Answers, the sixth!

As usual, I'm taking forever to get this done...but soldier on, we shall! Two questions up first from an anonymity-preferring soul, on a matter near and dear to my heart:

Since you seem to enjoy a pie in the face, did you do the wedding-cake-smashing thing when you got married?

No, we did not. And in all honesty, I'm glad, because -- and this may come as a surprise -- I hate that. I have never found it enjoyable to watch; it always strikes me as a very out-of-place and inappropriate chunk of mean-spiritedness shoehorned into a ceremony that is supposed to be a celebration of love and kindness. I had zero desire to do that, and The Wife agreed with me. At least, I assume she did. I don't even recall bringing it up for discussion.

(Now, I don't judge other couples who do this, and I've seen it at a bunch of weddings I've attended. I don't think it implies anything for the marriage, one way or the other, and if it's your wedding and you really think the cake-smashing thing is what you want to do, then by all means, have at it. I just won't be one of the ones laughing.)

Do you find it funny when protesters hit politicians with pies?

Again, this may be a surprise, but no, not really. The fact is, when you get hit with a pie, you're getting hit with something. If you don't know it's coming, then it seems to me it very well could be taken as assault. Plus the fact that the human response to having something shoved toward their face is to flinch, turn away, duck, all that. It's certainly not to just stand there, close your eyes, and take it. When that happens in movies or teevee shows, it's because it's in the script.

So basically, I don't think a pie should ever be dispatched toward the face of someone who isn't expecting it and likely doesn't want it. (I think both of those questions may have come up in a previous AskMeAnything, but I didn't go back and check. I treat each question as new, anyway.)

Chris asked several questions, one of which is:

Which imaginary planet would you most like to live on?

Oooooh! Tough one. Very tough one, actually. Maybe one of those Star Trek desert planets? The ones that all look like Vazquez Rocks? Nah, probably not. I wouldn't want to live on Coruscant, either. Or Trantor, or any of the other city-planets. Those might be cool places to visit, but to live there? Knowing that all you'll ever see are buildings? Nah.

We only saw it very briefly, but I very much like the look of Alderaan. Well, you know, before the Imperial genocide of its people. Soaring cities in high mountain ranges? Sign me up!

But in reality...and I hate to say this, because none of you (aside from those who beat-read the book) know about it yet, but the main planet of Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) strikes me as a nice place. And it's got lots of mysteries, the cool part of that being that I get to be the first one to see how they turn out!

More answers to come.

Film Quote Friday: 2010 (The Year We Make Contact)

2010 is a fairly odd film, all things considered. It harks back to when Hollywood's mania for sequels was just starting to get underway, and when the idea of reboots was still way off. And the idea of making sequels to films that were nearly twenty years old? And to films that are considered classics? Yup, it's strange that this project ever got off the ground, even with a pretty decent Arthur C. Clarke novel to go by. But off the ground 2010 got, providing some answers for the extremely enigmatic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Some would claim that the earlier film should have been left well enough alone, and its questions left to be explored by the viewer. I agree, to a point...but the problem is, as a movie in itself, 2010 really isn't bad at all. It's nowhere near the towering masterpiece that 2001 is, and its feel is so different that it doesn't even feel like a sequel to the earlier movie. It feels like a sequel to a different version of the earlier movie.

Anyway, 2010 holds up well in some ways, not so well in others. As seems typically the case with movies predicting near futures, they're mostly wrong, and what they're really wrong about stands out like a sore thumb now. In the movie, the Soviet Union still exists, and during the film's events, the USA and the Soviets come to the brink of nuclear war. This adds nice tension to the nature of the film's space mission (a joint American-Soviet flight), but it's hard to take it seriously now. But really, how unthinkable was it in 1985 that the Cold War didn't even have an entire decade left to it?

And then there's a little scene where Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) and Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) are talking about how they miss Earth, and they get onto a brief bit about the merits of the hot dogs at various ballparks. Curnow opines that the Astrodome makes good hot dogs. Little did they know that the Astrodome's days as a functioning ballpark wouldn't reach 2010, either! But that's all minor stuff. The film's character interactions are nicely done, the cast is terrific (Helen Mirren pushes her Russian accent just to the brink of being too thick to take seriously, but it works), and the visual effects are still outstanding, given the time period. 2010 is an odd film, indeed: it probably shouldn't even exist, but it does, and on its own, it's really not a bad little SF thriller.

Oh, yeah -- this is "Film Quote Friday", so I have to quote the movie. Fair enough. I've done long quotes from movies before, so this time I'll use a very short one. The film indicates that these were the last words received on Earth via transmission from astronaut David Bowman before his disappearance from the Discovery. This line is never heard in the original film of 2001, however -- but it is in Arthur C. Clarke's original novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey. See what I mean? Strange. The quote? Well, the 2001 novel has David Bowman leave the Discovery in a pod and approach the enormous monolith that is hanging in Jovian orbit. This monolith opens up, and Bowman sends home his last report before going inside:

My God! It's full of stars!

Roger Roger!

It's Roger's birthday! Here are a few little somethings in his honor.
















Happy birthday to a right fine fellow. Huzzah!

Fixing the Prequels: Revenge of the Sith (part six)

previously:

five
four
three
two
one

OK, time to dive straight back in. Huzzah!!!

When last we left off, the various forces in Anakin Skywalker's life were starting to use him as a pawn in their own various games. This was starting to have the effects we might expect, as both sides are using Anakin against the other – but Palpatine is doing it more constructively and in a way that is more likely to further his own goals. What always interests me is that of all the adult figures in Anakin's life after Qui Gon Jinn's death, the one who is most consistently encouraging of Anakin is Palpatine. He's done an awful lot of heavy lifting to set Anakin up for his eventual fall.

And that brings me to an interesting speculative question: has Palpatine been planning Anakin's seduction for twenty years?

I'm honestly not sure. On the one hand, Palpatine has shown enormous flexibility in his plans. He didn't get bogged down when the Jedi and Queen Amidala defeated whatever his scheme for the Naboo blockade was – which seems to imply that he didn't really care about that, one way or the other. The entire goal there was to simply get the game board arranged in such a way as to leave him in as powerful a position as possible. Mission accomplished, obviously. His plans seem so reactive, though: could he really predict Darth Maul's defeat? Or Count Dooku's? Likely not...but maybe so. Maybe he has been on the lookout himself, for the most powerful possible Jedi to turn. Maybe he set those earlier apprentices as ones that were doomed to defeat, and maybe he always had a backup plan ready to go for when the next one died. Palpatine has clearly been playing the long game.

And that brings us to the next scene in the film, which is one of the key scenes in the entire Star Wars saga. In this scene, Palpatine smoothly and even gracefully decides to dial it up with respect to his attempts to ingratiate himself with Anakin. He already knows that Anakin sees him as a father figure, because Palpatine has been his greatest source of consistent encouragement. Obi Wan is a teacher figure, not a father figure, and anyway, they are too close in age for Anakin to really take him completely seriously as an authority. As for the rest of the Jedi, they have made crystal clear that they've never really trusted Anakin, even before Mace Windu comes right out and admits it (albeit privately). Palpatine knows that Anakin is predisposed to hear him out, so now he decides to appeal to Anakin's personal pressure points.

So here's where Anakin joins Palpatine at the Coruscant Opera House (red text indicates material not in the final film):

INT. CORUSCANT-GALAXIES OPERA HOUSE-NIGHT

ANAKIN lands his speeder and exits.
ANAKIN runs up the stairs at the Galaxies Opera House.
ANAKIN runs through the hallway and enters Palpatine's box, where the CHANCELLOR is sitting with Mas Amedda and Sly-Moore, watching the Man Calamari Ballet doing "Squid Lake."

ANAKIN: You wanted to see me, Chancellor.

PALPATINE: Yes, Anakin! Come closer. I have good news. Our Clone Intelligence Units have discovered the location of General Grievous. He is hiding in the Utapau system.

ANAKIN: At last, we'll be able to capture that monster and end this war.

PALPATINE: I would worry about the collective wisdom of the Council if they didn't select you for this assignment. You are the best choice by far … but, they can't always be trusted to do the right thing.

ANAKIN: They try.

PALPATINE: Sit down, (to his aides) Leave us.

ANAKIN sits next to PALPATINE. The Chancellor leans over to him.

PALPATINE: (continuing) Anakin, you know I'm not able to rely on the Jedi Council. If they haven't included you in their plot, they soon will.

ANAKIN: I'm not sure I understand.

PALPATINE: You must sense what I have come to suspect . . . the Jedi Council want control of the Republic . . . they're planning to betray me.

ANAKIN: I don't think . . .

PALPATINE: Anakin, search your feelings. You know, don't you?

ANAKIN: I know they don't trust you . . .

PALPATINE: Or the Senate . . . or the Republic . . . or democracy for that matter.

ANAKIN: I have to admit my trust in them has been shaken.

PALPATINE: Why? They asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest, didn't they?

ANAKIN doesn't say anything. He simply looks down.

PALPATINE: (continuing) They asked you to spy on me, didn't they?

ANAKIN: I don't know ... I don't know what to say.

PALPATINE: Remember back to your early teachings. Anakin. "All those who gain power are afraid to lose it." Even the Jedi.

ANAKIN: The Jedi use their power for good.

PALPATINE: Good is a point of view, Anakin. And the Jedi point of view is not the only valid one. The Dark Lords of the Sith believe in security and justice also, yet they are considered by the Jedi to be. . .

ANAKIN: . . . evil.

PALPATINE: . . . from a Jedi's point of view. The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power. The difference between the two is the Sith are not afraid of the dark side of the Force. That is why they are more powerful.

ANAKIN: The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inward, only about themselves.

PALPATINE: And the Jedi don't?

ANAKIN: The Jedi are selfless . . . they only care about others.

PALPATINE smiles.

PALPATINE: Or so you've been trained to believe. Why is it, then, that they have asked you to do something you feel is wrong?

ANAKIN: I'm not sure it's wrong.

PALPATINE: Have they asked you to betray the Jedi code? The Constitution? A friendship? Your own values? Think. Consider their motives. Keep your mind clear of assumptions. The fear of losing power is a weakness of both the Jedi and the Sith.

ANAKIN is deep in thought.

PALPATINE: (continuing) Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis "the wise"?

ANAKIN: No.

PALPATINE: I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life ... He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying.

ANAKIN: He could actually save people from death?

PALPATINE: The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

ANAKIN: What happened to him?

PALPATINE: He became so powerful . . . the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. (smiles) Plagueis never saw it coming. It's ironic he could save others from death, but not himself.

ANAKIN: Is it possible to learn this power?

PALPATINE: Not from a Jedi.

There is a lot to unpack here. But first, just in terms of a movie scene, it's fantastic. The effects are there in the strange opera/ballet being performed in front of them, but for the most part, the scene is just two actors sitting and talking. Ian McDiarmid just nails it here, making Palpatine sound so fatherly, so wise, so warm – and yet, the whole time he is in complete control. Notice how subtly he is able to appeal to Anakin's single greatest fear, without even mentioning it or saying something like "I know that you are afraid of losing Padme". He just slides into this story about Darth Plagueis, casually dropping the bit about defeating death into the mix as if it's never occurred to him that Anakin might have a vested interest in that bit.

And then there's the intimation that Plagueis was killed by his apprentice, with the clear implication being that Palpatine himself was that apprentice. But most interesting is that line about Plagueis using the midichlorians to create life.

Which brings me back to the oft-derided midichlorians.

The main basis on which the midichlorians are loathed by Star Wars fandom is that by positing their existence, George Lucas has tried to make a scientific basis for what was originally a completely mystical concept.

The problem with that way of thinking is that it is incorrect.

Here is how Ben Kenobi defines the Force, the first time we hear about it, in A New Hope:

The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

And here is what Qui Gon Jinn says about midichlorians, when we learn about them in The Phantom Menace:

Midi-chlorians are a microscopic lifeform that reside within all living cells and communicates with the Force...We are symbionts with the midi-chlorians...Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force.

According to the fans, the two explanations are contradictory. But I don't think that they are. Not really. There is nothing in the latter that negates anything in the former. It does add a level of complexity, but so what?

George Lucas has always been heavily influenced by Asian thinking, and not just film making styles, either. There is a great deal in the mysticism of the Star Wars films that is completely compatible with Asian mysticism – Taoism, Buddhism, and the like. When I add that to the mix, I think I see what Lucas is getting at with the midichlorians. They're not an attempt to graft some kind of pseudo-scientific technobabbly hogwash onto what was already a perfectly-good bit of magic. What they are is an expression of a deeply Asian idea, in the way Eastern thinkers have always seen the divide between science and mysticism very, very differently than we do in the West.

In the Asian view of things, science and mysticism are one. I can't help but think that Lucas's thinking here is heavily influenced by the types of ideas you'll find in books like The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. And the idea isn't entirely incompatible with the more poetical passages of the works of Carl Sagan, who advanced the notion that life is not something separate from the Universe, but rather an emergent property of the Universe. In this formulation, the midichlorians are therefore not some new entity thrown in for no reason, but simply the lowest level at which the interactions take place.

That's what makes this scene interesting, because the notion – barely even hinted at – is that Darths Plagueis and Apprentice (we assume it's Sidious) did something that caused the midichlorians to start a new biological process in the womb of Shmi Skywalker. I've never been sure of what to make of this, because it's a fascinating idea that, in the context of the movies, goes absolutely nowhere. The Sith use the Force to create a living being? The implications here are utterly fascinating (did they know where Anakin was? Did they have no idea and were just waiting for him to show up? Did they create a possible hundreds of potential Sith just to see who came to the fore?), and yet, Lucas goes nowhere with it. I don't know if he just threw it in there for the EU authors to do something with, or what.

This is why I continue to hold to my belief that the midichlorians are not a conceptual error. They are a story error. The midichlorians are the gun on the mantelpiece that never goes off. So, all things being equal, I'd excise their mention here entirely, and just leave the midichlorians the way I left them way back when I fixed TPM.

Still, I do love this scene. Palpatine has shown remarkable restraint, waiting until he knows that Anakin is already starting to feel a certain amount of disillusionment with the Jedi to start to sow some more seeds of discontent. And he does it so interestingly, couching his temptations in Anakin's sense of morality. Villains they may be, but the Sith genuinely believe that they are the good guys.

So in the next scene, Anakin gets to present his new intelligence to the Jedi Council, in addition to Chancellor Palpatine's suggestion that he be sent to deal with General Grievous. Of course, the Council seems rather pouty about the whole thing, and they are now in the position of seemingly denying anything just because Palpatine suggested it.

EXT. KASHYYYK-DAY

A WOOKIEE CATAMARAN flanked by WOOKIEE HELICOPTERS approaches the tree housing the HOLOGRAM AREA.

90 INT. KASHYYYK-HOLOGRAM AREA-DAY

YODA and various JEDI speak via hologram. The discussion includes OBI-WAN, MACE, AGEN KOLAR, YODA- KI-ADI-MUNDI and PLO KOON.

Kl-ADI-MUNDI: (holo) Palpatine thinks General Grievous is on Utapau. We have had no reports of this from our agents.

MACE: (holo) How could the Chancellor have come by this information and we know nothing about it? We have had contact with Baron Papanoida and he said no one was there.

ANAKIN: A partial message was intercepted in a diplomatic packet from the Chairman of Utapau.

YODA: Act on this, we must. The capture of General Grievous will end this war. Quickly and decisively we should proceed.

OBI-WAN: Does everyone agree?

All the JEDI concur.

ANAKIN: The Chancellor has requested that I lead the campaign.

They all look at ANAKIN a bit disturbed.

MACE: (a little peeved) The Council will make up its own mind who is to go, not the Chancellor.

Kl-ADI-MUNDI: Yes, this decision is ours to make.

ANAKIN is embarrassed and becomes sullen.

YODA: A Master is needed, with more experience.

MACE: Given our resources, I recommend we send only one Jedi . . . Master Kenobi.

ANAKIN: He was not so successful the last time he met Grievous.

OBI-WAN throws ANAKIN a dirty look.

ANAKIN: (continuing) No offense, my Master, but I'm only stating a fact.

OBI-WAN: Oh no, you're quite right, but I do have the most experience with his ways of combat.

YODA: Obi-Wan, my choice is.

Kl-ADI-MUNDI: I concur. Master Kenobi should go.

YODA: I agree.

All the JEDI concur.

MACE: Very well. Council is adjourned.

ANAKIN is angry.

MACE: (continuing) Obi-Wan, prepare two clone brigades as quickly as you can. If this report is true, there's no telling how many battle droids he may have with him.

91 INT. KASHYYYK-HOLOGRAM AREA-DAY

YODA gets out of his chair and walks to the edge of the platform.

CLONE COMMANDER GREE: The droids have started up their main power generators.

YODA: Then now the time is, Commander.

CLONE COMMANDER GREE: Yes, sir.

The battle begins.

92 EXT. KASHYYYK-BEACH HEAD-DAY

A WOOKIEE CHIEFTAIN lets out a roar as the Wookiee army rushes to face the DROID ARMY. CORPORATE ALLIANCE TANK DROIDS race across the water against the WOOKIEES and CLONE TROOPERS on the beach. DROID GUNSHIPS provide air support, while a SPIDER DROID emerges from the watery depths. A brave WOOKIEE places an explosive on a SEPARATIST TANK and jumps off just before the TANK EXPLODES. From the Hologram Area, Yoda observes the ongoing battle.

I like the bit there in which Anakin takes a shot at Obi Wan's Jedi fighting skills (not included in the film, obviously). But the main thrust of this scene is that the Council is going to resist what they see as Palpatine's machinations, unaware as they are that Palpatine's true purpose is to keep the Council pushing Anakin to be as resentful as possible. They play right into Palpatine's hands, over and over and over again. What might have been, had they decided to just let Anakin have that assignment?

One last note: I love the Thai-influenced design of the planet Kashyyyk. Getting to finally see that planet is a nice reward. (No, we did not see it on the Holiday Special. That did NOT happen.)

And that's where we'll stop for this time. Stay tuned to see Anakn get closer and closer to Darthiness!

Something for Thursday

I played this piece via a band arrangement in college...and I hated it. At first. I thought it was cheesy, goofy, insipid, and idiotic. But the thing grew on me, and kept right on growing, until it became one of my favorite pieces. There's a kind of maniacal glee behind it that makes me happy, and I'm all about the glee these days! Here is the Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper.

A Day at the Farm

Well, it was really cold. So it was really only about 45 minutes.

But anyway, the other day I had some time to myself, so I decided to go to Knox Farm in East Aurora to take some pictures. I knew it was cold, but I didn't figure on how biting the wind was, so I didn't do nearly as much walking around as I had intended. Mostly I stuck around the farm buildings themselves.

Knox Farm is a former New York State Park that was once the estate of the Knox family, a rich clan that once lived here but has since dispersed. The state never really figured out what to do with the place, park-wise, and then the budgetary disasters that unfolded during the Great Recession gave the state the opportunity to eliminate the farm as a state park. (This despite that they didn't even have to close State Parks during the Great Depression, but that was then, when America was more willing to levy taxes in order to pay for things we collectively wanted, as opposed to a country that seemingly wants low taxes and not much else. But I digress.)

Anyhow, here are a few of the photos from that day:







Note the cross-country skiers:





These next two turned out cool, because I placed the camera in a dark place, relative to where I was standing. It was not this bright! But it makes me look all science-fictiony or something.




I also drove up to the Mill Road Overlook, which is simply where the road passes by the top of a wide field on a hill, allowing a wonderful view. Some activists are currently trying to secure this property so that it remains a wonderful view, as opposed to the site of yet another boring development of ugly McMansions. The view that day from up there was wonderfully stark, since it was getting on late afternoon by this point.








I really do love this area!

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

What's a movie you thought that you would hate but ended up...not hating at all?

Makin' Meatballs

Food has become a bit of a challenge here at Casa Jaquandor of late, as The Wife has found it necessary to adopt a gluten-free diet. For the most part, we find that eating gluten-free is not that hard, as long as you are (a) diligent in checking the ingredients of what you eat, and (b) curious and willing to explore foods you're unfamiliar with. The Wife is very wide in her tastes and willing to try new foods, so while some favorites have slipped beyond our grasp, we've found other things to eat and we continue to look for ways to get back some stuff that's been ruled out. (I, personally, am not on a gluten-free diet, but it's often easier to just go that way, simply because it seems silly to make two meals every night.)

Anyway, one thing we've been stymied on is meatballs. We've always loved spaghetti and meatballs. We have found gluten-free spaghetti, but gluten-free meatballs have been a bit more difficult. So I figured it was time to take matters into my own hands.

Now, meatballs are one of those things I've always thought I should be making myself anyway, but never did because I was just lazy about it. This was the time, though, so I bought a package of hot italian sausage links and removed the meat from the casings. Then I mixed the meat by hand with a cup of gluten-free panko crumbs, about half a cup of grated Parmesan, two eggs, and about a half cup of milk. After that, it was a simple matter of shaping the meatballs and baking them at 400 degrees for about twenty-five minutes. The result? Wonderful meatballs that The Wife can eat! We had a few of them for dinner, and now the rest are in the freezer. (My total yield was about 36 meatballs.)

So you're going to be a spaceman!

When I was a kid, my dream was to be an astronaut.

Not terribly unique, as kids dreams went, in my generation. The space program had lost a bit of its momentum in the mid-1970s, but the moon landings were still fresh in memory, and in any event, a movie came along in 1977 that made space a going concern for an awful lot of young'uns, myself included. So in my first few years of grade school, I read a ton of space books. I remember very few of them, but I learned a lot from each. One of them that I do remember, quite strongly, is a book by an author and illustrator named Jeanne Bendick, called The First Book of Space Travel. The book came out in 1953, which means that when I read it in first grade (1977), it was 24 years old. And more...the book came out four years before Sputnik flew.

The book was mentioned a while back on the wonderful blog and everything else too. Seeing these images again after so long takes me right back to thumbing through this book while sitting in Mrs. Smith's classroom at Witch Hazel School. (When I should have been working on my assignments...sigh....)

I need to track down a copy of this book! Why it's not in my personal library already, I'm not really sure.

A brief manifesto....

I created this the other night:


This is part of my newer way of thinking, part of which is my newfound aversion to snark. I fully accept that I'm a strange person, and I'm fine with it. Embracing the weirdness seems a lot more productive and likely to produce longterm fun, for me, than trying to aim for some level of conformity that has never much produced large dividends anyway. I could pretend to be a normal person with a normal haircut and normal clothes and normal hobbies, but as they always say on Aaron Sorkin shows, I haven't got that kind of time. Give me long hair, bib overalls, spaceships and ghosts and wizards, and a pie in the face any day.

Sentential Links

Time for LINKS!!!

:: There was me, Amanda, and there was Amanda's TED speech, and she was spending a lot more time with her TED speech than she was with me.

:: It's that great moment of seeing something you loved when you were younger and haven't revisited for a very long time and finding it holds up even better than you thought. (I was a bit older when Pulp Fiction came out, but it’s still one of my favorite movies. I’ve never forgotten the first time I saw it...in a theater all by myself, because it was brand new and word-of-mouth hadn’t started building yet.)

:: How does the play weather a fourth reading? Excellently. It was wasted on my teenaged self, but it was a revelation when I taught it to my son in 2003 and again when I brought it to my daughters in 2009. (Ah, Julius Caesar -- the play that started me on the road to thinking “Hey, maybe there’s something to this Shakespeare fellow after all!” We read it in tenth grade, and we focused on all the usual stuff: Brutus and Anthony, Caesar’s arrogance, the Ides of March, “The good is oft interred with our bones”, et cetera. But when I re-read it last year, what struck me between the eyes was a brief and horrifying scene when the Roman crowd, whipped into a frenzy, kills an innocent poet who just happens to have the same name as one of the conspirators. I don’t recall my tenth grade teacher making much of Shakespeare’s cynicism regarding the malleability of mob opinion, but that’s what I think about now whenever I think about that play.)

:: And all this puts me in mind of the young man I used to be and somehow lost track of.

I miss him. (I think that everybody has this moment at some point in their lives. The sooner we realize that the young guy is still in there, the better life gets.)

:: Not only did he publish without me, he got a patent on the idea as well. He did include me in the acknowledgements, but in science that's worth exactly nothing. (I’m often glad I didn’t end up in academia.)

:: You know what I think? I think wasted potential is a lot scarier than feeling overwhelmed. There is no monster greater than regret. I wouldn't wish it on any one. (I could not agree more, and I have a post on this topic on the way!)

:: But what kind of a place is it, that people are armed to the teeth, and terrified at the prospect of home invasion? What does it mean to live in a country that was, for generations, defined by institutionalized racism? Is South Africa really just Texas with a Dutch accent? (I said that I'm not snarking anymore. I didn't say I wouldn't occasionally link other people's snark!)

More next week....

Answers the Fifth!

Another post or two, and I should be able to put Ask Me Anything! February 2013 to bed. Huzzah! (And remember, folks, you don't have to wait for February or August to ask me anything. I'm always on the prowl for topic suggestions!)

My friend and writing cohort (and Princesses beta-reader) Lynda asks:

When going back to edit your writing, how do you determine what to keep and what to weed out?

My first goal when editing is to look for needless words and get rid of them. In On Writing, Stephen King says that the formula for the second draft is "1st Draft - 10%", and I tend to agree with that. I like long, wordy books, but not too wordy. Of course, what counts as being 'too wordy' is open to debate and opinion, but in general, I really try to tighten up the prose when I start editing. Adverbs? I try to use as few as possible to begin with, and the ones that remain usually perish. Overly long descriptive passages get on my nerves, too, so I try to cut those down as much as possible. And then there is the fact that I can really be repetitive at times in my writing. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect it's a combination of two factors: first, that I don't always recall what I've written before, and thus stand the chance of writing it again; and second, because I suppose I feel a certain amount of insecurity that the reader isn't going to understand what I'm really getting at unless I pound the point home with a ball-peen hammer.

What I find myself doing, often when editing, is reminding myself that you gotta trust the reader to understand. This is where beta readers come in so handy, and I really wish I'd been using them more in my previous writing projects. When a beta reader comes at you with a question of the "I'm not sure what's going on here" variety, that's a red flag. And if more than one of your beta readers questions you on the same point, than that's a red flag accompanied by sirens and guys shooting flares into the sky and your wife screaming "Stop the car, Frank!" in your ear. (I know my name's not Frank. Deal with it!) Luckily for me, that didn't happen much with Princesses, and I had six people read that thing, and I chose six folks whose tastes I can be fairly assured vary somewhat across a number of genres.

That's the mechanical stuff. Sometimes I'm looking to tighten up pacing or eliminate general flab, and make the book or story flow better. How do I decide, then, what entire scenes to cut? Well...that's a bit tougher, and it relies on trusting my own instincts when it comes to the storytelling. The question I always end up asking myself is this: Does the reader NEED to know this in order for the story to make sense? If the answer is 'No', then it's not necessarily a slam-dunk that the passage is to be cut, but that is an indicator that maybe I can lose it.

In the specific case of editing Princesses, I had a lot of flabby material toward the front of the book, of the 'establishing the setting' variety, and based on feedback, I cut a lot of that in the edits. I also added in a couple of brief scenes in order to strengthen the flow and establish the characters more than the setting. That's another good point to keep in mind: material that strengthens the characters tends to have a longer lease on life than stuff that's just there because it's cool or whatever. Of course, you have to have a relatively liberal notion of what a reader 'needs' to know, because if you really make that rule a harsh one, you can go too far the other way. And that's no good. Unless you're Hemingway. And you're not.

There was also one scene in Princesses that I came this close to scrapping completely, simply because it didn't really move things along -- and in fact, I still don't think it moves things along. But I left it in, because one of my beta readers praised that particular scene for entirely different reasons. So I kept it, on the basis that once in a while, it's OK to have something happen just because it's kind of cool.

My friend (and political soul-mate -- HA!) Scotty asks:

"Into Darkness"-excited or no, Imax or no, and who's the villain?

No, no, dunno. Next!

OK, more detail. Star Trek Into Darkness comes out this summer. Am I excited? Not really. As I've said a few times, in this space and others, I liked the first one, but mainly because I like explodey spaceshippy stuff. As Star Trek, it was a train wreck, and as science fiction, it was utter crap. But it was slickly made and fun to watch and I liked the cast, so I'll see the sequel. But 'excited'? Not really. I won't see it on IMAX, either, just because I have a feeling the sensory overload of seeing a movie like that on so huge a screen would not be terribly pleasant. I like a standard movie screen just fine, thank you. I like IMAX movies, but ones that are specifically made for that format.

And the villain? I have no idea. I do think that Khan would be a staggeringly unoriginal and uninspired thing to do. So would Gary Mitchell. I don't know what they're up to, but on the basis of the first movie and the trailers for this one, I'm not holding out hope for any sense of originality whatsoever. If JJ Abrams is gonna direct Star Wars Episode VII, I'm glad that he's not bringing his Trek writers along for the ride.

Still more to come! Progress is being made. I think. (Unless you folks sneak in any questions after the fact....)

The Time Has Come!

Yup...it's time to start working on the sequel to Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title). I've just found getting back into Deliverance, eh? a bit of a slog, for a number of reasons. First, as I've mentioned before, it was just a mistake to get away from that story for as long as I did. The momentum really flagged, and it's very hard getting back to something in progress when the brain just isn't there. Second, a byproduct of that is that my head kept right on working on notions for the Princesses sequel, and now the story has crystallized enough that it's just starting to burst out of my head. I figure I need to listen to that impulse, and I also figure that if I start now, at 1000 words a day, I should be able to generate a first draft by fall of this year. That way I can have the decks cleared by November, just in time for this year's NaNoWriMo, when I hope to tackle another story idea that's been bouncing about my head for a long time.

What does this mean for Deliverance, eh and The Adventures of Lighthouse Boy? Both are back-burnered...but neither one forever. I'm not turning from them because I dislike those stories. I'm turning toward the one that I need to write the most. Which means it's time to see what those Princesses of mine have been doing, whilst in SPACE!!!

(And no, aside from the one rejection, I have not heard a single thing more from any of my current queries. More queries are going out, though. There's an agent for me out there, and I will find them! No matter what occurs!)

Sunday Burst of Weird and Awesome

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: If you don't like insects (or art), don't watch this video.

:: Leonard Bernstein rewrites Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. If you've read Bernstein's brilliant and indispensable The Joy of Music, you've already read the transcript of this old teevee program, but to see it is amazing.

:: Like puzzles? As in, physical, mechanical puzzles? Puzzle World is for you. (Ignore the comic sans, if you can. Lord, I detest that font!)

More next week!

Saturday Centus (Sunday edition)

Here we go!

I looked at the ramshackle contraption as Pa put the finishing touches on it. He was ready to light the fuse.

“Oh my God, you really think this thing’s gonna fly?!”

“Simple physics, m’boy! The fuel burns, the exhaust shoots out the bottom, and the rocket goes up!”

“Your fuel is gasoline!”

“Burns nice! My Ma always told me, ‘Use the right fuel’.”

I shook my head. “My Grandma always told me that you’re an idiot.”

Pa laughed as he lit the fuse.

An hour later, the fire department has a whole new story to add to the rest. And Pa’s hair grew back, eventually.

EXTERIOR: Suburban Buffalo -- KFC -- Afternoon -- Winter.

Two cars pull into the KFC parking lot. One pulls right up to the door; the other parks a bit farther away. A short, squat WOMAN in a brilliant sky-blue winter coat and her SON, a young man of about 20, get out of the first car. The young man is dressed in the standard Buffalo attire of jeans that aren't really any color anymore, a jacket that isn't any color anymore, and a utilitarian haircut that screams of 'cut the parts that stick out below the edge of the bowl I've placed on your head'. From the other car comes a long-haired GENTLEMAN, decked out in a black flannel-lined shirt under a spiffy pair of Carhartt overalls. We can tell by looking at the GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS that he is a fellow of elegance, reason, and is generally a fine person to know. They enter the restaurant, whereupon the GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS hangs back to examine the menu. Meanwhile, the WOMAN and the SON walk right up to the counter, where the ORDER TAKEN is a crisp-looking teenaged boy in a clean uniform.

ORDER TAKER: Welcome to KFC, may I--

The SON's cell phone rings loudly. His ringtone is a rap tune with the words 'bitch-ass ho' a lot.

ORDER TAKER: --take your order?

SON: (into phone) What? Yeah. Yeah, I love you! But I can't talk about this right--

WOMAN: Yeah gimme a six-piece a'chicken.

ORDER TAKER: Original, crispy, or the other one that nobody orders? [EDITOR'S NOTE: He didn't really say this! I just don't recall what the actual third option was.]

WOMAN: (to SON, without turning to actually face him) You want original or crispy?

SON: (into phone, completely oblivious of his mother addressing him) No! No, don't do that! DAMMIT! I said I love you, why you gotta make this so--

WOMAN: (louder, still doesn't turn around) You want ORIGINAL or CRISPY?

She turns to look at the SON, who is facing the pop machine.

WOMAN: Give him Original.

ORDER TAKER: All right, what sides?

WOMAN: Sides? Whassat salad stuff with the dressing?

ORDER TAKER: Cole slaw?

WOMAN: Yeah! (loudly, to SON, again without turning, again without the SON realizing he's being talked to) Cole slaw? You like COLE SLAW?

SON: Oh, you can't be f***ing SERIOUS! I swear if you--! Yeah, yeah....I said I love you! I said it! What more do you--!

WOMAN: Cole slaw. And fries.

ORDER TAKER: You mean potato wedges?

WOMAN: I got fries last time!

ORDER TAKER: (somehow miraculously keeping his composure, given how young he is) We replaced the fries with the potato wedges.

WOMAN: Oh.

The GENTLEMAN in the overalls, who is diddling with his own cell phone in an effort to look like he's not actually hanging on every word of the morality play unfolding, raises an eyebrow at the ease with which this kid has sold the lie.

WOMAN: Yeah, gimme the wedges. And a drink. (louder) You wanna drink?

SON: (still into phone) Babe, I gotta go. We're in line. KFC. I know you don't like KFC, but what do you care, you're working!

WOMAN: No drink for him.

Now he turns back to face his mother, rolling his eyes and making that 'flapping jaw' gesture with his fingers to indicate that the girlfriend or whomever on the other end won't shut up.

ORDER TAKER: That'll be $12.42.

WOMAN: Here. (hands him a twenty)

SON: I gotta go! We'll talk about this later. Just call me back in half an hour. Just call me back. Call me back! Half an hour! Yeah! Love you, call me back, half hour, bye! (hangs up) What are we eating?

WOMAN: Chicken.

The GENTLEMAN in the overalls bites his lips together to keep from laughing out loud.

SON: Did you order the Chicken Bites? [EDITOR'S NOTE: "Chicken Bites" are apparently the replacement for the old "Popcorn Chicken" menu item.]

WOMAN: You didn't say nothin' about Chicken Bites!

SON: I want Chicken Bites. Got more money? I'll order 'em.

WOMAN: Yeah, here's five bucks. It's all I got. But wait for that guy. You shoulda been ordering with me.

SON: I tried! Bitch wouldn't hang up!

WOMAN: Don't call her 'bitch', she's datin' your ass.

Now the GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS is scratching his neck so he doesn't have to face these folks.

WOMAN: Get outta the way. Let that guy order.

They look at the GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS, who realizes what's happening.

GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS: Oh, go ahead. I'm in no hurry here.

SON: Thanks! See, Mom?

The Son turns to the ORDER TAKER.

ORDER TAKER: Welcome to KFC, may I take your order?

SON: Yeah, I want some Chicken Bites.

The Food Guy from the back of house comes up to the counter with a tray.

FOOD GUY: Order #273? Six-piece?

WOMAN: Yeah.

She grabs the tray and goes to a table in the dining room.

WOMAN: (calling to SON) I'm sittin' down now!

SON: (without turning around) Yeah! Chicken Bites. Uh...large.

The GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS glances up at the menu board and notices that the Large Chicken Bites is more than five bucks. In fact, even the Small, with sales tax added on, will be more than five bucks.

WOMAN: (now talking loudly to no one in particular) Awww, shit! They only gave me one plate. How am I supposed to eat!

The GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS brushes a fuzzy or something from the bib of his overalls, trying not to focus on the 'How many plates does one woman need to eat a meal at KFC?' question.

ORDER TAKER: A large Chicken Bites is $7-something.

SON: Ummmm...

He starts fishing in his pockets, but it's clear that the five in his hand is the only money he's got.

SON: Make it the small, then.

ORDER TAKER: OK...that'll be $5.sixty something.

SON: Ummmm....

He is realizing that he doesn't have enough money to pay even that.

SON: Hey Ma--

WOMAN: Tell them to gimme another plate!

SON: You got anymore money?

WOMAN: Nah I gave it all to you! Tell them gimme another plate!

Nevertheless she gets up, returns to the counter, and hands him a twenty. Then she returns to the table.

WOMAN: I still need another plate!

Now she's yelling loudly enough that the FOOD GUY in back can hear her, and he is scrambling to bring up a plate.

ORDER TAKER: All right, here's the change. And here are your Chicken Bites. And here's the--

WOMAN: I need another plate!

ORDER TAKER: --other plate for her.

SON: Ma! Stop!

He holds up the plate for her to see. She calms down. The GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS, still wondering why she could possibly need TWO plates, waits until the ORDER TAKER acknowledges him.

ORDER TAKER: Hello, welcome to KFC. May I take your order?

The GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS notices the look in the ORDER TAKER's eye, the look of prayerfulness in hopes that no one quite that crazy comes through the line for a while. He also notes that this fellow has to start every single interaction with a customer the exact same way, no doubt because 'market research' has shown that what customers want to hear in a restaurant is a personality-free, standardized greeting.

GENTLEMAN IN OVERALLS: Sure. I'd like a--

FADE OUT as life returns to normal at KFC.

Film Quote Friday: The Hunt for Red October

When this movie came out in spring 1990, I was on the tail end of a fascination with the spy genre that had lasted two or three years. I'd devoured a whole bunch of Robert Ludlum and Nelson DeMille novels; I'd found Tom Clancy somewhat less readable but OK, and I bounced right off John Le Carre. Shortly thereafter I returned to reading fantasy and science fiction, having had my fill of spy stuff. Nowadays I haven't read a spy novel in quite a few years, and I generally rely on movies and teevee for my espionage desires. (Plus, a lot of the F&SF I read employs tropes of spy stories, so it's not like I'm completely missing out.)

I went with a bunch of friends to see Hunt for Red October the day after the winter semester ended (our school had an odd calendar), and before we went, I remember reading an article in TIME or Newsweek about the troubles that the entire spy genre was facing, what with the Cold War having ended just eight or nine months previously. I found the idea that the movie might suffer because of the lack of timeliness of its subject matter kind of goofy; after all, lots of historical dramas work just fine as stories with tension and suspense, despite the fact that their historical eras are long over. But still, there was some serious thought given to the fact that the spy genre was now going to have to look for new threats. I remember a Wayne's World sketch on Saturday Night Live in which Wayne and Garth lamented the end of Communism with a top-ten style list, one of which was, "Spy stuff sucks." Garth whined, "Yeah! Who's James Bond gonna spy on now, the Guatemalans?!"

I also remember some years back when I got into a heated discussion on a Usenet newsgroup because someone wanted to say that some movie had done something in a very clicheed manner, "just like the James Bond movies of the 1960s used to treat Russians". That ran up all manner of red flags, because only one of the six Bond movies released in the 1960s uses Russians, and in that one, they are hardly depicted stereptyically. In fact, Garth and my Usenet interlocutor might be surprised to learn that there was surprisingly little Cold War subtext to the Bond films until the 1980s!

What does all this have to do with Hunt for Red October? Well, if anything, the years that have passed since the Cold War's conclusion have only helped the film. By pushing those historical circumstances back into history, the film now plays as it always should have: it's a tense, engrossing thriller that pits one man against entire bureaucracies in the face of a dangerous diplomatic and military situation. The film's story is extremely well constructed, with every element serving some purpose. But the movie's dialog crackles! Here are just a couple of instances.

This brief exchange happens when the Russian Ambassador to the United States is meeting with the National Security Advisor, and is still maintaining the fiction that nothing terribly serious is to be read into the fact that the Northern Atlantic is now crawling with Russian ships:

Jeffrey Pelt: Mr. Ambassador, you have nearly a hundred naval vessels operating in the North Atlantic right now. Your aircraft have dropped enough sonar buoys so that a man could walk from Greenland to Iceland to Scotland without getting his feet wet! Now, shall we dispense with the bull?

Ambassador Lysenko: You make your point as delicately as ever, Mr. Pelt.

This brief exchange comes later on, when Jack Ryan is on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, and the Russian Navy is plowing across the ocean, the sonar systems blasting away into the water:

Captain Davenport: They're pinging away with their active sonar like they're looking for something, but nobody's listening.

Jack Ryan: What do you mean?

Captain Davenport: Well, they're moving at almost forty knots. At that speed, they could run right over my daughter's stereo and not hear it.

And here's a Navy pilot trying to give Jack Ryan some encouragement as they fly through violent turbulence to get to the Enterprise:

Navigator C-2A: What's the matter Commander? You don't like flying, huh? Aw, this is nothing! You should've been with us five, six months ago! Whoa! You talk about puke! We ran into a hailstorm over the Sea of Japan. Everybody's retching their guts out! The pilot shot his lunch all over the windshield, and I barfed on the radio! Shorted it out completely! And it wasn't that lightweight stuff either, it was that chunky industrial weight puke! [offers him the candy bar he's been eating] Hey, you want a bite?

Jack Ryan: Jack, next time you get a bright idea just put it in a memo!

Frivolous stuff, to be sure, but all this dialog rings true because in my experience, people tend to resort to comfortable metaphors and idioms even in the face of stressful situations. Everybody speaks distinctively in The Hunt for Red October, and director John McTiernan gives the actors the breathing room necessary to let the script take flight. The result? An espionage thriller that feels like it's populated with real people. That's the key to any storytelling!

Something for Thursday

I had a piece chosen already, but yesterday's passing of pianist Van Cliburn gave me cause to push that one back a week. This particular work is so associated with Cliburn that it's almost cliche to use it, but there's a reason cliches become so in the first place.

Back when I was in school and taking piano lessons, my teacher -- a wonderful lady named Margaret Hooker -- used to rave about Van Cliburn. She thought the world of him, and I never think of him without thinking of her almost at the same time. I was never that good at the piano, choosing instead to focus my energies on my beloved trumpet, which I imagine had to frustrate Mrs. Hooker somewhat, as I could have done better had I worked harder at it. I'd say 'Story of my life', but then, that's the story of everyone's life, isn't it?

Anyway, I hope that Mrs. Hooker is finally getting to meet Mr. Cliburn in whatever musical realm they now inhabit. There's no question in my mind that if there is such a realm, she's already tracked him down.

Here's Van Cliburn playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1.

Fixing the Prequels: Revenge of the Sith (part five)

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Again, it's been a while since we did this, and I've been lax for mainly the same reasons: work on other projects, and the continued calcification of the view that the Prequel Trilogy is utter garbage. It seems that the only way to get commentary about the PT noticed online is to simply find some way to repackage the same, tired, old "The PT sucks and Lucas is a hack!" narrative. But for the sake of completeness, I suppose I should tilt at this windmill until I'm done...which is what I'm going to do. (I've already written several of the next posts in this series.) Perhaps a re-energizing of Star Wars fandom in the wake of the franchise's transition in ownership from George Lucas to the hands of the Disney folks will lead to a re-evaluation of the Prequels...which might lead to a discovery of this blog series. A guy can dream, can't he? So on we go!

When last we left off, we had completed the rescue of Chancellor Palpatine and were heading into the political part of the story. In my version, Anakin has already told Padme that when their child is born, he will leave the Jedi order; but Palpatine has already started his plotting, beginning with invoking some ancient law to appoint Anakin directly to the Jedi Council (which Anakin interprets to mean that he will, at long last, be made a Jedi Master). Meanwhile, Padme has been approached by several Senators who have strong concerns about the direction Palpatine is leading the Republic.

So: at this point in the film, Anakin stands before the Council after his appointment. It doesn't go as well as he hopes. (Red text indicates material not in the film; blue text indicates stuff I'm adding on my own.)

INT. CORUSCANT-JEDI TEMPLE-HALLWAY OUTSIDE COUNCIL CHAMBERS-DAY

ANAKIN stands pensively (I'd have him pacing, actually.) in front of the Jedi Council Chambers. The door opens.

83 INT. CORUSCANT-JEDI TEMPLE-COUNCIL CHAMBERS-DAY

ANAKIN enters and stands in the middle of the room. He is surrounded by the Jedi Council MACE WINDU, EETH KOTH OBI-WAN, YODA, the HOLOGRAMS of PLO KOON and KI-ADI-MUNDI.

MACE: Anakin Skywalker, we have approved your appointment to the Council as the Chancellor's personal representative.

ANAKIN: I will do my best to uphold the principles of the Jedi Order.

YODA: Allow this appointment lightly, the Council does not. Disturbing is this move by Chancellor Palpatine.

ANAKIN: I understand.

MACE: You are on this Council, but we do not grant you the rank of Master.

Anakin reacts with anger.

ANAKIN: What? ! How can you do this?? This is outrageous, it's unfair . . . I'm more powerful than any of you. How can you be on the Council and not be a Master?

[I'm glad that Lucas excised that one sentence, there. It really makes Anakin sound whiny and entitled. The focus instead should be on the idea that just being on the Council should make him a Master, not on his power.]

MACE: You are powerful, and you have accomplished a great deal. No one here questions this. But it is the Council's decision who becomes a Master, not the Chancellor's, and there is no dusty ancient law in any book that he can use to make it so. Take a seat, young Skywalker.

ANAKIN: Forgive me, Master.

ANAKIN goes and sits in one of the empty chairs. Everyone is embarrassed. KI-ADI-MUNDI WHO APPEARS AS A HOLOGRAM, speaks.

Kl-ADI-MUNDI: We have surveyed all systems in the Republic, and have found no sign of General Grievous.

YODA: Hiding in the Outer Rim, Grievous is. The outlying systems, you must sweep.

OBI-WAN: It may take some time . . . we do not have many ships to spare.

MACE: We cannot take ships from the front line.

OBI-WAN: And yet, it would be fatal for us to allow the droid armies to regroup.

YODA: Master Kenobi, our spies contact, you must, and then wait.

Kl-ADI-MUNDI: What about the droid attack on the Wookiees?

MACE: It is critical we send an attack group there, immediately!

OBI-WAN: He's right, that is a system we cannot afford to lose. It's the main navigation route for the southwestern quadrant.

ANAKIN: I know that system well. It would take us little time to drive the droids off that planet.

MACE: Skywalker, your assignment is here with the Chancellor, and Kenobi must find General Grievous.

YODA: Go, I will. Good relations with the Wookiees, I have.

MACE: It is settled then. Yoda will take a battalion of clones to reinforce the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. May the Force be with us all.

ANAKIN is disappointed.

So Anakin had thought that Palpatine's action would instantly elevate him to the highest levels of the Jedi order...but that's not at all how things worked out. I really like this development and always have – with this one move, Palpatine has managed to drive the already-existing wedge between himself and the Council a little bit deeper, and he has managed to position Anakin right in the middle. He knows that Anakin will find the Council's actions insulting, and what's more, he clearly already knew that the Council would refuse to elevate Anakin to Master. Palpatine is planting seeds with the deftness of...a Sith Lord!

What happens next:

INT. CORUSCANT-JEDI TEMPLE-MASSIVE MAIN HALLWAY AND ALCOVE-LATE AFTERNOON

ANAKIN and OBI-WAN walk through one of the massive Jedi Temple hallways. ANAKIN is furious.

ANAKIN: What kind of nonsense is this, put me on the Council and not make me a Master!?? That's never been done in the history of the Jedi. It's insulting!

OBI-WAN: Calm down, Anakin. You have been given a great honor. To be on the Council at your age . . . It's never happened before. Listen to me, Anakin. The fact of the matter is you're too close to the Chancellor. The Council doesn't like it when he interferes in Jedi affairs.

ANAKIN: I swear to you, I didn't ask to be put on the Council . . .

OBI-WAN: But it's what you wanted! Your friendship with Chancellor Palpatine seems to have paid off.

ANAKIN: That has nothing to do with this.

OBI-WAN: Anakin, regardless of how it happened, you find yourself in a delicate situation.

ANAKIN: You mean divided loyalties.

OBI-WAN: I warned you there was tension between the Council and the Chancellor. I was very clear. Why didn't you listen? You walked right into it.

ANAKIN: The Council is upset I'm the youngest to ever serve.

OBI-WAN: No, it is not. Anakin, I worry when you speak of jealousy and pride. Those are not Jedi thoughts. They're dangerous, dark thoughts.

ANAKIN: Master, you of all people should have confidence in my abilities. I know where my loyalties lie.

OBI-WAN: I hope so . . .

ANAKIN: I sense there's more to this talk than you're saying.

OBI-WAN: Anakin, the only reason the Council has approved your appointment is because the Chancellor trusts you.

ANAKIN: And?

OBI-WAN: Anakin, look, I am on your side. I didn't want to see you put in this situation.

ANAKIN: What situation?

OBI-WAN: (takes a deep breath) The Council wants you to report on all of the Chancellor's dealings. They want to know what he's up to.

ANAKIN: They want me to spy on the Chancellor? That's treason!

OBI-WAN: We are at war, Anakin. The Jedi Council is sworn to uphold the principles of the Republic, even if the Chancellor does not.

ANAKIN: Why didn't the Council give me this assignment when we were in session?

OBI-WAN: This assignment is not to be on record. The Council asked me to approach you on this personally.

ANAKIN: The Chancellor is not a bad man, Obi-Wan. He befriended me. He's watched out for me ever since I arrived here.

OBI-WAN: That is why you must help us, Anakin. Our allegiance is to the Senate, not to its leader who has managed to stay in office long after his term has expired.

ANAKIN: Master, the Senate demanded that he stay longer.

OBI-WAN: Yes, but use your feelings, Anakin. Something is out of place.

ANAKIN: You're asking me to do something against the Jedi Code. Against the Republic. Against a mentor . . . and a friend. That's what's out of place here. Why are you asking this of me?

OBI-WAN: The Council is asking you.

Hoo-boy. When I really think about it, the clarity of Palpatine's plan really crystallizes nicely here. The Jedi don't trust Palpatine, but he gives them a golden opportunity to have someone watching him very closely. Palpatine is banking on the fact that Anakin perceives the Council as not trusting him, when in fact, they apparently do – or enough of them to think it's advisable to ask this of him. Palpatine knows that Anakin does not trust them, even if Anakin hasn't yet figured this out. He's playing on the fact that Anakin must be well aware of the Council's long-standing suspicion of him and his abilities, going all the way back to when Qui Gon Jinn presented him to the Council as a young boy.

And thus Palpatine lays the trap for the Jedi, which they walk into, fully aware even as they do it. Is Palpatine worried about Anakin reporting his doings to the Jedi? Perhaps...but he suspects that, when it finally comes time to make the choice, Anakin will choose him instead. It's almost as if, after years and years and years of careful plotting and reacting to events, Palpatine is finally ready to go "all in". I've always thought this all very well-constructed on Lucas's part.

Next comes a scene that demonstrates, for me, the thin line that the Jedi are walking (and they are not walking it particularly well):

INT. CORUSCANT-JEDI GUNSHIP-DAY

YODA, MACE, and OBI-WAN ride in the GUNSHIP as it heads for the Clone landing platform. Mace and Obi-Wan are sitting.

OBI-WAN : Anakin did not take to his assignment with much enthusiasm.

YODA: Too much under the sway of the Chancellor, he is. Much anger there is in him. Too much pride in his powers.

MACE: It's very dangerous, putting them together. I don't think the boy can handle it. I don't trust him.

OBI-WAN: He'll be all right. I trust him with my life.

MACE:I wish I did.

OBI-WAN: With all due respect, Master, is he not the Chosen One? Is he not to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force?

MACE: So the prophecy says.

YODA: A prophecy . . . that misread could have been.

OBI-WAN: He will not let me down. He never has.

YODA: I hope right you are. And now destroy the Droid armies on Kashyyyk, I will. May the Force be with you.

The GUNSHIP lands and the ramp lowers. YODA exits the GUNSHIP. MACE and OBI-WAN stand and give him a brief bow then take off in the GUNSHIP.

Again: hoo-boy. It's like the Jedi see that something very bad is looming out there if they keep doing things this way, and then they just keep on doing things that way. This facet of the Jedi's eventual fall – the way they brought a great deal of it on themselves, just by being clueless about things at really bad times – is an element I've always wished that George Lucas would have brought forward much more strongly. The Jedi fall is, to me, lines up almost perfectly, by way of metaphor, with that of the Knights Templar. If you've never read up on the history of the Templars, check it out...and for a good time, mentally substitute the word 'Jedi' for 'Templar' as you get close to the end.

But meanwhile: Mace, Mace, Mace, you ignorant slut. The key question here is pretty obvious: if you don't trust Anakin – and it's clear that Windu is not alone in his lack of enthusiasm for him – then why on Earth are you entrusting him with such a task? If you all feel that Anakin's friendship with Palpatine is something to be concerned about, why do you not only tacitly endorse it but openly encourage it by giving him such an assignment? Even Obi Wan, who knows Anakin best and trusts him the most, thinks that Anakin is too close to Palpatine. None of the Jedi actions here really make sense, and to me they illustrate what's most interesting about the Prequel Trilogy: that the Jedi by this time aren't even close to being the Jedi Order in its prime. They are disastrously close to something bad happening, and while they know it's there, they have no real idea where the threat is coming from. Right now they don't trust Palpatine, but that he actually is the threat has not yet entered their minds.

In terms of this scene, though, I'd add something:

OBI-WAN : Anakin did not take to his assignment with much enthusiasm.

YODA: Too much under the sway of the Chancellor, he is. Much anger there is in him. Too much pride in his powers.

MACE: It's very dangerous, putting them together. I don't think the boy can handle it. I don't trust him.

OBI-WAN: He'll be all right. I trust him with my life.

MACE:I wish I did. There's something at odds about young Skywalker. He is powerful and he has done many great things, but his thoughts and feelings are not focused on his Jedi duties.

OBI-WAN: What do you think he's focusing on instead?

MACE: I do not know.

This will play into something a little later on, pertaining to Anakin's eventual fall from grace.

Meanwhile, Anakin goes home to Padme, and it's clear that the pressures on Anakin are starting to take a toll on him there, too.

EXT. CORUSCANT-PADME'S APARTMENT-VERANDA-SUNSET

Padme's Speeder pulls up to the landing platform. CAPTAIN TYPHO escorts PADME onto the veranda, where TWO HANDMAIDENS (ELLE and MOTEE) are waiting. PADME turns to CAPTAIN TYPHO.

PADME: Thank you, Captain.

CAPTAIN TYPHO: Rest well. My Lady.

CAPTAIN TYPHO gets back into the Speeder, and it disappears into the cityscape. The HANDMAIDENS, Motee and Elle, approach PADME as the SHADOW OF A FIGURE moves in the background. C-3PO is standing nearby.

PADME: I'll be up in a while.

MOTEE: Yes, my lady.

C-3PO stands, confused, as the HANDMAIDENS turn and exit.

C-3PO: Is there anything I might do for you, my lady?

PADME: Yes, make sure all the security droids are working. Thank you, Threepio.

The golden droid turns and exits.

PADME stands and watches the sunset. The SHADOWY FIGURE moves toward her. She senses something.

ANAKIN: Beautiful, isn't it?

PADME jumps and turns around.

PADME: You startled me.

He sits next to her on the bench.

ANAKIN: How are you feeling?

PADME: He keeps kicking.

ANAKIN: He?! Why do you think it's a boy?

PADME: (laughs) My motherly intuition.

She puts his hand on her belly.

ANAKIN: Whoa! With a kick that strong, it's got to be a girl.

They laugh.

PADME: I heard about your appointment. Anakin. I'm so proud of you.

ANAKIN: I may be on the Council, but . . . they refused to accept me as a Jedi Master.

PADME: Patience. In time, they will recognize your skills.

ANAKIN: They still treat me as if I were a Padawan learner. . . they fear my power, that's the problem.

PADME: Anakin . . .

ANAKIN: Sometimes, I wonder what's happening to the Jedi Order . . . I think this war is destroying the principles of the Republic.

PADME: Have you ever considered that we may be on the wrong side?

ANAKIN: (suspicious) What do you mean?

PADME: What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy?

ANAKIN: I don't believe that. And you're sounding like a Separatist!

PADME: Anakin, this war represents a failure to listen . . . Now, you're closer to the Chancellor than anyone. Please, please ask him to stop the fighting and let diplomacy resume.

ANAKIN: (growing angry) Don't ask me to do that, Padme. Make a motion in the Senate, where that kind of a request belongs. I'm not your errand boy. I'm not anyone's errand boy!

PADME: What is it?

ANAKIN: Nothing.

PADME: Don't do this . . . don't shut me out. Let me help you.

ANAKIN: You can't help me . . . I'm trying to help you.

They look in each other's eyes.

ANAKIN: (continuing) I sense . . . there are things you are not telling me.

PADME is startled at this.

PADME: I sense there are things you are not telling me.

PADME smiles. ANAKIN is a little embarrassed.

PADME: (continuing) Hold me . . . like you did by the lake on Naboo, so long ago . . . when there was nothing but our love ... No politics, no plotting ... no war.

Here we have another example of a scene that works better as written than as eventually shown in the finished film, which means that it's another case of overzealous editing. Basically we cut to the middle of a discussion of politics, with no preamble or set-up, which just doesn't work very well at all. During this whole part of the movie, I remember thinking, "Wow, does anybody ever just sit and talk in these? Is it all politics, all the time?" And I can see that Lucas wanted to get the running time under control, but really – you've got to let a story breathe at times.

So I'd pick up the scene earlier and make a couple of tiny additions:

EXT. CORUSCANT-PADME'S APARTMENT-VERANDA-SUNSET

Padme's Speeder pulls up to the landing platform. CAPTAIN TYPHO escorts PADME onto the veranda, where TWO HANDMAIDENS (ELLE and MOTEE) are waiting. PADME turns to CAPTAIN TYPHO.

PADME: Thank you, Captain. I'm sorry I'm so late. There were some informal meetings after the official business ended.

CAPTAIN TYPHO: You don't need to explain to me, My Lady. Rest well.

CAPTAIN TYPHO gets back into the Speeder, and it disappears into the cityscape. The HANDMAIDENS, Motee and Elle, approach PADME as the SHADOW OF A FIGURE moves in the background. C-3PO is standing nearby.

PADME: I'll be up in a while.

MOTEE: Yes, my lady.

C-3PO stands, confused, as the HANDMAIDENS turn and exit.

C-3PO: Is there anything I might do for you, my lady?

PADME: Yes, make sure all the security droids are working. Thank you, Threepio.

The golden droid turns and exits.

PADME stands and watches the sunset. The SHADOWY FIGURE moves toward her. She senses something.

ANAKIN: Beautiful, isn't it?

PADME jumps and turns around.

PADME: You startled me.

He sits next to her on the bench.

ANAKIN: How are you feeling?

PADME: He keeps kicking.

ANAKIN: He?! Why do you think it's a boy?

PADME: (laughs) My motherly intuition.

She puts his hand on her belly.

ANAKIN: Whoa! With a kick that strong, it's got to be a girl.

They laugh.

PADME: I heard about your appointment. Anakin. I'm so proud of you...What is it?

ANAKIN: I may be on the Council, but . . . they refused to accept me as a Jedi Master.

PADME: Patience. In time, they will recognize your skills.

ANAKIN: They still treat me as if I were a Padawan learner. . . they fear my power, that's the problem. And they're angry that the Chancellor used that law in the first place. So I'm in the middle, while everything falls apart.

PADME: Anakin . . .

ANAKIN: Sometimes, I wonder what's happening to the Jedi Order . . . I think this war is destroying the principles of the Republic.

PADME: Have you ever considered that we may be on the wrong side?

ANAKIN: (suspicious) What do you mean?

PADME: What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy?

ANAKIN: I don't believe that. And you're sounding like a Separatist!

PADME: Anakin, this war represents a failure to listen . . . Now, you're closer to the Chancellor than anyone. Please, please ask him to stop the fighting and let diplomacy resume.

ANAKIN: (growing angry) Don't ask me to do that, Padme. Make a motion in the Senate, where that kind of a request belongs. I'm not your errand boy. I'm not anyone's errand boy!

PADME: What is it?

ANAKIN: Nothing.

PADME: Don't do this . . . don't shut me out. Let me help you.

ANAKIN: You can't help me . . . I'm trying to help you.

They look in each other's eyes.

ANAKIN: (continuing) I sense . . . there are things you are not telling me.

PADME is startled at this.

PADME: I sense there are things you are not telling me.

PADME smiles. ANAKIN is a little embarrassed.

PADME: (continuing) We can't let this war come between us. Not when we've both lost so much!

She steps into his embrace.

PADME: Hold me . . . like you did by the lake on Naboo, so long ago . . . when there was nothing but our love ... No politics, no plotting ... no war.

ANAKIN returns the embrace, and for a second, his expression is at peace...but then, C-3PO enters.

C-3PO: Oh! I am sorry, Master Anakin, but you have a message. The Chancellor is requesting your presence.

ANAKIN sighs.

ANAKIN: I don't want to go.

PADME: You have to. You still have your duties.

ANAKIN: But who am I serving?

She kisses him, and they hold each other for just a moment longer.

EXT: CORUSCANT – SKY OUTSIDE PADME'S APARTMENT

Unbeknownst to them, a probe droid is hovering nearby, its camera focused on them as they complete their embrace and part, with ANAKIN walking away.

INT: CORUSCANT – JEDI TEMPLE – COUNCIL CHAMBERS – NIGHT

MACE WINDU sits alone in the Council chamber, watching a holographic feed of what the probe droid is viewing: ANAKIN and PADME embracing. MACE leans back in his chair and turns to stare at the Coruscant skyline, deep in thought.

It's probably pretty obvious where I'm going with that last bit. George Lucas made quite clear that the real wedge, the final break, between Anakin and the Jedi would center upon Mace Windu. Here I'm drawing that out even more. He has suspicions about Anakin, and now he's actively pursuing them.

That's where I'll stop here. Next time, we come in as Palpatine starts to make his move to lure Anakin away from the Jedi. Tune in!

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

How cool is your cell phone? What all do you use it for?