Dark

Many of you know, from reading my hot lady's blog, that my son Sam turned 5 last week. In celebration of said occasion, I decided to let him watch Star Wars (Episode 4, which will always just be Star Wars to me) for the first time. Staci and I weren't sure about this decision, as it represented Sam's first foray into semi-mature cinematic viewing. We are admittedly pretty protective of his little brain and heart (because, you know, God has commanded us to be so), but many of his friends from church had already seen it, and he has been getting interested in the toys and the folklore and what-not, and I just figured that, worst case scenario, I'd turn it off in the middle and at least he'd finally know which one was Obi-Wan and which one was Han, etc.

He got a little scared at one point, and we paused the movie for about 10 minutes, during which time we refilled our popcorn and had a quick light-saber fight.

Anyway, after the movie was over, he was pretty geeked up. He went to bed talking about all the characters and generally wanting more of everything.

This brings me to the point of this post. Sam is absolutely convinced that grown-up, evil Anakin is actually named Dark Vader. And you know what? The more I think about it, he may be right. I mean, the dude is totally dark. From an esoteric perspective, he totally sends out a dark vibe. His past and history? Dark. Which side of the force does he lean into? Dark. Color of his threads, head to toe? Dark. Color of the skin of the iconic actor dude who does his voice? Dark.

So here's my theory: Lucas originally named this guy Dark Vader. But that was too simplistic, so he thought he ought to change it. Only he had too much other crap to think about, like putting light bulbs in the skulls of those little robot-smuggling dwarves, or trying to figure out how to work Billy Dee Williams into the sequel, or choreographing the fight moves between the alien chess pieces on the Millenium Falcon. Stuff like that was in his brain, plus he was already working on the nuances of the Jar Jar character. That had to take him like, I don't know, 25 years to perfect that.

So he tells his personal assistant to get a pen and paper and help him brainstorm a less-obvious name for Dark AzmaBreether (which was the originaloriginal name), and he spent so much time coming up with "Vader" (short for "invader," because he was, like, always invading stuff and what have you) that he was just too darn tired of thinking and his personal assistant, Garth, finally says, what about "Garth Invader? I like how that sounds." And Lucas is like, "no that's ridiculous. Besides, we got rid of the 'in' part like 10 minutes ago. Weren't you by the catering table when i decided this?It's just 'Vader' now. You know what? You're fired, Garth."

But then right after Garth leaves, Lucas is like "that kid was kind of onto something, cuz I could combine 'Garth' and 'Dark' and I'd have a totally sweet name for this guy."

Only problem was that 'Gark Vader' was aleady copyrighted by somebody at Universal. So they switched it and got 'Darth Vader.'

And we haven't even begun to talk about Chewie Tobacca and Yoga.

Surprise, surprise

Listen, I'm the first guy in line (or at least I'm trying to cut so I can get there) any time people want to pick on the cheesy art and media that most Christians try to make and propagate. I don't care for much mainstream Christian music, I never watch Christian networks (I usually just end up cussing at the TV), and hardly ever go to the movies to pay actual money to see "Christian movies." But even a cranky old cynic like me enjoys it when we actual get some decent reviews for one of our efforts.

Check this out.

At the time of this posting, Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 63 score, which is better than it gave pretty much every other movie among the recent releases (except for the new Coen Brothers flick, but I mean, come on). Depending on when you read this -- and what other publications have chimed in at that point -- that score may have dropped. But right now, it's a 63. Not bad. And hey, no matter what happens, we can all stop and pick our jaws up off the floor knowing that the New York Times actually kinda liked Kirk Cameron's latest movie. Just that by itself could very well be a sign of the apocalypse.

...We now return to our regularly scheduled cynicism...

No, I'm probably not going to pay to see this.

I'll let my wife give you the news

Hey baby.

It's just that kind of world.

I know I've been a little lazy with the blogging lately, and that even when I have been posting, it's been lots of links and other boring stuff, but I just couldn't pass this up.

First, I ran across this article. It's not that long, but in case you don't want to read it, it briefly describes a trip that Matt Damon (who is really awesome at pretending to be somebody else and admittedly does an awesome impression of the world's worst actor) and Wyclef Jean (who is really awesome at producing songs that actually waste lyrics to announce the names of whoever is singing the song somewhere during the intro section) took to storm-battered, insanely-poor Haiti. The people of Haiti are facing bleak, mind-blowingly harsh conditions, and that shouldn't be ignored. But that's not actually the point of my writing.

I'm getting to what the point is...

One quote from the article:

"Damon and Jean are encouraging more people to help the United Nations raise more than US$100 million for an estimated 800,000 Haitians in need of aid after four devastating tropical storms and hurricanes since mid-August."

Cool. Thanks Matt. Good work Wyclef. Glad you guys are trying to raise money. And gee whiz, a hundred million bucks is a lot. Right? Right?

Well, maybe not.

Thanks celebrities. You've really helped me put it all in perspective.