Clone Wars -- Season Six: The Lost Missions

So it is with no small amount of sadness that I've arrived once again at the end of The Clone Wars. I'm not going to go back through all of the stuff I've previously said about the abrupt ending of the series... even though I want to. But that's a rant I've already been on, probably more than once, and you can go back and find those posts if you want to.

The real question is whether you should take the time to watch "The Lost Missions," especially considering they didn't actually air on the Cartoon Network along with the rest of the series. Can they be that important?

In a word? Yes.

I think there are four "must see" arcs in The Clone Wars for any Star Wars fan who is interested in going beyond the movies. Two of those arcs are in season six, the first being the opening arc of the season dealing with Order 66 and the second being the two-part Yoda story that ended the season. Even if you don't watch any of the rest of Clone Wars, you can probably get enough out of these two stories to make them worth watching on their own. You won't regret it.
Probably.
Unless you make the mistake of watching the Jar Jar arc, then you might regret it.
Unless you appreciate that story for the Indiana Jones nods.
Or if you like Jar Jar, which I do.
But I still found that particular story trying. Except for the Indiana Jones stuff.

Overall, The Clone Wars is a really excellent series. There are some episodes and arcs that are... less good, but, on the whole, other than the stumble with season four, it's worth your time if you like Star Wars. Or, really, even if you don't. Despite being animated and despite airing on Cartoon Network, it's not some kids' cartoon. It deals with mature issues, and it's one of the best animated series I've ever watched. You should check it out.

There are a few more episodes that were never finished (due to cancellation!), but they're available on  the Star Wars website in their unfinished form, and I'm going to check those out. At some point, I'll have an update on those.
And I'm going to get back to Rebels. Not that I meant to get away from Rebels, but time has been limited. I'll pick back up on reviews for those soon.

You Know You've Made It When...

You know you've made it as an actor when you get turned into a Lego minifigure. I think it used to be when you were turned into any kind of action figure, but, these days, especially after McFarlane Toys came onto the scene in the mid-90s, almost anyone can get turned into an action figure. It ceased to be something difficult to achieve. However, it's still noteworthy to get turned into a minifigure even if minifigures don't look like the actors.

Even more noteworthy? Getting turned into two completely different minifigures. And, yes, okay, this topic completely came out of a conversation with my sons. They have a completely disregard for action figures because, well, all sorts of movies get action figures (or, at least, used to; I suppose that trend has died down somewhat in the last few years), but only the really cool ones get made into Lego.

Of course, this whole conversation started with Harrison Ford.

Star Wars was the first Lego franchise, so you can almost say this all started with him.

That's one of the very first Han Solo minifigures, back when they were still yellow like regular Lego minifigures. Now, they look like this:

And, of course, the second incarnation of Harrison Ford as a minifigure:

There ensued a long "discussion" of what other actors had two different character minifigs. [Don't ask why discussion is in quotes; just accept it.] Here's what we came up with:

Chris Evans:

Johnny Depp:

Samuel Jackson:

Ian McKellen:

Christopher Lee:

Orlando Bloom:

Those are the ones we came up with. Ones that have actual, physical minifigures. There are a few more that have two different characters but one of the minifigures is only in one of the Lego video games.

If you can think of more, let me know!

The Tour with a Camera (a Star Wars post)

If you've been following me for any length of time, you will know that the Lucasfilm offices and Skywalker Ranch are not places unfamiliar to me. There have been two problems with this:
1. Not owning a cellphone (and, thus, an always on hand camera), I have not ever had a camera with me when I've been. Usually, this isn't an issue as we're not going to be any place really cool, anyway; however, there have been a few events where a camera would have come in handy:

• the premier event for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- lots of cool props on hand at the gathering after the movie
• the premier event for the debut of Star Wars: The Clone Wars -- since it was animated, there were no props, but there was a lot of the pre-vis models and sketches and stuff
• that time George Lucas said "howdy" to me -- okay, so a camera would have gotten me in trouble that time, but since I didn't have one with me...

2. I've never actually been on a tour of either facility. Wait a minute... had never.

So, yeah, I finally got a tour of the Lucasfilm offices down at the Presidio in San Francisco and I took my camera with me. Although that was kind of scary. You have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before getting to go in (and get a security badge and all that) and that includes not taking any pictures. I  hadn't met up with my friend, yet, as I was getting my badge and stuff, but one of the main reasons for the tour is that I wanted to get some pictures, so not getting to take any would kind of defeat the point. Not that it would be a reason not to get the tour, but, you know, PICTURES! But I signed the agreement and went looking around for my friend. No, no, not in the building. Back outside, since I figured he was looking for me (and I couldn't actually go in without him, anyway). Once I found him, I was, like, "Dude! I just signed a thing saying no pictures. Does that mean no pictures?" And he was, like, "Well, I don't think so."

Yeah, that put my mind at ease.

But we stayed to, basically, public areas where there was no sensitive Episode VII stuff going on, so we're pretty sure the pictures are okay. And a couple of the security dudes seem to think it was okay, too, so, finally, I have some pictures. However, if you never hear from me again, you'll know what happened. I just hope they put me in a cell not connected to one of the garbage compactors.

Until then, here is your (partial) photographic tour of some of the cooler things I saw there:

Yeah, you have to pretty cool to get your own Lego head made for you by the Lego company.

The most famous blaster in the galaxy.

A statue to Ray Harryhausen, possibly the "Father of Stop-motion photography."

The Yoda fountain.

He's offering me cookies. (Recognize the shirt Briane?)

What? You thought it was all Star Wars?

Okay, it's a lot Star Wars.

But this is not Star Wars. (Knowing might win you points in my so far unimplemented point system.)

These should look familiar to at least some of you.

This guy kept trying to sell me stamps.

This is so sad.

Anyone recognize these guys? They don't come with batteries.
Well, that's about it for the pics (that I'm going to share), so everyone

"Beee goood."

How To Be... an Archaeologist

Today is the FREE! release of "Part Eighteen: The Angel"

But, first, it's time for the letter "A"!

I've lost count of the number of times I've seen someone say something to the effect of, "Well, I saw Indiana Jones, and I wanted to be an archaeologist just like him!" And, you know, I get that. Who wouldn't want to be Indiana Jones? The only problem is that Indiana Jones was more of a treasure hunter than an archaeologist. Sure, he was a professor of archaeology, but that was as Dr. Jones. When he was Indy, he was after treasure!

"I doubt any archaeologist who spent part of their youth in the 1980's didn't have Indy as a huge influence in deciding his career. How could you not?" -- an archaeologist (no, really, it's a real quote!)
"No matter how hard they deny it, every archaeologist is a fan of Indiana Jones. Without him, our field wouldn't seem nearly as romantic as it does." -- another archaeologist

Archaeology, although it can contain a measure of treasure finding, is much more complex than that. First of all, in the United States, at least, archaeology is a branch of anthropology, specializing in the recovery and analysis of material culture and environmental data. Generally speaking, a degree in anthropology is suggested. However, none of the founders of the discipline had that degree as anthropology, in many ways, developed out of archaeology, although what it really was was tomb raiding. So how did they do it?

Well, one archaeologist says, "If you were that kid that always came home with dirt on your jeans and a bullfrog in your pocket, this might be the right job for you." I'm taking that to mean that the first thing you need to be an archaeologist is a love of getting dirty. Or, at least, a willingness. I have to take the bullfrog out of the picture, because, if the goal was just to catch bullfrogs, I'd have to say that path would more likely lead to herpetology (and, no, that has nothing to do with a disease).

So, once you're willing to get down in the dirt, what do you need? You need to like being outdoors, because, unless you just want to be a professor and teach, "you are going to spend a majority of your time outdoors, walking for miles on field surveys, digging for hours in the earth, and generally getting completely filthy every day."

Now, you need to know how to dig. I hear you saying, "But I know how to dig. Just get a shovel and go to it." That would be wrong. Unless you want to destroy the stuff you're digging up. The best way to learn how to dig is to attend a field school, a course that puts you out in the field, teaches you the tools of the trade, and gives you experience in digging with a spoon instead of a shovel. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it's not much of one. On a dig, the goal is to remove 5-10 cm of dirt at a time so that the soil and artifacts can reveal history, not just yield treasures. It is the responsibility of the archaeologist to convey that story to the world.

That's a good place to start, but you might remember that Indy had a pretty good grasp of the languages and cultures of the places he went, so, if you really want to excel, especially if you're going to be looking for buried treasure, you better start brushing up on those language skills! And, you know, acclimate yourself to the local cuisine. Oh, and have a good background in history and geography. And, well, there's actually too many things to list.

I suppose the real question is whether you want to be a real archaeologist or just a treasure hunter. A lot of the obvious places to just go dig things up have already been dug up or are in the process of being dug up, so that go-out-and-find-it-yourself archaeology is becoming harder and harder to do. All sorts of new technology help today's archaeologists find interesting places to dig for new stuff, including satellites! I don't think you actually have to know how to navigate a satellite, though, to be an archaeologist.

So there you go... where to start to be an archaeologist. Now, where did I put that shovel...?

Now that you know how to be an archaeologist, it's time to go dig up some FREE! books. Or, at least, parts of a book. Look at it like finding bits and pieces of an ancient manuscript! Here are today's FREE! Shadow Spinner offerings:
"Part Eighteen: The Angel" (NEW!!!)
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
"Part Fifteen: Food of the Garden"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Nine: The Shadow of the Tree"
"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Five: The Police Car"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Three: The Bedroom"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
"Part One: The Tunnel"
"The Evil That Men Do"

That's 14 of 18 parts plus the part 0, "The Evil That Men Do"!
And, as an added bonus, I'll throw in Charter Shorts for FREE! today, too.

Make sure you pick up your copies today!

Top Ten Movies and the Tree

Today is the FREE! release of "Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"

Make sure you pick up your copy! (And more on that in a moment...) And notice the wonderful new cover by the fabulous Rusty Webb!

It's also the day of Alex Cavanaugh's Top Ten Movie thing (click the link for the list).

Let's get the movies out of the way first.

As per usual, I'm breaking the rules a bit. Many of the movies I list will be franchises rather than movies. Mostly, because devoting six of 10 spots to Star Wars seems a little redundant, and, well, even the least of the Star Wars movies is greater than most other movies. This will allow for more variety on my list. Oh, and I should also say that I kind of hate making lists like this, because, if I were to make the same list next week, it might be slightly different. That's why I have a "significance" page not a "favorites" page. The things that have been significant don't change. But enough of that; let's get to it...

Honorables:
Daredevil (2003) -- This was one of my top super hero movies until Marvel got into the game for real and started making their own movies. I still think it's one of the most watchable and is a great adaptation at the same time. It's completely underrated.

Ladyhawke (1985) -- During high school, my best friend and I spent the better part of a year watching this movie virtually every weekend. It almost made the actual top 10, but it's probably been too long since I've seen it to really know where it stands.

Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -- Fellowship was a great movie, perfectly captured the spirit of the books, and it deserves to be in the top 10. However, it fell off the list, because I don't feel compelled to put the other movies up there along with it, and it wasn't strong enough to stand next to the other top 10s all by itself.

Goonies (1985) -- This was the movie that my brother and his best friend watched almost every weekend for the better part of a year, and I often sat and watched it with them. [I know, you'd think I did nothing but watch movies when I was in high school, but most of this movie watching happened after midnight when it was too late to do anything else.] Then there was a period where my kids wore out this video, too.

10. Robin Hood (1973) -- The Disney version of Robin Hood was the first movie I ever fell in love with. And I did. I wanted to be Robin Hood, and he was the hero of my boyhood, along with Spider-Man, prior to Luke Skywalker.

9. Better Off Dead (1985) -- The other movie my best friend and I spent the better part of a year watching virtually every weekend. Even more than Ladyhawke. It was the most quoted movie of my high school career, especially, "Man, now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that."
And "I want my two dollars!"
And "Gee, I'm real sorry your <whatever bad thing just happened> blew up."
And... I need to stop, or I'll just quote the whole movie.
However, I do still use on my kids whenever we're having something they don't like for dinner, "It's got raisins in it... you like raisins."

8. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) -- Not quite as quotable as Better Off Dead but so much more tapped into the souls of us all who grew up in the 80s. No one really wanted to be Lane Meyer, but we all wanted to be Ferris.

7. Toy Story (1995/1999/2010) -- One of the greatest movies about friendship ever made. And they just kept getting better. The third one made me cry. I don't know that there's more to be said than that.

The Incredibles (2004) -- My feelings about this movie can be summed up in the line, "When everyone's special, no one is." If you don't understand, you probably won't understand.

Ratatouille (2007) -- Similar in theme to Incredibles but with the addition of not dismissing someone because you think they know who they are.

6. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) -- The second movie to ever make me cry (the first was The Fox and the Hound, which almost made the list) and possibly the event that nudged D&D into cultural awareness in any real sense. I'm still hoping, though, that Spielberg doesn't cave and make a sequel.

5. Iron Man (2008) -- The second virtually perfect super hero movie. I saw it three times its opening weekend (not, actually, on purpose) and could have gone back for more. Downey (whom I had been following since the 80s (Less Than Zero, anyone?)) was amazing. "I am Iron Man."

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) -- The third virtually perfect super hero movie. Chris Evans was absolutely perfect for the role, and I was so relieved when they went with him (they almost didn't because of his portrayal of Johnny Storm). As with Iron Man, Marvel really captured the character and threw him up on the screen.

The Avengers (2012) -- I don't even know what to say about this one. Whedon tied all the other movies together perfectly. It stands as the masterpiece of superhero movies.

4. Spider-Man (2002/2004/2007) -- The movie I waited my whole life to see. Spider-Man has always been my favorite superhero. Always. I remember playing Spider-Man when I was four, maybe even three. He was always so cool with all the jokes and stuff, and, really, is there a better set of super powers? Not when you throw in how smart he is, there's not. Sam Raimi was the very first (director) to capture the essence of a comic book hero and throw it up on the screen for us to see. [Admittedly, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine was the very first perfect performance of a character in 2000's X-Men. Unfortunately, the X-Movies have been pushed too far down to make the list.] And it had the line "With great power comes great responsibility," unlike some lesser Spider-Man movies.

3. Indiana Jones (1981/1984/1989/2008) -- The greatest adventure movies ever made. Period. Adventure does have a name...

2. Dead Poets Society (1989) -- I left high school completely tired of math and science and being told I had to do something in math or science, or math and science. I was tired of having my math test scores waved in my face all the time. Drawing had already been squashed out of me, but writing had not. I was good at it. On the sly, my English teachers would let me know how good at it I was without talking about math or science. So I went on to college and immediately declared English as my major... only to have all of my advisors start yelling at me. But I held to it. I never doubted my decision, but that doesn't mean  that you know that you know that you're right. I walked out of DPS after my first year as an English major, and I knew that I knew that I'd made the right decision.

1. Star Wars (1977/1980/1983/1999/2002/2005) -- What can I say? Star Wars changed my life. Not that it didn't change the lives of lots of kids. Watching it that first time was like being in a darkened room, only you don't know that it's dark, and having someone flip on the light. It opened my mind and my imagination. And I watched it do that same thing to both of my boys. The flip of a switch. It was more gradual with my daughter, but it's there for her, too. It's the most quoted movie in our house. It's the most quoted movie of my life.
How could expect there to be anything different in this spot?

Shadow Spinner

Today is a big day for Shadow Spinner! It's the halfway point of the story, and there are some significant revelations. But no spoilers. Go read it if you want to know; after all, it's FREE! Well, today it is. And tomorrow. Here's the list of today's FREE! parts!

FREE! on Monday, March 18 and Tuesday, March 19:
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
FREE! only on Monday, March 18:
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
"Part Fifteen: Food of the Garden"
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Nine: The Shadow of the Tree"
"Part Eight: The Cold and the Dark"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Five: The Police Car"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Three: The Bedroom"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
"Part One: The Tunnel"
Look at that! That's 14 out of 17 parts for FREE! But that's not all, because you can also get little tale that started all of this off:
"The Evil That Men Do"

As an added bonus, you can also find "Christmas on the Corner" available for FREE! To quote one reviewer's response to the novella, "What I liked best, and what surprised me most about this story was the amazing depth of emotion." Make sure you pick it up while you have  the chance to get it FREE!

And that will just about do me for today. Enjoy the movie list and pick up the FREE! stuff. Who can say no to FREE!, right?

Friends and Unfriending (an IWSG post)

This post is brought to you by the letter "I." Also, it is brought to you by the letter "W." Oh, and "S" and "G," too. That would be IWSG better known as the Insecure Writer's Support Group dreamed up by Alex Cavanaugh while he was sleeping. No, really, he was asleep. The letters fell on his head, and he had to make them mean something. His first option was "SWIG," but he felt that didn't really convey anything meaningful. Take a swig of what, right? Next, he went with "WIGS," but he didn't want to imply anything or insult anyone. Since nothing else was working, he threw the letters into the air and got IWSG, which had to mean something even if he didn't know what that was. After Rusty supplied the word "insecure," the rest fell into place.

This month, I'm actually going to talk about an insecurity, something I tend not to do because I tend to be mostly secure. Some would say overconfident, but I think more like comfortably confident. Well, in context, at any rate. I'm not, like, Barney Stinson confident. I know what things I'm good at, and I'm confident in those abilities. That does not extend to playing Skylanders with my kids as my younger son showed me the other day as he continued to clobber me in player vs player mode. I think my video gaming skills are beginning to atrophy since I haven't done any real playing of, well, anything in a few years, and the last thing I played to any extent was one of the Indiana Jones Lego games on the Wii.
But I digress...

My biggest area of insecurity, right now, is being unfriended (which is now a word even if my spell checker is telling me it's not (which is not to say that I agree with it's word worthiness, but no one asked me (still, it's better than LOL being a word, and I still can't figure out how that made it through))) or unfollowed or whatever. But it's not even that, it's the not knowing WHY! Or who. I mean, if Facebook would just do us the courtesy of telling us who unfriended us, it might cut out a lot of the anxiety. Even knowing that, generally, the reasons have nothing to do with me specifically, as often it is actually just people deactivating their accounts, it's hard for me not to question myself every time I lose one of those FB friends. "Who unfriended me?" "Did I do something to cause it?" The questions, they plague me!

Sometimes, there is a reason. For instance, there was this whole thing in the past year over this review that I did. I'm not gonna give names or anything, but let's just say the review wasn't a good one. The author had friended me on FB prior to the review with this quote:

Andrew, I'm excited for you to read it and I will accept any review you give, harsh or glowing or harshly glowing. Get on it already!

I sort of expected that to be the truth; unfortunately, it ended up not being the truth, and the recipient of the review attacked my character over the review (I think the most tossed around term was "douche"), so I wasn't surprised when he unfriended me. However, FB didn't tell me it was he that unfriended me, so I scoured my friend list trying to figure out who it was, which is a maddening thing to do (since some of the people on there are from back when I used to play Farmville and stuff, and I don't really know who they are), and it was a long time before I thought to check to see if he was one of the people that recently dropped me.

And he's not the only person that has unfriended me over review issues. But, then, when someone friends me over the prospect of a review for his/her book that does not mean I'm going to give a good review just so that s/he will be my friend. I mean, that is so high school. "Do my homework for me, and I'll be your friend" kind of thing. In the end, those situations don't bother me. When I know that's what's going on.

Anyway...
I've been struggling at around 370 friends for months, now. I've hit 374 two or three times and dropped back down to 370 again every time. Every time I lose a number, I scour my list trying to figure out who it was, because I want to know WHY! My wife tells me I'm being silly, and, in my head, I know that I am, but this whole thing really is an insecurity for me, especially since I'm in a field where I "need" to build my friends list and my followers. I used to be fairly particular about friend requests, even when I was playing Farmville, and turned down a lot of the gaming requests I got. These days, I tend to not be very particular and accept pretty much every request I get, since it's everyone is a "potential." Don't ask me what that means; I just know that it's so.

The funny thing about all of this is that in life I'm not so concerned with "friends." I tend to just do my thing and people that want to join in can and those that don't want to can go their own way. I've always been like this, so I've bounced about a bit in the number of friends I've had at any given time based on what I was interested in and where I happened to be. Being the "weird" one has never bothered me, unlike my brother, who always wanted lots of friends and to fit in. Of course, he was one of the ones always telling me that if I just wouldn't be so "weird," I'd have more friends, and he couldn't understand why I was so unconcerned with it all.

But all of that is different now that I have to deal with it on a faceless numbers basis. It's not like walking down the hall in high school and knowing who is and is not your friend, because you can't easily see these people behind the numbers on facebook or blogger or wherever, so it bothers me when that number changes and I wonder if it was me even when I know I should be even less concerned over it now than I have ever been in my life, and that was not at all, which tells me that number fluctuations shouldn't bother me. And, yet, they do.

They do! And I can't stand it! Yes, it's enough to make me neurotic. That is, if I wasn't already.

So there you go... my insecurity. Do with that what you will.

However, up there on the right, you might see where it says "FIND ME HERE!" If you do see that and if you want to find me in those places, you can go over and catch me on facebook and goodreads as well. Just, if you do, don't unfriend me without letting me know, okay?

Pantsing, Plotting, and the Grocery List

I hate the "grocery list." I do. I hate it. You want to know why? Fine, I'll tell you why. Because I didn't used to need one, and I hate the fact that I need one now. Seriously, ten years ago, I could walk  into the grocery store with no list despite needing 30 different things, and I'd walk out with every single thing on my not-list. I never got home and had to deal with "CRAP! I forgot the <one thing I went to get in the first place>!" These days, if I go to the store needing three things, I might come home with two of them. Yes, I said "might."

It's all very distressing. Mostly, it's distressing for my ego. I've been in list training now for probably five years or so. 'Cause, see, I hate the idea of needing the list, so I try to brush off the need, "No, I don't need no steenking list!" But, yet, coming home with only 2/3 of what you went in to get just doesn't work very well, and it causes repeated trips to the store to get the things I forgot, and I hate that even more. Especially if it's something I need right then, which does happen.

Granted, one of the reasons I forget things is my kids, specifically, my daughter. She likes to go to the store with me, and we never make it even 10' into the store before she's asking for things, and, pretty soon, the flood of items she's inserting into my mental landscape has completely blotted out the actual mental list that was there. Which is why I need a paper list. Besides, she likes the paper list. She gets to hold it, and she likes to go get things while I'm, say, picking through the apples trying to find ones that aren't bruised.

Which brings me to pantsing. We were at the store the other day without a list, my wife, my daughter, and I. Theoretically, since my wife was with me, we should have had a list, especially since she's the one that makes lists in our house and is in charge of my list training. Seriously, she loves lists. But we didn't have a list, and there was a reason for that that I just can't remember right now. See, I should have written it down (except I didn't know I'd want that particular piece of information again). Anyway, we were walking through the store tossing back and forth the things we needed to get and going back and forth in store as we remembered things that we'd already passed and all of that, and it occurred to me how like pantsing it is to go to the store without a list. [For any of you non-writers that may be reading this, "pantsing" is not what you might be thinking and has nothing to do with high school hazing. Pantsing is short for "by the seat of your pants" or, in other words, not having a plan. Writing without a plan (plot), specifically. To look at from an Indiana Jones perspective: "I don't know. I'm making it up as I go."]

Without the list, the following things happen:
1. I spend a lot of time walking back-and-forth through the store trying to get things as I remember them rather than starting at one side of the store and ending at the other. In other words, it takes a lot longer because it wastes a lot of time. [To put this in writing terms, it's like having to do a lot of revising as you go back and put things in that you forgot. Like forgetting to have one character tell some other character some vital piece of information that he wouldn't know otherwise.]
2. I still forget things. This is especially true of items I only need every few weeks. Like laundry detergent. I hate when laundry detergent is one of the things I need on a given trip, because, if that's not written down, I will forget it. That means an immediate trip back to the store or putting off the laundry, and, let me just say, you can only put off doing the laundry so many times. Not having laundry detergent is not an excuse when  other people can smell you. [In writing terms, this are major revisions. Having to go back into the draft over and over to fix the holes you left.]
3. I buy things I don't really need to be buying (this is especially problematic when my daughter is with me). If I have a list, I go directly to the things I need, finishing my trip quickly and efficiently. When I don't, I wander through the store and pick up extra things "just in case." "Oooh! Cheese ball! Things I wouldn't see if I wasn't wandering around trying to remember what I was supposed to be getting. [This is like writing things in that don't really serve your story just because you like them. Sometimes, these things can be entertaining side bits (like "Oooh! Cheese ball!"), but, often, these are just things that bloat the story (like those Oreos you know you should have just walked on past and are now sitting in the cupboard causing all sorts of guilt) and would be better left out. Yes, I'm calling your story fat.]
4. I let my daughter talk me into buying things that no one else in the family wants to eat and, really, we don't want her to eat. Like the jar of nutella sitting in the cupboard that no else likes, and we won't let her eat any of it more than once a month or so because it has so much sugar in it (actually, that wasn't a whim purchase, but it serves to illustrate the point, because that stuff is in our cupboard only because of my daughter). [This is like applying every piece of advice you hear to your manuscript, whether it's coming from CPs or agents or whomever. I don't have definitive data for this, but it seems to me that pantsers have a much more difficult time with not responding to every suggestion about their manuscripts that come along. (Plotters tend to be more focused and more easily discard bad advice.)]

I'm sure you've figured out that the list is a metaphor for plotting. Just to be clear.

Having said all of that, I'm not saying that being a pantser is a bad thing. It's just a bad thing for me. If I don't have a plan, if I don't, at least, have notes, I don't remember it. So I make story notes. Right now, I have notes for about half a dozen different stories or books for the future that I add to when I have ideas. It's just... necessary for me. If I'd started all of this before I had kids to distract me, maybe it wouldn't matter, but it does, so I have to plan out what I'm doing just so that I remember what I'm doing.

Which is not to say that I'm extreme or anything. I don't storyboard everything or anything like that. Heck, I don't even make actual outlines (which is ironic, because I was trying to teach my daughter the importance of outlining, recently, because she was working on an essay for school, and she kept mixing up her main points with her evidence). But I do need a list. There are probably a lot of you out there that don't need lists, yet, but there's one thing I can tell you for sure: even if you don't need it, it never hurts to have one. Just in case.

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 5: It Just Got Happier

When we were at Disneyland back during the summer, I was joking with my kids about how Disney was going to take over the world. I may have mentioned this in one of the posts about all the Disney stuff, but I couldn't find it upon a casual perusal, and I don't have time for anything more in depth. As I'm writing this, though... wait a minute! Yes, it's here. Disney has been buying so much: Pixar, Marvel, and, now... Star Wars.

Yes, Disney bought Star Wars! Not just Star Wars but all of Lucasfilm including Skywalker Sound and ILM and all of that. They get Star Wars and Indiana Jones. It's a huge deal. A $4 billion deal of which Lucas gets $2 billion in cash. I can't even imagine that.

So this is one of the things that I was joking about while we were at Disneyland as we were strolling through Tomorrowland -- Star Wars being the next step Disney would need to take in their bid to take over the world. Star Wars is the biggest entertainment franchise ever to exist other than Disney itself, so this is... well, it's just HUGE!

The immediate result of the deal is that another Star Wars movie is going into immediate production for a 2015 release. And, yeah, I already hear the moaning out there blah blah blah, but I have just two words to say to all of you who think this is bad: The Avengers. If anyone can pull off another Star Wars film, it will be Disney.

I actually like that Lucas has done this. It opens all kinds opportunities to expand the world of Star Wars. Expansion that Lucas would never have done, because, well, he's tired of everyone bashing him. And who can blame him?

There are three more movies on the horizon now: episodes 7, 8, and 9. Movies that Lucas said he would never make. But I'm sure that's just the tip of the ice berg. There have been rumors going around about a solo Boba Fett movie, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen, now, too, especially since Joe Johnston, director of Captain America, provided the final designs on the character. He's also been bugging Lucas about making that movie for years.

The most significant part of the whole thing, though, is that Lucas said he's wanted to see Star Wars passed down for future generations, and there really is no better place for Star Wars to be for that happen. If Disney knows how to do anything, they know how to preserve cherished movies and pass them on from parents to kids and, well, to more kids. Not that I think Star Wars ever would have passed out of memory, but Disney will keep Star Wars alive and growing.

None of this even takes into consideration the great talent that will now be available to play in the Star Wars universe. Hey, Joss Whedon already has a relationship with Disney... can you imagine? There are so many possibilities!

And, well, heck, I'm still stuck on episode 7. Seriously. And my kids are super excited. Exciting times!

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 3

Some of us got up early on Friday, because the plan was to get into the park ahead of the crowd. That was actually a possibility, because we had these passes that let us in an hour before the parks opened. However, when I say that "some of us got up early," what I mean is "I got up early." In all actuality, I didn't get up any earlier than I usually get up, which is 6:00am, but everyone else was supposed to also get up at 6:00am, and that just didn't happen. By the time everyone had been dragged out of bed (kicking and screaming, in some cases (okay, so I'm exaggerating a little (but only a little))), showered, and dressed, it was 7:30 before we got into the park, and we still had to eat breakfast. Clearly, we didn't have this whole thing figured out. By the time we got some food, it was 8:00am, and the park had opened for real and we'd missed the whole hour of extra time we'd had.

One of the first things we passed going into Disneyland on Friday morning was

which I thought was SO cool. See, I took a picture of it! But, seriously, it's an old fire engine; what's more cool than that? Okay, lots of things, but, still... Anyway, so I was being all "wow!" over the fire engine, and there was this old guy washing windows nearby, and he saw me being all "wow!" over the fire engine and the fire station and stuff, and he came over and told us that Walt Disney himself had lived in the apartment over the fire station while the park was being built and that he'd used it as his room for years when he'd come to stay. That was pretty cool, and I'm guessing a bit of inside info that most visitors don't get to hear about. Yeah, this guy was old enough that I bet he's been working at the park since it was being built and knew the information first hand. It was that kind of experience.

The first ride we went on on Friday morning was

and I have to say  that the line, which, actually, was almost non-existent at 8:00am, was just as good as the ride. The detail they put into the place was amazing, and there was so much to look at, but we were able to just rush through, so it wasn't until we came back to ride it again (on Saturday) that I was actually able to fully take in the details of the line area.

Going in.

A death trap.

Of course, all the kids had to pull the rope.

Oh, and, yeah, the ride was a blast!

After Indiana Jones, we went up into Tarzan's tree house.

We explored the jungle.

And we rode a steamboat.

We did some other things, too, but, well, my camera decided it didn't want to work anymore. Oh, it works again now, but that was the end of the pictures for the trip. Friday morning, it just decided that it was taking its own vacation and refused to turn on again. Yes, I checked the batteries. I'd actually just put fresh batteries in not long before it quit working. After we got home, I was able to upload the pictures I got before it died, which I wasn't sure was going to work since the camera wouldn't function. I swapped out  the batteries again, just on a whim, and something in the combination of those two things made the camera decide that it would work again. But I have no more pictures...

Which means I don't have pictures from Cars Land, which is... Oh, man, I wish you could have seen it! It was like they pulled Radiator Springs right out of the movie and brought it to life. But, you know, with people walking all around in it.

So we're sitting over at Flo's waiting for my wife's dad and step-mother, and, across the street, at the traffic cone hotel place is Lightning McQueen. Now, he's just sitting there, so, you know, I'm thinking he's a decoration. Just a model car sitting out in the driveway. But we're sitting there, and, suddenly, he comes to life and starts driving out of the driveway, and he's talking to people as he goes by, and it was just incredible! He pulled through the driveway and turned onto the street and drove right by us, and I wanted to reach out and touch him so bad, but, you know, if I was all famous and stuff, I wouldn't want people I don't know coming up and trying to touch me, so I refrained. Anyway, he drives off, and, a moment later, Mater drives up the street from the direction Lightning had gone, and he goes over and parks in the same place, and it was all SO COOL! I mean, it was seriously cool, and I can't even imagine what that would be like if I was six and Lightning McQueen drove up to me and talked to me. Well, I can, because it would have been about like Luke Skywalker walking up to me and talking to me, and I used to dream about that kind of thing all the time when I was that age, so, apparently, I can actually imagine it.

We rode The Tower of Terror, and that was amazing. The hotel is awesome! I mean, well, it's  like everything there; the attention to detail is stunning, and it's like being in some abandoned hotel, and we wondered if they have some guy somewhere that just specializes in putting cobwebs on things or if they actually hire spiders to take care of it. At the time, I didn't know this, but it's not just a simple drop ride. No, Disney was not content to be satisfied with something as simple as gravity, so the car that you sit in actually has cables that pull it down so that you achieve a speed faster than free fall. Riding that with my wife and younger son was awesome. They're both into screaming, but, see, my wife would scream and then burst into hysterical laughter, so I was laughing at her laughing, and my son was screaming but trying to also laugh, and that may have been the best ride of the trip with the way she screamed and laughed.

The boys and I went off to the Mad Tea Party while the rest of the group went off to get wet. I'm not a fan of wet rides. Well, it's not the rides; I like them just fine; in fact, when I was a kid, the log ride may have been my favorite thing; however, I hate walking around wet after the fact, and if the stuff in your wallet gets wet... and I hate having wet shoes. It's just gross, especially later when you finally take your shoes off. Anyway, we were trying to see this Tron thing that they had when the oldest boy was there in the spring, but it's gone, now, and has been replaced with the Mad Tea Party, which was pretty cool and included a band playing 80s covers with a lead singer that looked like Tom Petty. But the coolest thing there, and the thing I regret most not having pictures of, was these two guys on stilts wearing pink flamingo bodies so that they looked like they were riding giant pink flamingos. And they jousted. It was awesome.

But, you know, my camera was on strike, so I don't have any pictures.

Why You Shouldn't Trust Traditional Publishing (or Why Kids Should Be in Charge of the Slush Pile)

This isn't one of those posts where I talk about all of the very famous (or merely famous) writers that started out with tons of rejections. No, they weren't really "tons," but any rejection is a heavy load, and, when they start piling up, they certainly seem to weigh tons. If you want one of those posts, there are plenty of them out there, so go find one somewhere else.

This isn't a post that is supposed to make you feel better. Make you want to work a little harder. Make you want to try that one more time. That one more time that will be the time. I'm not really much of a cheerleader, so, if you want that, go look at any of the dozens upon dozens of cheerful blogs that are all about making you feel better about yourself as a writer.

This post might do some of those above mentioned things but not because that's the plan here. It's not what I'm setting out to do. This post is about making you think. If, in making you think, it prompts you to work a little harder or to apply yourself in new ways, well, good, but that's not what I'm trying to do here.

Yeah, I know. I can be kind of a jerk. But, really, I'm just not here to make you feel better about your writing goals. Not that I won't give you advice (if you ask) or tell you what I think about... well, whatever, but I'm not emotional support. I'll help you get the job done, but I'm not going to make you feel good about doing it.

So... here's the thing:
We all know about  the subjectivity of the publishing industry. At least, we think we do. Emotionally, however, we are still invested in the idea that traditional publishing is the Gatekeeper of who is and who isn't a writer. That, somewhere, they have some secret measuring stick that they apply to manuscripts to see  if they measure up. We know this isn't true, but we don't believe it. If we would come to believe that the "professionals" don't know any more about what's good or what will sell than, say, the troll under the bridge down the path from my house, we would ALL abandon traditional publishing forever. But we cling to this... idea... that we can't really be writers unless the publishing industry bestows that title upon us.

And it will... if we just keep at it long enough. As Jim Butcher says about getting published, "You don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the guy next to you." I have to say, though, that getting published doesn't make you a writer. I don't care who's dubbing you "Sir Author." Have you seen some of the crap that's being published these days? And not just these days. Have you seen some of the crap that has always been published? And why is crap published? Because publishers don't know crap from gold. Nor do editors. Nor do agents.

See, I was thinking (and that's the phrase that generally causes my wife to say "uh oh")... Wait a minute, before you think any of this is about me, it's not. You'll kind of have to follow my separate trains of thought to where they collide in a crash almost as spectacular as the one in Super 8.

I had just come home from reading The House on the Corner in my younger son's class (6th graders), and I was out taking the dog for a walk. [Note: I read in some class or other every morning of the week.] They had been upset when it was time for me to stop. They feel like I "always end on a cliffhanger." The thing is, I wasn't reading from one of the "exciting" parts. But, whenever I have to stop, they don't want me to. I'm in the middle of something happening even if it's just exploring. Or a game of hide-and-seek. And there are groans every time.

See, kids have a different way of looking at books than adults do. And I think kids have it right. The publishing industry is really big right now on starting in the middle of the action. Why? Because they say you have to do that to grab a child's interest, but that's just not so. Kids actually have the patience to allow something to unfold in its own time and enjoy it. It's adults that want to just get right into things. Adults who sacrifice story for action. Sacrifice empathy with the characters, knowing the characters, for immediate thrills. It's adults that want to just jump straight into bed and skip the getting to know the other person and the making out. That's not how kids are.

Hold on... I'm going somewhere with this. See! You're all out there thinking, "just get to the point!" Where's the blood? Where are the explosions?

Another thing: kids are pretty honest. This is not to say that they don't lie, but they're not going to come up and tell you they like something that they don't. If you stick a pile of spinach in front of them, they're going to tell you how they feel about it. Even if you are a guest at someone else's house. They don't have the whole lying for the sake of politeness thing down.

Kids like my book. The closest I've had to any of them not liking it is one boy (2nd grade) asking me when I was going to make The House on the Corner into a movie. I asked him why, of course. Didn't he like the book? Oh, yes, he likes it very much, but he likes movies better than books.

This is where I was in my head when my thoughts strayed over to Tolkien. Did you know that The Hobbit and, by extension, The Lord of the Rings only exist (as published works) because of a child? Before I go on, let me state that I've read numerous biographies about Tolkien and C.S. Lewis including one about the two of them together and how their friendship influenced their writings. However, I don't have any of these books available to me at the moment as they are still in boxes in the garage [Yes, only unread books have been unpacked, at the moment. >sad<], so I'm going off of memory here. I'm not remembering exactly why Tolkien was seeking publication for The Hobbit, but it probably had to do with Lewis. Lewis was the impetus for pretty much all of Tolkien's fiction getting published, so it was probably Lewis back there saying, "You need to get this published." However, no one wanted The Hobbit. I don't mean there were a lot of rejections and, finally, someone said, "Yeah, I like it." No one wanted the The Hobbit. It was too different, and no one believed there would be an audience for it. Kind of like with the whole home computer thing.

At any rate, after no one wanted the book, the manuscript was sitting around someone's house. A big someone's house. Like the owner of the publishing company that eventually published The Hobbit. They had already said no to it. But something happened then. Something unexpected. The man's son got a hold of the manuscript, and he read it. He told his dad he should make it into a book. I think there was some discussion involved, but the son was firm in his opinion that The Hobbit be published. So, more to mollify his son than anything else, The Hobbit got published with a small print run of only 1500 copies. That was all. It has never been out of print since.

So here we are at the point. The climax, as it were. Traditional publishers didn't want The Hobbit. At all. It was a child. One boy who believed in a book with a father willing to humor him. The Hobbit is now considered the most influential piece of children's literature of the 20th century, and it almost never was. And this is why you shouldn't trust traditional publishing. The truth is that they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what's good and what's bad. They're not reading the books; they're just comparing aspects of them to what's popular and making judgements on what they think will sell. Any time anything slightly different comes along, they don't know what to do with it, and they tend to just say "no."

Kids should be reading through the slush pile. At least through the piles of things that are age appropriate. Kids don't care about what's popular (they do in that they are attracted to those things, but they don't evaluate new things based on the popularity of other things, not until they're teenagers, generally); they don't care about "how things are done;" they enter each new thing just as it is, a new thing, and they form their opinions based upon their interactions with that thing. It's unfortunate that, as adults, we can't enter into each new experience with those same sets of open eyes. That ability to not pre-categorize everything. That ability to not have made up our minds before an experience as to whether or not we'll like it.

As Yoda says, "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is."

So, really, don't take those rejections the wrong way. Even after the success of The Hobbit, the publisher (the same publisher, mind you) didn't want The Lord of the Rings. The wanted The Hobbit II. Tolkien really tried to give them what they asked for, but he just couldn't do it, and they kind of just published The Lord of the Rings because they knew they weren't going to get anything else, and they demanded severe changes in the text before even that happened. Like dividing it up into 3 volumes, which Tolkien hated and had to do extensive rewrites to accommodate. Of course, The Lord of the Rings is now considered the most significant piece of fiction of the 20th century. So, really, what do traditional publishers know?

It makes me wonder what pieces of literature the world has never seen because there was not a child available to advocate for it. It makes me sad.

[Note: In similar situation, none of the Hollywood studios would support Lucas' new movie Red Tails, which I really wanted to go see last weekend but didn't get to. Several of them completely snubbed the screening and didn't show at all. Lucas said they treated Red Tails the exact same way they treated Star Wars back  in 1976. It's something different. Something that hasn't been done before. Even though it's Lucas, they won't support it. Fox grudgingly agreed to act as the distributor but only if Lucas footed the entire bill. What's the point, at that point? Hopefully, I'll have a review of this one soon, as Lucas says it's going to be his last "blockbuster" movie (other than one more Indiana Jones (if they do it)).]

Defending the Creator

Somewhat recently, CNN ran an article about Steven Spielberg and his part in the most recent Indiana Jones film. I could link it for you, but I feel the article was fairly worthless. It began something like this, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was not a very good movie." I disagree with this approach (even if I sometimes make similar statements about various... things). I especially disagree with it from a source like CNN which should confine itself to objectivity (except in editorial sections). And especially since the article was not actually about the movie but about Spielberg's role in one particular scene.

My kids are... difficult... when it comes to food. Well, the oldest isn't quite as difficult as he used to be. Now that he's entered his I'm-a-teenage-boy-and-I-will-eat-anything stage, he does, pretty much, eat anything that's put in front of him. It's a nice change from when he was younger and ketchup was too "spicy" for him (anything with any flavor was too "spicy" for him). My younger boy loves spicy food as long as it's meat. Trying to get plant life into him is like trying to put a cat into a toilet (no, I've never actually done that, but I know someone who did). And my daughter... well, my daughter is a carb hound. Trying to get protein into her is almost as difficult as trying to get plants into my son (except that she'll eat almost anything if there's a "treat" on the other side of eating it). We've spent a lot of time teaching them the proper way of saying they don't like particular foods. Especially when they are guests in other people's homes.

Here's a hint: the proper way is not to say, "This food isn't very good food."

The proper way is to say something like, "I don't care for this." Let me change the emphasis a little: "I don't care for this."

I'm not here to defend Indy 4. People didn't like it. However, if people could be objective about it, I think they would realize that, pretty much, Indy 4 is just like the other 3 Indiana Jones films. I rank it #3 out of the 4, and I can even get more behind the nuked fridge than I could Indy stopping the mining cart with his feet and then evaporating the water in the puddle because they were so hot. That always struck me as cartoonish, and Temple of Doom has always been the least of Indiana Jones to me.

What I will say is this, people don't like Indy 4 because they don't understand the history behind the movie. Lucas actually captures a fairly perfect snapshot of the personality of the 50s in Kingdom. It's great. You have the "Red Threat." You have experiments into telepathy and other mind control programs that both  the US and the USSR were heavily into during the 50s. You have aliens. Aliens were huge in the 50s and were a cultural metaphor for the coming communist invasion (like zombies are today for the loss of humanity to technology (which I've already done a post about)). It's really everything you could hope for in an Indiana Jones movie set in the 50s. If you know and understand the history.

As a complete aside, the article was about the fridge nuking scene which Lucas gets blamed for, because Lucas gets blamed for everything. The interviewer was really trying to get Spielberg to jump onto the Lucas-hating bandwagon. There was an exchange something along the lines of, "With all of the really great movies you've made, how could you be involved in a piece of crap like Indy 4?" To which Spielberg replied with something like, "I'd be involved in any piece of crap from Lucas because Lucas is my friend, and I believe in him." And, then, Spielberg revealed that the fridge nuking scene was his creation and that he's proud to have added the phrase "nuking the fridge" to pop culture. Yea, Spielberg!

Okay, so... now to the point:

People give Lucas a lot of crap these days over, well, everything he does. They don't like that he's made alterations to the original trilogy of Star Wars films. They don't like the prequels. They don't like The Clone Wars because it's a cartoon. blah blah blah
My response is pretty much "tough." Oh, and "shut up." I'm freaking tired of all the whining people do about Star Wars. And Indiana Jones.

Here's the thing: Lucas created Star Wars; he can do with it what he wants. It's like a house. Lucas' house. And he's invited us all inside for a visit. An extended visit. We got all comfortable in there, and we like it a particular way. But it's still Lucas' house. If he wants to add some new decorations to it, guess what, he gets to do that! If he wants to rip out some walls and rebuild parts of it, guess what, he gets to do that! If he wants to add new wings onto the house, guess what, he gets to do that, too! It's HIS house. We don't really get to complain about it, because he's sharing. Wait, let me say that again. He's sharing something that belongs to him, something that he made, with us. And he doesn't have to do it. And we don't have to participate. That's the key that people miss. If you don't like it, stop trying to keep living in Lucas' house! Go and create your own stuff!

Oh, wait... heh

I suppose this is a subject that's really close to my heart. I really believe in the right of the creator to create the way he wants to create. It's up to the audience if they want to participate, and it's up to the creator to decide how much he wants to... bend his creation to appeal to a wider audience. But, in the end, it belongs to the creator, not the audience, and the audience doesn't have the right to complain about changes the creator wants to make.

There's a difference between "I like the old version better," and "These changes you make suck." One is stating a preference, one is coming from a place of entitlement. The audience, the guests, have no entitlement. At any point, Lucas could say, "You know what? I'm tired of all of you people hanging out in my house and bitching and moaning all the time. Leave." So far, he's been a pretty nice guy, and he hasn't done that.

I hear some of you out there thinking about the fact that we have to pay to get into Lucas' house, and he's using that money to change things around on us. Still, you don't have to pay. That's your choice. Seriously. That's your choice. If you don't like the changes, quit paying the money and quit participating in the event. Just go home. Go home and create your own world/universe/whatever.

Oh, wait... heh

Part of all of this relates to how to be a good critique partner, too. See, there's a proper way: "I don't understand this part, right here." "This part doesn't do anything for me." "I don't feel an emotional connection to this character."
And there's a wrong way, "This part sucks." "You should re-write this part to be more like this." "You need to get rid of this character, because I don't like him."

As I said, it's up to the creator to decide how much he wants to bend his creation to appeal to an audience whether it's an audience of 1 or 1,000,000. The audience doesn't get to demand changes. As much as I dislike the whole Twilight thing and how silly I think sparkly vampires are, I don't get to tell Ms. Meyer how to write her books. I get to choose not read them and not to watch the movies. She didn't write "bad" books; she wrote books I don't like. And I'm not eating them. Um, reading them. Evidently, a lot of other people do like them, though, and that's okay. I don't like avocados, either, but a lot of people do.

In the end, it's about being civil. It's about making "I" statements (yea, popular psychology, too) and not trashing someone else's work. My wife and I spend a lot of time with our kids with this kind of thing, but, I think, it's not just kids that need to learn this stuff. And I'm not excluding myself here, because I love to rant about how stupid I think some things are (but I'm having to watch that, because I think my daughter might want to read Twilight, and, you know, if she wants to read it, I'm not going to tell her "no" (and it would just be rude of me to trash it if she decides she likes it (if she decides to read it at some point))). We can all learn to guard our words and make them safe for other people to hear.

Just a note:
No one has done this to me (recently), so this isn't me getting my dander up because of some bad critique I got. This all related to this CNN article and the cavalier way the writer of the article went about tearing into Lucas and his creation. This isn't about defending Lucas, either. He has more wealth than I can ever imagine (and I can imagine quite a bit), so he doesn't need me to defend him. This completely about the rights of the creator to play with their creation without other people getting pissy about it.

Adventure is 30 years old!

There was an anniversary this week that I almost missed. It's one of those things that makes you stop and think, "Wow! Has it really been that long?" Well, it has. On June 12, 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in theaters, and Indiana Jones was born.

I missed the first 20 minutes or so of it the first time I went to see it. I was extraordinarily upset with my parents for that. Especially because I'd spent at least half an hour telling them it was time to go or we'd be late. We were late. Because we were always late. The second time, we caught, maybe, two minutes more than we had the first time. Yes, it wasn't until my third trip to see Raiders that I got to see the opening sequence with the tarantulas and the boulder. But I didn't go with my parents on that third trip, so that explains it.

When we think of George Lucas, we tend to just think of Star Wars. After all, no other single movie ever has had the impact on movie-making and culture that Star Wars has had. And it was the sole creation of Mr. Lucas. We forget that Indiana Jones was also the sole creation of George Lucas. Okay, yes, Spielberg disapproved of Indiana Smith, and helped tweak some things here and there but the concept was all Lucas. And Indiana Jones has had his own impact on culture and entertainment. And in the midst of all of this... Harrison Ford.

Just to say it, every major studio in Hollywood turned down Raiders at least once. Including 20th Century Fox. They all said it would never work. How insane is that? But it just shows how difficult it is for anyone to get anything new past the powers that be, even the creator of Star Wars.

All of that to say that I got to see Raiders on the big screen again, last night, for the first time in 20 years. 20 years ago, I saw it at an IMAX in Chicago. I don't think I realized, then, that they were showing it because it had been 10 years. Last night, I got to see the 30th Anniversary presentation of Raiders of the Lost Ark at Stag Theater at Skywalker Ranch. I know. How cool is that? Yes, I know someone.

The really weird thing? There were people there, people that work at Lucasfilm and Skywalker Sound and ILM, that had never seen Raiders before. I don't just mean they'd never seen it on the big screen, like my friend that I went with, but people who had never, ever seen the movie before. Ever. At all. And they work for George Lucas! I mean, I could understand Howard the Duck, but how do you work for George Lucas and manage to miss ever seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark? It's inconceivable!

There wasn't any fanfare along with the event, although there was a special message from John Rhys-Davies. Before the movie, they showed the original movie trailer. Oh my gosh! It was SO horrible. I can't even begin to explain the amount of cheese. Trailer making has come a lot farther than I would have thought. Or maybe not. From seeing the trailer, it's hard to see how anyone would have wanted to see Raiders, but I'm sure it wasn't worse than other trailers of the day, so I guess it still makes sense.

Raiders is still a great movie. I say that in the sense that if it was being released now for the first time, I believe it would still have  the same kind of impact. It's a great story. Seeing it on the big screen, again, I noticed things I've never noticed before. Like the pilot, Jacques, at the beginning, isn't wearing any shoes as he sits on  the airplane fishing. When Indy shoots the swordsman in black, some guy from the crowd grabs up the dropped sword and runs off cheering. And, when Indiana is in the map room, one of the miniature buildings has something written on it in. It's bright red, so I'm amazed that I've never noticed that before. No, I  have no idea what it said. I'm pretty sure it was written in German, although I'm not positive about that. It's still a fun romp, even 30 years later.

And the theater... well, it's a nice theater. First time I've ever been. Not to the ranch, but to the tech building and Stag Theater. If only I could have figured out what the two statues were supposed to be of (but there were no placards, and my friend didn't know either) my night would have been complete. At the end, they gave us some of the old Marvel Indiana Jones comics. Just like new.

Even if you're not a fan of Indiana Jones, you can't deny the impact, the influence, the character has had. It's hard to imagine a world without Indiana Jones. I'm glad we don't have to.

Remember, adventure does have a name!
>cue the music<