Coming To A Galaxy Near You: More Clones

Ever since Obi Wan-Kenobi revealed in A New Hope, that he was a general in the Clone Wars, Star Wars fans obsessed about the meaning of this mysterious conflict. Were the Clone Wars a minor skirmish in the history of the galaxy or were they a series of long protracted battles that changed the face of the Republic forever?

Because of the Prequal Trilogy that we know that it is the later, yet George Lucas has only given us the book ends of the great war that brought down the Republic to usher in the dark times of the Empire. While, “Lucas has a lot of explaining to do,” according to Lou Ander’s comment to me in our interview for the British Science Fiction Association’s The Matrix, (OK, I’m name dropping, so sue me!), the “Great Plaid One” also has been brilliant at making millions of fans struggle with the mythological themes in a series subpar space opera fantasies, myself among them.

Lucas is brilliant at composing over-arching epic stories. Star Wars (from Episode I to Episode VI) is a sweeping, multigenerational, galaxy spanning, myth that deserves its great place in the annals of story telling history. Star Wars is one of the few modern tales that will probably be remembered for all time. Like the stories of Homer, though somewhat dated, the greatness of the story and characters’ challenges transcend mere annoyances like a plot that’s choppier than a stormy sea or dialogue that doesn’t sound like a cheese grater dragged across the side of your head. The problem is that with the details—Lucas, not so good.

Taken at face value, the Original Trilogy (OT) is uneven at best and the Prequal Trilogy (PT) is an absolute mess. But put them inside the bigger themes of good versus evil, redemption and fall from grace, and they shine like gold. What Lucas lacks is the restraint and nuance that comes with great scriptwriting and directing.

In the times when he allowed others to do their work, the results were brilliant. Costumes, Modeling, Special Effects, Character Concept and of course, John Williams’ Music were fantastic in the OT and PT. As a matter of fact, George Lucas’ infamous mantra of “faster, more intense” probably made each of these better than they would have been in the average film.

The Star Wars trilogies, for all their faults, all look and sound better than anything else out there. Lucas has a gifted sense of style when it comes to making movies; he was born to do it. His films just come together better than any others (Exception: Howard The Duck). Really, the Star Wars films do transport you to a galaxy far, far away and they are not just eye candy. Ironically the details in the design and production are outstanding, it’s just that Lucas doesn’t have that ear for dialogue, sense of character or attention to plot detail that is needed to make a great story rise above the rest.

Lucas has said before that the script writing process is painful to him. I can understand that. Writing is a tedious, unrewarding process. It takes you out of human contact and requires long hours of intense concentration, a talent that obviously, Lucas does not posses. (Faster, more intense!)

What he could have done was take his storyline and overarching tale and handed it over to another scriptwriter and director to play with. How sweet would it have been to see Steven Speilberg’s take on Episode II with all that old fashioned, action and adventure style? This is what made the OT so special. Lucas did direct the first movie (Episode IV) but that script was drastically rewritten. With Episode V and VI, he left it up to others to direct and write the scripts. Arguably, Episode VI is inferior to any of the others in the OT but it does have a very satisfying duel in the end, even more dramatic and emotional than the one at the end of Episode III.

Now with the entire six episodes laid bear, we are in for a very big treat. Coming this summer, Lucas will release a CG animated movie called, The Clone Wars to fill in the missing gap between Episode II and III. The movie will then be followed by a series on Cartoon Network.

At ShoWest, Lucas commandeered the stage with the help of six Clone troopers from the 501st Legion to introduce the Clone Wars movie and television series.

Here are some excerpts of what Lucas said from the Star Wars official website official blog:

It’s great to be back at Warner Brothers. I started here some 40 odd years ago. I made that exquisite hit before some of you were born called THX 1138. It was a huge hit. It played for a week. [laughs]

But now I’m back with something I think is really special. It started out as an idea to explore what happened during the Clone Wars. In Episode II, we see a little of the beginning of it. And in Episode III we just see the very end of it. We don’t actually get to see the whole spectacular battle.

This is really where it belongs — on the giant screen. It’s very new and different. It’s a little bit of anime, a lot of action and it’s exactly like the features only it’s more stylized. We have a new young character Ahsoka who’s a young teenage girl who turns out to be Anakin’s apprentice.

I think this film will hold up with the live action features. And I’m really excited to be able to bring it to you and I’m hoping that it will sell a lot of popcorn — because that’s actually what Star Wars is — one of the first popcorn pictures.

If you watched any of the Clone Wars cartoons that came out before Episode III, then you know that they were probably far superior to all three PT episodes and delivered where the PT lacked. Hopefully Lucas was able to sit back and let others do most of the heavy lifting, while he tweaked and pushed (faster, more intense!) the quality to the highest level.

I for one am looking forward to the animated Clone Wars movie and the series. I couldn’t ever imagine a time in my life when a new Star Wars motion picture is not either rumored to be coming (as was the case through most of the 1980s and 1990s) or on the horizon (the past decade). I hope that this is a quality film that makes enough dough to force Lucas back into the Ranch to keep producing Star Wars for as long as I live. That’s right George you can’t die until after I do.

Live long and prosper, Mr. Lucas! (Faster, more intense!)

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Atlantis Delivers Columbus to ISS

In February the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched the STS-122 mission. One of its tasks was to deliver a laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS). The laboratory, a 23-foot-long cylinder called Columbus required a space walk to install. The European Space Agency built Columbus and NASA delivered it to join NASA’s own laboratory, called Destiny.

After a perfect take off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, described by NASA as “stunning… Atlantis leapt off Launch Pad… and rode a brilliant plume of golden fire and gray smoke into space.”

No sooner had the space station’s Commander and Flight Engineers had the ISS cleaned up after playing host to a Russian capsule crew when the Americans came knocking. Isn’t that just the way?

At least the Americans came bearing a gift, one that will hold experiments inside and outside. The laboratory has a life support system of it’s own to accommodate the scientists.

After Columbus was deployed and attached one of the ISS crew announced, "The European Columbus module is now a part of the ISS.”

NASA reports that, “The addition gives Europe a permanent footing in space, and the mission was seen as a starting point for more European contributions to the station, including cargo flights by a new spacecraft known as an Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV. Bigger than the Russian Progress supply capsules, the ATV was designed to carry whole experiment racks to the station.”

What we forget in these times of semi-regular space missions by the Space Shuttles is how amazing an accomplishment it is to fly humans into space and actually operate experiments and projects in outer space.

These images, from NASA’s website feature the crew working on attaching Columbus to the ISS. It’s an amazing site to see and know that this is no movie, that’s no green screen effect and that below their feet (heads?) is the longest drop-off known to mankind. I sometimes get a little vertigo looking out a tall building or off the side of a short cliff. Imagine the experience of floating with the entire planet filling your vision. It must be awe inspiring and frightening at the same time.

When the ISS or Space Shuttle (or the moon for that matter) are in orbit around the earth, they are basically in a constant free fall, just nicking the edge of the inner limit of earth’s gravity well, sending them constantly around and around. While they’re falling, they’re orbiting, which is exactly what an orbit is: Sustained freefall.

So while orbiting at breakneck speeds, relative to the earth, ESA astronauts Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts walked in space.

The NASA website reports: “After serving on the STS-55 mission in 1992, Schlegel waited almost 16 years for his second flight. He said the experience was worth it, particularly the chance to don a spacesuit and venture outside the station on a spacewalk, also known as an Extravehicular Activity or EVA. He joined Walheim for the second EVA of STS-122.

“The pair spent most of the spacewalk hooking up a new nitrogen tank assembly on the central truss of the station. Atlantis brought back the old one at the end of the flight. The tanks are a key component of the cooling system that pumps ammonia through fluid lines on the station to radiate heat into space.”

When Atlantis left the ISS, it had done more that deliver the Columbus. Dan Tani, Flight Engineer on the ISS swapped places with Eyharts, who stayed behind to maintain systems on the new laboratory.

“With the orbiter's main gear touching down at 9:07 a.m. EST,” NASA reported, “the STS-122 flight ended after 12 days, 18 hours, 21 minutes and 50 seconds. The shuttle traveled about 5.3 million miles during the mission. For Tani, the return to Earth stopped the clock on 120 days in the weightlessness of space.”

With the death of Arthur C. Clarke, there is a tinge of sadness in the air. But with the continuation of exploration, there is hope for the future. While I am all for sending humans to Mars, I do not agree that it should come at the expense of the very important and much cheaper (and already in planning stages) unmanned science missions to study the universe. The amount of resources needed to send a man into space versus sending an unmanned probe is enormous and wasteful. It seems to me that with less than 1% of the United States budget going to NASA (still a large number to be sure) there is some money to be found somewhere to add to the Mars mission.

There are too many unanswered questions in the field of Physics and Astronomy that can be answered with the funds that are redirected toward the Mars mission.

When reading Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff recently I was struck by the years of failures that we had to endure before actually sending a man into space. While a very noble effort for America at the time, we already have an aging Shuttle to replace.

Of course NASA can use some of the funds it earmarked for the Mars mission to further private space exploration ala the X-Prize. Privatization of the space race also seems inevitable. There are Billionaires just itching to be the first to get into space and set up shop. From orbiting hotels to joy rides, private space exploration is very much a reality.

The future of space exploration promises to become very exciting and very interesting. While all of the data and findings that come out of NASA remains always in the public domain, I hope the spirit of sharing never leaves even when it goes into the hands of privateers. I have faith. If Google can come up with a model to sell words on the internet and provide the world with a suite of free applications and virtually unlimited storage space, then someone will come up with a way to monetize private exploration of space and still make the data and findings an open and free.

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