What Is It About The Color Blue?

Recently I’ve received hundreds, possibly even thousands, of emails from readers asking me to write a blog specifying my top 5 favorite blue (the color, not the state of mind) characters from television, film, and popular culture.  This got me thinking, and as I pondered the question I quickly came up with a dozen or so blue individuals off the top of my head from Huckleberry Hound to those blue aliens with the white hair and antennae from Star Trek.  What is it about the color blue that makes it such a prominent shade?  For the complete breakdown of Blue and its various properties refer to this Wikipedia page!

And now, because you demanded it, I give you my Top 5 Blue Characters!

#5 – The Tardis

 

Any Dr. Who fans out there?  The Tardis is an incredibly complex and difficult to understand device.  Capable of traveling across all of time and space, and even occasionally punch its way through to different universes, this home/transport of the mysterious Time Lord known only as The Doctor is under the guise of a big blue British police phone box.  The Tardis is often a welcome sight to the Doctor’s companions.   This strange machine regularly disappears and reappears just as they find themselves in a jam.  Though an inanimate object the Tardis is somewhat conscious and self aware and is just another of the strange characters that crop up in the show, especially in the recent seasons where the Tardis was briefly granted a human form.  I’m not a huge Dr. Who expert but I know enough about the lore to count the Tardis among my top 5 favorite blue beings.

#4 – The Smurfs

 

The Smurfs.  These guys pretty much wrote the book on being blue.  I’ve previously discussed my enjoyment of the Smurfs in other posts, such as my fairly recent Friday Funny Pages which featured the little blue creatures.  This is not to say that I endorse, at all, that recent Smurf abomination which they dared call a “movie.”  The only Smurfs I recognize as legit are those that appear in print or cartoon format.  I don’t really need to go into much more detail about the Smurfs do I?  Either you know who the Smurfs are, or you’re some kind of asshole whom I’d rather not associate with.

 

#3- Deep Blue

 

I love robots!  Especially real robots.  Although Deep Blue is technically not a real “robot”, and is actually a powerful computer, it still was designed to interact with humans to some capacity, so to me was a robot.  Alas I digress.  Deep Blue in both name and appearance, this chess playing son of a bitch could really mate some checks!  The Deep Blue computer was made famous for defeating human chess champion Garry Kasparov back in 1997, which some claimed was the heralding of the robot destruction of mankind.  As we now know that was not the case (though we should remain vigilant and prepare the way for our eventual robotic overlords.)  A shining achievement of computing design Deep Blue was a stepping stone for IBM and lead the way to such creations as Watson, the robot that recently appeared on Jeopardy and defeated Ken Jennings.  Sadly Deep Blue was disassembled shortly after its notable victory, thus depriving Kasparov of a sorely wanted rematch.

#2 – Nightcrawler

 

Kurt Wagner.  Nightcrawler!  This German born X-Man is one of my favorite students of Professor Charles Xavier, and indeed one of my favorite Marvel super heroes of all time.  With the ability to leap around and climb walls well enough to keep up with the likes of Spider-Man, Nightcrawler is also granted the power to teleport from one spot to another thanks to his natural mutant talents.  What’s not to like?  Nightcrawler is a badass who’s also a nice guy.  After awhile you get tired of stoic faced anti-heroes and hard nosed leaders of men.  Occasionally you just want a super hero who can get the job done, who looks cool, and who has a smile on his face.  That’s Nightcrawler.  This was no easy choice for me because there are a shit ton of blue comic book characters, especially X-Men.  There’s Beast, Mystique, Archangel, half the morloks, and several others.  But when it comes to blue super heroes, Nightcrawler has my vote.  As an added bonus ol’ Nighty had a near perfect portrayal in the second X-Men movie, it’s always a relief for us comic book geeks to see our heroes done right on film.

#1 – R2-D2

 

R2-D2, the real hero of the Star Wars saga.  The unassuming little astromech droid with the blue detailing that went on to get involved in one of the most epic interstellar adventures of all time.   You shouldn’t really be surprised that my number one favorite blue character heralds from the Star Wars universe, and I had to choose him for number one due to the major role he plays in the movies.  There are few of our heroes from Star Wars who don’t owe R2-D2 their life.  Being that R2 is a walking toolbox he’s also handy to have around when it comes to repairing equipment, detecting lifeforms, parsing data streams, and picking locks.  R2-D2 has seen quite a bit of action and with the continuing success of the Clone Wars cartoon we are finally getting a good look at just how much action!  With the approaching release of the Star Wars movies on blu-ray there will be renewed interest in the adventures of R2-D2 and the rest of the gang from the galaxy far, far away.  And right about now I’m guessing that R2-D2 is pretty glad he doesn’t speak English, so that he can’t become the nexus of an, added dialogue, George Lucas tinkering, fan base controversy.  As of now R2-D2 remains the same as ever, though some other elements of his surroundings might get tweaked around him.

So there you have it!  Behold the power of BLUE!

That is all!

 

Friday Funny Pages: Mighty Marvel Meatloaf Marching Band

 

I don’t know about you, but I love old ads from classic comics.  Me and several of my friends consider ourselves connoisseurs of fine advertisement cheesiness!  For my money the best ads can be found among the pages of comic books heralding from the 1970’s and early 1980’s.  A plethora of goodies can be found in those decades, from dynamic video game adverts to epic promotional toy campaigns!  All of them more outlandish than the last.  If you think about it comic book ads have to be crazy and eye-catching or how else do you expect to distract a reader away from super powered heroes doing battle with brightly colored villains long enough to even glimpse at your product.  Perhaps the most effective are the advertisements that incorporate the heroes of the comic company into the ads, momentarily tricking the readers into thinking the ad is just the continuation of the issue they are reading.

Like the legendary Hostess Fruit Pie ads in Marvel comics.  You’re flipping along reading your X-Men comic when suddenly Captain America bursts onto the scene, or Dr. Strange appears out of thin air.  Suddenly things just got interesting!  What are they doing in this X-Men comic?  And wait, is that Dr. Doom?  What’s behind him in that crate?  What’s going on??  Wait, what??  Fruit pies?  Captain America is rescuing a stolen shipment of Fruit Pies in my X-Men story?  Oh wait, Ha ha!  This is an ad!  Got me again Marvel!

Well here’s something else along those lines, except here you turn the page to find Meatloaf rocking out hard, while at the same time voicing his concerns about the funding and support of the 1987 Special Olympics.  A typical Wednesday for him.  But seriously, look at that first panel, ol’ Meatloaf is really giving it his all, and how the hell is he holding that guitar?

And here’s another question:  What era was Meatloaf popular in?  He’s one of those guys who always seemed eternally old to me.  It was like he was popular at some distant time, but had moved on.  I don’t really know anyone who is a hardcore Meatloaf fan, and trust me I know a lot of people with many varying musical interests and stemming from various musical eras.  I guess it’s because he’s been an actor for so long too, and to me it seems like any musician who turns to acting has passed their musical prime and gone on to other things.  I don’t know, Meatloaf is weird.

That is all!

George Lucas Doesn’t Hate The Fans, He’s Just A Terrible Artist

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.

—-Leonardo Di Vinci

“Star Wars is like a woman who was once vibrant and beautiful but who has had an obscene amount of plastic surgery and hasn’t been allowed to age gracefully.”  —-Some Guy on a Star Wars Forum

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or simply aren’t a Star Wars fan or geek of any ilk, you most likely have been hearing the complaints about the changes made to the Star Wars movies in their upcoming blu-ray release.  Most of the recent controversy has centered around some added bits of dialogue given to Darth Vader during the climactic final battle between Vader, Palpatine, and Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.  In this newest version Darth Vader screams “No! Nooo!” as he picks up his Sith master and gives him the shaft.  A phrase that has already garnered some fan ridicule when it was used in Revenge of the Sith and now has them outraged due to its insertion into the iconic ending of the original trilogy.

Cover of the upcoming Star Wars Blu-Ray

Now many Star Wars fans out there already have several complaints to bring up against Uncle George, the bearded creator.  This recent tinkering with the saga seems to be the straw that infuriated the camel’s core fanbase.  Many other blogs and commentaries seem to imply that they feel George Lucas hates the fans, cares nothing for the Star Wars saga, and thinks that adding to, and messing with, the movies will encourage us gullible fans to shell out a few extra bucks in order to collect a newer version of the films.

But here’s how I see it.

From what I can tell George Lucas does NOT hate the fans of his movies, or think that they are fools.  On the contrary Lucas seems to take quite an interest in the fans and their activities.  He has personally attended several of the Star Wars Celebration conventions and I have personally seen him speak twice.  From all indications he seems actually quite congenial to, and appreciative of, his fans.  One quick example that comes to mind is when Uncle George was taking questions at one of the previously mentioned Star Wars Celebrations, when one particularly stereotypical geeky fan asked a very specific and involved question about buzz droids and particle shielding on Jedi starfighters.  George took a breath and was about to answer the inquiry before the other fans in the auditorium booed the awkward questioner down from the mic.  I remember personally yelling something along the lines of “Ask that kind of shit at a Trek convention!”  George Lucas however said nothing, and simply shrugged as if disappointed he didn’t get to answer.

George Lucas shakes hands with a young Jedi fan

What I’m getting at is that George Lucas could be so much more standoffish with his fans, he could be like the Emperor, mysterious and removed from the people.  Instead he seems to make appearances quite often, has dialogues with the fans, and has even given his take on a few of the popular criticisms about his work.

That’s not to say that George Lucas hasn’t made some mistakes in his work.  I am in no way simply pardoning Lucas for everything just because he takes a few minutes to chat with the fan boys.  Jarjar was waaaaay overdone.  Episode II is terrible.  Han shooting first was stupid.  He shouldn’t have directed the prequels.  And Indiana Jones 4 was total shit (but actually I put most of the blame for that debacle on the other major players involved with that one, Lucas’ story could have been one of my favorite Indy movies, but the execution was atrocious!)

Now onto the idea that Lucas hates the Star Wars universe, or simply has no regard for the established universe that is Star Wars.  I’ve commented on this before in my post about Lucas VS the Fan Boys.  Without repeating myself too much I’ll just restate that I’ve never felt, nor have I really seen any evidence to support the idea that Lucas simply doesn’t care about what changes he makes to the Star Wars universe.  On the contrary I have to say that if you’ve read any interviews with Dave Filoni, the director of the Clone Wars cartoon, or George Lucas himself, you’ll discover that there is quite a bit of thought and effort put into what new elements are added to the Star Wars universe through the cartoons, and film changes, and how those elements fit in with the existing Star Wars realm.  Sure Lucas makes changes to established and iconic scenes, and tinkers with works he’s already completed but I attribute that more to the idea that Lucas is a perfectionist who regularly thinks about how he wishes this or that scene had turned out better.  I don’t believe he makes changes on a whim, but instead foolishly makes these edits based on his current state of mind, and not his original inspired direction.  As a writer myself I can sympathize with wanting to tweak your work to make it just right.  That however has to happen before it is unleashed upon the world.

Which brings me to the last part of my rant.

“Lucas just wants to make a quick buck off the fans by making some unnecessary changes and putting the movies out on a new format.”  George Lucas knows how to make a buck, there is no denying that.  That son of a bitch is the grand master of merchandising and he established the style of promotion and rebranding that keeps a product fresh in the mind of the consumer.  He knows how to stretch something out and get the most from fan expectations and desires.  I’m convinced that the only reason we haven’t seen the live action Star Wars television series yet is because the Clone Wars was far more popular and successful than originally anticipated, so why show all your cards at once?  Get the most of the Clone Wars and when that winds down, ramp up the live action show once more.  Some might say it’s a dick move, but it’s just good business.  Hold onto those good ideas until you need them, and keep the product going.  It’s America, it’s capitalism.  So all our Star Wars dreams aren’t coming true all at once, too bad.

I believe Lucas does what he does in terms of changes, additions, tinkering, etc. because deep down George Lucas is still clinging to his indie film school roots.  Somewhere deep down there is still good in Lucas, he pictures himself as a hipster film geek who praises 2001: A Space Odyssey and Kurosawa movies.  He wants to try to perfect his art however and is afraid to let things go until they are “done right.”  The problem is of course that things are never done right, they’re just done as best as they can be.  As the above quote states art is never finished, only abandoned.  This of course means that George Lucas is a terrible artist in that he just can’t let go.  I’m not saying he shouldn’t have made the prequels or has done too much with the Clone Wars, on the contrary, for the most part, I really enjoy these new segments of the Star Wars saga (glaring annoyances aside.)  It just means that Lucas has to learn to let go.  When he stepped back from the directors chair on the original movies we found that his vision could be fulfilled just as well, if not better, through a different set of eyes.

A young George Lucas with his friend, a young Francis Ford Coppola

It is my theory that George Lucas is not a spiteful person, nor a solely greedy one.  If any maladjustment can be assigned to him I would say he suffers from excessive vainglory.  He wants his works to be the best, and remain the best.  Star Wars, his inarguable pinnacle achievement and best known creation was once the apex of movie making, a groundbreaking achievement in film.  He is slow to relinquish that glory and so attempts to make his art a continual work in progress, slowly adapting the state of the art practices of the present to his masterpiece of the past.  Without a doubt Lucas has been a pioneer in new technologies and styles of film making, but he is unable to completely let go of his pride and the earlier works that got him there.

That is why you fail.

That is all!