The Empire May or May Not Have Struck Back

Sorry about another Star Wars post, but I ran across this link, which is a review of sorts of the original script science fiction author Leigh Brackett submitted for the then-untitled sequel back in 1978, just after the first movie had become a blockbuster.

George Lucas had read some of Brackett's space-opera science fiction and apparently liked the thought of what she could do in his universe with Luke, Leia, Han and the rest. Her work on movie classics like Humphrey Bogart's The Big Sleep (adapted from her own short story) and John Wayne's Rio Bravo probably impressed him as well.

The author of the site notes that Brackett, ill from cancer, died soon after submitting this first draft. It has several familiar story points, but many of them show up in different ways. There is no Yoda, but Luke learns the ways of the force from a froglike character named Minch. No Hutts, bounty hunters or carbonite, as Han Solo turns out to be the stepson of a powerful political figure he and the other rebels contact to try to win support for their cause.

The draft itself can't be put online, although some pirated copies are around the net -- surprise, surprise. But the synopsis here makes it obvious that the finished product made a much superior movie, with The Empire Strikes Back usually considered the best of the six. Had Brackett lived and her draft been accepted, she probably would have made many of the revisions ultimately done by Lawrence Kasdan that gave us the movie we saw in 1980.

Some Star Wars lore suggests that Lucas was unhappy with Brackett's submission either way, and there's probably no way to ever know for sure. Even if it had been utterly and completely awful, though, it's got one thing going for it that would instantly catapult it into the top rank of Star Wars movies had it been filmed as written: No Jar-Jar Binks.

Gifted

The natal day was observed, as these days often are in developed nations during the 21st century, with a couple of phone calls and far too many Facebook congratulations to enable me to maintain my curmudgeonly character.

Those were very welcome, but the best part of the day was getting to deliver some donated school supplies to one of our area elementary schools and watching the counselor's eyes light up at the abundance of crayons and brightly colored pencils no less than I imagine my own did when I first contemplated that box of 64 -- sixty-four! -- different shades with which my imagination might put to paper any idea that came to it.

And the other best part came in getting to finish the day in worship at the nearby campus ministry and receive the greatest gift ever given, the Eucharist and all it symbolizes.

We'll have to count this one as a win.

Community Booster

"So, you liking Carrollton so far?"

It was an unsettling question. Not because I had any strong negative opinions about Carrollton, or that I was hiding something from its people. Carrollton was where my grandmother had lived for the seven years of my life that I knew her and where my aunt had spent most of the rest of her days, so I liked what I knew of the town just fine. Cute little old small town, central courthouse square, old-fashioned artery-clogging diner -- everything you'd care to find.

Wasn't the circumstance, either -- although we'd returned for my aunt's funeral, she had been declining for awhile and the knowledge she was at peace was more welcome than it might have been otherwise. Wasn't the fact that I was kind of being singled out by the old man with his cup of coffee asking me the question. I was dressed for the funeral in a shirt and tie, and on Thursday morning at the McDonald's where we'd stopped for breakfast, I stood out. Plus, Carrollton is small enough that most folks probably know most other folks who live there.

But since I was standing at a urinal, engaged in the business that often occupies one when standing at a urinal, I did not know what kind of answer to give. I think the old man thought I was someone he knew and never really realized his mistake, but either way I blocked off the first dozen smart-aleck answers that came to my mind and just said, "Seems like a fine place."

I Spy The Spy!

The Spy is the third Clive Cussler-brand novel focusing on some of the detectives of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, Cussler's fictional version of the real-life Pinkerton Agency. It's the second where Cussler collaborates with Justin Scott, who has written several mysteries and maritime adventures under a couple of different pen names.

Set in 1908, The Spy finds lead Van Dorn investigator Isaac Bell in the middle of an arms race as different nations try to update their navies using new technologies in guns, armor and propulsion (Robert K. Massie's 1992 Dreadnought details the real-world version of these efforts leading up to World War I). Germany and England eye each other as potential enemies, and each would like to enlist the United States on its side -- or at least ensure that the younger nation stays neutral. Across the Pacific, Japan is rapidly modernizing and would like to be certain that the U.S. is either no rival or at most one with a weakened and outdated Navy. So when three top engineers working on different aspects of the U.S. dreadnought battleship program die in accidents or suicides, there is no shortage of suspect nations once the coincidence is realized.

Into the mystery steps Bell, working as a private agent for a nation that has at the time a significant vacuum in its intelligence-gathering. Remember, in 1908 we have no FBI and no CIA. Intelligence falls to the members of the Secret Service, which also has to investigate crimes involving the Treasury Department and has recently added presidential protection to its duties. The Van Dorns and Isaac Bell are, naturally, the only ones who can probe the mystery and untangle the web of a mysterious spy who seems to be working for all parties at once to create as much chaos as he can manage.

The Isaac Bell books are part detective story, part suspense novel and part techno-thriller, even though they're set in the early 20th century. Much of Bell's work and success hinges on his ability to use the latest technology to his advantage, such as the Van Dorn's on-site photo lab where film taken by an agent in the morning can be seen as a printed picture the very same day. He also has a keen mind and is a man (naturally) of action, as capable with his fists as with his brain.

Cussler and Scott -- probably mostly Scott -- manage to layer on a flavor of an Edwardian adventure written at the time -- our heroes are stalwart, our heroines brave and beautiful, our villains nefarious and sneaky. Even though it's not an exact match, that atmosphere helps make The Spy a terrifically fun story to read as Isaac matches wits with his opponents, investigates the crimes and races across the country via his special Van Dorn railroad pass to try to catch up with the spy. It makes for a great vacation in the early 20th century and is a good reason to put future Isaac Bell stories on the book-buying list.

The Battle at Alumni Stadium

With apologies to William Shakespeare, King Henry V and St. Crispin:

…Then shall their names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words,

Fitz the Coach, Colter, and Smith,

Trumpy and Budzien, Dunsmore and Schmidt,

Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And St. Gregory’s feast shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But they in it shall be remembered-

Those few, those happy few, that band of Wildcats;

For see! Colton to-day did shed tacklers at ease

Shall he be my QB; tho’ he no Dan Persa?

This day shall gentle such condition:

And NU fans in Chestnut Hill now a-couch

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their purple cheap whiles any speaks

That saw ‘Cats trounce Eagles on this fair day."

...The Show That Never Ends...

So you may have noticed that Texas A&M University notified the Big 12 Conference that it plans to join with another athletic team conference as of July 2012.

I cannot even begin to contemplate the idea of considering the option that this matters.

There are many reasons. For one, my truck is older than the Big 12. There is no storied legacy. There are no traditions steeped in years of repetition, no bridges between the eras built when children of the digital age reignite flames first lit by children of the Great War, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Summer of Love, the Disco Era, or even MTV. The lifetime of every single student on a Big 12 campus -- barring the odd 6th-grade super-genius or two, and they're probably at MIT -- encompasses the entire history of the Big 12, whether you date from the 1996 start of competition or the official formation announcement in 1994.

For another, the Big 12 has always carried an air of artificiality to go with its shallow draft in the sea of years. It's all of the Big Eight Conference (89-year history) plus four Texas schools from the old Southwest Conference (82-year history). Both of those older conferences had several different lineups and realignments under their belts, but they consciously kept the strand of continuity between their current incarnations and the historic ones. The Big 12, though, was clear that it was not The Big Eight Plus Four or The South-ish West Conference and cut the ties to the past.

The Big 12 is new, it's jerry-rigged, and now it's probably bye-bye. Sports talk radio Wednesday (I was on the road and had few other choices -- if you think radio in any mid-sized city is a wasteland, try radio on the interstate) was full of opinions about the opinions other people had expressed. At least two of the hosts -- I think it was two, but they're interchangeable so I can't be sure -- were certain that "(OU Head Football Coach) Bob Stoops would join the Pac 12 (or 10, or 16, or whatever it is right now) today if he could get out of the schedule."

Headlines speculate on which school might be asked to replace A&M, while others try to evaluate the position of a particular school in the new environment. We're told that T. Boone Pickens, a multimillionaire who has no official position at any university or conference other than that of Writer of Massive Checks to OSU Athletics, would like to see Texas Christian University brought in. The writer doesn't tell us why that matters more than the choice preferred by Norman walkabouter Three-Hat Harry, because while we all know that the size of Pickens' bank account is only reason anyone in this mess cares about Pickens' position, it's kind of gauche to say that in public. We can put the opinion in print, but we can't tell you why we're putting it in print. Standards, doncha know.

Meanwhile, at the various dogs all these tails are wagging, tuition rises faster than inflation, classes the size of some small towns are taught by adjuncts for whom English may be a third language or by some bored prof committing death by PowerPoint on a battlefield scale, young adults learn that they can act like animals as long as they commit no sins against diversity, graduates hock diploma frames to pay back student loans and seniors learn that employers don't much care about uncovering the patriarchy-silenced voices of 13th century Lithuanian quilt makers, because your resumé lists your "previous experence."

A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

George Lucas didn't like the idea of messing around with already-released movies just to suit anyone's whims, even if the anyone happened to be the person who created said already-released movie:

These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with “fresher faces,” or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor’s lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new “original” negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires.

Han shot first.