Spontaneous Musings

Star Wars - The Force Awakens Meta - "What is the Force and How does it Relate to Us"

Oddly, of the films (and yes, I've sat through them all and all in the movie theaters no less, some many many times, except for the prequels - sorry, once was enough), Star Wars - The Force Awakens does the best job of explaining the force, how it works, and what it means and how it relates to us, as viewers.

I found it rather reassuring actually.

And today, weirdly, our minister did a sermon that touched on it, although she never mentioned Star Wars. (I'm Unitarian Universalist - which has more in common with The Force and Buddhism at times, then it does with traditional Judeo/Christian, or at least it seemed to, today. In Unitarianism, the view is we are all connected to each other, the universe, nature, the earth to a source or force that flows within use all and unites us all.)

Below is a poem that reminded me a great deal of what the writers were trying to explain about the Force and how it works in the film.

Tripping Over Joy by Hafez (14th Century Persian Poet)

What is the difference between your experience Existence and that of a saint?
The saint knows that the spiritual path is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually tripping over Jooy and bursting out in Laughter and saying "I Surrender!"
Whereas, my dear, I am afraid you still think you have a thousand serious moves.

And this quote, which harkens back to Buddhist principles:

The self expands through acts of self forgetfulness - Mihaly Csikszentmialyi

There's three, no make that four crucial scenes in Star Wars - The Force Awakens that take the film up to the next level and haunt long after the credits roll. I found myself rewinding to watch them again.

I'm going to see if I can find vids of them online. If not, will have to go by memory. Ah found them.
Only using them to support points in the meta.

( major plot spoilers follow for anyone out there who still hasn't seen the film and wants to. )

[I need to find icons with Rey, Maz, and/or Leia. Sorry about the spacing, I still can't quite figure out how to do that in HTML.]

[According to a newspaper article I read this morning in the Metro - the tide has changed in California, 52% of the voters polled by telephone supported same-sex marriage opposed to 41% who still opposed it. So, yay! Our call in campaign worked! Although to the 41% that still opposes it? Apparently these people are a little backwards, so we need to be very patient with them, speak slowly, write at a third grade level and they might some day begin to understand a concept higher than tree pretty! fire bad! (smiles evilly)

Wales took pity on my music collection and lent me about ten CD's which I'm importing into my itunes library and onto my ipod, where I'll make little playlists for myself, assuming I can figure out how. Writing this while I'm doing that, more or less. Turns out do not have the patience to make playlists, so did a very lame job regarding it. But did import all the tunes - now have 18.5 hours of music to listen to, not that I will, but still... yay me.]

Saw two flicks this week that made me appreciate film editing, a craft that I tend to pooh-pooh most of the time. It's certainly something I've 0 patience for - scanning lots and lots of images and selecting the correct ones to place into a film. Film editing for the curious is basically what vidding is. People edit film images and creat videos from the sliced pieces of footage they have cobbled together from various sources - sort of like a multimedia collage. [Don't like vids very much, and rarely if ever watch them anymore, but won't annoy you with my reasons why, to each their own, after all. Are they permissible under copyright law? Like everything else - it depends on the vid. Most of the Buffy vids probably are not permissible under copyright law but Fox isn't doing anything, because the show is over and well who cares at this point. No one is making any money off of them. If you are? Go find a copyright attorney to advise you, otherwise, don't worry about it.]

Anyhow...the two films I saw this week could have used a really good editor. Sad really, considering who was behind the helm, Richard LaGravese and Stephen Spielberg/George Lucas, hardly amateurs in the film editing, production and direction department.

( Review of Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - cut for potential spoilers and length )

( Film Review of PS: I Love You - cut for potential spoilers, although they are either vague or provided early on in the film, and length )