But there are a few STAR WARS aficionados (like me) who study every detail no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. For example: it doesn’t take six light years to go from Endor to Bespin. It takes thirty light months. Stuff like that takes me right out of the picture.
And that’s just for starters. Here now are some of the continuity errors I’ve discovered. A few are glaring. I’m sure there are others. You’re welcome to add them.
Much is made about the “Dark Side,” but in truth you can still make out shapes.
In STAR WARS Episode II we learn Geonosis is where battle droids are manufactured. But if you look closely, on each one it says: “Made in Korea.”
Admiral Gial Akbar was a Navy Admiral so his commanding a rebel fleet against the Death Star was impossible since there are no oceans in outer space. They’re going to drop the anchor to where?
Darth Vader? Darth Andeddu? Darth Sidious? Darth Bane? Darth Caedus? Darth Cognus? Just pick one and stay with it.
The only difference between the Old Republic and the New Republic was that the New Republic had Trader Joes.
When Nom Anor enters a bar, do the patrons yell “Nom!” or “Anor!?” Again, pick one.
Senator Bana Breemu, representative of the Humbarine sector in the Galactic Senate – votes yes for farm subsidies in STAR WARS IV and no in STAR WARS VII.
Tatiana Maslany was not involved in a single Clone War.
Mustafar is a volcano planet yet there is still housing. Good luck getting insurance.
If you have a fast pass for STAR TOURS you still have to wait five minutes.
Donatas Motiejunas, is not the commander of the Death Star. He’s a forward for the Houston Rockets. Meanwhile, D’Qar received a ten-day contract from the Sacramento Kings.
And finally, with names like Triclops and Lumpawarrump, there’s a character named Ken?
Hopefully, the filmmakers will take a little more care next time. Although I hear the next chapter begins immediately after this last one and the first scene takes place at Ryan O’Neal’s Malibu beach house.
Friday Question. I had mentioned 'Nash Bridges' to you earlier and you indicated that you had not watched it. That got me to wondering. Since you were deeply working on 'Frasier' during the time Nash Bridges was airing, How much episodic TV are writers able to actually watch while they are working on their own show? .
ReplyDeleteKen Levine, heroically marching into the blowtorch. Morituri te salutant!
ReplyDeleteB. A.
That was hysterical.
ReplyDeleteYou missed a great one, Ken, a character in Episode II called Elan Sleazebaggano. I think George Lucas was running out of ideas at that point. If he'd done Episode VII, the villain would have been called Dave Evildude.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen the new Star Wars yet. You think you could put a "Spoiler Alert" or something up at the beginning of the column?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'll be able to enjoy it now.
I've never seen a Star Wars movie and Ken's post is still fucking funny to me. Ryan O'Neil, LOL, him and Billy Crystal should remake Face-Off.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this, I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
ReplyDeleteThank you for never taking anything in life too seriously! Loved it - and I am a Star Wars fan.
ReplyDeleteVery valuable information to know! Did you also know that prior to Admiral Gial Akbar leading the assault on the Death Star, his cousin Allahu Akbar tried to blow it up with a suicide vest?
ReplyDeleteAlso, while Campbell's Soup currently has a label featuring Chewbacca (if you find a wad of hair in your soup, they can now claim it's intentional), no manufacturer was interested in putting Jar-Jar Binks on jars of Jamaican jerk sauce.
Another “spoiler alert” one for the list. At the end of the new one, Luke Skywalker appears to be contemplating the great significance, deep sacrifice and substantial history in accepting the lightsaber. In fact, he is merely calculating the appropriate gratuity for the delivery service.
ReplyDeleteSo many commenters on this blog make the same grammatical mistake involving the third person pronoun that I have to tell you the simple technique for seeing if you have used the right one. One commenter, above, said, "him and Billy Crystal should remake "Face-Off." It should be "he and Billy Crystal." If you can't remember the rule, use this simple technique which I learned in High School. Drop the "and Billy Crystal" and see how it sounds. You would never say, "him should remake Face-Off," you would use "he." It is the same when it is compound. Forgive me.
ReplyDeleteOn Twitter there are some amusing Star Wars referenced accounts in particular I recommend to this audience:
ReplyDelete@verylonelyluke
@kylor3n
@depressedvader
As someone who's practically a life-long Star Wars fan (one of the first things I can remember is seeing Star Wars in 1977), this was great. Who do we petition to get Ken & David to write a Star Wars sitcom?
ReplyDelete(In all honesty, just how much of a Star Wars afficionado are you? I had to look up some of those names just to confirm they were "real" Star Wars characters. How many did you look up, and how many did you just know off the top of your head?) (Not that it matters, of course, just curious.)
Nothing to do with today's post. Just wanted to let you know that your taking the time to approve each posting is appreciated. Since you began doing that, not only have the trolls disappeared, the unnecessarily nasty, mean-spirited, sarcastic tone that was creeping into some of what was being posted in the comments section has disappeared.
ReplyDeleteIf you drop Billy Crystal, the re-make of Face Off sounds terrible. I think that it should definitely include he.
ReplyDeleteThis post should win an award. Shame on you people for not appreciating it more
Delete@Carol: That's no way to speak about Johnny Walker.
ReplyDeleteNot related to the post, just an update on my Cheers season 1 viewing... I'm up to ten episodes. The verdict is pretty much the same as before: liking it, liking the Sam and Diane thing, loving Coach, tolerating Carla. I really enjoyed the episode where Sam lost his lucky bottle cap. That seems to be the thing for me: Coach's Daughter, Sam's bottle-cap. I like the episodes that go a little deeper into the characters personal lives and show the heart to them, their depth. On a completely random note: has anyone ever noticed that the man holding up his drink at the very end of the title sequence (the frame that says "created by Glen Charles" etc..) looks STRIKINGLY similar to Harry Lloyd of Game of Thrones/Doctor Who fame?
ReplyDeleteAlso, in one of the episodes I just watched, Cliff for the first time offered a wild idea/explanation, something I understand later becomes his running gag. I was wondering, did John Ratzenberger start out as an extra and just happened to get a line and then some more lines and then THOSE lines and somewhere along the way it just caught on, or was that character already established in writers' minds and just waiting for the right moment to be injected into the mix?
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ReplyDelete"When Nom Anor enters a bar, do the patrons yell “Nom!” or “Anor!?” Again, pick one."
ReplyDeleteNeither. Of course they yell "OM NOM NOM!"
A L Crivaro
ReplyDeleteI was waiting to see if someone with more dispassionate feelings about CHEERS would respond to your comment, but since no one has…….I agree Coach is amazing. Some of the best jokes come from him, and it's partly the writing (of course) but also his delivery. You probably won't ever do more than tolerate Carla--she doesn't change. If you're already liking the Sam and Diane thing, and also the episodes that go a little deeper into the character's personal lives and show their vulnerabilities, I suspect you are going to love the Sam and Diane thing before the end of the first season. The chemistry grows and grows and by the last episode of Season 1 (Show Down Part 2) you see full blown that "lightening in a bottle" James Burrows refers to. CHEERS is still my favorite Sit-Com of all time. I loved Frasier and enjoyed many shows over the years, but I never again cared about the characters the way I did in CHEERS.
John Ratzenberger did not start out as an extra. I have read (here, I think and definitely other places) that he thought he was coming to audition for the Norm part. When he found out that wasn't the case, he asked them if they had a "bar know-it-all", explained what he meant and improvised an audition. They liked the idea---so he talked himself into a role. But Ken has said that he did not improvise his wild "little known facts." None of the lines were improvised, although you can read in other places that they were.
I hope you will continue to give updates of your thoughts about the show. I'm not the only one who is interested.
Some funny Star Wars anagrams here :
ReplyDeletehttp://stevengalen.com/star_wars_anagrams.html
Haha. Brilliant. Recalls Woody Allen's writings.
ReplyDeleteJet Benny and Princess Miranda - yet again - excluded.
ReplyDeleteMajor continuity issue. Epic fail. No excuse for...
(Wait. What? The "Jet Benny" movie was NOT officially part of the "Star Wars" franchise? Well !!)
You missed the most important thing. It isn't STAR wars, the STARS aren't at war. It is a FORCE war. Battle between good and evil. Stars aren't either good or evil. They are just suns, a luminous ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, held together by its own gravity. Nuclear fusion reactions in its core support the star against gravity and produce photons and heat, as well as small amounts of heavier elements. An important point, no star was injured during the filming of any of the 7 movies. The death star wasn't a star, it did not produce light.
ReplyDeleteHa! I've heard from various of my Star-Wars-Friends about continuity issues. But I like to point out that Star Wars was NEVER about continuity or logic. It felt half improvised. Which was fun and refreshing when it came out. But now Disney needs to tie it all together for the sake of making more movies and TV shows that the Dark Force ever imagined. So they are doing some loops to make it hold together. Star Wars was not a novel ala Lord of the Rings so the 'world building' was very much a barn raising. At the end of the day as long as it stood, good enough.
ReplyDeleteit doesn’t take six light years to go from Endor to Bespin. It takes thirty light months. Stuff like that takes me right out of the picture.
ReplyDeleteLight years, like parsecs, are a measure of distance, not of time. It’s like saying “It takes 363 miles to go from Albany to Buffalo.”
Hank, now imagine you are going not from Albany to Buffalo, but a larger distance between two cities not on interstates, and you have many routes to choose from. Now the distance comes into play. Similarly for space travel where you might have to slingshot around a planet for energy purposes, avoid an asteroid field, etc.
ReplyDeleteNeil DeGrasse Tyson got in hot water for pointing out that a droid can't go on sand.
I think they calculated those 6 light years using sabermetrics.
ReplyDeleteI suspect there were many who appreciated it a lot, but felt totally inadequate to respond.
ReplyDelete