Here’s a good-looking redbird who was hopping around under my window a while ago:
I’ve got a suction cup-attached birdfeeder on my window, but the squirrels have taken it over completely. I moved it to a higher pane to see if that would at least allow the birds to have a crack at the feeder occasionally, but the squirrels figured out how to navigate the new configuration in under 90 seconds. Clever critters, squirrels.
But the squirrels knock enough birdseed out of the feeder so that the birds do find food and entertain me with their company. And the mister recently installed a birdbath right outside the window, so birds and squirrels alike have fresh water.
I’m enjoying the quiet before the holiday whirlwind. What are you up to today?
mohagan
Cardinal! Perfect color for the holidays :-)
Germy
Reading an old book by Chlorine Windle
Anoniminous
The Force Awakens.
2D or 3D?
daverave
My yard is absolutely infested by red squirrels, I hate the rats-with-tails with a passion of a thousand whatevers. I’ve been reduced to surrounding my garden plants and annuals with unattractive chicken wire otherwise they will dig up the young plants as they bury the pecans and chestnuts from neighbor’s trees. I have a pellet gun pistol (not a firearm!) that once in a great while allows me to plink one (real difficult to hit from anything more than 10 feet) but they just run off as the pellet will not penetrate their mangy fur.
When I first moved to Sactown 26 years ago there were pretty grey squirrels but the imported, nasty, rat-like, red squirrels drove them all off long ago.
Get off my lawn you vermin! Die you MFs, DIE!!!1!
Germy
Press release from Fox Entertainment:
If I were on the Space Station, I’m not sure I’d want to see ALIEN.
OzarkHillbilly
Be sure to refresh the water in the birdbath everyday lest it become another mosquito restoration project.
Today I am waiting for my Baton Rouge son to show up. Gonna enjoy some time with him this week.
beltane
@daverave: My cats love red squirrels. There is a little red tail on my porch almost every day.
Gimlet
An 82-year-old (Milwaukee) woman called Brown Deer Police Sunday night requesting police because she heard someone chanting, “ISIS is good, ISIS is great” while having sex.
Police advised the woman to call back if she heard the chanting again.
Betty Cracker
@daverave: LOL, you sound like my husband — also a gardener, also a squirrel hater. I like squirrels and don’t begrudge them the birdseed. I just wish they were better at sharing!
@OzarkHillbilly: Good advice. Have fun with the son!
Roger
Anybody else see the new national poll that has a certain Cuban Senator Cuzing towards the top?
Trump may very well be in serious trouble nationally headed into the actual voting.
goblue72
@Anoniminous: We went to see it this past weekend. Saw it in 2D – was perfectly fine. It also seemed to attract less of the pre-teen/teen crowd and was more a combination of oldsters who didn’t want to deal with 3D and a handful of parental units with toddlers in tow. Though it was a 2PM Sunday matinee, so that might explain the toddler units. And the blue hairs.
Last big action blockbuster I saw (Avengers 2) we saw in 3D on a main theater big screen. Audience was chock a block with the 10 year old to 18 year old crowd. Which meant a lot of chatter and talking through the movie.
Friends who saw Star Wars last week in 3D did say it was quite enjoyable. If you live near a theater with two-projector 3D capability, I recommend that. Its easier on the eyes, brighter and less headaches. We plan on seeing it again, but in 3D in a couple weeks when the crowds die down.
WereBear
@beltane: Red squirrels are the Sopranos of the squirrel world.
Take take take, no giving back, and they bite off chipmunk tails. Okay, THEY MUST DIE.
Ahem. No, really.
Matt McIrvin
I reserved our seats for The Force Awakens for Boxing Day. It was a 2D showing, since my daughter seems to agree with us that 3D gives us headaches (at least for anything longer than an amusement-park ride-film).
An interesting thing I noticed from the airline-like seating charts on the website is that the seats for the minority of 2D showings seemed to be going faster than for the 3D ones. They seem to have underestimated the relative demand for flat movies.
Poopyman
@Gimlet: How did she know the person doing the chanting was having sex?
(Alternative reply:) Maybe taking out her hearing aids wasn’t such a great idea.
Mnemosyne
@Anoniminous:
I saw it in 3D (it was the only time that worked for our schedule) but I didn’t feel like it changed the movie. 2D is probably fine, especially since the story is ultimately about the characters, not the effects (I know, crazy!)
Germy
redshirt
Red squirrels also yell at you as you walk in their woods. Not very polite.
WereBear
I dunno. I watch a lot of contemporary horror with the attitude of, “Okay, at least I’m not dealing with THAT.”
Mnemosyne
Also, too, it would be nice if some kindly front-pager could schedule a “Star Wars” spoiler thread this weekend — maybe on Sunday? A bunch of us are dying to discuss it but wary of spoiling it for the unwary.
Mnemosyne
@Germy:
If I were on the Space Station, I’d rather see “Alien” than “Exodus.” At least they only sent one really crappy Ridley Scott movie and didn’t decide to subject them to, say, a triple bill of “Exodus,” “Robin Hood” and “A Good Year.”
WereBear
‘Kay. I am already buying eggs from local producers who mean it when they say “free range.” I figure that is pressure on Nestle. Above and beyond me buying Free Trade chocolate.
I think every little bit helps.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Ummm. “Noah.” Messiah on a crutch made of balsa wood, that’s a terrible movie.
Roger
Don’t look now, but he’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack:
POLITICO: Jeb Bush shows signs of life!.
Looks like Hammer Time is working as planned. The money quote!:
Jeb is beginning to win where it counts.
Say hello to the beginnings of the greatest political comeback in GOP history!
gene108
@Anoniminous:
Saw it in 3D. I think it’s worth it.
Germy
@WereBear: I agree about local producers. The quality is so much better (not just eggs, but vegetables, fruit and meat) and the price is better or comparable.
@Mnemosyne: I wonder if they watch the republican debates in the Space Station. It would almost make me not want to return to Earth.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Anoniminous:
I think 2D for me. I’m going tonight with friends who bought the tickets (I hope), and the show time says 2D.
That’s okay. I’m not a huge fan of 3D. Biggest pleasant 3D surprise was the documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
daverave
@beltane:
Ha, I wish! My tabby cat, as he normally does, is sitting right now up against my leg snoring. Being 14 years old, his interest in chasing anything, other than food in a bowl, ended several years ago. He never came close to getting a squirrel.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mnemosyne:
Prometheus was really crappy.
Anoniminous
Steeplejack, gene108, Mnemosyne, goblue72, Matt McIrvin:
Thanks!
Sounds like either way is OK so I’ll let the Spousal Unit decide.
NotMax
@Roger
Racist, anti-Semitic, sexist maroon is ba-a-a-ack.
You do know what performing the same actions repeatedly while expecting a different result is classed as, yes?
As you’re so fond of nyms beginning with an R, maybe after the next ban hammer drops you might choose Repulsive.
Roger Moore
@Roger:
Sorry, but it’s Trump who’s been singing “Can’t touch this!”
schrodinger's cat
Admiring Ranveer Singh in his Peshwa avatar. He is the hawt! even in the shendi and ghera ( the tonsured head except for the small patch at the top of the scalp).
Shell
@NotMax: Oh Roger, Roger, Roger….sometimes that light at the end of a tunnel is really an oncoming train.
*******************************
My squirrels insist on shoveling all the other birdseed out of the feeder, in search of those tasty, tasty sunflower seeds. Doesn’t bother me that much; what has me contemplating squirrel-a-cide is when they start gnawing on the ripening tomatoes.
Mustang Bobby
Just back from getting my new play printed and ready for sale (hint hint).
I was really surprised to see cardinals (the birds, that is) in Florida. I saw them as a kid in Ohio in all seasons and was told that they didn’t migrate. But apparently some of them said “Enough!” and headed south where they have a condo near Vireo Beach (heh, birdwatching humor).
bemused
@Gimlet:
Lady is obviously a 24/7 Fox watcher.
Why would the police encourage her to call back?!
Pogonip
Cardinals are called “redbirds” in Florida? I didn’t know that.
The more I hear about the latest Star Wars the more it sounds like a rehash of the original. I’ll find out Monday!
Even if it is a rehash it’ll beat midichlorians and trade deals.
Doug R
@Anoniminous: The newest star wars is a 3D post conversion. Not shot in 3D. I saw maybe one static shot that made a differance.
schrodinger's cat
Arjit Singh’s voice is magnificent
In Aayat from Bajirao Mastani, I have memorized you like a prayer. Sad and soulful.
In Bhola Bhandari, a prayer to Shiva, describing Shiva’s various attributes. It is upbeat and a joyous tune.
schrodinger's cat
@Pogonip: I was wondering about that too.
gbear
If you want to be mean to your sqirrels, put some super hot cooking oil in a palastic bag and then add your birdfood and shake it until the seeds are coated. Birds can’t taste the heat but your squirrels will be going WTF!! Maybe have some water somewhere (not too near) so they can get some relief.
Another thing you could try is feeding the birds straight safflower seed. The squirrels don’t like it very much. They’ll probably throw it all on the ground looking for the stuff they like, but they’ll eventually go looking for their meals elsewhere. Cardinals REALLY like safflower seed.
Squirrels are not your friend where bird feeders are concerned. Try to get rid of them.
Roger Moore
My parents had a special hanger for their feeder that actually worked to keep the squirrels off. There was a smooth, clear plastic dome over the feeder that was big and slippery enough that the squirrels would slide off before they could get to the feeder. It did require that the feeder be hung somewhere that the squirrels couldn’t climb up to the feeder by an alternate route.
Scout211
I noticed another small improvement with the recent upgrade. In the old WP, I would type in “El Niño” and FYWP would change it to “El Nino”.
My comment published the other day as El Niño. Yay! I am testing right now to see if this is still fixed.
ETA: yes, fixed
Linnaeus
I’m in Michigan now, so I hope to see a cardinal while I’m here. We don’t have them in Washington.
Brachiator
@Anoniminous:
One scene was specifically shot in IMAX format, and some who have seen it in IMAX 3D reported having great fun. Even though it is a post conversion, Abrams clearly had 3D in mind for a couple of shots.
Still, I saw it in 2D and it was fine. If your theater has great sound, especially Dolby Atmos audio, then you are a lucky viewer.
Linnaeus
@daverave:
Red squirrels or fox squirrels?
Matt McIrvin
@Pogonip: I figure, even if it’s a rehash, my daughter hungers for adventure stories with girl heroes, and this appears to be one.
Samuel R. Delany recently posted a link to a review of Star Wars he wrote back in 1977, in which he noted it takes place in a universe in which adventures happen to characters who resemble Midwestern American white people (male as well, with one prominent exception), and he wished he could see a movie like that but with a little more human diversity. And it sounds as if we’ve got one here.
I also recently read a review of The Empire Strikes Back from 1980 that was bellyaching about how they obviously stuck Billy Dee Williams in there as a token minority. What the reviewer had against Williams’ performance I’ll never know, but he seemed bothered. I guess these arguments go back forever.
Mnemosyne
@bemused:
Because police dispatchers need comic relief, too.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
DeLong points us to a great paper on actual evidence that the NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) is now a lot lower than it was supposed to be in the past. Like maybe < 2.5%.
Equitable Growth:
FYWP is giving me posting trouble – see the link for more.
Whodathunkit – Supply and Demand actually works for Wages and Employment. Maybe, just maybe, the 7+ year stampede for the Fed to raise interest rates has little to do with inflation?? Hmm…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Pogonip:
Eh, “rehash” is too strong, IMO. There are a lot of shared themes with the originals, and one wonders when the bad guys are going to come up with a new kind of weapon, but it’s definitely its own movie within the same universe. If you liked the original movies, you’ll have a good time. It’s not Great Cinema but, frankly, neither were the originals.
And no frickin’ midichloridians in sight!
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: We had a Yankee Flipper one time that kept them off longer than any other feeder we’ve had; the squirrels’ weight triggered the battery-powered perch to spin and fling them off.
But one day, I heard a weird noise and saw a squirrel hanging onto the perch and being spun around at quite a clip. Unlike every other squirrel before it, it wouldn’t let go! It was as if it was stuck or something. It spun around and around, its body parallel to the ground due to centrifugal force.
For a couple of minutes, I stood there trying to figure out what to do to help it while not getting myself bitten in the process, then suddenly it did let go and landed right at my feet. The poor thing stood there a while with its beady little eyes spinning in their sockets, then scampered off.
I was just grateful the dogs weren’t with me. They would have tried to eat it.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: They are task driven beings.
They will be back.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve read a lot of reviews where people talk about the film speaking to their inner child, but I would be interested in hearing more about the reactions and thoughts of actual kids. When I saw the movie, most of the audience were adults (this was a weekday). But on the way in this morning, I was listening to a podcast and one host noted that his 8 year old son was on the edge of his seat, and was absolutely enthralled by the movie from the opening shot on.
Spoiler free, I can only say that I liked tremendously all the new characters. I think your daughter might have a good time.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@schrodinger’s cat:
Understatement of the month, at least.
Want.
schrodinger's cat
@Matt McIrvin: The Marathas have had several women who ruled wisely and well and also commanded their military when the need arose. Unlike the North Indian women (both Rajput and Mughal) they didn’t cover their heads and were not secluded.
Tarabai, Shivaji’s daughter in law who kept the fight against the Mughal Empire alive after her husband’s death in the 17th century
Ahilyabai Holkar who ruled Malwa for 30 years in the 18th century
Laxmibai who was the Queen of Jhansi and one of the leaders of the First battle of Independence (Sepoy Mutiny is what the British call it).
blackcatsrule
@schrodinger’s cat: Schrodinger’s Cat, thank you for posting these songs. I used to live in a predominately Indian neighborhood and would love to hear this type of music filling the streets as I did my shopping.
WereBear
As this is an Open Thread, just wanted to let folks know that I’m reading Stalin’s Daughter.
In her day, she roused a crowd to greet her at the airport that was larger than those which greeted the Beatles. She had several best-selling books. And yet, she is forgotten now.
Desperate for love, she fell into a double standard trap (one of her barely-lovers had four times the documented encounters, yet she was the “slut.”) She thought she was marrying for love, yet was conned out of her book profits with the famous Taliesen scam.
She should not have played to win. It wasn’t possible.
schrodinger's cat
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Bajirao IRL was the hawt too, there are anecdotes about his visit to the Nawab of Deccan (they were frenemies, sometimes allies and sometimes rivals) that the women in the harem threw pearls at him since he was so easy on the eyes.
gvg
@Mustang Bobby: I have always seen lots of cardinals in Florida. Of course I grew up around Orlando and now live in Gainesville but they have always been common. Maybe South Florida is a little different.
Squirrels are a pain. they seem cute at first but they don’t do moderation and eat way too much plus they start eating the actual bird feeders and other things nearby. Betty you need to drive them away while there are just a few. Birds can’t taste red pepper so add some to the bird seed or get a funny squirrel proof feeder. The ones that robotically flip the squirrel away are lots of fun.
scav
@NotMax: Oh, he snuck in with a Martel once, underlining his abject subservience to kings, dynasties and empires.
Pogonip
@Mnemosyne: Thank God. Whoever let George use that stupid midichlorian idea should be sentenced to life watching the prequels, and whoever let him use the idea and then just drop it should be sentenced to life + 99, consecutive.
WereBear
@Brachiator: Imagine:
To be
The One
who lurks in the bottom of the bowl.
to be The One who
yields to trembling fingers.
To be the last
pistachio
who will be cracked by the weakest
and the least.
To be
the one
who whispers
“the last shall be first”
as a girl child
contemplates
Triumph.
“Daddy, may I rule the Universe?”
And a gentle hand comes down.
“Yes.”
dmsilev
@Pogonip: The big problem underlying the prequels is that there wasn’t anybody who could “let George” do something. He called the shots, all them.
Germy
Full moon on Christmas.
Not since 1977…
dmsilev
@Germy: Proof positive that Obama really is the Black Jimmy Carter.
Redshift
I find it kind of hilarious that our residents Jeb! troll is desperately trying to pretend that being in a position such that a publication describing your campaign as showing “signs of life” is something to cheer about.
Other than that, the “we’re gonna start winning any minute now” schtick is just boring.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger: Oh, damn, that pathetic little weasel is back. What’s the over/under on how long it takes to get a time-out again?
Mnemosyne
Random factoid: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” broke the weekend box office record that was set by “Jurassic World” this weekend.
“Star Wars” executive producer Kathleen Kennedy has been married to “Jurassic World” executive producer Frank Marshall for almost 30 years.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: not a rehash, but a conscious homage. It’s like the repetition of a John Williams leitmotif in a different way in different themes. I just rewatched IV-VI recently and it’s easily the best SW movie since Empire. I had forgotten just how bad RotJ is.
Unfortunately some of the plot points I thought pointed in a certain direction may have just been lazy writing. But we won’t know until 2017.
Bottom line – it’s fun, and focuses on characters, and gets you excited to see it’s sequel. Could have used a touch more humor but it’s there. People talk about how funny Oscar Isaac is but Boyega’s deadpan is wicked. Ridley is a gem and has what I think is the strongest scene in the movie.
dedc79
Florida man/woman strikes again:
schrodinger's cat
@blackcatsrule: You are most welcome!
I am obsessed with Bajirao Mastani, because the Maratha history has by and large been ignored even in India.
First because their immediate successors, the Victorian Brits had a vested interest in underplaying that history. Even post independence, India’s history has had a north Indian bias. The Hindi heartland sends the most representatives to the Lok sabha, India’s House of Representatives.
Betty Cracker
@Redshift: Yep. At first I hoped and believed Jeb could pull off a win in the primary so Hillary could stomp his ass in the general. But I’m afraid his campaign is no more. It has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It is a late campaign. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If Jeb hadn’t nailed it to New Hampshire, it would be pushing up daisies. It’s rung down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. This is an ex-campaign.
Just One More Canuck
@Mnemosyne: Agreed – 3D didn’t add anything to it
Linnaeus
@Betty Cracker:
+1 for the dead parrot.
Germy
Star Wars theme was inspired by an old Ronald Reagan film from 1942
Germy
Hidden thread if you click on the redbird!
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Jeb! can’t fix it.
Randy P
@Pogonip: What the heck are “midichlorians”? I guess I’m not geeky enough. I have actually sat in a theater and paid for all 6 Star Wars movies, but I don’t remember ever hearing that word.
Googling it, I find this
So… it’s supposed to be a biological basis for the Force? OK, what did George screw up with that, which seems like the kind of thing a sci-fi writer who’s TRYING to be scientifically plausible might introduce?
daverave
@Linnaeus:
Hmmm, I always thought they were red squirrels, never having heard of fox squirrels, but looking at the photos and the descriptions you so graciously provided, I would have to say they are fox squirrels. See, one can actually learn things here on BJ…
gogol's wife
You’re all going to assail me, but I just still feel as if Jeb is going to be the nominee. They’re just not going to nominate Trump, Rubio, Cruz, or Carson. So sue me. It’s an intuition.
Roger Moore
@Bobby Thomson:
She has the strongest several scenes in the movie; it really gets better whenever she’s on screen.
redshirt
I have defeated the squirrels at my feeder.
It’s a on an foot high pole, and leading up the pole is a clear plastic dome like mentioned above, but this one is on the pole and prevents anyone from climbing up. I placed the feeder in a clearing with what I thought was no tree access. Last winter though I watched one particular squirrel try every single tree in a circle around the feeder and to my amazement, he made it! So I immediately cut that tree down, and ever since, squirrel free. They still come around and once in awhile test the system, but they just eat the leftovers on the ground with the other critters.
I also defeated the blue jays by going with a long tube feeder. I’ll switch this out in the summer. Right now my feeder is for my true friends only: The chickadees.
Does anyone have a link detailing the affects on bird feeders on a local bird population?
Linnaeus
@daverave:
Well, they’re both red, so it’s not obvious that they are different. Years ago, I used to think the same thing. My college campus has a legendary population of fox squirrels. They’ll come right up to you.
Betty Cracker
@gogol’s wife: No assault from me; I sincerely hope you’re right! That would be the best possible match-up for Hillz. But I just don’t see how Sad Sack Jeb pulls it off at this point. He’s a laughingstock.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne:
Jurassic World continues to hold the record for most money made by a movie nobody liked.
Brachiator
@Bobby Thomson: Best Star Wars reference I’ve heard all week.
Radio host Bryan Suits (on the “real cost of a Death Star): The total cost would be $300 quintillion over its life cycle, unless some farm boy religious zealot finds an exhaust vent and takes a lucky shot and takes it out, in the name of his ancient religion.
The Lodger
@WereBear: Svetlana used to live down the street from my aunt in Princeton Township, NJ. I believe they were the only two redheads on the block.
schrodinger's cat
Beautiful Urdu poetry in Aayat:
Kahtee hai ishq duniye jise meri janeman, is ek labj me hi chuppi kaynaat hai
What the world calls love, my darling, in this one word is hidden the meaning of the entire universe
ETA: Disclaimer, not an Urdu expert. Hindi would be my third language, if that.
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
I’m reading the long story on Rubio that’s in a New Yorker that’s been lying around the house. He is really bad news.
Germy
Germy
@gogol’s wife: My favorite part is his story of why he got into politics. (Hint: $$$)
At one point, Rubio was asked where his inspiration for politics originated. “He said, ‘I remember one day my father took me in the car, and we drove over to the neighborhood where Liberace’s house was.’ ” List noted, “And everybody knew where Liberace’s house was.” He went on, “He said, ‘We would drive around that neighborhood, and he’d show me where all the rich people lived, and he’d say, “Son, if you want to live like these people, you can do it.”
dedc79
@redshirt: So you chopped off a tree to spite a squirrel?
Brachiator
@Randy P:
Well, he also threw in the idea of Annakin Skywalker as a Space Jebus who had no biological father.
@Mike J:
Tied with The Phantom Menace.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): 2D for me, too. 3D is really hard on my eyes.
OT, but do you provide tech support for the products you recommend on BJ? :-) I got the same kitty fountain you have, and I can hardly hear it anymore because water trickles out the top so slowly now. I tried running white vinegar through it and it helped a little, but 2 days later and it barely trickles again. Any suggestions?
? Martin
Raining here in Cali. Snowpack is ahead of seasonal forecast. This won’t end our drought but a year of it getting better rather than worse is unbelievably welcome.
Bobby Thomson
@Randy P: it took the franchise from decent fantasy/spiritualism to bad SF. The Force went from a Taoist concept to eugenics.
Betty Cracker
@Germy: I don’t think Rubio has ever held a full-time job outside of politics. He’s a basically been a grifter all his life. He might get lucky this election cycle because he can mouth platitudes in a non-garbled fashion, but I’m done predicting what’s going to happen in the GOP primaries. I just don’t know.
bystander
Charles Pierce keeps saying it’s time for Jeb! to Old Yeller his campaign. It would give him time to comfort his parents. Moanin’ Joe is concerned how Poppy and Babs reacted to hearing Trump say that Obama had schlonged Clinton.
Until today I had never heard “schlong” used as a verb. Leave it to Trump, who evidently gives a lot of thought to such creative uses.
Gin & Tonic
@dedc79: Hell, he’d cut down a whole forest to spite Corner Stone.
Bobby Thomson
@Brachiator: I’ll just leave this here.
goblue72
@Randy P: Because its useless blather and unnecessary technobabble. Nobody needed having an explanation for what “the Force” was or where it came from. It just was. Audiences accepted that, right from the get go in the first Star Wars movie.
Its the same problem with all the prequels. Nobody really needed any of the background story explained. The “genius” – if you will – of the original movie (aka “Episode 4”) was that the story started in media res, like all good epics. The Iliad didn’t start at the beginning of the Trojan War – it started near the end, in the middle of the action.
Look at the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien started in media res – with an imagined and wholly realized backstory of prior long forgotten realms of men, elves, etc., old poems/songs, long forgotten wars, etc. Starting in the middle allowed for the story to be surrounded by a wholly self-contained world, the immediate action and plot occurring along a longer epic arc of imagined history. Thus heightening the grandeur of the immediate plot.
Original movie had that built in. Nobody needed to know exactly WTF the “Clone Wars” were – it was enough to know there was this big war lurking in the past, where big things happened, the prior world kind of feel apart, and the current story was a consequence of that vague, epic past, and the characters where in part linked to that imagined past. Going back and then filling it all out with the prequels just destroys that.
Its of no accident that LOTR is a lot more fun to read and more popular than the Silmarillion, save for hard core geeks.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
From Box Office Mojo: More box office records have fallen as Star Wars: The Force Awakens took in another $40.1 million on Monday, shattering the previous Monday record of $27.6 million set by Spider-Man 2 as it has surpassed $610 million worldwide. It is now the fastest film to hit $250 million domestically as that and other records continue to line up just so they can be knocked down.
I knew the opening weekend would be good, with pre-sales and people committed to seeing it multiple times during the opening days. But Monday? And the holidays are just beginning.
Good thing that the Disney chief accountant is Scrooge McDuck. The Mouse wants his cheese.
Germy
@Betty Cracker:
So many of these free-market types have never actually experienced the invisible hand on their shoulders…
Bobby Thomson
@Mike J: I liked it. I thought it was truer to the spirit of the original book.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Didn’t little Marco have a sinecure at some law firm for a while?
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: I saw your post about the box office collections of Dilwale and Bajirao Mastani, was on my phone so didn’t respond.
Cacti
In examining Trump’s caveman routine against Clinton, the Christian Science Monitor basically explains why if Trump is the GOP candidate, he’ll never be POTUS.
68% of all women voters have a negative opinion of The Donald vs. 25% positive. According Fox and Quinnipiac polls, in a general election matchup, Hillary wins the women’s vote over Trump by 21-26 points. Romney, by comparison, lost the women’s vote by 12 points and got thumped.
Even among GOP voters, Trump has a 19 point gender gap between male support and female support.
Story
Germy
@Gin & Tonic:
Brachiator
@goblue72:
True, but people knew the story of the first part of the Trojan War.
I vaguely recalled that Lucas had kind of wanted to loosely duplicate the structure of epics. The prequels would fall in the middle and then be followed by the concluding chapters. But he got confused, lost his mojo, couldn’t pull it off.
Also, for my money, “How Darth Got to be Vader” was not the most important early story to be told. Not even the most interesting story. And ultimately I tend to agree with you that maybe nothing in the prequels was necessary. I kind of like the “Three Musketeers” and “Twenty Years After” approach of Alexandre Dumas. And perhaps this re-imagining allows for this.
Gin & Tonic
@Germy: Yeah, but once he was in the lege, since it was part-time, he spent half of each year in Miami working for some law firm. So says the almighty Wikipedia.
goblue72
@Betty Cracker: According to his bio, he held a job as a lawyer for a whole entire two years after graduating law school before running for elective office. Though I assume he continued being a lawyer in name while being a West Miami commissioner.
Germy
@goblue72: He worked as a lawyer in a lobbying firm.
Randy P
@goblue72: I agree with the epic feeling you get from having a whole past history that happened before your story.
But I won’t say that prequels are automatically a bad idea. In the hands of a writer with some imagination who actually has a new story to tell. There have been plenty of good ones in beloved series / trilogies, after all.
One reason I kept shelling out the bucks for the prequels was I figured there would be an interesting character arc exploring how Darth Vader became Darth Vader. Alas, that “arc” was, to my recollection, a single line of dialog. (Queen Aboo-Daboo: You’re not good any more, you’re evil! ). I had underestimated just how bad a writer Lucas was. We won’t talk about Jar-Jar (He’s a buffoon! No, he’s a senator!).
But yeah, I see your point. I certainly didn’t spend any time wondering what “The Force” was. But like I said, it seems like something a sci-fi writer might throw in when doing a novelization, which does require a little more backdrop than a movie.
redshirt
@dedc79: Sure, got plenty of trees. It wasn’t very big either.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
Looking at the Jedi Order through adult eyes, a lot of their practices were fairly creepy and cultish. Not the least of which:
-Taking new acolytes in childhood and severing all of their family ties
-Discouraging emotion of any kind, especially romantic love
-Practicing strict information control over what its members were allowed to access
-Control resting with an unelected council of masters
-Holding themselves out as guardians of peace and justice, but accountable to no one but themselves
Yeah. I’d say the Jedi could pretty fairly be called an authoritarian mystery cult.
Not hard to see why the Sith had an easy time plumbing their ranks for disgruntled members.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: IMHO it made some sense to make the key early story the rise of the Galactic Empire. You’re right that that arc didn’t necessarily have to involve the Skywalker family dynamics at all. I never really thought of that before: part of why neither the Anakin-to-Darth Vader arc nor the rise of the Empire arc feels like it pays off is that they’re smooshed together haphazardly.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
No problems. Very cool that you saw it.
I also see that Dilwale has earned $13.8 million in India, I think a healthy box office number.
I don’t see any complete foreign numbers for Bajirao Mastani.
goblue72
@Brachiator: Sure, but they one know about First Age and Second Age of Middle-Earth or whatnot before the LOTR books came out. Wholly imagined backstory, with some details, but a lot left to the imagination. Like I said, there’s a reason all the back story stuff from the Silmarillion is kinda boring as shit.
And I agree – we sure didn’t need “how Vader became Vader”. We already KNEW who Vader become Vader. He was Luke’s dad, he was a Jedi, Obi-Wan trained him and screwed up, Luke’s dad turned into a bad guy, at some point lost a fight that turned him into a cyborg, etc. Already knew ALL that stuff from bits of exposition / plot development over the first 3 movies. Didn’t need any more details.
If anything, more details ruined it. Seeing him as “good guy who lost his way and went kinda crazy” makes him less a “villain who eventually is redeemed” and more “poor sad sack dude who got his arm and legs cut off and kidnapped by a crazy psychopathic lunatic”. I don’t really like THAT story. I like the other one.
FlipYrWhig
@Randy P: I’m not saying it’s _interesting_ but the arc is more like Anakin struggling with Jedi asceticism and orderliness because he can’t suppress his human passions, a/k/a the “love/duty conflict” that drives a ton of classical and neoclassical literature. And the original trilogy keeps making Luke struggle not to give in to rage and hatred as well, so that’s at least consistent between 1-3 and 4-6.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: Initial numbers for Dilwale were better because of SRK but Bajirao is catching up. I want to see the movie in a theater, unfortunately the closest one showing it is about an hour’s drive away.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Cacti: The popular theory in my corner of fandom was that the “balance” Anakin was prophesied to bring required, first and foremost, the elimination of what the Jedi had become.
This leads to a Theory about the new trilogy that includes spoilers, so can’t talk about it here.
@Pogonip: It’s more that the original trilogy established the archetypes for that universe, and the new movie plays with those archetypes.
Cacti
@Anoniminous:
2D
My experience with 3D films has generally been that it adds cost without adding value.
Cacti
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
An interesting theory. The older I got, the less admirable I found alleged “good guys” Obi Wan and Yoda. The nicest thing you could say about their relationship to Luke was that both were very economical with their truth-telling.
In retrospect, I’d have found it much more powerful if Luke just walked away at the end of ROTJ, feeling used by both Force cults, and wanting no part of either one.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: “Come back, Shane!”
Mustang Bobby
@Cacti: For those of us who can’t see 3D for whatever reason (in my case, strabismus), I’m glad they made it in both versions.
Roger Moore
@goblue72:
I disagree. He wasn’t a good guy who just sort of lost his way; he was a good guy who was led astray by the negative sides of his own good attributes: compassion (trying to rescue his mom), love (trying to protect Padme), and justice (trying to stop Mace Windu from killing Palpatine out of hand). There’s also the whole irony of him being led astray by fear of Padme’s death, only for his being led astray to be the thing that ultimately killed her.
If you look only at those elements in isolation, you can see the core of a good, maybe even a great story, especially when set against the great events of the Clone Wars and the rise of The Empire. The problem was that Lucas had regressed as a writer and a director to the point that he wasn’t the right guy to tell that story. In the hands of somebody better, the same basic story line could have made a great trilogy.
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
If I did that with MY hair there would nothing – NOTHING – on my head but eyebrows… and a giant beard, which looks kinda odd without any hair on your head. To me, anyway. Tiny ponytail keeps it back off my face. With a hat or ball-cap it’s hard to tell I’m as bald as it gets. Since 1972, more or less.
I see lots of hair styles like that – not for me, though. Not yet anyhoo.
Best holiday wishes!!
JR, in the green rolling hills of West Virginia
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Yep. They cram Anakin/Darth into the center of a story where he really doesn’t belong. He’s not even Forrest Gump, he’s more like Zelig. Plus, as multiple people (including my spouse) pointed out, there’s way too much telling and almost no showing. Why only tell us about Anakin slaughtering the sand people? Even if you don’t show the gory details because PG rating, at least show us the aftermath.
It’s like they wanted Anakin to be “the bad guy” without ever showing him doing bad things. At least they don’t flinch away from that in the new movie.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
We don’t know exactly what he was trying to teach his students, so it’s possible that part of what he was doing was trying to reform the worst aspects of the Jedi ways. I assumed that part of the prequel trilogy was showing how both the Jedi and the Republic had been corrupted and lost the values that had made them a force for good in the galaxy.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I think it’s mostly that they wanted to keep him as a sympathetic character, but it would be hard to do if you saw him wiping out whole families or killing all the younglings. Again, I think a good movie maker could probably have done it, but Lucas just wasn’t up to the task.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
I recently re-watched the first season of “Game of Thrones” (never read the first novels) and admired the story telling. A podcast also was devoted to the first season.
Someone asked why they didn’t do flashbacks and show how we got to King Robert, etc. The answer was kind of lame. But to me, flashbacks would have been confusing to viewers, who would ask, “whose story are we telling?” This was crucial since everything was new. We focused on Ned Stark and his family, whose fates are front and center to the narrative (along with his contemporaries) and are told about an earlier era. So, we start in the middle, with the most important crisis, and get glimpses of the earlier world, putting that early world into perspective as a legend, half remembered.
You could do some flashbacks now, sparingly, because we now know the world of the series very well.
schrodinger's cat
@J R in WV: That was how Brahmin men in Maharashtra kept their hair after their initiation (see the thread, he is wearing) where they would also get the sacred thread. This fell out of favor in the British era. Bajirao Peshwa belonged to the Chitpavan Brahmin community from coastal Maharashtra.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
It was difficult for Lucas to find a way to show Anakin as a bad guy, who also wins the love of a princess, and whose love is somehow acceptable.
It could be done, I guess, but Lucas did not have enough maturity as an artist to pull it off.
Also, you didn’t necessarily have to show Anakin’s killing rage. A Star Trek episode involved a similar kind of rage and pulled it off without showing it. But you have to put the dramatic focus elsewhere.
As a kind of comparison, I liked that in the Lucas/Spielberg collaboration you learn a lot about Indy’s affair (maybe) and betrayal (kinda) of Marion and how it has informed the development of the characters, but any flashback is totally unnecessary and would only have slowed the story down.
waysel
@gogol’s wife: I have that same feeling.
debbie
@gogol’s wife:
Nominating Jeb! will cost the GOP the RWNJ vote and then how can the GOP hope to win?
NotMax
@goblue72 – Roger Moore
No spoiler warnings for those who haven’t seen the prequels?
Thanks a bloody bunch.
(I keed, I keed.)
waysel
@debbie: Won’t the GOP voters fall in line, as usual?
schrodinger's cat
@NotMax: I have seen the prequels but I don’t remember a thing other than Jar Jar and I have the higher ground. They were eminently forgettable.
Zinsky
Star Wars bites. It is boring and derivative. That’s my spoiler.