The incoherent bloggings of a die-hard Star Wars fan.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
O-Zone - Dragostea Din Tei
Damn foreign music stuck in my head.
I have two bits of news from the ever-escalading world of Star Wars. Want the bad news first? Good, because they're both bad news.
Star Wars fan Jeff Tweiten has made a name of himself. He has lined up longer than any other Star Wars fan in the world for the releases of Episodes I and II (from New Years Day to release day in May), and he planned to do no different for Episode III. Many wonder how he has all this time to spare, and to this he says, "I make enough money to be able to do this, but I also challenge the idea that you're wasting your time if you're not stuck in a cubicle all day." He's been keeping a blog while in line for Episode III, which you can check out here. An inspiration for Star Wars fandom worldwide, Tweiten sitting on the sidewalk next to the Seattle Cinerama Theatre is a welcome sight among the locals. Everyone has always been there to support him. And now some dipshit decided to ruin his parade. One anonymous caller complained to Seattle police, who were then forced to issue a no sit/no lay ordinance on Jeff Tweiten to leave or else he'd be cited the next day. According to Tweiten, the cops who came to tell him didn't even want to do it, even saying that "they felt like asses." But the law is the law, and now Tweiten is not allowed to sit or lay down. He has to stand at all times. All because of some little anonymous prick. This just makes me furious.
And if that's not enough, here's bad news #2. The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom together form the strongest base of the moviegoing public. American cinema has always tended to its core group of Americans, Canadians, and British, who have always had the opportunity and privilege of being among the first to see the release of its films. Studios like Warner Brothers, Columbia Tristar, Universal, and 20th Century Fox have always distributed their films first to these countries, as well as others. I mean, why wouldn't they let their core group not see their films first? Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith releases in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom on May 19, 2005. It will release in Belgium, France, Switzerland (French), and Uraguay on May 18, 2005. WHY?!!!
WHY?!!!
39 days until the theatrical trailer for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! 50 days until Star Wars: Clone Wars Season 3! 108 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith releases in France for some fucking retarded reason! 109 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
****I will warn you now, this blog post ends with an officially released "spoiler" for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.****
This past week has harbored a marvelous bounty of movie previews, the highlights of which I present in the following:
Fantastic Four Along with the launch of the official site, the teaser trailer for the highly-anticipated Fantastic Four movie released last Wednesday; Marvel's first, longest, and generally corniest comic book series will finally hit the big screen. Aside from the jarringly terrible music, the footage looks great, especially seeing Human Torch fly through Times Square and The Thing do his, well... thing. I had my doubts about Jessica Alba and Iaon Gruffudd, but I think they'll work well.
The Wallace & Gromit Movie: Curse of the Wererabbit While this isn't really a trailer, it's a first look at the long-awaited Wallace & Gromit feature film. If you haven't seen Nick Park's Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit short films, you've missed out. You might remember Chicken Run as being his most recent feature. Slated for an October 7th release, this film won't be the only stop-motion movie this October featuring Helena Bonham Carter's voice...
Corpse Bride Alas, the teaser trailer for Tim Burton's new stop-motion feature film Corpse Bride, starring the voices of Burton favorite Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. This came as a huge surprise for me, considering that I didn't even know that the film had entered production yet, let alone any of the cast. In any case, it will follow Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by only three months. Burton's been busy. I definitely look forward to both.
I finally went snowboarding on Saturday. This time I actually tried grinding a rail (one of those large flat ones mind you, not some thin bar). First attempt I fell on top but managed to land right. Second attempt I landed on top but fell when I came off. They closed that jump after that; maybe someone got hurt on it. It was probably for the best. I still feel the lingering effects of the lactic acid.
Seriously, I've decided that NASA is lazy. Last year with the Mars rovers, they slowly released processed images weeks after the landings. This time around, the ESA provided all the raw images from Titan to the public, and as you can easily see, amateurs are doing the work a lot faster than NASA is. So far NASA has released a couple small mosaics.
And last but definitely not least, Lucasfilm has officially released the opening crawl to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Check out all six opening crawls here:
114 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
Behold the first natural color image of Titan. The surface consists mostly of a mixture of water and hydrocarbon ice, but everything appears orange due to the color of the atmosphere.
The first composited image released by NASA of the Huygens descent, created from 30 raw images, taken from an altitude varying from 8 to 13 kilometers.
While NASA's team is probably avoiding any form of sharpening, gradation, or article removal to prevent any intention of falsifying their work, amateurs everywhere are feeling free to do so, creating some impressively smooth mosaics from the raw images. Check out this impressive mosaic by Ricardo Nunes, Daniel Crotty, and Jakub Friedl, all who might I add have no affiliation with NASA or the ESA.
This incredible 360-degree panorama was done by graphic designer Christian Waldvogel. Using 11 of the raw images provided by the European Space Agency, he corrected the images in brightness, scale, and perspective, stitched them together, and added two color gradients adjusted according to the ESA's colored surface view; no information was added.
Like I said earlier, we should expect NASA and the ESA to release more and better processed images very soon, perhaps more expansive panoramas in natural color. While some of you may be unimpressed by the raw images (perhaps attributable to the impressively high resolutions and three-dimensional views provided by the recent Mars rovers), might I remind you that the descent images are taken through the haze of Titan's thick, opaque atmosphere; Cassini's images of Titan from space see only methane-rich cloud layer. Besides, these images are being taken by spectral radiometer cameras, built a decade ago, which don't work like your everyday digital camera but rather take in data at different and separate wavelengths.
121 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
The Cassini-Huygens space probe entered Titan's atmosphere and successfully landed this morning!
Timeline of the Huygens probe descent (all EST):
05:13 AM - Huygens probe reaches the discernible Titan atmosphere: 789 miles
05:17 AM - Main chute opens
07:34 AM - Huygens probe surface touchdown
09:44 AM - Cassini stops collecting data from Huygens probe
09:54 AM - Cassini turns toward Earth
10:14 AM - First data sent to Earth
12:57 PM - End playback of first data partition
Behold the first images all the way from Titan's surface. We should expect more and better processed images in higher resolution very soon.
One of the first raw images returned by the probe during its descent, taken about 10 miles above the surface, each pixel approximately 40 meters. It appears to be drainage channels leading to a shoreline, a landscape that far away from home... crazy.
Another raw image, taken once the probe had successfully landed on Titan's surface. As you can see, it arrived on land and not the sea. Those rocks are blocks of ice.
Wow... I remember back in 1994 or '95 when I was in fourth grade we took a field trip to Jet Propulsion Laboratory and saw Cassini in construction. I remember an exhibit laying out the entire mission plan and how the Huygens probe would land on Titan in 2005. I remember how that felt so utterly far away. That was this morning.
This is another exciting milestone in the history of human exploration. :)
As for those of you anti-space program people who say the Cassini mission is a waste of money, might I remind you that the "War on Terror" is currently costing 48 times this mission? And you can't deny that Cassini's snapshots of Jupiter and Saturn are pretty fucking awesome.
125 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
(while rummaging through old clothing in her closet, my sister found a really short dress)
Grace: Is it a skirt, or is it a shirt?
me: It's a skir... it's a shir... wait...
I forgot to mention in my previous entry that I had gone to the California Science Center to see their "Body Worlds" exhibit with actual human cadavers. It's really quite breathtaking considering the sheer amount of work that had been put into each display. The family of circulatory systems was awesome, not to mention the mounted steed finale. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it; the exhibit ends January 23rd.
It has occurred to me that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie and Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven are releasing on the same day. If I'm not already in line for Episode III (Jeff Twieden already is), that's a difficult choice to make there. I'd probably start with the first.
And speaking of which, this being the final year of Star Wars (nooo!), Lucasfilm's merchandising campaign will for the first time ever span all six films (yay!) and not just Revenge of the Sith, although we should expect plenty of that.
Just in time to celebrate this all-expansive campaign, this month's issue of Vanity Fair commemorates the entire Star Wars saga and even features a historic fold-out cover photo by Annie Leibovitz featuring all of the Star Wars greats (sans Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing of course... so I added them in).
Left to right: Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker), Ewan McGregor (young Obi-Wan Kenobi), George Lucas (creator), Natalie Portman (Padme Amidala), Yoda, Darth Vader, R2-D2, C-3PO, Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Jar Jar Binks, Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa), Christopher Lee (Count Dooku), Liam Neeson (Qui-Gon Jinn), Pernilla August (Shmi Skywalker), Jake Lloyd (young Anakin Skywalker), Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine), General Grievous, Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Chewbacca, and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker).
I was supposed to go snowboarding today but it rained all day. :(
131 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
Happy New Year everyone! And so begins the final year of Star Wars... Let's make it a good one. :)
Our hopes and wishes go out to those who have lost loved ones when hundreds of thousands perished in the recent tsunami disasters in Asia. A tragedy of this enormous scale is almost impossible to comprehend.
Artwork by Tatsuya Ishida, creator of Sinfest, updated daily:
138 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
