First Contact.

 

It's December 24th, and while the rest of the world celebrates Christmas Eve, my gorgeous girlfriend Karli and I are also commemorating the start of our correspondence through blog comments which would eventually lead to our first date - not exactly Tinder™, but it worked for us.

- Sid

Insert Android OS joke here.

It's December 17th and tomorrow marks the North American release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  (To describe this event as "eagerly awaited" would be redundant.)

A fortunate few have attended press screenings and midnight showings, whereas the rest of us have had to remain content with the trailers.  Fortunately, the trailers have struck a good balance between revelation and suggestion - there have been broad hints, but very little in the way of specifics.

However, the visuals themselves are wonderful:  crashed Imperial cruisers, battles with the next generation of stormtroopers, the Millennium Falcon in flight, epic aerial dogfights between the iconic ships from the original trilogy...wait, what?

Okay, let's assume that the time lapse in the Star Wars universe is congruent to the years gone by in the real world - in other words, Han Solo is about 40 years older* than he was during the events of the first film.

Compare the technology of 1914 with that of 1945, or 1945 to 1985: Sopwith Camels to Spitfires, Spitfires to F18s.  War is one of the great drivers of technological development, and yet the previews show what appears to be X-Wings locked in aerial combat with TIE fighters.**

How odd that in four decades, nothing has changed!   Even the despised prequels acknowledge that there was different technology in the days when Obi-Wan Kenobi was a young man, and yet, under the relentless lash of armed conflict, neither the Rebellion or the Empire (if that's still what the duelling polities call themselves, the trailers aren't explicit) has improved on their hardware? Other than through the introduction of plasma quillons for lightsabers?

For that matter, I gather that C-3PO is in the new movie.  My god, C-3PO was built by the young Anakin Skywalker - by the contemporary standards of The Force Awakens, he might as well be steam powered.  Let's see, it's generally assumed that Darth Vader was 45 when he died...he built C-3PO when he was nine... Computers from 25 years ago are useless antiques in our world, how would they be able to maintain a homemade 76 year old android?

- Sid

* And he certainly looks it in the previews.  Nothing personal, Harrison.

** This is odd all on its own.  Generally civil wars are fought with more or less the same weapons on both sides, although not always - interestingly, the American Civil War supports both sides of this argument.  How is it that the Rebellion has such completely different spaceships?

Also for wearing those outfits.

 

Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

I'd like to pay tribute to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two women of such incredible confidence and courage that, given all of time itself from which to make their selection, chose to release their latest movie in head-to-head competition with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Ladies, you have my respect.

- Sid