You KNOW it’s a Myth: Special Edition

Just riffing on that Atheist billboard that went up near the Lincoln Tunnel recently. Now, I’m mostly Agnostic myself, probably still a bit Catholic by default (raised that way, had to suffer through CCD classes and all dat), and sort of Buddhist-lite (hey, I read all of the Dalai Lama’s books and REALLY like the movie Seven Years in Tibet). However, even a relatively non-religious person such as myself doesn’t think it’s a particularly wise idea to start questioning matters of faith in the moments before entering an aging Tunnel infrastructure under the Hudson River…

Also, I don’t mean to offend any believers in Jediism with this comic. I mean, I guess theoretically, God or “The Force” could be literally speaking through the creative vision of George Lucas and relaying a true story about events from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away – right? (Ha… that’s sure to cause a stir amongst the anti-prequel crowd). And, well, an official Jedi Religion does sound pretty cool, actually. Really. Is there a New Jersey chapter? Hmm…

Yo, Greedo, I’mma let you finish…

I’m sooooooo sorry to Greedo and his fans and Jabba……………….. I spoke to Jabba right after and he said the same thing my mother would’ve said. Greedo is very talented! I like when he speaks with all those subtitles, it’s like some cool foreign movie! I’m in the wrong for going to the Cantina and taking away from his moment – though he would’ve missed anyway! Boooyaaawwww!!!! The Star Wars where Han shoots first is the best version of Star Wars in the past three decades!!!! That’s what it is!!!!!! I’m not crazy y’all, the Force is strong with me and i’m just real. Sorry for that!!!! – Kanye

Check out more of this meme here: http://kanyegate.tumblr.com/

-Nigel Matrix

You may have Syfy if you are…

I’ve got Syfy on my fingahs!!! (I keep going around saying that… if you listen to The Beatles you’ll know the reference). Supposedly the main reason for the Sci-Fi Channel to change to Syfy is that it can be trademarked, while Sci-Fi is a genre description so it couldn’t be. It’s just freaking me out, like, I feel as if I have a reading disorder as I know the word should be “sci-fi” but it’s spelled all weird now and somehow my brain is confused, like learning a new language. And their tagline is “Imagine Greater”, which is like a rip-off of the old Apple “Think Different” (both have adverb troubles, too…)

I think the problem with “syfy” is that it reads as “siffy” and not “sci-fi just spelled differently”. I think if they were a brand new channel/site it wouldn’t be a big deal, but to just re-brand an established channel that does well within its niche is weird. And if they are looking to expand beyond sci-fi content, then why not come up with some completely new name to reflect that? Weird…

– Nigel Matrix

Star Wars Facebook: Red Squadron

 

If the illustrious Red Squadron from Star Wars (and that’s “Episode IV: A New Hope”,  for you younginz….)  used Facebook, what quizzes would they take, what information would they share?  Well, if there were any food quizzes, good ol’ Porkins would be all over it.  We might learn why his parents were weird enough to name him “Jek”, which apparently means “guy who eats too much and has pointless facial hair”.  We might learn about why Wedge mysteriously survives all three original trilogy movies for no apparent reason, or why Biggs doesn’t…Hmmm….

• Biggs: facial hair, doesn’t survive. 
• Porkins: facial hair, doesn’t survive. 
• Luke: no facial hair, survives. 
• Wedge: no facial hair, survives. 

I get it now.  Maybe the key to surviving an assault on a Death Star to keep shaving regularly.  Is it the clean-shaven boylike innocence of youth that allows one to destroy armored battlestations with reckless impunity, or maybe just the fact that the facial hair gets itchy and distracts you so the TIE fighters can get you? Ennh. You worry about the towers. I’ll take care of those fighters.

Star Wars Facebook: The Empire “Likes” Back

The puzzling thing about Facebook is the “like” feature.   It’s pretty strange, really, you can just “like” posts by your friends. Maybe it’s just a quick way to acknowledge a post, but it seems pretty inaccurate most of the time to say you “like” a post completely and unconditionally.  John’s mother is coming to visit…Sally likes this.  Huh?  What the heck?  Does that really mean anything?  It’s just so final sounding.  It indicates the kind of enthusiam that mundane events like a visit from your in-laws just usually don’t generate.  Imagine the equivalent phone conversation.  “Dude, you mother-in-law is coming for dinner?  I like that, man.  I like it.  No, seriously.  I like it.  What?  Yeah,  L-I-K-E.”

You’d be sounding pretty weird in no time.   On Facebook, you can say more if you want, but there’s always the one-click “like” option to indicate global blanket approval so you don’t have to bother.  I’d imagine, though, that if you were in the Evil Galatic Empire, you’d find yourself “liking” a lot of the things your higher-ups would tell you…particularly higher ups like Grand Moff Tarkin, Admiral Ozzel, Captain Piett, and of course, Darth V.  Especially when they demonstrate the power of the Death Star by obliterating the planet Alderaan.  Or, try this: “Like, ZOMG, Darth, I like, so totally liked that way you, like, tried to hunt down those like, Rebel Scum in our trench. ROTFLBBQ, FTW.”  Use Facebook, and like, unleash your inner Silicon Valley Girl.  Gag me with a TurboLaser.

Rock Band: Mos Eisley

It’s a well-known fact in Star Wars fandom that the Mos Eisley Cantina Band only knows one song.   When they kick back and relax after work, safely at home after a long day of weirdos such as Greedo, Walrus Man, and Han Solo shooting and chopping up the customers at their only steady gig, what better way than with Rock Band?   Of course, the standard Fender Strat controller isn’t compatable.  You have to get the special Bassoon–O-Phone controllers to play it.  They’d better score some overdrive soon, or else that blue elephant-man Max Rebo and his weirdo stalk-lipped blob singer Sy Snoodles will start stealing all the gigs.

But who are the Cantina band, and why did Wal-Mart release action figures of them?   Only Wikipedia and the “extended universe” book sequels know for sure.  According to the package for the action figures, the lead guy’s name is “Figrin D’an”.  Hey, whatcha figurin’, Dan?  He must always get stuck spliiting up the check for everyone.  It’s a dumb name, alright.  Even if we leave questions unanswered (like what kind of ring would you make from a fig, exactly?), it really sounds like figurine, which might exactly be why they decided to release D’an and friends as action figures.  Maybe it’s a tribute to George Lucas’ own genius in keeping the merchandising rights to the franchise.  The rest of the band is called “The Modal Nodes”, which is actually a weird music theory joke based on medieval composition techniques.  So, we can safely leave that aside.  And…moving right along….

Don’t look for Rock Band: Mos Eisley anytime soon.   You’ll just have to make due with Rock Band: The Beatles, Rock Band: Unplugged, Guitar Hero: Metallica,  and new track packs being released for Rock Band–Unplugged, Metal, and Classic Rock.  More Boston and Rush, yay.  No Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes.  Get over it already.

Star Trek: What’s the Matter?

So, what IS the “red matter” in the new Star Trek (2009) movie? Could it possibly be some exotic form of Silly Putty? Remember that stuff? It came in a little plastic egg, and you could squash it and stretch it, and it also bounced pretty good. It was actually a type of strange material somewhere between solid and a really slow liquid. The grooviest thing was the way you could flatten it onto a newspaper or comic book, and then peel it away to reveal a copy of whatever was on the page, which you could then proceed to deform as you wished. Hey, don’t laugh, Generation Facebook! This was before scanners and Photoshop, and even photocopiers weren’t that readily available back in the 70s when I was a kid (and Silly Putty was around since the late 50s, so it really was the “analog Photoshop” of its time).

I did think the whole red matter MacGuffin was awesome. Although, I’m not sure if it totally qualifies as a MacGuffin, since it actually provides a function in the movie, even if we don’t really find out exactly what it is – just what it does, which is to (spoilerz) create massive singularities with a convenient script-enhancing, cool-cameo-enabling time-travel component.

As a huge Star Wars fan myself, I have to say this new Star Trek was just incredible – J.J. Abrams and his writers definitely injected some Star Wars genetic material into the Trek DNA, bringing a lot more energy and higher special effects standards to the mix. But the characters really brought the story to life for me – all of them were excellently casted and portrayed spot-on by the actors, with just the right balance of homage to the originals and a fresh take on them.

Nero, the tattooed, Romulan villain of the movie, wasn’t the most interesting evil space alien, but he had a few cool stand-out moments when he wasn’t busy napping or trimming his five-o’clock shadow. His facial tattoos did remind me of another famous sci-fi prequel villain who also sought revenge… someone a bit redder and, er, hornier shall we say (see, everything always comes back to Star Wars for me – sorry Trekkies).

– Nigel Matrix

The new self-help fad sweeping the Galaxy.

Celebrity Speaker Extolls Virtues of Arcane Weaponry As Motivational Metaphor

May the Glaive be with you. Always. You know you’ve tried to use The Force. C’mon, just admit it. Reached out your hand and focused with all of your might on lifting your toy X-Wing out of a muddy puddle in the backyard when no one was looking. The Glaive, a cross between a boomerang, shuriken and a pocket knife/switchblade, was a unique weapon wielded by Colwyn, the Errol-Flynn-meets-Luke-Skywalker King of planet Krull, using Force-like techniques to control it.

Krull, the fantasy/sci-fi movie from 1983, always seemed like one part Star Wars, one part Lord of the Rings (though, I guess back then I wouldn’t have made the LOTR reference. Maybe more like classic Robin Hood films – not the Kevin Costner/Bryan Adams chickflick). You know, Hero’s Journey/Joseph Campbell stuff. Or maybe they just copped that medieval episode from classic Galactica (the one where Starbuck teaches all of those blonde pre-Narnia kids how to storm a castle while singing a song to remember their strategy). Hey, come to think of it, The Empire Strikes Back was sort of like the Ice Planet Zero BSG episode (man, those Oliva Newton-John wannabe clones were glacier-melting hot). Not sure which came first in that case, and too lazy to Wiki it today. And that whole Firefly series was kinda like the cowboy Galactica episode (Red Eye the cylon RULED!). Hey, it’s all good – it just always made sense that EVERY sci-fi franchise should have an ice planet episode, a western-in-space episode, a medieval-in-space episode, etc. It’s just what you do.

Watching Krull again recently, I realized how all of the various situations that test Colwyn in his quest to save Princess Lyssa from the evil Beast could be translated into a self-help program encouraging positive thinking, building confidence, etc. Colwyn is just such a hyper-positive dude. In the end, when your Glaive is stuck in the flesh of the hideous Beast and you can’t get it back, you’ve got to trust in yourself. Though there’s also that special fire the Princess gave you – you know, the fire that you can shoot out of your hand. That always helps, too.

– Nigel Matrix

The Apple Store, Bespin Mall

Enraged Cybernaut Bemoans Latest Technology

Ah, Lobot. Short for lobotomy? They say (in the Expanded Universe) that Lobot was some kind of criminal at one time, and he eventually wound up as an “indentured servant” to the administration of Cloud City. Forced to have cyber implants installed on his head and take orders directly into his brain, Lobot supposedly was a mute by that point. Oh well, I don’t really follow the EU much… seems like Lucas doesn’t really, either. If I recall correctly, in Episode III, there are some pilots wearing implants similar to Lobot’s on the Tantive IV – the familiar Blockade Runner, an Alderaanian vessel of Senator Organa. So would such a peaceful, highly democratic, poster-child-of-the-Rebellion planet such as Alderaan allow indentured servitude to exist? Hmm…

Oh well, mute or not, in the case of this comic, Lobot has reason to scream over the never-ending march of technology. Maybe he can get a refund if he writes to Steve Jabba of Apple Intergalactic, Inc.

– Nigel Matrix