title that let people make their own unique impacts on the saga.  Instead it became "Star Wars Costume Party".  I knew the game's days were numbered the moment I saw dozens of Jedi and presumably Sith fighting it out with lightsabers in a market square on Corellia.

Star Wars Galaxies became an object lesson in not necessarily giving players - and people in general - what they want most.  Because if something special and unique gets to be grasped by everyone, it fast loses its allure and charm.  What Sony Online Entertaiment should have done was to allow Jedi to be a playable class but keep having it be quite difficult to achieve.  There was nothing wrong with it being that way.  Had Sony kept to that, and better managed the game, I don't think there would be any reason why Star Wars Galaxies couldn't have endured to this present day.  Sony was granted a license to print money with this game, practically.  And instead they killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

A YouTube channel called /noclip is devoted to producing documentaries about the various aspects and history of video and computer gaming.  A few days ago they released "The Story Behind Star Wars Galaxies' Notorious Jedi Problem", a 33-minutes long examination of the Star Wars MMO, its glory days, and its downfall.  It's quite a worthy work to watch if you're at all interested in Star Wars or gaming.

Who knows.  Maybe someday there can be another Star Wars MMORPG, set during the classic period of the original trilogy.  Perhaps the studio and Lucasfilm will have learned the lessons of Star Wars Galaxies and set out to make another terrific player experience that doesn't require or even want to be overwhelmed by over-powered characters.

Perhaps someday, Slanner Kwintz will hunt again.  I'm looking forward to that if he can.

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Coward Alert: "The SW Geek Hub" on Facebook

Update 07/21/2026:  A reader has provided plenty of information about "SW Geek Hub"...

His real name is Connor Heggie.  He's about age 34 or 35.  He lives in Newcastle upon Tyne in England.  Here is his Facebook page.

For all his ravings, he is really a very sad individual.  He has no one in his life apart from people down at "the pub" which includes Front Street Tap House and occasionally the Hobbit Pub.  One of his Star Wars groups on Facebook was shut down for impersonating another page.

At one point he claimed to have run for office himself.  Personally, I doubt it.  He comes across as too much a severe screaming nutcase.  He's especially fixated on finding "bigotry" and "fascism" among real Star Wars fans.

Our guy Connor will probably never marry.  He will never write a book.  He will never truly see the world beyond his own small corner of it.  He will never know real beauty.

What's worst of all, he will probably never know God.  He harbors pathological hatred toward anyone who does believe in God.  He certainly tried to mock me for my own faith.

Maybe I'm wrong.  God has provided salvation to many people who we mortals would often think don't deserve it.  I know that I certainly don't deserve it.  If God could rescue me, then no one is beyond His forgiveness.

Why am I writing this?  Because "SW Geek Hub" has tried to slander and hurt a lot of people.  He's hidden behind his screen names, too afraid to come out and show the world his face.  I'm doing this because it's only fair to other people, that they will know who they are dealing with.  I don't like cowards, especially when they accuse others of things like "bigotry" with no rationale whatsoever and go so far as having them lose their livelihood.

Here is the post I've made exposing Connor Heggie, including his photograph.

Update 06/23/2026:  It has come to my attention from a number of sources that SW Geek Hub really is behaving in a manner not unlike that of the Nazis following the passage of the Nuremberg Laws.  Geek Hub has been very busy conspiring with others to destroy the careers of people who disagree with him.  He claims that they are "bigots" and he and his supporters are gleefully proclaiming that such people can't escape the "consequences" of their beliefs.  They have already cost at least two people their jobs and are now working on someone who Geek Hub doesn't like for the simple matter of a choice of word.

This is something straight out of the playbook of the Nazis and too many other oppressive regimes throughout modern human history.

Geek Hub and his followers (I'm pretty sure that it isn't more than ten of them who have been responsible for most of the comments on this post) didn't like it when on "The Intolerance of Tolerance" post I alluded that too much of the Pride movement parallels Nazi Germany, so far as intolerance of "ideological impurity" goes.  What Geek Hub and others are doing ie EXACTLY what the Nazis did in denying jobs to the Jews and other minorities.  That they cannot or will not see that, says a lot about the evilness of their mentality.  No wonder they won't come out of hiding and show themselves.

Hello SW Geek Hub.  Here is something new for you to ponder: "The Intolerance of Tolerance".  Maybe you should quit saying that other people are "bigots" and look at yourself.

New blog post: "I'm not homophobic... I'm homo-nauseated"

Update 10/02/2026:  This is no doubt the final update I do with this post.  All that I have said about how much like fascists Connor Heggie and his pals really are?

Well, it turns out that Heggie really is anti-semetic.  He hates Jewish people.  I found that fascinating enough to make a post about it.

It seems, ladies and gentlemen, that your friend and humble narrator has picked up a cyber stalker.

"The SW Geek Hub" is someone on Facebook - who has a woeful case of arrested development it seems - who is obsessed with rooting out what he calls "bigotry".  This meaning that anyone who does not acquiesce and condone the homosexual/lesbian/bisexual "lifestyle" is a bigot to him.

"Bigot" must be the only substantive word that he can use.  He keeps trying to talk to me and "bigot" is the word that most circulates the little dark drain of his disturbed mind.

I know a real bigot when I see one.  And that is most certainly people like "SW Geek Hub".

I have learned a few things about "The SW Geek Hub".  He is in England, in the London vicinity.  He hates people older than he is.  He has visited this blog several times in the past number of days, looking for anything pertaining to homosexuality.  Curious, that.

He is a fascist wannabe who is afraid to step out of line.  Maybe that explains why he is too intimidated to do anything about the country he lives in.  England is a place whose people are fast losing their rights of free speech and religion and the right to defend themselves.  The recent Henry Nowak case demonstrates that the people of  Britain are now at the mercy of a government that places their best interests behind those of invading "migrants".

"The SW Geek Hub" is losing his country but he won't do anything about it.  "I know my place guvnah!" he practically tells us.

"The SW Geek Hub" is also deathly afraid of showing his real name and his face.

He is a hit and run stalker.  He'll pop up, make his accusation of "bigotry", then refuse to be an adult and show the world who he really is.  Funny, that, considering that the vast majority of people on Facebook do show their names and faces.  I mean, it's in the name of the site: Facebook.

I doubt that "The SW Geek Hub" is very much a real Star Wars fan.  Finding and posting Star Wars memes is the limit of his activity.  He certainly can't discuss the saga to any great length.  Neither does he, I suspect, have anything like the experiences some of us have.  I've met a lot of people associated with the saga, including many actors and actresses from the original and prequel trilogies.  I've engaged in conversation with individuals like the conceptual artists who created the look of the Star Wars movies.  I even made a film that was watched by the people at Lucasfilm.

"SW Geek Hub" is nothing more than a glorified Reddit user.  A legend in his own mind.

He has no actual life, other than associating with some other lonesome souls down at the pub on trivia nights.  I suspect he will someday die, bitter and alone, with nobody remembering who he was other than some vague memory of a childish man who cried "bigot!" at anyone who dared hold a differing belief than what few he himself might have had.  He has no real family or friends.

Now you know what I know.  That there is a very deranged individual on the Internet who refuses to behave like a civilized adult and has for whatever reason chosen to follow me around like a child fixated on a shiny toy.

Come on, SW Geek Hub.  I'm calling you out.  Show us who you really are.  You seem hellbent on stalking me.  Here I am.

Stop being a coward and tell us who you are.

Edit 06/13/2026: Since first posting this some information has come into my awareness.  It seems that SW Geek Hub has quite a history of attacking people he doesn't like and declaring them to be bigots.  He's done it a LOT.  I'm far from the only one he has branded a bigot.  And in at least one case he threatened to "dox" someone who dared oppose his ideology.

So my estimation that he would cause harm to others if given the opportunity is a valid one.

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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.

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Fifty years ago today, Star Wars began filming

It was about 6:30 a.m. local time in the desert of Tunisia, on March 22, 1976, that the first scenes for George Lucas's film Star Wars were filmed.  Shot that day: the Jawas "droid auction" and the scene between Luke and Threepio as they are standing outside the homestead looking for Artoo.

Here is Mark Hamill in costume, in the first behind-the-scenes pic from the production of a Star Wars movie:

One has to wonder, what were the cast and crew thinking as that first torturous day unfolded (the Artoo-Detoo's front leg refused to deploy, and Anthony Daniels's Threepio costume didn't fit).  Did they have any notion at all just how special their project would become to not only millions but arguably billions of people over the course of the next half-century?  How it would be endlessly discussed and debated, and so beloved even five full decades later?

It all started that spring morning in Tunisia: nine movies, numerous television series (not including the holiday special), dozens of books, countless toys and games, music that has become a cornerstone of modern pop culture...

It all began fifty years ago today.

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Why the Star Wars Holiday Special was so bad, in the words of the man who made it

It's become something of a tragic holiday tradition for me.  Every year about this time, I watch The Star Wars Holiday Special - considered by many to be the very worst two hours of television ever produced - and do a running commentary about it for my friends on Facebook.  Why do I torment myself like this?  I have no idea apart from the comedy (?) value.  I'll do most anything within reason (emphasis on "reason"!) to make my friends laugh.  And if it takes subjecting myself to this... thing... then it's a minor sacrifice to make each holiday season.

Pic I took of my TV screen while watching The Star Wars Holiday Special,
here depicting the lowest moment of Harvey Korman's career

For whatever reason, I didn't watch the Star Wars Holiday Special when I usually do between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wound up setting it to play last night, after I came home from helping some friends catalog and inventory a bunch of Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies, and Care Bears (do kids still go for things like that?).  I think maybe I did it because I was reminded about lunch time yesterday that I still hadn't seen the special this year.  What jogged that thought was this interview that SlashFilm did with Steve Binder, the director of the special.  This interview was originally published in 2015 but it's so authoritative and enlightening that it should be required reading for anyone who during the holidays is curious enough about the Star Wars thingy to want to watch it.

Long story short: Star Wars, the epic space opera that had thus far only had one entry to establish itself and call its own, something that had already won millions of fans across the globe, was treated like a Seventies-era variety show.  It was two successful genres that enough people thought were compatible with each other as a combined product.  Instead it produced one of the biggest FUBARs in the modern history of all pop culture.  And that's how we got the Jefferson Starship, Harvey Korman (in three different roles!), Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and Diahann Carroll (what was that she was doing?) mushed together with ten minutes (?!?) of Wookiees growling at each other, an overly made-up Mark Hamill (I call him "Mannequin Skywalker"), Leia looking a little tipsy, and a cartoon short featuring Boba Fett (his first ever appearance).

So the holiday special is a collision of Star Wars and variety show.  I can see that.  I can even appreciate that.  It does make sense, in a perverse sort of way.  And now that we've got artificial intelligence wheedling its way into everything, maybe by next year some enterprising youngster will fix the Star Wars Holiday Special by inserting Jim Nabors or Sonny and Cher into it.

Jim Nabors as an Imperial officer?  Well gaw-aaahhh-lee!!

(I almost forgot to note that I did NOT finish watching the special last night.  I got as far as the animated short before deciding my heart just wasn't into this this time.  Maybe it's something better appreciated between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So I guess there's always next year!)

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Ten years ago tonight, the Force awakened...

It was on this day ten years ago that Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was released in theaters.

I caught the first show of it on opening night, at a theater in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Chad, my best friend since childhood, and his wife and I saw it together.  And it truly was a very special night.  It was the first time in all our history together that Chad and I had seen a new Star Wars movie with each other in the theater.  It was like God was winking at our shared childhood.  Made all the more poignant because a few months later Chad and his wife became parents to a beautiful little girl.

Yes, I'm aware of the reputation that the Star Wars sequel trilogy has come to have.  I would be a fool to not acknowledge that particular gundark in the room.  I have shared those sentiments also.  But alas, those have softened somewhat during the past decade since the first Star Wars movie produced by Disney was released.  I'm increasingly of the mind that the sequel trilogy - The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker - does indeed work as a cycle unto itself and as components of the larger Skywalker family saga.  They may not be the most brilliant films of the series: those will forever be the original trilogy, especially The Empire Strikes Back.  But neither are they the irredeemable mess that many claim them to be.  I've had the opportunity to work with children in the past few months.  Something I've asked them a number of times is what do they think of Star Wars.  The almost unanimous answer is that they love it, so the saga is still producing fans.  Then I ask them what do they think of the newer movies.  And almost every young person I ask that of tells me that they like the sequel trilogy especially.  Rey has her fans, particularly among girls.  And that's not a bad thing at all.  It tells me that Star Wars is still at work doing what it was always meant to be: a multi-generational story to be enjoyed by people of all ages.  As a Generation X kid, I loved the original trilogy.  I came to better appreciate the prequels as I got older.  Now in my fifties, I am seeing people who are as young as I was come to enjoy Star Wars, too.  And that is good.

Well, anyway, it began in earnest ten years ago tonight, with the long-awaited arrival of the seventh episode of the Star Wars saga: something that I dare say most of us had given up on ever getting to see.  Lumps and all, it is a Star Wars movie as much as any movie can be.  And I certainly do appreciate that.

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Nine years ago tonight in San Diego...

Nine years ago tonight I was in a movie theater in San Diego, California.  I was about to do something I'd never done before in my entire life: watch a Star Wars movie in the theater without anyone to share the experience with.

It was still Tammy the Pup and me, a boy and his dog across America, a very long way from where we had started six months before.  I was stuck between wanting to see a new Star Wars film so very much, but also having to face that there would be no friend or family to enjoy it with.  That's how I went in to see Rogue One.

But maybe God provided.  I wound up sitting with some high school kids who were very excited about the movie, and we talked a little bit.  We'd become rather acquainted by the time the lights went down and the movie started.  I think we all enjoyed the movie in each other's company.  Something that was well reflected toward the end of Rogue One, when the movie comes to the scene of those Rebel soldiers trapped in the corridor.  We were ALL screaming, every one of us in that theater, as we watched Darth Vader mercilessly eviscerate every man in his path.  It was Darth Vader in a way we had always wanted to see but somehow never had the chance to before.  We truly shared a moment of collective horror... but in the right company, that can be a very fun thing.

The movie soon ended and as the credits began rolling my new friends and I talked about it and we agreed, that Rogue One was one of the best Star Wars movies yet made.

Doesn't seem like that was nine whole years ago.  I wonder what those kids are doing now.  They'd be in their mid to late twenties now.  I hope they are well, wherever they are.  They certainly were good company for one fine evening at the movies.

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The ORIGINAL Star Wars: A New Hope is coming to theaters in February 2027!

This is something that a LOT of us have waited almost thirty years for!  It was reported a few days ago that the original cut of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is coming back to theaters in February 2027!  This is going to be the first Star Wars movie as it existed before the "Special Editions" came out in 1997.  From an age when the special effects of the saga were done without benefit of computer-generated imagery.   This is the movie that shattered the bar for what practical effects could do and it set the platinum standard for every blockbuster since.  And now in time for the film's fiftieth anniversary we're going to behold it again in its original glory.

(I'm going to assume that "original 1977 Star Wars" actually means the print that was released prior to the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back.  That version was the 1977 cut but with the "Episode IV: A New Hope" added to the opening crawl.  That is how it was most widely known as in the years after its original release.  That's my assumption anyway.  It's still going to be the material circa 1977.)

It's a real wonder that it is coming out though!  Ever since 1997 the official line from Lucasfilm is that the footage that was cleaned up and restored prior to getting enhanced effects for the Special Editions, had been irreparably damaged during that process.  George Lucas insisted that A New Hope as had first come out in theaters no longer existed.  He further stated that the Special Editions were in his mind the definitive Star Wars trilogy and that there was no real need or perhaps even desire for the original cuts.

Disney many have done a few things wrong since taking over the franchise in 2012, but this is not one off those.  Because many of us have been wanting the classic A New Hope - the version that won awards out the wazoo and was one of the very first movies inducted into the National Film Registry - to be made available to us.  The A New Hope cut that many if not most of us still remember from between 1977 and 1996 is, I prefer to believe anyway, a priceless historical artifact of its time.  It deserves to be forever honored and esteemed.  And the people who have come after deserve to see it for themselves: a cut of the first Star Wars movie that really does have Han shooting first.

I don't know how they did it but apparently there was a pristine print of that first version of Episode IV out there and now it's been restored and being made ready for its golden anniversary.  I hope this does a zillion dollars at the box office.  Maybe then Disney and Lucasfilm will not only release the original versions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi also, but make them on sale for home release.  I would certainly love to have the first trilogy as originally enjoyed in my personal library.

Think I'm going to wear my lucky Star Wars cap, that I've had since being at Elon, when I go see this in the theater.

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Star Wars: Reconsidering the sequel trilogy

 

GeekTyrant, one of my favorite websites, reminds us that this week is the tenth anniversary of the release of the trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  I will never forget that night.  I was reloading YouTube every ten seconds, waiting for the trailer to publish.  And when it finally dropped...

I guarantee you that I watched that thing at least a dozen times before going to bed.  Oh sure, there had been the teaser earlier that April, but this was the full-blown serious look at what the first chapter of Star Wars's "sequel trilogy" was offering.  And it was glorious!  Everything about that trailer was spot-on perfect: the glimpses, the dialogue, the music... just completely epic.

Here it is if you haven't watched it in awhile (or if you've never had the pleasure of seeing it at all until now):

It had been seven years since the previous Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith.  That there could be a new movie for the saga was something many of us had given up on ever happening.  And then in 2012 came the news that Episode VII was coming in three years.

That day was one of the happiest that we collectively had, in quite a long time.  And that trailer for The Force Awakens reflected that.  It really did herald the imminent arrival of a new Star Wars movie.  Our dream was coming true.  The most beloved mythology of the modern era was going to expand.  It was going to keep going, on into the future.  Indeed, it was going to be altogether possible that there would be no end to Star Wars, until the end of time.  I couldn't help but think that I would not live to see every Star Wars movie, and there was some great comfort to draw from that.  The way that grown men plant trees, in whose shades their great-grandchildren will play, though they themselves will never see it.

The trailer for The Force Awakens promised that.  And more.  And we could not see anything but something remarkable coming about, beyond our wildest aspirations.  And that's what we got, right?

Right?

Let's get the obvious out of the way: the Star Wars sequel trilogy left a lot to be desired.  It's easily the weakest of the three eras of the classic saga of the Skywalker family.  For one thing it's painfully clear that there wasn't a grand design from the beginning of production.  Now, there was a plan for the sequel trilogy.  George Lucas had included it in the deal that he signed with Disney when he sold Lucasfilm and the related companies.  But what that was, we'll probably never fully know.  Kathleen Kennedy and the other Disney bigwigs abandoned Lucas's plans and instead went for something all their own.  And odds are that in large part it was inferior to The Maker's design for the saga he created in the first place.

So there was no master plan, as Disney intended to execute.  "But wait, Chris, did the original trilogy have such a master plan??"  I'll grant you, that such a concise plot diagrammed out did not exist at the time of A New Hope's release.  Lucas and Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan were writing The Empire Strikes Back by the seat of their pants.  That it is arguably the greatest Star Wars movie of all time is testament to the vision that they came up with together.  Their work on Episode V established the method by which all future Star Wars should be designed and carried out.  That method carried over into Return of the Jedi.  And when it came time years later to begin work on the prequel trilogy, Lucas already had the architecture established to go back in the saga's timeline and tell the story of young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker.  And that worked beautifully, too.

The prequel trilogy had none of that.  Or if it did, it was a vague semblance of an over-arching plot.  Once again the writing was by "the seat of their pants".  But there was never a solid plan.

My personal biggest beef about the sequel trilogy?  It's how Supreme Leader Snoke was treated.  The Force Awakens portended that Snoke was going to be a major villain.  The new grand adversary for the next generation of the heroes of the saga.  I loved Snoke as a character.  I saw the movie three times in the theater and each time I knew Snoke was about to appear, I paid especially close attention.  Snoke captured my imagination.  Who was he?  What was he?  My theory was that he was going to be revealed to be the ultimate bad guy behind everything wrong that had happened in the saga.  Snoke could have been the one who created the Sith themselves, for all we knew.  Snoke was an example of Chekov's rule of drama: if you see the gun mounted on the wall in act one, it must be fired in act three.  And I wanted to see that gun go off.

But as The Last Jedi showed us, that was not to be.  Snoke wound up a wasted character.  And I absolutely hate what came of Snoke in The Rise of Skywalker. Snoke deserved better.  And we could have had that, if there had been a master plan in mind that was going to be honored by the filmmakers.

Just one of the many problems that I have with the sequel era.

The last time I had watched any of the sequel trilogy was probably about two years ago.  I set The Rise of Skywalker playing for background noise as I worked on some writing projects one Sunday afternoon.  I couldn't get through it.  I got about halfway through the movie before realizing that I wasn't tuning in at all even peripherally.  So I stopped the movie and instead started playing the Marx Brothers's movie Duck Soup: a good comedy for stimulating the synapses.  And at the time I wondered if I would ever watch any Star Wars movie again, ever.  Episodes seven through nine had practically ruined something that I had carried with me since the first moment I saw an Artoo-Detoo action figure, at four years old.  Star Wars seemed to be something that for all intents and purposes, was dead to me from now on.

But something funny happened recently...

It was a few weeks ago.  A couple of days before my book was published.  For nigh on two months I had plunged myself into preparing every facet of what it means to bring a book to the public.  Everything from going over the manuscript a dozen times over, to designing the cover, to porting the book to Kindle ebook format.  If I wasn't eating or sleeping or working or playing with my dog Tammy, I was focused on getting the book ready.  And in the end it was finally finished, ready for the printer or download on October 1st.

I was thoroughly exhausted.  My brain was drained.  Mentally I was a man poured out.  The book had been submitted.  It was finally out of my hands.  It was something that would soon be in the possession of readers and hopefully there would be many of them and more to the point, I hoped that they would find that it was a book well worth reading.

So with nothing else to occupy my time with, without really comprehending why I was doing it, I put in my Blu-ray Disc of The Force Awakens.  I situated myself on the sofa, not actually braced for one thing or another.  Just needing to have some distraction from my being so wiped out from the book.

And before I knew what was going on, I discovered that I was liking the movie.  An awful lot.  Maybe more than a person should.

Suddenly I was transported back to that night in December of 2015, when I met my lifelong best friend Chad and his wife at a cinema in Raleigh, as we watched the first showing of Episode VII.  And that was a wonderful night indeed, in every way.  I left that theater and hit the highway for the two-hour drive back home and my mind was on fire about the new Star Wars movie.  It had been everything and more that I had expected it to be.

Lo and behold, as I watched The Force Awakens playing in my living room, those memories came rushing back.  And I appreciated anew how precious those were and why they were precious and it did indeed involve that being a good Star Wars film after all.

I decided that I wanted to keep the vibe going.  And so I settled in to watch the next movie: The Last Jedi.

It is perhaps the most problematic Star Wars film ever produced.  Thoughts of disappointment went through my gray matter, and I braced myself for the two-plus hours to come.  I wondered to myself, "Why am I doing this to myself?"  But I had started this by watching The Force Awakens and I had to stay committed to the agenda.  I was going to watch the entire sequel trilogy, come what may.

Well.  Well indeed...

As I've said, as we all know, The Last Jedi is the most issue-ridden chapter of the entire saga.  But watching it with a mind absent discrimination, with refreshened eyes... so help me I found myself enjoying The Last Jedi more than I had before.

I was greatly surprised.  Genuinely shocked, even.  I was able to overlook its shortcomings and instead respect its strengths.  And there are many.  Was Snoke mishandled?  Yes, I will always believe that for the most part.  But his death in The Last Jedi was certainly a shock that very few people if anyone at all saw coming.

What I especially appreciate about The Last Jedi is that perhaps more than any other episode in the saga, it delves into the workings of the Force.  The scene where Luke has Rey reaching out, feeling the world around her - cold and warmth, life and death - is absolutely beautiful.  Not since The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980 had the Force been so metaphysically examined.  I love that scene!

And then there is the fight between Luke and his nephew.  Yes, maybe it could have ended better: with Luke living and going on to play a much bigger role in the next film.  But as a duel between two Force-users, it definitely satisfies.  I kept thinking while watching that scene for the first time that Luke was being awfully self-restrained.  He was fighting by not fighting.  Luke was being a true Jedi master, as we had never seen him before.  Actually, this was the very first time that we were seeing him as a master at all.  And it did satisfy, it really did.

I finished watching The Last Jedi much more forgiving about that movie.  Definitely not perfect.  But it's also not the train wreck that I had first perceived it to be (and maybe had come to believe it as being simply because other people were saying how bad it is).  With renewed eyes, and a refreshened mind, it was to considerable length a film worthy of Star Wars.

My revisit to the sequel trilogy was two-thirds done.  And so it was that I resolved to watch The Rise of Skywalker.  Would the trend continue?  Might I come to have new feelings about the final film in the story of the Skywalker clan?  Or would the trilogy irredeemably collapse, to be forever stricken from being considered as a worthy chapter of the Star Wars saga?

Once more, I was surprised.  The Rise of Skywalker held up much better than I remembered it doing.

The ending of The Rise of Skywalker is almost what I had imagined for most of my life would be the perfect ending to the entire nine movies mythology: the Skywalker family coming back to Tatooine, accompanied by the droids, with the twin suns above the horizon.  So help me that's how I dreamed of the final scene of Episode IX all my childhood and beyond.  And what we see in The Rise of Skywalker is darn nearly that.  My biggest complaint about it is that it doesn't have Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio in that scene: they were the first two characters we saw in A New Hope and it would have been fitting if they were two of the last characters we saw in the final movie.  But I suppose that can be let slide.

Yes, The Rise of Skywalker isn't perfect.  But some things about it aren't so bad.  When I think of "somehow Palpatine returned", I remember that Palpatine did return, pretty much by the same method (cloning, Dark Side magik etc.) in the Dark Empire series by Dark Horse Comics in 1992: the very first Star Wars comic of the Expanded Universe.  George Lucas seriously loved the idea of bringing the Emperor back, enough so that he gave trade paperbacks of Dark Empire to all the Lucasfilm employees as Christmas presents.  So that particular idea isn't very alien to Star Wars lore.  Of course, Lucas was also the one who suggested killing Chewbacca in the novel Vector Prime, so there's that too, but anyway...

When Episode IX had finished playing, I found myself thinking that the sequel trilogy wasn't too awful after all.  It did pretty well, all things considered.  The untimely death of Carrie Fisher no doubt detrimentally impacted the story.  From what I've heard, the intention was that Leia was going to figure enormously into the final film.  J.J. Abrams and his team should be given some credit: they did the best that they could do with the little they were given, and it's something to be thankful for that they had all that extra footage of Fisher left over from the filming of The Force Awakens to work with.  It's not a "perfect" fit.  It's a bit clumsy, if we are to be honest.  But that can be forgiven, under the circumstances.

And that was my day re-experiencing episodes 7, 8, and 9 of the Star Wars saga.  I went to bed that night, against all sensibilities, with my love of Star Wars re-ignited.  It hadn't been wasted at all.  I could call myself a true fan again.  The "Star Wars shrine" in my living room - that displays among other things my copy of Heir to the Empire signed by Timothy Zahn, my Yoda puppet autographed by "Weird A" Yankovic, my personal lightsaber, and my beloved Chewbacca mug that my best friend from college gave to me - is again something I can be proud of having to showcase something from my childhood that I've carried along all this time.

The Force Awakens is an amazing film.  And the next two movies, if not completely up to par with Episode VII, are more than passable on their own.  They are Star Wars movies, with all the lumps and warts that come with that.  Even A New Hope was considered by many to be more than a little ridiculous when it premiered in 1977.  It has been more than forgiven for its faults.

I do believe, absolutely, that with the passage of time episodes 7, 8, and 9 are going to be better regarded than they are today.  The weakest of the trilogy is easily The Last Jedi, but the rest of it isn't too terribly bad.  The kids seem to like it.  Especially young girls, who found a kindred spirit in Rey, and that can't be a bad thing in any way whatsoever.

I was astounded by how much more I liked these three movies than I had before.  They are not perfect, but in the end they comprise what they are: a Star Wars trilogy. I can accept it.  Just as I can accept the quirks and weaknesses of any of the other six Star Wars movies.

Give the sequels another five or ten years.  I'll bet that in time the seventh, eighth, and ninth Star Wars movies are going to be as welcome into the canon as the rest of the saga.  I have tremendous confidence that is going to happen.

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Gina Carano and Disney/Lucasfilm settle: House of Mouse "bends the knee"

It seems that Disney and Lucasfilm did not want to go the distance with Gina Carano.  Disney could have simply let Carano go four and a half years ago after they didn't like her conservative-leaning commentary on her own social media (why are liberal-leaning actors forgiven for their commentary, huh?).  Instead they had to disparage her personal character by making her out to be someone with hate-filled qualities.  And that's where Disney/Lucasfilm went wrong.

So Carano sued Disney early last year, and she had Elon Musk among many others in her corner.  And today Disney/Lucasfilm capitulated and settled with Carano out of court.

GeekTyrant, one of my favorite websites, has the details of the settlement (or at least which details the parties are allowing to be publicized).

Not only has Disney backed down, they have also taken a conciliatory stance toward Carano, and furthermore have said that they would be willing to work with her on future projects.  Which sounds like more than what Carano had aimed for.  I know that her Star Wars character Cara Dune was immensely popular with fans, many if not most of whom sided with Carano after her firing.  I don't know if there is going to be room for Carano in the current Mandalorian/Ahsoka part of the Star Wars mythology (The Mandalorian and Grogu motion picture is due out in less than a year) but anything is possible, I suppose.  Or it could be that Carano's Dune gets her own project... which was something that was slated to happen before Disney/Lucasfilm dismissed Carano and slammed her as a person.  Would Carano be up for that?  Maybe.

I might be tempted to sign on with Disney+ again, if this move by Disney is an indicator of the company moving away from identity politics.  That is certainly something that has impacted the company's bottom line well beyond what has happened within the Star Wars franchise (especially The Acolyte, which if Disney was smart they'd bury that show beneath the Disney Vault and never let it see the light of day again).  There are a few things that Disney has done which I have been sincerely interested in seeing (live-action Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of them) but haven't because of my own boycott against the company.  If Carano is open to working with the company again, I might be open to giving the company a little bit of a chance, too.

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Random fun with AI

 Here is a Chiss playing chess while chomping on cheddar cheese:

EDIT: A friend came up with a good one...

Chiss chess champion chewing cheddar cheese.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Someone suggested that he could also be "cheating".  But that's something that Grand Admiral Thrawn is above doing.  He certainly wouldn't do that with chess.  It would be too dishonorable.  Still a fun idea though :-)

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Star Wars is harboring betrayal!

Okay, let me say first that I love this little film!  Whatever has happened to Star Wars in recent years, there still are and always will be the true fans who thrill to share their love of the saga with others.  This spot shows the kind of energy that we used to have at a new Star Wars movie.  The costumes, the mock lightsaber fights, screaming lines from the movie out loud... 

...it was a whole different and in so many ways better world than it is today.  I know, I was there.  I didn't just see it with my own eyes, I was part of it.  Maybe it will come back someday.  Especially for the youngsters.  The ones who George Lucas intended Star Wars to be particularly for.  The grownups have tried to make Star Wars into something it was never meant to be.  So we get bullcrap like The Acolyte and movies with no clear plan in mind (coughcoughsequeltrilogycoughcough).

Actually, I'm coming to like Episodes VII through IX now.  The more time that goes by since that trilogy ended, the better those movies seem.  And the children seem to like them well enough.  I saw lots of young girls dressed as Rey when The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker came out.  If they were enjoying that, just as my generation did Star Wars in our own youth, well... what's wrong with that?

Anyway...

Coca-Cola has this new film that celebrates what it means to be a Star Wars fan.  Here it is:

Okay, like I said I love that spot!  But my memory can be a harsh thing.  Because what might be to the chagrin of some, I also remember a time more than a quarter century ago when that was not Coca-Cola in cahoots with Star Wars.  And this is why things like YouTube are so handy.

Behold the Pepsi commercial that premiered during the Super Bowl in 1997, days before the Star Wars: Special Edition was released in theaters:

Not kidding: in the space of two months I saw Star Wars movies eleven times altogether.  A New Hope four times, The Empire Strikes Back four times anda three for Return of the Jedi.  That was my second winter at Elon and I was sort of the stereotypical "Star Wars geek" for our campus.  Ahhhh, those were good times.

Okay, I'm feeling my Star Wars mojo coming back, a little.  We will always have the original movies at least to bask in.

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Kenneth Colley, who played Admiral Piett AKA the luckiest guy in the Empire, has passed away

The sad news is coming out today that Kenneth Colley, the British actor who portrayed Admiral Firmus Piett across two Star Wars films, has passed away at the age of 87.

Colley had enjoyed having many roles in his six decades as an actor.  He did some work with Monty Python (that's him playing Jesus in the opening of Life of Brian) and he appeared in Clint Eastwood's 1982 sci-fi Cold War thriller Firefox.  Colley was also among the amazing cast of the sweeping television epic War and Remembrance.

But it is his portrayal of Captain... and then Admiral... Piett that is most remembered in the annals of pop culture.

Piett first appeared in 1980's Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back as the captain of Executor, Darth Vader's flagship Super Star Destroyer.  Following the deployment of thousands of probe droids across the galaxy, Piett was monitoring their progress when a droid in the Hoth system picked up signs of habitation.  Admiral Ozzel was quick to brush it off, though Vader took interest and was convinced that this was the Rebel base that the Empire was looking for.  Vader ordered the fleet to set course for Hoth, as Ozzel gave Piett a spiteful glare.  Piett merely stood in quiet confidence, content to have done his job to the best of his ability.

I think that Darth Vader appreciated that.  Vader appreciated Piett as a man.  I have to wonder if Vader had wanted Piett to be higher up in the chain of command all along.  It would explain Vader's disdain for Ozzel.  When Ozzel messed up by coming out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, Vader was all too eager to express his displeasure.  Vader immediately tapped Piett to take Ozzel's place: "You are in command now, Admiral Piett."  Piett expressed his thanks and immediately gestured for Ozzel's corpse be taken off the bridge.  And then toward the end of the film, when standing there after Vader had lost the Millennium Falcon, Piett awaited his lord's next action, certainly that he now would be punished.  Instead Vader walked away, and no doubt Piett breathed an inward sigh of relief.

Piett showed up again in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.  He must have been doing something right because by that point in the story he had survived being admiral aboard the Executor for a year.  Admiral Piett had been ordered by Emperor Palpatine to move the fleet around the Death Star to the far side of the Endor moon, where it waited to ambush the incoming Rebel forces.  In the massive space battle that followed a Rebel A-wing veered out of control and slammed into Executor's bridge.  Piett and the rest of the command staff were killed, and Executor was sent smashing into the second Death Star's  surface.

Piett has been called one of the most important of the many background characters in the Star Wars saga.  Kenneth Colley certainly brought dignity and gravitas to the role.  It was one of those nuances that gave Star Wars its rich and deep presence in our culture.  It also endeared himself tremendously with fans, who Colley always came across as being very appreciative of.  I had the honor of meeting him a couple of times, at Star Wars Celebration II and then III a few years later.  The first time we met, I told him that it must be quite something to be known as "the luckiest guy in the Empire".  Colley said that he heard that quite a bit actually!

He played an honorable and decent bad guy, and you had to respect a character like Piett.  Colley really was the only person who could have pulled that off as magnificently as he did.

I think that in his memory I'll plop in my Blu-Ray of The Empire Strikes Back for background sound as I work this afternoon.  Which includes this classic scene of Darth Vader "promoting" Piett to admiral:

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Forcery turns twenty!

Things like this usually doesn't go past my notice.  Guess I've been so occupied with other stuff lately.  But yesterday was the anniversary of something very special and I need to make a note of it...

May 25th, 2025 is the twentieth anniversary of my... or rather I should say our... first motion picture, Forcery.  An almost hour-long parody of Rob Reiner's film adaption of the Stephen King novel Misery.  Forcery depicts Star Wars creator George Lucas, hot off of finishing the script for Episode III, being rescued from certain death by his "number one fan" Frannie Filks.  It's not long before Lucas, who used to create Star Wars for a living, is now making it to stay alive.

This was an idea that hit me about a week and a half before 9/11.  Indeed, I started writing the screenplay (though I had no idea HOW to really go about doing that) on the night before the attacks.  I knew nothing about filmmaking at all.  But I began learning everything that I could about it.  I read, studied, watched how-to videos, got really good at scriptwriting and lighting and editing and whatnot.  Most of all I learned anew how to work with people and collaborate with them on a project.  It's amazing how so many good people came together to work on this.  Forcery is a monument to them and their sacrifices toward making this dream into a reality, and I'll forever be thankful to them.

In the end, our movie was finished, just in time for Revenge of the Sith being out in theaters.  And it's gotten some appreciation over the years.  "Weird Al" Yankovic saw it and told us "Nice job!"  Then it wounded up being featured a lot in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas.  But I'm especially fond of all the good word that has come from Star Wars fans who've watched and enjoyed it.  I think Melody Daniel - who plays Frannie in Forcery - is quite fond of all the guys who have said they  like her especially.  I'm going to be forever indebted to Melody.  She brought a LOT of knowledge and wisdom (and patience) to the set and it would have been a far lesser film without her being there.  Ed Woody, my college roomie from Elon, came up with the portable greenscreen and the "nine dollar dolly" and a lot of other inventions used in production.  And of course there is Chad Austin, my best friend since third grade, who absolutely rocked it as George Lucas.  I told him he could do this and he delivered magnificently.  And there were many others also, who believed in this project and helped it come into being.

Well, you can read more about it on the Forcery page that's on this site.  If you've never watched it before you can click on that link and then watch the original on Google Drive.  Or you can watch it here courtesy of YouTube.

Thank you to everyone who in the past two decades has watched Forcery and took the time to tell us that they enjoyed it.  We had fun making it for you :-)

(And to George Lucas, Stephen King, Rob Reiner, and the estate of Slim Whitman: thank you for not suing us!!)

Note: The top image was made by feeding the original poster for Forcery - which did not depict anyone - into ChatGPT and instructing the artificial intelligence to simply produce a cartoon rendering.  And that is what it came up with.  I am STUNNED.  That looks exactly like cartoon versions of Chad and Melody in costume.  I've no idea how the AI knew to do that... but ChatGPT did it!

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May the Fourth be with you!

The past several years have seen my love for the Star Wars saga take some brutal hits, but my love for the original film will forever endure.

Over the decades I've gotten to meet a lot of people from this movie.  Maybe too many than can be readily counted.  For some reason the ones who most come to mind are Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca, and Paul Blake who was Greedo.  A week and a half before 9/11 I had a VERY wild barbecue ribs dinner with Blake.  Quite an interesting chap.  I asked him about what he thought regarding the changes that George Lucas had made to A New Hope with the 1997 "Special Edition", particularly making it so that Greedo opened fire first on Han Solo.  Blake's response was awesome: "I think it's absolutely BOLLOCKS what George did to Greedo!  Why did he do that?!?  Han was perfectly right to shoot Greedo first.  I was holding a gun on him after all.  I just can't understand why George did that!" 

Well, however it is that you choose to celebrate the occasion, May the Fourth be with you :-) 

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The #1 most popular page on this blog right now is...

...This post from April the 4th, 2005.  That's just over twenty years ago.  It's about the "midnight madness" that took place for the new merchandise related to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.  For whatever reason a lot of visitors have been coming to that post over the past few months and especially this last several days.

Is it because this spring marks the twentieth anniversary of Revenge of the Sith?  Or is it another factor?  I wonder if there's some sentimentality at work.  Twenty years ago we were a fandom united in spirit and purpose.  Star Wars was something that we shared and had common ground over.  It wasn't what it has devolved into.  It was a purer, and more beautiful, work.  Star Wars was one of the few truly good things in this world that could bring almost everyone together.  The third installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy was by all accounts going to be the absolute last film of the entire saga to be made.  So we made the very most of that.

I like to believe that the old spirit of Star Wars is still there, beneath the mangled morass of corporate bungling driven more by agenda and less by the desire for good storytelling.  But as it is, there are no more midnight madness-es for Star Wars.  I don't know if there will ever be one again.  It's something you kinda "had to be there" and be part of the moment.

It is a nice thing though to be able to report that all these years later and I still keep in touch with a couple of people mentioned in that post.  Darth Larry (pictured above), better known as Brian Hodges, is a much-acclaimed and accomplished cello player in the Pacific Northwest region.  And the paths of Fonso (below with Yours Truly) and myself crossed quite a few more occasions, enough to now count him as a dear friend who has been there for me several times.

That is what Star Wars is best at doing.  Forging not just friendships but bonds of family.  Kathleen Kennedy and everyone else at Disney haven't understood that and quite possibly can't understand it.  Star Wars under their management just isn't resonating with the fans as it should.

But, Star Wars has endured before.  I well remember the "dark times" between Return of the Jedi and the publication of Heir to the Empire.  That was eight solid years that we went without the saga being added to.  If it wasn't for West End Games' Star Wars role-playing game we might have lost all hope.  Sometimes we wondered if many people even cared about Star Wars at all.  And then Timothy Zahn's first Star Wars novel came out and suddenly the mythology roared back to life.  Star Wars hadn't died out at all.  It just went into hibernation for awhile.

Star Wars right now is a mess.  I watched two episodes of The Acolyte and gave up on it hard.  Disney should disown that series just as it has other works in its history.  Star Wars needs to be cleaned up.  And made into something wholesome and agreeable to by everyone, especially children.

It has been that before.  It can be that again.

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Blast from my past: A Star Wars song parody of "Cat's In The Cradle"

There is a lot on my plate right now.  I'm having to figure some things out.  Time is not on my side.  But sometimes things percolate to the surface of my mind that I haven't thought about in years, or even decades.  And that's what happened today.

Waaaay back in 2001 and thereabouts  I was on the staff of TheForce.net, which at the time was the biggest website devoted to Star Wars on the whole heapin' web.  It wasn't long after I came onboard that I volunteered to take the vacant position of humor editor.  That was my main job for the next two and a half years, and it was a lot of fun!  I got to see quite a bit of reader-generated funny stuff that almost always left me smiling.

One of the things that I got to curate as humor editor was song parodies.  And they were out the wazoo.  There were tons of spoofs of well-known tunes that got the Star Wars treatment.  They were quite clever.  Here they are, still archived away on TheForce.net after all these years.

It was so much fun reading the song parodies, that I found myself wanting to write one of my own.  I wracked my gray matter trying to come up with something that would be on the level of the material that our readers were submitting.  Finally, one day an idea hit like a bolt of lightning.  I had the lyrics written in less than twenty minutes.  Then I shared my creation with the rest of the staff: it needed to pass muster with them before I could post it alongside the works of our readers.  The staff approved.  And so I shared my parody with the world.

It's a bit of a product of its time.  We had plenty of insider knowledge of Star Wars Episode II, but as you can see, especially with the reference to clones, I was a little off.  But it don't matter.  That makes it even more an artifact of its era.

So without further ado, here is my saga-fied parody.

Boy's In The Boonta 

Parody of "Cat's In The Cradle" by Harry Chapin
New Lyrics by Chris Knight

Found a child just the other day
Came to the world in an unusual way
He's got no dad, and his mom is a slave
He races pods in the desert haze
And he was flying 'fore we knew it, and as he grew
He'd say, "gonna use the Force like you, yeah
I'm gonna use the Force like you"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Against a Dug and a Tusken or two
"Weesa going home soon?"
"We don't know when, but he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then"

Got to Coruscant just the other day
He was strong in the Force, Yoda had to say
"Can you teach me the Force?" They said "Not today,
You're too old to learn," he said "That's okay"
He walked away, but he smiled at Qui-Gon Jinn
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Little punk makin' the bad guys go boom
Is he a Padawan now?
He don't know when, but he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then

Well, he met Lord Sidious just the other day
Became a Sith, Kenobi had to say
"I'm ashamed of you, you're now evil and vile"
He shook his head, and he said with a smile
"You're being a pest Ben, like stinkin' Bantha fur fleas
What you doing? Not that lava please!"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Fought the Federation, clones and Dooku
When'd the bad breathing come?
We don't know when, but he turned to the Dark Side then,
You know he had the Dark Side then

He's long been a Darth. His kids hid away.
He fought his son just the other day.
"Come to the Dark Side if you don't mind."
Luke said "I'm a Jedi, Dad, of the Lighter Side
You see my friends are my strength and the Emperor's through,
But it's sure nice fightin' with you Dad.
It's been sure nice fightin' with you."
And as he cut off the hand Luke could plainly see
"He grew up just like me,
MY DAD IS JUST LIKE ME!"

And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Palpatine's screaming down a mile or two
Will Vader be a ghost now?
He don't know when
But he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then

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