A New Hope? Nope, a New Headache

It took the Rebellion decades to unseat the Imperial powers in the galaxy, but now it could take even longer to clean up the mess plaguing the Jedi.  Having reformed and restrengthened the Jedi, the reformed Jedi High Council has come under intense scrutiny for it’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy concerning interstellar sexual relations.  Rampant abuses to the policy have spiraled out of control and what had once been dismissed as simply a Phantom Menace is now a full blown scandal.

Essentially, the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy was instituted to replenish the decimated ranks of Jedi after Order 69, er 66.  What happened next was cover-up after cover-up with the Jedi High Council continuously brushing over the sexual transgressions of numerous Jedi.  After complaints from across the galaxy and millions of victims that can’t be silenced (shouldn’t have blown up that Death Star), Yaddle, spokeswoman for the High Council, released the following statement: “Failed the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy has. Saddened the High Council is. Pay the victims we shall.”

As senior member of the council, Yaddle has instructed Mace Windu with carrying out this purge off within the Jedi ranks.  Mace, who got his start programming computers before a dinosaur ate him, quickly rose up the Jedi ranks with his mastery of the light-saber, his amazing brewing skills, and his propensity to scream kick-ass phrases at the top of his lungs has been hunting down the renegade Jedi. 

His most high profile Jedi captive and the defacto face of the Jedi sex scandal is former Commander and savior of the universe, Luke Skywalker.  As clearly stated in the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy, incest is a clear violation of proper Jedi sexual conduct and Commander Skywalker’s continuous, ambiguous conduct with Princess Leia raised too many questions for Mace to digest.  When asked how difficult it was to bring in the heroic Luke Skywalker for his Court Martial trial, Mace responded, “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.”

(The following is a transcript of the cross examination)

Mace: Commander Skywalker, were you aware that the Princess was not only your sister by birth, but your twin sister?
Luke: What?
Mace: What country are you from?
Luke: What?
Mace: What ain’t no country I ever heard of. They speak English in What?
Luke: What?
Mace: Say what again. Say what again, motherf@#$er, say what one more Goddamn time!

After stone-walling throughout the questioning, Skywalker was dismissed and Windu called Chewbacca to testify. The Wookie detailed rampant sexual encounters in the Millenium Falcon between the Commander and Princess, including Bantha Fodder positions, Droid Sex Games, Dark Side 69’s, and Hoth Cleveland Steamers. A particular vivid depiction of the Hoth Cleveland Steamer was related on the way to the Death Star while Obi Wan taped it with R2-D2’s droid camera.  But the most damning testimony came when Chewbacca said, “GRRaaaarrrrooouuugggghhhhhhaaaaaa“.

After the Court Martial of Skywalker, Windu and the High Council turned towards other Jedis guilty of sexual transgressions. Alarmingly demonstrating how deeply seated the sexual misconduct was, Windu uncovered misconduct amongst one of the High Council, senior councilman Yoda. The diminutive Jedi master was investigated and a sordid past revealed. Famously seen in Episode Three uttering the words, “Go, I will. Good relations with the Wookies, I have,” Yoda was seemingly given a free pass, in spite of the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy’s strictly forbidding Wookie orgies. Arrested by Windu, Yadoo released a simple statement, ”Not if anything to say about it I have”.

As Mace Windu’s unpopular investigation continues, he has been able to recruit a powerful ally in his quest for a tasty burger and a sexually legal Jedi environment in General Jan Dodonna.  Dodonna, famous for finding the Death Star’s weakness and establishing the first French McDonald’s on Alderaan, expressed optimism in purging the Jedi ranks of sexual deviants.  He maintains that “this is the Rebel Alliance and it’s not about these rusty trombones, and these dirty sanchez, and these Cincinnati bow-ties, and these pussy juice cocktail, and these shit stained balls. That’s all I got to say ‘bout that.”

Mace Windu has been so thorough that not even the dead Jedis have escaped his inquiries. Summoning the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi and questioning him about his relationship with Skywalker, Windu eventually had him arrested. He was able to determine that Kenobi taped several of the incestuous romps of Luke and Leia with a camera attached to R2-D2, which upset the juvenile droid. After repeatedly witnessing these violations, R2-D2 got his revenge by taping an incident involving Kenobi’s early training of young Master Skywalker and showing it to Mace Windu.

(the following is a transcript of portions of that tape)

Obi-Wan: You don’t like girls, Luke.
Luke: I don’t like girls.
Obi-Wan: They’re not the ones you’re looking for.
Luke: They’re not the ones I’m looking for.
Obi-Wan: I can go about my business with your light-saber.
Luke: You can go about your business with my light-saber.
Obi-Wan: Pull your pants down.
Luke: Pull my pants down… pull my pants down.

Obi-Wan’s use of the force to force Skywalker into under-aged sex was a clear violation of the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy and after a quick Court Martial trial, Kenobi was sentenced to the death penalty.

The investigation continues, more well known Jedis come under arrest, and the organization continues to be cleansed by the efforts of Mace Windu. Unfortunately, Mace has become a very unpopular figure during this investigation and after enduring abuse from many of the Jedi, he screamed, ”That’s it, I’ve had it with these motherf@#$ing Jedi, on this motherf@#$ing plane with their Wookie sex and droid love.” When asked to further weigh in on the punishment for these dishonored Jedi, Windu said, “Well allow me to retort; yes they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!”

Cult Classics: Knight Rider

The opening theme song is classic – the synthesizer techno tune serving as the intro to the 80’s cult phenomenon known as “Knight Rider” was known to make people drop what they were doing and come to the TV. Well maybe not to that degree, but the show was certainly ingrained into pop culture during its four-year run, and as the premiere of a new TV movie a month ago demonstrates, it still is today. But let’s go back to the beginning, when NBC’s chief executive at the time Brandon Tartikoff decided he wanted an action-based show around a hero and his talking car…and the general reaction from most others was “What?!!”

Michael Long was an L.A. cop who ended up the victim of a vicious double-cross – he was led to the desert, shot in the face and left for dead. However, he was rescued by the FLAG (the tackily-named Foundation for Law and Government) organization and resurrected, being given David Hasselhoff’s face and the name “Michael Knight” as a part of that operation. In addition, he was recruited by Devon Miles (seen above played by British star Edward Mulhare) to be FLAG’s “undercover agent” if you will, handling in person what the group couldn’t do in court – basically, to kick the incompetent bad guys’ asses while not messing up his coiffed hairstyle. But he wasn’t alone on this mission, FLAG gave him his own ride too.

A 1982 Pontiac Trans Am with some serious modifications, KITT (the Knight Industries Two Thousand) would become Michael’s partner for his undercover missions, though at first “the Hoff” was a little freaked out by the car’s appearance (hilariously referring to it in the pilot episode as “Darth Vader’s bathroom.”) That was really the draw for the show, to see KITT’s futuristic and death-defying abilities in action as “the Hoff” toppled the latest criminal mastermind of the week with a generous amount of style and flash. In the first season, Pontiac actually contacted NBC to request that KITT not be referred to anymore as a Trans Am in the show, because they had been inundated with requests from fans about how to trick out their Trans Ams to look like KITT. That says it all.

Not only that, but the future “Mr. Feeny” himself, William Daniels, provided the voice for KITT. In addition to fighting crime and computing the necessary requirements for making a turbo boost leap at 150 MPH, he could dish out philosophy and biting sarcasm with the best of them. My one complaint is that at some point during the show, KITT didn’t give Michael detention for messing up his circuits with his crazy stunt driving – that would earn my money in a heartbeat. Bottom line, if I need to explain why “the Hoff” and “Mr. Feeny” are the ultimate crime-fighting team, you probably shouldn’t be reading this.

Storyline-wise, the show wasn’t exactly A-List material, but it didn’t have to be. Checking out the episodes will show un-Academy Award-winning acting, cheesy dialogue, recycling of stock footage, and the most incompetent bad guys this side of a Scooby Doo rerun. That could be best personified by the screenshot above, as a recurring storyline involved Michael Knight doing battle with his “evil” twin brother Garthe (also played by “the Hoff”). Besides a hilariously bad accent, the only thing askew about Garthe was his mustache – and where does it say that facial hair automatically makes someone evil? However, things like this were part of the show’s cult charm, and it was occasionally willing to poke fun at itself, which it has to be commended for.

Though successful in its four-year run from 1982-1986, attempts made to recapture lightning in a bottle have by and large failed. A 1991 TV movie “Knight Rider 2000″ flat-out sucked, as did the TV series “Team Knight Rider”, in addition to the recent TV movie “Knight Rider” from a month ago (in my own humble opinion of course). I mean, Val Kilmer as the voice of KITT…what were they thinking? Hey Val, 1996 called and they’re sick and tired of you. Anyway, the entire series of this cult classic is available on DVD, and I highly recommend checking it out – just don’t pull any turbo boosts on the way to the video store, the cops just might arrest you. And unless your car can help you talk your way out of it, you might be out of luck.

RIP: Gary Gygax

On March 4th a legend passed on to the Hall of Heroes, a man who redefined the swords and sorcery fantasy experience for us all. He is amongst the most influential of fantasy contributors of our time and he has unfortunately tapped his last land; I speak, of course, of Gary Gygax. If you don’t know who that is then I respectfully ask you to go commit ritual Seppuku rather than reading this blog, or at least go and look him up on Wikipedia before continuing. Gygax was the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, known affectionately as D&D, and one of the father’s of modern fantasy gaming. His influence on fantasy was about as subtle as a first turn Channel/ Fireball to the head; D&D opened up a whole new level of innovative gaming for those seeking refreshingly fun, fetishistic, fantastical, fantasy fanaticism… try saying that three times fast… ok, now you have some small idea of how difficult it was for Gygax to revolutionize the fantasy gaming genre.

D&D complemented the voracious imaginations of those adherents to gaming nerdom by supplementing their passions with oodles of dice, finely crafted miniatures, a gaming board, more books than the Bible, and the nefarious Dungeon Master, or affectionately known D.M. (curse him). But it wasn’t as simple as that; to fully appreciate Gygax’s gaming revolution one would need look no further than the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. D&D had pretty much the same kind of impact in toppling the fantasy gaming system as the Bolsheviks minus the animated movie and the piles of real corpses. With D&D at your disposal, no longer were heroic quests, terrifying monsters, and scantily clad elves the sole property of novelists and video game designers. Now you, yes YOU, could become Tagliff Wolfsucker, Human Warrior of Doom or Jasqueva the Fair, scantily clad Elvish wizard from the Harrow Woods. Hell, you could be Gary Coleman from the 711 down the street if you wanted to; this was the beauty of D&D as the game was only as limited by your imagination. Add some multicolored die to figure out your stats, grab a book, and then get ready to kick some fantasy monster butt.

People went crazy for D&D (hopefully, not as crazy as this guy) and rightly so. If all you know is World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs, then you truly have missed out on D&D. Imagine a game where you enter endless worlds, level up, work together in a team, fight monsters, and win powerful artifacts, all without having to devote 75.8% of your existence to it. That is D&D AND you interact with real, flesh and blood people!

Just how much did D&D rock? Well, I’ll tell you. My godfather introduced me to this wonderful game just months after M.T.G. had replaced crack as my drug of choice and I have so many great memories of my time spent frantically rolling dice and giving the D.M. the evil eye. The names and dates will go unsaid (lest she be reading this), but after concluding one intense gaming situation, I was able to slip away from the group with one of the female players to continue our roleplaying in another room. Suffice to say, our miniature characters had developed quite a contentious relationship during this impossible quest and we decided to sort things out between ourselves. I’d imagine that if you tried this with your World of Warcraft game you’d be labeled a pervert, deviant, and loser, something like this kid. This encounter cemented me as one of the top roleplayers in the group and earned my level 31 Elvish warrior, Nilrodell the nickname ‘King Dong’.

I’ve personally had so many great memories with D&D that I sincerely owe Gary Gygax a ‘thank you’ for the amazing game that he created. Incidentally, the in-game relationship between Nilrodell and Shiva van Staal, my female D&Der’s character, lasted far longer than the one we carried on. On a much cooler note, has there ever been a better last name in fantasy gaming than Gygax? You can pair this with any number of things to create super-cool fantasy items and names: the Gygaxian Death Sword, Gygax Lord of Shadows, Lost City of Gygax, Crystal Skull of Gygax the Maimer, etc. Perhaps even, dare I say, Benevolent Gygaxian Robot? Maybe not. Sigh. Rest in piece in nerd heaven, Gary Gygax, you are a true icon in the fantasy world. Time for World of Warcraft, I think Stella07a456 will be on tonight… maybe I’ll get lucky with Nilrodell II.