Star Wars: The Machete Order

Today is May the 4th. So, "May the fourth be with you!!!" -- This isn't going to be my typical blog entry, I'm going to go full on nerd. So, if that's not your thing, you may want to go back to Facebook now.


First, credit where credit is due: almost all of this concept is drawn from this web site.


How should someone watch the Star Wars saga? Or, maybe a better question, -- if you wanted to watch the entire Star Wars saga, in what order would you watch? If you were introducing a total noob to Star Wars, where would you start?

Might I propose: The Machete Order

"Hey, where's Episode I?"

... It's gone.

Yes, revolutionary. Perhaps a bit hard to accept at first. But ask yourself this question: Is there anything in Episode I that is exclusively critical to understand the greater Stars Wars saga? I say "no."

I had to let that sink in for a bit myself. The Phantom Menace (Episode I) is my least favorite of all the movies, however, I have always thought that it does have some redeeming value. The major redeeming value is the movement and manipulation that shows how Palpatine came to power. (I still contend that Palpatine is the "menace" in the title though some disagree.) Pretty cool that he started a war - and it didn't even matter who won - just so he could become the chancellor, but I digress. Do you truly need to know how he became the chancellor to appreciate the rest of the story? No, no more than you need to know why Han Solo became a smuggler to appreciate his role in IV-VI.

What about how Anakin left his home and his mother? What about Qui-Gon? Why did Anakin get chosen? Well, I don't think you need to go into any of those things to understand the arc of Star Wars. After all, we know nothing of how Obi-Wan became a Jedi, and how he spent his childhood. Focusing on the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin is far more important, and that hardly even starts in Ep. I.

Then there's all the other stuff: The podrace, Amidala/Padme changing clothes & identities, Jar Jar, Messed up Yoda, the Gungan city -- all fluffy tripe that I'm glad to do away with.

Sure, I'll miss the duel of the fates and that epicness, but the thing that has bothered me the most is that Episode I just doesn't seem to fit. It's like someone wrote a precursor to the prequels. Sure, it has a few cool scenes and sets the stage a bit, but it's not a "part of the whole story." If a noobie watches the other 5 episodes and loves them, he or she can then go back and pick up Episode I as a "stand alone" movie set in the Star Wars universe

"What's with the messed up order?"

There are problems with watching in both release order and chronological order.

Chronological order: So you start out knowing that Anakin turns into Vader before you even enter the original trilogy. There is no build up/big reveal. You lose the charm of meeting Obi-Wan and Yoda with the veil of mystery. Also, if waching with a noob, you may lose them by showing the poorest (story-wise) films first.

Release Order: You end on a major downer. You thought the end of Empire was a downer? Try Revenge: the last thing you see is Anakin turing into Vader, Padme dying, most of the good guys getting slaughtered, the baddest guy taking over the universe, and Obi-Wan & Yoda accepting soul-crushing defeat and going into exile.

The machete order gives you the introduction to the characters and the universe, starts off very well, and leaves the viewer feeling like he or she wants to see more. Just when "No, I am your father" [oft misquoted] comes along, and you wonder, "Is Vader really his father? ... why does Vader seem to despise old Ben? etc.," you are given a 4 hour flashback that answers your question. Then you come back to "present day," see how it wraps up, how the Luke-Vader relationship is redeemed, and everybody is happy! (As an added bonus, it makes the look-at-different-planets end to Ep. VI from the Special Edition suddenly seem relevant.)

The machette order isn't perfect, but when thinking of the net of gains minus flaws, it's the winner for me.

+ + +


Side note, for being the biggest Star Wars fan I know, I've never watched more than 2 of the movies in consecutive order. I know in high school my buddies and I planned to. I have a very vague memory of going to (I think) Thom Hennen's house and I walked in part-way though A New Hope and stayed to watch Empire, but that's as close as I got. With a wife and kids, I don't see any 10+ hour marathons in my near future, but perhaps if I'm left home alone for some weekend this summer, it may happen.

Goodbye, WAPELLO

During the summer of 1995, before my junior year of high school, I got my first car, and therefore, my first license plate: 426 CWI.

Since that time, I traded in my Blue '88 Pontiac Grand Am for a Green '99 Buick Century (shortly before our wedding in 2001), and subsequently traded that in for our present Brown '06 Buick Rendezvou (shortly before the boys were born in 2008). In both cases, the license plate was taken off the old vehicle and put straight onto the new one.

So, even though I haven't lived in Wapello county since August of 1997, I've had "WAPELLO" on my license plate as long as I've had a car. I even remember when I moved off campus in the 2000-01 school year, and I became an "official" Polk county resident, I called the Wapello county courthouse. "Just send the car registration form & payment to us, and we'll automatically forward the registration to Polk county next year." So, even though the registration paperwork and the sticker came from Polk county each year, the license plate itself remained the same.

 It seems like about 3-4 times every year, I would have someone ask me, "are you from Wapello county?" or, "are you from Ottumwa?" I didn't mind; in fact, it was kind of fun. I think this is how I found out that a couple in my church (Ray & Jeanne Taylor) used to live in Ottumwa; also, when we bought Ben & Joe's mattresses just back in March, the manager of Mattress Discounter in Des Moines told me that his folks used to own a furniture store in Ottumwa, because he saw the license plate.

However, it all came to an end.

My birthday is in March, so my car registrations are always due by the end of April. After paying this year, and without warning, two new license plates unceremoniously showed up in the mail box. This is the "newer" kind with the more reflective surface and without the raised numbers & letters. Oddly, it is now in the letters-then-numbers format instead of the numbers-then-letters format.

So, as of the 3rd week in April, 2013, I am no longer "from" Wapello county. Truly, the end of an era.

Old faded plate on top, new dark plate on bottom. (No, I don't want the whole world knowing my license plate.)

April 16th . . . First Day of Spring

I know that the "real" first day of Spring occurs somewhere between March 19th and 21st each year.

In my mind, though, we're not "in the clear" until today.

Here is why -- On April 15th, 1996, there was a short lived yet nasty snow storm. On this link, you can see the picture of the snow flake on the 15th, and that the prior Thursday it got up to 82 degrees. Some of my buddies and I even played some touch football that prior week, only to get snowed on a few days later. Pretty standard Iowa weather.

It was my Junior year in high school, and that year there were something like 15-20 snow days (at least it felt that way). This is significant because in Ottumwa (at least), seniors graduated about 2 weeks before the school year actually ended. AND, if there were snow days, seniors didn't have to make them up. Of course, the thing that ticks me off is that MY senior year there were only 2 or 3 snow days. Grrrr.

I went sledding that day, just so that I could say I went sledding on April 15th. IIRC, my friends Peter Hemmings and Brian Harrison got their car stuck on another car's bumper in the slope between the upper and lower pit.

So, take the shovel out of the trunk of your car, plant some squash, take down the snow fence, etc. We're in the clear now, folks!

Julie Bigler (clap, clap, clap clap clap.)

OK, admit it -- 7 or 8 of you are singing it in your head right now.

For the rest of you: think of the popular chant at basketball games, "Let's go Falcons! (clap, clap, clap clap clap)" ["Falcons" could be replaced with any other two-syllable team name.]

I don't know very much about Julie Bigler. I do know that she is about the same age as me, give or take 2 years, and she played basketball for some high school team in Southeast Iowa -- perhaps Fairfield, Keokuk, or etc. She was fairly good at girls' basketball, as I recall.

So, in high school, basketball pep band was a lot of fun. Really - a lot lot lot of fun. You'll have to take my word for it. In one attempt to "get in the heads" of the opponents - or, maybe just be goofy - we started chanting "JULIE BIGLER!" during a game.

Well, Ottumwa tended to play the same teams fairly often. Probably a year or so after the chant was invented, another game with Julie's team came up. The girls' game ended and all the members of said team came out and sat behind the boys' team during the boys' game (girl-boy double headers were common). Someone dared me me go say something to Miss Bigler. One fellow band member dared me to go kiss her (I think) -- of course, I wasn't that bold, so I negotiated down to a high-five if they would give me some money. (One of those, "I'll give you $x if you can convince Julie Bigler to give you a high-five!" things.)

So, during a break of some kind, I mustered up my courage and did it. I walked up to the girls' team from the visiting school, and asked Julie if she would give me a high-five. She briefly hesitated, but then I just told her it was for a dare. She gave in, we had the high-five and I went back to the pep band balcony [where my peers were viewing my every move] and collected my $22.

Awesome.

My First Election - Not Really

The presidential election of 1996 ended up pitting Bob Dole vs. Bill Clinton. The Republican primary/caucus season that year featured some very colorful characters along with just a few specific memories:

Steve Forbes (AKA: Teeve Torbes)

Phil Gramm (I had his t-shirt)

Bob Dornan (who said, "We've never had a president named 'Bob'")

Arlen Specter (who later became a democrat)

Lamar Alexander (who played the piano and had his catchy "ABC - Alexander beats Clinton" phrase; flannel shirts)

Dick Lugar (who ran one TV add that seemed to imply that he would personally beat up terrorists)

Morry Taylor (I ride a motorcycle!)

And also Pat Buchanan -- the focus of this story.

Somehow I got on the mailing list for the Buchanan campaign. I got several postcards, letters and answering machine messages from them that season, encouraging me to vote for Pat.

The problem?

I was still in high school. The election was in November of '96 and I didn't turn 18 until March of 1997.

I finally got up the courage to answer the phone on one of the calls they made. I even remember which phone, it was the mauve colored phone in the basement (you know, back when phones had cords and stuff). I explained this to the volunteer who answered, and I remember she was kind of speechless. She ended up just saying, "Oh." and politely ending the call.

The Crotch Injury Video

So, what do you do on a dull afternoon when you're about 16-18 years old (other than participate in the OBA)?

Some points to consider:

1. In the years leading up to the mid 90's, America's Funniest Home Videos was all the rage (at least as I perceived it). During this time, it seems like at least 33% of the videos on that show were of men getting hit in the crotch by . . . something. Anything, really.

2. Video cameras were different back then. Not everyone had them, so when you got access to one with a blank tape, you had to act. Plop in a big 'ole VHS and shoot away.

This is the situation four friends friends found themselves in -- Charlie Knight, Brad Williams, John Huston, and myself (there may have been a separate cameraman, I don't remember.)

After at LEAST 13 years in the vault (my basement), this long lost classic has been, at last, found. Without further ado, I present, in all it's glory, the famous Crotch Injury Video.

Disclaimer: This does have a little bit of a "PG" feel.

My First Road Trip (One County Over)

During my senior year of high school, I was finally allowed to drive somewhere out of town. I had to ask permission of my parents/beg them to allow me. Where was the destination of this adventure? Oskaloosa - literally one county north.

The purpose of the trip was to watch a cross-country match. Well, it was even less cool than that, it was a JV cross-country match. Just going from memory, I think Ian Kenning and Shawn Neary tried out for cross-country our senior year and made the JV team . . . maybe Erin Alberty too. Why? I have no idea, other than I would guess that they had a fairly light acedemic year (a lot of my piers and I had a light senior year) and just wanted one last chance at a different experience. Why not.

So I went with a couple of my slightly younger peers -- my "sophomore friends." I do not remember which ones. I would be inclined to say Charlie Knight and Brad Williams . . . but I dunno.

The track meet was really boring. But what an amazing drive!!!

We Had Cars

In High School, most of my friends had a car of some kind that they could call their very own. Usually this would be your stereotypical cheap, used "starter car," but we loved them nonetheless.

I took Driver's Education class in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of High School, and turned 16 in March of my sophomore year. The following summer I got my first car: a light blue 1988 Pontiac Grand-Am. My dad and I picked it up at the small place right where Vine Street ended - right before it dead-ended south of the river.* I think it was Martz Auto.

It wasn't much of anything, but I sure liked it and it served my purposes well, primarily driving to school, around town, to friend's homes, and to school related activities. I also had it for my first 3 years of college.

Two other prominent 88's come to mind:

Peter Hemmings had a black 1988 Ford Festiva (not to be confused with the "Fiesta."). Later, in college, I accidentally broke the passenger-side windshield with my roommate's forehead.

Kevin Crotty had a red 1988 Chevy Sprint. The iconic image was Kevin arriving for marching band practice with 7 seconds to spare, pulling into the gravel lower pit while pulling the parking brake, skidding, and falling out of the door with trombone in hand ready to march. Probably a slight exaggeration of an actual remembrance. I also remember I was in his car (I think he was driving me home) when he got his first speeding ticket, going 37 in a 25 MPH zone on North Court.

Other Honorable Mentions:

- Brian Jackson had an old Chevy LUV pickup, probably from the 1970's - DOT orange. I recall it had a radio with dials only, AM only, and one central speaker in the dashboard that didn't work too well.

- Matt Bednar had a GEO tracker - very cool (well, cool for 1996). I vaguely remember that one time someone put it in neutral (or it was left in neutral) and it rolled into another car in the Lutheran church parking lot (you could pay to park there, to avoid the distance and hazards of the upper or lower pit [the "public" student parking areas]).

- Dave Eilers had a big gray boat of a car, of some kind. His fame was that he was the first of my friends to get a car (must have had a birthday that made him "old" for the grade).

- Shawn Neary had some kind of dark red sedan, possibly a Buick Century or something like that.

- Alex Stroda had a burgundy station wagon.

- Chirs Knight got a big cream or white car at some point, although it seems like it was later than the rest of us.

- John Huston had a big creamy yellow sedan, probably from the 70's or very early 80's.

- It seems like I remember that Thad Fiscella, a fellow percussionist in band, had a fairly nice car that was aqua green of some kind. The weird thing was, my senior year I gave him rides to marching band practice and he paid me like $1 per day for that service. I'm not sure why, but I think it was because his dad didn't want him to park the "nice" car in one of the pits.

Do you remember any of these cars? Or did I leave out any of my High School acquaintances? If so, please post a comment.

NOTE: These pictures are simply random cars I found on Google Images that look "close enough" to what I remember. Not a photo of the actual car.

* Vine Street used to have a bridge over the Des Moines river that was closed and torn down before I was born - or at least old enough to remember. It was always very easy to see where it "should have been," though, especially from the south, it was the road that ran directly in front of the main entrance to John Deere. Vine street is also famous - in my opinion - for being the worst exit ramp ever. Highway 34/63 ran like an interstate through there (now just 34 due to the bypass), and the exit ramp in either direction basically requires you to slow from 45 down to 25 or less in about 15 feet and make a hard 90 degree turn to the right that starts a terribly sharp hair-pin style ramp.

If I ever move back to Ottumwa and run for mayor, my sole platform will be to bring back the Vine St. bridge. Because I assume mayors do that kind of stuff.

The Ottumwa Blues Association

At some point in High School, the Ottumwa Blues Association was formed for one day only. I remember that it was warm weather, so it may have been during the summer.

Members of this prestigious organization include myself (snare drum and vocals), Ian K. (trumpet), Shawn N. (guitar, possibly tuba), and John H. (guitar) for sure; other "probable" members [this is that whole memory fading thing I was talking about] include Kevin C. (trombone), Dave E. (trombone), Matt B. (euphonium), Peter H. (trumpet) and Chris K. (a happy supporter...maybe the camera operator). If you were in our brief organization and I left you out, I do apologize - please comment and let me know!

At this point I'm sure you are wondering breathlessly - "What is the Ottumwa Blues Association?" Well, the Ottumwa Blues Association, or OBA as it's commonly known, was formed when my groups of friends must have been very bored one day. We had that thought process - common to many high schoolers, I'm sure - "lets all take our band instruments and some music to the mall and play them. Maybe people will give us money!"

After standing near the back entrance and playing a few rousing tunes, I think we had received only one coin from a friendly national guard recruiter. That's when we decided to make the boldest move ever in the history of the OBA - we moved into the lobby of Wal-Mart. Did we ask permission? No, but we did get a sign.

Someone went in and purchased a large sheet of poster-board and a magic marker, and wrote "OTTUMWA BLUES ASSOCIATION" on the sign. Kids -- let that be a lesson to you. Signs lend a lot of credibility to almost anything!

Our profits shot up (to several coins!). A few old ladies stopped to listen for a couple minutes. You could almost hear their thoughts: "Oh! What nice young men... playing good, clean music and supporting their community! After all, it's not just any blues association, it's our blues association!" With a large handful of admirers, we were able to produce a few nice tunes (including a stirring rendition of "Blue Moon") and draw some polite clapping.

Everything was going great until the Wal-Mart manager on duty showed up.

"No... no... You can't just.... SHOW UP and start playing here in our lobby, without a permission note.... or anything...."

John H. stepped up, in the leader role, and gave his best "nice-young-man" apology and asked a great question.... "well, who do we have to get permission from?"

"Uh, that would be me."

"Oh! What's your name?"

"I'm Chad."

"Oh, thanks Chad... I'm John [handshake]. What do we have to do to get permission to play here?"

At that point "Chad" (or whatever his name was) made up some excuse like Oh... well... If it was up to me, I don't mind, but, something something, corporate policy, have to run it by HR, or something.

Well, it was mostly downhill from there. We moved outside once again, and played near (not in) the Wal-Mart entrance. [And yes, for those of you who didn't meet me until after high school, the Ottumwa Mall did use to have a Wal-Mart INSIDE the Mall... the only mall I've been to that frequently had people pushing shopping carts up and down the halls. Apparently Wal-Mart didn't mind if you took their cart to other stores...] We probably only played for another half hour after that, and the only noteworthy thing we got was a scrap of paper with a phone number on it from a girl from Eddyville. I guess... she was asking out all of us? Or any of us???

I think we would have got in a lot more trouble, but no one called us on it, since we had that sign.

FOOTNOTE:

Somewhere in this world, there is a videotape of this episode. I have no idea where it is, or even who filmed it, or who owned the video camera. If anyone knows, please contact me and I will gladly get it on YouTube!

FOOTNOTE 2:

Were we weird? This seemed like a perfectly fun and wholesome activity to me, and yet I've never seen any kids doing this in my life since then. Why not? And why did we feel the need to videotape ourselves doing this?