I'm back!

And still alive, despite the best efforts of the so-called drivers in Atlanta. I have many things to write about, thoughts from my trip, and other things. Such as my mail proving my congresscritters are useless hacks, but we knew that anyway. But enough on that. More later, on many things. Now, to catch up on email and LJ and the other things that constitute life, such as it is.

Tags: Me, Life, The Universe, and Everything

First, Star Wars

(Basically crossposted to David Brin's Blog in comments.)

I saw Episode 3 this weekend, and it didn't suck. I don't think I could quite call it good, either. It was far too rushed. A cardinal rule of writing is "start as close to the end as you can." You want to start where the action is, because it's more interesting, and you don't need to bore your reader with lots of crap they don't need to know. And Episode 3 was really the prequel to the other Star Wars movies. Episodes I and II were just filler, that we didn't need. They could have been combined into one, or maybe one and a half movies.

And what I would have done was to play up the corruption and inefficiency in the Senate, and the hidebound Jedi order, to show WHY the Emperor's action seemed a good choice. And taken longer to show Anakin's being duped and led into the dark side. I'd have made Dooku into not just a pawn, but actually believing in the separatists, and using dark ends to what he thought were good means. Give Darth Maul's tiny part over to Dooku and Grevious. I'd have shown more of the budding Rebellion too, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and the others who watched what Palpatine was doing but couldn't get people to listen to them and were finally driven outside the channels of authority. Yes, the center of the movie is Anakin (and R2-D2), but there's many other things going on, most of which didn't get any mention.

Obi-Wan was out on the street in Episode 2, he and Anakin could have seen the way the Jedi were losing trust and respect, and try to tell the Council, who wouldn't listen. And then Obi-Wan would start to lose some too, when he got promoted to the Council.

And I'm pretty sure Palpatine was sending Anakin the visions of death, which would have explained why he didn't think "Hey! There's hospitals, with bacta and droids and other practically magical tech, maybe they can keep her from dying!" Or hadn't they invented the C-Section a long time ago in a galaxy far far away?

But basically, Episode 3 was the real story, that Lucas wanted to tell, and should have been telling from the beginning, the other two movies were filler. And so Episode 3 was rushed, confused, and has a completely tin ear for romance, but is an overall better movie than either other prequel. But it's sad that the most emotion I felt was at the deaths of ideas, when the Jedi were being slaughtered for example, as opposed to things tied to any of the actual characters. Even though they were misguided and hidebound in the end, the Jedi had many admirable qualities, and did work to try and bring about good for the most people they could. And even though Lucas has FUBARed much of the continuity for the other books and things about Star Wars, Luke's Reformed Jedi School of Making It Up As We Go Along avoided many of the flaws of the old Jedi order. Heck, they even let Jedi get married.

Yeah, okay, I'm a geek. But Star Wars was a big part of my life for a long time, and still is, and not all of it sucks as bad as the prequels.

Actual posts about the trip itself soon.

Tags: Mindscribbles, Movies, Politics, Writing

In the interest of laziness

Letting other people say things I could say.

Tags: Links, Life, The Universe, and Everything, LJ

An Executive Summary

Wednesday: Caught the train down to Atlanta. Atlanta, one of the largest cities on the East coast only has 2 trains that go to the train station, one going South that arrives in the morning and one going North that leaves in the evening. That's very pathetic, and a sign of how badly the US rail system has decayed. Which is very sad, since trains are eminently preferable to planes, they're more comfortable, more spacious, and don't require hours of paranoid waiting for randomized computer lists and suspicious bored guards to poke through your underthings to make sure you're not going to blow everything up.

Thursday: Arrived in Atlanta. Made phone calls. Rented a car. Drove up to the hotel, got lost for about an hour because that's how I do things. Found the hotel, checked in, drove down to my friend Josh's fiancee's house and watched a couple movies with them before me and Josh went to get my brother from the airport. Then there was fooding, and a drive back up to the hotel.

Friday: Stuff. People arriving, we go to see Episode III with Josh & Amelia (the fiancee), plus some of Josh's family. See earlier review for the movie. Then meet up with the other guys who're going to be the other groomsman and the best man, go get our tuxes to make sure they fit, which they remarkably do, and are amazingly less sucky than stupidly complicated formal wear should be. Huzzah for fashion technology. though mine needed the sleeves let out a little, but no biggie. Then we were going to go to a techno club, except Josh didn't have exact directions with him, so we drove around Atlanta for two and a half hours and almost died about five times (more on that later) and got to the club eventually, but didn't meet their dress codes, since some of us had shorts, or open toed shoes on guys, or sneakers. Go figure. So I drive me and my brother and the other groomsman, Steve, back to the hotel. This was the fourth time driving that same stretch of 75, I think. Also, we played pool and ping pong over at the best man's house to waste time before the club.

Saturday: Wake up, be unable to find directions to the Magic prerelease, dick around, waste time, angst, end up not going, because of wedding rehearsal at 3. Do that. Go to rehearsal dinner at a saloon, which served very good food and was much nicer than it'd seemed on first impressions. Then back to the hotel to swim and waste some time until we changed and washed up and drove down 75 AGAIN to meet up and go to the club. We found it this time, and even went in, and there'll be a more detailed entry working off of this later. Then up 75 again.

Sunday: The wedding. Everything went well, aside from Steve's managing to disappear and require somebody to go back and pick him up at the hotel. Not too hot, and the clouds even came out so we didn't roast in our tuxes. I'll post some pictures once my brother gets them off the digicam and I can post them. Steve's plane left, the new couple left to open presents and prepare for their honeymoon, they should still be down at Disney. More swimming, plus packing and talking to Josh's family and general hanging out things.

Monday: Finish packing, check out from the hotel, drive down 75 yet again and out to the Museum Replicas Ltd showroom, which is really a bit of a letdown. Neat as it is to play with the swords a little, there wasn't that much there. Must all be in the warehouses. Then we got lunch at a Carribean/American cuisine place (that's what it said), though the chicken sandwich I got had quite a few bones in it. Me and Peter drove up into Atlanta, to go to SciTrek, an interactive science museum, that...apparently closed recently. So we dropped the car back off at Enterprise (the car worked well, and the folks at Enterprise were helpful) and they gave us a ride to the train station. Several hours early, but we got our tickets, then went over to the Borders across the street, where I read Hellblazer, Global Frequency, and some other things. Then we went back over, and waited for the train, which was a bit late, and got on. Slept off and on most of the trip.

Today: Arrived back at like 9am. Got picked up, then dropped my brother off at his apartment, and came home. Proceeded to start catching up on LJ friends page, blogs, comics, and so on. I haven't even started to try and catch up with the GG forum yet, that's gonna be crazy. Even if I'm not involved in that many. I wrote some on the trip and the train, some observations, some thoughts, and some notes for Fors stories. Which I need to bounce off my designated bouncer, then actually, y'know, write. Expect a return to your normal serving of links, rants, occasional insights, and similar over the next few days. Thought I might just head into town and catch up with a couple local people too, there's some things that're better for talking about face to face than to my LJ editor window.

Also, I need to try and figure if it's worth the effort of trying to find a non-awkward way to ask "do you have a boyfriend?" or just say "I'm no good at being subtle, do you have a boyfriend?" Or maybe "I'm testing a hypothesis, do you have a boyfriend? In my experience all the attractive women I meet do."

And yes, I'm fully aware of the existence of lesbians, but I don't think that's terribly relevant right now.

Tags: Me, Journal, Life, The Universe, and Everything, Mindscribbles