User:Gonk/Gonk's Occasional Rant Page
From Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki.
Gonk's Occasional Rant Page. Where Gonk goes to gripe, gush, guffaw, or gab.
Contents |
[edit] 10/15/08
[edit] Top 10 Actually Good Lines of Dialogue from the Prequel Trilogy
In the spirit of countering the repetitive, endless tide of prequel-hatin' (in which I myself have been known to participate), I list here some diamonds in the otherwise rough prequel trilogy dialogue.
(I'm not gonna lie; I did struggle to come up with 10.)
10. "NOOOOOOOOOO!"
- A classic "MendozAAAAA" moment. Mark Hamill once said, with regard to "Nooooo"s, that "You gotta sell it!" Who better to sell it than James Earl Jones.
9. "We wouldn't want to make a mess of things in front of the Chancellor."
- Almost, almost as good as Spock's similar line at the end of the otherwise execrable Star Trek V.
8. "Jedi business. Go back to your drinks."
- I like this line for two reasons. One, it feels more real than the prequels generally manage. Two, it illustrates Anakin's cockiness in a subtler way than the prequels generally manage.
7. "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause."
- It's grim and cynical, what can I say.
6. "Why do I sense we've picked up another pathetic lifeform?"
- Obi-Wan gives voice to every Wookieepedia administrator's secret thoughts upon seeing anons editing Revan.
5. "Machines making machines. How perverse."
- The droids get lamentably few moments to be truly in-character in the prequels. This is one of them.
4. "Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering."
- Yoda's delivery here is a little more Muppety than usual, but the wisdom is clear and concise. Nobody likes suffering. Hate, anger, and fear, on the other hand, never seem to go out of style.
3. "POWAHHH! UNNNNLLLLIMITEEEED POWAAAAHHH!!!"
- Few moments deserve the adjective "unleashed" more than this. McDiarmid simultaneously conveys the orgasmic joy of evil and spawns a perfect catchphrase for Internet-based fanboy hierarchies.
2. "Your focus determines your reality."
- What could be more of a threat to the Jedi Council's legitimacy as a ruling body than the assertion that reality is subjective? Shine on, you crazy Qui-Gon.
1. "And so it is."
- Bail Organa is at the top of the very short list of characters we should've seen way more of in the prequels. Jimmy Smits' performance never falters: his fatalism at the end of AOTC, his wry glance at Captain Antilles at the end of ROTS, and of course, his big scene at the Jedi Temple. When he—a senator—gets a rifle pointed at him, and instantly realizes his worst fears have come to pass, he handles it exactly the way someone like him probably would. It's somehow real and operatic at the same time.
- Imagine for a moment how much better the prequels would have been if, instead of chronicling the fall of the Republic, they'd instead been about the formative years of the Empire and the Rebellion. How's that for a switch? (Jimmy Smits.)
[edit] Comments
[edit] 07/16/08
[edit] Of Possible Futures
It is my understanding that considerable canonical confusion is impending, now that we are so close to the release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (no, not that one, the other one... no, not THAT one either, the animated one... no, not THAT animated one, the—oh just forget it).
I cannot speak to the precise nature of the conflicting storylines, as I do not care quite enough to pay attention. All I know is I saw a canon clusterfuck coming back when this project was first announced.
- TCW(NNTOTOONNTOETAONNTAOTOJFI) premieres to respectable box office.
- Veteran Wookieepedians become even more annoyed than they already were, now that the full extent of the canon clusterfuck is revealed.
- Wookieepedia is immediately inundated with a new wave of eight-year-old contributors, to whose innocent sensibilities Ahsoka and Rotta and friends are teh grateest evar.
- Veteran Wookieepedians' annoyance reaches critical mass. They inundate Leland Chee with emails.
- It is eventually revealed that Leland Chee set fire to the Holocron and fled screaming from his dungeon cell on Skywalker Ranch, somehow eluding the patrols. (His ultimate fate remains unknown.)
- TPTB at Lucasfilm decree an overhaul of the canon classification system to deal with the clusterfuck as quickly and easily as possible. Whatever form it takes, it renders noncanon wide swaths of what was once canon.
- Wookieepedia is rent asunder when it becomes obvious that at least half its content needs overhauling. Most users remain at Wookieepedia, now calling itself The Canon Star Wars Wiki. A few choose to do double time between Wookieepedia and the new Non-Canon Star Wars Wiki. Several users who never liked Wookieepedia (including those for whom Mount Sorrow stings like an open wound) defect entirely.
- The wikis' communities distance themselves further and further due to the emergence of very different policies. Soon, it's seen as duplicitous for any Wikian to contribute extensively to both.
- The U.S. financial system crumbles, and with it, Wikia's advertising-fueled fortunes. Both wikis, along with the rest of Wikia, migrate to privately owned sites, losing thousands of contributors and beginning the long, slow slide into obsolescence.
Wow, that was really dark. Well, that last one was a bit off-topic, but you get the general idea.
[edit] Comments
[edit] 04/08/08
[edit] In Defense of Masters of Teräs Käsi
I just saw this list (linked from Club Jade) of the allegedly best and worst SW games and felt the need to respond.
If you're like me and you read the occasional retro game review, or List of Shitty Games Lawl, you have probably noticed that Masters of Teräs Käsi appears pretty often. It seems to be the Star Wars game to mock, more so even than the fatally flawed Rebellion. Well, I'm sick of it, and I'm here to tell you something…something shocking…something that's likely to elicit hateful responses:
Masters of Teräs Käsi is not as bad as you've heard.
Hard as it may be to believe, I've played more than one fighting game that's shittier. Plus, it's Star Wars, which automatically earns it a little teensy bit of goodwill, at least from occasionally forgiving SW fans like myself. But I have more objective objections too.
First, some concessions. Yes, the graphics are bad. But c'mon, it was the PS1. Try playing Silent Hill again; you'll cringe.
Yes, it's clunky, even by 1997 standards. I personally lacked the long experience with Mortal Kombat and games of its ilk, so when I first played MoTK, I was only dimly aware that the characters were moving with roughly the same grace and poise as Rock-'Em-Sock-'Em Robots. But it's worth bearing in mind that, at one time, Rock-'Em-Sock-'Em Robots kicked ass.
Yes, lightsabers don't cut through your enemies like soft butter. But you know what? Show me one fucking Star Wars game where they DO. Go on. Not KOTOR. Not the Lego games. Not Battlefront (though it's close). Not even Jedi Knight with saberrealisticcombat enabled (though, again, it's close). I'm waiting.
And yes, the characters are imbalanced, but that's only seriously problematic after you unlock Vader. (Assuming you care about game balance. I often don't. I enjoy kicking limitless amounts of AI ass as Maul in Battlefront 2 and I enjoy it as Vader in MoTK.)
Now here's what you might not know about the game's good points if your only information on MoTK comes from snarky game geek sites:
- It does involve some small degree of strategy.
- It can be fun to play. Yes, it helps to have been drinking, but still.
- It has Mara Jade. Think back to 1997 and imagine how cool that was.
- It has Slave Leia. Think back to…well, nevermind; not necessary.
- It contains absolutely nothing Prequel-related.
- That's right, nothing. I'll wait while you go find it on eBay.
- ...
- Some of the character voices (and the comments they make) are pretty entertaining. Not always intentionally entertaining, but name me a game that doesn't have laughable moments. Go on. I'm waiting.
I wish they'd remake MoTK. It could be done better. They won't, of course, because doing so would mean they'd suffer a preemptive critical carpetbombing every bit as thorough as the one James Cameron endured before Titanic came out—except more undeservingly.
So thank you, game nerd community, for ruining it for everybody else. Go pick on Yoda Stories for awhile or something.
[edit] Comments
[edit] 09/03/07
[edit] On Userpage Fanon
The topic of fanon on userpages has come up. It has inspired me to address the topic in the format of a Socratic dialogue.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: I should be entitled to keep my awesome fanfic on my userpage or a subpage, provided that I make a significant number of contributions to actual articles.
Gonk: Why? As a reward for doing real work?
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: Well, yeah.
Gonk: So we don't need WOTM or Wookiee-Cookiees or any of that stuff anymore?
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: Well… okay, not as a reward, but as a way to unwind. Our own private corner of the wiki, you know?
Gonk: For when you feel the need to get away from Wookieepedia for a while?
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: Right.
Gonk: Then go outside. Go fishing. Go play Battlefront. Hell, go to IMDb.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: But it builds community!
Gonk: If you want community, join the IRC channel.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: But they're all a bunch of jerks in there.
Gonk: Then why would you want to build community with them?
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: Well…it's just that Wookieepedia is the cool kids' table.
Gonk: If you perceive it that way, I can't help you. But there are plenty of other Star Wars-related wikis, IRC channels, forums. Some even allow roleplaying.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: But…but it's not like it hurts anything for my fanfic to be there!
Gonk: It hurts your reputation.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: What do you mean?
Gonk: The more attention you pay to your userpage fanfic, the more you create an unfavorable impression about yourself among the wiki's fan-fiction haters.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: Like you?
Gonk: Nice ad hominem attack. And no, I don't hate userpage fanon. I hate article fanon.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: Dude, then you should totally read my bio about Darth Fett! After his parents died, he became a Jedi Grand Master? An' then he was the last of the Jedi? An' then he turned to the Dark Side? An'—
Gonk: I said I don't hate userpage fanon. That doesn't mean I read it.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: *scoff* Well, fine then! Somebody else will!
Gonk: No, they won't.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: How do you know?
Gonk: Anyone sufficiently interested in such things will be too busy writing their own userpage fanon to read yours.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: Well…I just like knowing it's there.
Gonk: Wookieepedia is not a vehicle for you to stroke your own ego.
Jedi_Revan_Fett_the_Great: So, what are you suggesting? A total ban on all userpage fan fiction?
Gonk: I never said that. You said it should be permissable as long as you have a significant number of mainspace edits—that's our current policy and I see nothing deeply wrong with it. I am simply trying to persuade you to give up your fanonistic ways of your own free will.
[edit] Comments
Let go your fanonistic ways, young one! --School of Thrawn 101 04:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
- If its there only way to express themselves, suggest the alternative. They need users too. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] 07/23/07
[edit] A Moment of Sadness
Recently I found myself driven by research to peruse an issue of the Star Wars Adventure Journal and an issue of Star Wars Gamer within hours of looking through the latest Star Wars Insider.
And I experienced a moment of sadness.
And if you, dear reader, have done as I have, comparing the new to the old (and the much older) in this manner, then you need no explanation of my sadness.For the rest of you: go get an issue of Gamer. Some comic stores still have back issues, or you can get some through the Insider, or on eBay. Just get one, then look through it. You'll probably notice something you haven't seen in Insider for a good long time.
Content.
Now go get an issue of the Adventure Journal. (I recommend 4, 7, or 10—unless you have the resources to get them all.) Put aside for the moment your automatic revulsion at how much less glossy and slick it is, and notice something much more important. Even more content. And barely any advertising!
Now ask yourself: why don't these publications (or similar ones) still exist? Why do we no longer get short stories, RPG stats, and the occasional cartoon? What possessed the Lucas machine, in its wisdom, to kill Gamer after only ten issues? Well, I, your humble and long-suffering narrator, will tell you the reasons why, so in retrospect it was probably pointless for me to tell you to ask yourself.
Reason 1: It's cheaper to fill thirty pages with banal merchandising-related filler.
Reason 2: Kids these days don't want to use their imaginations. Why force them into such an unnatural position?
Reason 3: Advertising is no longer an ancillary function of our culture. It is its only function. (And, by the way, let's not forget how much Star Wars itself is to blame for that.)
Reason 4: Making the issues valuable deprives our nation's birdcages of much-needed lining.
Reason 5: Everybody "in the know" in Lucasfilm is so terrified of the continuity clusterfuck about to be caused by the TV shows that they don't wanna touch any era, any character, any anything—at least, not until Wookieepedia straightens it all out for them.
[edit] Comments
- For those seeking Gamer, I'll point out that the original publisher also still has some back issues for sale. jSarek 18:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] 07/17/07
[edit] If I Were Writing the Live-Action TV Series
(An idea blatantly stolen from Darth Culator on IRC.)
If I were writing the live-action TV series…
- …it would not go anywhere near Tatooine.
- …it would pair C-3PO and R2-D2 with a loveable wisecracking power droid named "Roy."
- …it would have at least one establishing shot of Aldera using Ralph McQuarrie's depiction of it.
- …it would not throw out sixteen new iterations of the V-wing -> TIE fighter evolution, ferchrissakes. (Same goes for Clone troopers and stormtroopers.)
- …Zeltrons aplenty. Portrayed by past Law and Order ADAs, if possible.
- …there would be a Corwin Shelvay episode. It would explain where Tremayne's extra pounds went.
- …some guy would call C-3PO gay. C-3PO would then kick his ass, and say (with Anthony Daniels' voice), "Etiquette and protocol? I don't think so."
- …that same guy would then retort, "Oh yeah? Well, the Jedi Exile was a dude!!", requiring C-3PO to beat him to death with Artoo.
- …Vader would not be allowed a moment of emo.
- …it would put a young Boba Fett and a young Kyle Katarn in Nar Shaddaa's Circus Horrificus and pit them against each other in a battle royale. Fett's ass would be handed to him, and he would slink off, shamed and motivated to improve his skills.
- …it would actually cast somebody who looks like a young Peter Cushing as Tarkin, rather than using clownishly goofy makeup to make him look like he tried to eat a hornet's nest.
- …there would be a Xizor episode, because dammit, something's gotta make him cool.
- …and it would include "Xizor's Theme" from the SOTE soundtrack.
- …and his name would be pronounced ZEE-zor.
- …there would be lots and lots of close-ups on various viewscreens and schematics indicating sizes and names for every ship that appears in the series, and many that don't.
- …and everything would be written in correct Aurebesh.
- …and there'd be names for months. Not Tapani names, either.
- …a flow-walking Jacen would appear and explain to Leia that she never, ever has a descendant named Cade, and all references to him, his companions, or his adventures belong in an alternate timeline of which we shall never speak again.
- …a flow-walking Jacen would then reappear, adding, "Same goes for the Vong."
- …after being accused of disloyalty, a younger, mustacheless Colonel Wullf Yularen would disguise himself as a Wroonian and find succor with a ragtag team of Sector Rangers, their drunken captain, and their exiled Jedi companion. Yularen would then help them infiltrate an Imperial facility, only to hear "The Imperial March" over the loudspeakers and suddenly experience renewed faith in the Empire, at which point he'd return to duty and have the others killed. (Ed.: Don't feel bad if this one doesn't make sense. The movie to which I am alluding didn't, either.)
- …two words: Victory-class.
- …I would ramp up the marketing campaign to TPM-level insanity; every ad would be for an ancillary Star Wars product, so the commercial breaks would not intrude on the Star Warsiness.
- …the moment George suggested a bad pun for C-3PO to say, I would gently lay a hand on his beflanneled shoulder and encourage him to go with the nice men waiting outside.
- …and then I would write a better pun.
[edit] Comments
[edit] 07/08/07
[edit] Faith, Hope, and Lucasarts (And the Greatest of These Is Lucasarts)
(A rare rave composed in the lyric form as a tribute to the recent revelation that Lucasarts plans to release a lightsaber game for the Wii.)
O Lucasarts, thy wisdom
And foresight we doth praise
In saving us from lame games
And reality's malaise.
The Battlefronts are bitchin';
The Force Unleashed looks cool.
But a saber simulator
Alone can make us drool.
To buy a next-gen console
Is no small price to pay,
And Microsoft and Sony
Have oft led us astray;
But though its name be silly
And its game list looking weak,
I'll buy a Wii for Star Wars
Any day of the week.
I soon shall wield a saber
With speed, like Obi-Wan,
Or artfully, like Dooku,
Or cautiously, like Han.
Locked doors will not obstruct me.
I'll slice from place to place.
And enemies that face me
Are certain to lose face.
I'll never vape an eyeball
Or rescue a Princess.
I'll never make the Kessel Run
In twelve parsecs or less.
I'll never visit Zeltros
But when I buy a Wii, at least
I will have hacked some limbs.
[edit] Comments
[edit] 05/26/07
[edit] Now, If We Can Just Avoid Any More Fanboy Advice...
You know, I was going to try to avoid this topic, but it just won't die. That's what I get for underestimating the tenacity of idiots.To all those who refuse to accept the fact that the Jedi Exile is female, here's the Top 10 Things that You Implicitly Say About Yourself When You Complain About the Exile Being Female, Make Erroneous Edits Implying She's Male, or Otherwise Illustrate Your Nonacceptance.
10. "I actually believe that my personal views supercede canon as established by those who are actually on Lucas' payroll."
9. "I am too stupid to realize that I can still play the game as a male character."
8. "I fear anything with a vagina."
7. "I take my KOTOR characters more seriously than my online reputation."
6. "I believe cooties exist and are transmissable via game controllers."
5. "I have failed to embrace the egalitarian ethic of the Star Wars films. George Lucas would be ashamed of me if I was important enough to register on his radar, which I will never be."
4. "I am either a sexist pig, or I am violating COPPA. Quite possibly both."
3. "I have ignored the wisdom of Qui-Gon Jinn, who said: 'Your focus determines your reality.' I remain too focused on my own penis."
2. "I want to be banned from Wookieepedia."
And the number one Thing that You Implicitly Say About Yourself When You Complain About the Exile Being Female, Make Erroneous Edits Implying She's Male, or Otherwise Illustrate Your Nonacceptance...
1. "I will never know the touch of a woman."
Repeat this list to yourself every five minutes, then call me in the morning.
[edit] Comments
See Wookieepedia:Jedi Exile and Wookieepedia_talk:Jedi Exile.
[edit] 05/22/07
[edit] Canon with a Capital "Chee"
Mount Sorrow is our FA right now. And good for him. Er, it. Whatever.
I realize some people vocally dislike Mount Sorrow. And putting aside for the moment the dangers inherent in ridiculing a clinically depressed landform, I can understand their position. Indeed it is, by any objective measure, silly.
But you see friends, we here at Wookieepedia do not have the luxury of deciding what constitutes "real" Star Wars and what doesn't. If we started attempting to do so, then Wookieepedia would instantly have no more credibility in SW fandom than "Darth Awesome's Super-Evil Black-and-Red Website with Everything Centered and Double-Bladed Lightsabers Instead of Horizontal Rules."This is because, for good or ill, the Powers That Be have decreed an extremely inclusive canon policy. And really, they had no other choice. By contrast, Memory Alpha has it easy: only the Star Trek movies and TV shows are canon. (Note: even the silly TV shows.) The novels, comics, and video games are apocryphal for them—which is why they have drastically fewer articles than we do.
But such a policy could never work for Star Wars. And perhaps that's for the best. After all, what's silly to me might not be so silly to another fan. Suppose I thought Darth Maul was silly. Well, actually, there's no supposition involved: Darth Maul IS silly. But silly in a cool way.
So where do you draw the silliness line? You can't, of course. Which is the whole point of all this Mount Sorrow and Tumble bunny trainer stuff (most of which was Fourdot's doing). Not only is it our responsibility to respect silly canon by creating articles on silly topics, but to be truly professional we should be developing these articles at least as fully as we would an "average" article. Do they all need to be FAs? Sweet Jesus no. Do we need to respect silly canon if the PTBs suddenly change their minds and implement a whole new canon/noncanon scale? I suppose not, but for the love of Teebo, I hope that never happens. Imagine the clusterfuck.
But to those of you who, for some strange reason, are under the impression that Star Wars has to meet some vague quota of "seriousness," I say grow up. Accept reality. After all, what's sillier than reality?
[edit] Comments
[edit] 05/08/07
[edit] At Least It Wasn't Colonel Angus
Before I begin this discussion of Harland Sanders, I'd like it to be known that I'm currently somewhat "on the fence" on this particular debate. I confess that I'm the one who, in IRC, gleefully encouraged Ozzel to create the article, all the while knowing I might end up voting to nuke it.
But for now, that's beside the point. I would like to take this opportunity to make the following predictions about the Harland Sanders kerfuffle:
- The essential content will remain, in one form or another. It may well be merged into Defeat the Dark Side, or it may not. But it seems that, since it's licensed, it already has more validity than Jean-Luc "What Was That Waiter's Name?" Picard.
- Someone will ask Leland Chee about it.
- Chee will roll his eyes in response.
- A forthcoming Tales one-shot will canonize the Colonel, if Chee himself does not, in a story involving his Gungan-staffed plantation. (Oh, don't look at me like that. If they still haven't changed the Colonel's outfit after all these years, well, someone's gotta make the Gungan joke.)
[edit] Comments
[edit] 04/29/07
[edit] Just Because It's "News" Doesn't Make It True
Gather 'round, my children, and let me tell you a story. It begins back in about 1997 or 1998. Dolly the Sheep made us all fear the onset of our own version of the Clone Wars. A declining Joe Piscopo waited to catch his second wind on Law & Order. And the world was abuzz about the forthcoming release of Star Wars Episode I, which was all we knew of its title back then. Rumors and speculation ran rampant, and—the World Wide Web still being in its youth—people weren't sure what to believe. Oh sure, it's the era that gave birth to such luminaries as Ain't It Cool News, but as is so often the case, there was a dark side to this fabled era.
You see, one day CNN's Headline News reported that they had received official confirmation that Kenneth Branagh was going to play Obi-Wan in Episode I. The problem was, of course, that this rumor had already been disproven on sites like Ain't It Cool News and TheForce.net (then in its infancy). But some overworked showbiz editor at CNN saw it somewhere on Yahoo! and decided, "that's good enough for me." And like that, too many trusting (and not-yet-net-savvy) viewers were taken in.
Fast forward to today. Now, the talk page for the forthcoming SW live-action TV show is abuzz. (I just like saying "abuzz," really.) This time, it's the rumor (found in this Ananova article) that Anthony Daniels is confirmed to be playing C-3PO in the show.Like the Branagh rumor, this had all the appearance of legitimacy at the time. And even now, there's really no reason to doubt that Threepio may well be a character in the show, and if he is, I personally would lay money that Anthony will play him.
But that doesn't make it confirmed. Many weeks have passed since that article first appeared, and no other source has yet corroborated it. Ask yourself: isn't the first confirmed cast member of the first ever live-action SW TV show significant enough news that Starwars.com should have mentioned it by now?
<V>I know why you did it. I know you were excited. Who wouldn't be? You saw a perfectly believable report and, overcome with legitimate fanboy pleasure, neglected to dig a little deeper and notice that the ultimate source of this rumor seemed to be the same London rag that claimed Lucas had asked Harrison Ford to play Hans Solo in the supposedly forthcoming sequel trilogy. But it seemed plausible. Fanboyism got the best of you, and in your fervor, you turned to Wookieepedia, anxious to "scoop" all the other users.</V>
Of course, the lovely part of all this is that one day it probably will be confirmed, and then every anon, newly-registered user, and otherwise-rational-established-user who updated the article with that information, only to have it get reverted by me, will point and laugh. But when that happens, I will just lean back and smile to myself, remembering how damn certain every fanboy on Earth was that Kenneth Branagh would play Obi-Wan. Kenneth Branagh.
[edit] Comments
[edit] 04/26/07
[edit] KOTOR MMO? WTF?
So TFN says there might be a KOTOR MMO. Just what we need: thousands of l33t-speaking Jon the Farmers. (Jons the Farmer?)But if I may be serious for a moment: if this is true, then it's probably taking the place of KOTOR3, which we had all assumed would be single-player. And that just further proves my long-held belief that folks like me, who prefer single-player games and haven't touched massively online multiplayer crap since Battle.net (and with good cause), are no longer part of the equation. You're standing in the way of progress, Gonk! There's money to be made, Gonk! Just pay your subscription fee like a good little trash receptacle, Gonk! Bahhh.

