Star War Fanatics - Dark side Beckons you

[hotbrainz]

Hello Friends of the force,

Well, just wondering how many of you think Star wars is not a movie but a way of life ;)

Anyway...does anyone has a theme or desktop to go with ubuntu. I have made a background in photoshop with me as a Sith.

Any nice work from you guys out there....

[kuja]

Way of life? Sounds a little too extreme for me ... but I've always really liked the movies.

[hotbrainz]

Dont you use your "miticlorians" to change traffic lights?

[kuja]

Gasp! You weren't supposed to know about that :o

[hotbrainz]

From now on we shall communicate by force...we will not let the ordinary folk know our tricks ;)

[daynah]

http://iharthdarth.livejournal.com/

Oh yes. Star Wars does get that adorable.

[Brunellus]

bah. The movies were fun, but not worthy of major obsession. The more I watch recent "epics," the more I come back to ancient ones. Give me Beowulf or Odysseus.

[hotbrainz]

Undoubtedly the originals were good. But the lingering questions about vader's history had to be answered.

[Brunellus]

Undoubtedly the originals were good. But the lingering questions about vader's history had to be answered.
in /terrible/ fashion. Nothing excuses bad writing.

JarJar was enough. Then I was treated to a clip of Darth Vader, original bad dude, going NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo. That wasn't drama: that was Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live. Bad writing, bad directing, bad acting. If it weren't Lucas, it would have been canned universally.

But because Star Wars has a fanatical geek following, all those sins were forgiven. Lucas continues to roll in cash at Skywalker Ranch, believing that he's the best storyteller since Homer threw down.

[daynah]

I took a whole class comparing Star Wars to classic Epics. They're more similar than you think. Well... the original three. It's got the same true epic plot line. It's the epic of the modern world, and, well as of course Americans will see it, the epic for Americans. We're pretty proud of it.

Most things doing get most of their respect when they first are revealed. It is over time that they get their full glory.

[Brunellus]

I took a whole class comparing Star Wars to classic Epics. They're more similar than you think. Well... the original three. It's got the same true epic plot line. It's the epic of the modern world, and, well as of course Americans will see it, the epic for Americans. We're pretty proud of it.

Most things doing get most of their respect when they first are revealed. It is over time that they get their full glory.
There are good epics and bad epics. Silius Italicus wrote the "Punica"--an epic on the Punic Wars--which is still used as a handy demonstration of how NOT to write an epic in Latin. It's long, boring and lacking in real creative spark. (Pliny the Elder said of the author that he wrote "with rather more bother than genius").

Cicero wrote an epic, too, about his consulship, of which (mercifully) only one line survived as a cautionary tale for schoolboys.

Simply because something is an epic does not make it good.

[Reshin]

Dont you use your "miticlorians" to change traffic lights?

*casts Force Lightning*

[Dual Cortex]

Woot! Who likes Star Wars!

/* Hides from mob */

I honetly have only seen one movie and that was about 10 years ago... I was pretty young. It's the one where the guy in black says to the hero "I am your father."
I'm guessing it's the first one.

[djsroknrol]

I still think that this reality is part of the Matrix...:)

[OffHand]

Glad to see another SW freak here :D

[lyceum]

Woot! Who likes Star Wars!

/* Hides from mob */

I honetly have only seen one movie and that was about 10 years ago... I was pretty young. It's the one where the guy in black says to the hero "I am your father."
I'm guessing it's the first one.

That is the 5th one. You sould take the time to watch them. Not all at once, that could get to be too much. They are fun movies. Just don't let them go to your head. They are really just timeless morality stories. Even the begining is taken from fairy tales, "A long time ago, in a galixy far, far away..." Just like Snow White, but further away :)

[Brunellus]

That is the 5th one. You sould take the time to watch them. Not all at once, that could get to be too much. They are fun movies. Just don't let them go to your head. They are really just timeless morality stories. Even the begining is taken from fairy tales, "A long time ago, in a galixy far, far away..." Just like Snow White, but further away :)
the second one, in production order. "fifth" in supposed narrative order, but.

[Lord Illidan]

That is the 5th one. You sould take the time to watch them. Not all at once, that could get to be too much. They are fun movies. Just don't let them go to your head. They are really just timeless morality stories. Even the begining is taken from fairy tales, "A long time ago, in a galixy far, far away..." Just like Snow White, but further away :)
Gah, I prefer LOTR.

[Brunellus]

Gah, I prefer LOTR.
LOTR was good, but once you've read some of Tolkein's source material, you see just how inferior it is....

[lyceum]

the second one, in production order. "fifth" in supposed narrative order, but.

yes, yes... but if he has not seem them, he might as well see them as a whole picture/story line!

[lyceum]

LOTR was good, but once you've read some of Tolkein's source material, you see just how inferior it is....

The point of the LOTR was to replace the lost stories of the Celts, sort of. It was also to express his dispare coming home from war and what happened to his home town while he was gone. When you look at it like that, it seems even better to me.

[Brunellus]

The point of the LOTR was to replace the lost stories of the Celts, sort of. It was also to express his dispare coming home from war and what happened to his home town while he was gone. When you look at it like that, it seems even better to me.
I happen to like Thomas Hardy more for the "World We Have Lost" view--he's a lot less sentimental and a lot more insightful on rural life, I think, anyway.

I can definitely see a struggle to regain the "mythic" and the "epic" in the face of the relentless, anonymous forces of industrialization in LOTR, sure. The works are very rich, and Tolkein makes an excellent effort to make a mostly internally-consistent world out of whole cloth.

But he is still, really, very dependent on and derivative of a body of source material--old romances, ballads, epics, and so forth. I find these much more satisfying, in the end.

To those who don't like reading "old" books--especially ancient epics--I would suggest that you forget that they're old. Read them as if they were as fanciful as the "fantasies" you read now. Once you get over that first hurdle, you have the advantage of knowing where you came from (literarily) and where you're going.

[lyceum]

I happen to like Thomas Hardy more for the "World We Have Lost" view--he's a lot less sentimental and a lot more insightful on rural life, I think, anyway.

I can definitely see a struggle to regain the "mythic" and the "epic" in the face of the relentless, anonymous forces of industrialization in LOTR, sure. The works are very rich, and Tolkein makes an excellent effort to make a mostly internally-consistent world out of whole cloth.

But he is still, really, very dependent on and derivative of a body of source material--old romances, ballads, epics, and so forth. I find these much more satisfying, in the end.

To those who don't like reading "old" books--especially ancient epics--I would suggest that you forget that they're old. Read them as if they were as fanciful as the "fantasies" you read now. Once you get over that first hurdle, you have the advantage of knowing where you came from (literarily) and where you're going.

Sounds cool, I will have to check that out. Thank you for mentioning it.

[Brunellus]

Sounds cool, I will have to check that out. Thank you for mentioning it.
I should clarify: I used "world we have lost" and shouldn't have capitlized it. Hardy's novels are a lot more realistic, and much more interested in the whole gentry/peasant relationship. I recommend "Return of the Native."

As to the old stuff that was JRRT's source material, start with Beowulf and work your way down. There is at least one section of LOTR which is pretty much a prose reworking of the Chanson du Roland, as well.