Darth Villainous and General Stabbula

Ready for another Star Wars blog? So George Lucas took a page out of classic comic book writing and decided to name his villains with very villainous sounding names. Seriously, a guy named Sinestro turned out to be a villain? Surprised, Green Lantern? That's because Green Lantern is a moron.

Originally Luke was going to be Luke Starkiller. Luckily someone talked him out of that (even though they used Starkiller later in a video game, kind of like a joke maybe?).

Darth Vader sounds cool and is subtle. It’s supposedly foreshadowing dark father. Sure, George, why not. Emperor Palpatine isn’t even mentioned by name in the original series and that name is OK. Jabba the Hutt is a great name too. Boba Fett: great name.

Now to the prequels. Darth Maul. Makes me think of a loose tiger. Not a bad image. Darth Sidious? That’s OK, but a little close to the fine line between cool villain name and idiotic kid’s cartoon. At this point I always assumed that the Sith chose their own names to sound menacing, which would make sense. Darth Tyranus is kind of dumb (having anus in your name is never a good choice), but Dooku was a bit of a loser so this fits.

Now to the biggest movie offender: General Grievous the cartoonish robo-villain. Can it get any dumber than this?

But then we come across this guy (the one on the left that looks like a Dr. Seuss character):

 Guess what his name is. I’ll give you five seconds to think of a description of what he is.

. . . .

Times up! Well, I bet you didn’t guess Elan Sleazebaggano did you. Worst name ever? Not quite.



I don’t want to sell you stupid deathsticks. I want to go home and rethink my name and marketing strategy.

 

This is his rookie card.

 

The other day at the store I ran across this:

Time to oppress savagely.

 What. The. Fuh.

Savage Opress? Sounds like a feral Irish juicer. That blows my mind how stupid that name sounds. And he is Darth Maul’s long lost brother, seriously? And they made a oxymoronic giant mini figure clock out of him. Why? Is this character popular enough to merit that? At least Sleezebaggano was probably originally meant to be an inside joke.

Anyway I came up with the following for the upcoming movies:

Baddie Jerkfacie

Baldi Skypuncher

Typcasto Villiano

Rascalion Sunstabber

General Stabbula

Teddy Bears and Lens Flares

So J J Abrams is going to be directing the next Star Wars. Though it will obviously be warp speed ahead of the prequels, I am excited and also slightly cautious. I mean, I have been burned by Star Wars in the past.

You probably know J J is known for doing Star Trek. He’s known for Star Trek and lens flares (so many lens flares). Seriously, we have this amazing technology and he uses it to artificially create a problem that shouldn’t exist. Otherwise he did a great job. I say great job because the original pre-JJ Star Trek was boring and completely asinine. And beyond cheesy.  JJ made it cool and that works as long as you aren’t attached to the old stuff.

The exact thing I loved about the new Star Trek is exactly what worries me about the possibility of a JJ Star Wars. Imagine if JJ gives Star Wars the same Star Trek treatment. First, an old Han Solo goes back in time while a rogue Imperial Super Death Star+ kills a young Anakin Skywalker. Luke grows up and somehow ends up being space wizard anyway. Meanwhile Tatooine gets blown to bits and Han is mad because Chewie was still there so Luke gets Corellian neck pinched and sent to Hoth where he meets old Han. You get the idea.

Since JJ rewrote the entire history of Star Trek, maybe he is the one man who can turn the prequels into a tabula rasa.

Anyway, yeah, it can’t possibly be worse than the prequels. And creepy Ewok blinks. I’ll take lens flares over teddy bear blinks any day.

I wanted to conclude with a video of Wicket W. Warrick blinking (yes Ewoks inexplicably have middle names). In lieu of that weirdness enjoys this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27RVJJfny4I

It's Die Hard Out There for a Pimp

Concerning the verb die harding:

So they are coming out with a new Die Hard movie. It’s called A Good Day to Die Hard. Like all Die Hard sequels, this film follows the Second Law of Die Hardiness, which states that every subsequent Die Hard film will use a more illogical “die hard” pun in its title than its predecessors.

Don’t believe me? Here are the names in order:

1. Die Hard
2. Die Hard 2: Die Harder
3. Die Hard with a Vengeance
4. Live Free or Die Hard
5. A Good Day to Die Hard

If at first you fail to die. . .

Am I the only person who has noticed that these titles were written as puns by someone who doesn't know what a pun is? I call shenanigans. First of all, a die hard is someone who holds firm to their beliefs. So this could work for Die Hard with a Vengeance, if not for the fact that the main character is kind of an anti-die-hard who doesn't really give a poop about anything. It can also be used as an adjective to mean the same thing, as in “Joe is a die-hard fan of Die Hard. It’s his favorite Christmas movie.” Not only is that a better pun that makes sense in context, it is also way funnier.

The other more archaic sounding, original usage is sort of weird imperative construct, i.e., a weird way of saying "don’t die easily, gents." This makes a little more sense as the protagonist, John McClane is hard at dying.

Live Free or Die Hard makes the least sense. It infuriates me actually. What a crazy false dichotomy to make: live free or be hard to kill. Those are clearly not mutually exclusive. So are we to believe that John McClane lived free instead of dying hard? Maybe it should be live free by dying hard? That doesn't sound right, but it makes more sense.

Somebody please explain to me if in context of these films to die hard means to die but with difficulty, or to be hard to kill? I feel like my confusion stems from an inconsistency, as if they just stuck the word hard into phrases that contained the word die just to sound witty and cool.

What’s the next idiotic title gonna be? I came up with a few ideas:

 

• It’s Die Hard out there for a Pimp
• Live and Let Die Hard
• Never Say Die Hard
• It’s a Die Hard Knock Life
• Die Hard Boiled Eggs
• Die Hardest
• Die Hard in the Wool

The movie poster for the next film Die Hard Platinum (in pre-production).

By the way, the First Law of Die Hardiness states that each subsequent Die Hard film will alternate between ridiculous nonsense and supreme awesomeness. So even with a title like A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth installment can’t fail.