Spoiler Alert!!!

This contains details about Star Wars VII

A long time ago in a world far far away (Evergreen, CO), I was talking to my brother, Ralph, (on a wall phone I believe) an he said he had just seen a movie that he thought I’d like.  Called “Star Wars” it was pure entertainment. The villain was dressed in black and the underdog hero was dressed in white. Lots of weirdness and action. He was right, I liked it.

Fast forward almost forty years and there I was standing in line eating $7.50 popcorn (refillable, of course) while waiting to see the seventh Star Wars movie at the IMAX here in Branson. Good movie; but I’d seen it before.

I had really been hoping for something new but they just used the proven formula to remake episodes IV, V and VI. The repeated scenarios were nonstop, right down to the cantina scene. I guess there’ll be a couple of prequels coming up soon to fill in the gaps. I wonder where they’ll find a younger Carrie Fisher for the prequels?

Don’t get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I laughed at the cute little bot and cheered with the rest of the audience at the right places. But you knew that the “ death planet” was doomed to explode. Well, at least Han Solo died at the top of his game. He also reconfirmed that he made the 37 parsec Kessel run in 12 parsecs, which I’m told would involve exceeding the speed of light. That would suggest that he can travel through time and we will see him again. I guess that after all the hype and secrecy I was hoping for an evolution into new spaces.

But speaking of evolution, the Syfy channel just ran a three part movie for TV called “Childhood’s End”, from a 1953 book by Arthur C Clarke of the same name. I read the book only once, in the 60’s, but the movie seemed to be fairly true to the book as I remember it. I will, of course, now reread it; I still have a copy.

Arthur C Clarke was an amazing author, he held a patent on the communication satellite which he first proposed in 1945. In case you were wondering, according to Wikipedia, about 6,600 satellites have been launched and over 3,500 remain in orbit. Of which about 1,000 remain functional.

His three laws of prediction are:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Here’s hoping you all get to see the awakening of the Force and get some sufficiently advanced  Star Wars toys for Christmas.

Stay warm.