DuracellEnergizer

lovelikewinter said:

I guess I don't mind some of the universe shrinkage, I always imagined the coincidences are manifestations of the will of the Force.

Ach du lieber! Not the "Forcedidit" explanation again! *wilhelmscream*

SilverWook said:

With the latest attempt at an American Godzilla movie being unleashed this weekend, let's take a little trip down memory lane...

Whom the joke was ultimately on greatly depends greatly on your point of view. ;)

Both are frying my logic circuits. 

Personally, I have no love left for the man, so all I can wish him is an indifferent birthday (it's better than the alternative).

I'm ignostic in the sense that I think the word "god" itself is meaningless without a common frame of reference. And since the definition/nature/defining characteristics of "god" varies between different religions, cultures, and individuals, that means there is no common frame of reference and never was.

^Though I've pretty much sworn modern Hollywood completely off, I am looking forward to seeing the new Godzilla reboot. I only hope it doesn't prove to be a complete letdown.

---

Trepass (1992) - 7/10

Murphy's Law (1986) - 8/10

City Slickers (1991) - 8/10

The Stepford Wives (1975) - 6.5/10

Hang 'Em High (1968) - 7/10

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) - 7/10

FADE TO

The wedge-shaped form of the Deliverer sitting motionless in the star-studded depths of space.

Without warning, we pull away from the star defender, and at velocities greater than the speed of light, we begin to travel through this sector of the galaxy. In a span of moments, we visit over sixteen different systems, each with worlds exotic and unique, before finally coming to Dania VII, home of the Mandalorian Death Watch.

INT. DANIA VII - TRAINING CENTRE 25 - DAY

Inside Training Centre 25 -- a spacious, one-room building -- various residents of Level 9 have come for their day's training session. All twelve students are sitted crossed-legged upon the stone floor, their instructor -- an unarmoured human female -- sitting before them, watching them intently.

Before each of the students sits a crystal sphere, hollow and half-filled with a pearlescent liquid. Their eyes closed, they concentrate on the spheres. Many succeed in making the colours within the liquid glow, while others manage to get the liquid to bubble or slosh around inside; only two, however, are able to go beyond that.

As Anakin and a MALE TOYDARIAN concentrate on their spheres, not only do they succeed at making the pearlescent liquid glow and move about, but they manage to form three-dimensional shapes -- cubes, spheres, pyramids -- within them. The Mandalorian instructor, noticing this impressive display of talent from them both, smiles with pleasure.

INSTRUCTOR #1: (raises an arm) Alright, everyone, relax your concentration. That'll be all for the day.

The students all open their eyes, and the liquid within their spheres goes still. Standing up, the instructor walks over to Nik and the Toydarian. With a smile, she gestures for them to get up, and they quickly rise to their feet or -- in the Toydarian's case -- their wings.

INSTRUCTOR #1: I am very pleased with your progress so far, students. You are all progressing wonderfully. Orowi and Anakin even managed to form simple shapes within their spheres today. Keep this up, and you'll all upgrade to Level 10 before the year is out. (beat) I'll see you all Zhellday.

As the other students rise up and proceed to file out of the centre, Nik and Orowi turn to acknowledge one another.

ANAKIN: You're getting good with the meditation spheres, Orowi. I'm starting to get envious.

OROWI: (astonished) You're getting envious? It took me five months to get this far, but you've only been here four weeks and you're already good at it. If anyone's envious, it's me of you, not the other way around.

ANAKIN: (laughs) But it comes easier for you. I have to concentrate a full minute before I can get a simple cube to take shape.

Together, Nik and his Toydarian friend follow the other students out of Training Centre 25. One of the other students -- a tall Abyssin -- stands off to the side, however, watching them as they go with his single eye narrowed with loathing.

EXT. TRAINING CENTRE 25 - DAY

Stepping out of the training centre, Nik and Orowi make their way towards Bunker 13.

OROWI: Want to go to the recreation centre? You still owe me for letting you win that last dejarik game we played.

ANAKIN: (smirks) Letting me win, you say? What a recollection you have.

OROWI: Well, we Toydarians are noted for our impeccable holographic memory.

ANAKIN: (laughs) Really? I thought it was your shrewd business sense everyone knew you for.

OROWI: That, too.

ANAKIN: Of course, of course. I knew that -- really, I did. (beat) I'd love to take you up on your offer, but I'm expected back. Nashira and I are having dinner with Ben and Siri tonight.

OROWI: Ah, yes, your two Jedi friends.

ANAKIN: It's been two weeks since we were able to meet up with them last. We've been looking forward to it. (beat) You can join us if you want. There'll be enough for five.

OROWI: Sure. (beat) It won't be any trouble, will it?

ANAKIN: No, of course not. Why ask a laserbrained question like that?

OROWI: Well ...

ANAKIN: Well what?

OROWI: Well ... to be honest, I don't know how I feel about socializing with Jedi.

ANAKIN: Hey, I'm a Jedi!

OROWI: You wish. (beat) It's not that I have any real problem with Jedi. It's just that I don't know how the Mandies will take it.

ANAKIN: What are you getting at?

OROWI: They say we have free reign of the place and can see who we want to see, but I can't help but feel that they don't like Jedi associating with their less "enlightened" students.

ANAKIN: You think they might do something if they catch you talking to a Jedi?

OROWI: The Jedi and Mandies are virtually blood enemies, Nik, they loathe each other. The Mandalorians can't stand the idea of any of their new recruits getting tainted with Jedi philosophies.

ANAKIN: Those Jedi are also recruits.

OROWI: Not like us, though, not at all. The Mandies don't treat them like they treat us. We're treated almost like royalty. They, however, don't get anywhere near the same amount of luxury. While we spend our time meditating over crystal balls, they have to deal with hard labour, heckling, humiliation, even physical abuse. (beat) The Mandalorians use the carrot to get us onto their side, but with the Jedi, they use the stick -- the hard, heavy, pointed stick.

Anakin shrugs in reply, and the two continue on their way in silence. Before they can get very far, however, the Abyssin who eyed them back at the training centre moves up on them from behind, grabbing them by the shoulders and pulling them to a stop.

ANAKIN: Wha --!

OROWI: Gurkan!

Twisting around, the two friends come face-to-face with the Abyssin named Gurkan. With sinister glee, he grins a hideously toothy grin.

GURKAN: What a surprise to meet you here, my dear friends. What brings you out this way?

ANAKIN: We're going back to Bunker 13, same as you.

OROWI: And we're not your friends, cyclops.

The Abyssin's grin falters, but only for a moment.

GURKAN: You wound me, Toydarian. (turns to Anakin) But you still appreciate my company, don't you, Skywalker?

ANAKIN: (nonplussed) What do you want, Gurkan?

GURKAN: Just to chat, see how things are, and all that jizz.

ANAKIN: Well, neither of us have anything to say to you, so if you don't mind --

GURKAN: (dropping his phony grin) Are you saying you don't want to be my friend?

ANAKIN: No, it's not that. I wouldn't mind being your friend -- if you weren't a complete jerk. But unfortunately, you are a complete jerk.

GURKAN: Very well, then, we aren't friends.

ANAKIN: I'm so very glad we got that cleared up.

GURKAN: (his grin reappearing) So, how's your pretty girlfriend?

ANAKIN: She's fine, and she's not my girlfriend.

GURKAN: That hasn't stopped you from living together.

ANAKIN: When we got here, she was emotionally unstable and I was the only person she knew who was also staying on Level 9. I chose to stay with her to keep her company and keep her safe.

GURKAN: That hasn't stopped you from sticking your hydrospanner in her sockets, has it?

ANAKIN: (angry) She's only eleven, you disgusting pig.

GURKAN: Which makes it all the more sweet, doesn't it? The younger they are, the firmer they are, and the firmer they are, how oh so more --

Before the Abyssin can complete his sentence, Anakin's rage boils over, and he gives in to it. Growling like a ferocious beast, he lunges at the cyclopean creature more than twice his height and tackles him to the ground. Before the Abyssin can catch his bearings, the human begins to rain blow upon blow upon him, punching him fiercely in the face. Within scant seconds, dark Abyssin blood begins to fly through the air.

OROWI: Nik! Nik, that's enough now! Let him up!

Anakin doesn't hear his friend. His face red with rage, he continues to pummel Gurkan, who finally goes completely limp.

OBI-WAN: (O.S.) Anakin!

Upon hearing the voice of his master, Anakin snaps out of his rage and stops. Twisting his head around, he sees both Ben and Siri standing a ways away from him.

OBI-WAN: Anakin, what are you doing?!

ANAKIN: (stammering) I-I-I ...

His mouth going agape, Anakin turns back to look down upon Gurkan, who lies bloody and unconscious beneath him. Unable to say a word, he simply rises to his feet, looking down upon his bested foe.

ANAKIN: (to Obi-Wan) He's alright, isn't he? I didn't really hurt him, did I?

Obi-Wan and Siri walk up to Anakin, Orowi, and Gurkan, and the latter crouches down beside the Abyssin, laying her fingertips down upon his forehead.

SIRI: The Abyssin's alive. You knocked him out, but I don't sense any major injury.

ANAKIN: I didn't want to hurt him, but what he said about Nashira and me ... it was sick ... I couldn't take that from him ... I couldn't take ... what he said ...

OBI-WAN: (rests his hand on Nik's shoulder) It's alright, Anakin, we'll worry about it later. Let's just get to Nashira.

As one, the three Jedi and the Toydarian depart, leaving Gurkan lying in the dust.

Frankly, I prefer both Superman and Batman to have lean musculature. I hate the whole Schwarzennegar look on them.

^No, no! That way lies madness! Madness, I tells ya!

That is a very stupid batsuit, but that's alright -- I wasn't planning on watching this movie anyway.

TV's Frink said:

TK-949 said:

TV's Frink said:

My phone is one device that...

Makes calls.
Texts.
Emails.
Carries 20 GB of music.
Accesses the internet (even this site!)
Holds my calendar.
Carries books.
Plays games.
Takes pictures.
Takes movies.
Plays movies.

That sounds very annoying. What are you doing while it does that?

 Profit.

Capitalist pig. 

A witch?

That's true, but I think a work has be wholly original to be considered part of the Expanded Universe, not just an adaptation with more background information. I don't know why that is, but that is the way the marketers decided to do things.

Tobar said:

darklordoftech said:

I hate how Thrawn always gets the credit for starting the EU. The EU started with the ANH novelization.

 Ehhh, that should really go to the first original work of fiction based on the property. So either the Marvel comics or Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

The first issue of the Marvel series to tell an original story was put on sale October 11, 1977, months before SOTME, so the Marvel comics can be credited for starting the EU.

Why is Gillian Anderson cutting her hand off with a lightsaber?

Since I don't believe in a literal Satan and am pretty much convinced that there never was and never will be a literal Satan, I consider myself a moderate-to-hard asatanist. 

Well, it's official -- this script is now longer than my last completed Ep. I rewrite, and I'm only about halfway done, give-or-take. This is definately shaping up to be a long script.

If this were to be filmed, I wonder how long the runtime of it would be.

I can't annihilate and replace you until I've mastered the ability to emulate you perfectly. To do that, I must continue to view your posts.

You didn't happen to give your password to anyone by any chance?

FrankT said:

I'd suggest bribing them.

Yes ... bribe them ... that's the trick.

*quietly releases kidnapped family members of Disney head honchos* 

EXT. SPACE

Out in some region of deep, rarely-traversed space, a ship drops out of hyperspace. This ship is the Deliverer, a Venator-class star defender; a hastily-recommissioned junker that was retired before the end of the Second Clone War, it still bears the colours of the old Republic Navy along with many of the battle scars acquired during its last, long-forgotten fight.

From the open docking bay of the star defender come dozens of hyperspace jump pods, all containing dormant probe droids. Falling away from their mothership, they scatter in all directions, each leaping into hyperspace towards a different region of the galaxy.

INT. DELIVERER/BRIDGE

Within the ramshackle bridge of the Deliverer, Admiral Bail Organa of Alderaan sits at his post upon the command chair, his left arm in a heavy cast and a determined expression set hard on his face. Standing at his side is, as always, Commander Raia Vaness.

BAIL: Ensign Wessel, report.

Ensign Wessel -- a short, slim Devaronian -- pivots around in his seat to face the admiral.

ENS. WESSEL: Pods are away, Admeeral.

Bail simply nods in reply, then presses a button set in the arm of his chair.

BAIL: What's the word, Bonney? Can we make another jump soon?

INT. DELIVERER/ACCESS TUBE

Within one the ship's many access tubes, Bonney, the ship's engineer, is busy working on repairing damaged connections responsible for the operation of the star defender's hyperdrive. A lanky lepi with big feet and hands, blue-green fur, long, drooping ears, and prominent buck teeth, he's a comical sight to behold.

BONNEY: You're gonna have to hold your eopies again, Bail. This clunker's not going anywhere for at least nine hours and a half.

INT. DELIVERER/BRIDGE

BAIL: I thought you'd've reached 47% efficiency by now.

INT. DELIVERER/ACCESS TUBE

BONNEY: By the Holy Hutch, man, I'm an engineer, not a Sorcerer of Tund! It's a royal mess in here! When those bloody 'Wrights made sure the hyperdrive was functional, that's all they made sure of -- they didn't bother checking to see if any of the connections or circuits responsible for synching the hyperdrive to the main computer themselves were in order. It'll take me another week before I've made enough repairs to get her working at even half the peak of efficiency.

INT. DELIVERER/BRIDGE

BAIL: (sighs) Alright, Bonney, I'll leave you to your work.

Bail presses the button in his chair arm, severing the connection with Bonney.

CMDR. VANESS: Another long wait, I see.

BAIL: When I asked for this assignment, I assumed they were going to take me seriously. But what do they do? They stick us with a decaying old star defender that was decommissioned seventeen years ago, a star defender that can barely limp its way through hyperspace.

CMDR. VANESS: Resources are spread thin, Bail. With the Light Hammer undergoing repairs in drydock, this was the best they could supply us in such short order. Considering how low the importance of this endeavour is, it's a miracle they gave us this much.

BAIL: Tachi is out there somewhere, along with Lord knows how many others. The Mandalorians are up to something, and they have to be stopped before it's too late. If that's low importance, I do not want to know how bad things have to be to be considered high importance!

CMDR. VANESS: Bail, even if we were in a top-of-the-line cruiser with the highest rated hyperdrive available, we'd still be blindly searching the Outer Rim in the hope of stumbling upon the Mandalorians' hidden base of operations. It's a needle in a light-years-large haystack.

BAIL: They're out there somewhere, Raia, and I don't care if I have to go straight out into the Unknown Regions to find them, I'll get it done. (beat) I owe it to our people.

Vaness doesn't respond to this. The pain of losing so many of her crewmates aboard the Light Hammer is as evident on her face as it is on Bail's.

lovelikewinter said:

5.  No gay people at all.

Or bisexuals, or asexuals, or zoophiles, or X-philes, or chainsaw jugglers, or people who wear fedoras, or coin collectors, or stamp collectors, or tax collectors, or Christmas carollers, or conquistadors, or flying monkeys, or Heather Langenkamp, or Laura Bertram, or that girl I used to stalk in high school, or William Shatner, or Peter O'Toole, or Beavis and Butthead, or Hank Hill, or undeveloped rolls of film, or used rolls of toilet paper, or that singing frog who won't sing in front of an audience, or the goddamn Batman, or good God, Mother! Blood! Blood!, or Kaiser Wilhelm, or Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, or the Wilhelm Scream, or the Goofy Scream, or Edvard Munch's "The Scream", or you scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream, or ...    

Awake (2007) - 8/10

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) - 8.5/10

Titus (1999) - 8/10

Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)

I don't usually like slashers, but there are three aspects about this one that endeared it to me:

1. The filmmaking aspect of the plot

2. The fact that it didn't take itself too seriously, especially towards the end

3. That a character said "Fuck George Lucas"

6.5/10

doubleofive said:

I'm just gonna have to make that one on the top right my avatar ...

... eventually. 

Now I want to see Leonard Nimoy wearing that helmet ...

Easterhay said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

^If only those clones had been played by real actors in real suits of armour.

And that would have made so much difference, wouldn't it?

It would have been more aesthetically pleasing to my CG-sensitive eyes, yes. 

Easterhay said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

At that time, I had been led to believe that the EU was fully canon, that Lucas respected the EU, and that the films would remain true to the EU and build off of its ideas while still telling its own story.

Had I known otherwise, I may not have been so disappointed. But things are the way they are, and I still don't like Order 66 or the rushed extermination of the Jedi.

I wonder what it was that led you to believe the EU was canon? I don't remember Lucas confirming it to be so at that, or indeed, any other time. Personally, I never took the EU that seriously, even the stories I enjoyed.

Perhaps it was because I was a naive kid at the time and assumed -- based on how internally consistent the EU seemed to be at the time and the use of the EU-derived "Coruscant" in TPM -- that the EU was considered a fully developed part of the greater SW Universe and that Lucas was taking it into consideration when developing the PT.

Had I known then what I know now -- that the prequels at the time already contradicted vast portions of the EU, which in and of itself was internally inconsistent -- I may not have gone into the PT expecting consistency with the EU.