Nick

Darth Vader is also the Protagonist

dixondls — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:42:40 +0000

In my theatre 101 class, we were talking about characters in plays and drama and which characters in popular movies are the pro and antagonist. My teacher then asked the class who is the antagonist in Star Wars and everyone yelled out at once Darth Vader. I do understand why people will associate Vader as being the antagonist in Star Wars but I see Vader as being the lead protagonist and Luke Skywalker as being the 2nd protagonist. The character of Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker) has been in all 6 Star Wars films, while Luke has been in 3 (technically 4 if you count his birth in episode 3). Because of this, I’ve always considered Vader as the lead hero. But how can Vader be a hero if he is on the dark side? Simply put, Darth Vader is a deeply conflicted hero who is truly good deep down underneath the mask and machine. Anakin lost his way with the rise of the empire (the true antagonist in Star Wars) and becomes Darth Vader but with the help of his son, comes full circle, realizes what he was doing (which seemed right at the time) was wrong and helps destroy the empire by killing the emperor himself. If Vader’s not a hero, I don’t know what is.

Brief Concepts

dixondls — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:13:01 +0000

These story ideas (concepts) are a little off the wall (unlike Jackson’s album) but are ideas non the less.

1. A horror story involving 2 fish in a fish bowl and a cat.

2. A horror story involving a Cat and owner in a motel for a night with mice.

3. A horror story involving inanimate objects (daily house tools) coming to life and taking over the world.

My Bliss is…

dixondls — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:59:20 +0000

My bliss is to live a long, healthy, and satisfying life. I want to live long because there are so many things I want to see, do, and experience. Living a healthy live is a given, no one wants to live unhealthy, and I must be healthy in order to live long! Lastly whatever I end up doing down the road, I want it to be satisfying and with meaning, because what is the point of living without satisfaction in your life? I don’t want to become one of those people who dread their daily lives. It’s one of my biggest fears…

Strange/Interesting Headlines

dixondls — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:36:49 +0000

1. As long as there are aliens, there will be muscle-bound meatheads.

2. Loser Senior takes Loser freshman under his wing.

3. Thousands of abadoned, foreclosed homes threatened by Florida hurricane.

4. Yes were Open, and have been for 3 years!

5. Nation’s unemployment outlook improves drastically after fifth beer.

Intertexuality and Monomyth

dixondls — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:23:53 +0000

Wow these were fairly two difficult articles to read! Lets start first with the Intertexuality article. This article was very formatic, and straight to the point with many definitions and examples. Basically it talks about the MANY ways of how writers put words together. When reading something like a book, newspaper, or magazine, I’ve never took into account why certain words were strung together. Until reading this article, I’ve always just looked at words as being just words and never once thought to WHY there were used in a certain way. Look at the intertexuality of some of the dialogue in Star Wars for example. Like Carrie Fisher says in the documentary, some of the dialogue was strange, wierd, and even laughable but that is because of George’s use of intertexuality. Lucas wasn’t writing for a modern light harderd comedy but rather a rousing, classic, coming of age adventure sci-fi story, so the dialogue (though may seem a bit wierd) had to match his vision.

The Monomyth article talks about the characteristics and qualities of a hero’s make up. A hero in most cases comes from a common society, meaning he/she is ordinary like most people. Due to some circumstances, the hero embarks on a quest or journey where he/she finds meaning, grow, and learns to become a better person from who he/she once was. In the end of the journey, the hero returns home. This is the most commonly used hero structure in media from all over the world. I suppose so because it is some what true in society. Look at the day to day heroics of fire fighters, police officers, paramedics, and doctors. Most of the people in those professions are ordinary like you and me and its their job that makes them heroic as opposed to other professions.

In Class Story

dixondls — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:29:21 +0000

Our hero lives with his mother and younger sister in a low income city. One day his little sister gets kidnapped by a underground prostitution ring. This drives our hero to start a journey to seek out for his sister. During the journey he comes across a wise old private investigator who has been committed through out his career on taking down the very same prostitution ring that kidnapped our hero’s sister. The two together travel far and wide, and face many obstacles and perils. In the beginning our hero was a boy, but through out their journey together he slowly starts becoming a man, thanks to the wise private investigator. On the journey our hero and mentor finally finds the base of operations of the prostitution ring, and through all of their lessons learned from the journey, they easily rescue our hero’s sister and take down the prostitution ring for good.

Hilarious!!!

dixondls — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:43:53 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPsDDr0n9AE

George Lucas is a Fighter!!!

dixondls — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:38:22 +0000

After viewing most of the Star Wars documentary (I had to go, im sorry), I realized just how much of a fighter George Lucas is! Here is a person who battled money hungry movie executives, prop, costume, and set malfunctions, special effect difficulties, editing issues, and serious health problems all the while thinking his movie would be a complete failure, and yet he continued moving on. Despite all of the problems, doubt, and shortcomings Lucas ended up coming out with one of the greatest movies of all time and unleashed a new culture into the world, the Star Wars culture. It just shows you that no matter how audaciously bad you think something is, in the end it will turn into pure gold! No, but what Lucas’s story does show is that with a dream, persistance, and faith anything is possible. I know it sounds corny but it’s true, you just have to believe, like Lucas did. FIGHT ON!!!!!!

My Influences and 3 Words

dixondls — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:11:49 +0000

My list of influences are largely at odds compared to my list of 3 words that describes myself (juvenile, thoughtful, and satisfactory)! I can definitely be a little juvenile at times, especially with friends, but nothing on my list except maybe Judd Apatow (Super Bad), is considered juvenile and at the same time Appatow as well as Super Bad, is full of maturity and adult themes! Everything on my list does match up quite well with my second word though, thoughtful. It’s not a surprise really, I mean there’s not to many movies, directors, books, and artist out there that are not thoughtful in their own way. Another thing that EVERYTHING on my list is at odds with is being satisfactory. Sure I’ve always been this way, especially towards school, but I consider all of my influences to be and go above simple satisfaction. My influnences, at least in my mind, are incredible and inventive and they wouldn’t be on my list if they were anything but that. What this says about me? I have no clue. But if I had to make an assumption based off my influences, I would say maybe I should grow up a little and apply myself more.

Project Lead

dixondls — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:01:26 +0000

I would like to be the project lead for the Making of…. portion of the project. From the description, it sounds like something that would be the most fun and I’ve always love watching the behind the scenes and commentaries from movies. I bought the 9 disk Matrix box set (after already owning the entire collection) so I could see how everything was made. It’s always been interesting for me to see how much was put into the final product of movies.