I have to admit that as much as I love film (and I DO love film, with a passion), there’s still a level of film fetishism that I don’t really grasp. Sure, I’ve watched Blade Runner over 200 times, but who in their right mind hasn’t? No, I have to draw the line at things like dressing up as a character from a film. At least when it’s not Halloween. Which is why I’ll never understand the legions of Star Wars Storm Troopers that convene on a regular basis, in full battle regalia, and at their own considerable expense. Or the people who maintain Wookieepedia. Or people that create web sites that tell you the best times to pee during a film. At the same time, I have to admire the dedication this kind of thing requires, especially in the case of the people behind a project like The People vs. George Lucas, the new documentary about the poor souls whose lives were destroyed by the numerous changes Lucas made to the original Star Wars Trilogy on re-release. The producers of the film put it this way: “The People vs. George Lucas explores the titanic struggle between a Godlike filmmaker and his legions of fans over the most popular franchise in movie history. At its core, PvsG is the examination of a high-profile, dysfunctional love story. George created this humongous and intricate sandbox for us to play in; but is he the sole owner of it, or does it now belong to the ages? And what happens to your role as a creator when your audience claims it owns your art? We basically looked at the conflicted dynamic between George and his fans from a cultural perspective, and asked ourselves those questions.” Although I’ve yet to see the film, I think a simpler assessment may be in order. Maybe it’s just a bunch of web-enabled misanthropic fanboys venting the rage that used to be confined to their smelly bedrooms, but which – thanks to the power of crowdsourcing – must now be endured by the entire world. I jest of course; it promises to be an amusing film, and makes its debut at SXSW 2010 the week of March 12. See the teasers above left and below.

The The People vs. George Lucas 2010 Trailer:

The South Park kids have been on top of this since 2002

Because we all know what happens to Storm Troopers when George Lucas gets his hands on them:

These people scare me a little…

But some would argue that Femtroopers make up for it all:

These are actual member stats from the 501st Legion. Let’s hope they don’t have a fire!

This, for some reason, remains my single greatest disappointment regarding technology. Usually, when scientists develop detailed mathematical descriptions of natural phenomena, they’re able to – in at least some small way – demonstrate the truth of them. Although I once had to explain to an otherwise intelligent friend that the Vomit Comet was not in fact an example of anti-gravity, most of us know that anti-gravity remains a technological chimera. The closest science comes to demonstrating an understanding of anti gravity is to describe its opposite, by saying things like “See that thing that’s falling? I have some amazing math that will tell you how fast it will do so”.

Freestanding Holograms

There’s probably a better use for holograms than this

Oh c’mon. How hard can this be? We’ve been watching these darn two-dimensional projections since 1878 , and putting on some paper sunglasses to watch a movie isn’t going to hold us over any longer. Even that’s been around since 1950-something. To tell you the truth, I’m pretty sure we’ll all be bored with the results by the time anything close to this is achieved. We’ll be like “Oh yeah *yawn*. They did that on Star Trek TNG, didn’t they?” To torture us, there are routinely ignorant tech blog articles announcing things like holographic cell phones by 2010.

Teleportation

For now you’ll have to settle for action dolls

This would solve so many problems that I’m really surprised that the Segway guy didn’t focus on it first. I mean really, if he was so smart, you’d think he would have come up with a dorky mode of transit that no-one uses that didn’t cost so damn much, take the profits, and get to work on something useful. Unfortunately all we’ve got so far in this area is the ability to teleport one atom over one meter. Forgive me, but I’m pretty sure I can move large objects comprised of millions of atoms that distance with my bare hands. Granted, the problems here are mind-boggling, but so were the problems of building a combustion engine at one point, right?

Faster Than Light Travel

Hey Smartypants, You’re Obsolete

This has so many obvious benefits that I’m not going to bother listing all of them. But for some perverse reason I don’t understand, the main reason that I long for faster than light travel is because I’m irrationally fond of the idea of yet another Einsteinian notion falling by the wayside. This whole relativity business has worn out its usefulness in my opinion; if Einstein were really so smart he’d have realized that his ideas were just another paradigm awaiting obsolescence, and gotten to work on something more useful, like, um… maybe, faster than light travel? By the way, did you know that if the speed of light were 55 mph, you’d never see your headlights on the freeway, and your flights would always return before they took off?

Time Travel

Arnie ponders if he can go back and kill himself, if he already went back and killed himself.

My life would be SO much better if time travel were possible. Scratch that. Now that I think about it, I’d have a whole NEW slew of problems, mostly related to trying to decide whether to go back and change things in the past, or go forward and get tomorrow’s lotto numbers or find out if the amazing chick I just fell in love with turns out to be a raging loon later. Yeah, I guess we should all be content with the idea of time travel, so entire movie franchises that contradict their own paradoxes can be made to keep us amused for twenty years. Imagine how little sense George Lucas movies would make if he could REALLY re-do his movies instead of just digitizing old effects? And how could South Park ever out do this piece of work?

Tired of the vain stupidity of the typical entertainment or news show hosts employed by major networks? Shake up your perception of television news with MTV’s new program How’s Your News?, hosted by people with disabilities. I have a sister with Down Syndrome (probably one of the nicer people I know) and I’m a bit of a ‘tard myself, so it’s refreshing to see a program like this. The potential for appearing to be exploitive is incredibly high, but as one of the creators (Matt Stone, of South Park fame) has been quick to point out: “We weren’t worried about being associated with them, we were worried about them being associated with us“. If I’d known this crew was covering the Grammies, I might’ve actually tuned in this year (see clip featured at left). After years of MTV basing most of their programming on “normally abled” people who act like retards, it’s a bold and dicey move (and probably a step up in quality) to air a show like this. Inspired by the 1999 film How’s Your News?, the program debuts Sunday, February 8. See the MTV trailer here. I’d love to see the “Where’s Your News?” crew cover “disability rockers” Heavy Load.