A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Why did Nazi Germany concentrate her armed forces on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union in World War II? Aside from the fact that to the Nazis the Soviet Union was the principal enemy? There were several reasons, really. First, you must remember that by Adolf Hitler’s calculations, Great Britain was on the ropes and unable to reverse her defeat in Western Europe a year earlier. Yes, the Royal Air Force  had  defeated Germany’s  Luftwaffe  in the Battle of Britain and the Royal Navy was still a force to be contended with. But with Britain’s army scattered hither and yon in North Africa, India, and its Imperial holdings everywhere, it would take years for Churchill to field a land force strong enough to open a Second Front in the West. (Hitler was a land-bound “strategist” and failed to recognize that if he lost the air war  and  the Battle of the Atlantic, his Reich was doomed.) Second, Hitler was counting on continued American neutrality (even though by June

© 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation In the Star Wars series, how many people knew (in-universe) that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker prior to the revelation in The Empire Strikes Back? In-universe, you say? Well, it goes without saying that Emperor Palpatine knew, since it was he - as Darth Sidious - who dubbed Anakin as “Darth Vader” some 19 years before the events of Star Wars -Episode IV: A New Hope. As for the rest of the Imperial hierarchy, it’s possible that Vizier Mas Amedda might have known since he was Sheev Palpatine’s trusted confidante and next in line to rule the Empire. However, I can’t be 100% sure, since - from the Sith perspective, the smaller the number of people in the know that both the Emperor and his chief enforcers were Sith Lords, the lesser the chances that the galaxy at large would find out. Wilhuff Tarkin may have known, or at least suspected, that the Jedi general he had met during the Clone Wars was now “Lord Vader.” In at least two

What is the reason Disney got rid of so much good Star Wars content by making the Expanded Universe legends? There are several reasons why Lucasfilm ( not  Disney) decided to “get rid of” much of the Expanded Universe. First, if Lucasfilm was going to make new films, it needed to have full creative license to do so without being beholden to stories that other writers had written between 1978 and 2014. This includes the Marvel Comics issues that  were not  adaptations of the Original Trilogy movies, Alan Dean Foster’s  Splinter of the Mind’s Eye,  the Brian Daley  Han Solo  trilogy, and the various novels and comics published by Bantam Spectra, Dark Horse Comics, Bantam Skylark, Del Rey Books, and other licensees. No self-respecting screenwriter or film director, much less the Lucasfilm Story Group, would have wanted to wade through a thicket of superficially connected but wildly uneven stories. Second, I hate to break it to you, but  not  everything in the old EU was “good.

© 1998 Fawcett/Ballantine Books In 1996, Tom Shroder, the editor of The Miami Herald' s defunct Sunday magazine Tropic, came up with a unique concept - a revival of the "serial" novel form with a decidedly loopy South Florida twist. What if, Shroder mused, someone rounded up thirteen Miami-area writers and asked them to build a novel, chapter by chapter, in thirteen consecutive issues of Tropic ? It had to be set in the region, and writers had to be able to write quickly in order to meet the strict deadlines of the magazine. A crazy idea, yes, but Shroder's challenge was accepted by a "baker's dozen" of the Gold Coast's best and more prominent writers, including humor columnist Dave Barry, ex- Herald crime beat reporter Edna Buchanan, columnist-novelist Carl Hiaasen, and their colleague Tanarive Due. The Miami Herald veterans were joined by more area literary figures, of whom Les Standiford. Elmore Leonard, Vicki Hendricks, and Paul Levine are

On Quora, our old Trump-supporting friend Anonymous asks: What if I told you that if I had to, I would go to war to keep Trump in power? I of course replied: What if I told you I think you are one of the following? A delusional blowhard with a death wish A political fanatic with a death wish A political fanatic with a death wish who hates anyone who disagrees with you A violent extremist, i.e. a terrorist Pray tell, dear Anonymous, under what circumstances do you think you, personally, you will go to war to keep Donald Trump in power? As it stands, Congress is not likely to impeach Donald Trump, even if there are many rank-and-file voters who still desire this. Even if the House of Representatives voted to impeach, the Republican-controlled Senate would be less likely to convict. But let’s say impeachment occurred, and Trump was removed from office via Constitutionally-approved means. Would you still become an insurgent, i.e. a traitor and a rebel, to keep Trump i

Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker. Photo Credit and © 1999 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) I am not normally in the habit of second-guessing the storytelling abilities of writers or filmmakers whose work I admire. This is partly because I usually enjoy most of the books or movies that I consume, even though my many years of writing reviews have taught me that you can like, even love, a book, a musical work, a television series, or a film and yet be able to see imperfections in them. For the most part, I enjoy  Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace  and the rest of the Prequel Trilogy. Not as much as I do the Original Trilogy that introduced my generation of fans to that great adventure that took place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” but enough to sit through all three films and not feel like I could have spent my time something more worthwhile, such as working on a novel or a screenplay or playing  Order of Battle: World War II.  I am, after all, a  Star Wars  fan, and whi

Dr. No (1962) Written by:  Berkeley Mather, Johanna Harwood, and Richard Maibaum. Based on Ian Fleming's novel Dr. No Directed by: Terence Young Starring: Sean Connery, Joseph Wiseman, Bernard Lee, Jack Lord, Ursula Andress, Lois Maxwell In October of 1962, shortly before the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, United Artists released Dr. No, the first motion picture adaptation of a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. Produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and directed by Terence Young, Dr. No introduced the world's best-known intelligence officer in a modestly-budgeted and comparatively low-key story pitting Bond (Sean Connery) against an enigmatic Chinese-German operative named Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) who is sabotaging America's Project Mercury by using a powerful radio signal transmitted from his Caribbean island lair. [James Bond's first scene, winning a game of chemin-de-fer] James Bond: I admire your courage, Miss ...? Sylv

An anonymous Trump supporter on Quora asks: Are magazines just too liberal to feature one of the most beautiful and eloquent first ladies (Melania Trump) that America has had since Jacqueline Kennedy? Dear Anonymous, You have got to be joking. Well, either you’re trying to be funny or you’re a Trump supporter, and since I’m not experiencing a side-splitting gale of uncontrollable laughter, I can safely bet that you are, in fact, a Trump supporter. First, as far as I know, most magazines don’t have a liberal slant. Some do, some don’t, and some (like the  National Review ) have a decidedly conservative bias. And as someone who studied mass communications, journalism, and public relations, I can tell you that most publications cover First Ladies’ activities when they do something newsworthy or grant an interview because they have a message that they want to share with the American people. So far, Melania Trump has been featured in American mass media any time she has accompa

The mighty Chewbacca, his bowcaster, and his best friend in the galaxy, Han Solo in a publicity photo from Star Wars ©  1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation   What is the exact science behind Chewbacca's bowcaster? Could we possibly make such a weapon? If such a thing were possible, how devastating would it be? The answers are, in order, as follows: What is the exact science behind Chewbacca's bowcaster?:  There is no real-world science behind the concept of Chewie’s bowcaster, aka “laser crossbow.” Could we possibly make such a weapon?  As a movie prop, yes. That’s what it is, a movie prop. As an honest-to-goodness weapon that fires short bursts of highly coherent energy bolts? No. We can’t make such a weapon. If such a thing were possible, how devastating would it be?  I imagine that if humans were to someday figure out a way to make weapons that work like imaginary ones from a purely fictional story, a laser crossbow would be deadly. Having said that,  Star

Can you play DVDs on a Blu-ray player? Yes, you can. In fact, millions of consumers play DVDs on Blu-ray players every day. I do it at least once a week, maybe more, when I'm watching content that is available on DVD but not on Blu-ray, especially old TV shows or documentaries that were made decades ago and might be too expensive to convert to high definition home media. Blu-ray discs (BDs) are essentially the “next logical step” in the digital optical disc data storage format known as the Digital Video Disc, which itself was a descendant of the audio compact disc of the early 1980s. It’s no coincidence that CDs, DVDs, and BDs share the same dimensions - 120 millimeters (4.7 in) in diameter and 1.2 millimeters (0.047 in) thick. The main difference between a DVD and a BD is that the latter can store more information (50 gigabytes worth in a double-layer BD) than a DVD. This is because the disc is read by a blue (actually violet) laser that can read more data than the av