They say God never closes a door without opening up a thread. We’re here to do his work.

A quick rundown of geek hits: rumors fly that The Office’s John Krasinski is in consideration to play Captain America, that Ole Miss will change its mascot to Admiral Ackbar, and that Conan O’Brien has been blowing people away with his Tweets. Sorry; that last one sounded kind of dirty. And yet it’s the story most likely to still be true three months from now. Isn’t that how Hollywood works?

Question: Which actor would you like to play Captain America? Which pop-culture icon should become your school’s mascot?

There's potential for an OTI article here - how long can an Internet meme lay dormant before reviving it again becomes funny? It certainly forces us to IT'S A TRAP! ... sorry. that slipped out.

In less entertaining news, “Growing Pains” actor Andrew Koenig was found dead in a Colorado park yesterday, after having gone missing for several days. Police suspect suicide. His father, Star Trek veteran Walter Koenig, said that Andrew had been dealing with depression for some time. Among child actors who peak early, this isn’t unheard of.

Do you have anything cheerier for us to end on? Then by all means say it! Because this is your … open thread!

A couple weeks ago, I discussed the twisted subtext of Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars. But there’s another, even darker aspect of the series: the way George Lucas is pushing it at the expense of the original Star Wars movies. Like all Sith plots, this one is hard to see, even as it unfolds in plain sight.

Last summer, my son informed me that he wanted to have a Star Wars: A New Hope party for his fourth birthday. This was among the proudest moments of my life. Definitely prouder than the day he was born. (Think about it: everyone gets born. Not everyone appreciates Star Wars before he turns four.)

Nope.

So it was with great relish that I went online to buy a full spectrum of party stuff from a galaxy far, far away. I wanted plates that looked like Death Stars, cups that each showed a different member of Red Squardron (I was gonna keep Wedge for myself), and a tablecloth that reproduced that original poster where Luke’s shirt is open.

What I found was page after page of Clone Wars stuff. Nothing that showed Luke, Han, or Leia. There was a lot of Vader, but I’m sure it was because he was in Episode III. Yoda was only depicted holding a lightsaber—his Clone Wars incarnation. There are 42 items listed in EZ Party Zone’s Clone Wars category. In the “Star Wars” category, there are only four items, all of which are Vader-related. I scoured the internet, and I couldn’t find a single kids’ birthday party item that was definitively original trilogy. This was a problem for me, because I am carefully shielding my child from all knowledge of the prequel trilogy for as long as I can. If he finds out Santa isn’t real, that’s alright. The day he hears about Jar-Jar, I’m going to cry.

On the surface, Cartoon Network’s smash hit Clone Wars is a breezy little space adventure. Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme, and the rest of the prequel pack (yes, even Jar-Jar) zip around the galaxy, taking out hordes of bumbling robots and crossing lightsabers with a series of snarling bad guys. Everyone is constantly in danger, but nobody ever gets hurt, and the good guys inevitably save the day while learning valuable life lessons. Even though there’s a massive interstellar war raging, the tone is doggedly upbeat. In other words, this is a high-tech version of G.I. Joe, Thunder Cats, Transformers, or any of those other boy shows we enjoyed with our Rice Krispies back in the 80s.

However, when you consider the series in the context of Episodes II and III, everything changes. The Clone Wars suddenly seems darker than the inside of a Sarlacc. In fact, it seems almost cruel to market it to eight-year-olds.

Here’s the key thing to remember about the galactic conflict known as the Clone Wars: they are a complete and utter farce. Palpatine is literally controlling both sides: he commands the Republic’s clone army as Supreme Chancellor, and he leads the Separatist’s droid army as Darth Sidious. The sole reason for the war is to solidify Palpatine’s political power, and to keep the Jedi bogged down in a bunch of totally meaningless battles.

UPDATE: Now that we’ve actually seen Avatar, don’t miss our Avatar Podcast: “Are We Human, or Are We Panther?”.

Fenzel: I wonder how the Avatar article I wrote [Ed. Note: Fenzel wrote "5 Reasons Avatar Will Suck" before seeing the movie. —Ed.] is going to hold up, now that Avatar is actually in theaters. James Cameron’s probably gunning for us. So, if I get killed by a liquid metal killer robot, you all know why.

Mlawski: The funny thing is, I spent this morning reading all of the early reviews for Avatar, which were all ridiculously positive. But none of them said the plot, characters, or writing was any good. They all boiled down to, “Oooh! Pretty!”

So we can have a situation in which the movie is a big critical hit, yet Pete’s article is completely right.

Belinkie: I wonder if the movie is a lame cliche, but at the same time, it’s a well-written lame cliche. Like, the plot moves along quickly, the dialogue is sharp, the jokes work. So Pete’s article might be completely right, but it works in spite of those issues.

Perich: You mean, like Star Wars? Star Wars: A New Hope was groundbreaking visually and is a lot of fun, but let’s never forget that the writing is really (really) bad.

Belinkie: I’m going to straight-up disagree with you. I’m not even a Star Wars fanboy, but them’s fighting words.

Star Wars is an extremely well-plotted movie, with some amazing characters. Seriously, how do you look at a screenplay that invents Darth Vader and Han Solo, and declare it really really bad writing? If you mean it has some cheesy DIALOGUE, well sure. But that doesn’t make the writing bad, in this case. I’d say the cheesy dialogue is part of what makes the movie so much fun, and therefore part of its goodness.

King of the World.

Recently, Fenzel spelled out Five Reasons Why Avatar Will Suck. I want to add one more. Every article that I’ve read about the movie waxes poetic about how Cameron has been given carte blanche to pursue his vision. He’s spent almost four years in production, and more than 300 million dollars. He even invented his own camera. This is a man with unlimited resources and total creative control. That makes me very nervous.

Roger Ebert is an institution of the film industry. Not because of his particular genius (he gave Garfield: The Movie three stars), but because of his longevity. He’s been reviewing major releases for nearly thirty years. Looking back at a collection of his reviews is like looking into the history of film criticism at the end of the 20th Century.

Consider, for instance, his review of RoboCop:

Because the scene [where the OCP executive gets murdered] surprises us in a movie that seemed to be developing into a serious thriller, it puts us off guard. We’re no longer quite sure where “RoboCop” is going, and that’s one of the movie’s best qualities.

[...]

The broad outline of the plot develops along more or less standard thriller lines. But this is not a standard thriller. The director is Paul Verhoeven, the gifted Dutch filmmaker whose earlier credits include “Soldier of Orange” and “The Fourth Man.” His movies are not easily categorized. There is comedy in this movie, even slapstick comedy. There is romance. There is a certain amount of philosophy, centering on the question, What is a man? And there is pointed social satire, too, as the robocop takes on some of the attributes and some of the popular following of a Bernhard Goetz.

By way of comparison, here’s his review of Starship Troopers, a decade later:

I find your lack of Roger Waters disturbing.

We all know the old rumor that Dark Side syncs up in freaky ways with The Wizard of Oz. Of course, if you play pretty much any album along with any movie, there are bound to be some moments of synchronicity. (The human brain is very good at making connections.) But this got me wondering–what would happen if I played Dark Side along with a different movie? Specifically, a movie that is very associated with the term “dark side.”

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that Pink Floyd somehow composed an album synced to a movie that hadn’t been made yet, or that George Lucas used Dark Side as a temp score in his editing room. But you have to admit, some of these coincidences are pretty cool.

(Technical notes: I started the album right when the 20th Century Fox logo appears. And sadly, I had to use the Special Edition version of the movie. Like it or not, Lucas has done a pretty good job of tossing the original down the memory hole.)

Something a little different for Think Tank this week. The following was a thread on the OTI writers’ email list, which I’m reproducing here to make two points. First, we never stop overthinking. And second, guys who would prefer root canal to turning in their articles on time will spend half an hour writing an email if they think they’re procrastinating.

Belinkie

When Luke goes to confront Jabba in Return of the Jedi, he speaks English, and Jabba speaks what I assume is Hutt. They both understand each other perfectly.

Two questions:

1. At what point did Luke learn Hutt? You’ve got to assume this is not something he would have picked up moisture farming. So did Yoda have him listen to a bunch of “Intro to Hutt” learning tapes? Or perhaps being a Jedi gives you the power to understand any spoken language, through mind-reading?
2. What can we say about the tactics of refusing to speak your adversary’s language? Presumably, Luke could have spoken Hutt, and Jabba could have spoken English. But instead they have this odd, bilingual conversation. Sheely, I believe you have some knowledge of diplomacy--is this a common thing in sensitive negotiations? When the United States and North Korea negotiate a missile treaty, I can’t imagine the US ambassador speaks Korean, right?

"Meesa be on da movie poster!"

Today, May 19, 2009, marks the ten year anniversary of the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Yup, it’s been ten years since George Lucas gave the gift of Jar Jar Binks to the world and did irreparable harm to the standing of the Star Wars franchise in popular culture.

Ten years later, it’s easy to lay such scathing criticism of the film. The pop culture idiot savants of teh interwebz quickly formed such a consensus, and further (marginally better) installments of the franchise failed to completely reverse the negative perception of this film.

But ten years ago, were we all on the same page? I suspect not. Not even all critics were universal in their opinion. Most famously, Roger Ebert gave the film 3 1/2 out of 4 stars and called it “an astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking.” And I’m sure plenty of moviegoers came out of the theater thinking they had seen a thoroughly enjoyable action ride that was a worthy edition to the Star Wars franchise.

I should know. I was one of them. This is my confession.

"Oh. You've been a bad boy."

In the new Street Fighter movie, Chun Li is REPEATEDLY told that only she can stop Bison.

There is no evidence of this.

—Matthew Belinkie, Overthinker

We’re going to go from the inside out here folks. I’m going to start talking about Dragon Ball and something I think makes Dragon Ball special — then I’m going to branch off pretty quickly into the rest of pop culture, why it is the way it is, and what it can learn from Toriyama’s storytelling style.

Image by Matthew Yu

I was very glad when Atomic Red wrote in to ask us about “The Chosen One” in popular culture, because I’d just completed a vigorous e-mail exchange with Belinkie on this very topic — and on how it relates to how much the new Dragon Ball movie sucks in both concept and execution (although this was mostly drawn from the trailer, as I have not seen it yet).

According to the trailer, the Dragon Ball movie is about magical Dragon Balls being created by seven mystics who defended the earth from an alien invasion, and how somebody needs to find them so that he can save the world in the style of people who came before. Who? Why, “The Chosen One,” of course.

This is nonsense. Everybody knows the Dragon Balls were created by the Namekian Kami, after he banished evil from his body and became Guardian of the Earth, as a challenge to the people of Earth to test their courage and follow their dreams, and that most people looking for them at the beginning of the story just want sex.

Okay, maybe not everybody knows that. I will concede it is somewhat beside the point.

The point is, I am tired of prophesy and destiny dominating popular adventure media. I am so tired of reluctant, dithering heroes being told they need to do something that they are thoroughly incapable of doing and that is totally against their natures, with the main justification being a mystical prophesy that, until this very moment, has usually not come up in any of these characters’ lives.