Walking Update

Today I passed 500,000 steps since I started keeping track on October 1. In theory, I should have hit the half-million mark eight days ago, but I didn't. Still, I'm happy with my progress. Two hundred fifty miles of walking puts me just over halfway across Washington State and just past the high altitude point of my walk through Washington, Stevens Pass on Highway 2, at 4,061 feet elevation.

One fourteenth of the way to Miami. I think I can do this.
 

Star Wars Episode IV: The Original

 

I decided to review this movie without watching it again, because I have seen it several times, and because this review is a bit different, more of a reminiscence than a review.

No one needs to review Star Wars anyway; it's a good movie, one of the greatest ever.

Google says that Star Wars was released May 25, 1977. I saw it after it had been out more than a week, so probably in June. Times were different way back then, so we had not seen trailers on the Internet and heard all about the movie from our friends, and I had not heard about it at all. However, my friend Raul had heard it was really good, so we went to check it out in San Francisco.

In fact, the movie was only playing at one theater in San Francisco, an exclusive engagement, something you won't see anymore for a major movie. As I recall, Star Wars was still playing in theaters a year after it was released, because there just were not enough seats available for all of the people who wanted to see it, even though eventually it went to wider release.

So Raul and I went to see Star Wars, and when we got to the theater, we went to the back of a long, long line stretching block after block. The line was not moving, so it kept getting longer. Then, it started to move, and it moved a long ways, but it stopped again before we got to the theater. Word filtered back through the line: One showing had ended, then they let people in until the theater was full, and now we were waiting for the next showing. We stuck with it. As I recall, the weather was nice, and we stayed there in line through an entire showing of the movie. When that showing finally ended, after we had been in line maybe three and a half hours, the line started again, and we got in.

The first time I was really blown away by this movie was right at the beginning, when the big Imperial ship passes over the screen, with the camera under it. The scene created the illusion of a huge ship, very impressive. Probably it was done with low-tech special effects (this was long before CGI) and tiny models, but I had not seen anything like it.

The second time was when the Millennium Falcon went to light speed and all the stars stretched out. The whole theater cheered.

It was a good story, good versus evil with one of the best villains in movie history and some memorable heroes. However, it was the look of the film that was really amazing. Tatooine looked like another planet - much of it was filmed in the Sahara Desert I believe. The droids were well done. The bar scene with numerous kinds of aliens was great. The ships were impressive.

But for that reason, this movie probably wouldn't seem so impressive to someone who grew up later and has seen more recent movies, whether Star Wars or other sci-fi. Special effects have improved tremendously, the jump to light speed has been done many times, the ships don't look any more impressive than the ones in lots of movies. Thing is though, at the time, it was just amazing. We had never seen anything like it.

And the story still holds up.

Walking update

First, let me say that I am almost 40 miles short of where I should be right now. I have taken more than 12,000 steps several days, including today, but I find that it is easy to come up short for various reasons, and some days very short, so it's hard to make up. Still, I have a pattern for a normal day that includes walking the dog, walking again without the dog, and then walking a third time with my brother at night, and that gets me close to 12,000 steps. If I can do better at avoiding short days, I can make up the distance.

Meanwhile, I have walked 455,000 steps, 227 miles, which puts me near Skykomish Washington, well into the Cascades, on or near Highway 2. I should be more than half way across Washington State and over half a million steps by the end of November.

Rogue One - Everyone Dies

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is not one of The Nine. The story takes place between Star Wars Episodes III and IV, in fact right before Episode IV. It is the story of how the Rebellion got its hands on the death star plans, giving Luke Skywalker the chance to blow the thing up...anyone remember that story?

Rogue One is not one of the Nine, but it is a good movie, better than several of the movies in the three main trilogies.

A look at the IMDB page for the movie gives us a list of the heroes in the film. Here they are, with a comment for each telling what their condition is at the end of the movie (Spoiler alert - check the title of this post.)

Jyn Erso, our main character and daughter of Galen Erso. As a young girl, Jyn sees her mother killed and her father captured by empirical soldiers, but she hides and is eventually retrieved by Saw Gerrera.

Status at end of movie: There are two blasts from the death star in this movie, not planet-destroying, but just little blasts similar to a huge nuclear bomb. Jyn dies in the second one after watching the shock wave move toward her.

Cassian Andor, a resistance pilot who rescues Jyn and is part of her adventures afterward.

Dies with Jyn as the two embrace.

K2-SO. There is always a droid, in this case a large re-programmed empirical droid, voiced by Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame, just wanted to mention that.

"Killed" in a firefight.

Chirrut Imwe, a blind, not-really-a-Jedi monk-like user of The Force who joins Jyn.

Killed in a firefight.

Baze Malbus, friend of Chirrut, who carries a really useful and shockingly accurate machine-gun blaster. Baze must be the inventor and manufacturer of this weapon, because if they were available at the store, everyone would have one.

Dies from a grenade during a firefight.

Saw Gerrera, a friend of Jyn's family, the guy who came and got her and looked after her after her parents were attacked.

Dies in the first death star blast, before the one that kills Jyn and Cassian.

Bohdi Rook, a pilot who escapes the Empire with the death star plans, sent by Galen Erso.

Dies from a grenade in a firefight, same firefight as Baze Malbus, different grenade.

Galen Erso, father of Jyn and a main designer of the death star, who builds a flaw into the death star so that it can be eventually destroyed by Luke, then sneaks the plans out to the resistance.

Killed in a resistance attack on the facility where he worked. Survives long enough to say a few words to Jyn before dying - very dramatic.

So yeah, all dead. While I was watching this movie during the last couple of weeks, it occurred to me why they all had to die: None of these characters showed up in Episode IV, of course; if they had survived, we would wonder why not.

The main story starts when Jyn, now a young woman being held prisoner, is rescued by rebels, who need her help. They have learned that Saw Gerrera, who Jyn knew years earlier, has captured a pilot (Bohdi Rook), who has information they need. The problem is that they don't have a good relationship with Saw, who fights against the Empire but is considered too fanatic by resistance leadership and does not deal with them, so they cannot contact him directly. The resistance needs Jyn to approach Saw for them. Once she finds out that her dad is trying to create a way to destroy the death star, she falls in with the resistance and goes after the death star plans.

Rogue One is the type of story in which one action leads to the next, each one dependent on the previous step, and each one dangerous and with a significant chance of failure, and of course there is a glitch or two at just about every stage, all to be overcome by our heroes. They have to go to the planet where the plans are, slip through the shield around the planet before the Empire figures out they are coming, break into a heavily guarded library, and plenty of other stuff. In the end, they have to slip the plans through a crack in the door so they can be passed to Princess Leia with Mr. I-Don't-Like-Sand himself, Darth Vader, bearing down on a whole room full of fighters whom he kills with just his light saber (and makes it look pretty easy.)

The story holds together well, and part of what makes it works is that everyone dies. After all, these kinds of attacks on the Empire are dangerous, and sometimes we are asked to believe that the heroes all somehow made it out alive, no matter how improbable, because that allows for a satisfying ending. But when the main characters die, and not just a Ewok, or Dobby, it makes sense.

Good movie - if you have not seen it, watch it. If you have not seen it recently, cue it up again.

Walk Update

In October, I walked 279,500 steps, or just about 9.000 steps per day average, so a bit short of my goal, but 65,000 steps more than any other month this year. That puts me just past Trillium Community Forest on Whidbey Island. Long, long ways to go. I am not sure when it will feel like I am getting somewhere, but right now, it feels like I have barely started.

One thing I find is that it is easy to come up short occasionally. My problem is not that I cone up a little short every day, but rather that I get 10,000 steps most days but then miss significantly every so often. I will have to aim a little higher and gain back some lost miles, then try to build a cushion.

Another issue is that I missed a couple of days just because I felt exhausted and tried to rest. I can only hope that my health allows me to do this.