Liverpool FC Forum

by **Woollyback** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:00 am

pinch punch first of the month :eyebrow

by **thegreedo** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:00 am

Dward, as you appear to lead such a leisurely life, and have an extra hour to burn, how about a nice "thegreedo" banner? :eyebrow

by **dawson99** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:04 am

Woollyback wrote:pinch punch first of the month

punch and a kick for being so quick :wwww

by **account deleted by request** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:10 am

dawson99 wrote:Bookies gamble more than anyone!!! well, nah we dont, but poker is cool. theres a club in london called the gutshot club. theres a 120 player tournament there tonight so gonna try my luck.

all in good fun tho

Fancy yourself as Matt Damon in Rounders?

If you want to win tonight spin round three times and say "White Rabbit,White Rabbit,White Rabbit." as its the 1st of the month.(You have to do it before mid-day tho') Also dont play with anyone named after an American city(or is it state)

by **dawson99** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:19 am

Rounders is absolutely class, love that film, and john malkovichs accent in it is genius!!!

texas hold ems, the purest form of poker... and a good laugh and excuse to drink more

by **anti-hero** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:22 am

thegreedo wrote:Dward, as you appear to lead such a leisurely life, and have an extra hour to burn, how about a nice "thegreedo" banner?

You're in the wrong thread for that.

What is the greedo anyway?

First image in my mind is some Jabba the hut like dude.

by **dawson99** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:28 am

what is the greedo? have u never seen star wars?

han solo in the bar in the beginning...

by **dward** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:31 am

thegreedo wrote:Dward, as you appear to lead such a leisurely life, and have an extra hour to burn, how about a nice "thegreedo" banner?

See my PM mate.

by **account deleted by request** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:55 am

What is the greedo anyway?

Subject 1: GREEDO. Rodian. Age Unknown (young). Upstart bounty hunter under the very temporary employ of Jabba the Hutt. This individual was given assignment to collect monies owed to the aforementioned Jabba the Hutt by Corellian smuggler Han Solo, with orders to use terminal force against said smuggler if demands for recompensation were refused. This was Greedo's first assignment as a full-fledged bounty hunter.

Subject 2: SOLO, HAN. Human Corellian, Age unknown (late twenties/early thirties?) Veteran smuggler who was given the assignment to deliver an unspecified amount of spice, an illegal intoxicant, from the harsh mining planet of Kessel, overseen by paranoid warden Moruth Doole, to Jabba the Hutt. However, Solo's vessel, the Millennium Falcon, was intercepted by an Imperial patrol, forcing the smuggler to jettison all of said spice to avoid arrest. Jabba immediately demanded compensation from Solo, since he had already paid Doole in advance. Solo refused on the grounds that it was not his fault he was forced to drop said cargo, and even suggested that it was Doole that alerted the Imperials. After thwarting two attempts by Jabba's "bill collectors" to extract the monies from Solo, Greedo volunteered himself to try and get the money, or Solo's ship, or his corpse, whatever was convenient.

Overview: Our young bounty hunter made two previous attempts while on Tatooine to get Solo to hand over the credits, only to be repeatedly stonewalled. Finally losing his patience, Greedo confronted Solo in a secluded booth in Chalmun's Cantina, Mos Eisley, Tatooine. After pulling a blaster on Solo, Greedo warned the smuggler to pay up immediately and even suggested that Solo's ship might be forcibly used as collateral (bad idea). The die was cast...

Original version: Han Solo, taking umbrage to having a blaster pulled on him and realizing that Greedo could not be easily reasoned with (plus Solo was in a hurry), opted to pull out his own weapon and shoot Greedo under the table before the Rodian had a chance to fire.

Star Wars Special Edition Version: A single shot was fired from Greedo's pistol after Solo remained unimpressed with Greedo's threat to seize the Millennium Falcon as payment. Inexplicably, despite the less than one metre separating the antagonists, Greedo's shot went wide and ricocheted several times off the booth's walls, giving Solo more than enough time to pull out his own hidden weapon and effortlessly eliminate Greedo.

by **anti-hero** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:55 am

Never was a big Trekkie fan..

by **dawson99** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:58 am

anti-hero wrote: Never was a big Trekkie fan..

its not star trek, its star wars!!!

Star Wars is a highly influential science fantasy saga and fictional universe created by writer/producer/director George Lucas during the 1970s. The saga began with the film Star Wars, which was released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope became a pop culture phenomenon—spawning five more feature films, three spin-off films, five television series, and an extensive collection of licensed books, comics, video games, and other products—all of which are set within a fictional "galaxy far, far away."

An example of the space opera genre, the Star Wars story employs archetypal motifs common to both modern science fiction and ancient mythology, as well as the Romantic music motifs now often associated with those genres.

Unlike the traditional science fiction films preceding it, the Star Wars world was initially portrayed as dirty and grimy, rather than sleek and futuristic. In interviews, Lucas tells of rubbing the new props with dirt to make them look weather-worn, a concept he has referred to as "a used future." He may have been inspired by Sergio Leone, whose 1960s films performed a similar function for the Western genre.

Each Star Wars film opens with the text, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." Lucas intended this as an allusion to the classic fairy tale opening of, "Once upon a time, in a faraway land..." This is the only way the Star Wars Galaxy has been defined in relation to the real world. To some, Lucas's allusion suggests that the films are to be interpreted as myths of the future, rather than literal events of the past. Lucas intentionally left the details open to interpretation.[[1]] Events occur in the Star Wars galaxy; although the film series itself spans the events of only two generations, other stories set in the Star Wars universe (those from the so-called "Expanded Universe") cover events that span millennia.

The Star Wars films use an opening text to provide the audience with the background to the story. Lucas emulated the Flash Gordon serials by having his opening text "crawl" up the screen from bottom to top at a high pitched angle, as if the text were disappearing into the distant starscape. Also in all Star Wars films, with the exception of Episode VI, a starship of some kind whooshes by after the crawl disappears completely. In a May 15, 2005, interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Lucas described the creation of the distinctive crawl: "The crawl is such a hard thing because you have to be careful that you're not using too many words that people don't understand. It's like a poem. I showed the very first crawl to a bunch of friends of mine in the '70s. It went on for six paragraphs with four sentences each. Brian De Palma was there, and he threw his hands up in the air and said, 'George, you're out of your mind! Let me sit down and write this for you.' He helped me chop it down into the form that exists today."

The saga shows us a very "ancient" galactic civilization thousands of years old. The setting is totally unrelated to Earth or our Galaxy, which gives it more liberty, in a sense. The Star Wars Galaxy prominently features human aliens that (coincidentally?) look like terrans from Earth. Their civilization was able to develop space travel, terraform, build ecumenopolises and build space colonies 200,000 years "ago."

Star Wars also is considered to meddle science with supernatural elements, that strongly relate to epic stories and fairy tales (eg. Magic, Knights, Witches, Princesses and 'whimsical' alien races such as Ewoks, Wisties etc).

The scope of Star Wars history spans over 5,100 years among all the Star Wars fiction produced so far (From Tales of the Jedi to Star Wars: Legacy), even though the films span only two generations.

Later novels from a series dubbed New Jedi Order opened up the Star Wars setting with alien beings named Yuuzhan Vong that came from a different galaxy. Most aliens prior to this series came from the one galaxy the films are set in.

[edit]
Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The iconic sunset of Tatooine features two suns, the result of a binary system. This scene from A New Hope has become a recognized cultural symbol of the Star Wars saga.Episodes I, II, and III chronicle the downfall of the Old Republic and the rise of the Galactic Empire. It is also the story of Anakin Skywalker's rise as a gifted young Jedi and his eventual fall to the Dark Side of the Force. In the first film, Darth Sidious manipulates the Trade Federation into invading and occupying the planet Naboo. Sidious concurrently maintains his public identity as Palpatine, a senator in the Galactic Republic, and uses the crisis to convince the Senate to elect him as Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. He then, in the second film, further manipulates the Senate into granting him emergency powers and orchestrates the Clone Wars, a conflict between the Republic (which he controls as Chancellor Palpatine) and a Separatist movement (which he controls as Darth Sidious). Meanwhile, Anakin Skywalker is discovered by the Jedi and is trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, but he falls in love with Padmé Amidala, queen and later senator of Naboo. The two hold a secret wedding at the end of Episode II. During the later parts of the Clone Wars, Anakin's wife Padmé Amidala becomes pregnant with twins, Luke and Leia. As the Clone Wars come to an end, Sidious turns Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side. Anakin, now known as Darth Vader, helps Sidious to wipe out the Jedi. Sidious (as Palpatine) declares himself emperor and turns the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire. Padmé, who is stricken with grief that her husband Anakin turned to the dark side, gives birth to Luke and Leia but dies during childbirth. Two of the surviving Jedi, Kenobi and Yoda, choose to go into exile. Obi-Wan takes Luke to Tatooine with the intent to watch over him from afar, while Senator Bail Organa takes Leia to Alderaan and raises her. Yoda goes to Dagobah to await the arrival of Luke.

Episodes IV, V, and VI pick up approximately nineteen years after the events of Episode III, during the Galactic Civil War, which leads to the downfall of the Galactic Empire at the hands of the Rebel Alliance. These films follow the story of Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin Skywalker, and his rise in the Rebel movement against the Empire. Leia, now a princess and a member of the Imperial Senate, sends a message for help to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke inadvertently intercepts the message and meets Kenobi. After the murder of his aunt and uncle by Imperial Stormtroopers, Luke joins the ragtag Rebel Alliance — traveling with Kenobi, his sister Leia Organa (who he does not realize is his sister until later, in Episode VI), smuggler Han Solo, Solo's Wookiee companion Chewbacca, and the droids C-3PO and R2-D2. He trains with Kenobi and subsequently Yoda to become a Jedi like his father, whom he believes was betrayed and murdered by Darth Vader. When Luke learns the truth — that his father is Darth Vader — he is profoundly shaken. Despite this, Luke successfully resists the efforts of Vader and Sidious to turn him to the Dark Side, instead turning his father back to the Light Side of the Force. A mortally wounded Vader then kills Sidious, while the Rebel fleet scores a decisive victory against the Empire by destroying the second Death Star. The Rebel Alliance's victory eventually leads to the end of the Galactic Civil War, the downfall of the Empire, and the formation of the New Republic, as described in the Expanded Universe.

[edit]
Themes
Main articles: Themes in Star Wars, Philosophy and religion in Star Wars, and Force (Star Wars)
George Lucas embraces a style of epic storytelling that he refers to as "motifs"; common themes and concepts which he adjusts slightly each time they recur. The concept is lifted from Romantic (early 19th century) music, but Lucas applies it both visually and as an integral part of his storytelling.

On a larger scale, there are many parallels between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy; the stories of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker echo and reflect each other in myriad ways.

The Force is one of the most recognizable elements of the Star Wars mythos. It is described by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars film as, "An energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together."

Those who can use the Force, such as the Jedi, can perform feats of telepathy, psychokinesis, prescience, clairvoyance, and mental control. Two aspects of the Force are emphasized: the light side and the dark side. The light side of the Force is the facet aligned with good, benevolence, and healing. The dark side of the Force is aligned with fear, hatred, aggression, and malevolence; this side of the Force seems more powerful, especially to those who use it, because it is driven by rage and hatred — its effects are more direct and easier and faster to achieve. In reality, neither the light nor the dark side of the Force is stronger than the other, each possessing its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, the dark side conveys an inherent disadvantage to its users, which is arrogance and overconfidence in their own abilities. However, this aggression allows its acolytes to become more formidable warriors — illustrated when Luke is able to finally overcome his father in battle because of his anger at the thought of his sister turning to the dark side. On the other hand, Jedi can occasionally become crippled by their compassion and act "soft." This is balanced by an ability to remain calm even in extreme circumstances.

[edit]
Influences
See also: Star Wars sources and analogues
Many different influences have been suggested for the Star Wars films by fans, critics, and George Lucas himself. For example, Lucas acknowledges that the plot and characters in the 1958 Japanese film The Hidden Fortress, directed by Akira Kurosawa, were a major inspiration. Lucas has said in an interview, which is included on the DVD edition of The Hidden Fortress, that the movie influenced him to tell the story of Star Wars from the viewpoint of the humble droids, rather than a major player. It also played a role in the conception of Darth Vader, whose trademark black helmet intentionally resembles a kabuto. More particularly, the arch-villain in Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai wears a black samurai helmet to which Vader's helmet bears a remarkable resemblance. The Jedi, nearly extinct futuristic knights of the former Republic, also have a high influence from the Samurai as spiritual warriors and duelists with a strong sense of honor and devotion to their duty. Their traditional clothing even resembles kimonos.

Prior to writing the script for Star Wars, George Lucas originally wanted to make a film of Flash Gordon. The rights for Flash Gordon, however, were held by Dino De Laurentiis, and Lucas decided to work on his own science fiction project instead.

Another influence in Lucas's creation of Star Wars was the writings of Joseph Campbell. Campbell's work explored the common meanings, structures, and purposes of the world's mythologies. Lucas has stated that his intention was to create in Star Wars a modern mythology based on Campbell's work. The original Star Wars film, episode IV, for example, closely followed the archetypal "hero's journey", as described in Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This influence was discussed by Bill Moyers and Campbell in the PBS mini-series, The Power of Myth and by Lucas and Moyers in the 1999 program, Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers. In addition, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution sponsored an exhibit during the late 1990s called Star Wars: The Magic of Myth which discussed the ways in which Campbell's work shaped the Star Wars films [2]. A companion guide of the same name was published in 1997.

It is thought that the setting for the Star Wars universe came from Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, published in the early 1950s. This saga also involves a galaxy teeming with inhabited worlds held together by a collapsing galactic empire using hyperdrives (for long-distance transportation). It also features the planet Trantor, which is entirely covered by the galaxy's capital, similar to Coruscant, and the protagonist of Foundation and Empire is Lathan Devers, a character resembling Han Solo. Even lightsabers have precursors in the The Foundation Trilogy as force field penknives. The planet Korrell is thought to be the basis of the planet Corellia.

It is often argued that Star Wars was influenced by Frank Herbert's classic science fiction book Dune. Many elements of Star Wars are also evident in Dune. There are so many similarities, in fact, some Dune devotees consider Star Wars little more than a campy film adaptation of Herbert's work. While this is likely an exaggeration, many of the similarities are striking. For example, both Dune and Star Wars are set on desert planets. Both stories feature a mystical knighthood of sorts — the Jedi in Star Wars and the Fremen of Dune. In both stories the hero is a messiah-like character, uses mystical powers, exhibits mind control (Jedi mind trick/the Voice), and duels opponents with sword-like weapons. Finally, both stories describe a corrupt empire and the hero's efforts to overcome it.

The original Star Wars film has many parrallels with J.R.R Tolkien's signature work "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (LOTR), firstly that a strange mysterious and powerful object (in Tolkien's work, it is the Ring of Power; in Star Wars, it is the droid R2-D2 who holds the plans to the Death Star) arrives in a small settlement on the outskits of an empire. A young boy comes into contact with the object and an old mentor who comes to understand what the object's power is and from whence it came. The old man insists that the young hero must set out from his own isolated settlement and take the object safely to a location where its strong power can be safe. The evil forces enter the settlement looking for the object and leave death and destruction in their path. Not far into his journey the hero meets a dashing adventurer in a bar (or pub) and the small group sets out being pursued by the evil forces (the stormtroopers in Star Wars and the Ring Wraiths in LOTR) and manage to get out of the settlement and into the wider world. The young reserved hero learns more about the mysterious powers he has and how to use them for good. Not long after this the heroes on their journey are unexpectedly detoured by the evil forces, and in the process of braving the new route, the old mentor lays down his life in order that the young hero has time to escape a great demon (the Balrog in LOTR and Darth Vader in Star Wars), and with his last words he tells the young hero to run, and on the way, they still have to fight the enemy to escape.

Some comic book fans have drawn parallels between Star Wars and Jack Kirby’s epic Fourth World series, published by DC Comics. The cosmos-spanning series of titles was never completed because DC canceled it, citing low sales. At the heart of the series was the battle between Orion of the New Gods and his villainous father, Darkseid (pronounced “dark side.”) Orion called upon the mystical force known as "the source" to aid him in this struggle. The Death Star is somewhat reminiscent of Apokolips, Darkseid’s home planet. Also, Darth Vader shares some visual similarities with Kirby’s armored über-villain Dr. Doom, co-created with editor/scripter Stan Lee at Marvel Comics.

The Star Wars saga has also been influenced by historical events; Lucas claims to have drawn on ancient Rome, World War II and the Vietnam War for inspiration. The reference to the historical past can be seen with Lucas's use of 'stormtroopers', commonly associated with the stormtroopers of World War I Germany and Nazi Germany, and also associated with the SS under Hitler in World War 2. These troopers were known as Hitler's secret and evil police, leading at Lucas's portrayal of stormtroopers being Palpatine's personal servants. Lucas also based the space battles in A New Hope on World War I-era aerial dog fights. The rise of Palpatine mirrors Hitler in that a democracy becomes an empire.

by **anti-hero** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:06 am

Alright alright..

No need to get so eggy..

Obviously it was a joke..

-----

So did Star Wars also invent that salute where you stick your index and middle finger together, and your pinky and ring finger together to make a three-fingered hand?

Or was that Star Trek?

by **account deleted by request** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:07 am

The original Star Wars film has many parrallels with J.R.R Tolkien's signature work "The Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings - now we are talking about a great book/ films. My favourite book anyway, great films but not my favourite.

by **dawson99** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:07 am

that was mork and mindy!!!

nanu nanu

by **anti-hero** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:09 am

Wasnt it E.T?

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