Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
Warning: This review will contain some spoilers so read at your own risk. The short version, however, is that I rather enjoyed the film and suggest that you go see it especially in 3D IMAX if you have the option available to you.
This is definitely the film that we’ve been waiting almost ten years for and for the most part it delivers. This is indeed Bilbo Baggins’s unexpected adventure and he will absolutely not return to the Shire the same hobbit. To the jump!
According to ComicBook.com, Kathleen Kennedy told ABC News Radio that we should be hearing an announcement for Episode VII sometime in January and that pre-production for the film will begin this coming spring. What’s the announcement? No one knows, since this is just an announcement of an announcement. One presumes that it could be a director.
So if that’s the case, speculate while you still can.
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Kicking off the show, Nanci highlights what’s new on the blog. Bria continued her comic suggestions with non-Big Two titles. She also continued her EU retrospective with Republic Commando and Clone Wars titles. Nanci gave us all an etiquette lesson for when you visit a live theater performance.
In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci’s caught up on Once Upon a Time and participated in one of her favorite Christmas traditions, watching Love, Actually (and she made Brian watch as well). Both Nanci and Brian visited New York together to catch a show. Brian’s got a new issue of Avengers Assemble sitting on his iPad. Emily’s been busy playing Minecraft now that she’s free from grading papers. Shane has been reading the Taltos novels by Steven Burst and listening to the Hobbit soundtrack. Bria’s been reading Star Wars novels and writing the occasional Star Wars fan fiction.
Deak’s Dirt starts with the Star Trek Into Darkness, Man of Steel, and Pacific Rim trailers. Gail Simone was fired from the Batgirl comics and we’re less than impressed with DC. Details of the new Legacy comic series dropped. In obligatory sequel trilogy news, Sam Jackson says he wants to be in on it. The Hobbit just released!
This week in Camie’s Concerns, it’s a roundtable discussion to look at just what happened in the Star Wars universe in 2012. From books, to conventions, to new films, there’s a whole lot of ground to cover, so strap in!
Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of the Solo Sound network. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store or the Xbox Music Store. We can also be found on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.
Instant gut reaction: It’s like Evangelion. WITH IDRIS ELBA.
Last weekend, I went to New York to visit family and meet up with Brian. While there, we attended a Broadway show. We’d both seen The Lion King before, but were just as excited to see it again, him for the second time and me for the third. It’s that good of a show, and it was fantastic as usual.
The experience was nearly ruined, however, by the extremely rude people sitting behind us. They talked, rather loudly, during the entire show. We sat in the mezzanine section, one row from the back, because those were the cheapest tickets available (seeing the show was a last minute splurge). Perhaps the people behind us thought they could act however they wanted because we were so far in the back? Perhaps they didn’t pay for their own tickets, so they didn’t care how much the tickets cost? Nobody else sitting around me was rude, so I couldn’t make a generalization about behavior of patrons in different sections of the theater. (Also, I’ve been near many rude people in the orchestra section as well.)
Whatever the case, I was extremely disheartened by the behavior of this group. I kept wondering if they’d never been to a show before, why nobody ever taught them how to act while watching live theater. Or, even better, why it wasn’t plain common sense to be quiet. A Broadway show isn’t a sporting event.
In case you ever find yourself going to see live theater, and are unsure of how to act, here are some guidelines!
1. No talking. Occasional – and I mean occasional, like once or twice in the show – whispering is okay, as long as the person next to you is the only person who can hear you. Just because you’re far away from the stage and the actors can’t hear you, doesn’t mean the people in the audience can’t.
2. Clapping to show your appreciation is perfectly acceptable. It is not necessary to whistle, scream, or otherwise make a fuss about a song or visual effect so everyone in your section can hear your reaction.
3. Silence your cell phones. Nobody wants the biggest number of a show ruined because your cell phone started ringing some inane tone.
4. Don’t turn on your phones to look at the time, return a text, or whatever. If your screen is illuminated, it’s bothering others and detracting from their enjoyment of the show.
5. No photography. Ever. It’s extremely rude to the performers and the audience around you. (I’m still shocked that a woman behind us thought it was appropriate to take a picture during the opening number. I’m even more flabbergasted that the usher didn’t immediately tell her to stop.)
6. If you’re going to eat or drink during a show, be quiet about it. Several years ago, there was a rule that you couldn’t bring food or drink into the theater. That rule must have changed since then, because you could do so at The Lion King. I don’t mind, as long as people are aware of others around them. Opening up a very loud wrapper in the middle of a play is rude. Make sure your snacks open before the show starts, and that everything is within reach. Not only is that being considerate of those around you, but it will keep your distractions to a minimum as well.
Mostly, however, just be considerate. People spend a lot of money to see live theater, especially on Broadway. The actors and musicians perform shows eight times per week, and most of them are still waiting for their big breaks. Have respect for them, and your fellow audience members. It’s not too much to ask.
(Note: As we were leaving the theater, I asked Brian if I could write a blog post on how to behave during live theater. His response? “DO IT.” He’s so predictable.)
We’re neck deep in the Clone War books now and in case there was any doubt, the war really sucked but we got some pretty great books out of it. This week, I started a love letter to Matt Stover, continued the one to Barriss Offee, and there was some other book that got lost in the middle. Oops.
Shatterpoint
This book is one of my favorite books in not only the entire Expanded Universe but of all time. Why? Two words: Matthew Stover.
Matthew Stover… How do I begin to explain Matthew Stover? Matthew Stover is flawless. I hear his writing hand is insured for $10,000. I hear he does lightsaber commercials… on Coruscant. His favorite movie is ‘How To Destroy A Reader In 300 Pages’. One time he met GRRM on a plane and he told Stover that he was good at killing people’s emotions. Lots of times he punched us in the feels… it was awesome.
Mean Girls joke out of the way, I positively adore Shatterpoint because this is the book that really establishes Mace Windu as an incredibly powerful Jedi Master who should not be messed with. The best part? It has absolutely nothing to do with SLJ playing him. Mace Windu is a force to be reckoned with and he is going to get his former Padawan off Haruun Kal or else. He’s also going to deal with this war and secure the planet for the Republic but that’s just quick task for after lunch.
Before we get into the book itself, I have to briefly mention the perfection that is Nick Rostu. I am forever sad that no one decided to write more about Mace being a general and Nick as his military aide. They are honestly the last two people who should probably be getting along and yet they have this wonderful dynamic. (“Are you crazy?” “Shut up, Nick.”) Plus, how can you not love someone with that sense of humor? Of course, there’s a lot more to him than just his ability to crack jokes. Underneath, he’s hardened by the lot in life he was dealt and he’s also a pretty good shot and cares about his friends. He’s one of those characters that I would happily buy books about on a routine basis. Or even short e-stories. Please?
Right from the start, this book never fails to draw me in. I get chills every time I read the recording of Depa: “I use the night and the night uses me. I have become the darkness in the jungle… Because nothing is more dangerous than a Jedi who’s finally sane.” Stover deconstructs both Mace and Depa but only one of them makes it out intact. It’s told almost purely from Mace’s point of view and even includes some first person entries and really puts you into his head in a way that no other Star Wars novel has really done. This book is Mace Windu. It’s honestly very difficult for me to describe why I love this book so much because it’s more of an experience than anything else. This is what perfection looks like.
Besides that, the only other thing I’ll say is that this book never fails to make me want a book set pre-Phantom Menace where we get to see Mace and Depa on a mission together, either as Master/Padawan or else after she’s on the Council. Not only could it be something unaffected by the new films but we’d get to read more about one of the most underused Jedi Masters.
After a few weeks off, we’re back with another installment of Trope Tuesday, our weekly sojourn into TV Tropes and the lovely literary devices that make our favorite entertainment work. This week, we’re looking at a trope called You Mean Xmas:
Even if the Christmas Special is widely used, a few writers catch on that some stories take place in a setting where certain holidays and celebrations shouldn’t exist in the original sense. So the characters celebrate a holiday that’s (hopefully) just coincidentally similar enough to have the audience roll their eyes.
Despite the eye-rolling, this can be a Justified Trope if the world of the story has solstices and equinoxes like our own, which would be logical times of the year to have a celebration.
Naturally, these episodes are aired around the holiday they’re really trying to depict, and sometimes may receive a name change in order to comment on them without raising the ire of Media Watchdogs.
Two words, folks: Holiday Special.
Last week, Emily got rather excited about a preview trailer dropping. This week, it’s Bria’s turn as the Man of Steel trailer drops.
No, we still don’t know who our favorite Brit, Benedict Cumberbatch, is playing in Star Trek: Into Darkness. But io9 does have spoilers on certain characters who will be appearing in the movie.
Also in io9’s morning spoilers: news on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Hobbit, and other shows.
I don’t read a lot of comics. I never really have, but when a friend started me reading comics, she reached into her long box, pulled out a long run of Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey and said, “Here, read this. It’s awesome.”
I now have a long box full of Birds of Prey. But only as written by Gail Simone. When she left Birds of Prey, I read a few issues, then was so disgusted with the way the story was going, I gave up. That was okay, though. Because then she started writing Wonder Woman. And all of a sudden, Wonder Woman was interesting! She was more than the pontificating diplomat. I didn’t buy a lot of Wonder Woman because I’d hit that graduate school stage of broke, but I got copies however I could. And then she was back on Birds of Prey and all was right with my world. Yes, I read other Batfamily comics, but that was only to get the context of the rest of universe in which Birds of Prey existed.
Oh, wait. Then DC rebooted. And we were losing Oracle, who I loved, and who Simone wrote so incredibly well. We had a character who was disabled and who still kicked butt, and we were losing that little bit of diversity. But Simone was going to write Batgirl, so that soothed the soul a bit.
Until today, when we discovered that DC fired her from Batgirl, leaving their most well-known female writer out in the cold.
I don’t know what to make of this. The Wired article I linked above points out that DC’s had plenty of problems with gender issues of late. What I am, however, is incredibly disappointed, because the woman who got me–and a lot of other girls–into DC comics–and who kept me interested in them over the last ten years–is no longer associated with them, and I see no good reason for it.
I don’t have a lot of analysis for this, partly because I don’t have a lot of insight into DC’s internal workings right now. But this decision hit me right in the feels, and I can’t imagine I’m the only one. Gail, have you thought about writing Star Wars comics?