Club Jade

I was asked to create a CJ Youtube account at JadeCon, and I finally got around to it. No uploads yet, but lots of favorites from old posts and such. In the process, I came across this oldie but goodie, the ROTS trailer captioned in hacker-speak.

More video flashbacks are coming… You’ve been warned.

“Contrary to what you’ve just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners; only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: the American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars Trilogy. If you’d like to learn more about war, there’s lots of books in your local library, many of them with cool gory pictures.”

I doubt this Bart Simpson quote is what they had in mind, but Spike TV is celebrating the ultimate result of the first with an airing of the third next weekend. Which is to say, look for a Star Wars movie to air each night leading up to July 4 – beginning tonight at 6pm with The Phantom Menace.

The Oregonian’s Shawn Levy ponders which highly anticipated set of -quels let viewers down the most. His conclusion is… Not really all that surprising, actually.

Well, with both trilogies complete and behind us, I’m not sure that those people would have been correct in the least. Lucas improved on quite a bit of “SWEP1″ in the subsequent prequels, while the Wachowskis absolutely crash-landed “The Matrix” in their sequels to it. (Let’s leave off “Speed Racer,” shall we, so as not to be overly cruel….) Especially given a decade of reassessment, I’d call Lucas’ three-film enterprise by far the more successful.

(Via io9, where they are polling, and Star Wars is ‘winning.’ Frustrated childhood dreams rear their ugly heads again!)

And can I just say randomly that The Fifth Element beats them all in capturing the madcap cheesy fun aspect of Star Wars? Or will you stone me?

In their ongoing quest to air anything but actual music, MTV will be showing all six Star Wars movies throughout the holiday weekend. (Hey, at least it’s not The Hills!) According to StarWars.com, it will go thusly:

• Saturday, May 23: The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.

• Sunday, May 24: Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.
• Memorial Day, Monday, May 25: The Empires Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Check MTV’s schedule (in EST) or your local listings for times.

Lightsabre talks to production designer Gavin Bocquet, who worked on Return of the Jedi, Young Indy, the prequel trilogy and Stardust. Meanwhile, over at EUC, they have author Karen Miller and are taking questions for cover artist Dave Seeley.

And I bet he enjoys it. In any case, all the evidence is gathered and presented in text format… And yet still no Wookieepedia entry? Tisk tisk.

…That works pretty well, doesn’t it? Freaky. (via)

• T-shirt: Clearly we don’t know the power of the Force. Bet it’s awesome on floors, too.

• Lists: Entertainment Weekly has Revenge of the Sith’s ”Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo” line as one of their 15 nominees for worst movie dialogue ever.
• Politics: io9 says Sarah Palin is Star Wars and Hillary Clinton is Star Trek. Um. No comment.
• Cute: Chipmunk menaced by action figures!

Lists are all well and good, but Empire’s list of the 500 greatest movies of all time is ridiculous. Luckily for you, I skimmed it so you can have that half-hour of your life to do with as you will.

The original trilogy makes a nice showing, with Empire Strikes Back at #3, A New Hope at #22 and Return of the Jedi at #91. (Plus, Raiders of the Lost Ark is #2.) The prequel trilogy clocks in with The Phantom Menace at #449 and Revenge of the Sith at #330.

As for other movies of interest: Serenity (#383,) Clerks (#361,) Shaun of the Dead (#231,) The Princess Bride (#122,) Batman Begins (#81,) Evil Dead (#49,) The Matrix (#39,) Terminator 2 (#35,) Aliens (#30,) Blade Runner (#20,) 2001 (#16,) and The Dark Knight (#15.) I think all of LOTR was in the top 100 too, but I lost track because 500 MOVIES IS RIDICULOUS.

• Politics: When in the GFFA…

• Technology: Phonesaber returns… as a The Force Unleashed tie-in? At least it’s free! Also, people are creating Star Wars vehicles in Spore.
• Lists: io9 thoughtfully includes Revenge of the Sith in their list of the best skin-melting scenes from sci-fi. Melting, frying… They’re almost the same thing! (And apparently Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn’t count.)
• Hipsters! Hold onto your Pabst, Star Wars is live (and authorized!) in San Francisco this weekend.
• Funny: You want to read this tale of customer service woe. Just trust me. (Warning: Language.)