Vimeo Tribute: Star Wars from Casey D on Vimeo.

Seriously, would you feel comfortable geeking around in the office with toy machine guns and a video camera these days? As fun as this looks, I’d be terrified of ending up on the lay-off list. These guys obviously don’t have enough work to do…

Incidentally, may I just mention that I hate all the gleepity sounds that were laid over the insert shots of the Falcon‘s targeting computers in the Not-So-Special Editions? I’ve read that F-4 Phantom pilots in Vietnam started turning off the alarms and various audio systems in their cockpits because they got to be too distracting; I can’t help but think that’d be Han Solo’s philosophy as well. A former fighter pilot and motorhead like him would be listening to every little murmur in the engines, every creak and groan of the ship’s skeleton, and you can’t do that with electronic felgercarb going gleepity-gloop all the time.

Ever wonder what the brave young men of the United States Navy do to kill the time during those interminable ocean crossings? They make a movie of themselves having a lightsaber duel, of course!

There are thousands of Star Wars fan films out there on the ‘webs, of course, but this is perhaps the only one that was shot on board an active-duty naval warship, the USS Shiloh (serial number CG67, hence the title of the movie and of this blog entry). The film is a little too long and unevenly paced, and the audio is a bit dodgy, but it looks like the guys involved had a blast making it, and it definitely has its charms. Be warned, though, that there is some NSFW sailor-type language in this clip (in other words, they swear, including the dread F-word):

For some reason, I was highly amused to see they have Nutter Butter cookies for sale on board the ship. I don’t know why; guess it just never occurred to me that sailors would have access to the same junk food that I do. I also like how nobody in the mess hall reacts to two lightsaber-wielding engineers clashing their way through the room. Could this be a common occurrence on board the Shiloh?

Anyhow, the source of the video is here; I came to it via Boing Boing, naturally.

Here’s a nice little palate cleanser to follow all that heavy stuff, a video that’s been making the rounds this week (I’m ashamed to admit that Samurai Frog and Jaquandor beat me to the punch on this one). It’s a creative lip-synch of a cute little song that’s all about my favorite movie, set to several of the more memorable themes by movie-music maestro John Williams. If you don’t know your John Williams themes, the titles are helpfully provided in pop-ups (although if you don’t know what these particular themes are, you’re not much of a movie fan, or you didn’t grow up in the ’80s):

As it happens, I’ve actually heard this song before. It’s a by a Utah-based a capella group called moosebutter. Utahns in general seem to really groove on this sort of stuff; there are a number of similar groups, all composed of clean-cut young men of LDS background, and all of which seem to have at least one song or comedy routine that somehow relates to Star Wars. (Voice Male is another example; they do the Wookiee call and have a “I am your father” gag in their stageshow.) Many of them seem to have a connection to Utah County and/or BYU as well. Go figure.

One small quibble with this (hey, it wouldn’t be me if I weren’t griping about something, right?): I object to the pop-up that reads “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.” That’s the revisionist title that appears on the sleeve for the DVD, but the actual movie is and always has been simply Raiders of the Lost Ark. I know, it’s something the Comic Book Guy would get up in arms about, but I have my principles, you know?

Feeling keyed up about long lines at your polling place and the fate of the entire universe hanging in the balance? Here’s a little something to break the tension:

Okay, accepting a major entertainment-industry award in a Colonial Warrior outfit is one thing, but this is just… kinky. And also kind of… well, no, I can’t let myself go there.

Sometimes it’s hard to admit that I’m part of this community…

Via.

Enough of the political unpleasantness for now… let us consider something far more soothing to the mind… like this delightful piece of ‘net crap:

Oh, if only this video really existed… I’d know what I’d be doing this weekend for sure!

(Incidentally, there’s an entire thread of similar stuff over at Fark. The idea was to photoshop Star Wars characters into other movies. Most are pretty lame, but a few generate a chuckle; this one is downright creepy…)

It’s been a while since I last addressed the matter of Star Wars on DVD — specifically, George Lucas’ stubborn and frustrating determination that the general public will never again see the pre-1997, unrevised (which, by the way, is quite a different animal from unrestored) editions of the classic original trilogy in any kind of high-quality video format.

For those of you who may have only recently joined us, let me state for the record that I am not one of these “George Lucas raped my childhood” types. I didn’t think the prequels were all that bad, Jar-Jar Binks is not the end of western civilization, and I don’t even begrudge George becoming very, very wealthy by exploiting the devotion of his fans. After all, nobody held a blaster to our heads and forced us to buy yet another box set of the same damn movies we already own five copies of, and it’s not like Lucasfilm is the only company guilty of practicing the “double-dip” marketing strategy. Hell, I don’t even particularly mind that he chose to use our beloved franchise as a test platform for his ideas about digital filmmaking — which I suspect was his true (and probably only) interest in revisiting Star Wars all along — and I also forgive him the sin of not being the man he was 35 years ago. People age, and their thinking about a lot of things changes along the way, and sometimes their skills decline, too. That’s life.

But the one thing I can’t forgive is The Great Flanneled One’s zeal to suppress the earlier, more significant editions of three of the most important movies of the last 50 years.* It wasn’t the Special Editions that changed everything for Hollywood, and I don’t understand George’s lack of respect for film history, if not for his own fans (I’m the first to admit that hard-core fans can sometimes be pretty damn annoying). Even so, his position on Star Wars is downright hypocritical given his support for film preservation in general; he’s been quoted as saying that he’s concerned about saving the films he watched when he was young. Just not the films people of my generation watched when we were young, apparently.

But don’t take my rant for it. Consider this lengthy but well-reasoned op-ed that outlines the history of the situation and makes a passionate argument on behalf of both old-school fanboys and general cinephiles (I count myself as both, incidentally). The following point, in particular, is the thing I wish we could somehow get through George’s thick skull:

Continue Reading…

Okay, since it’s becoming obvious I’m not going to manage to do any actual entries today…

Yeah, it’s a commercial, and it kinda sucks that the dread gargoyle that haunted our collective childhood has become both a spokes-Sith and a punchline… but this still made me laugh. So there.

Sunday afternoon driving around, weather pleasantly warm. A sign in front of Arctic Circle, a local burger chain, advertises “SW Salad with Jalapeno Dressing.”

Says I: “Look, hon, Star Wars Salad.”

Says The Girlfriend: “What do you suppose would come on a Star Wars Salad?”

I: “Ewoks.”

She: “You didn’t even miss a beat with that.”

Continues I, again without missing a beat: “Charcoal-grilled Ewoks. They’re quite tasty with that Jalapeno Dressing.”

She: “You scare me…”