Hello everyone! It's been a while! Over a year, in fact.
With that little hiatus behind us, I am excited to bring you to the next era of Lasitas. I plan to regularly post again, though I want to focus more on creative writing than making it a newsletter. However, never fear, newsletter fans, if you subscribe to my newsletter, you will get... a newsletter! In your email inbox! From me!! The newsletter will basically serve as a way to get email notifications of new posts, since Blogger stopped supporting the automatic email updates that my first-era subscribers are familiar with.
So, instead of just posting to Blogger and letting the built-in RSS email functionality handle the rest, I'm going to be more hands-on with writing a newsletter that links to the latest post. If you previously were subscribed to Lasitas, I have you on my new email group, no problem! If you are new here and would like to subscribe, click here to get added to the list!
With that out of the way, I would like to introduce you to a fun new series I'm starting here on Lasitas. It was inspired by a conversation that Alex and I had prior to watching the Lord of the Ring movies this fall (my first time, Alex's fifth time):
"Wait, before we start, I want to fill you in on what I already know through cultural osmosis, so we can see how much I knew before we even watched the movies," I had said before we popped in the DVD of the first movie I had checked out from the library (because I will never leave 2007, not ever).
Alex was interested, though her interest soon turned to amusement as I launched into an account of The Lord of the Rings: the Lisa Edition:
"Okay, so either Bilbo or Frodo and his friends go looking for a ring that has the power to rule them all. They spend an ungodly amount of time traveling and then they find it in the possession of Smeagle or something, what's his name... Gollum! The 'my precious' goblin. They steal the ring from him and, after another unconscionably long sequence of traveling through the New Zealand countryside, they throw it in a volcano. At some point, Gandalf goes from being grey to white. The end."
We realized that my tenuous grasp of major motion pictures might be comedy gold.
I knew what my next target must be.
Cue the music, Mr. Williams.
So, without further ado, I give to you, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (the Lisa Edition):
The original trilogy opens with Luke at a store with his uncle Ben (not related to the rice company… I presume). They buy a servant bot named See Three Pee Oh, who is a to-scale man-shaped robot made out of some sort of cheap yellow metal. Accompanying this bot, whose name we’ll shorten to C3PO, is a less articulate, waist-high bot shaped like a park trash can. This bot, named Argh Too Dee II, is able to communicate with C3PO with a series of beeps and whistles, but he is incomprehensible to just about everyone else, except for a trademark wail of despair that speaks for itself.
After another dull evening at his uncle’s middle-of-nowhere desert home, Luke decides to take a screwdriver to the trash can robot, whom I’ll call R2D2 for short, and discovers a message hidden inside its memory banks. It’s a video message, sort of like a voicemail for Skype. The speaker is a hot lady, which is exciting to young, bored Luke, and she’s asking for help! Luke must intervene to save his princess.
He goes to his eccentric neighbor’s house to ask if he knows anything about the man mentioned in the voicemail: Obi Wan Kenobi. The neighbor’s name is Ben Kenobi, so Luke figures he must know something…. Wait, both the uncle and the neighbor are named Ben? Maybe the uncle isn't named Ben after all.
Anyway, Neighbor Ben reveals that he’s Obi Wan and Luke’s princess is a real princess named Leia. Or maybe he’s evasive at first and reveals this later. Who gives a shit, Luke’s house just burned down!
Now that Luke is homeless and orphaned, he joins eccentric neighbor Obi Wan Ben Kenobi on the adventure of a lifetime.
They travel through a desert where there are massive long-legged robots which are actually vehicles piloted by aggressive fascists (who maybe also burned down Luke’s house?) They pull the monsters down with rope around their knees.
Also, C3PO and R2D2 are lost in the desert and wander into a village of little hooded bears who live in caves carved into the sides of the canyon. The two bots are in some sort of fight, but the fact that the little gremlins are aggressive reunites them since C3PO has to rescue trash bot.
Luke, Obi, and the bots end up at a giant space ship which is also a planet called The Death Star (so it’s a ship, planet, weapon, and a star, be sure to keep up). They try to infiltrate the ship in order to rescue Leia, but end up in a trash compactor! And they’re the trash!
Meanwhile, Leia is a prisoner on the Death Star, and Darth Vader, the leader of the fascist government, shows her that his ship is capable of destroying an entire planet in seconds. He decides to demonstrate this by using her home planet, because he’s just kinda a dick like that. She is understandably upset and feels hopeless and alone. Darth Vader is pleased.
Oh, earlier they joined up with a guy named Han Solo. He’s also in the trash.
They get out of the trash by riding a big worm. Han Solo presumably has a lot of fun with this because he is an adventurous guy who lives life on the edge. Oh, and he also has a big anthropomorphic Afghan hound as his co-pilot! The dog’s name is Chewbacca, and he’s been here for this whole thing too. Except he’s not a dog, he’s a Wookie because we’re in space and he’s actually an alien, duh.
I need to backtrack for a moment because you’re probably wondering, “Why are Han and Chewy along for this adventure?”
The answer, my friend, is a barfight and some money. Han Solo is a bounty hunter and Leia has a steep price... maybe? Or Luke is going to pay him for helping? Or he owes them because he accidentally shot someone on Tatooine and Luke and Ben used the Force to save him? Look, there was a lot of alcohol and MDMA changing hands, no one’s too sure what happened.
Maybe Luke just stole his ship, but Han stowed away? Why the fuck is Han here?!
Anyway, they rescue Leia, I guess, but then Darth Vader appears, right when they almost escape! Darth Vader and Obi fight on the porch and Vader slices him through with a laser! Obi Wan is raptured into heaven. Luke is devastated. Han is indifferent.
The survivors escape because Darth Vader decided to let them go? He didn’t notice them? He actually felt bad about killing his old friend? (but you don’t know that)
Anyway, now they’re with Leia’s army watching a documentary about the Death Star. They’re going to blow it up because it has an air vent that leads straight to the explosive heart of the machine!
Everyone gets loaded into little shooter planes and head into space! They’re all connected via walkie-talkies, so everyone’s having a great time! Luke is one of the boys, along with a colorful cast of soldiers who all get killed. Wait, what, they’re all dead already?! But they were so fun-loving and witty! They were making so much fun banter! And now Luke is alone because every single person who ever loved, liked, or worked with him sacrificed themselves for him. Except Han, but Han secretly hates Luke. (probably. He hates everyone except his dog.)
Luke, emboldened by grief and rage, blows up the Death Star!
Darth Vader… survives somehow?!?!?!?!?!?!?
To be continued.
If you are anything like my devoted and ever-patient partner Alex, you are likely screaming into a pillow about how the ATATs are in the next movie and about how there is not a giant worm. Whatever.
In case you were wondering, yes, I have watched this movie. But I have also watched, more often, the Family Guy parody, and I also quite enjoyed the Auralnauts version, Laser Moon Awakens, which you should definitely check out if you haven't seen it before. I'm pretty sure it's funny even if you're not that familiar with Star Wars to begin with.
Stay tuned for the next two installments of the original trilogy! Let me know if you have other ideas for major cultural touchstones that I'll probably butcher in the retelling.
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