Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

A consequence of cucumbers

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

After roe, women are no longer free.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: STAR WARZ

Late Night Open Thread: STAR WARZ

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I hear there’s a new one out:

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62Comments

  1. 1.

    James E Powell

    It will be a bit before I see it – I don’t like crowded theaters. I assume that all important plot points will be spoiled before I go. I don’t mind too much. I don’t go to a Star Wars movie to see a cinematic triumph. I’m just looking for a couple hours distraction for the nightmare of Trump’s America. It will do.

  2. 2.

    Mike in NC

    Saw the first Star Wars movie in 1977, I believe, and never wanted to see another. Mission accomplished.

  3. 3.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @James E Powell:

    I don’t like packed theaters either, but I’d sort of like to see this one before all of the spoilers have spoiled it. The other night at dinner I told my probable viewing partner that we might have to look for a 6:00 a.m. showing somewhere next week. There probably is one!

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    Haven’t seen it yet, but probably will next week. I’m visiting family and I’m pretty sure my niece and nephew will want to go see it. Fair enough; I was just about their age when Return of the Jedi came out.

  6. 6.

    VeniceRiley

    I think I’ll return to being a Trekker? But I did enjoy the Star Wars area of Disneyland. I’ll see the movie eventually … I’m just not excited or expecting anything exciting, profound, or even the least bit sensical.  I am enjoying The Madalorian though! And I am delighted Disney didn’t have the foresight to get a baby Yoda toy out in time for Christmas.

  8. 8.

    HarlequinGnoll

    Gonna go with “if you like fast and furious you’ll like #9, if you like star wars you won’t.”. I’m holding out hope the next trilogy script is all written before the first movie is filmed.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    For slightly more down-to-Earth sci-fi, I’ve enjoyed For All Mankind, on Apple’s new streaming service. Alternate-history space race, starting in summer of 1969 with the Soviets landing a man on the Moon a couple of weeks before Apollo 11.

    (Fans of absurd paper concept rockets should definitely watch the last couple of minutes of the last episode. Two words: Sea Dragon)

  10. 10.

    Major Major Major Major

    Certainly won’t be paying theatre prices to see it. Might put it on if Disney ever deigns to allow it on streaming services. Looks pretty meh and the plot reads like fanfiction.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    Kudos of a sort is due Amazon (I suppose) for current candor. Ordered a small smattering of sundries on Thursday and the checkout page listed guaranteed delivery in 9 days. Which is more realistically within the norm for shipping time to here than time frames they’ve previously proffered.

  14. 14.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m going to see it on Monday. But as you know, I’ve always figured JJ would screw it up and I don’t have high expectations.

    I imagine it’ll be fun and hopefully it won’t make me angry.

  15. 15.

    Aleta

     

    (NYT) The Times Privacy Project obtained a dataset with more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million people in this country. It was a random sample from 2016 and 2017, but it took only minutes — with assistance from publicly available information — for us to deanonymize location data and track the whereabouts of President Trump.

    [Maps with descriptions and the trail of a device that the Times tracked.]

    A single dot appeared on the screen, representing the precise location of someone in President Trump’s entourage at 7:10 a.m. It lingered around the grounds of the president’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., where the president was staying, for about an hour.

    Then it was on the move.

    …  [Continues describing the trail of the device.]

    THE DEVICE’S OWNER was easy to trace, revealing the outline of the person’s work and life. The same phone pinged a dozen times at the nearby Secret Service field office and events with elected officials. From computer screens more than 1,000 miles away, we could watch the person travel from exclusive areas at Palm Beach International Airport to Mar-a-Lago.

    The meticulous movements — down to a few feet — of the president’s entourage were recorded by a smartphone we believe belonged to a Secret Service agent, whose home was also clearly identifiable in the data. Connecting the home to public deeds revealed the person’s name, along with the name of the person’s spouse, exposing even more details about both families. We could also see other stops this person made, apparently more connected with his private life than his public duties. …

    The vulnerability of the person we tracked in Mr. Trump’s entourage is one that many if not all of us share: the apps (weather services, maps, perhaps even something as mundane as a coupon saver) collecting and sharing his location on his phone.

    …

     It’s a result of a system in which data surveillance practices are hidden from consumers and in which much of the collection of information is done without the full knowledge of the device holders.

    …

    We were able to track smartphones in nearly every major government building and facility in Washington. We could follow them back to homes and, ultimately, their owners’ true identities. Even a prominent senator’s national security adviser — someone for whom privacy and security are core to their every working day — was identified and tracked in the data.

    WHILE THE CONSTITUTION PREVENTS COMPANIES from sharing location data with the government without a warrant, there are no federal protections limiting how they use or share it privately. No such protections are currently being debated before Congress — even though we found that we could track people through Congress’s own halls as easily as any place else.

    “Tech companies are profiting by spying on Americans — trampling on the right to privacy and risking our national security,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat running for president, told us. “They are throwing around their power to undermine our democracy with zero consequences. This report is another alarming case for why we need to break up big tech, adopt serious privacy regulations and hold top executives of these companies personally responsible.”

    Despite the sensitivity of this information, it is put to everyday use. Packaged with millions of other data points, location information is turned into marketing analysis and sold to financial institutions, real estate investors, advertising companies and others. Companies say they vet partners carefully and tend to work with larger players that have a clear business case for receiving the data.

    Like all data, the vast location files are vulnerable to hacks, leaks or sale at any point along that process. The data we reviewed was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so.

    CONNECTING A PING TO A PERSON was as easy as combining home and work locations with public information. A seemingly random set of movements turned into a clear individual pattern after we added just one other piece of information.

    Plenty of corroborating information is already floating around dark corners of the web, given the frequent high-profile data breaches of the past decade. Consider what China already knows: In 2015, a federal database containing the personal information of more than four million people with security clearances was stolen by Chinese hackers presumed to be state actors.

    …

    After Ms. Spaulding (Suzanne Spaulding, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former under secretary at the Department of Homeland Security) raised the danger of tracking judges, we checked the data file for courthouse employees. In minutes, we found dozens of potential targets by watching smartphones sharing their precise locations inside Washington courthouses. One person whose movements we traced has a role in the technology division, which controls servers containing data for the Supreme Court.

    … …

  18. 18.

    eclare

    Just checked, I can get Sexy Beast with Ben Kingsley on my cable.  Saw it when it first came out (2000! How is that right?), will watch again tomorrow.  Great movie.

  19. 19.

    Major Major Major Major

    I’m doing xmas with the in-laws in San Jose this year, and SJ will never not be bizarre to me. This three-bedroom, one-story 1950’s tract house with no amenities, view, or public transit is probably worth two million dollars.

    Ok, there’s a pretty good filipino restaurant in the nearest strip mall, but that’s about it.

  20. 20.

    The Dangerman

    I remember the first Star Wars commercial I saw (circa 76 or 77, I guess); I remember thinking something along the line of “screams flop”.

    Yeah, I’ve been bigtime wrong more than once in this life (dating a Lawyer, egads), but that might be the biggest

    ETA: Loved the Original. Waited for 7 and 8 to come out on DVD; I was verrrrrrrrry unimpressed. I might have to do this one in a theater.

  21. 21.

    Yarrow

    @eclare:  Looks like we’ve started a Sexy Beast fan club here at Balloon-Juice! It’s a very good film and Ben Kingsley is just out of this world good in it.

  24. 24.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @dmsilev: 
    Christ all mighty, were chuds pissing all over For All Mankind. “Go woke go broke”.

    I’m not sure how believable the premise is. The Soviets were not anywhere close to getting the N1 launch ready, IIRC. They tried into the early 70s to get it to work, but couldn’t.

    I have to wonder if NASA might do what the Soviets did in our timeline: pursue crewed satellites instead of going to the moon. Or perhaps might decide to go to Mars even to one up the Soviets.

  25. 25.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Two million!? That’s crazy! As much as Ohio sucks, COL is much lower. Still, Christmas in SJ should be nice. Beautiful weather, right?

    Anyway, I got your email from a few days ago. I’m going to mull over a few short story premises I have and try to write something up within the next few weeks. I know rewrites are common for most writers, but I’ve tried writing stories before (w/dialogue) and it’s been an embarrassing mess

  26. 26.

    Leto

    Just came back from it. All I’m going to say is 1) script? Hahahaha, yeah… 2) about half way through the movie I was done and wanted to leave 3) if you’re going to copy Return, be more subtle about it and finally 4) I’m glad The Mandolorian is quality. I look forward to more of that and less of whateverthefuck the Mouse has planned for the franchise. JFC…

  32. 32.

    Jay

    Overnight, she became a public figure. The praise bolstered her, as did the thought that her fame might spur on other young girls to become pilots. She took time out to speak to girls in elementary schools about her career, wearing her uniform.

    “I’m proud of that,” she said. “They’d say, ‘Oh, I saw you on TV.’”

    But things soon took a dark turn. Her brother was shot at twice by militants in Kabul. The first time he escaped unharmed, but the next time he wasn’t so lucky and ended up in the hospital. From 2013, her family started receiving so many death threats that they had to move from house to house, once moving three times in a month. Rahmani stopped being able to buy vegetables at the market without attracting attention.

    People would call every day to make threats — some were strangers, and others were people the family knew well. A letter arrived that bore a Taliban stamp. It said simply, “We know where you live.”

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/the-badass-afghan-pilot-who-went-massively-viral-is-now

  33. 33.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mary G:

    I have no idea why they used Trump in Home Alone 2. He literally added nothing of value to the plot. He was really getting around in the early 90s. He and his then wife made a cameo on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air too where Carlton of course geeked out over him. I’d love to hear the stories from the cast on set that day

  34. 34.

    Jay

    Today I spent $20 to buy an hour of “video visitation” time with an incarcerated friend. I can’t visit him in person even though he’s only 30 minutes away, because the jail only allows in-person visits by lawyers and clergy. No partners, no kids, no parents, no friends.— Jillian Johnson? (@JillianDURM) December 19, 2019

  35. 35.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Got it. Would you want me to write up a few drafts first before sending one to you to review? This will pretty much be the first time I’ve attempted something like this before.

    I want to thank you again for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it : )

  42. 42.

    The Dangerman

    @Leto:

    2) about half way through the movie I was done and wanted to leave 3) if you’re going to copy Return, be more subtle about it

    2 is my biggest fear; I hear this comes in at around 2:25, and if a movie is that long, it had best be brilliant (3 doesn’t shock me in the least, as 7 rips off the plot from 4 to the point that I thought, come on, hire some writers).

  44. 44.

    Cermet

    Watched it and the threater had, maybe, three dozen people (3:30 PM time frame.) If your surprised by anything in that show, then you must be an orange fart cloud voter – i.e. mostly brain dead.

  45. 45.

    Leto

    @The Dangerman: It was def long and it felt it. Like I hate writing something like this because I want a successful franchise but it is what it is. It’s the same as The Last Jedi: I thought it suffered from poor writing. The concepts it was trying to introduce were good, enjoyed the new characters, but the writing sucked. What can ya do?

  46. 46.

    PsiFighter37

    This is the first SW movie that I was old enough to attend that I did not go and see on opening weekend. The last movie (The Last Jedi) completely ruined the whole thing for me…should have simply put the Thrawn Trilogy on screen, and folks would have been hugely pleased. Throwing out the Expanded Universe was a terrible mistake on Disney’s part as well.

    The only new movie that I’ll bother considering as SW canon is Rogue One – that was extremely well-done. Otherwise…George Lucas probably wishes he never sold.

  48. 48.

    Edmund Dantes

    It was a Star Wars film. With all the warts and things that come with that. It’s also a JJ Abrams film. So it’s a bit of a double whammy.

    Not a great piece of cinema, but none of them really were (closest being Empire).

    It’s still good for what it is. And a perfectly fine end to the Skywalker saga.

    It was never going to please a lot of “Star Wars” fans as too many of them have gone a bit misty eyed about the movies of their youth, and don’t recognize the same problems are still there. But the same fun is also there.

     

    Most annoying thing was the shitting on Last Jedi scene. It involves Luke and a light saber both times. As I did like where Last Jedi was trying to go with the whole meta “let the past die”.

  49. 49.

    evodevo

    @Major Major Major Major: YES. We’ve had more than a few people cash out their CA property and come to KY to be astonished at what a huge amount of property 700k or more will buy around here…lol – you could purchase a goodly portion of the nearest town for that…

  51. 51.

    Citizen Alan

    Maybe if enough people are dissatisfied with Star Wars, Warner brothers will wake up to what they have collecting dust the basement and plunk a few 100 million dollars into a 5 picture Babylon 5 reboot.

  52. 52.

    kindness

    I saw Star Wars yesterday.  The new one I mean in an Imax.  Imaxs are always too loud but I survived.  It’s certainly a Disney film.  It’s sappy and sugary sweet.  The story took pains to thread in actors and parts from the first 3 movies I guess to try to mesh story lines.  It kinda worked.  No it isn’t the best movie ever and yes the plot is somewhat unbelievable but it is a fantasy adventure sci-fi so I’m not going to quible too much about it being impossible.  It was 1/3 Lucas & 2/3 Disney.  It was nice in that you leave with a positive feeling (no spoilers but the Force turns out OK).

    @Citizen Alan: Babylon 5 worked because as a TV show you didn’t expect wild computer graphics or Game of Thrones type Panorama.  I’m not sure the story would translate all that well to the big screen.  I loved Babylon 5.  Campy.  Good story arc.

  53. 53.

    kindness

    @Major Major Major Major: If you like NY style thin crust pizza go to Giovanni’s Pizza.  It’s just off 101 at the Lawrence Expressway.  The rest of their Italian stuff is great but since I can’t really get good NY thin crust out here I always buy pizza when I’m there.  They sell slices to so you can see if you like it.  Most my California friends don’t understand thin crust with just tomato sauce and cheese but it’s what I grew up with so….

  54. 54.

    J R in WV

    @The Dangerman:

     

    Strongly recommend Ford v Ferrari which does have neat cars, but more importantly has great strong characters which clash hard. Caroll Shelby and Henry Ford II, and one of his henchmen MBA asses, not to mention Enzo Ferrari V Caroll Shelby…

    Plus lots of mis-1960s icons, like PanAm and TWA, all those 50s and 60s cars on the streets, and the sports cars and race cars –Wife loved it and shs isn’t really a gear head..

  55. 55.

    gwangung

    Saw it Thursday. As expected, thoroughly mediocre, making all the obvious choices, and executing it in the most unimaginative ways. Does poorly for anyone except Rey and Kylo (ugh!), and pays way too much attention to fanboi wailing (with with at least one plot point mindnumbingly dumb and irrelevant).

  57. 57.

    Robmassing

    I remember when I was a kid and after the first one which was called Episode 4 I heard there were going to be 9 of them and I thought no way! Quite a let-down, 30 plus years later, to think eh I’ll probably skip the 9th one. (Though I did skip Episodes 2 and 3 after Episode 1 was so God-awful.)

  58. 58.

    Fair Economist

    @Citizen Alan: I loved Babylon 5 – I think it was the last TV series I enjoyed – but for me at least the draw was gradually watching the story be revealed over time. A movie series wouldn’t provide that (or, really, any reboot, now that we know what was going on.)

  60. 60.

    Jinchi

    @kindness: Babylon 5 worked because as a TV show you didn’t expect wild computer graphics or Game of Thrones type Panorama.

    I disagree. The special effects look very dated now, but at the time they were considered pretty impressive.

  61. 61.

    Gemina13

    @Major Major Major Major:   Agreed.  I loathe the prequels – I pretend they never happened.

    I liked TLJ as well, and found TROS to be a fun, if unsurprising, ride.  Then again, I’ve learned not to expect much from Abrams.

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