SEVEN HUNDRED HOBO NAMES

(This being the twenty-second of seventy installments.)

211. Fatman and the Creature (note: there was no creature)
212. Cecelia Graveside
213. Hoosegow Earl French
214. Stymie Stonewrist
215. Roadrunner "Meep Meep" Fabong
216. Bruised-Rib Johansson, the Beefer
217. Joachim Bat-in-Hair
218. Food-Eating Micah
219. Rubbery Dmitry, the Mad Monk
220. Honey Bunches of Donald

I like the idea of Mom Skywalker raising Leia for a couple of years and then offing herself due to her severe depression over the whole situation.  Would've been way too heavy for a movie targeted at kids, but it fits better with Leia's dialogue in Jedi and would have made more sense than whatever that ending was that we actually got.

On the Yoda thing, I caught the tail end of Clones on Spike last weekend--neat/movies/TV--and the Force faceoff with Dooku wasn't all that bad.  But then Dooku says that line, and the fanwank begins.  Yoda jumping and spinning around like the Tasmanian Devil ruins all the dignity he had in Empire and Jedi, and even Phantom Menace.  It makes me sad to see what they turned that character into.

I try to pretend like the prequels never happened, but sometimes it's hard, y'all. #InRecovery

HuffPo: 'Star Wars' Prequels Were Mapped Out By George Lucas & Lawrence Kasdan In 1981: Exclusive Excerpt From 'The Making Of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi'

This is remarkably close to the final product in 2005, except for everyone being able to use The Force, Yoda not fighting, and the twins/Leia's real mom thing.

REVENGE OF THE JEDI STORY CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT, JULY 13 to JULY 17, 1981—SUMMARY
Participants: George Lucas, Richard Marquand, Lawrence Kasdan, and Howard Kazanjian
Location: Park Way House
Note: Many of the ideas here are conceptual only and should not be considered as canon in the Star Wars saga.

THE STORY OF ANAKIN

Lucas: Anakin Skywalker starting hanging out with the Emperor, who at this point nobody knew was that bad, because he was an elected official.

Kasdan: Was he a Jedi?

Lucas: No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy. He sucked Luke’s father into the dark side.

Kasdan: The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?

Lucas: Yes, everybody can do it.

Kasdan: Not just the Jedi?

Lucas: It’s just the Jedi who take the time to do it.

Marquand: They use it as a technique.

Lucas: Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing. Also like karate. Also another misconception is that Yoda teaches Jedi, but he is like a guru; he doesn’t go out and fight anybody.

Kasdan: A Jedi Master is a Jedi isn’t he?

Lucas: Well, he is a teacher, not a real Jedi. Understand that?

Kasdan: I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t believe it; I am in shock.

Lucas: It’s true, absolutely true, not that it makes any difference to the story.

Kasdan: You mean he wouldn’t be any good in a fight?

Lucas: Not with Darth Vader he wouldn’t.

Kasdan: I accept it, but I don’t like it.

Lucas: Well, anyway, Luke’s father gets subverted by the Emperor. He gets a little weird at home and his wife begins to figure out that things are going wrong and she confides in Ben, who is his mentor. On his missions through the galaxies, Anakin has been going off doing his Jedi thing and a lot of Jedi have been getting killed—and it’s because they turn their back on him and he cuts them down. The president is turning into an Emperor and Luke’s mother suspects that something has happened to her husband. She is pregnant. Anakin gets worse and worse, and finally Ben has to fight him and he throws him down into a volcano and Vader is all beat up.

Now, when he falls into the pit, his other arm goes and his leg and there is hardly anything left of him by the time the Emperor’s troops fish him out of the drink. Then when Ben finds out that Vader has been fished out and is in the hands of the Empire, he is worried about it. He goes back to Vader’s wife and explains that Anakin is the bad guy, the one killing all the Jedi.

When he goes back his wife, Mrs. Skywalker has had the kids, the twins, so she has these two little babies who are six months old or so. So everybody has to go into hiding. The Skywalker line is very strong with the Force, so Ben says, “I think we should protect the kids, because they may be able to help us right the wrong that your husband has created in the universe.” And so Ben takes one and gives him to a couple out there on Tatooine and he gets his little hideout in the hills and he watches him grow. Ben can’t raise Luke himself, because he’s a wanted man. Leia and Luke’s mother go to Alderaan and are taken in by the king there, who is a friend of Ben’s. She dies shortly thereafter and Leia is brought up by her foster parents. She knows that her real mother died.

Kasdan: She does know that?

Lucas: Yes, so we can bring that out when Luke is talking to her; she can say that her mother died when “I was two years old.”

I sure wish Lucas would have stuck to his guns on the Yoda thing.  One of the hokey-est things in the prequels.

Remember when people here actually gave a **** about The Office?

Remember when the people that made The Office actually gave a **** about The Office?

Series finale tonight.

The Walt Disney Company and EA Announce Multi-Year Star Wars Games Agreement

BURBANK & REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) and Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) today announced a new multi-year exclusive licensing agreement to develop and publish globally new games based on Star Wars characters and storylines.

Under the agreement, EA will develop and publish new Star Wars titles for a core gaming audience, spanning all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres, while Disney will retain certain rights to develop new titles within the mobile, social, tablet and online game categories.

“This agreement demonstrates our commitment to creating quality game experiences that drive the popularity of the Star Wars franchise for years to come,” said John Pleasants, Co-President of Disney Interactive. “Collaborating with one of the world’s premier game developers will allow us to bring an amazing portfolio of new Star Wars titles to our fans around the world.”

“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

NYtimes.com: ‘Tonight’ Show Expected to Return to New York, With Fallon

A plan is in the works to bring NBC’s “Tonight” show back to New York.

While the network has yet to complete a deal, it has made a commitment to Jimmy Fallon, the current host of its “Late Night” program, to have him succeed Jay Leno as the next host of “Tonight,” according to several senior television executives involved in the decision. The show would move from Burbank, Calif., back to New York, where it first started in 1954 with Steve Allen as host.

Some details remain to be worked out, including an exact timetable for the switch, though it is expected to take place by the fall of 2014 at the latest, the executives said in interviews this week.

NBC has quietly begun work on a new studio in its headquarters building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza as the home for the new “Tonight” show. The studio is part of a general reconstruction of the building being undertaken by Comcast, which this week completed a full takeover of NBC Universal.

An NBC spokeswoman declined to comment on the move, other than to say the network was building a new state-of-the-art studio for Mr. Fallon.

I hope Conan doesn't find out about this.

So you're saying they're actually two different people?  Are you sure?  I'm not trying to, like, doubt you or anything, but that's what I heard from a lady I was standing in line with at Target, and she seemed like she really knew what she was talking about.

SW.com: Star Wars Blu-ray Trilogies to Be Released in Limited Edition Steelbook Packaging

Since their release in 2011, the Star Wars trilogy collections have become two of the bestselling Blu-ray Disc catalog releases of all time. Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced today that these beloved Star Wars sets, presenting the classic films in stunning HD, will be re-released in limited edition steelbook packaging at select retailers in the UK, Australia, Japan, and Spain. There is no US release currently planned.

Release dates for the steelbook sets will be announced shortly.

Still not buying. . .