Battle Beyond the Stars—the ships

Battle Beyond the Stars is a sci-fi film from 1980. It’s a version of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. 

I watched it not long ago on the netflix and noticed something about the ships.

The bad guys are a big conquering group that takes over planets by force. The good guys are a small, peaceful, agrarian group on a little, backwater planet.

The first thing I noticed was the opening shot of the bad guys is very much like the opening of Star Wars (Episode 4).

(you can forward through the credits to around 1’40”)

Actually there are a lot of Star Wars references in the film. Or maybe they’re rip-offs, or perhaps just innocent similarities.

Anyway, the next thing I noticed about the bad guys’ ship was that it’s sort of phallic, although slightly triangular.

Now, the good guys ship? A uterus.

However, from some angles you may notice a resemblance to testicles. Or, if you get up close enough, it may resemble breasts.

Now, I don’t know if that whole phallic/yonic thing was intentional. Maybe I’m reading more into it than is there. But you look at it and tell me what you think.

"The Naked Now"

I just started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on the netflix yesterday. “The Naked Now” was the second (or third, if you count the first 2-part episode as 2) episode in the first season. It’s an homage, or at least a reference, to “The Naked Time” from the original series.

I feel like I’m eating my vegetables, or maybe wading through the so-so episodes before the series really starts swimming. There’s nothing forcing me to watch these earlier episodes, but I generally like watching an entire series in order.

It seems to me that all the newer Star Trek series took a while to hit their stride. I’m not sure about the original series. I watched it in syndication when I was a kid, but don’t remember much. So I tried watching it on the netflix not too long ago. I got through 2/3 of the first season, but I just couldn’t take any more of the mediocre acting and the long “dramatic reaction” shots where characters just had these odd, intense expressions on their faces while bad music played. And, of course, there’s the bad special effects. 

Anyway...“The Naked Now”...

The crew is exposed to some virus-type condition which lowers their inhibitions. They keep describing it as being like intoxication. And most everyone who is infected goes around flirting and touching and making out and presumably fucking whoever they can get their hands on.

It’s a little bothersome to me that the series suggest 300+ years in the future, we’ll still have the same repressed attitudes about sex &/or sexuality. I hope it won’t be true. That is, assuming we survive another 300+ years.

If we don’t kill ourselves off directly, by war or some sort of nuclear or other similar disaster, we’re very likely to damage the environment to the point that human life is unsustainable. We’re well on our way to that already. I think the only way to avoid it, is to let go of our “traditional” mindset concerning how we use resources and how we define our civilization, the importance we put on maintaining our accustomed lifestyle.

And on the whole war thing, maybe if all the dudes in charge would just get together in a room and strip down, maybe there’d be less posturing and all that crap, more openness. And therefore, less chance of armegeddon.

“It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.”                -Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)

Naked woman in horse

A friend of mine posted this on my facebook wall, thinking I might be interested. I was.

Seattle Weekly article ...with pictures

An “aspiring model” (she has a profile on some modeling site) in Portland, Oregon, along with a friend, bought an old horse, killed it, gutted and skinned it, and took some pictures of her inside the carcass. Later they ate the horse.

Okay, so you may think, "Ew." Yeah, I thought that too, but mostly I thought it’s just odd. The police investigated, but it seems that no laws were broken. She posted the pics online, and then claimed to have “no idea why people care.” Apparently she wanted to “be one with the animal” and was inspired by Star Wars.

Yay, Star Wars! But I don't think she's a huge fan or anything.
I think, as she is an “aspiring model”, (her model profile) that she’s just hoping to jumpstart her modeling career.

Well, of course, lots of people are outraged. The comments on the article fall into the 3 typical categories of comments on anything surprising &/or unusual:

1. This is sick and twisted; we hate her; she’s a horrible, horrible person OR she so ca-ra-zee.
2. What about all the other animals that are routinely slaughtered for us to eat? (This response on some other topic could be “what about all the starving people...the uninsured...victims of abuse...global warming...whatever”.)
3. OMG, she’s HOT, I wanna hit dat.

Comments on others people’s comments also fall into those same categories, with one additional group: your so dum sombody should get rid of you to; often followed by another comment pointing out the ironic misspellings, lack of punctuation and other grammatical errors. Yes, poor writing bothers me, and I occasional stifle my own grammar-nazi impulse. Because just calling someone stupid or pointing out grammar issues does not really add anything truly useful to the discussion. 

Probably my favorite comment, one which I might’ve made if I were paying more attention when I first skimmed though the article, was to point out a mistake in the Star Wars reference.

"I am so disgusted! This article is SO WRONG!
Han Solo did not use HIS light saber.  He used Luke's.  Get your story straight!"

Sci-fi nerds are hilarious, and yes, I mean me too.

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hm?”