The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Slow Joe At All Stop, And I Am Half In Agreement With Piers Morgan

Posted on | October 21, 2015 | 25 Comments

by Smitty

I guess at Biden’s age, the thought of having the weather suddenly raining knives on you might be more than you need.
Meanwhile, while I think “sucked” is too negative, “Star Wars has sucked for 40 overrated, overhyped, preposterous years” does resonate. I thought it was “OK”, but, like Apple, not worthy of the quasi-religious fervor surrounding what is a pretty good space opera.

Comments

25 Responses to “Slow Joe At All Stop, And I Am Half In Agreement With Piers Morgan”

  1. model217
    October 21st, 2015 @ 12:28 pm

    I admit I was a Star Trek snob and never saw Star Wars until well into the 80’s. Trek still rules

  2. CrustyB
    October 21st, 2015 @ 1:12 pm

    Star Wars is all art design and age-old mythology wrapped up in shiny new paper. George Lucas hasn’t had an original thought in his entire life.

  3. Ilion
    October 21st, 2015 @ 1:27 pm

    Meh to both. They’re better than nothing … and Star Trek was always socialistic (and secularistic) mythologizing.

  4. Darth Chipmunk
    October 21st, 2015 @ 1:56 pm

    I have a feeling that, when pressed, Piers would admit that “Battle Beyond the Stars” was a far superior movie to “Star Wars”. LOL. See I’m Piers’ age and I actually remember those days. I remember the other sci-fi that was out there, and we were going crazy for Star Wars. As usual, the ingratiating Piers is trying too hard to be a clever hipster when he’s just a lying troll.

  5. Finrod Felagund
    October 21st, 2015 @ 2:09 pm

    I have nothing against Star Wars, but Tolkien and Jackson made a much better pair of trilogies.

  6. HouseofSuffering
    October 21st, 2015 @ 2:13 pm

    It’s the UN in Space! …because everyone loves the UN? I don’t know.

  7. HouseofSuffering
    October 21st, 2015 @ 2:13 pm

    To say nothing of George R.R. Martin. (The books, I hasten to add, the TV show is dreck).

  8. Adjoran
    October 21st, 2015 @ 3:10 pm

    Biden was never going to take on Clinton head-on, the Smear Machine is too strong and he’s never crossed them before. Hillary got unexpected assists from McCarthy’s bonehead statement and Sanders’ outburst against investigators, so he must bide his time a bit longer – he would rather come in to save the day.

    Star Wars was overrated and underperformed from the 2nd one on. But so was Star Trek in all its forms. There is a market for good SciFi movies, just no producers.

  9. Finrod Felagund
    October 21st, 2015 @ 3:36 pm

    Okay, I never thought I’d be saying this.

    Matt Yglesias actually posted something intelligent and accurate on Vox:

    http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9565119/democrats-in-deep-trouble

    Fortunately he’s been wrong so many times in the past I’m hoping Democrats ignore him.

  10. ArdvarkMaster
    October 21st, 2015 @ 4:51 pm

    Farscape was better than Trek or Star Wars.

  11. malclave
    October 21st, 2015 @ 6:30 pm

    Piers Morgan just has higher standards than the rest of us. Luke Skywalker can’t compare to the heroic nature of O’Brien in 1984.

  12. WarEagle82
    October 21st, 2015 @ 6:31 pm

    If Biden were a Republican, the headlines would have been, “Biden breaks death-side promise to dying child.”

    But Democrats don’t have to live in the real world. And lying to dying children is one of their main games. Alas, their main game is killing children.

  13. RKae
    October 21st, 2015 @ 7:11 pm

    I find Tolkien lifeless and passionless. No romance. No hero throwing it all away to save the girl.

    It’s just dead in the water from the start.

    Same problem I have with Star Wars. What little connection the characters try to make, it’s nothing. I think Lucas might actually be a eunuch.

    Mind you: I’m not looking for sex; just sexual tension; eagerness, love’s anxiety, some character with a crush, requited or not.

  14. RKae
    October 21st, 2015 @ 7:15 pm

    What amazes me is how many of the Star Wars fans hate the Star Wars movies. They wait in line (in costume!) for days on end, then finally see it… then walk out grumbling that it was dumb… and then go see it 17 more times.

    The movies just never live up to the fan-fiction version they’ve concocted in their heads.

    But they keep going back.

    If a band gave me three lousy albums in a row, I would stop buying their music!

  15. Finrod Felagund
    October 21st, 2015 @ 8:10 pm

    I’m guessing you haven’t read the tale of Beren and Luthien, then. Beren lost a hand retrieving a Silmaril to win the hand of Luthien from her father.

  16. Finrod Felagund
    October 21st, 2015 @ 8:14 pm

    Old scifi geek saying:

    “Never attempt to apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem.”

  17. arik matthews
    October 21st, 2015 @ 10:00 pm

    Seeing Star Wars for the first time was a pivotal moment in my life. Of course, I was 8 at the time, but it fired up an interest in science that has not waned to this day. I know the science is faulty and the acting mostly not very good, but I love them to this day.
    On the other hand, Piers Morgan has been around for 50 overrated, overhyped, preposterous years, and, frankly, wasn’t there a war fought so we would have to be bothered with arrogant, ignorant, halfwit British twits bothering us?

  18. RKae
    October 21st, 2015 @ 11:35 pm

    And I’d have to slog through what – about 1,000 pages before I make it to this subplot?

    The fact that that’s Tolkien’s version of “passion” and it’s a side story buried under reams and reams of “adventure” undertaken by a group of men larger than a football team with no women in sight really sort of proves my point, doesn’t it?

  19. @ImaCarNow
    October 22nd, 2015 @ 6:26 am

    Star Wars, one really good movie ruined by five horrid turds that could have come from the imagination of Ed Wood.

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  21. Finrod Felagund
    October 22nd, 2015 @ 9:16 am

    Sure, it’s a “subplot”. That’s why Tolkien has “Luthien” carved into his wife’s tombstone and “Beren” carved into his.

    Look, if you don’t like reading, that’s your problem. Just stop saying things about Tolkien that aren’t true because of your ignorance of the subject matter.

  22. guest
    October 23rd, 2015 @ 11:33 am

    To be entirely fair, the first Star Wars film had its moments–I consider it an amusing romp in the mold of the old Flash Gordon serials–and it was directed by George Lucas back when he was still the outsider mad genius who gave us “American Graffiti” and “THX-1138.” That Lucas was eaten alive by the Lucas who gave us trilogy sequel after self-plagiarizing trilogy sequel, each film less substantial than the one before, even as Lucas’s creativity and genius went away and his name became a guarantee of box-office poison on anything that didn’t involve spaceships or fedoras.

    How anyone can view it as more than that dumbfounds me. Likewise, I enjoyed the original 1960s Star Trek TV series for what it was, but I’ve never felt compelled to go out in public dressed as a Klingon, nor do I grasp the cult of personality that grew up around Roddenberry, who was only an average writer and producer.

  23. guest
    October 23rd, 2015 @ 11:35 am

    Star Wars was originally supposed to be a full-length Flash Gordon feature film, but Lucas wrote the script prior to finding out that he wasn’t going to be able to obtain the rights. I think I don’t need to draw a diagram showing which character from Star Wars corresponds with Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, or Ming the Merciless.

  24. CrustyB
    October 23rd, 2015 @ 11:39 am

    Trivia: The orchestral instrument we hear when Darth Vader makes his first-ever entrance on-screen in the original movie? The gong. “Ming the Merciless” indeed.

  25. guest
    October 23rd, 2015 @ 11:44 am

    Martin is a skilled author who’s won awards for his science fiction short stories back in the 1970s, though I would also note that anyone planning to seek out his work based on this should be aware beforehand that his work, while very well crafted, is extremely bleak and dark in tone, bordering upon horror unleavened even with black humor.

    If you are interested, my recommendation would be to look for a used copy of “A Song for Lya,” his first collection of short stories, and see whether you find them worth reading.