I watched Star Wars (1977) (I refuse to call it “Episode IV: A New Hope”) with my kids recently. It was only the second time they had seen it. They watched the original trilogy years ago, and it was a true joy to see them thrill for the first time, basically knowing nothing about Star Wars. When Darth drops the big twist on Luke at the end of Empire, their reaction was the same as Luke’s (“NOOOOOOOOO!”). My second was adamant; Vader is lying, he can’t be Luke’s father!

When I watched Star Wars again with them recently, it struck me that not only is the Darth-Anakin connection absent in the first movie, but it doesn’t even make much sense. I now feel vindicated.

Think about it:

• Luke’s uncle (Vader’s half-brother) doesn’t want Luke getting messed up in Jedi stuff like his father. Okay, so that kind of works, but why doesn’t anyone give Luke the heads up that Luke’s father not only became a Jedi, but crossed over to the dark side? Seems like that might be important.
• Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader killed his father. I understand the metaphorical interpretation here, but understanding it as a metaphor also means understanding Obi-Wan to be a liar. I don’t see how you can escape that. And it never did sit well with me.
• But most importantly, consider this: Luke lives with his aunt and (half-)uncle, on Vader’s home planet, under the name Skywalker. Does this make any sense at all if Darth Vader’s real name is Anakin Skywalker? Nope. If Luke was really sent to be raised in some backwater corner of the galaxy, surely it would be with kind strangers and under an assumed name.

And don’t even get me started about the Leia thing.

I’ve been wasting my spare time developing an iPhone game rather blogging. I’ve been reticent to post about it here since I don’t want to use KB to sell my game. However, today it is free, so I feel relatively unrestrained. So go grab Battle for Vesta while the price is right.

This year there are 40 free comics being offered. Here’s are some recommendations of what’s worth picking up:

Pop Candy
MTV’s Splash Page
Bureau 42
Comics Worth Reading

Anyone have recommendations of their own?

1. “Lovin’ you isn’t the right thing to do”
2. “Looking down on empty streets, all she can see”
3. “Dig if you will a picture of you and I engaged in a kiss”
4. “We’ll be fighting in the streets with our children at our feet”
5. “It’s been a mystery and still they try to see”
6. “Come up to meet you, tell you I’m sorry”
7. “I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour”
8. “Shot like an arrow going through my heart”
9. “I’ve been roaming around, always looking down at all I see”
10. “I got up feeling so down”
11. “Hello, I’ve waited here for you”
12. “There’s a destination a little up the road”

If you want to guess without the band and song titles, go ahead, but they’re listed after the jump.

Journey, “Who’s Crying Now”
Coldplay, “Scientist”
Fleetwood Mac, “Go Your Own Way”
Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody”
Foo Fighters, “Everlong”
Prince, “When Doves Cry”
The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
Beck, “Where It’s At”
Janet Jackson, “Miss You Much”
The Smiths, “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”
Peter Gabriel, “Mercy Street”
Soundgarden, “Outshined”

I’ll put some space so you don’t get the answers in the comments.
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Spoilers below the fold.

* The whole planet was nuked!  No isolated patches of foliage survived? At least Caprica still seemed to have green foliage after the nuking.  Perhaps they should go back to the twelve colonies now that some Cylons are on their side.  At least a few of the planets should still be habitable.

*  Apollo never should have left his wife.  The whole Starbuck/Apollo thing seemed way too forced.  However, Dee’s actions tonight seemed way out of character to me.  But I guess when the promised land is a nuclear wasteland, people do crazy things.  Everyone seems to have gone a little crazy, which is understandable.  It doesn’t really feel like the end of character arc with her, though.  Instead, it feels like the show’s creators didn’t know what more to do with her, so they killed her off.  However, the characters keep dwelling on the meaningless of it, so perhaps that’s the point. 

*  The thirteenth tribe were Cylons?  That makes the whole “humanity created some robots that then rebelled and made their own version of humans” thing in the first two seasons meaningless.  In fact, all that talk about how the Cylons were humanity’s children who had to kill their parents – gibberish now.  I wonder if this will affect that upcoming Caprica series?

*  Why Starbuck allows her creepy Cylon stalker/boyfriend to hang around her, I’ll never guess.  This time around, though, he decided she was too creepy for him.

*  So, Apollo is “acting President” and Roslin is “President.”  I’m really not understanding who’s in charge or what the transfer of power is.  Perhaps that’s intentional, as the government has seemed pretty ad hoc the whole series.

*  Well, I would have never guessed who the fifth Cylon was.  That was a shocker.  Adama was (kinda) right way back in the first season when she first appeared.

*  Overall?  A pretty good episode.  Not as good as the first season’s best, but it gives me hope that the series will end on a strong note. (My wife wants everyone to know that she does not agree.  She thinks the reveal was pointless.  Her actual words “Who wants her as the last Cylon?  That makes no sense.”)

Instead – feast your eyes and ears upon:

Stan Lee reads “The Raven.”

Two great tastes that go great together.

This whole thing presents several pertinent questions….but I can’t for the life of me think what they are.  Your thoughts?

Steve covered the new hardware last, but I’ll get it out of the way first. The new iPhone adds 3G networking and GPS. That’s about it, other than a headphone jack that isn’t jacked up. This means that mobile data speeds are about twice as fast and that the location based stuff is more accurate. Both are needed and obvious improvements but not real game changers. Note that the storage hasn’t changed and it appears that the processor speed is the same too.

Also only briefly mentioned was the new pricing: $199 for the 8 GB model and $299 for the 16 GB model.  I’m guessing that this represents a carrier subsidy of about $150.  This lower pricing is what is going to make the much discussed 8 million iPhones in 2008 an easy target to hit.

The real focus of the presentation though was software. It would have been appropriate if Steve has jumped up and down screaming “Developers, Developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS!”

Ok, maybe not appropriate but funny. The iPhone has suddenly become THE mobile software platform. Not only does it have a serious foundation, solid tools and a growing customer base, but it has the ability to easily download and purchase new apps on the device itself, over the air.  Want to buy Super Monkey Ball on a whim?  You can do it while riding the bus

This ease of selling applications is going to create a frenzy of software development that is going to spur some real innovation.

Also on the software front, it appears that Apple has addressed all the concerns that people had when the iPhone was first launched.  Not only that, but they’ve brought enterprise type features to individual users via the Mobile Me service and synching.

In any case, as excited as I was about the new hardware (which I waited for) it is the software and the possibilities it holds (which is going to work on the old hardware too) that has me really excited now.

Just knowing Lucas was involved and knowing he lost his touch sometime in the early 80′s I already was coming in with lowered expectations. A series of rather uninspiring trailers didn’t get me any more excited. (Contrast this with the Batman movie for which every trailer gets me more and more pumped up)

But at this stage I think I’d be excited if it was just as good as Last Crusade.

Make this one good. Please. Oh, and make the new Bond movie at least as good as the last one. And why is it that none of the post-Moore Bond flicks have had a half-decent song? That was the classic of the old ones. Admittedly the Chris Cornell one wasn’t bad. But still.

Enough tangent. Tell me straight. Are you pumped up with pre-bought tickets to Indy? Or are you just praying it’s no Episode I?