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Mix tape o’ the month.
Soundtrack for this month is made up mostly of soundtrack music:
More years have passed. Annakin is secretly seeing Laika even though it’s verboten in the Jedi religion. They decide to get married.
Annakin and Obi Wan are dispatched on a mission to Cepheus. Obi Wan makes a tactical decision that is rational but that will certainly cost several hundred Cephian lives. Annakin proposes a different course with higher risk but greater rewards (if successful, fewer innocent lives will be lost). Argument. Annakin storms out and gathers a small group of troops to accompany him following what he decides is the best course of action. Annakin’s plan works. Uncomfortable silence on the way back.
Annakin is brought before the Jedi council and is booted from the Jedi Order.
…
Obi Wan is told by the Jedi Council to meet with Count Dooku on Mustafar and discuss a peace treaty.
…
Laika consoles Annakin. While they’re talking she’s preparing to pilot a mission about which she’s been sworn to secrecy.
…
Annakin is summoned by Chancellor Palpatine. Palpatine reveals that the secessionists are gathering on Mustafar. Chancellor Palpatine explains that there are two sides to the force, one passive, one active. Palpatine reveals that he is in fact a Sith Lord, and that Annakin should join the Sith. Palpatine tells Annakin to look at the good he’s been able to affect using the Dark Side of the force. Palpatine says the whole war has been masterminded by the Jedi and if he goes to Mustafar he will learn the truth of events.
…
Laika pilots Obi Wan to Mustafar. Annakin is sitting cross legged waiting for him. In flash backs we see his murder of the Count Dooku and his entourage. Annakin accuses the Jedi Council of being in league with the secessionists. Force choke on Laika. Light saber battle.
…
So this is how the Prequels end. I think in all our minds this is what happened and for some reason the only person who didn’t envision it this way was George Lucas. I mean, why tease that Annakin’s some kind of mechanical genius if you’re not going to use this ending?
The burned, unlimbed corpse of Annakin is discovered by natives of the planet who take him back to their village, which is strewn with wreckage and robotic junk. Over the course of weeks they nurse him back to health using wraps and ointments. There is hatred in his eyes, which are the only part that show through the wrappings.
Somewhere while he’s being treated, he hears Laika’s voice in his head as she dies in childbirth. For about four minutes the camera sits on him as he flails about saying “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Using the force, he pulls apart machinery and rearranges it, building himself mechanical limbs. In this exposed state, you can see his chestplate visibly compressing his chest to aid his breathing. A villager tries to help him but Annakin force lifts him by the throat and dashes him against a wall. Annakin lumbers across the barren, steaming landscape back to where he left his ship. There beside his ship is an Imperial Shuttle. The Emperor is waiting for him. He kneels before the Emperor and says, “What is thy bidding, my master.” End, clear the theater.
Arguably, this could also be the middle and then the execution of the Jedi could be the final half of the movie, along with Obi Wan taking baby Leia to the still sad looking Organas and leaving Luke with his brother Owen. So first half enforces the inevitability of the clash between Obi Wan and Annakin, clash, apex, all downhill from there. Now I just have to live until Star Wars is public domain and I can make my version of the Prequels.
Clone Wars happen. Palpatine becomes chancellor, backed by the rich and powerful classes of the Republic who think they can control him. By this time, a number of years have passed and Annakin has developed his Jedi powers. The majority of the movie occurs on a swamp planet in the Ordian system where Obi Wan, Annakin, and a female pilot named Laika are stranded behind enemy lines. Annakin learns of the force, Laika and Annakin fall in love. At the end a major victory is won through the efforts of the three. Yoda confers with Obi Wan at the end and admonishes him, sensing that Annakin has the powers of a Jedi. Annakin is made a Jedi Knight.
So I’m all agitated by the latest Red Letter Media review and my wheels are spinning on how the Prequels could have not sucked. So far I’ve come up with a small, incomplete outline of how the story could’ve been told:
The Ordian System is built on clone labor. A group of clones rebel against their makers and carry out guerrilla attacks throughout the system. Bail Organa from the Alderaan System is providing them with support, viewing clone slavery as an abhorrence.
The movie begins with the kidnapping of Bail Organa’s daughter Padme by the Ordian leader, Count Dooku.
Bail Organa asks Obi Wan Kenobi in private to ask him to rescue his daughter, without the knowledge of the Jedi Council. Organa informs him that Senator Palpatine is aware of the situation and can provide additional assistance.
Obi Wan gets a security code from Senator Palpatine, whose planet Naboo still has trade relations with Ordia. Palpatine suggests that Count Dooku has gone to far, and that the escalating conflict could lead to civil war. He suggests that concessions could still be made and galactic peace can be preserved.
Obi Wan, who doesn’t know how to pilot a ship, takes an Interstellar Bus to Tatooine. He stops at his brother Owen’s and discusses his misgivings about the Jedi Council, and about the task at hand. Owen suggests that he find a pilot at Mos Eisley. By reputation he finds Annakin Skywalker (about twenty-seven years old) who is reported to be a bit of a daredevil and a good pilot. Annakin Skywalker could still be played by Hayden Christensen. Obi Wan makes the proposition that with the security code he could bypass Ordia’s defense forces and sell his cargo at a significant profit, in exchange for transporting him to the planet’s surface.
Obi Wan, Annakin, and Dak, Annakin’s youger brother at about sixteen years old, who is also the ship’s mechanic, fly to Ordia and have character development together in flight.
Princess Padme is brought before Count Dooku. He explains to her that the clones have no spark (soul) and that the rebellion is an aberration. To demonstrate his point, Count Dooku calls in a clone and commands him to kill himself. The clone hesitates and says “please” before giving in to Dooku’s will and killing himself.
At the security perimeter, something goes wrong and three defense fighters begin pursuit of Annakin’s ship.
The resulting chase occurs in a cityscape so that there’s actual aerial acrobatics going on, instead of in space where no one can hear you fap.
Annakin outpilots and guns down the enemy fighters but his ship is damaged and they crash land in the wastelands. Annakin has been injured and as security ships arrive Obi Wan and Dak flee, leaving Annakin behind. End of scene is two masked figures appearing in the shattered hull of the ship and igniting lightsabers.
…
At the rebel camp, they’re roasting a man sized rabbit eared creature for dinner.
…
Pim, the son of the leader of the clone rebellion, goes with Obi Wan and Dak to the Imperial City.
…
Dak closes his eyes and concentrates and the security code to the prison lock appear in his mind. He enters them in and the door breathes open. Obi Wan, Dak and Pim find Annakin in the torture chambers.
…
The princess is rescued, there is a light saber battle between Obi Wan and the Outcast Jedi. As they’re escaping Annakin is shot in the head and his hair goes *floof* in a big ball of fire and he dies. Dies dead.
…
Dak pilots the stolen fighter through another gratuitous space fight and back to Alderaan.
…
Pim pleads his case in front of the Senate, asking for aid in his people’s struggles. The Ordian System has many allies though, and they refuse the interjection of Republic authority setting the stage for Galactic civil war.
Obi Wan goes to Yoda and tells him that he senses the force is strong in Dak, and that he wants to train him to be a Jedi. Yoda advises against it and Obi Wan agrees not to take him on as his Padawan.
Obi Wan and Dak, walking towards Organa’s office, discuss what Yoda said. Obi Wan says that while he won’t take on Dak as his Padawan he will train him in the ways of the force. Dak says that he’s going to take his fallen brother’s name, Annakin.
Senator Organa has just arrived back from the Senate meeting. Obi Wan, Dak, Padme, Mrs. Organa, and two bodyguards are in the office already. Organa says that war is now inevitable. Annakin impetuously says that he wants to join the liberation force that Organa is preparing, as a pilot. As the Senator moves to hug his daughter, she draws a short sword and is shot by one of the Senator’s bodyguards as she prepares to stab him through the heart. Linger on the Senator and his wife’s shocked, saddened faces. Padme’s lifeless body slumps to the floor.
End with scenes of Ordia and it’s allied systems preparing for war.
This is a response to Douglas Coupland’s article from the Globe and Mail. You can read the original here although I’m going to refute a good portion of it here.
The iconic writer reveals the shape of things to come, with 45 tips for survival and a matching glossary of the new words you’ll need to talk about your messed-up future.
1) It’s going to get worse
Sorry, it’s not going to get worse. It’s going to get better. It’s steadily gotten better and we haven’t noticed because we’ve adjusted our idea of what better is in a gradual process of adaptive socialization. Would you trade your life today for the life of someone forty years ago? Twenty years ago? Ten years ago? We have greater access to ideas, entertainment, education, travel than at any point in history. People in general are more tolerant than they were at any point previous. The people who think things will get worse are the ones who are constantly preoccupied about “what next?” If you focus on “what is” things are pretty damned good. If you’re an anxious drug addled Canadian things are full of apprehension.
2) The future isn’t going to feel futuristic
It’s simply going to feel weird and out-of-control-ish, the way it does now, because too many things are changing too quickly. The reason the future feels odd is because of its unpredictability. If the future didn’t feel weirdly unexpected, then something would be wrong.
The reason the future isn’t going to feel futuristic is because we no longer notice how futuristic things have become. I can walk down the street with a good portion of the world’s knowledge at my fingertips. I can pay a small fee to have my entire genome sequenced. If I were to stop and think about that I’d say, “wow, this is futuristic,” as it is I DON’T stop to think about it and it all feels natural.
3) The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will feel even faster than it does now
Again, wrong. The future is going to feel comfortable, because the projection of the future and technology into our lives has been consumerized – the roughest edges of technological development are softened by marketing and a host of social media that quickly make us feel them to be the most natural things in the world.
6) The middle class is over. It’s not coming back
Remember travel agents? Remember how they just kind of vanished one day?
The lowest strata of society have more options for how to spend their time than the richest kings of old. We’ve become a society of such abundant wealth that we don’t understand that we’ve become a society of abundant wealth.
7) Retail will start to resemble Mexican drugstores
Wrong. Just wrong. Retail will start to resemble Wal*Mart, where product is just laying in the aisles and everything’s all over the place, because they’ll be understaffed. The idea that stores are going to hire people just to hire people is at best a heroin induced fantasy.
10) In the same way you can never go backward to a slower computer, you can never go backward to a lessened state of connectedness
People CAN go backwards to slower computers, they’re doing so in droves, they’re called smartphones. Even Apple has given up on the faster computer war and is touting its low spec Air computers as the future of their product line. Computing power isn’t the most deciding factor any longer – computers have become commodity items that require a base amount of speed and not much more. Form, battery life, and connectivity are more important than speed now. Yes, people will gravitate towards greater connectedness, but the first part of your premise is so laughably wrong I vomited into my coffee and drank it.
11) Old people won’t be quite so clueless
You’re an old person, and you’re clueless.
At this point I’m just going to stop. I’m not sure that there’s any more point in refuting this person’s insane, cocaine fueled fantasies.
So my friend Max K. is back stateside and setting up a small animation/programming studio with the formidable Britt Sabo. You should check out their motion reel, it is most entertaining: motionmystery.com.
Work hasn’t been overbearing recently but with the flu it seems like there’s hardly any time to do anything. Now that that’s tapering off I’m preparing to spend a pleasant holiday drawing, making music, and relearning how to design. And reading some iOS development guides. And building a home server. Here’s something that I programmed for Bingo Theory and Fingerhut:
Matt Lee provided the voices which are probably the best part of it.