The Washington Post is shutting down their “What Was Fake on the Internet” feature, because what’s the point any more? Caitlin Dewey explains:
… We launched “What was Fake” in May 2014 in response to what seemed, at the time, like an epidemic of urban legends and Internet pranks: light-hearted, silly things, for the most part, like new flavors of Oreos and babies with absurd names.
Since then, those sorts of rumors and pranks haven’t slowed down, exactly, but the pace and tenor of fake news has changed. Where debunking an Internet fake once involved some research, it’s now often as simple as clicking around for an “about” or “disclaimer” page. And where a willingness to believe hoaxes once seemed to come from a place of honest ignorance or misunderstanding, that’s frequently no longer the case. Headlines like “Casey Anthony found dismembered in truck” go viral via old-fashioned schadenfreude — even hate.
There’s a simple, economic explanation for this shift: If you’re a hoaxer, it’s more profitable. Since early 2014, a series of Internet entrepreneurs have realized that not much drives traffic as effectively as stories that vindicate and/or inflame the biases of their readers. Where many once wrote celebrity death hoaxes or “satires,” they now run entire, successful websites that do nothing but troll convenient minorities or exploit gross stereotypes. Paul Horner, the proprietor of Nbc.com.co and a string of other very profitable fake-news sites, once told me he specifically tries to invent stories that will provoke strong reactions in middle-aged conservatives. They share a lot on Facebook, he explained; they’re the ideal audience…
Needless to say, there are also more complicated, non-economic reasons for the change on the Internet hoax beat. For evidence, just look at some of the viral stories we’ve debunked in recent weeks: American Muslims rallying for ISIS, for instance, or Syrians invading New Orleans. Those items didn’t even come from outright fake-news sites: They originated with partisan bloggers who know how easy it is to profit off fear-mongering…
***********
Apart from saluting the death of concensus reality, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend?
Baud
Next thing you know, you’ll have people running fake campaigns for president.
I’m disgusted by these charlatans.
Schlemazel
So this is how civilization dies. Interesting, I could have been very happy not having to watch it happen.
Marc
I’m shocked, shocked….no, no I’m not. At this point, unless the latest ‘thing’ on the internet lasts more than 72 hours will I start to put stock in it – and then only after checking a couple of sites first (like snopes). Grifters gotta grift, and all that…
eric
FOX is a fake news site..who is debunking that?
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
You need to issue an executive order banning fake campaigns for president. That’ll teach Larry Lessig.
Yutsano
So…they wanted to outSnopes Snopes? Okay then…
Steeplejack (phone)
How come we never get to promote fake news stories here?
FlyingToaster
@Amir Khalid:
Sadly, No.
Peale
It’s not true that Baud is sending me to Japan tomorrow to pick up a kelp to serve at campaign events. I’m actually going there to hire yakuza to rough up news editors who refuse to cover the campaign.
gene108
Anybody interested in discussing Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens?
Left more questions than answers for me.
FlyingToaster
@Steeplejack (phone): The war on Christmas has been lost by Christmas:
Christmas? What’s that?
Valentine’s Day? We’re on to Easter
The problem is that reality is so weird that mere fictional news stories feel tame by comparison.
Marilynd..so
There are still good people lurking around out there! Went Xmas grocery shopping at the locally-owned supermarket. A little lady (85+, 4’9″) approached me and stuffed a $50 gift card for the store we were in. She had bought a bunch of them, and just wandered the store with her daughter, handing them out to random people who she thought looked like they would appreciate it…..
rikyrah
Peanut pretty much sticks to the band of children’s networks of Nick/Disney. But, somehow, I was watching the Halloween episode of Black-ish, and she sat and watched it, and is now hooked! She has been going one by one through the DVR…LOL
Peale
@gene108: yeah. I wanna spoiler thread, though.
mclaren
@Baud:
“Next thing you know, you’ll have people running fake campaigns for President.”
Jeb Bush is already doing that. Polling 3% and dropping.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
I think leaving us with a lot of questions was kind of the point, so I didn’t mind. Hopefully Damon Lindelof won’t get involved in later scripts since his problem is that he comes with interesting but ultimately completely unanswerable questions and then has to scramble to cover the plot hole.
ETA: Example that spoils a completely different movie — in Tomorrowland, George Clooney’s character is in love with an android who will always remain a 12-year-old girl in appearance. It’s an interesting idea, but where the hell do you go with that plot-wise without making Clooney or any other actor seem like a child molester?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Peale: A sneaky spoiler thread…
@Marilynd..so: Thank you for that delightful story.
mclaren
@gene108:
The latest Star Wars film is undoubtedly pure shite, to which the gullible deluded public is responding with delirious joy — just like The Phantom Menace.
This is a dead franchise that needs to have a stake pounded through its rotting heart.
Anoniminous
Usually I avoid J.J. Abrams’ films because LENS FLARE! I have on good authority he stifled himself for this one so I plan to see it after the Newton’s Birthday Celebration crowd dwindles.
Bill Murray
@Baud: I thought this was just no one these days can measure up to the greats of yesteryear — Pat Paulsen, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy James, Cobra Commander, Zippy the Pinhead, Yelnick McWawa. Pogo Possum, Barbara Millicent Roberts and Bill the Cat.
Felonius Monk
Why search the Internet for fake news when you can get all you want at the NY Times.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Remake the film for a Japanese audience. Sex-doll hentai.
Mnemosyne
As I reported on the previous open thread, I survived the solo trip to Disneyland with my niece and nephew, though I made the rookie mistake of buying them lightsabers before dinner and then had to police my nephew the rest of the day. Now I know for next time to take him to an open area and let him fool around with it to his heart’s content before we try to move along to the next activity.
Also, I played the first act of the Hamilton cast album in the car for my Broadway-loving niece and her reaction was (almost verbatim), “OMG THE FEELS!” So I’ll be giving her a copy of that for Christmas, and she’s going to help me get on Steam and show me how to play “Undertale,” which is her current obsession. Pop culture obsessions kind of run in the family.
Bostondreams
@gene108:
definitely lots of questions, but I greatly enjoyed it. It will be interesting to see where they go with Episode VIII, and my daughter (and I) both loved the the character of Rey.
Aside: some of the background for the film is laid out in the recent novels and comics, which are considered canon now that the ‘Expanded Universe’ is now just ‘Legends’. Not that folks may have read those, but they explore some a bit.
lamh36
Here we are again…time for the annual discussion on the Sound of Music…crappy or fantastic here at BJ…lol
no one told me Sound of Music Sing-A-Long was on ABC tonight.
No self respecting Sound Of Music fan needs captions to sing along..pufffttt
True confessions time, I had such a crush on Christopher Plummer after first seeing Sound Of Music when I was like 12 (so 1988 or so). I was so disappointed to find out his was an old man.
A Humble Lurker
@Mnemosyne:
Undertale is very good, and it’s very much worth playing multiple times. (I’m still finding new stuff!) Just don’t Google it or look anything up on Youtube until you can’t be spoiled anymore.
I’m looking forward to Hamilton coming to Chicago.
SiubhanDuinne
Consensus, please, Anne Laurie. (I wouldn’t bother, but you’re usually a meticulous speller.)
What amazes me is that legitimate news organizations like NBC (and high-level politicians, and such) didn’t long ago snatch up domain names with any possible version of their identity, such as the cited Nbc.com.co. Wouldn’t it be worth a few hundred bucks a year to a giant corporation or a Presidential candidate to seek out and obtain any imaginable .com, .org, .co, .net etc. extension, as well as the more obvious variations on their names (both the one-L and two-L Hilary/Hillary spellings, for instance)?
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
“I think leaving us with lots of questions is the point.”
LOL!
Classic Hollywood buzzword-phrase that covers up a limitless ocean of bad screenwriting.
“The Love Guru was unwatchably awful.”
Oh, but leaving us with lots of questions is the point.
“Ishtar was an incoherent mess.”
Leaving us with lots of questions was the whole point.
“WTF, Phantom Menace? Midichlorians?”
But leaving us with lots of questions was the point!
Congratulations to Mnemosyne for finding the laziest and most peurile sophistry yet to excuse shitty screenwriting.
A job as Jeb’s speechwriter awaits you…
Eric S.
@gene108: Seen it. Is there a safe discussion spot?
cmorenc
The other thing that’s dead now is irony, strangled by obliviousness.
SiubhanDuinne
@FlyingToaster:
Those Easter chocolates are going to be four months old by the time the actual holiday rolls around.
Central Planning
I’m going in for carpal (and cubital) tunnel surgery tomorrow. Total surgery time should be about 28 minutes. I suspect I’ll be there for hours for the prep and recovery. Bummer I can’t eat or drink anything fun. At least the surgery is first thing.
The nerve testing was positively medieval – electric shocks to measure nerve speed and a couple of needles that went into the flesh in my hand.
Anyway, I’m told the recovery is pretty quick (small incisions) and maybe I’ll get some good pain meds. I suppose BJ responses will be slower since I’ll have to type with one hand.
Peale
@SiubhanDuinne: those are probably last year’s remainders to boot.
SiubhanDuinne
@Peale:
Hah! Yes, quite probably.
Botsplainer
@gene108:
Haven’t seen it yet. My take on Star Wars is that it’s universe is cruel and unworkable to the point of its inhabitants having a high “what’s the fucking point” suicide rate.
Why have AIs running about while still having to manually pilot spacecraft? What would ever be the working rationale for a 10000 member legislative body during the Republic? Could an Emperor of such a large domain know enough about the polities, capabilities, societies and economies to make sensible decisions?
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Yes! Another Hamilfan.
@lamh36:
True fans know it backwards and forwards. Some of us know the harmonies and the choreography/staging. I almost ruined it in college by watching it stoned. Don’t ever do that!
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
To “Sound of Music,” I kind of have to say, “Meh.” I never liked it all that much, in part because my first name is way too easy to mock to one of the tunes in it. (I refuse to say which one.) I was around that same age when The Empire Strikes Back came out, so Harrison Ford is my Christopher Plummer. ;-)
@A Humble Lurker:
I read the Wikipedia article, so at least I know not to rampage around killing everyone in sight. I’m more of a Sims kind of gameplayer when I play at all, but it does sound really interesting.
If she does get really into it after listening to the whole soundtrack a few times, I’ll drop a word in my brother’s ear that he should buy tickets for her when we have our annual family reunion in the Chicago area next year. Heck, I’ll even volunteer to take her, if I must make the sacrifice. ;-)
I think her mind was a little extra blown because she’s used to various fandoms where there are a lot of rules to follow about what’s “canon” and what isn’t, so the mere idea that you could use contemporary music and language to tell a period story was way out of her experience, in a good way.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Central Planning: Best of luck! Recover quickly.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
I’m looking forward to watching you eat crow after you actually see it rather than pontificate about how awful it must be based on what you’ve imagined in your head. Of course, experience tells us that you’re going to come back and pretend that you never said any of what you said here today.
Botsplainer
@lamh36:
The only good parts of the Sound of Music occur after the Nazis show up.
There are literally no movies or shows that can’t be made better with the addition of Nazis. Imagine adding Nazis to an episode of Friends. Or having them show up on Sons of Anarchy?
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Which was basically the point. It’s not intended to be a stand-alone movie (as the original Star Wars/Episode IV was) but as the first part of a three part series. They don’t want to wrap everything up neatly any more than you’d want the first act of a play to be a self-contained episode.
Debbie
@Botsplainer:
The Nazis would have folded like cheap suits before the SOA.
PurpleGirl
@lamh36: Theodore Bikel is my Baron. I had the Broadway cast album to listen to. Plummer was good but I liked Bikel much more. (For those who may not know him, he was also a folksinger of note and he played Mr. Worf’s human father in ST:NG.)
ETA: Want to talk about TV scheduling: TNT had The Wizard of Oz on opposite NBC’s showing of The Wiz. (Friday night I think)
Betty Cracker
@lamh36: I vote “fabulous” — it’s definitely my favorite musical ever. I wish someone would do a spin-off movie featuring the post-von Trapp exploits of Baroness Schraeder!
@Central Planning: Ugh, the testing sounds torturous! I hope the surgery and recovery goes smoothly; you’ve suffered enough!
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
There’s a reason Chris Plummer always referred to it as “The Sound of Mucus.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Your real name is Ada Wise, right?
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
I make you the same promise as mclaren — when you finally hear Hamilton, you’re going to have to eat your words. I promise not to gloat too much, though.
;-)
SiubhanDuinne
@Central Planning:
As a needle-phobic person, I must say my knees clenched up just reading that description. Eeek.
Hope all goes well for you tomorrow, and that your recovery is swift and easy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Marilynd..so:
Wow! Great story. Thank you for sharing it here.
I’m curious, did the lady make a little speech, or provide an explanatory card, or simply shove the gift card in your shopping basket and scurry off?
However she decided to handle it, what a lovely thing to do.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: The real-life von Trapp great-grandchildren now tour with a musical group called Pink Martini, in case you’re interested.
A Humble Lurker
@Mnemosyne:
Even if the show completely sucked, that right there would still be a beautiful result of it existing.
SiubhanDuinne
@PurpleGirl:
Yup, same here. I came to know it through Theo Bikel as the Captain and Mary Martin as Maria on the OCA.
PurpleGirl
@Gin & Tonic: And the last time I checked the web, they still had the farm/resort in New Hampshire (Vermont?) that they started in the 1950s. Also did you know that The von Trapp family did not make money off of the Sound of Music. Maria had sold the rights to the story to a European film company which produced a movie in German. So she had no rights in R&H’s play and music.
ETA: I remember seeing the movie (with English subtitles?) in Loews Triboro theater.
SiubhanDuinne
@PurpleGirl
Theodore Bikel was also, of course, the original Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.
henqiguai
@Mnemosyne (#49):
Not much into musicals and certainly have no plans to see Hamilton, but from the snippets of song from the production I’ve heard, it’s, at best, a bog-standard stage musical, with nothing special unless you’re a fanboi of such stuff to begin with. Of course, I also barely listen to music anymore, and that mostly classical; very uncritically.
Roger Moore
@Peale:
The big reveal will be when it turns out that Rey’s last name is actually Ayanami, and she’s the clone of Yui Ikari. Also, too, Kylo Ren is actually wearing his mask and joining up with the New Order as part of an elaborate scheme to get revenge on the Zabi family.
JDM
Translation: Now that the fake stories being passed around have real world disastrous consequences, we’re going to stop debunking them.
Applejinx
@SiubhanDuinne: And one of the stars and lead singers of Frank Zappa’s ‘200 Motels’ :)
“And may the Lord have mercy on the fate of this movie and God bless the mind of the man in the street…”
Mnemosyne
@henqiguai:
Wevs. If you hate the entire genre of musicals, you probably will hate Hamilton, so you’re excused. You can continue to listen to the exact same pieces of music over and over and over again, slightly reinterpreted by different musicians.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Wow! I’ve been a Pink Martini fan for a while but did not know about the Von Trapp connection.
SiubhanDuinne
@Applejinx:
Whoa, really? I. Did. Not. Know. That.
Peale
@Botsplainer: it is a cruel universe and the Force seems to prevent anything from improving. It’s not a religion for optimists, for sure. Or lovers, or families. One theme of this round of films seems to be decay and being stuck. That part I liked. It’s a worthwhile problem to explore. Maybe this time being in love will lead somewhere good, but I’m not holding my breath. The force doesn’t allow much wiggle room for positive relationships. The ideal relationship is mentor/mentee. Every other kind of relationship isn’t durable.
I liked Rey. Hope to see her again. Didn’t like Andy Serkis as the Big Bad. He looks like Gollum again. A Giant Huge Gollum. Han and Chewy I liked, kind of. at times they appear to have the closest relationship of any two pairs in the story. But then the script plays one or two fan service jokes too many with them. (Really? After 40 years together, Han has never fired Chewy’s crossbow before?)
henqiguai
@Mnemosyne (#61):
“Hate”? Simply no interest. Which is, to me, kind of funny since the Emerson University radio station down in Boston has a show tunes program on Saturdays I will occasionally listen to if I’m listening to the radio on a Saturday afternoon.
And if you think the universe of classical music is that limited I would suggest you step out of the musical theater space for a look around. Then too there’s jazz and some blues; but the musical radio market here in New England is amazingly limited, so there’s not much to pick from (local musical experts have actually complained that, even with all the universities in this region even the indie-music scene is oddly limited; wouldn’t know, not really my bailiwick).
gene108
@Bostondreams:
Not bothered about changing around the Expanded Universe. There were a few books published between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, plus a comic book series and a lot of those ideas went down the memory whole, when Timothy Zahn got deputed to relaunch Star Wars novels, in the early 1990’s.
Though I think Ep. VII did tap EU ideas here and there, such as the creation of super weapons.
gene108
@Eric S.:
IDK? I am trying to avoid spoilers.
I think, visually, what impressed me is old things looked really old and beaten up compared to newer things.
I’d just never seen that level of detail before.
Mnemosyne
@henqiguai:
So other people should have to stretch and listen to the music you like, but you shouldn’t have to be bothered to do the same?
Again, if you hate the whole genre and can’t tell the difference between Starlight Express and Les Miserables, then there’s no point in listening.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: You should see them live; various extras show up. Like NPR’s Ari Shapiro, for instance.
Zinsky
@cmorenc: The absurd has become the commonplace.
K488
@PurpleGirl: Stowe, Vermont was/is the location of the Von Trapp family lodge. I think it’s still in operation. It’s near the ski runs on Mount Mansfield. Beautiful area; my son (K310) lives nearby.
Marilynd..so
@SiubhanDuinne: I was in the checkout line. She came up, pressed into my hand, turned and left. Took me a couple seconds to figure out what I was holding. I called out to her, asking if I could have a hug. Of course I could!!
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
My father use to listen to classical music or opera and I hated them. I’ve heard one classical piece that I liked played in a European plaza in a flash mob situation. That was good. I feel the same way about musicals. Just not for me.
But there is a whole world of music that I enjoy a lot. There are different types of music for a reason. If you enjoy it then it is good. That doesn’t mean I need to hear it or appreciate it.
Example, try this, Rajaton
Ajabu
@henqiguai:
Personally I’m still blown away by West Side Story (actually got to see the Broadway production before it became a “thing”) and the French/Brazilian film “Black Orpheus. Orfeu doesn’t really qualify as a musical but the music from that film lives on and I still play most of it today. It was released in 1959 and the material is as fresh as if it was written last week. West Side was Bernstein at his best. Wonderful music and… tres sophisticated for Broadway.
Of course, YMMV. Just my opinion after 50 years in the music biz.
henqiguai
@Mnemosyne (#68):
I always thought the criticisms of you on some of the discussions were somewhat misplaced when I read them, but you really don’t pay attention when one of your passions is not given proper deference. I said *I* don’t listen to much beyond classical and jazz; that even the experts criticize the New England radio music market and that *I* don’t bother to listen because there’s not much in the broadcast market that appeals to me. How you managed to get I insist on others kowtowing to my tastes is beyond me. You seem to know a lot about movies and love musicals; but your reading comprehension is, at best, spotty and you seem to really enjoy taking offense at non-existent slights. It seems those criticisms were correct. I accept the correction.
sukabi
@mclaren: yeah, but he’s relieved he’s no longer in first place.link
J R in WV
Love lots of music, from Old Time Mountain music (yes, banjos and fiddling) through Jazz, Classical, Blues, most good rock, some authentic country music, Texas Swing. Only like opera when it’s good and I’m right there watching. then it’s tolerable.
You know how you can tell the difference between two fiddle tunes? They have different names~!
Musical theater, it’s OK. Somewhat hammy compared to real drama, and the music isn’t really sophisticated.
One of the great things about NYC is the live music, jazz, rock, blues, folk. We got to see Judy Collins a few years ago, in a tiny club, she was like 15 feet away. Amazing, 72 and still a voice like a bell ringing. We’ve seen the N Y Philharmonic, the Boston Orchestra, the metropolitan Opera, Jimmy Vaughn.
And there’s a great live music scene here in WV, partly because of Mountain Stage, a live music public radio show. Los Lobos, Taj Mahal, country and rock, REM before they got famous, quite a list of great talents.
So don’t get stuffy about your music. There’s a thousand kinds of music, and most all of it is good if you get talented and skilled folks working at it.
henqiguai
@Ajabu (#74):
I understand. It’s not that I dislike a wide range of musical genres, it’s just that I’ve grown away from music over the years. And as much as I have enjoyed some musicals (West Side Story being one of them) I also recognize that I simply don’t have enough interest in the whole music appreciation exercise to get past some of my initial reactions.
Actually, Mnemosyne’s constant pushing of Hamilton prompted me to actually listen to some of the offerings when I ran across them; and decided I didn’t like it. But then, I also don’t like rap or hip hop and only listen to it when the rest of the family wants to hear it. I do like traditional minor key Chinese and Japanese music and simply ignore my family’s side-eyed disdain when I stumble across some and listen. I also don’t fully understand the degree of fandom she (Mnemosyne, and people like her, display about such things, but that’s also partially because I simply do not get that invested in things of a purely emotional nature – I was nicknamed ‘Spock’ many years ago for a reason). Another one of those things I recognize about myself and just don’t bother others about their passions; except sports; I’ll dog the snot out of spots fans because I can.
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV: “There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind” – Duke Ellington.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne: and @A Humble Lurker:
There is one spoiler you need, not for plot purposes, but as practical advice. Unless you are enough of a gamer to do replays, be aware that the game’s gimmick is that you can go through it without ever killing anyone. If you’re only likely to play once, keep that knowledge strongly in mind.
The game is cool, heartwarming, funny, and painfully tragic, in turns and sometimes mixed up together. I hope to hear you enjoyed.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, perfect. The Duke has always been a favorite of mine. A genius, a giant of his skill.
I actually got to see Louis Armstrong live in a huge St Petersburg theater, probably around 1960 or so. We were there over winter break, I saw an ad in the paper, and was non-stop begging until Dad finally gave in. They were big on a wide variety of experiences, and Louis was elderly by then. Our seats were in the stratosphere, but the sound was huge. I think Pearl Bailey was with the band at the time.
Big band music, with that swing. “It don’t mean a thing, if it don’t have that swing!”
My piano teacher was hired by a big band out of high school Their trombone player got in a fight behind the Elks Club and lost a front tooth – the end of his horn career, and my teacher won the auditions the next morning. He was arranging charts for big bands by the time he was old enough to vote. Then he got on running the music for a famous club in NYC, the Latin Quarter. He moved back to his home town to raise a family, had a dance band, taught piano, led choir at the big Methodist Church. I still play, in private.
I’m grateful for public radio for the variety of music the provide, even here in the hollers of WV.
Matt McIrvin
@Peale: The Star Wars universe has never really made any sense on any level, but the progress-free, endlessly cyclic nature of it becomes clear if you look at some of the expanded-universe stuff about how things weren’t so different even thousands of years in the past. I suppose none of that is canonical any more, but it doesn’t sound as if this aspect has changed much. It’s really quite depressing. Even the Old Republic, which was so great according to old Obi-Wan, seems to have had a lot of corners in which people live worse than they do in First World 21st century Earth.
Maybe it’s a society that was like ours a long, long time ago, say 20,000 years back before their miraculously cheap and fast spaceships were invented, but they hit some ceiling beyond which any lasting improvement in the quality of life wasn’t practically possible and they’ve just been running through cycles of decay, crisis and rebuilding ever since then, like Asimov’s version of the Galactic Empire (which was riffing on Gibbon).
Thinking about the background too much as science fiction just makes it fall apart, though.
Matt McIrvin
@lamh36: I have nostalgic feelings about The Sound of Music just from childhood repetition (my parents had the movie soundtrack album on LP), but one of the funniest things I’ve ever read was this dissection of it by a bunch of historians… who are Austrian. Starting with an explanation of how just trying to rent the movie in Austria gets you funny looks.
Peale
@gene108: yeah. I think this series is going to be a story of renewal somehow. Everything is just a shadow of its former self. The whole galaxy is just stuck. Even the baddies who are stuck in a rump empire can come up with ideas that they had before that didn’t work the last time. Bigger, yes, hooooge weapons, but still the same problems when they were smaller weapons.
Han’s gun is pretty beaten up. The x-wings could use some paint. Rey’s scavenger suit is bits and pieces of other uniforms. Her ride is clearly used. The dark side can’t find a decent sith apprentice. The one they have is confused and despite years of training can’t control his temper, follow through on plans, or effectively use his light saber. Luke can’t find enough Jedi to train. And no one knows the history of how they got there. Han, by choice, is back where he started, but has lost the falcon. But Rey completely missed his major role in history or the role that ship played in the past. He was, after all, a hero of the rebellion and his ship assisted in destroying two Death Stars. But he has very little to show for that.
It’s like WWII is over and the kids don’t know what Omar Bradley did. Or that there were bombs dropped on Dresden.
Omnes Omnibus
@Peale: So you are assuming that everyone who wants to see the movie has had a chance to do so? You could, maybe, wait a week? No?
JDM
I don’t worry too much about spoilers. By the time I get the movie from the library sometime next year, I’ve forgotten what the spoilers were.
Tone In DC
I saw it in PG County (on Branch Avenue) for five bucks. A better flick than any of the previous trilogy, by a decent margin.
Insomnia is soooo much fun. If I drink some more gin, maybe I’ll nod off before 4:00 (there’s never golf on TV when I truly need it).
henqiguai
@efgoldman (#84):
And personal taste. Some of us always keep that in mind when critiquing samplings and others’ listening choices.
And
I entirely concur. Hence my comment about Emerson University radio, similarly (in the past) Howard University radio, and sometimes Harvard University radio; all three student hosted programming and quite eclectic.
henqiguai
@Peale (#87):
Someone referenced Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy; your take is on point, if you look at the movie as being in the equivalent Interregnum epoch wherein the Foundations are rebuilding after the fall of the original empire.
K488
@efgoldman: Yes, actually.
ArchTeryx
@gene108: Yep. The Big Bad base was basically the Galaxy Gun mated to an entire planet.
mapaghimagsik
I will not leave a spoiler, but in the Star Wars universe being strong in the force means being the worst. parent. ever.