A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Why does the writer of  Star Wars: The Last Jedi  think it is plausible for Princess Leia to survive the vacuum of space without a spacesuit? Let me ask you this: Why did George Lucas think it is plausible for starfighters to fly through the vacuum of space and maneuver  exactly  like jet fighters in atmospheric flight without all the complications of reaction control systems, complicated life support systems, and all of the known problems that space travel poses? Why did George Lucas think it was plausible for any civilization, even an advanced one with tech supposedly far more advanced than ours, to build a space station the size of a small moon? Why did George Lucas think it was plausible that a space station the size of a small moon could travel through hyperspace without creating a noticeable gravitational disturbance in its path and wake? Why do the crew and passengers of any starship, including the  Millennium Falcon,  fly in and out of ...

Why does Michelle Malkin accuse Cokie Roberts of "fake news"? “I distinctly remember that she was one of the first guilty culprits of fake news."  - Michelle Malkin Let’s compare the career tracks of Michelle Malkin and the late Cokie Roberts, shall we? Michelle Malkin is the daughter of Filipino immigrants who she describes as “Ronald Reagan Republicans” who are not politically active. She majored in English at Oberlin College, which is one of the first post-secondary educational institutions to admit women and African-American students in the U.S. Even at an early age, Michelle Maglagan (her birth name) was a die-hard conservative; in an article she wrote for the student newspaper, she criticized Oberlin’s affirmative action admissions policy. Although Malkin has done some journalism work, she is not a professional reporter. She’s an “op-ed” columnist, which means she provides opinion-based articles as a syndicated writer for Creators Syndicate. She has al...

Battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. Credit: Wikipedia Why can't the Civil War be called the "War of Northern Aggression" or a war about states' rights? Because those descriptions of the Civil War are deceitful and odious revisionism of history, that’s why. First of all, the Federal government tried to avoid bloodshed from the time of South Carolina’s secession (December 20, 1860) till Lincoln’s Inauguration (March 4, 1861) and on until the morning of April 12, 1861. Lincoln even addressed the issue of slavery in the South in his Inaugural Address, saying that the government was not going to abolish slavery in the states where it was already legal. Second,  who  fired the first shots of the Civil War? It was not the United States Army (or Navy, for that matter) who did so; it was the Confederate Army that let loose the first cannon shot against Ft. Sumter in Charleston (SC) harbor. So if the Civil War were to be renamed “the War of X Aggression,”...

Geography was not a factor in most cases. If you were living in Miami, Florida any time after the draft was reinstated in the fall of 1940 (due to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration of a national emergency) and happened to get the “Greetings! The President of the United States and your neighbors…” letter from the Selective Service office, where you went while in the armed forces was pretty much determined by the needs of the service branch you were in. Thus, if you were a Floridian, you would not necessarily be sent to the Caribbean Command, North Africa, or the European Theater of Operations/ETO (including the Mediterranean Theater). You could be just as easily be sent to serve in the China-Burma-India Theater, the Philippines (before Pearl Harbor), or the South Pacific. Heck, you also had a chance to be stationed Stateside, if the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard needed you there. The only major exception to this: the Japanese-American volunteers who s...

Could Mara Jade Skywalker be incorporated into a canon Star Wars TV series or a movie? Yes, but it probably would not be done in a way that fans of the old Expanded Universe would like. As originally written in the 1990s and early 2000s, the iconic Emperor’s Hand who becomes an ally (and more) to Luke Skywalker would not be a good fit for the current canon. Why? For starters, the ship for making Mara Jade, aka Mara Jade Skywalker, into a canon character (i.e., a major supporting character in an official Lucasfilm Ltd. production) sailed a long time ago in a production company that operates in a land not very far away (California). Mara Jade is a character whose most important story arc occurs in the 1991–93  Thrawn Trilogy  ( Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising,  and  The Last Command ). She was created by Timothy Zahn, a Hugo Award-winning author whose  Star Wars  novels stand out like diamonds in a sea of zirconias in the muddled mess that i...

™ Lucasfilm Ltd. On Quora, Jason Lowman asks: Is there such a thing as Grey Jedi? Grey Jedi exist only in the minds of  Star Wars  fans who are enthralled with the idea that a Jedi Knight can use both the dark and light side of the Force without suffering the fate of Darth Vader or Assajj Ventress. Other Quora members, such as Mike Prinke and Eric Lowe, have written extensively on the topic of the  non-existence  of Grey Jedi. They’ve pointed out the same facts about the “Grey Jedi” mythos, which are: There’s no mention of “Grey Jedi” anywhere in the official  Star Wars  canon, especially in the material that most counts: the eight (soon to be nine) Skywalker Saga films, the three existing Lucasfilm Animation TV series, or any of the canonical novels, comic books, or post-2014 Lucasfilm-licensed video games None of the maverick Jedi characters seen or mentioned in the aforementioned canon are Grey Jedi. Not Qui-Gon Jinn. Not Ahso...

© 2019 Scribner and The Washington Post On Quora, Trump supporter Jeff Blake asks this insincere question:  When will the left finally realize who really colluded with foreign countries to influence the 2016 presidential election? My reply:  News flash, sweet summer child: The “left,” the “center,” and the sane, honest members of the “right” are painfully aware that it was the Republican Party and - especially - the Trump campaign team who colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 general election. It’s only most of the “right,” particularly the die-hard core of Trump supporters and the craven leadership of the GOP, that constantly bangs on the “No collusion, no obstruction” drum. The Red Cap Brigade uses several tactics to gaslight the public and hide the modern-day Republican Party’s cozy relations with the Russians. They range from outright denial (“Russia did not intervene in the 2016 election at all.”) to clever deflection (“Russia  did...