response 19 of 50:

Apr 27 13:11 UTC 2001

Interesting.  I may have to go back and watch Episode I again.  I really 
didn't like it the first time I saw it, for all the reasons you cited.  
But you make it sound both thoughtful and exciting.

Watch it on that "I can afford to buy all the toys I want" stuff.  Arlo 
is going to learn to read some day, and the very day he does, he will 
home in on that comment and cite it endlessly to you.  ("But Dad!  I 
think we ought to have a *blue* twisty slide *too*!  You said you could 
afford any toys you want.")  Even just sticking to Legos, some of those 
sets cost a couple of hundred bucks, and there's *no end* to them.

response 21 of 50:

Apr 28 21:47 UTC 2001

The last I'd heard, Lucas had decided not to make the third trilogy 
after all.  Possibly I'm mistaken: I don't pay much attention to these 
things.  "Phantom Menace" was quite possibly the most boring movie I've 
ever sat all the way through, and I'm disinclined to go through an 
experience like that again.  Numbers 2 and 3 will be a real hard sell 
to me.

However, I think the analysis in resp:18 is on target.  The seeds of 
the devastation we see at the start of "New Hope" are indeed sown in 
P.M.  And, given the events that Luke went through in its sequels, and 
what Yoda said about it, it would be flatly impossible for Lucas to 
make a third trilogy in which Luke does not turn to the Dark Side.  
Unless he cheats.

So yeah, I'd give Lucas credit for a darker, more nuanced imagination 
than simply a "good guys win, film's over" attitude.  Except that his 
Dark Side's repeated revivals somehow remind me more of the pop-ups of 
a plastic bouncing clown.

response 23 of 50:

Apr 29 15:22 UTC 2001

Not being an actual fan, I'd only heard that the Lucas wasn't going to
make the third trilogy recently.  Frankly, given the potential income of
those films, I'd say guess that if he doesn't make those films, someone
else will.  In fact, I'd be surprised if there weren't more films done
after that.  It's too profitable a franchise.

Actually, I can't claim Episode I is a good film.  Basically, my argument
above says that it plays a useful and interesting part in the 9-film
story arc.  I also think it's interesting that while it's role in the
story arc is to show "the begining of the end" for the Empire, with
key victories for the villians and vital blunders for the good guys,
the film itself seems like an upbeat victory for the heros.  I think
this was done purely for marketability reasons, but it's enough of an
interesting little trick that it adds some abstract interest to the film.

But standing on it's own, it's rather a lame film.  A cliched plot,
and not one single character that anyone could manage to care about (OK,
I'll allow Padmi/Amadala partial credit).  The non-cliched story arc and
the engaging characters are all carefully hidden under a bushel basket.
You need to be a fan to know they are there, and you need to be a
moderately dim 12-year-old or a computer graphics buff to get a thrill
out of what is out in plain site.  In this case, the fans who disect the
film are the only ones having any legitimate fun.  There is no "magic"
to lose by putting it on the disecting table.

Personally, I think the first two films were terrific.  The original film
was a great "recapture the wonder" kind of thing.  The second film was
dark and dramatic, and supplied one of the most famous lines in cinema
history.  "I am your father" isn't famous because it's a catchy phrase
on it's own right, but because of the emotional charge that the movie
put behind it.  It lacked an ending, but we knew a sequel was coming,
so we forgave it that.

The third film has only a couple good scenes.  I like the scene where
Leia wakens Han. The weird alien person turning out to be Leia, Hans
distress and disorientation, the emotion between them all work.  And the
final confrontation between Luke and Vader is OK too.  But aside from
these little wrap ups of loose ends from "The Empire Strikes Back",
there isn't much here.  Well, I guess I kind of like the general idea
of a high-tech/low-tech battle and the speeder bikes were cool.

But I still find the series as a whole fascinating.

response 25 of 50:

Apr 30 03:29 UTC 2001

Probably not.  I saw a reference on the offical SW web site that says that
the Emperor's dark side power tends to cause his body to decay at an
accelerated rate.  To avoid this, he moves his conscioiusness from clone body
to clone body.  That's how he survives being killed by Vader.  His body is
destroyed, so his mind lives disembodied in the force for a while until he
is able to re-inhabit one of his stored clone.

This doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with "the clone wars" whatever they
are, but they do hint at an attitude toward cloning that has little or nothing
to do with IRL cloning.

This is a thing that really annoyed me in the recent Schwartzenegger film,
sixth day.  It starts with some references to the cloning of the sheep dolly
and the completion of the human genome map, and states that this film is going
to deal with the near future, and things that are on the verge of being
possible.

In the movie, a nefarious company has secretly invented a process where (1)
they grow "blanks" - human bodies without consciousness from which all
individual genetic traits have been removed (whatever *that* means).  Then
(2) they can take a blood sample from a person, and, in seconds, superimpose
the genetic traits from the blood sample onto the blank body, causing it to
turn into a duplicate of the donor's body.  Then (3) they can record the
entire contents of a person's brain in a second just by having them look
into a machine.  This recording can be stored on disk, and downloaded, again
in seconds, into the blank body.

The astute observer will notice that none of these three processes are cloning
(well creating a second "blank" body once you have created one would probably
be cloning, but that's the easiest part of it).  None of these things are
likely to be possible in the near future.  Quite probably none of them will
ever be possible.  Saying that the Dolly project gets us close to this is like
saying being able to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together means you
are going to have portable pocket fusion reactors next week.

I dislike the fact that the media is popularizing such nonsense as "cloning".
Cloning really is close, in fact, I wouldn't be amazed to hear that some rich
millionare or millionaress has already had him or herself cloned.  And I
wouldn't be bothered either.  So you can have a baby that is genetically a
twin to you.  No big deal.  It's still a separate person, just as ordinary
twins are.  Why wrap all this sensationalism around "cloning"?

So anyway, the mere fact that they are having wars about cloning suggests that
there is more than mere cloning going on.  Maybe instant duplication of living
people, as in Sixth Day or in the Emperor's reincarnation process.  Maybe mass
production of genetically engineered clones.  Neither of these have anything
much to do with real life cloning, so it'd be astonishing if real life cloning
had any impact on the film.  Clone movies are about other clone movies, not
about real life.

response 27 of 50:

May 1 05:02 UTC 2001

resp:22 - are the novels set after "Return of the Jedi" part of a 
consistent storyline?  If so, what happens to Luke?  Does he indeed 
fall into the Dark Side?

response 29 of 50:

May 1 17:32 UTC 2001

Well if the emporer could, what about Anakin, Kenobi, Yoda, etc.?

response 31 of 50:

May 2 00:38 UTC 2001

The Emperor comes back?  After that gory finish?  Plastic bouncing 
clowns, like I said.

Surely, if this is possible, then Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, 
master of the Dark Side of the Force, should have known how pointless 
his disposal of the Emperor would be before he performed it.

But then, I don't buy half the stuff in "Phantom Menace" either.

response 33 of 50:

May 2 03:53 UTC 2001

If I understand correctly, there is something in the way they're bound to the
force, the midiclorian count, and the total power of the jedi if they
dissapear after they die.  They're tied into the force so tight that their
body ends up being absorbed by the force, hence the astral projections.  Vader
woudln't have known about the clones, because being the only one of the Sith
to survive the original parting of the "good" jedi and the "bad" jedi, the
Emperor decided that the less the subordinant knows, the less likly they are
to rebel against you.

For those who don't know the parting, here it goes:  One Jedi found the power
of the darkside and when he was told that he couldn't use the dark powers by
the jedi council, he wanted to know why, if there is balance in everything,
then there should be balance in themselves as well.  They forbid it, and he
ended up leacing to practice the dark arts, and many jedi followed him.  They
learned the dark force powers, and the time came when he was old and had about
50 followers and he died.  Well, all of the apprentices began fighting over
who was to rule.  All but one.  The Sith ended up killing each other, all but
the one, and the "good" jedi thought that it was over.  Evil kills itself.
But the one had watched and learned and he knew what the error was.  Never
show your pupil everything, and never have more than one.  That way YOU are
in control, and they're dispensible.  So, this one, eventually became
Palpitane and the Emperor, and he trained Maul, and then Vader, and some in
the middle, but that's that point of the Sith.  The cloning is something that
he had a LOT of time to come up with.  And it takes decades to get "into" the
other body.  It's not something that happens instantaneously.

The only reason, to backtrack, that we saw the projections of Anakin, kenobi,
and Yoda, is because they're the only ones that had a connection to Luke. 
But others do fade into the force.  

response 35 of 50:

May 2 21:19 UTC 2001

resp:32 - Vader can be a master and a slave of the Dark Side at the 
same time.  "Master: a person very skilled in some work, profession, 
science, etc."

response 37 of 50:

May 3 01:32 UTC 2001

35:  There is one Master, one Apprentice.  Vader was not the master.

response 39 of 50:

May 10 02:20 UTC 2001

he only meant that because Obi-Wan was his master in the good side of the
force, he trained him, and in some thoughts, the only way to truly become a
master is the death of the one who taught you, otherwise you are forever a
student to them.

response 41 of 50:

May 16 12:11 UTC 2001

But you're forgetting Jedi, and how while the emperor wanted Luke to give in
to his dark side, he wanted him to either kill Vader OR kill the emperor
himself.  He can clone himself again after a time.  Luke was Vader's only
weakness, and by turning him to the darkside there was nothing that could
redeem Anakin/Vader's  good side.

response 43 of 50:

Jun 30 21:10 UTC 2001

The Saga Begins
(Al Yankovic)
To the tune of "American Pie"
From the CD "Running with Scissors"

A long, long time ago
In a galaxy far away
Naboo was under an attack
And I thought me and Qui-Gon Jinn
Could talk the Federation into
Maybe cutting them a little slack
But their response, it didn't thrill us
They locked the doors and tried to kill us
We escaped from that gas
Then met jar Jar and Boss Nass
We took a bongo from the scene
And we went to Theed to see the queen
We all wound up on Tatooine
That's where we found this boy...

Oh my my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Saying "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"

Did you know this junkyard slave
Isn't even old enough to shave
But he can use the Force, they say
Ahh, do yo usee him hitting on the queen
Though he's just nine and she's fourteen
Yeah, he's probably gonna marry her someday
Well, I know he built C-PO
And I've heard how fast his pod can go
And we were broke, it's true
So we made a wager or two
He was a prepubescent flyin' ace
And the moment Jabba started off that race
Well, I knew who would win first place
Oh yes, it was our boy

We started singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Saying "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"

Now we finally got to Coruscant
The Jedi Council we knew would want
To see how good the boy could be
So we took him there and we told the tale
How his midi-chlorians were off the scale
And he might fill that prophecy
Oh, the council was impresed, of course
Could he bring balance to the Force?
They interviewed the kid
Oh, training they forbid
Because Yoda sensed in him much fear
And Qui-Gon said "Now listen here
Just stick it in your pointy ear
I still will teach this boy"

He was singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Saying "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"

We caught a ride back to Naboo
'Cause Queen Amidala wanted to
I frankly would've liked to stay
We all fought in that epic war
And it wasn't long at all before
Little Hotshot flew his plane and saved the day
And in the end some Gungans died
Some ships blew up and some pilots fried
A lot of folks were croakin'
The battle droids were broken
And the Jedi I admire most
Met up with Darth Maul and now he's toast
Well, I'm still here and he's a ghost
I guess I'll train this boy

And I was singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Saying "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
We were singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Saying "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"