Empire Strikes Back

Often regarded as the best Star Wars has to offer, Empire Strikes Back does live up to that. Unlike the other films it has few flaws, a less cheesy story and plot, while still retaining that Star Wars magic. I think the key is in the director. George Lucas is a great writer and story creator, but executing his script and ideas onto the screen has always been poor or lackluster in my opinion. All the prequels were directed by him and they are disliked by many who love the originals, and I'm not sure if that's a coincidence.

It does not take this movie long to get into the action. Fairly quickly the rebel base is found on Hoth and a massive battle with towering vehicles begin firing. The entire movie it feels like they are being chased or hiding, but the movie is called "Empire Strikes Back", so it's almost expected. Even in Luke's training the movie continues that feeling. Since Luke cannot get this new force thing down and is still having problems with his fears. This movie not only has action but emotion as well. When Luke learns that Darth Vader is his father it is a very serious scene that makes you rethink everything. Nowadays everyone goes into the Star Wars movie knowing that Vader is Lukes father but thats because its the biggest plot twist ever basically.

Time Travel

Time travel is a complicated thing. If we go back in time, we could mess up the present. If we go forward in time, there is so much unknown that it would be extremely dangerous. So obviously it is a risky and dangerous idea in general. But, plenty of movies capture what would be wrong with time travel, think about it. There isn't a lot of time travel movies where the time travelers don't end up in some sort of predicament, it wouldn't be interesting if they traveled back in time and everything went according to plan anyway.

So what is the point of time travel in general. Well, travelling back in time would be used to study history, prevent something historic from happening, or for self gain, kind of like the plot in Back to the Future movies. Honestly it wouldn't be that hard to make a living traveling back in time. If you just brought your cell phone back to the early 1900's it would amaze everyone. Go back any farther and it might scare people, some may call you a witch and burn you for your cell phone. But dangerous problems also arrive when traveling to the future. How do you know when you travel forward in time, Earth will even be there. What if aliens came with a death star and blew Earth up. You would have a giant problem as your gasping for air out in space.

But that brings me to my next point/problem/confusion about time travel. Say I traveled forward in time, 2 years. Assuming the time machine works the year would be 2016. But where would I be in 2016. When I came out of time travel am I where I was when I began traveling, because with Earths orbit I wouldn't be in the EXACT spot I was, again, I would be floating in space dying. So if a machine were to exist, we would need to make it place you on Earth, but even at that what if you time traveled back in time and you were placed inside of a building that used to be standing there. Not inside the building like in a room, but inside the wall of a building, or ceiling, or floor.

All of this is the confusion I have with time travel in general, and if you know the answers then go ahead and tell me. In my opinion, I hope that time travel never does exist, because if it did, all of these problems are a concern. But if you think about it, if time travel did exist, wouldn't someone from the future have traveled to the past at one point. Maybe there is a rule against it, or maybe, people from the future visit us all the time, we just don't know it. As long as they dressed the part for walking about in 1814 or 2014, there would be no way of telling where they came from, or WHEN they came from.

Prequels vs Originals

I've talked a lot about Star Wars, and you should be ok with that because Star Wars is worth talking about. But I'm going to get "ranty" and talk about the pros and cons of the prequels and originals of Star Wars. Obviously this is all my opinion so take it with a grain of salt and don't get all flustered or salty with my opinions.

Lets start with the story aspect of both. Both are influenced highly by fantasy and have a lot of fantasy elements in the story. The prequels story mostly follows Anakin and his path to the darkside. Overall he has to much emotion to be a Jedi and is lured to the darkside to try to save his love Padmè. But this is conflicting because he isn't a bad guy, hes just confused and conflicted. The originals story follows Luke, and his conflicts with the darkside of the force. He is unable to be swayed to the darkside, unlike his father, but in doing this gets his father to side with him. Personally I enjoy the prequels better because it's alittle darker than the originals which can be a bit over the top at times. I think these stories show that there is a bit of gray zone, it isnt just darkside and lightside, that there is some good in all, scratch that, most of us.

Now onto visuals of both trilogies. I'm going to say it outright, the originals did it better. Yes, the 30 years older trilogy beats the coming of age technology in the prequels, but heres why. The prequels got to caught up in CGI that the movies at times felt, empty or inorganic. Not a single set of clone armor was built, all CGI. The originals used props, people in costumes, and miniatures which in some ways were more convincing. For this reason I'm glad they are returning to their roots and using mostly props for episode VII.

I am not going to say one trilogy is better than the other, because one isn't. They are both great, but at the same time, so different from one another. I wouldn't want to live in a world where one existed and the other didn't because they are both fantasic, they are both Star Wars.

Zombies and Disease

Zombies are definitely 'in' right now. Movies like DayZ and TV shows like Walking Dead show that the mindless walkers are huge in pop culture. And with Halloween coming up why not talk about zombies, it's fitting. Plus zombies themselves are quite interesting on their own.

First off, let me scare you by saying zombies are probably the most plausible thing I have mentioned. Take rabies for example, rabies patients begin to lose their mind and bite others, which transfers the disease. The only thing that keeps rabies at bay is that theres treatment and it is really hard to spread. But that doesn't mean the disease cannot evolve making it spread much easier leading to worldwide pandemics.

So lets say a worldwide outbreak of a zombie like infection occurs, what next? The government would obviously intervene. I assume the most logical thing to do is evacuate the cities, then bomb them, depending on how out of hand things are. If things are too bad in the United States there is a military base basically inside of a mountain. It is protected by a huge door and has tons of firepower inside, to me that sounds like the best place to be. And the soldiers who are stationed in places like that have to feel extremely safe, considering they are in modern day castles and fortresses.

With all of the commotion about Ebola outbreaks lately it needs to be said that occurrences like this are highly unlikely. An outbreak of catastrophic proportions like the Black Plague would be hard to reach with all the knowledge modern medicine has. If your worried a second Plague is afoot know that people in those times threw fecal matter onto roadsides, rarely washed their hands, or bathed entirely for that matter, and rarely washed any tools either, including surgical equipment... but they had no idea thats what caused it. But its basic knowledge that eating that spoiled meat is going to make you sick today and you have modern medical practices to thank for that. So to wrap up, an outbreak is probably not going to happen, but if history repeats itself and we live like pigs, than don't blame me because I told you better!