Some of you long-time Trekters out there may be holding off on watching Star Trek XI: Star Trek I because you are worried that the writers will pack every Trek cliche into a 127-minute film. This is a reasonable fear, given what happened to both American versions of Red Dwarf. You may remember how they packed every single joke from the first four seasons, or approximately 900 jokes, into each of the two awful pilot episodes. If you haven't seen them, they were complete disasters, doing to Red Dwarf what the Bush presidency did to human rights. Similarly, the 1991 film The Addams Family used both jokes from the TV series, although it turned out all right.

Let me tell you right off the bat that you don't need to worry. Yeah, some cliches, catch phrases, and running jokes made it in, but as a viewer, I wasn't crushed under the stampede. Here, to make you feel better, is a checklist.

General
It's green!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Two characters are drinking with intent to cause long-lasting genetic damage. They run out of bathroom cleaning liquids and are about to go their separate ways when one of them finds a mysterous container of green liquid. The other asks what it is, and the first replies, "It's... it's green." They drink it.
REFERENCES: "By Any Other Name" (TOS); "Relics" (TNG)

Bones
Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a <CAREER>
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Kirk asks Bones to do some trivial task, such as passing him a napkin at a restaurant, and Bones says, "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a nuclear physicist!"
REFERENCES: "The Naked Time," "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Galileo Seven," "Arena," "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Amok Time," "Catspaw," "Metamorphosis," "Friday's Child," "A Piece of the Action," "Return to Tomorrow," "Assignment: Earth," "Spock's Brain," "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," "The Empath," "Whom Gods Destroy," "The Way to Eden," "Turnabout Intruder" (TOS); "Once Upon a Planet," ""The Time Trap," "The Slaver Weapon," "The Jihad," "Albatross," "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth," "The Counter-Clock Incident" (TAS); "The Wire" (DS9); "Phage," "Investigations," "Bliss" (VOY)

<NOUN/PRONOUN>'s dead, Jim!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Someone dies in a spectacular fashion, like falling off a cliff, getting sucked out of an airlock, or riddled with 50-caliber bullets, and Bones uses his medical szzzzs to dramatically say something like, "Dumbledore's dead, Jim!"
REFERENCES: "Lurgi Strikes Britain," "Operation: Annihilate!," "Mirror, Mirror" (TOS)

Yo, dawg
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Bones says to a patient recovering from surgery, "Yo, dawg, I heard you like <THING>, so I put a <THING> in your <VITAL_ORGAN> so you could <ACTION> while you <ACTION>."
REFERENCES: "The City on the Edge of Forever," "The Cloud Miners" (TOS); every episode of TAS; "Encounter at Farpoint" (TNG)

Kirk
Picard could kick Kirk's ass any day of the week
STATUS: included, since Kirk appears in this film
DESCRIPTION: Picard could kick Kirk's ass any day of the week.
REFERENCES: every episode of TOS; every episode of TAS; every episode of TNG

Pattern Kirk Epsilon
STATUS: included, barely
DESCRIPTION: Despite being labeled a tactical genius, Kirk forgets some basic aspect of starship combat, such as raising the shields or pointing the phasers the right way, and Enterprise gets the bejeezus blown out of it.
REFERENCES: "The Corbomite Maneuver," "Balance of Terror," "The Apple," "The Doomsday Machine," "The Ultimate Computer" (TOS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Janice Rand
Spitting and head-butting
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: On TOS, Yeoman Rand had a nasty habit of spitting and head-butting people at just the wrong moment.
REFERENCES: "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Enemy Within," "Charlie X" (TOS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

You Can Buy Anything at Jusco!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever anyone tries to impress Rand by showing her something neat, she informs them that she can get it at Jusco and probably pay less for it.
REFERENCES: "The Corbomite Maneuver," "The Man Trap," "The Naked Time," "Charlie X," "Miri," "The Conscience of the King" (TOS); "Flashback" (VOY); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Mr. Scott
Laws of Physics
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Scott is asked to do something to prevent the ship from being destroyed. To make himself look better, he states "I canna' change the laws of physics" moments before he does whatever is needed to save the ship. Afterwards, he calls the bridge to ask, "Who da man? Who da man? Mr. Scott da man!"
REFERENCES: "The Cage," "Where No Man Has Gone Before," "Taked Time," "The Enemy Within," "What are Little Girls Made of?," "Balance of Terror," "Tomorrow is Yesterday,", "Errand of Mercy," "Who Mourns for Adonais," "A Private Little War" (TOS); "Relics" (TNG)

Giving it All She's Got
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Scott is asked to do something to preven the ship from being destroyed. To buy himself a little time while he finishes playing Contra: Shattered Soldier, he conjures up a dramatic voice and says, "I'm giving her all she's got!"
REFERENCES: "The Cage," "I, Mudd," "Wolf in the Fold" (TOS); "Relics" (TNG)

Nurse Chapel
Totally 'Shopped
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: At an awkward moment, Nurse Chapel will shout out "That shit's totally 'shopped!" The most famous examples come from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, where she says it three times while the crew watch Schindler's List and no less than thirty-seven times (once every five minutes or so) while they watch the pod racing scene from Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace.
REFERENCES: "The Naked Time," "The Changeling," "A Private Little War," "The Paradise Syndrome" (TOS); "The Pirates of Orion" (TAS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Mr. Spock
DFAG
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Spock responds to a situation by shouting one or more of "Drink!" "Feck!" "Arse!" and "Girls!"
REFERENCES: "The Cage," "The Menagerie, Part II," "Court Martial," "A Taste of Armageddon," "The Deadly Years" (TOS); "Yesteryear," "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (TAS); "Unification Part I" (TNG); Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

'Sup
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Mr. Spock greets a higher-up in Star Fleet or some planetary leader by saying "'Sup?" Spock often tried to defend this practice: in "Journey to Babel," he spends a good five minutes constructing a proof that it is the most logical greeting in the universe.
REFERENCES: "Mudd's Women," "Miri," "Dagger of the Mind," "Shore Leave," "Journey to Babel" (TOS); "Yesteryear" (TAS); "Face of the Enemy" (TNG); Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Uhura
Thunderbirds
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever we see Uhura while she is off duty, she is watching some episode of Thunderbirds. However, in an outtake from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, we see her watching an episode of Gekigangar III.
REFERENCES: "The Conscience of the King," "Shore Leave," "The Omega Glory" (TOS); "The Lorelei Signal" (TAS); Star Trek I: The Motion Picture; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Mr. Sulu
I'm Hikaru Sulu!
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Sulu is introduced to someone (except Klingons - see "I'm Hikaru Sulu II!" below), he says "I'm Hikaru Sulu!" He then winks, grins, gives a finger shot with each hand, and makes a clicking noise.
REFERENCES: "Space Seed," "The Devil in The Dark," "The Apple" (TOS); "Mudd's Passion" (TAS); "Flashback" (VOY); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

I'm Hikaru Sulu II!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Sulu is introduced to a Klingon, he says "I'm Hikaru Sulu. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"
REFERENCES: "Errand of Mercy," "Friday's Child," "Elaan of Troyius," "Day of the Dove," "The Savage Curtain" (TOS); "More Tribbles, More Troubles," "The Time Trap" (TAS); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country


Chekov
I'm Hikaru Sulu III!
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Chekov is introduced to someone, he says "I'm Hikaru Sulu!" He then winks, grins, gives the finger with each hand, and makes a clicking noise.
REFERENCES: "Space Seed," "The Devil in The Dark," "The Apple" (TOS); "Mudd's Passion" (TAS); "Flashback" (VOY); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Salute!
STATUS: not included
DESCRIPTION: Whenever Chekov is about to leave a scene, he holds his hand in an "okay" sign above his forehead.
REFERENCES: "Who Mourns for Adonais," "I, Mudd," "The Trouble with Tribbles," "A Private Little War," "Spectre of the Gun," "The Demolished Man," "The Way to Eden" (TOS); Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

It's Actually Russian
STATUS: included
DESCRIPTION: Chekov often claims things that are clearly of Klingon origin, such as Romeo and Juliet and The Cherry Orchard, are, in fact, Russian.
REFERENCES: "Friday's Child," "Who Mourns for Adonais," "The Apple," "The Trouble with Tribbles" (TOS); Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

I watched the new Star Trek movie today. Let me tell you, this is not my great-granduncle's Trek. That's actually good, since in his Trek, the crew of the Enterprise somehow rescued Gilligan and his friends. I'm not sure how that worked, but fortunately for all of you, you won't have to worry about it. That being said, I liked this. Some people have complained that they got Star Trek details wrong. If you hear somebody say that, you can tell right away that they need to brush up on their movie-watching skills. Perhaps some sort of film studies class would be in order. This isn't "getting some details wrong." This is a "reinstall." You Windows users out there should be familiar with it.

( Spoilers below! )

The much-awaited sequel to Pirates of the Merovingian: The Curse of the Black Pearl is finally here. For those of you who wouldn't think of going to a movie before reading my review, go ahead and watch it! As a warning, though, this is not the original movie. It's the middle of a trilogy, which means that it doesn't really have an ending. Instead, it sort of stops after a couple of hours and leaves the characters stranded. Think Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, which ended with Luke heading off to visit Jabba; Lando on his way to quantity surveyor school; Han, the Princess, R2, and 3PO halfway to Arrakis, Neo comatose, Vader on his way to TCBY; and Yoda checking his watch and wondering why kids these days are so unreliable. If you can handle that, you'll be fine.

You might feel a little confused by the Oilwellian moviespeak that has been attached to Pirates. If you are wondering what Potc and Potm mean, wonder no longer. Movie execs have been looking for ways to shorten movie titles so that people won't forget which movie they planned to see between hearing a review on the radio in the car and buying tickets at the theater. This trend has been going on for a while, as you can see with T3, T3E, YMP, ID4, IPv6, MI:2, MI:3, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and MiB. It seems that movie execs have decided to simplify Pirates of the Carradine: Dead Man's Chest to just Potc and Pirates of the Merovingian: The Curse of the Black Pearl to Potm. Now you know.

Jack "Sparrow" Agnew (Johnny Bravo), Willie Tanner (Orlando Jones), Elizabeth Government (Jennifer Garner), and Mr. Cotton's Parrot (Alex) are back in action. They must contend with the foul-mouthed Commodore Jay Norrington (Jason Mewes), Davey Jones (Pauley Shore), and David Carradine (Kwai Chang Caine). The story begins when Tanner and Government are arrested by the anachronism police for the crime of wearing an out-of-period hat for the last scene of Potm. The anachronism police, of course, turn out to be a bunch of nitwits and, since they were completely not expecting Willie and Elizabeth to know gong fu, they get totally pawnzorated.

Then the action shifts to Jack, who has somehow risen to power in Bavaria. You'll hear some people complain about racism, what with a character of vague and sketchy ethnic backgrounds ruling over a bunch of white folk, but I think these people are idiots. David Carradine, who is in charge of Prussia at the time, leads his troops to Bavaria and makes Jack do one of those funny, awkward runs.

Then the action cuts to Norrington, whose ship is currently in Lake Tahoe. He plans to become the blunt connection for the Tahoe/Reno area.

Next, we find that Davey Jones is hunting Jack. Jones looks a lot like a cross between Cthulhu and a Luxan, and he appears to have inherited the Luxan fighting techniques. Not thirty seconds into his first scene he is tripped and kicked by some bit character who isn't even listed in the movie credits. Then Jack beats him up. Then Jack beats him up, but this time it's Jack Agnew instead of Jack the zombie monkey. Jack and Jack team up and head to Reno, Nevada.

Meanwhile, Norrington and a couple of his crew are doing a sort of "Who's on First?" routine about the Jacks.

Meanwhile, David Carradine is saying stuff in a quiet monotone.

Then we see Willie and Elizabeth in the checkout line at a Whole Foods.

Meanwhile, the Jacks and Norrington appear to have reached a kind of Pox Gallinacea, and they all spend a few quiet weeks in Tahoe.

Meanwhile, Davey Jones is still hunting Jack. It's slow going for his ship, since they opted not to carry their ship over land from the New Jersey coast to Tahoe and instead took a passenger train.

Meanwhile, Will and Elizabeth are still trying to get checked out at Whole Foods. Just as they get to the register, the action switches to the Jacks and Norrington. Then, before we can tell what is going on, the movie ends.

I think I managed to get down all of the key details without spoiling it for you. In case you are wondering what the dead man's chest is, I figure we'll find out in the next episode. They can't all be semaphores.

Also, be sure you stay until the end of the movie, as there's another zombie monkey. I don't mean there's a scene where Jack the zombie monkey comes out in a bathrobe and says tells us to go home because the movie's over. I mean there's a zombie monkey - some little extra at the end of the film. I guess the Potm director thought it would be funny to make their zombie monkey involve an actual zombie monkey.

In my endless quest to keep ahead of tomorrow's news, I got up this morning and went to an early showing of V for Vendetta. I'm sure many of you have been wringing your hands and saying, "Should I see V? Will it be any good? I've heard a lot about it, but I don't know what to believe. I wonder what Miss Kitty thinks of it?" Well, wonder no longer. I loved it.

I'd like to divide this review into three parts. First, I'll cover some of the controversy the movie has generated. Then I'll talk about a little of the history, since some people may not be familiar with all of that. Finally, I'll give a quick review and talk about my favorite scenes.

Controversy

You may or may not be aware that, like Sin City, V for Vendetta is based on a rather graphic novel. You have probably heard that the original author, Hideyuki Kikuchi, doesn't have his name anywhere on the movie. I'm not sure why, and when I contacted his agent I was told that Mr. Kikuchi hadn't written anything of the sort. I assume he must be really angry about something, but at least he's been kind enough not to whine incessantly about the film.

Terry Moore, on the other hand, just won't shut up about it. This will come as a surprise to those of you who have met the man. I know I was stunned, since he seemed like a really awesome guy when I met him. Anyhow, he said in one interview that "there are plot holes in this movie big enough to drive a Panhead through. Plot holes NOBODY HAS NOTICED!" It seems that Mr. Moore failed to notice them, too, since he had to think for a minute or two when asked to name one. He finally responded with, "Plot holes... You know, holes in the plot. Yeah. That nobody noticed. Yep. Like... like that one where... people... say things... about... stuff?" I guess he finally sat down and made a list, because he had a list written on notebook paper ready for his next interview. (Why are people interviewing him about V for Vendetta, anyway?) The page looked something like this:

Plot Holes in That Movie

1. Why is it that when the good folks of SG-1 were out of phase, they could walk through walls but not fall through the floor?
   
2. The hat that Will was wearing at the end had been out of style for about a hundred years.
   
3. The sound for John Connor's bike was for a completely different model. Also, he shifted up like fifteen times during that one scene.
   
4. They said they would explain why the watermelon was there, but they never did. Not even in the "Why is the watermelon there?" bonus feature on the DVD.
   
5. If you time how long it took the DeLorean to pass between pairs of street lights, you can calculate its velocity and acceleration. There is no way it could have made it up to 88 mph by the time it needed to be there.
   
6. If everyone speaks Chinese, why don't we ever see anyone from Asia?
   
7. Don't get me started about the costumes and dancing. Had anyone involved ever seen a geisha?
   
8. Why did they cut the scene where Galadriel gave Gimli a gift? It really helped develop his character in the novel. He was just a very short source of humor in the movie.
   
9. If it was only 20 years later, how is it that nobody remembers the Jedi?
   
10. British people don't eat eggs in toast for breakfast! How can this movie be?
    
11. How is it that a blacksmith can learn to fight in 30 seconds?
    
12. If both Zim and Dib became bologna, how is it that they were back to normal in the next episode? You know Gaz would never have helped them.
    
13. Why would a company named FedCo be delivering packages in a place that is obviously not a federal republic?

I think it's safe to say that almost all of these could be applied just as well or better to other films. The FedCo one and the one about eggs and toast for breakfast got me, though. I did a little snooping, and I came across a deleted scene in which Stephen Fry says to the director, "You know, we call this 'toad in the hole' in England. I'm British, you know." The director says, "Do you want us to strap you down and make you watch The Phantom Menace again?" Stephen says, "Eggie in a basket it is." He tried. You can't blame him.

FedCo is presumably based on FedEx, which started in the Federal Republic of Germany. That's where it got the "Fed" part of "FedEx" (the whole thing is short for "Federal Republic Express"). When FedEx went international, the board of directors had to decide what to do about the name. Should it change to InLoFoGoHeEx, for "Insert Local Form of Government Here Express")? No, they decided that sounded pretty stupid. Instead, they went with individual names for individual countries. In the UK, it's known as ConMonEx ("Constitutional Monarchy Express"). Moore is correct. No real British person would ever have heard of FedEx. That's how you can tell that Terry Pratchett, who wrote about Fedex, the messenger of the gods, isn't really British. He's actually Iranian. Still, I don't think this is a terrible problem with the movie. Just accept that there is a large delivery service active in the UK that happens to be based out of the Federal Republic of Germany.

History

I suspect that a not lot of Americans know who Guy Fawkes really is. They probably think he's the one who is burned in efficacy on Guy Fawkes Night. Ha ha ha. No, he's a guy who was dumb enough to try to blow up Parliament with a truck full of gunpowder on Guy Fawkes Night. I guess his plan was that nobody would think he would be so stupid as to drive up in a big rental truck while wearing a festive mask, flash his real ID, and say, "Gunpowder delivery for Parliament," all on a day coincidentally also named Guy Fawkes and associated in song and legend with gunpowder. Needless to say, the security folks were quite suspicious. I supsect they would have been confused enough even if he had picked a better day and left the mask at home, since the truck was a pretty big anachronism. You might say, "But doesn't Guy Fawkes Night involve burning this nitwit in efficacy?" I'm not sure about that, but think about it. I can imagine people in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and about 99% of the other contries on the globe burning him in efficacy for being a dork, but not the English.

Review

This movie was smart and topical. It gave the Bush and Blair regimes a kick where the sun don't shine. I know this is really something that any decent movie would do, but I think this one was particularly smart. V (played by David Prowse, who does a fine job) is this dude with a mask, hat, and talking parasite in his hand (played ably by Natalie Portman), and he is on a mission to expose political and industrial evil and incompetence to the world. At one point, V challenges the CEO of IBM (Jim Norton) to format a disk. Later, he storms a TV station and airs a video that shows Sutler (played by John Hurt) sitting around in an elementary school classroom as aides try to explain to him that the virus his friends let loose is killing people. Then he goes on to say things (Adral O'Hanlon) about stuff (Frank Kelly).

Despite Moore's criticisms, I think the costumes and makeup were pretty good. V had a nice outfit, and John Hurt's makeup makes him look just like George W., and Dermot Morgan (Crilly, the head of the secret police), looks an awful lot like Dick Cheney.

The acting was really darned good, too, although this shouldn't really be a surprise. This isn't the first time Dermot Morgan has played a character named Crilly, and both John Hurt and Stephen Rea (Finch) had played very similar roles before. Hurt, as you might remember, played Augustus in I, Claudius, and Rea played René Artois in "'Allo 'Allo!" The real surprise was that David Prowse did an absolutely phenotypical job expressing a wide range of emotions and otherwise acting without us ever seeing his face. That man is just amazing.

The scene where V passes the torch is really great. V was all, like, "I say your civilization because as soon as I'm done here it really will become your civilization, which is of course what this is all about. Revolution, Evey, revolution, like the dinosaur. Look out that window. I've had my time. The future is your world, Evey. The future is your time. You blow something up now." I cried.

FAQ

I'm sure a lot of you will come out of the movie asking, "Would V or Sin City's Marv win if they got into a fight?" Well, I've done some computer simulations and talked to experts. Here's what I've found. On the surface, they look pretty evenly tied. V has one "v" in his name. Marv has one "v" in his name. However, when you look a little deeper, Marv could dismantle the "M" into a pair of backup "v"s, the "A" into one backup "v," and depending on the font, he might be able to do something with the "R." I know that the "A" and "R" won't work if they aren't in caps, but honestly, don't you think Marv is the kind of guy who would forget to turn off the caps lock? On the other hand, V is just so cool that if he said to Marv, "That's one damn fine coat you are wearing," Marv would pretty much have to give it to him.

A few of you will probably wonder how closely this matches up with the novel. Well, there are a few differences. First, V's hat was bigger in the novel. Second, he wasn't as cool. In fact, it seemed like he was always getting beaten up. On one page Natalie Portman was putting the smack down on him. On the next, it was Sean Connery. But it's not always the truly fearsome celebs beating up our man V. No, in one chapter he got the beat down from Larry Niven, Jaleel White, Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise, and Peter Lorre. Pretty much anyone who is or ever was anyone, plus Cruise and Hilton, took at least a little time to pawnzorate V.

Last night we watched Dr. Strangelove, which is a low-budget artsy/comedsy/policical-commentarsy film. They shot it in black and white, possibly to save money, but more likely to make it fit on the DVD with another film. Make no mistake about it, though. Dr. Strangelove may have an FX budget of about the same size as the Fox News fact-checking budget, but is a great film. I guess most of the money went to the cast, since they had people like Hugh Laurie (G/C Mandrake), Stephen Fry (Brig. Gen. Ripper), Tim McInnery (Gen. Turgidson), Rowan Atkinson (Dr. Strangelove), Tony Robinson (Alexi de Sadeksy), and Brian Blessed (Major Kong). The film was directed by newcomer Stanley Kubrick, who is known more for making distinctly un-actionic action figures that have taken Japan by storm. This guy must hate Bush as much as I do, since the end of the world is very nearly caused by an unbalanced military wannabe (Stephen Fry) who is also a raving lunatic and a big believer in pseudoscience; a shouting Texan (Brian Blessed) ends up being the one to drop a nuclear weapon. Now I'm not really a fan of movies that talk about the end of the world. I didn't like The Day After Tomorrow, The Good Earth, The Omega Man, Fail Safe, or Song of the South. Fortunately, while the story sort of leads up to all life getting wiped out, it doesn't happen. Instead, they have a nice mortgage of fireworks and music and people singing. Then we see Dr. Strangelove talking about setting up some kind of utopianismic community with gardens and stuff like that. Basically, the movie was funny, to the point about politics, and kind of tense right up until the fireworks and music. Next up is the other film that they packed on the DVD, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I'm guessing it's the political counterpoint to Dr. Strangelove, in which the world is very nearly destroyed by education, national health care, and basic kindness, and only saved by the widespread application of nuclear weapons.

I've been trying to figure out how episodes 3 and 4 of Star Wars fit together. I've tried flowcharts, concept maps, contour maps, Mercator projections, overhead projectors, life planners, and everything else I can come up with to help me make sense of it, but I can only conclude that there is room for Star Wars Episode 3.5: Everyone Somehow Forgets About the Jedi. At the start of Episode 4 (the first real Star Wars, for those of you new to the series), Luke is in the 18-24 age range. At the end of Episode 3, he is in the 0-0 age range. This means that there is a gap of about 18-24 years between the end of Episode 3 and the start of Episode 4. For those of you who haven't seen Episode 4, nobody really remembers the Jedi. Old Ben is just "some bloke who lives in the desert." Yoda is just "some bloke who lives in a swamp." Darth Vader is just "some bloke who strangles his employees." Bail Organa is just "some bloke who was left out of Episodes 1-3." Luke's mom, Ms. Skywalker, was just "some bloke who didn't actually die during Luke's birth." When I saw Episodes 4-6, I assumed that the Jedi Order was a secret society, kind of like the Illuminati, NOM, or the International Red Cross. They couldn't have played that public a part in the fate of the galaxy and then be completely forgotten by the next episode. It's taken people longer than that to forget about what really happened during World War II, after all.

Those of you who haven't seen Episodes 1-3 may be surprised to learn that the Jedi Order was, in fact, pretty darned popular in the time of the Republic. Everyone knew about them. They had a big council. They were the big heroes of their day, and everyone knew they could be scary. What happened in those 18-24 years that caused the entire galaxy to forget them? Surely there were Jedi breakfast cereals, cartoon shows, movies, novels, board games, console games, trading cards, caps, shoes, ships, key chain fobs, speeders, notebooks, coffee drinks, greeting cards, LPs, soft drinks, furniture, silverware, candy bars, car seat covers, teas, and action figures. There were probably also plastic light sabers, how-to-draw-Jedi books, and a couple of pencil-and-paper Jedi RPGs. It's likely that one or more members of the Jedi Council appeared on the news every week. I would suspect that Mace Windu had his own late-night talk show, and that Ki-Adi-Mundi and Sora Bulq hosted their own weekly automotive-repair/comedy radio program.

I would estimate that Han Solo was about 30 when he met Luke. That means that he was in the 6-12 age group at the end of Episode 3, which was shortly before the end of the Jedi. He must have seen the cartoon shows. He probably wore Jedi Council^TM jeans and took a Kit Fisto lunchbox to school. He undoubtedly saw images on the news of Jedi fighting during the Clone Wars, throwing cars, leaping 25 meters at a time, and cutting huge combat machines in half with light sabers. How is it that he forgot all of this in time to make fun of Obi-Wan in the Mos Eisley cantina?

Even if the rest of the galaxy somehow forgot the Jedi, you would think that the Empire would have something about them in its training manuals. At the very least, you'd think that at some point during Officer Training, one of the instructors would say something like, "You know this Vader character? Yeah, the one on all the tee shirts. He can kill you with a thought. He doesn't even need a tray, although he could certainly kill you with one of those, too." How is it, then, that all of the Imperial officers are so casual around Vader in Episode 4? Neither Grand Moff Tarkin nor General Motti seemed the least bit scared of getting strangled to death for contradicting him, making fun of the Force, or playing the "Your shoes are untied" trick, and they were certainly old enough to have known better. You can't say that the Empire had a blind spot for Vader like voters in the United States have for Bush, either. People were much more scared of Vader in Episodes 5 and 6, presumably after all of the Imperial employees noticed that he could kill people with the "I'm squishing your head!" gesture. Hadn't they noticed this before? Hadn't any of them, or any of their parents, cousins, aunts or uncles, or older siblings, heard of him prior to his capture of the Tantive IV? If that was the case, wouldn't the Rebel troops on the Tantive IV stopped their shooting long enough to ask, "Hey, who's the new guy?" when they saw him?

I'm not suggesting that anyone actually go out and create Episode 3.5. Lord, no. I don't think it would sell that well. It would be 75 minutes of young Sith running from store to store buying everything Jedi-related, 10 minutes of said Sith eating ton after ton of Plo Koon Chocolate-Coloured Lumps beakfast cereal, and 5 minutes of Palpatine using some wicked force powers to make everyone in the galaxy slip while taking a shower and develop selective amnesia. Of course, I couldn't see Episodes 1-3 selling that well, either, especially after Episode 1 proved to have less plot than the maze on the back of a box of Plo Koon cereal.

I wanted to go see MirrorMask, but since I doubted I could count on a lift from my loser roommates, I decided to rely on public transportation. The bus dropped me off pretty near the theater in Palo Alto. The theater itself is on Emerson Street, home to the famous Pirates of Emerson. Not wishing to be caught and made to walk a plank, I decided to try out some of the fruits of my stealth chicken research. It was pretty sweet. The bus actually got me there a little bit early, so I wandered over to the nearby Whole Foods and gave the stealth technology a real workout. Nobody seemed to notice me, even after the suit malfunctioned and I became visible while eating chicken in the middle of the store. People just kept shuffling around with confused looks on their faces. I guess the stealth technology does something to the brain. Nifty.

Anyhow, the movie was pretty cool. ( Spoilers! ) Go see this movie.

Rumors are flying about the sequel to the blockbuster hit Pirates of the Merovingian. I think I can dismiss a number of these, like

1. it will be set in space
   
2. it will use the script for Reservoir Dogs
   
3. Bubs from Strongbad will be playing Jack Agnew's father
   
4. at the end, they have to blow up their ship to close a gaping hole in the ocean floor

I've heard a couple of other rumors that seem more solid. One is that there will be cannibalism. Many of the native peoples of the region, the Neocons in particular, are really upset and claiming that their ancestors didn't practice cannibalism. That's as may be, but honestly, when you see the things they do now, I don't understand why they're so upset about their ancestors eating people. Let me tell you, humans can be pretty tasty.

Also, I've heard that our heroes will have a brush with the British East India Company. I guess the writers were thinking, "What can we find that is more evil than zombie pirates? Nazis? Yeah, everybody likes killing Nazis. Wait, after the flak we got from that hat being a few years out of place, we can't afford Nazis. They're, like, decades out of place. Of course, nobody was upset about the zombies being historically inaccurate, but whatever. What else could we have? What else was going on in this invented period of history? We'd better do our research on this." Then, after reading tome after tome of history from that invented time, they found the solution. "Wow! This East India Company is like a cross between Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and the Medellin cartel. This will kick zombie pirate ass. They just don't get any more evil. Plus, it works well with this bizarre period of history we made up."

No matter what the Neocon tribes may say about cannibalism, I think we can all agree that we're on the edge of our seats waiting to see John Company get smacked around.

I went to Milpitas to see this today. I snuck onto the 210 and 217 busses. It's good that nobody ever looks down, because I can't reach up high enough to put money in the fare machine. The theater was almost empty. I assume all of the culture snobs were avoiding it. I'm sure you're all curious to know what I think of it. I'm not a purist, you know. I was a little annoyed at what they did to Strangers in Paradise when they turned it into Bowling for Columbine, but if that's Terry Moore's artistic vision, I'll accept it. Let me say this before I say anything else: don't go into the theater expecting to see Nitin Chandra Ganatra doing a dramatic reading of the original. No, in converting this from print to the Bollywood film to both imitate and oh so subtly spoof all Bollywood films, they had to make some changes.

As with most Bollywood films, you can expect vibrant constumes, songs, and lots of dancing. It's also kind of funny. This may annoy some of the more hard-core of Austen's fans, but this is not the cannelonical Hellblazer. However, I think it's a great way to spend a couple of hours. They've cut most of the dark stuff. You won't find the hero smoking or fighting demons. She's not going to Hell, and she never casts spells. She does a good job of fighting with her words, but I don't get the feeling that the Devil would be willing to show up and personally collect her soul. However, the dialogue is snappy, the dances and music are great (there's even a brief appearance of The Lord of The Dance, which is a nice nod to the comic books), the costumes and scenery are gorgeous, and the movie itself is very entertaining. If you haven't already seen it, give it a try. As long as you keep my comments in mind, you won't be disapprobated.

I read the review of the Tron remake at Slashdot, and the conclusion of these computer wizards is that the biggest problem with the original Tron is the way it got technical details wrong. It's sort of like the problem everyone had with the historical inacquiescentcies in Pirates of the Merovingian (there weren't zombie pirates until at least 100 years after the period in which the movie was set). In the case of Tron, though, the big technical mistake was that a computer used a laser beam to suck a human being into an electronic world, but computers wouldn't be powerful enough to do that until at least 1994. Personally, though, I don't think this took too much away from the story. I'm a little worried about what will happen if the Slashdot people get their way. The new version of Tron might go something like this:

( click here if you don't mind me ruining the movie for you )