I'm still a bit too excited and edgy to come up with a clever, biting opening to this article. So, if it's okay with you beautiful people, I'mma skip the formal intros and get right to the main course, because I've got a lot to say about this one. Cool? Cool.
So. Star Wars.
Yup, we're going there.
Anyone who knows me in person knows that Star Wars is to me what Tyra Banks was to Will Smith circa 1992...i.e. I know too much about it for my own good and it's pretty much the only thing I ever talk about. I'm the quintessential Star Wars nut: I love all the movies, I've got about thirty Hasbro action figures, I've read a bunch of the expanded universe novels, and I've got about six different visual dictionaries on the subject. You know that alien band that's playing in the bar in A New Hope? Well, I'm such a detail-obsessed wackjob that I can tell you what that band's name is and what planet they come from. (If you really have to know, they're called Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, and their species [the Bith] come from Clak'Dor VII. One of the instruments they play is called an "omni box". What else do you wanna know, ladies?). Yeah, I'm one of those guys. But I like to think that what differentiates me from the more creepy, hygienically-impaired members of the nerd society is that I obsess because I LOVE, not because I like to nitpick about things on internet chat rooms or show off my "skillz" to impress Goth chicks.
So, naturally, when I joined the rest of the world last week in discovering that Disney bought out LucasFilm and plans on making at least three more Star Wars movies, I went through a variety of confusing (and sometimes arousing, but we won't go there) emotions in a very condensed period of time. Face it, Star Wars is my lifeblood: sure, I'm also a huge fan of superhero movies, Lord of the Rings, LOST, Harry Potter, Joss Whedon, The Simpsons, Assassin's Creed, Pixar, Nintendo, and other nerdia (which is a word I just made up that means "nerd-media"), but Star Wars is the king. The Mac Daddy. It trumps them all. It was the first true fanboy experience that any of us had. If being a fanboy was a religion, Star Wars wouldn't just be the Book of Genesis: it'd be the entire goddamned Old Testament. And maybe the Letters to the Corinthians, too,
I wanted this TQM post to be about my personal thoughts on this revelation. And to be honest, it's still kind of hard to put it into words. Am I excited? Sure I am! I mean, George Lucas had mentioned toying with the idea of doing sequels to Return of the Jedi in the past, but we long ago dismissed those as the mere ramblings of a crazy old flannel-man, and George stated very firmly that the prequels would be the final installments in the film series. So to find out now that we're going to see a multitude of new Star Wars movies...well, it's a little bit surreal. It feels like a false rumor, or a cruel practical joke...until you find out that it isn't.
I am a bit saddened, though, that the series will no longer be part of the LucasFilm family. Disney, it seems, won't be content until they own everything, everywhere. They already locked down Pixar and Marvel Comics, and now they've added Star Wars to that list. I wouldn't be surprised if next year we'll be hearing that Disney has just spent $8.03 billion to purchase the rights to coffee. Not a coffee franchise; just coffee, period. And every time anyone buys a cup of coffee or roasts a coffee bean anywhere in the world, Mickey Mouse will reap the benefits somehow. And the year after that, it'll be doors. Wanna have a front door to your house? Not until Disney gets their cut, chump.
I'm in the middle of a little love-hate spat with Disney right now, because -in my opinion -they've been slacking. They made Hercules, then they made nothing good after that. For a long time. And then they just bought out everybody who was making good things and rode their long coattails all the way to the bank. If you were to ask me, the only worthy piece of entertainment Disney put out themselves after Hercules was Pirates of the Caribbean. It's kinda sad that the company who led the world in family entertainment back in the early nineties spends the present just sitting back getting fat while Pixar, Marvel, and (now) LucasFilm do all the hard work. But that's a matter for a whole other blog post entirely. If you ask me, Star Wars won't be quite the same without hearing that 20th Century Fox theme before the opening titles. :(
But other than that...yeah, I'm pretty optimistic! There's obviously a lot that could go wrong, but that can be said for any movie. There's also plenty more that could go right, and that's what I'm looking forward to. I'm just curious as to what the hell these new movies could possibly be about! I mean, the current 6-film saga is about Darth Vader: his childhood, youth, descent into darkness, and redemption. Now he's dead, his son Luke (SPOILERS!) has forgiven him for his injustices, the Empire is defeated, and all is right with the galaxy. For the first time in a long time, there's peace. And call me crazy, but the idea of watching Star Peace just doesn't have the same appeal. I'm sure a clever enough writer can come up with something intriguing enough to spawn a whole new series, but until then we can only speculate. And if they're hard-pressed for said writers...I'll do it. For free. Come on, Disney, you're lookin' at a free lunch here!
Though as long as we're on the subject, here are my two cents:
HAVE FUN WITH IT, PLEASE.
Whatever you do, Disney, please DON'T jump on the 21st-century bandwagon and make a hard-boiled, gritty, Star Wars Begins where Han and Leia's badass son is played by Jason Statham, and everyone wears black trenchcoats, and lightsaber blades only come in silver now because primary colours aren't hardcore enough for today's modern audiences. Just remember what made the original six movies so magical and expand upon that in every way possible.If you're going to try to be edgy and gritty, then you're not making a Star Wars movie; you're just making some other shitty movie and calling it Star Wars. Just be kids again. Design cool-looking spaceships and take us to awesome planets and introduce us to likeable characters who pilot imaginative land, sea, and air vehicles. The beauty of Star Wars is that its limitations are only defined by your own. So don't squander that opportunity, Disney, or I'm throwing away my Junior Mouseketeers membership for good.
I'm no whiny, squealing complainer...I'm not going to demand that you include Boba Fett or a cloned Emperor or anything like that. I'm putting my faith in you, creators of the new films. In 2015, I hope you pleasantly surprise me. There's only one thing I can think of that you really, really need to consider putting into these movies, only one thing that is absolutely irreplaceable: John Williams. In this humble writer's opinion, without Mr. Williams behind the conductor's baton, it just wouldn't be Star Wars.
P.S.- "Nerdia": copyright Andrew Fantasia, 2012, by the way. Just sayin'.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Friday, November 9, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Black & Yellow
Good evening.
Fellas, this one is for you. But ladies, you're more than welcome to stick around! You may learn a thing or two you didn't already know about us strapping, enigmatic Y-chromosomers.
Those of you familiar with the practices of the Jewish faith will know that when a boy reaches a certain age, he becomes a man in the eyes of his peers by partaking in a custom known as a Bar Mitzvah. This is an age-old tradition that's been going on for generations. But I'm here tonight to tell you -and you're hearing it here first, folks! -that I've discovered a second custom, another rite of passage that can be used to identify the passing from boyhood into manhood. It is a symbolic struggle that every boy on the planet must deal with at one point or another. But it doesn't come in the form of a religious experience, nor does it take shape via physical transformation. Instead, this rite of passage is nothing more (and nothing less) than my own namesake: a single, solitary question.
The question being: Betty or Veronica?
For the uninitiated, here's a quick history lesson: Archie Andrews is an American comic book character who debuted in 1941 from the comic company MLJ Magazines. The character eventually became so popular, however, that they shortly changed their name to Archie Comics. In a nutshell, Archie Andrews is a well-meaning but naive ginger-haired teenager who surprisingly has not one, but TWO smokin' hot girls both pining for his affections. And Archie, that beautiful idiot, can never seem to decide on which one he loves most. To this day, Archie comic books are still being published...which means that Archie has been unable to decide between the two girls for over 70 years now.
But let's give the man some credit...this ain't exactly an easy choice.
The two aforementioned smokin' hot candidates in question are Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. Betty is a blonde beauty, sweet, kind-hearted, gentle, shy, but spunky. She has the unbelievable ability to be both a tomboy and a girly-girl all at once; she could be slipping into her Riverdale High cheerleader outfit one minute, then sliding under a car to give the engine a tune-up the next. She adores Archie and treats him (and everyone else, for that matter) with the utmost respect. Veronica Lodge is a gorgeous brunette who also happens to be the daughter of a multi-millionaire. Thus, Veronica tends to be bratty, spoiled, and stubborn. She's a very high-maintenance gal, who enjoys such pleasures as shopping, sunbathing on the beach, and going out for wallet-gouging dinners at French restaurants. She also adores Archie, but she tends to take him for granted, and often brushes him off entirely to continue her on-again, off-again relationship with Riverdale High's resident asshole, Reggie Mantle.
Now, at this point, most of you are probably waving your arms in the air and insisting that only the most obtuse, OBTUSE idiots would pick Veronica. But back that judgment train up for a sec, homies. Like I said, this isn't that simple.
Yes, Veronica can be a bee-otch at times. But can we blame her? Her rich daddy, Hiram Lodge, spoils the pants off of her, and lavishes her with money and credit cards without ever really teaching her the true value of a dollar. As for Veronica's mother, the woman is barely present. I've read over 100 Archie comic books and I think I may have seen her once: Veronica has a piss-poor male role model and a nonexistent female one. That's got "recipe for bee-otch" written all over it.
Besides, let's remove Archie from the equation for a minute. When she's not hanging out with boys, Veronica spends her time with her best friend in the whole world...who happens to be none other than Betty Cooper. And when these two are alone together, that's when the real Veronica Lodge starts to bubble to the surface a bit. On her many girls-nights-out with Betty, I've seen Veronica selflessly stand up for her friend, donate all of her childhood toys to poor kids, pay for all of her friends' Christmas shopping, organize school bake sales and pep rallies, & tons of other stuff that no self-proclaimed bee-otch would touch with a 10 foot pole. See, Veronica plays the hard-to-get card around the boys because her lack of a normal childhood has made her more than a little insecure. She needs to flip-flop between Archie and Reggie; not because she's mean, but because she simply doesn't know what she's doing. And she'd never admit that, of course. So she just smirks and pretends that it's all part of her "bad girl" routine. Unbeknownst to the boys, she's a total sweetheart. And because of her rich, cold upbringing, this means that she became a total sweetheart all on her own. That, my friends, is one hell of an admirable accomplishment.
Most people who read Archie Comics start doing so at a young age, but when we get older we inevitably find ourselves staring for longer than usual at those pages where Betty and Veronica are lying on the beach in their generous bathing suits, and we take to asking ourselves: if we were in Archie's EXTREMELY lucky shoes...who would we pick? And the answer that immediately follows usually sounds something like this:
"Betty! No, wait, Veronica! Yeah, Veronica! Or...no, screw that, I'll go with Betty! Maybe. Or Veronica....definitely Betty. Probably. 50-50." And then we'd give up and pull out a coin to settle things.
Therefore, I submit to you that this, THIS is the ultimate test of manhood. There is no right or wrong answer to this question: what matters is whether you can answer it without second-guessing yourself. And that is what separates the men from the boys. Archie is 17 years old and has about as much intelligence as a baby monkey; he's still got a long way to go before he can pick one girl over the other. It could take some men years to finally realize what it is they truly want. It's never too late to find out what your answer will be, and you'll learn something valuable about yourself in the process.
So to those of you who can answer the question without a moment's hesitation, congratulations. You've reached a level of wisdom and maturity that others can only dream of. And to those of you who still don't know for sure, don't be discouraged. Mulling it over, after all, is half the fun. :)
.............................................................
Oh, you're still here? What's that? You're asking what my choice would be? Well, gosh, if you really want to know, I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell you. But remember: this is a personal journey. Choices are based completely on individual emotional response, so don't go looking to my answer to help you out with yours, okay?
To learn whom I would choose between Betty or Veronica, feel free to highlight the spoiler-free section below.
Both. In a hot tub. With some strawberries.
Fellas, this one is for you. But ladies, you're more than welcome to stick around! You may learn a thing or two you didn't already know about us strapping, enigmatic Y-chromosomers.
Those of you familiar with the practices of the Jewish faith will know that when a boy reaches a certain age, he becomes a man in the eyes of his peers by partaking in a custom known as a Bar Mitzvah. This is an age-old tradition that's been going on for generations. But I'm here tonight to tell you -and you're hearing it here first, folks! -that I've discovered a second custom, another rite of passage that can be used to identify the passing from boyhood into manhood. It is a symbolic struggle that every boy on the planet must deal with at one point or another. But it doesn't come in the form of a religious experience, nor does it take shape via physical transformation. Instead, this rite of passage is nothing more (and nothing less) than my own namesake: a single, solitary question.
The question being: Betty or Veronica?
For the uninitiated, here's a quick history lesson: Archie Andrews is an American comic book character who debuted in 1941 from the comic company MLJ Magazines. The character eventually became so popular, however, that they shortly changed their name to Archie Comics. In a nutshell, Archie Andrews is a well-meaning but naive ginger-haired teenager who surprisingly has not one, but TWO smokin' hot girls both pining for his affections. And Archie, that beautiful idiot, can never seem to decide on which one he loves most. To this day, Archie comic books are still being published...which means that Archie has been unable to decide between the two girls for over 70 years now.
But let's give the man some credit...this ain't exactly an easy choice.
The two aforementioned smokin' hot candidates in question are Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. Betty is a blonde beauty, sweet, kind-hearted, gentle, shy, but spunky. She has the unbelievable ability to be both a tomboy and a girly-girl all at once; she could be slipping into her Riverdale High cheerleader outfit one minute, then sliding under a car to give the engine a tune-up the next. She adores Archie and treats him (and everyone else, for that matter) with the utmost respect. Veronica Lodge is a gorgeous brunette who also happens to be the daughter of a multi-millionaire. Thus, Veronica tends to be bratty, spoiled, and stubborn. She's a very high-maintenance gal, who enjoys such pleasures as shopping, sunbathing on the beach, and going out for wallet-gouging dinners at French restaurants. She also adores Archie, but she tends to take him for granted, and often brushes him off entirely to continue her on-again, off-again relationship with Riverdale High's resident asshole, Reggie Mantle.
Now, at this point, most of you are probably waving your arms in the air and insisting that only the most obtuse, OBTUSE idiots would pick Veronica. But back that judgment train up for a sec, homies. Like I said, this isn't that simple.
Yes, Veronica can be a bee-otch at times. But can we blame her? Her rich daddy, Hiram Lodge, spoils the pants off of her, and lavishes her with money and credit cards without ever really teaching her the true value of a dollar. As for Veronica's mother, the woman is barely present. I've read over 100 Archie comic books and I think I may have seen her once: Veronica has a piss-poor male role model and a nonexistent female one. That's got "recipe for bee-otch" written all over it.
Besides, let's remove Archie from the equation for a minute. When she's not hanging out with boys, Veronica spends her time with her best friend in the whole world...who happens to be none other than Betty Cooper. And when these two are alone together, that's when the real Veronica Lodge starts to bubble to the surface a bit. On her many girls-nights-out with Betty, I've seen Veronica selflessly stand up for her friend, donate all of her childhood toys to poor kids, pay for all of her friends' Christmas shopping, organize school bake sales and pep rallies, & tons of other stuff that no self-proclaimed bee-otch would touch with a 10 foot pole. See, Veronica plays the hard-to-get card around the boys because her lack of a normal childhood has made her more than a little insecure. She needs to flip-flop between Archie and Reggie; not because she's mean, but because she simply doesn't know what she's doing. And she'd never admit that, of course. So she just smirks and pretends that it's all part of her "bad girl" routine. Unbeknownst to the boys, she's a total sweetheart. And because of her rich, cold upbringing, this means that she became a total sweetheart all on her own. That, my friends, is one hell of an admirable accomplishment.
Most people who read Archie Comics start doing so at a young age, but when we get older we inevitably find ourselves staring for longer than usual at those pages where Betty and Veronica are lying on the beach in their generous bathing suits, and we take to asking ourselves: if we were in Archie's EXTREMELY lucky shoes...who would we pick? And the answer that immediately follows usually sounds something like this:
"Betty! No, wait, Veronica! Yeah, Veronica! Or...no, screw that, I'll go with Betty! Maybe. Or Veronica....definitely Betty. Probably. 50-50." And then we'd give up and pull out a coin to settle things.
Therefore, I submit to you that this, THIS is the ultimate test of manhood. There is no right or wrong answer to this question: what matters is whether you can answer it without second-guessing yourself. And that is what separates the men from the boys. Archie is 17 years old and has about as much intelligence as a baby monkey; he's still got a long way to go before he can pick one girl over the other. It could take some men years to finally realize what it is they truly want. It's never too late to find out what your answer will be, and you'll learn something valuable about yourself in the process.
So to those of you who can answer the question without a moment's hesitation, congratulations. You've reached a level of wisdom and maturity that others can only dream of. And to those of you who still don't know for sure, don't be discouraged. Mulling it over, after all, is half the fun. :)
.............................................................
Oh, you're still here? What's that? You're asking what my choice would be? Well, gosh, if you really want to know, I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell you. But remember: this is a personal journey. Choices are based completely on individual emotional response, so don't go looking to my answer to help you out with yours, okay?
To learn whom I would choose between Betty or Veronica, feel free to highlight the spoiler-free section below.
Both. In a hot tub. With some strawberries.
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