PJM Lifestyle
More Bad News for Wii U Owners
I’m pretty sure they’re already on the endangered species list, but this news won’t help replenish their numbers:
After mentioning on Twitter that the newly announced Star Wars games from DICE and Visceral will be running on DICE’s powerful Frostbite 3 engine, Andersson responded to a reader concern that this will mean the games will not be available for the Wii U.
“[Frostbite 3] has never been running on WiiU,” Andersson tweeted. “We did some tests with not too promising results with [Frostbite 2] & chose not to go down that path.”
This statement follows a Eurogamer interview from March’s Game Developers Conference in which DICE’s Patrick Bach admitted DICE “could probably make a Wii U game in theory” but said the company is not currently interested in devoting “development time” to the system. “To make the most out of the Wii U, that’s a different game because of the different peripherals. We want to utilize all the power of each console… It’s about ‘where do you put your focus?’ And the Wii U is not a part of our focus right now.”
So it’s not just a question of focus but a question of performance.
“Underpowered” was cute for the original Wii, which Nintendo was able to sell at a profit from the very first unit. But the company’s ambitions were much bigger for the Wii U — which doesn’t appear to be up to the task.
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5 Star Wars Games Which Need to Get Made Already
New boss, same as the old boss. So gamers may come to regard Disney since its acquisition of the Lucasfilm family of companies, including video game developer LucasArts. Sitting on a rich catalog of intellectual properties including Star Wars and Indiana Jones, LucasArts should be at the forefront of the gaming community. At times, they have been. But recent years have left much to be desired.
The pairing of Disney’s acquisition with the looming transition to a new generation of gaming consoles presents an ideal opportunity to reinvigorate the brand. In a way, the lull in development from LucasArts in the past several years sets the stage for an all-the-more-impressive breakout. Here are 5 Star Wars games which need to get made already:
5) Remastered X-Wing Series
Steam led the way as a project pioneered by game developer Valve toward abandoning discs in favor of digital distribution. Now an established marketplace for titles from a variety of developers, Steam welcomes players with the latest new releases and a catalog of retro titles, many of which can no longer be played through conventional means.
As one example, Steam offers a large collection from LucasArts, including the Jedi Knight series, some classic Indiana Jones adventures, and the first and second Knights of the Old Republic role-playing epics. However, one franchise is conspicuously missing from the developer’s catalog, the X-Wing series of space combat simulators.
X-Wing, Tie Fighter, X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, and X-Wing Alliance were once sold as a collection on CD-ROM. Each entry offered a compelling combat experience more akin to a flight simulator than an arcade game. Players had full control over the minutia of their spacecraft, able to direct energy between shields, weapons, and engines, all while targeting enemy subsystems and approaching missions creatively. The series was enormously popular, inspiring a major expansion to the Star Wars Galaxies online experience which offered similar gameplay.
For each passing day that the X-Wing series remains unavailable on Steam, a LucasArts executive should be fired. Releasing these games as digital downloads is an absolute no-brainer. Practically effortless aside from some paper pushing among lawyers, the move would provide LucasArts (and parent company Disney) with profit-bearing revenue on day one. That said, the opportunity exists to remaster these classic titles with updated graphics and modern network capabilities. There’s an entire generation of gamers who have never had the pleasure of experiencing X-Wing. Updated versions of these bar-setting titles would fly off the virtual shelf.
Can Anyone Learn How to Appreciate Art?
Befitting Camille Paglia’s firebrand reputation, the publication of her latest book, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars, has pressed cultural debates. Peruse any of the many interviews and reviews and find topics as diverse as the poor state of public education, feminism, and Democratic ideals to the hidden “gems” of pop culture. Excellent topics and needed discussions all, but the brilliance of Glittering Images is often missed. It is simply a short, and welcome, book on how to study art.
In her concise chapters, Paglia models what all of us can do to study any art we encounter: learn about the time, the artist, and the method. She intended for children to happen upon her book on a rainy afternoon, thumb through it, and be inspired to learn more.
If that simple how-to sounds obvious to you, then you are not likely part of the art world. According to the guardians of art conventional wisdom, it is supposed to be difficult. They do not countenance Paglia’s assertion that it isn’t.
With pitch perfect smugness, the New York Times review illustrates:
Written with the proverbial common reader in mind, “Glittering Images” comprises a historical sequence from the ancient Egyptian funerary images of Queen Nefertari to George Lucas’s “Revenge of the Sith” episode of “Star Wars.” Each work is located in its historical and stylistic context and then subjected to Paglia’s “reading.” …
The book’s premise is to chart the history of Western art in “an attempt to reach a general audience for whom art is not a daily presence.” There is humility and sincerity in such a goal, and one is reminded of the work of Carl Sagan, or Bertrand Russell’s layman’s introduction to relativity, or Aaron Copland’s “What to Listen for in Music,” books intended to demystify important subjects in science and art for those who might otherwise be too intimidated to engage with them. But Paglia’s choice of examples, coupled with her frequent broadsides on everything from New York gallery pricing to feminist politics to “the in-group of hip cognoscenti” and those wickedly subversive post-structuralists, damages her argument and leaves one wondering exactly to whom she is talking.
This is classic hip cognoscenti condescension.
Disney Plans Star Wars Spinoffs Featuring Boba Fett and Han Solo
This could be interesting and fantastic. It could also be horrible.
Yesterday, The Walt Disney Co. unveiled plans to make a number of spin-off movies set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — in addition to the post-Return of the Jedi trilogy that had already been announced.
Entertainment Weekly has learned details on two of the spin-off projects: A young Han Solo saga, focusing on the wisecracking smuggler’s origin story, and a bounty hunter adventure with Boba Fett at the center of a rogue’s gallery of galactic scum.
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The Han Solo story would take place in the time period between Revenge of the Sith and the first Star Wars (now known as A New Hope), so although it’s possible Harrison Ford could appear as a framing device, the movie would require a new actor for the lead — one presumably much younger than even the 35-year-old Ford when he appeared in the 1977 original.
The Boba Fett film would take place either between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, or between Empire and Jedi, where the bounty hunter was last seen plunging unceremoniously into a sarlacc pit. Exactly who would play him isn’t much of a complication – in the original trilogy, he never took off his helmet. And in the prequels, we learned he was the son of the original stormtrooper clone, played by Temuera Morrison, who’s still the right age for the part if his services were required.
On the plus side, Han Solo and Boba Fett are two of the most interesting characters in the SW universe. Movies featuring their backstories have massive potential. On the double-plus side, George Lucas won’t be directing, so the actors may come off as living, breathing human beings. That’s something we haven’t seen in a Star Wars film in a long, long time.
The Star Wars empire is running on fumes. If Disney doesn’t get this right, the galaxy far, far away could collapse.
Disney could do this right, or they could Disney-fy it. Will we get the gritty Republic Commando treatment that both of these characters deserve, or will we get a more candy-coated take aimed at reviving the Star Wars video game and toy empire? A gritty treatment, especially of Boba Fett, could be amazing. I hope for that but dread and fear the Disneyification of the whole thing. Another way they could screw this up, in typical Star Wars fashion, would be to have some extremely unlikely connection between the two characters revealed in the movies. There’s no need for that. Darth Vader didn’t need to build C-3PO for the Star Wars saga to work. Han and Boba Fett don’t need to be schoolyard buddies or enemies, or fellow recruits at the imperial academy.
I’m trying not to write that I have a bad feeling about this, but honestly, I do.
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Updated February 9: See Bryan’s photos from today at the Dallas Sci Fi Expo
Harry Potter Is Better Than Star Wars and Star Trek
During the Thanksgiving holiday The Wife proposed a Harry Potter movie marathon. I’ve never considered myself much of a Potter-fan. During the books’ popularity over the last 15 years I resisted reading them. And while I saw six of the eight movies during my film critic days — and appreciated them individually — the franchise as a whole never inspired devotions to the level of the pop culture cults of my childhood and teen years, Star Wars and Star Trek.
So I welcomed the chance to give the series a second look, fueled by The Wife’s enthusiasm. She read all the books and knows the arcane details backwards and forwards. The Potter books arrived for April, a few years my junior, as a receptive older child, for me as an angsty teenager looking for “mature” books.
Last Wednesday night after wrapping up the day’s editing I made a run to the library to pick up the four titles we didn’t already own (The Half-Blood Prince) or have recorded on the DVR (Prisoner of Azkaban and both Deathly Hallows). And so began our epic Thanksgiving Potterfest with The Sorcerer’s Stone that night; which we carried on at a pace of three films both Thursday and Friday before concluding on Saturday morning.
My conclusion: young geeks nowadays have much better options than previous generations. Compare the eight Harry Potter films with the six Star Wars and eleven Star Trek. By any “objective” measure — box office, percentage of positive reviews, or number of award-winning actors featured in the films – Harry Potter wins. And does any Jedi or Trekkie want to argue that by the “subjective” measure — just sitting down and watching all the films in the series — Harry fails to triumph over Luke, Han, Kirk, and Spock?
Harrison Ford: Han Solo Should Have Died in Return of the Jedi
via Harrison Ford Wanted Han Solo To Die, Would Return For Star Wars VII | The Mary Sue.
The next logical step in a huge Disney/LucasFilm purchase announcement is who will direct and who will star in Star Wars VII. Speculation is running wild since last week but a few tidbits are slowly leaking out. For instance, Harrison Ford is apparently up for returning to his iconic role even though he really wanted Han Solo to die. This is what we get for hiring a smuggler.
The news comes via Entertainment Weekly. According to a “highly-placed source” Ford is “open to the idea of doing the movie and he’s upbeat about it, all three of them are.” The source is including his Star Wars co-stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.
But Ford, who has admitted to not particularly liking Han as a character in the past, said this in a 2010 interview, “I thought he should have died in the last one to give it some bottom…George [Lucas] didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.” And in fact, that was the case, Han was meant to die in an earlier draft of Return of the Jedi. So would he insist on going out in a blaze of glory should he return?
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More Star Wars at PJ Lifestlye:
George Lucas Confirms It: The Star Wars We Loved Never Existed
In the New Star Wars, Will Mickey Mouse Shoot First?
Are Star Wars, Hunger Games, and Pride and Prejudice Anti-Cult Cult Movies?
5 Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks
VIDEO: Disney’s Re-education of Princess Leia
Now that Disney owns Star Wars, clearly Princess Leia needs a little “re-education.” Lucky for her, the others willingly teach her the Disney Way.
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Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Disney Buys LucasFilm For $4.05 Billion
In the New Star Wars, Will Mickey Mouse Shoot First?
Disney Buys LucasFilm For $4.05 Billion
via DISNEY TO ACQUIRE LUCASFILM LTD. | The Walt Disney Company.
Burbank, CA and San Francisco, CA, October 30, 2012 – Continuing its strategy of delivering exceptional creative content to audiences around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by Lucasfilm Chairman and Founder, George Lucas.
Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney stock on October 26, 2012, the transaction value is $4.05 billion, with Disney paying approximately half of the consideration in cash and issuing approximately 40 million shares at closing. The final consideration will be subject to customary post-closing balance sheet adjustments.
“Lucasfilm reflects the extraordinary passion, vision, and storytelling of its founder, George Lucas,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “This transaction combines a world-class portfolio of content including Star Wars, one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time, with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses, and markets to generate sustained growth and drive significant long-term value.”
“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.”
This is fantastic news! Disney purchasing Lucasfilm is akin to buying a drunk driver’s corvette before he smashes it up again. It looks like Mr. Lucas’s Wild Ride has now concluded.
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
George Lucas Confirms It: The Star Wars We Loved Never Existed
Are Star Wars, Hunger Games, and Pride and Prejudice Anti-Cult Cult Movies?
5 Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks
VIDEO: Mark Hamill Confesses He Wants Obama as His New Obi-Wan Kenobi
A Dog Wearing an AT-AT Walker Costume From Empire Strikes Back
Are Star Wars, Hunger Games, and Pride and Prejudice Anti-Cult Cult Movies?
Why did we all root for Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion, cheering as one when the Death Star burst into a ball of flame? Why do we unanimously detest Panem’s Capitol, sharing a surge of joy when District 11 erupts after Rue’s senseless murder in The Hunger Games? What accounts for our universal loathing of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Jane Austen’s most refined dictator who, insisting Mr. Darcy marry her insipid daughter, rivals the Emperor and President Snow in her own Georgian way?
Would it really have been so awful had the Empire ruled the Galaxy? Nobody appeared to be starving. It’s true the citizens of Panem were hungry, but at least they were safe from “war, terrible war.” The demise of Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet’s proud and prejudiced love would have cost them their status as the most beloved couple ever to live and breathe papyrus and yet, Darcy and Anne de Bourgh would have been rich — lacking neither the company of polite society nor polished silver.
A deep anguish probably stirred within your heart at these proposals. This malaise would turn to raw anger if we replaced these light-hearted examples of tyranny with darker ones, the true shadows of history whose malice brought real and lasting ruin and misery. Unanimous indignation meets the suggestion that since basic necessities of life were often provided by Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, totalitarianism is a viable living condition. Why?
We instinctively know, as human beings, we need more than food, shelter, and the absence of violence to be happy. This consuming hunger for joy is so important that Aristotle, the Definer himself, designates happiness as the final end for which we are created. To insist people, whether flesh and blood or birthed by quill, content themselves with crusts of bread or caviar instead of true human happiness violates our deepest sense of what it means to be human.
So what necessary ingredient of bliss was missing in the Emperor’s Galaxy, in Hunger Games‘ haunted Panem, and in Austen’s corset string-strangled English countryside? The essential right to self-determination. Nothing is more human than this internal principle of self-direction; the ability to freely select for ourselves from among the near-infinity of goals and the means to attain personally defined success. Without this, we are not human, but animals. This freedom is the condition for our joy and this is why, confronted with all forms of invasive denial of freedom, we rebel.
In Cults: The Mind Enslaved Parts I and II, we considered the normal and cultic human intellectual processes. It seemed that nothing could be worse than surrendering a mind to the shared Gnostic Brain of a cult. Understanding now the primary importance of human freedom for happiness, we consider how cults damage this even more fundamental faculty, the free will.
Letter to the Editor: Star Wars Clone Factories, Frances Perkins, and School Lunches
I know you’ve had star wars posts…
The recent kerfuffle on school lunch: nobody but me knew that Frances Perkins persuaded Roosevelt to pursue school lunches for American children in order to provide soldiers for the next war: World War 2. That scene where Obi-Wan Kenobi tours the cloning facility – the factory fetus bottles, the kids in tech classrooms – not debating or synthesizing- (implying they’ll learn modern tech-stuff, but not debate old values) the beefy young men dining on recognizable school lunch trays — that’s a pretty distilled fascist vision of perfection.
The meals were aimed at young children of immigrants in cities- they were to be the mixed-light-brown race of foot soldiers, not officers. Notice how the emperor has blue eyes and a British accent- he’s running the show. The nameless soldier hordes are darker, nameless, and “engineered for less higher-thinking and more obedience.”
It was a racist position even then- the scholarly journals of nutrition- the field-workers would tour America and document what people ate. The comments for black tenant farmer families in the deep South- the photos were of near emaciated families- was that these people needed to eat less calories.
It showed up in the comments, even now. People were more upset about fat minority kids eating meals in Chicago, than any other thing. Well, besides my kid.
We have an all-volunteer army, now. But every war, it’s a Democrat asking when we can go back to the draft. They’ve never backed down from that vision. Frances Perkins sounds inocuous, but she might be worth some edumacational posts. She lived in college housing when she was an old woman. Robert Reich was one of her housemates, for instance. Republicans live with their families, so there’s less continuity of activist vision.
with regards,
ari
A Dog Wearing an AT-AT Walker Costume From Empire Strikes Back
Hat tip: The Mary Jane
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More on pets and Star Wars at PJ Lifestyle:
7 Pictures of An Adorable Siberian Husky Puppy’s First Beach Vacation
Islam vs. Man’s Best Friend?
Is the Dark Knight Trilogy This Generation’s Star Wars?
George Lucas Confirms It: The Star Wars We Loved Never Existed
5 Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks
Why James Bond Fans Are Better Than Sci-Fi Geeks
I must commend Kathy Shaidle for effortlessly encapsulating what is most likely to earn a man a boost on the sexy scale. It really is quite simple. If I could offer an even more thoroughly abridged version, it would be: get some nice clothes, learn a few skills really well, and look people in the eyes when you talk to them.
One of Kathy’s lines, however, touched me in particular:
No one is ever surprised to learn that [Mark] Steyn is a big James Bond fan.
As a shameless Bond fan myself, I must comment on this. There is a tendency to view Bond fans as the equivalent of, say, Trekkies or gamers or sci-fi geeks: we are lumped in with sophomoric wannabes living in a fantasy world. I find, however, that most male Bond fans are much more dedicated to transforming themselves into their fictional hero (or a more realistic analogue) than are the sci-fi crowd.
Allow me to traffic in a few stereotypes here. Think of every comic-book geek you’ve ever known. Do any of them ever make an effort to transform themselves into the manly heroes they idolize? No. Most of them are idle, indolent, and inactive. If they’re scrawny, they don’t work out. They can’t fight, and they don’t take up boxing. They wear ugly super-hero shirts and argue over the canonical minutiae of whether Yoda’s lightsaber style would beat Mace Windu’s. This is horrendously un-sexy to females of any age.
A Boba Fett Hoodie With a Mask That Zips Over Your Face
The Onion A.V. Club knows which dog whistle to blow. They’re giving away 4 free Boba Fett Hoodies that take Star Wars Geekdom to a new level:
The hood actually goes over your face, as though it really were Boba Fett’s mask. What more could you want?
Well, since you asked, in a search for other Boba Fett accessories, consider perhaps a jetpack backpack?
No word yet on whether Mandalorian is a recognized religious tradition, thus allowing you to deny requests to unzip your hoodie when passing through airport security.
Meanwhile, George Lucas relaxes at home:
Star Wars: The Old Republic Delivers the Adventure and Excitement
How would you like to live in the Star Wars universe? That was the offer made in 2003 to gamers purchasing Star Wars Galaxies, an online game set in a galaxy far, far away.
However, like a Faustian bargain made in The Twilight Zone, the offer proved too accurate. The problem with simulating life is, if it is too real, it’s not interesting. Living in Galaxies proved to be mundane. Sure, you could eventually gallivant around the stars like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. But you had to pay your dues in menial tasks like delivering letters and hunting space rabbits.
In the end, Star Wars Galaxies was about as exciting as doing your taxes. The game was lauded by some for its depth and complexity. You could choose from many professions, stake out a homestead, and even join a player-controlled city with trimmings like politicians, taxes, and law enforcement. The problem with all that art imitating life was, after coming home from real life’s daily grind, logging into a game to meet similar obligations on another planet just seemed redundant.
A decade later, we have a new online Star Wars game which succeeds where Galaxies failed. Star Wars: The Old Republic, like the film series on which it is based, wastes no time yanking the player out of this world and into an action-adventure with high stakes and familiar themes. Most impressive, the game is accessible to the casual gamer and those who have never played its type before.
The Old Republic is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), which is a fancy way of saying that lots of people play in the same virtual space at the same time. The most successful game of the genre to date is World of Warcraft, a title noted for peaking at over 10 million monthly subscribers and ruining marriages.
The way these games work is by vesting the player into a character of their own creation, and laying out a steady diet of quests and achievements to keep them playing (and paying) month-after-month. The player gains experience points by defeating enemies, finishing quests, and exploring the game world. These points eventually earn promotions from one level to another, which opens up new quest lines and access to new equipment and abilities. Many tasks require cooperating with or battling against other players, which creates a social element often as alluring as the game itself.
George Lucas Confirms It: The Star Wars We Loved Never Existed
What? You think I owe you people anything?
Now everything is starting to come into clarity. Today is a bit like the day we learn that Santa Claus is your parents, socialism stops working when rich people’s money runs out, and a BA qualifies you for a $10 entry-level job that you could’ve gotten just out of high school.
As all the digital wounds should be healed by now from Kathy Shaidle’s venemous anti-Star Wars, anti-geek broadside, let us consider the newest affront to Nerd Dogma, this time courtesy of George Lucas himself. This new insult only confirms the necessity of publishing Shaidle’s column and moving on to greener pastures in the geek culture ecosystem. Via Hot Air and Ace, we learn today that we are all stupid for thinking that Han Solo would shoot Greedo rather than die in Jabba’s rancor pit. The truth for all of us morons in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter:
THR: People can get fanatical about the movies — how does that make you feel? The puppet vs. CGI Yoda ruckus, and the who-shot-first, Han Solo or Greedo furor come to mind.
Lucas: Well, it’s not a religious event. I hate to tell people that. It’s a movie, just a movie. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.
It’s the same thing with Yoda. We tried to do Yoda in CGI in Episode I, but we just couldn’t get it done in time. We couldn’t get the technology to work, so we had to use the puppet, but the puppet really wasn’t as good as the CGI. So when we did the reissue, we had to put the CGI back in, which was what it was meant to be.
When you have a gun pointed in your face and you’re clever enough to quietly draw your own pistol and blast the evil person threatening you… you are not a “cold-blooded killer.”
Ace will have none of this:
My, you have to be sitz-tinkler to get all worried about the message you’re sending by having Han “gun Greedo down” like a “cold-blooded murderer.”
For one thing, you know, Greedo had a gun on him, and announced, clearly, that he intended to kill Han in the next few seconds.
This seems “bad ass” only because of silly movies in the fifties and stuff when singing cowboys always let the bad guy have the first shot. That continued for decades.
It became accepted that Good Guys Always Let the Bad Guys Shoot First. So that in a movie like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, it seemed cold-blooded that Clint Eastwood would whistle for some Bad Guy’s attention, then kill them before they had time to reach for their guns.
But it was never really “cold-blooded.” Given the context of the fictional scenarios this was occurring in — these guys were trying to kill the main characters. It wasn’t murder. It was just the good guys deciding they’re not going to be Total Saps and give away a crucial advantage in a gunfight.
Here’s the medicine we all need to swallow: as children we were more grown up than George Lucas is now as an adult. Han Solo’s entire character rested on what we saw in that early scene in the film. In shooting first Han Solo was a role model doing what any Real Man was supposed to do. Now we know that character only existed in our imaginations, not his creator’s. And that George Lucas regards most of his fans as amoral neanderthals.
Oh well.
What else is on?
Also read: “Five Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks”
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David Swindle is the associate editor of PJ Media and writes a post each day on news and politics at PJ Tatler and culture and entertainment at PJ Lifestyle. He can be contacted with feedback and story tips at DaveSwindlePJM[@]gmail.com and on Twitter @DaveSwindle. He enforces commenting guidelines on his posts — rude, off topic and ad hominem comments will be deleted. (Unless they are particularly well-written and entertaining.)
Why Men Are More Likely to Be Geeks Than Women
Author and media theorist Douglas Rushkoff in an interview about his new graphic novel from D.C./Vertigo, A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division, on why the worlds of video games and geek culture are so male-dominated, emphasis mine:
“I think to some extent it’s harder for the forces that be to hypnotize women the same way they hypnotize men,” Rushkoff said. “Women were just as susceptible to the marketing of objects. In the 1950s, when they started marketing to women in America after World War II and trying to increase consumption, that’s when kleptomania was first diagnosed — and it was a women’s disease, because they were so marketed to that they would go in and steal stuff from the department store. I’m not saying women are not programmable and susceptible, they are. But it tended to be more for ‘the real.’ I’m finding, at least, that boys and men are more susceptible to the attraction and hypnosis of ‘the virtual,’ whether it’s pornography or video games or ideas. They seem to be more susceptible to these abstract forms of manipulation. Maybe men are more visual and less tactile; there’s probably some old evolutionary biology reasoning for it. Men were hunting, so they had to stay at a distance; women were gathering, so they had to feel the berries in their hands. Who knows what it is, but it doesn’t seem, for the most part, that these worlds are quite as compelling in the same way to women as they are for men. They are compelling — now, the numbers are changing, and I think the number of women involved in social media is greater than the number of men. As the applications change, certainly the gender biases change as well. But this ADD video phenomenon thing does seem to be more boy than girl.”
This of course has something to do with the angry emails and comments that are still coming in from Star Wars enthusiasts more militant than I who could not stand the fact that Kathy Shaidle does not share our pop culture faith.
And to put it in terms that PJM’s regular readers may recognize: publishing Five Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks is done for the same reason why Comedy Central should allow South Park to depict the prophet Mohammed. If we can’t laugh at our idolatry then we’re in trouble.
Nobody should be emailing to complain because Kathy wrote a self-evidently hyperbolic sentence like, “Successful, mature men do not play computer games, attend ‘cons,’ and get excited about overrated science fiction movies from the 1970s.”
We all have silly hobbies. It’s very silly how regularly April and I go to DisneyLand and how much we enjoy goofy rides like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. (Kathy, have any funny mean things to say about DisneyLand obsessives?)
But even sillier than our hobbies is getting emotionally upset when others judge us for them.
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David Swindle is the associate editor of PJ Media and writes a post each day on news and politics at PJ Tatler and culture and entertainment at PJ Lifestyle. He can be contacted with feedback and story tips at DaveSwindlePJM[@]gmail.com and on Twitter @DaveSwindle. He enforces commenting guidelines on his posts — rude, off topic and ad hominem comments will be deleted.
Geek Rage: Star Wars Comments of the Day
It looks like far too many geeks and nerds fell into Kathy Shaidle’s trap with her Five Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks article here at PJ Lifestyle. Let’s examine the wreckage in the comments:
RLD
Criticizing Joseph Campbell proves you are subhuman. You fell asleep during Star Wars, I fell asleep during your article on Star Wars. There! Life is fair!
Drop dead whoever you are.
And it looks like some of Kathy’s sharpest barbs really got under a few readers’ skin:
59. Q
The Mark Steyn, World of Warcraft line is just dirty pool. We are not all going to be Mark Steyn’s in this world. Nor will we all be paragons or captains of industry. Great men of the world or giants in any field. I am for instance an electrician, I am a very good electrician, I am considering starting on my master’s license later this year. But, that is all I am likely to ever be. And that is enough for me. It provides more than enough for me to care for myself, my family and my home. And if I spend my downtime when out of work, between one 14hr a day job and another, playing WOW and making wow jokes to my friends, what difference does it make to anyone but me? Now, don’t think for a moment that your over theme of delayed adulthood and permanent adolescence was lost on me. I am not dressing up as a night elf while living in my parent’s basement, or going to “cons”. I do understand that there is a large and growing subculture of overgrown man-children who can neither care for themselves or others. They cross all sorts of sub culture lines. From the comic book man-child to the pop culture man-child. I just think it was a bit narrow sighted to lump WOW in as a major cause. (BTW, I like Mark Steyn, and all I can say is, if he wanted, he would make a kick ass rogue. He has a way of sneaking up on ya and going for the kill.)
Others got the joke and even offered some substantive reflections on what it means to stop worshipping Star Wars:
90. erico
In 1977, I was nine years old living in a small town outside Albuquerque, passing the time wandering through the desert in and beyond the back yard looking for scorpions, stink bugs, skinks, anything really, of interest, usually finding nothing. That summer, as a treat, the family went to see Star Wars with family visiting from out of town. When Luke looked out at the double sunset on Tatooine, and the voilin strings strained away, that was me! Here on the big screen was a movie that had good guys, and bad guys, and gunfire, and adventure. Star Wars was a revelation! It seemed to comport with my nascent Christian faith, handed down to me through my parents, and the promise that there was some way to live it out in the world. Something awaited. Metaphysical bliss.
The later movies, with all the hemming and hawing on the shades of grey in the world (the growing imposition of the Campbell system), stereotypes in place of characters (much of it was originally supplied by good actors rather than the script), the loss of the sense that something was really at stake, all the endless extrapolation of different worlds, creatures, cultures, lost the thread, that there was something transcendent, and calling, in each of our futures. The system subsumed all that was once thought to be transcendent, including the force. Was it some Jungian system? Who cares. When that final piece, the force, was taken away through some materialist mumbo jumbo about mitichlorians (?) in the blood I had been broken.
And thankfully I am done with all that. My kids don’t seem so very interested in it, except that Dad was once a big fan, so they have tried to take an interest, but it isn’t lasting, because Star Wars is now just a force of culture, not of the individual, as I first received it. So I’m rather glad for the kids, for their sniffing out what is worthwhile from what is not.
“Help us Kathy Schaidle, you’re our only hope.”
And let me just lay my cards on the table as the one who edited Kathy’s piece and gave her the green light to go out of her way to say what needed to be said: I too was raised on George Lucas’s films and still wear Star Wars t-shirts. As a toddler I insisted on going to sleep each night watching the scene from Empire Strikes Back where Luke and Yoda first meet. That seems to have made an impression of sorts, as April just got me this for Christmas which I enjoy quite a bit:
We usually ride Star Tours when we go to DisneyLand and at some point I’m going to get April one of these cute Yoda backpacks where it looks like he’s holding onto your back:
But that’s about the extent of our Star Wars geeking these days.
We’re just not as geeky as we used to be during college and high school. The energy and attention that used to be focused on oddball movies and quirky hobbies now goes into our careers so someday we can expand our family beyond just the two of us and a Siberian Husky begging for homemade sushi:
Maura: "Daddy, you will share you sushi with me right now!"
Anybody else in this same boat?
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David Swindle is the associate editor of PJ Media and writes a post each day on news and politics at PJ Tatler and culture and entertainment at PJ Lifestyle. He can be contacted with feedback and story tips at DaveSwindlePJM[@]gmail.com and on Twitter @DaveSwindle. He enforces commenting guidelines on his posts — rude, off topic and ad hominem comments will be deleted.
5 Reasons Star Wars Actually Sucks
In a previous column, I noted in passing that I fell asleep during Star Wars.
I have this dim (repressed?) memory of getting dragged to see it by a high school boyfriend. (So it must have been during a theatrical re-release — I’m not that old.)
I remember:
a) Harrison Ford = hot
b) remarking loudly that we shouldn’t be able to hear those rocket ships or whatever they were because, as everyone knows, space is a vacuum and you can’t hear explosions or anything else.
Then I gathered my jacket around my head until the house lights came up.
I figured I was free and clear. Little did I know that, well into the next century, Star Wars detritus would be washing up onto the shores of my life each and every damn day.
I’m talking about stuff like this:
And this:
And whateverthehell this is:
Seriously: isn’t there some cancer you could be curing?
If you’re trying to make adults with refined tastes and a real religion hate your favorite movie even more, congratulations, Star Wars fans: mission accomplished.
Star Wars actually sucks. Here’s why.
Male-Female Hour on Dennis Prager Today: Pick Up Lines, For or Against?
The subject of the Male-Female Hour on today’s Dennis Prager show was lighter than most and a welcome diversion from the constant primary trash talk: pick up lines. What are effective ways a man can let a woman know he finds her attractive without appearing like a creep or an idiot?
After all, in today’s politically correct world what’s intended as an innocent pick-up line can be interpreted as sexual harassment.
One of the callers made the obvious point that pick up lines needed to be considered in context. The kinds of things that might work for a 19-year-old college kid at the club isn’t what the 45-year-old divorcee should use when he meets a woman at a book store.
During the hour Dennis sat incredulous at some of the cheesy lines his callers used. When finding that some even worked he had to lament that perhaps his standards were too high.
Maybe it’s just that lines are effective in different locations to attract specific kinds of women.
For example, this list of Star Wars pick up lines has a few chuckles and could be of use to those cruising for dates at Star Wars conventions. This one might work if accompanied by the right costume:
Anybody else have any suggestions here? Any pick-up lines work or fail for you? What should a man say to break the ice and make a good first impression?