Why yes, we do love Star Wars: 2013

Sunday 15 December 2013

Signs you may be addicted to the Star Wars franchise

Let’s face it, if you’re going to be addicted to something then being addicted to Star Wars is not too bad a place to find yourself in. Unless you are actually hung up on death sticks. Then you’ve got it realllly bad and you need to go home and rethink your life.

You know you’re addicted to Star Wars when….

1. You can find at least five reasons to defend the inclusion of Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace.

2. When feeding your baby you play the soundtrack from Empire Strikes Back.

3. Everything that appears dodgy to you is most certainly a trap!

4. You enjoy watching Big Bang Theory way more than the casual viewer.

5. You tell everyone that Empire is the best film but in your heart you know you love Jedi the most.

6. You have the original version of Star Wars on VHS. And laser disk. And DVD. And Blu Ray. Despite commercial realities...

20. You spied Grand Moff Tarkin’s cameo in Revenge of the Sith the first time you saw the movie.

7. You know that R2D2 is 96 cm tall. You also know he and C3PO are the only characters to appear in all 6 movies thus far.

8. Your favourite episode of Friends is The one with the Princess Leia Fantasy.

9. You knew about the existence of the Holiday Special before the existence of the internet.

10. You still have your Star Wars bed sheets and pillows. On your bed.

11. You know that Darth Maul has ten horns on his red head.

12. If George asked you to be his wingman, you’d say yes.

13. When someone mentions Guinness you don’t think about beer.

14. You know that Han Solo ad libbed his “I know” line.

15. You run a Star Wars fan blog.

16. You know that Indianna Jones was named for George Lucas’s own dog.

17. You know that some of the Dagobah swamp scenes were filmed in Lucas’s private swimming pool.

18. You know the shipping titles of all three prequel films (for non addicts The Phantom Menace was "The Doll House", Clones was "Cue Ball" and Sith, "The Bridge".)

19. You know the original name for Skywalker was Starkiller.

21. You can tell which parts of prequels feature a puppet or the CGI version of Yoda.

Friday 6 December 2013

Quotes from the Star Wars movies

Quotes from the Star Wars movies

Given there are 6 Star Wars movies, 7 if you count the Clone Wars, there are plenty of quotes to be shared and pondered on. Here's some pages that will take you to the quotes and lines of some of the most popular characters from the franchise.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

A list of the hands and arms that were cut off people in Star Wars

If you lived a long time ago in a galaxy far far away you could be forgiven for thinking all your people did was run around cutting off each other’s arms. It was the price for getting smart to a Jedi in a bar, the price for trying to arrest a Sith Lord and the price paid for a kid who just wanted to have some time with his busy father…

Here’s a list of all the dismembering we could remember that happened in the Star Wars films, very minor characters such as robots don’t count.

A New Hope

Ponda Baba had his limb removed from his body by Obi Wan Kenobi in the Cantina bar after he and his friend Dr. Evazan gave Luke some less than friendly lip.

The Empire Strikes Back

While the Wampa got the goods on Luke in the first round, when Luke left the Wampa's cave, at least he had both arms then...
Luke loses his hand to Vader in an duel in which Vader reveals he is Luke's father. Talk about Luke having a really bad day at the Office.

Return of the Jedi

Luke gets shot in his mechanical hand which doesn't count as losing a limb but it's a reminder of the significance - he is very like Vader.
Everything however comes full circle when in the climatic duel aboard the Death Star when Luke is just about to fully give into The Dark Side, he cuts off Vader's hand. At which time Luke realises he is a Jedi and he has no wish to be anything but. Turning off his saber, he shows he is in control of his emotions and will not succumb to to the Dark Side. A truly awesome Star Wars moment.

The Phantom Menace

No one had their hand cut off in this movie though Obi Wan did manage to sever Darth Maul in half....

Attack of the Clones

Obi Wan cuts off Zam Wessell’s lower arm as she starts to attack him in a bar however this is not nearly as interesting as when Count Dooku manages to cut of Anakin's arm this being the first marker for Anakin becoming Darth Vader.

Revenge of the Sith

Before Anakin taps into the Dark Side of the force to kill Count Dooku, the Sith Lord in training had both hands removed from his person.
Obi-Wan cuts two of General Grievous' hands off.
Anakin cuts off Mace Windu’s hand to stop him from finishing of Palpatine.
Anakin Skywalker does not have the high ground when Obi Wan remove his biological arm in a classic moment of the entire film series. Obi Wan leaves Anakin for dead, to wit the lava they were just battling over starts to burn Anakin. Queue a rescue from Palpatine but only after Anakin has used his mechanical arm to drag himself away from the flaming lava.

Darth Vader - just a misunderstood fellow?

Darth Vader.

We only needed to write those two words and you know exactly to whom these words belong to. The fallen Jedi and one of the great Sith Lords, Darth Vader is one of the most famous movie villains of all time. His imposing presence, magical powers which include infamous ability to force choke a man just by thinking about and ultimately tragic personal story have inspired all kinds of acclaim, wonder a place in most Star Wars fans hearts.

But enough of this chit chat, here’s 11 crazy stories, facts and myths about Darth Vader that any Star Wars fan would be keen to know!

1. While Lucas had said post release of A New Hope that he had 9 Star Wars movies all mapped out, he didn't really. It was only on when developing the second draft of Empire Strikes Back with Leigh Bracket that Darth Vader became Luke's father. Indeed, in original drafts of A New Hope, Vader and Anakin Skywalker were different characters.

2. The famous reveal of the father and son relationship between Vader and Luke is often misquoted as "Luke, I am your father". The line is actually "No, I am your father".

Sebastian Shaw as Vader in Jedi

3. The character of Vader has been played by several actors. In the original trilogy David Prowse is famous as wearing the suit and Sebastian Shaw as the 'face' in Jedi.

The prequels saw an idealistic Jake Lloyd tackle Anakin in The Phantom Menace and Hayden Christensen covered the next two movies as well. Bob Anderson also stepped in for sword fighting scenes and C.Andre Nelson helped out a bit with the redux versions of the original trilogy.

4. Hayden also appeared as the costumed Vader in Revenge of the Sith. He apparently begged Lucas to let him play him. The suit had to be designed to accommodate his smaller stature than Prowse's.

5. While Return of the Jedi saw Luke return the favour to Vader and cut his arm off, the idea for it actually came from the expanded universe novel, ‘Splinter of the Mind's Eye’. This book was intended to be turned into a sequel to Star Wars but when that movie became so popular, the idea was abandoned.

6. Vader was actually the only Star Wars film character to lose an arm three times! And both his legs as well. Obi Wan Kenobi got 3 of his limbs in Revenge of the Sith!

7. Darth Vader was referenced in the film Back to the Future by Marty McFly as being from the planet Vulcan. No one was sure who was more upset - Star Wars fans or Trekkies!

8. Vader has his own theme song written by John Williams. Known as the Imperial March it was introduced in the Empire movie and used in Jedi and in the prequels to show when Anakin was turning to the dark side of the Force.

9. James Earl Jones is famed for providing the voice for Vader however he didn't do the famous breathing effect. This was done by Ben Burt placing a microphone inside the mouth piece of a breathing apparatus and recording it being used.

10. George Lucas at one stage considered using the great Orsen Welles as the voice actor.

11. Anakin Skywalker really is the ‘Chosen one’. While Yoda and Obi Wan may have thought a mistake had been made in the reading of the prophecy, Anakin was the one who actually killed Sith Lord Palpatine by throwing him down the Death Star’s reactor shaft in Jedi and thus restored balance to the Force.

We think these were some pretty cool bits of trivia about the Dark Lord. Do you have any others to share? Leave them in the comments!

Yoda. The little green guy that could.

The little green guy that turned out to be on of Star Wars most loved and recognisable characters. Sure E.T. was cuter and could make things fly, but he didn’t have the power of the force and a command of the lexicon that was as unique had ever been in film history.

Here’s ten of Yodo’s best quotes from the six Star Wars films and why I think they are the best.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

Let's go straight to a true classic quote from ANY movie ever. From Empire, Yoda is explaining to a frazzled Luke Skywalker that in terms of using the Force to pull a sunken X-Wing from out of the swamp that he's in a pass or fail situation. And then to show is young learner who's really in charge, he does do the do and lifts the ship out himself.

This quote from the same scene sums it all up:

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.”

“When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good, you will not, hmmm?”

Yoda jests Luke a little. Before he then dies. Yoda was quite fond of jesting his Jedi - remember this one?

"Lost a planet, Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing. How embarrassing!" Yoda to the bearded to in Attack of the Clones.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.

A line from Phantom Menance where Yoda is basically outlining what will happen to Anakin Skywalker and the consequences his fear will have for himself, all those around him and beyond.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

Some say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Yoda seemed to think Luke could. And he did.

And some other sweet quotes:

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
“The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.”
“To answer power with power, the Jedi way this is not. In this war, a danger there is, of losing who we are.”
“Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.”
“Control, control, you must learn control!”

Why the Star Wars prequels are actually pretty good.

There’s a song by The Offspring that’s called Cool To Hate. Offspring hit really really big in the mid 1990’s, just as the internet was really starting to take off all around the world. So when The Phantom Menace flickered onto the silver screen in 1999, a lot of internet users knew that it was cool to hate and laid down the hate on The Phantom Menace via the net. Any one with a keyboard actually. Venom spilled all over the information superhighway for that movie.

Myself, I really don’t know why. I saw Phantom 3 times at the theatre, it was that good. The only ever other movie I saw 3 times at the theater was Edward Scissor hands.....

But the hate for Star Wars continued over to Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Which is sad because I really really enjoyed these movies! The haters are in a minority though but that’s hardly relevant. What is relevant is why everyone who hates Star Wars prequels should stop hating the Star Wars prequels.

Let’s caveat this – if we can all just agree that Jar Jar Bink’s sucked as a character, that would be great. Oh we can’t? Why not?

Because Star Wars are movies made for kids. Let me repeat that. Star Wars are movies made for kids. Jar Jar Binks was created by George Lucas with the intention of kids enjoying his bumbling antics. So if we assume that the Jar Jar haters are not kids, they can’t really complain about a character in film intended to be loved by kids is not their cup of tea. Jar Jar is no Sponge Bob Squarepants for sure, but he does the job he was designed to do. Mostly.

Don’t believe me about Star Wars being for kids? Even the Emperor himself says so:

“ I’m usually approached by mums and dads of 4-year olds now who’ve been watching the movies, who are completely fascinated by them. And they won’t leave their television screens until they’ve seen the whole lot. So it continues to grip, and it continues to grip kids. And even though, we all know with the prequels some of the adults who’d seen the early films were a bit disappointed, that’s not true of succeeding generations, which sort of means that these films are really going to go on forever, and that’s extraordinary, I think, and great.”

Which captures the feels quite nicely.

What does this mean? It means any one over the age of 13 who hated the Star Wars prequels is entitled to their opinions but that hate is misdirected.

But there’s still some real reasons why the hate needs to be dropped. And here's what I think they are:

Yoda turns out to be a total bad ass.

I dunno about you, but in the theatre where I saw Attack of the Clones people began cheering when Yoda and Count Dooku started to battle. Yoda was flipping around and using the Force like he invented it. This was great spectacle and showing Yoda in this light increased his standing in the Star Wars realm amongst fans. The prequels are great because they showed how great a Jedi the little green guy was.

Jango Fett and his young son, Bobby something, or was it Bibba?

Everyone loves ~~Raymond~~ Bobba Fett. He’s become a bit of a cult figure for fans. Attack of the Clones gave us an insight into the character's origin and gave him a bit of life. To learn that the Clones were derived from Jango Fettand that his son was Bobba was great story telling.

The prequel also gave us a great fight between Jango and Obi Wan Kenobi. What’s not to love about that?

Revenge of the Sith had the best opening of any Star Wars film.

Yeah, Return of the Jedi was awesome when Luke rescued everyone but it was a slow build. Revenge of the Sith featured a Battle over Coruscant where hundreds of ships were taking part in an epic space battle. Anakin and Obiwan were flying round, dodging missles, crashing ships and droids that were trying to eat their ship while on a frantic mission to rescue the Chancellor from the many clutches of General Grevious.

Featuring some of the best CGI ever done at the time, great camera work, amusing banter between the leads and some zippy music, this opening Stanza of ROTS was epic Star Wars magic.

It also featured the beheading of Count Dooku – a signal that things were about to get very dark across the Evil Empire due to a wayward Anakin.

Qui Gon

Before Liam Neeson was Taken and Taken again, he was Qui Gon, one of the best Star Wars characters EVER in my honest opinion. Liam had a bloody tough assignment in carrying off such a pivotal character in The Phantom Menace but he managed to pull off “There’s always a bigger fish” with an appropriate grace.

He also featured in one of the greatest light saber battles in the history of Star Wars movies. Which brings us to…

Darth Maul

The red and black face introduction of Darth Maul was an instant classic Star Wars moment. If fan’s aren’t wearinggolden bikinis to dress as Princes Leia, they are doing cosplay of Darth Maul. People love him. He was bad ass.

The Pod Race

Family fun at its absolute best. A dastardly Sebula. Fast engines. Amazing sounds. Pot shots from Sand People. Life and death experiences. A slave child beating the odds to win his freedom. Be honest with yourself, if u say you hated Phantoms Menace you actually loved this bit!

When Anakin massacres the Jedi Younglings

This was the first true moment when we knew Anakin had well and truly turned to the Dark Side. Yes, he’d massacred the tribe of Sand People who had beat and mistreated his mother so badly that she died of her injuries but these were children we had actually met in Attack of the Clones. It was a brilliant set up that actually. Whilst Yoda teased Obi Wan about losing a planet, these Jedi kids were the back drop and were quite cute. For Anakin to come and kill them all in ROTS, it was a chilling, chilling moment and perhaps was one of the darkest moments in all of the saga. How can you hate such great story telling?

You got to see the Clone Wars

We got to see them (and not in cartoon form). Ever since Princess Leia mentioned the Clone Wars in a new hope fans had been wishing, wanting, waiting to see them – a boy we did! As I see before the Battle over Coruscant was one of the greatest action pieces Star War fans had seen!

Obi Wan is also a bad ass

Obi Wan Kenobi never lost a one on one saber fight until the fateful day he raised his sword and allowed his Pawadan Learner to send him to be one with the Force. The prequels showed all those saber fights – Darth Maul, General Grevious and Anakin Skywalker.

All great battles and his climatic duel with the the angsty Sith Lord in trading brought it all home for ALL the Star Wars movies. That fight was the climax of the prequels but also gave A New Hope an even greater poignancy. We now knew just how tragic Anakin’s transformation into Vader was.

The Music by Jon Williams

Listen to the Duel of Fates. It’s arguably some of the best music you could listen to from the movies. While it’s not as iconic as The Imperial March, it’s up there in terms of awesomeness. You can’t hate the Star Wars prequels if you agree Duel of Fates is great movie music.

There you have it, these are my reasons why the haters gotta stop - I got a feeling they never will but who cares - if you love Star Wars, you love Star Wars!