Walking a Mile with Someone Else's iPod: Playlist #1

For the next few weeks I am going to take a break from the hardcore nerdery of my other posts to present a series that I am very excited about and that likely has some broader appeal. We all listen to music. We all love it. It can be something that forms a bond between people: I have groups of friends that coalesced around our shared musical tastes and there are some bands so revered by my family that they have become their own family traditions. Yet, no matter how similar our overall tastes may be, we all have music that has really reached us and yet has otherwise remained unheard by everyone else. I like to think that these songs can say a lot about us personally. I also wanted to see what would happen if those songs were shared on a larger scale.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I asked my Facebook friends to share with me the songs that they personally loved, but were otherwise lesser-known to the world at large. I received 63 songs! I asked the submitters to briefly tell me why they picked the songs they did to give me a starting-off point for my article. Not everybody responded, so that helped bring my list down to 43 songs. I then used RANDOM.org to shuffle the order of the entries and to randomly select one song from friends who submitted multiples to make a final setlist of 33 songs. Nevertheless, I will be listening to EVERY song that was submitted, but I will only write about those 33, which is a challenge in and of itself!

And today I will present the first playlist! But first, I have created a playlist on Spotify called "Other People's iPods" that features every song submitted to me (that can be found on Spotify), including the ones that will not be featured on the blog. Find it here:

So, here is the rules to how I approach the songs sent to me. I only focus on five or six of the songs each week and I do not listen to the others until it is time to write about them. I then do the following with each one:

1.) I read the personal context of the song (as submitted to me) and give the song its first listen. I record my first impressions.
2.) I learn all that I can learn about the song over the course of the next week. I try to become a mini-expert on it.
3.) I try to find someway to make the song mine. Most often, I will try and find a personal song from my own collection that pairs nicely with the submitted song.

When someone has submitted more than one song, I focus only on one song for the blog entry, but I will listen to each of their songs during that same time.

So, are you ready? It turns out my friends have excellent taste in music. Maybe your new favorite song is in one of these playlists!

Playlist #1

Song #1: Yuna - Rescue
Submitted by Ruqayyah Abdul-Karim

The order of the songs was chosen at random, with the exception of song #1. As Rocky was the first to respond to my post, she has earned the coveted position of first song! Here is the song she chose and what she had to say about it:

“I submit "Rescue" by Yuna because it's my favorite pick-me-up song that nobody knows (followed closely by "Feelin' Myself" by will.i.am feat Miley Cyrus. No judgement please!)”

Yuna - Rescue

First impressions: Hot damn, I want to dance! Rocky was right about this being a "pick-me-up." I can see myself listening to this while I am running, lip-syncing self-consciously.

I thought this might be a song that Abby (my wife) my like. After she heard it, she said, "This girl (Rocky) and I need to be friends!" I am still working on not judging the will.i.am entry.

Over the course of the week, this song has been stuck in my head more than any other. It is definitely the most "poppy" of the five songs this week, but that's the point of the song: even though things can suck and seem to overwhelm you, you are still alive and that is awesome in and of itself. And Yuna is such an exciting singer because we do not see many Malaysians or practicing Muslims in the American pop music charts.

Yuna can also summon aeons, such as Valefor, unless I have her confused with a different Yuna.

The song is also a great girl-power anthem: 
Yeah/She's got life in her veins/She don't need no rescuing/She's okay.

Interestingly though, Yuna does not see the song as a feminist anthem, saying: “I find it really weird because I don’t consider myself a feminist. And I don’t see how that song is a feminist anthem. It’s just a song I wrote about all the strong women I know in my life."

If we had more time, it would be interesting to have a discussion on how different groups view the word "feminist," especially when viewed from different religious communities. As for a "militant, tear-down-the-establishment" theme, no, "Rescue" is not that kind of feminist anthem. But for a "empowerment, I-got-this-on-my-own" statement, "Rescue" is most certainly a feminist anthem.

But don't worry about all of that! Just enjoy this fabulously catchy song!

Pairs nicely with: Bishop Allen - Rain

Bishop Allen - Rain

Here is another song with an insanely catchy chorus, Afro-pop influences, and a message about being happy even when things suck!

Now that we are energetic and pumped, let's listen to song #2!

Song #2: Brand New - Play Crack the Sky
Submitted by: Spencer Dahl

What he had to say about it:  “It's amazing to me because when you listen to the lyrics you can almost feel the painstaking amount of effort that went into writing it. Wonderful metaphors.”

Brand New - Play Crack the Sky

First impressions: Out of the five dozen songs submitted to me, only one song was one that I had heard before. Just ONE song! But not only have I heard this one before, it is one of my absolute favorites. It is the closing song on what I consider to be one of the best records of all time. In fact, in an insane coincidence, my Facebook status exactly five years ago today is a lyric from this song.

See? Crazy right?

Just a head's up: if "Rescue" was a pick-me-up, this might be a downer...

On September 1st, 1951, a party ship named Pelican was hit by sudden bad weather off the tip of Montauk Point in New York. The boat, overcrowded and overwhelmed by rogue waves, capsized in view of the lighthouse, killing 45, including the ship's captain. "Play Crack the Sky" uses this incident for its inspiration, but takes a much more metaphorical approach.

This song is a showcase to the power of lyrics. Some songs are about the beat, or the performance, or the vocals. This one spins on its content. This song can be read as poetry. Here, try it for yourself:

We sent out the SOS call.
It was a quarter past four in the morning

When the storm broke

Our second anchor line.
Four months at sea,

Four months of calm seas to be pounded

In the shallows off

The tip of Montauk Point.

They call them rogues,

They travel fast and alone.
One-hundred-foot faces

Of God's good ocean gone wrong.
What they call love is a risk,

‘Cause you will always get hit out of nowhere

By some wave and end up on your own.

The hole in the hull defied the crew’s attempts

To bail us out.
And flooded the engines and radio

And half buried bow.

Your tongue is a rudder.
It steers the whole ship.
Sends your words past your lips

Or keeps them safe behind your teeth.
But the wrong words will strand you.
Come off course while you sleep.
Sweep your boat out to sea

Or dashed to bits on the reef.

The vessel groans

The ocean pressures its frame.
To the port I see the lighthouse

Through the sleet and rain.
And I wish for one more day

To give my love and repay debts.
But the morning finds our bodies washed up

Thirty miles west.

They say that the captain stays fast with the ship

Through still and storm.
But this ain't the Dakota, and the water is cold.
We won't have to fight for long.

(This is the end.)
This story's old but it goes

On and on until we disappear.

(This is the calm.)
Calm me and let me taste the

Salt you breathed while you were underneath.

(We are the rising.)
I am the one who haunts your

Dreams of mountains sunk below the sea.

(After the storm.)
I spoke the words but never

Gave a thought to what they all could mean.

(Rest in the deep.)
I know that this is what you want.
A funeral keeps both of us apart.

(Washed up on the beach.)
You know that you are not alone.
Need you like water in my lungs.

This is the end.

Never to see any other way…

Pairs nicely with: Brand New - Jesus Christ

Brand New - Jesus Christ

I first heard this song soon after finishing my two years as a Mormon missionary, so at the time I was made apprehensive by the song's title. But, like "Play Crack the Sky," this is another song that rests entirely on its lyrical poeticism and is an amazing confessional of a man trying to believe. It's also another downer, so, sorry Yuna!

Song #3: Talk Talk - New Grass

Submitted by: Sean Uranga

What he had to say about it: “It is such a mellow song, that I just get lost in it. Even though it is a long song (over 9 minutes, WOOF!) most of the instrumentals besides the drums and the main guitar rift are improvised, and based off of raw takes, making the song feel fresh and dynamic the whole-way through. Also, Mark's voice is so haunting the entire time. I like how it just blends in with the music, and doesn't overtake it.”

Talk Talk - New Grass

First impressions: I’m already in love with this project. This is a song I need to own. Reminds me of playing around with my own recordings. If “Rescue” is a pick-me-up, this calms you right back down. Makes me think of driving at night. The drums are the road, the instruments that come in and out are passing cars.

Sean has always had a good taste in the music he recommends to me.

Over the course of the week: As I gave this song several listens and learned more about the recording of the album this song comes from, I eventually decided I needed to buy the entire album. While nine-minute-long, jazz-influenced, post-rock may not be your typical listening fare, I challenge you to put on some nice headphones, close your eyes, and just let this song pass over you. I still get the feeling of night-driving, even if no one else does. But all it takes is a simple Google search to see how many people have been profoundly influenced by this song. And then you find the song this band is famous for:

Talk Talk - It's My Life

First off, those two songs could almost not be any different! Secondly, Gwen Stefani sounds different than I remember.

"New Grass" is an example of what can happen when an artist is given complete control over the creative process. I recommend this account of the recording process. I was especially fascinated by these comments:

Hollis believed – according to Pidgeon’s interview – that “the first time something is played it is at its finest, and the minute you try to recreate that it becomes an imitation of something that was originally better...But that takes a large amount of time because… ninety percent of what you play will be rubbish. If you’re improvising, if you get 10% which is any good then I think you’re doing really well. I think you’re doing amazingly well if you get half a percent!”

...Laughing Stock was painstakingly assembled from sessions in which a vast cast of musicians were brought in “to improvise on sections without hearing the full track,” Aspden says. With just a basic chord structure at most, they were encouraged to try out anything their hearts encouraged them to, and then, thanks to the emerging digital technology, any results felt appropriate were employed, sometimes in places for which they had never originally been envisioned. Most of it never made the cut. “It takes a strong discipline to erase 80% of the music you record,” Brown observes. “Few have the discipline to get rid of ‘stuff’.” It is this, as much as anything, that gives Laughing Stock ... its otherworldly, abstract, innovative character, but, though the procedure sounds random, Hollis himself was a perfectionist, precise in every choice he made, and the album retains a coherent structure, albeit one very different to what his former pop peers were employing.

I have never heard of a musician claiming their first performance of a song to be their best! This also made the music impossible to perform. Maybe not surprisingly, the two remaining band members did not stick together long after the exhausting process of recording this album, which has helped contribute to its cult status.

Pairs nicely with: Sigur Rós - Festival

Sigur Ros - Festival

I considered suggesting a Bon Iver song, since, as the article above suggests, his music is the descendent of Talk Talk's later work. But I'm suggesting another nine-minute, atmospheric song, largely because I have a more personal connection to it. "Festival" shares the mellowness and the fade-in/fade-out feel of the instrumentation with "New Grass," at least at first, but then the band takes the song in an entirely different direction halfway in.

Song #4: Polaris - Hey Sandy
Submitted by: Liz Buchanan

What she had to say about it: “This might seem weird but the theme song from that old Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete is pretty awesome. It's called Hey Sandy by Polaris. Fun fact - the lyrics are so difficult to decipher, people complained to the TV network because they thought they might be secretly offensive. Now that the internet is a thing, the general consensus is that it's about a Kent State student who was killed during the Kent State shooting.”

Polaris - Hey Sandy

First impressions: Good old-fashioned 90s guitar garage rock. I love when the guitar solo hits in the middle. Reminds me of just getting my old high school band together and jamming out, singing whatever came to our heads. Short and sweet.

After the soberness and mellowness and nine-minuteness of the last few songs, it's nice to get an uptempo, two-and-a-half minute dance-rock song!

Over the course of the week: Liz was not wrong about the debate over the lyrics! Just read the comments section here, for example. It seems to most people, the interpretation of this song all hinges on the mysterious third line of the first verse. Is it "Can you settle to shoot me?" or is it "Can you settle a sure bet?" or is it something dirtier? Here is the singer having fun with it:

Mark Mulcahy - Hey Sandy (Live)

You start to wonder, why keep it a secret? Only a small number of people are still following this song, begging to know. Then I realized, that's what gives the song its power (besides being a fun, danceable piece of nostalgia). What could have been throwaway lyrics have now been analyzed over and over and over. The fact that the song shares its title with a famous folk song about the Kent State shooting frames the lyrics in a different context. The fact that the lyrics are so cryptic for a kids' show's theme song fuels a fun debate about mischievous rockers. It gets people involved and interested, so I doubt he will ever tell more.

Pairs nicely with: The Solids - Hey Beautiful

The Solids - Hey Beautiful

It doesn't have the same lyrical debate as "Hey Sandy," but it is another surprisingly good theme song with a garage-rock grind to it. It also starts with "Hey!" When it finally kicks to the recognizable bridge, the hair stands up on my arms. By the way, the show's producers are both members of the band.

Song #5: Brad Mehldau - Paranoid Android (Live in Tokyo)
Submitted by: Christopher Clarke

What he had to say about it: “The passion! The depth and breadth of emotion and feeling. It is solo piano at its finest.”

First impressions: It’s best to lay back, close your eyes, and just get lost in the performance. In spite of its length, there are several moments where I noticed it got my heart racing. It may be a cover of a rock song, but it’s a fine example of modern classical piano. It represents what is so rewarding about long compositions. The listener is committed to paying deeper attention, so the composer gets to take his or her time to tell a longer story. In a piece like this there are characters and plot, a rise and fall.

Over the course of the week: So, to get to know this song, I also had to get to know the Radiohead song Mehldau is covering. I naturally assumed it was going to be 20 minutes long. It isn't.

Radiohead - Paranoid Android

When this song came out, some compared it to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." While the comparison seems out of place now, I am fascinated by how this song came together. They tried to emulate The Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun" by stitching different songs together. The result is a fascinating, prog-rocker. Even more interesting is how they managed to get the thing made into the album's lead single.

Radiohead struggled to play the song live, often more than doubling its playtime. Interestingly enough, Brad Mehldau has a studio version of "Paranoid Android," played with his jazz trio. It is also half the length of his live version, but it also considerably more faithful to the original song.

It turns out jazz musicians love to cover Radiohead. Their experimentation with harmony and time signatures makes excellent fuel for improvisation. In fact, I found an actual scholarly article, with an abstract and everything, about this specific cover song. It talks about exactly how a cover version can have interpret a piece beyond the original author's meaning and to give it a new life.

I really enjoy Mehldau's two cover versions, especially his Tokyo performance. It is the type of music I study best to: not too forceful to distract me, but with enough energy to keep me awake.

Pairs nicely with: Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy VII Main Theme (Piano Version)

Final Fantasy VII Main Theme (Piano)

The only two similarities between these two songs may be that they are both piano solos. This song may not be nearly as long or technically complex, but it is one of my favorite pieces. You do not have to have played the video game it is from to appreciate its beauty. Enjoy!

So that's it for playlist #1! It was such a success, for me at least, that I cannot wait to get started on the next five songs. Until then, get to know these ones!

Restoring Balance to the Force: Episode III - Return of the Philosophy

Restoring Balance to the Force

Episode III

THE RETURN OF THE PHILOSOPHY

If you read my other three pieces about saving/rewriting the Star Wars prequels (Mom!), you might have noticed that is has been quite some time since I wrote my last entry. This is partially because I was busy with medical school, partially because I was vacationing with family, but largely because of this terrible news:

It's as if a couple dozen voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Considering I claimed in my last post that the only way to ensure that a Star Wars film would be good is to heavily feature Wedge, I almost gave up on it all. Curse you, Denis Lawson, and your moderately successful British career! But, daaaaaaaamn, you cannot deny he has aged well!

But back to the topic at hand! Before we get started, you can read my other entries here, here, and here. Today I'll share what I believe is the third important approach to enacting a successful rewrite of the Star Wars prequels: an exploration of its own philosophical principles. Considering how simplistic of a tale the Original Trilogy contains, they manage to be rather profound at times. Of course, even the most banal of statements can take on an intellectual air when said in Yoda speak.

Consider the Force, for example. Obi-Wan describes it as an energy field created by all living things that surrounds and penetrates everything, binding the universe together. Yet there were two sides to it: a Light Side that allowed you to protect that which was good and a Dark Side offered far more power, but ultimately enslaves you at the expense of your free will. And the line between the two was paper-thin. Once Luke begins his Jedi training, Yoda's concern is that Luke comprehends how easy it is to fall to the Dark Side. Until the end of Return of the Jedi, the viewer is meant to worry about whether or not Luke will be seduced and fall away. And what is it that nearly causes that to happen? Though Darth Vader offers Luke the opportunity to rule the galaxy by his side, that does not interest him at all; Luke almost falls to the Dark Side simply because he wants to protect his friends. That's it! An altruistic, rather charitable notion. But the moral is this: the end is just as important as the means. So that is why a Jedi, in the Original Trilogy, shirks anger, fear, and aggression, and uses his or her power only for defense, never attack. I loved this growing up because I felt that a Jedi might not notice they were slipping to the Dark Side until it was too late, like how easy it was for me to become an unbearable douchebag, unless I was constantly checking myself before wrecking myself.

But, for a tale of how someone ultimately makes this fall from grace, the Prequels were rather light on this nuance. You don't see Anakin make these small decisions, only big, very murder-y ones. Lucas does set up some interesting moral dilemmas, but then he leaves them largely unexplored. As a result, these films were virtually reduced to little more than hyperkinetic popcorn flicks. Here are some questions that, if properly explored in the films, could add some meat to the bones of the Prequels' philosophy.

Have the Jedi lost their way?

Yoda makes it clear that training in the Force is a dangerous commitment. The Light Side will support you only if you keep yourself pure, but it will abandon you completely once you take a step down "that dark path". So what happens when the entire order loses sight of their principles? Even in Lucas' Prequels, this is already happening. As the Republic has depended on the Jedi as peacekeepers to the point of neglecting to maintain its own army, when war inevitably breaks out and the Jedi can no longer only use their power for defense, they are forced to attack. And, when you are leading an invading army, aggressive tactics are inevitable.

Even worse, once the mysterious Clone Army is discovered, the Jedi adopt its use without question. While maybe this was their only choice, given the dearth of any other fighting force, it still means that the noble guardians of peace and justice have stooped to employing an expendable army of slaves. While the Clone Wars TV show grapples with this issue, the movies never question the ethics of forcing thousands upon thousands of children through programming and military training.

So, with the Jedi, using the Force for attack and at the helm of a slave army, do they have the Light on their side? 

Are the Jedi even fighting for the right cause?

In the Prequels, George Lucas ensures that the leaders of the Separatists are done up so cartoonishly evil that there is never any question as to whom you are supposed to be rooting for. Yes, we are shown that the Separatist cause is being manipulated by a nefarious group of profit-seekers, but the dozens of entire planets that have taken up the cause have done so because they no longer feel they are properly being represented by some far away government that has determined to enforce its rule by force. Sound familiar?

I'm talkin' 'bout 'Merica.

So, what happens when the Jedi aggressively lead their slave army against a disenfranchised, freedom-seeking people?

In Revenge of the Sith, the Jedi owe their sudden downfall to a trap they never saw coming: it turns out that free slave army they stumbled upon had been created with less-than-noble intentions. With the uttering of simple code-phrase, the soldiers turn on their generals, and the Jedi are nearly extinct in a matter of minutes. But what prevented the Jedi from seeing this coming? Why were they completely unable to stop it? Could it be that the Force had withdrawn from them completely? I like this yin-and-yang concept of the Force; the Sith in this case could be some sort of a reset button, clearing the universe of an ineffectual Jedi order so a new one could begin.

But I guess none of it really matters because ultimately, it all comes down to midi-chlorians.

What does it mean to restore balance to the Force?

Everyone is always saying it. The "prophecy" of the "Chosen One" claimed that he would do it. And the Jedi seem pretty confident that "balance" means completely destroying the other side. In their defense, the Sith seem to share the sentiment.  But, if there is a give-and-take, self-regulating nature to the Force, wouldn't a true balance mean harmony between Light and Dark? Since the Prequels are about the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Sith, maybe this idea best belongs in the new Star Wars movies. And though I would hate to overuse a phrase on the internet, when it comes to the Jedi and the word "balance":

Yes, Star Wars has always been a simple tale of good versus evil, but it has also sought to explain how people can move from one side to another. The pseudo-religiousity of the Force has allowed the series to elevate itself above mere eye-candy.

You know who I'm talking about.

In the end...

These changes I propose (a plot restructuring, a plot simplification, and more attention to the inherent ethical questions in the plot) could produce a version of the Star Wars Prequels that share much of the same story, but would also finally be able to sit alongside Episodes IV-VI as respectable additions to the series.

Kathleen Kennedy, if you'd like me to start working on a screenplay, just let me know in the comments.

Restoring Balance to the Force: Episode II - Simplicity Strikes Back

Restoring Balance to the Force

Episode II

SIMPLICITY STRIKES BACK

This week I found this amazing collection of Star Wars and Indiana Jones drawings by the very talented Andrew DeGraff. They depict the paths of each of the main characters in each movie. And yes, I want a framed copy of each one. It has been a month and a half since I introduced my series on how to fix the Star Wars prequels and my first entry focused on how a simple plot restructuring could make Episodes I-III into enjoyable films. This entry will discuss how over-complexity helped wreck the prequels and how a streamlined plot could save them.

The two greatest Star Wars movies are, without question, The Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope, and while I am a big fan of Return of the Jedi, the problems that would plague the prequels first became evident in that film. So, let's take a look at the best of the best.

While that drawing up there might seem very intricate, it really illustrates how straightforward of a movie A New Hope is. After most of the main characters are introduced to each other on Tatooine, they spend almost the entire remainder of the movie together. Really, the scenes on Tatooine really only serve to introduce the characters and give us an idea of their backgrounds: Luke is a restless teenager/orphan; Obi-wan is an old hermit/exiled Jedi; Han is a money-obsessed smuggler. There are no side-plots to distract from the overarching storyline: the evil Empire has constructed a superweapon and will hunt down anyone who opposes it.

Sorry Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru.

After that point the plot is extremely linear: Save the princess, escape the Death Star, destroy the Death Star, receive medals. You can count the number of important characters in the movie on two hands: Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, R2D2, C3PO, Darth Vader, and Tarkin. And Wedge. You always have to count Wedge.

In fact, I should write an entire blog piece about how having Wedge in a Star Wars movie is the only way to ensure it will be good.

In Empire Strikes Back, the plot is even simpler. After the main characters escape Hoth, all of them except Luke, spend the rest of the movie just being chased until they arrive at Cloud City. Luke simply goes to Dagobah, discovers Yoda, and starts his training. They are all reunited for the most part on Cloud City where, once again, they are chased. And unlike any other Star Wars movie (or really even most action/superhero/sci-fi movies today), the "victory" of our protagonists is simply that they survived. They did not blow up a Death Star, they did not kill a Sith Lord, and they did not win a single major battle. They are just alive! Luke has one hand less than he began with and Han is frozen in carbonite, but the happy ending is just that they were not murdered. Empire Strikes Back is likely the most critically acclaimed movie of the Star Wars series and it definitely carries the most emotional power to it, and it did not depend on some contrived, over the top battle to do it.

By the way, while Luke was busy getting his gunner killed and crashing his speeder, Wedge was all like, "What, trip this indestructible giant robot camel using tow cables? Piece of cake, m*****f****r."

As I said earlier, I am a big Return of the Jedi fan. If you haven't caught on, it has a lot to do with the fact that Wedge blows up the fracking Death Star.

(Lando helped)

But RotJ is where plot complexity starts to get out of hand. The rescue from Jabba's palace becomes improbably complex (What if Jabba had accepted the two droids as trade for Han? No more R2D2/C3PO then. What if R2 hadn't managed to get in position to get Luke his lightsaber? No more Han, Luke or Chewie then. And, what good was Lando doing undercover?). Our climax is not one, not two, but three big battle scenes! One on Endor, one in space (which is awesome, because Wedge), and one on the Death Star. I do think this huge climax works for the most part because it involves all of our main cast (which had slowly grown since A New Hope) and since it concludes the final installment of an epic trilogy.

The problem is, each of the prequels would have a similar climax.

The other problem was the ewoks. Damn them.

Pictured above: not Wedge.

I am asking you, dear reader, to try and summarize the plots of any of the three Star Wars prequels in a simple manner. You can't, can you? Here is my attempt:

Concerns over the taxation of trade routes has led to the blockade of Naboo by the Trade Federation who are revealed to be manipulated by a Sith Lord. Obi-wan and Qui-gon Jin are dispatched to negotiate with them, but escape an assassination attempt and end up on Naboo's surface where they run into Jar Jar Binks who leads them to the underwater city of the Gungans where they acquire transport through the planet core to the capitol city of Naboo. There they meet Princess Amidala and help her escape the planet, but they are sidetracked to Tatooine where they coincidentally meet a young slave boy who is powerful in the force. A wager is made over a podrace where the boy is freed to join the Jedi, who now travel to Coruscant to argue for Republic assistance. When that fails, the whole group returns to Naboo where FOUR climatic battles break out: one between the Gungans and droid army, one at the Naboo capitol, one in space, and one between the Jedi and Darth Maul.

I might have been able to word that more simply, but my main point is this: the plot is littered with unnecessary sidetracks and features a bloated climax that features more final battles than Return of the Jedi! The movie would have sucked even without the terrible acting and dialogue; it lacked a straightforward narrative to carry us along with the protagonists.

Some movies thrive off of a complex plot with dozens of characters. A closely related film series, The Lord of the Rings, is one of those. But Star Wars plays out more like a fable or a medieval quest (that is one reason why it features knights and sorcery).

The way to fix this is by taking the model from A New Hope or Empire Strikes back. The bulk of our main characters need to stick together and when they do separate, they need to be involved in very similar tasks (i.e. when Obi-wan, Luke, Han, and the droids split up on the Death Star). The plot can still take them to Naboo, Tatooine, and Coruscant, but it should be careful to not get bogged down in unnecessary scenes that detract from the forward march of the movie: less dinner chats and junkyard visits on Tatooine, less cultural discussions about Naboo/Gungan relations, and, for heavens sake, less monotonous senate arguments.

I will only focus on Episode I today, but the same holds true of the next two prequels. Try and do a count of how many large battles there are, how many lightsaber fights, how many major characters you are supposed to keep track of. Are any of them Wedge? (No.) How many branches does the plot split into?

I realize that this blog-piece is lighter on solutions than my previous one. My advice mainly applies to whomever is rewriting the plot. The most important concern is a compelling plot, but for it to evoke the feel of the original trilogy, it will have to be more simplistic than the prequels, or the majority of action movies today, for that matter.

I hope you're listening!

My next and final entry will focus on the last element that is crucial to remaking the Star Wars prequels: The Return of the Philosophy! I hope you'll stick around to read it!

Restoring Balance to the Force: Episode I - The Restructuring of the Plot

Restoring Balance to the Force

Episode I

THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE PLOT

A long time ago, in a blissful naïveté far, far away...

Star Wars fans eagerly awaited the tale of how Obi-Wan Kenobi met Anakin Skywalker, only to fail in preventing his friend and pupil from slipping to the Dark Side.

Instead we received a trio of bloated films that covers 13 years of galactic politics, numberless origin stories, dozens of settings, and a myriad of plot, dialogue, and acting problems that buried that promised story mentioned above. In the end, it was only one plot point of dozens, awkwardly squeezed into the last half of the third movie. What should have been the beating heart of the series was stifled and muddled.

How can this be fixed? I like wonder what the plot would have been like if this was a Shakespearean three-act tragedy and each Episode was an act. How might this look?

Act one: Anakin as hero.

Act two: Anakin tempted by the Dark Side.

Act three: Anakin as villain.

Compare this to the Prequels' actual plot structure:

Episode I: Anakin as annoying kid who accidentally saves the day.

Episode II: Anakin as annoying teenager who is supposedly a hero, but doesn't accomplish all that much really.

Episode III: Anakin as annoying young adult with a terrible haircut who is a hero for half of the movie and then almost out of nowhere just starts killing children.

If you squint your eyes real hard, you can see that George Lucas did try to introduce the idea of Anakin being lured to the Dark Side in Episode II. In fact, Anakin slaughters an entire village of men, women, and children out of rage. How do the other characters handle this disturbing step into darkness? Padme, Anakin's wife-to-be, pretty much just says, "We all get angry sometimes. That's just part of being human!"

So, let's paint a picture of what my trilogy would look like, stripped to its bare bones.

Episode I

Since we need Anakin to be a convincing hero, we must bid adios to 10-year-old Anakin Skywalker. I don't think I'll get a lot of complaints there. But remember, my philosophy is that we don't have to obliterate the entire original plot to make a good trilogy. My goal is to redeem George Lucas, not humiliate him.

So what elements of Episode I can we keep? What should be thrown away?

Let's say Qui-Gon Jin is still around. Maybe he has been training Anakin for years, but Obi-Wan will take over for him after his inevitable death at the end of the movie. Maybe, he pressured Obi-Wan into taking Anakin on as an apprentice. It really doesn't matter all that much. What is important is that the Anakin we meet can already wield a lightsaber and fend for himself.

What about Darth Maul, AKA the greatest missed opportunity in Episode I? For someone who looks so menacing and cool, he really only does one thing in the Episode I, two things if you count dying. The other thing he does is kill Liam Neeson. He can stick around for my movie, but he has to be a more direct antagonist. We have to see him as the source of our protagonists' woes, not Newt Gunray, not even Darth Sidious (at least at first). There is also no reason why he cannot survive until the second movie. He would then become an excellent foil for Obi-Wan.

What about Naboo? Maybe, but serving a vastly different purpose, a purpose that is 100% Jar Jar/Gungan free. Instead of us dropping in on the prelude to a conflict brewing over bureaucratic disagreements about taxing trade routes, the new and improved Episode I will introduce us to our characters in the first battles of what will quickly become a brutal war. It will not be between toy robots and cartoon aliens, but an insurgency of disenfranchised people against an increasingly corrupt government...but we will save that discussion for the philosophy article. Naboo can stay, but only as a battleground for what becomes the Clone Wars.

The important thing is this: we need to see a young adult Anakin be a legitimate hero and develop an earnest kinship with Obi-Wan. We can also begin to see the seeds of why he will turn. As someone who gave himself to an order that seeks to defend "peace and justice," he is more and more frequently sent to kill people in the name of peace. Also, he learns that he is good at it, very good.

Episode II

The war is in full swing now in our new Episode II, which will only take place 1-3 years after Episode I. Maybe it begins with the marriage of Anakin and Padme, or maybe that is how Episode I ends. What is most important is that we can clearly see how years of war and killing have weathered away the Anakin we once knew. He is no longer naive and he now sees the world in moral shades of grey. He still loves Obi-Wan like a brother, but we can see that Obi-Wan is genuinely concerned for his friend and tries to fight to keep him from slipping away.

A lot of the plot of Episode II can be jettisoned because it was unimportant. The plot point that should be retained is the discovery of a clone army that is quickly utilized (I will discuss the moral implications of this in a later post).

What needs to be added is this: Palpatine will be coercing Anakin to the Dark Side throughout until something happens that causes Anakin to fully slip. It might be his mother's death, or maybe he is trying to save Padme, but that needs to be elaborated upon. If love was his motive, it cannot be true love that turns him into Darth Vader. Maybe, in a variation of Daniel O'Brien's suggestion, Anakin's love is consumed by jealousy and delusion and he begins to think Obi-Wan is making him into a cuckold. Whatever it is, we have to see him become subsumed with hate of everything he used to be. He definitely cannot slaughter a village of men, women, and children without consequence.  

The important point is this: Anakin must slowly but surely ease into darkness and by the end of this movie he should turn to the Dark Side.

Episode III

This gives us a lot of freedom with how we handle Episode III. Though Anakin has become Darth Vader, the Republic has yet to fall. Maybe Obi-Wan doesn't even know that his brother-in-arms has betrayed him. Now we can see Palpatine enact his master plan, which now can be Machiavellian and elaborate, as opposed to a three-minute scene depicting the fall of the entire Jedi Order and Galactic Repblic. Instead, we now have an entire movie where we see the Jedi try to respond to a threat they noticed too late, only to slowly succumb to it, but not before they sow the seeds of what will eventually become the Rebel Alliance.

And in Vader's mad rush to destroy everything he once defended, he tragically and unintentionally kills Padme, but he places the blame on Obi-Wan and the Jedi, further fueling his hatred.

Episode III must accomplish two things: we must see the entirety of Anakin's fall from grace and we must see the small, but hopeful beginnings of the Original Trilogy.

If you stuck with this, bravo to you! I hope I have demonstrated that the Prequels can be rewritten in such a way that the plot can be largely retained and yet still engage the audience.

Next time it is Episode II: Simplicity Strikes Back!

Restoring Balance to the Force: How to Save the Star Wars Prequels

I hope nobody hates me for saying this, but the Star Wars prequels really, really sucked.

Now, for most people, this was just a minor disappointment, but for those of us who were so obsessed with Star Wars that it gave us the attention spans necessary to read 600-page Star Wars novels in the fourth grade, this was devastating. I had done homework assignments about the Special Edition re-releases; I had the premiere date for The Phantom Menace written on my sheet music in my orchestra class so I could count down to it everyday. It felt my entire life had been building up to this moment.

I was so excited for it that I couldn't tell it sucked for probably more than a year. I kept trying to defend it. "Yeah, Jar Jar is terrible, but 'Duel of the Fates' is such a good song!" "Yeah, Anakin is so annoying, but Darth Maul, I guess?" I know I am not alone in this hype and inevitable disappointment. I recommend to anyone who reads this the movie Fanboys, which perfectly captures the obsession of a group of Star Wars nerds in the weeks leading to Episode I's release, to the point where they decide to break into George Lucas' home.

Anyway, all of my hopes were pinned to the belief that Lucas was simply just rusty after decades of not directing anything. Episode II would certainly be better! Spoiler alert: it was, but only in the way that a crusty rash is better than a weeping rash. Sorry for the grotesquerie, but I am a medical student who still feels betrayed. I still believed in Lucas' redemption, however, and, Episode III was watchable. But it definitely was not good, at least not Original Trilogy good.

In resignation I accepted that it was over. It was probably better that way; it just goes to show that some things are better left alone. Yet, part of me was still a believer. I felt I could fix it somehow.

So, in October 2012, when Disney shockingly announced that it had acquired Lucasfilm and would immediately begin work on Star Wars Episode VII, my hope burned bright again. Nevermind Disney's rushed, assembly-like plan to put out yearly Star Wars films (that is a discussion for another time), I now knew for sure: someone, someday was going to remake the Prequels. It was only a matter of time, and I was going to be the one who wrote them.

My entire life since that point has been a careful scheme to ensure that when the right money-obsessed Disney CEO proposes a remake of Episode I, Kathleen Kennedy was going to give me a call. My plan is as follows:

Step 1: Go to medical school, become a doctor, and meanwhile write a blog that my brother might read if he has time.

Step 2: ?

Step 3: Be the writer for one of the largest franchises in human history.

Underpants Gnomes

This is where I got the idea!

So, what I will begin to share with you today are some of my insights to fixing these movies. I have been considering this for some time, and I know that others have shared brilliant ideas on how it can be done, but I just want to make it clear that I have developed my ideas independently! Just ask my brother who sometimes reads this blog (if he has the time)! But I do recommend watching these videos:

What if Episode I Was Good?

What if Episode II Was Good?

The truth is that I share a lot of ideas with that guy and, if I were the actual writer, I would try to get him hired too. But where we differ is I believe that there is a way to remake the Prequels without completely expunging the originals from existence.

I am also a big fan of Daniel O'Brien's take at Cracked.com. But while I will discuss changing or elaborating on certain plot points, these series of posts will be more focused on repairing the structure and message of the movies. They are as follows:

Restoring Balance to the Force 

Episode I: The Restructuring of the Plot

Episode II: Simplicity Strikes Back

Episode III: Return of Philosophy

So without further ado, here is Episode I!

Why You Are Wrong About LOST

It was June 26, 2009, and I had only just met the woman I was going to marry a few days earlier. We were at the Tower of London for one of our class' first field trips into London. It was early enough into this term we'd be spending abroad that no one had really settled into separate cliques of students yet. As I explored the tower, I spent moments with different girls from the group, here and there, looking around, but I recall walking off by myself repeatedly.

A few of us had started to form a group, but within a week some of its members would have left to join cliques and have been replaced by other girls (there were a lot more girls than guys on this trip), but among this handful of potential friends was Abby. Near the end of our exploration of the tower, her eyes went wide and she began to shout, "That's Sun! That's SUN!"

Sun was a character on what Abby knew was my favorite TV show, LOST. She knew this because it was probably one of the first things I mentioned about myself. In fact, when I introduced myself to the other medical students I will spend the next four years getting to know, I made sure they knew that I "was one of those people that still cares about LOST."

Abby was, however, excitedly pointing at a man, who didn't see us and was walking away. Sun is a woman. I asked Abby if she thought she saw Jin, Sun's husband on the show, played by the excellent Daniel Dae Kim (now on Hawaii Five-Oh). Embarrassed by the mix-up, she corrected herself and said we should try and meet him. I was hesitant for the briefest of moments, but I never could have resisted.

As you can see, we met him and he was kind enough to be photographed with us, even though we could tell he was with family. But the lasting part of this story, and why I am including it in this post is this: this moment was probably the very beginning of the bond between Abby and I that would turn into an amazing friendship, then love, and then marriage, and then Abby and Addison with a baby carriage. The fact that it was Abby that recognized Mr. Kim there that day speaks scores as to why we are right for each other; I knew then that we had shared interests and that she understood my nerdiness. In fact, we celebrated our wedding on what we thought was one year to the day from this encounter. It was only last year did I revisit my journals to find we were off by one day.

I am now going to explain why LOST should be regarded as a being excellent, and at the same time I will analyze why opinion of the show has seemingly soured substantially since it went off the air. But in so doing, I am laying my cards on the table: as my introductory story attests, LOST holds a sentimental place in my heart. I am very, very biased.

Also, I am an uber-nerd when it comes to LOST. I own these:

Left:LOST (The Complete Series)/Right: The Dharma Initiative Labcoat

Yes, they were both gifts (expensive gifts), but actual human people who were not me spent their own money to make sure I owned them. You don't just do that for any passive television fan.

So, without further ado, here is WHY YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT LOST!

For months now, I have been asking people about their opinions of the show, how long they watched it, what they thought of it. If they quit early or disliked it I tried to find out why. Here are the major reasons that came up.

1. It was weird/awkward/too confusing!

More than once, I've been told "Yeah, I watched LOST for a while, but then I quit when that polar bear showed up!"

Uh, I can only reply, that was the very first episode.

So, I can answer that one by means of a video. Please enjoy:

If you are viewing from a mobile device, the video is HERE.

You're welcome for that. Also, the main message is "If it's not for you, it's not for you!"

If it's not your thing, it is not your thing! For example, you will never be able to make me excited about the NFL draft. Never! But I will also never try to depreciate it to someone who is excited by that sort of thing. I can never claim that LOST is a show for everyone, and the fact that it hemorrhaged viewers as it embraced its weird side more completely reflects that. This is also the reason shows like Community and 30 Rock struggle.

That being said, the convoluted nature of the plot was one of my favorite things about the show. I loved the slow, confusing reveals. Spoiler alert: For example, at the end of Season 3, there is a flash-forward that reveals someone has died, as Jack (the main character) is reading an obituary. It isn't until the Season 4 finale that the identity of that person is revealed. In the middle of Season 5, that character mysteriously returns to life (hey, it is a magic island), only for it to be revealed in the Season 5 finale that yes, in fact, that character actually was dead all along.

The heart of this show was its mystery and a mystery is only a mystery if it keeps you wondering. Had the producers been quicker with this storyline, it would have lost its weight. Which brings us to number two.

2. They never answered any of the questions! or The answers to the questions sucked!

I love when I get this complaint, because then I get to put my nerd hat on and ask, "Which question did they not answer?" In fact, I issue you this as a challenge now. What question did you feel was left unanswered? If it was a major one, it was answered; the problem is, most of them were answered in the sixth and final season. True, some of the answers were more contrived than others (I was never 100% happy with their explanation for the numbers or the "Heart of the Island"), but for the most part the answers that were given actually did serve to paint a more coherent picture of the Island and advance the plot.

Why were there polar bears? What were the whispers? What is the smoke monster? What was the Dharma Initiative? Why did that bird say Hurley's name? WAAAAAAAAAAALT?

http://musguita.tumblr.com/post/398617319/waaalt

Yes, all of those questions were answered.

As for those answers sucking, I have a theory on that. As I said, I actually enjoyed most of them, but at least half of the fun of watching LOST with people was debating its mysteries. Almost everyone had their own pet theory about just what-in-the-name-of-Jacob was going on. It was fun to find evidence for your ideas and predict where they might take the show. As the show progressed though, it had to reveal those mysteries. If they did not match your ideas, there could be disappointment or confusion; in fact, the entire show could feel differently for you. Since the mystery was the heart of the show, the show lost its savor with many once it was dispelled.

If that's not the case and you simply think the answers sucked, I have another video answer for you!

If the video doesn't show, go HERE.

If it's not for you, it's not for you.

3. The producers didn't have every detail set in place from the beginning! They made stuff up as they went along!

One of the enjoyable things about the mysteries in LOST was the comfort in believing that everything had a set-in-stone answer to it. Viewers believed there was a show "Bible" that contained the rules about where all of the plot points had to converge. But as time went on, it became evident that some elements of the show were newer creations and other components of the plot, though focused on earlier in the series, were now deemphasized. Moments, like the several episodes where two characters spent time locked in polar bear cages in Season 3, proved that some of the show was being made up on the spot, as opposed to being part of some grand, unfolding plan.

I mention the polar bear cages because they represent a turning point for the show's focus. LOST was ABC's most talked about, unmitigated hit, and ABC wanted to make that last forever. However, in order for LOST's producers to be able to actually resolve the show's mysteries without stretching them out indefinitely or bogging them down, that required a set endpoint. The fact that the producers were able to get ABC to agree during the third season to end LOST after Season 6 with abbreviated seasons was a victory for the storytelling. Weird as they were, the following seasons had their own individually-set rise-and-fall of a plot that each dealt with a specific theme. This is why Season 3 is often regarded as the show's worst as well: the stories had to be stretched out with nonsense because the writers did not know how long they'd have to keep it going.

So, it's because of the fact that there is no magic, time-traveling island in the real world, unfortunately, that some of the plot had to be changed on the fly. This is why WAAAALT! never returned to the show (the actor grew up too quick). This is why Mr. Eko died just when he was becoming cool (the actor quit). But just because some elements were changed/added with time, does not mean everything was.

Anyone who has written anything knows that the story changes as you write it. New insights come to you, the story evolves, the characters change. Had LOST's producers rebuked any form of change to their original plans, the show would have lacked perhaps its most popular character. Michael Emerson had originally been cast for a temporary role, but he was so excellent that he was written into one of LOST's most important characters: Ben Linus, a part that had not existed originally. Few would argue that this was to the show's detriment.

http://app.cheezburger.com/TemplateView.aspx?ciid=3165658

And, for the last complaint (spoilers)

4. What's was up with that ending?! They were dead along along?!

Nope. That didn't happen. Rewatch the episode and then we can talk.

So why do you still care about LOST, Addison?

Thank you for asking. I've already told you that I loved the plot; I love its crazy complicatedness. I loved the mystery and the unabashed individuality of the show. But I think the show still matters because of what it did for the world of scripted television. LOST did a lot to prove that scripted programming could still thrive in the face of the ever-encroaching "Reality TV" plague. It became part of the "Third Golden Age of Television" and helped pave the way for other shows that benefitted from complex core mythologies (Fringe, Battlestar Galactica), enormous main casts (Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead), and abbreviated seasons and set finales (Breaking Bad).

Yes, it also did usher in an era of attempted copycats who attempted to mimic its flashy, high-cost pilot with a supernatural mystery at its core (The Event, Flash-Forward, Revolution, etc.). Yes, it also become so complex that casual viewing became almost impossible (also see Fringe, Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad). It, along with 24, may be one of the first shows to commence and thrive off of the "binge-viewing" age.

But for me, it is nice to know that from 2004 to 2010, network executives could believe that there was a large enough audience that would enjoy a sci-fi/fantasy-drama about dozens of people trapped on a magical, time-traveling tropical island inhabited by polar bears and smoke monsters, to justify its existence and expense.

When I look at much of what is on the major networks today, I wish they would believe in us again.

Next time on LOST I, Culture Nerd: I fix the Star Wars prequels, bit-by-broken-bit!