Favored by 'The Force': Mysteries of the Midi-chlorian

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am an avid Star Wars enthusiast. I have devoted a considerable amount of my time and finances to the film series, basically if it pertains to Star Wars, I want to buy it. I consider myself to be a "true" (for lack of a better word) fan of the series, and by that I just mean that I don't hate episodes I, II and III.


Do I think that 'The Phantom Menace', 'Attack of the Clones', and 'Revenge of the Sith' are better then the original three Star Wars films? Of course not. Just like I don't think Halloween 4 is better then the original Halloween, but it's entertaining and it serves a purpose. The same concept applies to Star Wars episodes I, II, and III. They are very entertaining and give us much more storyline to the saga, which is what we all wanted! To write them off just because they didn't quite live up to the full greatness of 'A New Hope', 'The Empire Strikes Back', or 'Return of the Jedi' is a little ridiculous to me. I mean honestly, those were some pretty big shoes to fill. I have had the conversation of defending episodes 1,2 and 3 many times and it isn't really necessary to write about. If you disagree with my views on the subject it doesn't offend me, and you certainly haven't been the first to do so. But this isn't the reason that I've come out of blogging retirement.


I have been able to embrace the prequel trilogy and I have even been able to get over George Lucas' constant, unnecessary changes to the original trilogy. I can get past Anakins terrible acting, I can accept Jar Jar for who he is, I can overlook the asinine, overly CGIed musical number Sy Snoodles performs in the "special" edition of 'Return of the Jedi' but there is one bone I would like to pick with Mr. Lucas. Something that is hard for me to overlook, the type of thing that even if I ever had the honor of meeting ole Georgie I think I would still have to ask him, "what the hell man!?" That one thing is midi-chlorians.


Throughout A New Hope, Empire and Return we learn that 'The Force' is this beautiful thing that is in all of us, that surrounds us, that binds the universe together. We learn that it can be harnessed and used to make you stronger, wiser, more enlightened. That you can do remarkable things if you just trust in it, and let it guide you. 'The Force' is the key ingredient to everything!

Yeah, pretty awesome.

But wait, then in 'The Phantom Menace' we are told by Qui Gon Jinn that something called midi-chlorians live in every living thing, they are microscopic cells that pretty much dictate how The Force works. And apparently some people are born with more of these cells then others.


Uhh, excuse me???


So basically in one quick swoop George Lucas cuts out the entire belief system of the first 3 films while simultaneously undermining his previous work and degrading his loyal fan following of Force believers. Taking the concept of The Force from this mysterious, wonderful, universe encompassing power that all creatures can equally draw from and learn from and turning it into; small bugs that live in you and if you have a lot of them you can do really great things but if you don't you're probably just gonna turn out to be a wanker. It is insulting. The Force doesn't need to have some scientific explanation! It doesn't need to be broken down or explained any further then it already was! It boils down to you either have faith in it or you don't. If midi-chlorians are a fact that everyone in the Star Wars galaxy agrees upon and has excepted that, yes they are what controls The Force then why would Han Solo say in 'A New Hope' that he doesn't believe in The Force and refer to it as an 'ancient religion'? So he is pretty much saying he doesn't believe in facts...? Makes no sense what so ever.


I find this to be the single biggest issue I have with the prequel movies and in my mind makes a little overzealous use of computer graphics, or extremely long pod racer scenes, or even annoying Gungans seem not so bad.

Two Lovers: the purlieus of the heart

I just got done watching Two Lovers (2008) with Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vinessa Shaw. It was a new experience for me. The story was inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story "White Nights". There's a quote from Ivan Turgenev at the beginning:

"And was it his destined part
Only one moment in his life
To be close to your heart?
Or was he fated from the start
to live for just one fleeting instant,
within the purlieus of your heart."

purlieu |ˈpərl(y)oō|
noun ( pl. -lieus or -lieux |-l(y)oō(z)|)
the area near or surrounding a place : the photogenic purlieus of the Princeton.
• figurative a person's usual haunts.
• Brit., historical a tract on the border of a forest, esp. one earlier included in it and still partly subject to forest laws.

This is Leonard's predicament. His is a complicated character and Phoenix does a great job bringing out all the intricacies. This was supposed to be his last movie before his vaunt into the world of hip hop, as 'mockumented' in I'm Still Here (2010), which thank God wasn't true. Leonard is a heartbroken man and suicidal as a result. He had an engagement broken off and now he is in despair. He lives under the watchful eye of his Jewish parents in a Brooklyn apartment and works for the family business. He seems more at home talking with kids than adults. He has charisma but its full potential is choked because of his wounds.

He has scars on his wrists. His parents are worried, so their care is sometimes excessive, but what would you do if he were your kid? His life takes a turn for the interesting when he is introduced to the daughter of his father's business partner, Sandra. She is the good girl, the one you can bring home to mom. If we were at all in our senses, she is the wife we should all want. But when everything is there for the taking, when you already know you can get the girl, it's almost a little boring. This is human psychology. I believe this shouldn't be the case, but 99% of us feel it when it happens. The key quote that critics underline is: She wants to take care of him. She understands his pain and wants to nurture him out of it. But doesn't that make us recoil? I don't want to be your science project. I want to be nurtured out of my pain in a more indirect way. I wouldn't want that to be your motive. But all the same, she has good intentions, and probably voices awkwardly feelings that are more noble.

While he keeps his distance from Sandra (he's likes, but is not smitten), he accidentally bumps into Michelle. She is not Jewish. She is wild. A guy's fantasy. The girl you wouldn't bring home to mom. They have a wild night out on the town. But she gets a text that makes her cry. Leonard finds out it's because her boyfriend can't come out. Boyfriend! Not only did she didn't tell him, this idiot is married with a kid. This is the trouble with fantasies. There usually always screwed up. But Leonard is still smitten and wants her to be the girl of his dreams. But she puts him in the friend-zone and tells him all her problems. Doesn't this sound like an experience every guy has gone through? You have a girl on the side who you know you can have, while you chase a girl you know you'll probably never have while she puts you in the friend-zone? What this movie does really well is take these soap opera cliches and make them believable. The movie works because of the realism. It's so rare you see a love story set in Manhattan and not see it from the perspective of the middle class.

The movie is about unrequited love. I thought it did a great job on that score. Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vinessa Shaw all were amazing. While Leonard was in the purlieus of Michelle's heart, even if she did let him come in for one moment, he learns that it is Sandra that he should truly love, and who truly loves him.

Feeling more in More than a Feeling

I’ve had a funny, yet wistful, experience today. I consider the art I’ve experienced to be a part of my identity. The experiences of the art are embedded in my memory, and re-experiencing the art not only reignites the memories of when I first experienced it, but some of the other times I’ve experienced it, and any of the other subsidiary memories that are connected to it. To give an example of this loose law of association (I’ll call it), I remember driving down Forestbrook road one day with the windows down on a particular balmy day when the smell of burning leaves whisked its way into my car and in my imagination I was immediately transported to memories that had been lying dormant for years, even decades. The result was an experience of a certain kind of wistful painfulness, a longing to return to those memories, a sadness that I couldn’t, and a thoughtful disappointment that even if I could, I’d probably feel, after a while, bored and disappointed at the banality of the memory: this would lend a suspicion to the level of sacredness I had with all my cherished memories. I say all of this for prefatory purposes. The main point I want to get across is this. With the particular art of music, since different musicians can give to songs their own interpretations, approved or disapproved by the original musician, the song itself, connected as it is with my identity, memories, and imagination, can take on a whole new meaning in the medium of these varying interpretations, and can thus effect sudden changes in the identity, memories, and imagination that were already in the song's hold. For example, I will never forget (If I live to be 85 years old, this memory will never leave me) the first time I heard or began to pay conscious attention to a type of music that affected my soul like none other I had heard up to that point in my life. The music was off Boston's first album and I remember each song having a power and poignancy to it that made me feel different than I had ever felt before. It was an experience and memory of beauty to my mind. This experience was in the mid to late 90's. Now, in 2011, I could hear a beautiful acoustic cover of this song by a gifted musician, reignite the memories of the experiences I had when I first listened to the song on that fateful day in the van (Matt J., you know what I'm talking about!), notice the more-than-a-decade span that has intervened since the two events, ponder all that has happened in my life in the interval, and the new interpretation of the song can actually make me notice the pathos of my life as the last years of my youth are slipping away.

Where there's a Will there's a way

Arthur Schopenhauer's aesthetics result from his doctrine of the primacy of the Will as the thing in itself, the ground of life and all being; and from his judgment that the Will is evil. Schopenhauer held that art offers a way for people to temporarily escape the suffering that results from willing. Basing his doctrine on the dual aspect of the world as will and representation, he taught that if consciousness or attention is fully engrossed, absorbed, or occupied with the world as painless representations or images, then there is no consciousness of the world as painful willing. Aesthetic pleasure results from experience of the world as representation [mental image or idea] without any experience of the world as will [need, craving, urge].

I agree with this when I put my own spin on it. I do think The Will is the thing in itself. Perhaps not Kant's thing in itself. But I do think it is the ground of all being and life, since God's will is such a ground. What I particular love here is S.'s belief that art allows you to escape the suffering that results from willing. I want to distinguish this 'willing' from C.S. Lewis' desire for Something otherworldly, something outside of this space/time. I believe this 'desire' is the desire to merge with The Will. I also believe in this will/representation distinction. That it is another form of Lewis' contemplation/enjoyment distinction, and Kierkegaard's subjective/objective distinction, and Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian distinction. Perhaps it is this 'painful willing' which I shed for the moment that I am taken away by the music. But a part of me is suspicious, because there is an acute kind of pain which I feel during melancholy songs. But perhaps this is the feeling of catharsis, that my nameless, inner feelings are given musical expression, and the unspeakable feeling is given somewhat of a form in my consciousness, and it is in this sense that I shed 'painful willing' in S.'s sense. This sort of satisfies the thought that when we merge with God in the afterlife, the bittersweet desire that's been with me all my life will be swallowed up, that God will stoop to suit my puny representational capacities, like an ocean suits a canoe at that little part where the canoe happens to be floating.

For Schopenhauer, the Will is an aimless desire to perpetuate itself, the basis of life. Desire engendered by the Will is the source of all the sorrow in the world; each satisfied desire leaves us either with boredom, or with some new desire to take its place. A world in thrall to Will is necessarily a world of suffering. Since the Will is the source of life, and our very bodies are stamped with its image and designed to serve its purpose, the human intellect is, in Schopenhauer's simile, like a lame man who can see, but who rides on the shoulders of a blind giant.

It's amazing how close S. was to God. I wouldn't call it aimless. This is more in line with the 'elan vital' that Bergson spoke of in his book Creative Evolution. Or what Lewis hinted at when he spoke of the insolence of Nature to grow. And I think S. focused on the bad part of the Will to the exclusion of the good, and falls into the error (though a noble one) of the Buddha. I believe this Desire I have for God to be 'engendered by The Will', but I might not call it the root of all my sorrow, unless S. means the sorrow I have because that Desire isn't satisfied until Heaven. But his plan is to cut off the Will in this life for the negative of 'will-less' nirvana. He wants to remove the stomach because we're always hungry; I want to feed it eternal life. I'm with Nietzsche in thinking that S. was too negative and pessimistic, metaphysically. I love the metaphor of the intellect, like a lame man on the shoulders of a blind giant.

Schopenhauer's aesthetics is an attempt to break out of the pessimism that naturally comes from this world view. Schopenhauer believed that what distinguished aesthetic experiences from other experiences is that contemplation of the object of aesthetic appreciation temporarily allowed the subject a respite from the strife of desire, and allowed the subject to enter a realm of purely mental enjoyment, the world purely as representation or mental image. The more a person's mind is concerned with the world as representation, the less it feels the suffering of the world as will. Schopenhauer analysed art from its effects, both on the personality of the artist, and the personality of the viewer.[1]

It's interesting that even S. thought his philosophy was pessimistic. His solution, which I have complete understanding with, is that aesthetic experience is a temporary release. I feel intensely a sort of self-forgetfulness when I listen to War Pigs by Black Sabbath. My attention is focused completely outer and other. I melt away. Because of the 'contemplation of the object'. But it's a special kind of contemplation only possible because of Lewis' 'enjoyment' (as distinct from Lewis' brand of contemplation, inspired by Samuel Alexander). This is why it is then called 'purely mental enjoyment'. This probably completely explains the peace I feel with the so-called problem of suffering when I watch that part in the movie Philadelphia when Tom Hanks' character narrates during the Opera. Or why God answered Job the way He did in The Book of Job, in the spirit of the way The Tree of Life did it.

"Perhaps the reason why common objects in still life seem so transfigured and generally everything painted appears in a supernatural light is that we then no longer look at things in the flux of time and in the connection of cause and effect …. On the contrary, we are snatched out of that eternal flux of all things and removed into a dead and silent eternity. In its individuality the thing itself was determined by time and by the [causal] conditions of the understanding; here we see this connection abolished and only the Platonic Idea is left." (Manuscript Remains, Vol. I, § 80)

Wow. Perfectly said. We are 'snatched out of that eternal flux'. Doesn't all art do this? And this is the sense in which only the Platonic Idea is left. Through art we can harness the Platonic Ideas. I couldn't agree with him more.

Interpreting the trailer for TDKR

This is a good assessment of The Dark Knight Rises trailer I read.

The beginning of the teaser is little more than footage that looks similar to that of images from BATMAN BEGINS along with dialogue Liam Neeson gave from that film with text indicating every hero has a beginning and an end. From there we see Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) lying on a hospital bed on his side seemingly in a lot of pain basically begging who we can only assume is Bruce Wayne to bring Batman back. This begs the question that apparently Gordon now knows Bruce is Batman? Also, we assume that Bruce will hang up the suit at some point or perhaps right from the beginning and will be pushed back into action with the powerful threat of Bane now terrorizing the city.

From here Gordon says Batman must come back, followed by a blurry image of Bane and then a much clearer image of him starring into the camera, wearing what looks like a leather jacket. Then we see the teaser poster image with actual falling debris as it zooms in until the screen is completely white and the title card fades in. The final shot of the trailer is an awesome and brief glimpse of Batman backing away and getting into a weak fighting position as Bane lumbers in from the left side of the screen and then cuts to text that indicates we will see the end of the Batman legend.

I’ve watched the trailer over and over, but specifically the last shot trying to soak every inch of it in as I possibly can. I kept wishing I could see more of Bane, more of whoever that is standing in the background of the right hand side of the screen, but more importantly, just wish that I could watch more of this scene play out. I don’t have a single answer for any of the questions the trailer presents and that’s why I love it and believe it succeeds as a teaser trailer. Teasers are not supposed to provide closure or give you everything you want, they are supposed to do exactly what it’s called, a tease.

I have read lots of descriptions about the trailer before it was released, and lots of post reactions now that it’s been released and here is my take of the last shot in general. I’ve seen a lot of people say that what they interpret is Batman backing away scared or terrified that Bane is approaching him; that’s not what I see. What I see is Batman backing away completely exhausted and trying weakly to get his footing to try and fight off an impending attack and Bane walking relentlessly towards him unconcerned about Batman’s defense. The look on Batman’s face to me says “I have no clue what to do” where as the look of Bane’s walk is that of determination and no fear whatsoever of Batman. This gets me excited because if that’s the case I think we are in for some really tense stuff for the finale. I also don’t think that what we see here is the final battle between Bane and Batman. We are a year from release and to think the first footage we see would be part of the ending would be disappointing to me and unlikely. I would call this similar to when the Joker crashes Bruce’s fund-raiser looking for Harvey Dent in TDK and ends up in a tussle with Batman; so I would think this is an early tift between the two.

My last assessment of this scene is what I think the context of the scene is. There were viral videos released depicting a mass escape of Arkham Asylum and chaos with lots of chanting, which can be heard in the trailer as well. I believe this scene to be Batman going to intervene with what might be a riot at Arkham only to be overpowered by an escaped Bane and that the guy in the corner is a guard or another prisoner maybe. My problem with my own assessment is that Commissioner Gordon appears to have been injured severely by Bane and is begging Batman to come back, which wouldn’t quite fit with my thoughts and would be a conflict in the timeline of events.

He ignores the figure climbing out of the well and doing push-ups. Are those Bane too?

First Trailer for The Dark Knight Rises

Jim Gordon: [lying in a hospital bed] We were in this together, and then you were gone. And now this evil rises. Batman must come back.
Bruce Wayne: What if he doesn't exist anymore?
Jim Gordon: He must... he must...

This looks like this is going to kick some serious butt.

FROM MTV SPLASH PAGE: "The Dark Knight Rises" trailer took the web by storm yesterday, and it's no wonder why: between the introduction of Bane, the possible retirement of Batman and the likely destruction of Gotham City, all signs are pointing towards an epic conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

The Thing: a Prequel

The Chicago Film Critics Association puts The Thing (1982) in 17th place among the scariest movies ever. I'd put it higher. I consider The Thing to be one of the best horror films of all time. Unknown to me, "Carpenter considers The Thing to be the first part of his Apocalypse Trilogy, followed by Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness." It is billed as a remake of The Thing From Another World, "a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr."

It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being.

I've never seen the original, but John Carpenter's remake I have seen. And I could see it over and over again for the rest of my life. So, what is this Thing?

The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a parasitic extraterrestrial life-form that assimilates other organisms and in turn imitates them. It infiltrates an Antarctic research station, taking the appearance of the researchers that it kills, and paranoia occurs within the group.

The special effects were ahead of its time. Read: no CGI. And the dread remains. "Most of the horrifying special effects were designed and created by Rob Bottin and his crew, with the exception of the dog creature, which was created by Stan Winston."

The film's ground-breaking make up special effects were simultaneously lauded and lambasted for being technically brilliant but visually repulsive.

Ebert says it's "among the most elaborate, nauseating, and horrifying sights yet achieved by Hollywood’s new generation of visual magicians."

Now in the works is a prequel, which is supposed to explain where The Thing we saw in the 1982 version came from. "The film will take place right before the first film, following the exploits of the Norwegian and American scientists who originally discovered the alien." Three days before, to be exact.

Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and her two assistants Davida Morris (Davetta Sherwood) and Adam Goodman (Eric Christian Olsen) join a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship buried in the ice of Antarctica. They discover a creature that seems to have died in the crash eons ago.

When an experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate, Adam and Davida join the crew's pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing and imitating them one at a time, using its uncanny ability to mimic any life form it absorbs through digestion, and potentially reaching civilization.

The filmmakers seem legit. Producer Eric Newman said:

I'd be the first to say no one should ever try to do Jaws again and I certainly wouldn't want to see anyone remake The Exorcist... And we really felt the same way about The Thing. It's a great film. But once we realized there was a new story to tell, with the same characters and the same world, but from a very different point of view, we took it as a challenge. It's the story about the guys who are just ghosts in Carpenter's movie - they're already dead. But having Universal give us a chance to tell their story was irresistible.

And I'm charmed and reassured that "Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. explained that he created the film not to simply be a horror movie, but to also focus largely on the human drama with the interaction between characters, as the first film had." That's what I loved about the 1982 version: character studies in the midst of terror and chaos.