Today, George Lucas sold Star Wars.
The real story of Star Wars for a long time now has been the story of a business enterprise. It has been the saga of merchandising rights, of toy lunch boxes, of animated spin-offs, of poorly-conceived prequels. So of course the end of this chapter would be its sale for a staggering amount of money ($4 Billion, if you’re counting). Has one story ever made an artist as rich as Star Wars has made George Lucas?
Read MoreThe greatest feat of Game of Thrones in this convoluted second season has been its willingness to play with perspective. With the demise of Ned Stark and the beginning of the War of Five Kings, the narrative splintered. The result has been messy – episodes have jumped from character to character, sometimes artfully and sometimes haphazardly, leaving little time to breathe. It is difficult to sustain momentum for nearly a dozen percolating storylines without a few seeming to be little more than vignettes justifying arbitrary moves on a Risk board.
Read MoreThe coy and occasionally frustrating game of “is it a prequel?” footsie aside, there’s never been much doubt about the debt Ridley Scott’s upcoming film owes to the Alien series he began in 1979. The iconography of the “space jockey” and the vision of a future subservient to the whims of a distant, remorseless corporation form the basis for the Prometheus’ quest to uncover the origins of life itself. So it seems like the perfect moment, as the long-awaited film begins screening world-wide, to revisit the unique, unsettling and largely fantastic Alien saga.
Read MoreA King rides through the Savannah, guided by a retinue of men, and lays waste to the great beasts before him. Some flee from the onslaught. Others attempt, in vain, to defend themselves. They are all victims. They are shot and stabbed. They roar and thrash and bleed out. The earth groans beneath the bounty of blood. Today, that image will earn you an earful from environmentalists and activists around the globe. But millenia ago in Ancient Mesopotamia, it was practically a qualification.
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