Snatch Wars (Snatch vs. Star Wars) (SLYT, NSFW due to very bad language). [more inside]
posted by slimepuppy on May 11, 2009 - 14 comments

"Wookiees and Bea Arthur? Luke Skywalker and Harvey Korman? Singing and dancing and storm troopers? If George Lucas had his way, no one would remember, but yes, Virginia, there was a Star Wars Holiday Special."

Indeed there was (Google video). [Holiday Special previously on metafilter: 1, 2] Bonus Star Wars audition footage below the fold. [more inside]
posted by dersins on Apr 29, 2009 - 53 comments

Explore the History of the Ancient Greek World from the Neolithic to the Classical Period. Covering important topics, such as Art and Architecture, Mythology, Wars, Culture and Society, Poetry, Olympics, History Periods, Philosophy, Playwrights, Kings and Rulers of Ancient Greece.
posted by netbros on Feb 21, 2009 - 3 comments

Top 10 Star Wars Sports Crossovers. Chewbacca throwing out the first pitch at Fenway is priceless.
posted by jon_hansen on Jan 21, 2009 - 25 comments

Star Wars Battlefront III: a preview of a recently canceled game that apparently had plans to turn our good ol' ghost-ey friend Old Ben Kenobi into a Dark Jedi. [more inside]
posted by azarbayejani on Jan 16, 2009 - 43 comments

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it).
posted by chunking express on Jan 15, 2009 - 169 comments

Star Wars Technical Commentaries. Learn about the Endor Holocaust. [previously] Learn why it's not really called a "Super Star Destroyer," and why it's not actually five miles long. You can even learn what all those little pips and cylinders mean! [more inside]
posted by cthuljew on Dec 6, 2008 - 66 comments

The Death Star rises over San Francisco. A video. Just some footage shot during Imperial Fleet Week in SF.
posted by uaudio on Aug 16, 2008 - 51 comments

Star Wars according to a 3 year old.
posted by dersins on Mar 20, 2008 - 100 comments

Silent Star Wars. (YouTube)
posted by fandango_matt on Jul 28, 2007 - 13 comments

I would walk 500 miles to get my kids to listen to the classics, but all they want to do is play games. The best (classic) music videos out there (for gamers).
posted by misha on Jul 6, 2007 - 16 comments

Strange, small wars throughout history. Some were border clashes named after the item that sparked the confrontation, like the British-American Pig War or the Missouri-Iowa Honey War. Some were bloodless, such as the Maine-New Brunswick Pork and Beans War and the Texas-Oklahoma Red River Bridge War. North Carolina's War of Regulation resulted in eighteen deaths and six later executions. [mi]
posted by marxchivist on Jun 7, 2007 - 30 comments

Two new takes on the world of Star Wars: "The public choice economics of Star Wars: A Straussian reading"; and "A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope:Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III." Were the Jedi actually useless and powerhungry? Was R2-D2 the true hero of the rebellion? Most importantly, where do people find the time to come up with this stuff?
posted by nevercalm on Jan 27, 2007 - 85 comments

Celebrity Star Wars via CityRag via Egotastic
posted by geekyguy on Oct 25, 2006 - 6 comments

Vader Sessions Don't be a hater. Heeere's Vader (YouTube)
posted by Arch_Stanton on Jul 15, 2006 - 34 comments

Get A-Life - an interesting read on artificial life and evolutionary computation, from the game of life (playable applet), through core wars, tierra and on to genetic programming. This approach has recently borne fruit to genetic programming pioneer and inventor of the scratchcard, John Koza, who last year patented his invention machine, actually a 1000 machine beowulf cluster running his software, which has itself created several inventions which have been granted patents. [See also: BBC Biotopia artificial life experiment, another odd BBC evolution game, Artificial Life Possibilities: A Star Trek Perspective]
posted by MetaMonkey on May 3, 2006 - 14 comments

"R2 that seg fault is popping up again, see if you can lock it down!"
posted by Witty on Oct 26, 2005 - 20 comments

They hate Flickr for it's Freedom. An ISP (and government controlled monopoly) in the United Arab Emirates has decided to ban access to Flickr for it's citizens, apparently due to the complaints of a couple of UAE expats in the UK and Canada. Of course, said blockage won't apply to them. Most interestingly, they blame the rest of the world's non-flesh-fearing photographers as opposed to their ISP (and by proxy their own oppressive government.) Now Flickr joins Skype, AtomFilms, Friendster, AOL, and anything from Israels top-level domain, as outlawed content and services in the UAE (related study here). Well, if they don't care, why should we? Via linkfilter.
posted by rzklkng on Jun 22, 2005 - 28 comments

Neal Stephenson wrote an excellent editorial today in the NY Times on Star Wars. Quite good.
posted by about_time on Jun 17, 2005 - 55 comments

Darth Vader reads your mind.
posted by Justin Case on May 29, 2005 - 79 comments

Commentary, insights, and first impressions of the new Star Wars film, "Return of the Jedi."
posted by Snyder on May 19, 2005 - 39 comments

Movie review of the month. Anthony Lane writes in the New Yorker, "No, the one who gets me is Yoda. May I take the opportunity to enter a brief plea in favor of his extermination? Any educated moviegoer would know what to do, having watched that helpful sequence in “Gremlins” when a small, sage-colored beastie is fed into an electric blender."
posted by mert on May 18, 2005 - 116 comments

Dun dun dun duuuuuun DUUUUUUUN dun dun dun DUUUUUUUUUN duuuuun dun dun dun DUUUUUUUUN duuuuuuun dun dun dun duuun!
posted by Simon! on May 17, 2005 - 67 comments

Kevin Smith reviews Revenge of the Sith [BIG spoilers] and goes head over heels for it, saying it rights all the wrongs of the previous two movies. We all know Smith is a diehard Star Wars fan who was just as disappointed by the prequels as the rest of us - viz his recent conversation with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright for Empire magazine. But do we still trust him after Jersey Girl?
posted by LondonYank on May 2, 2005 - 60 comments

The ultimate spoiler! Download the complete, illustrated screenplay for "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith" here for $4.99. completely legal.
posted by JPowers on Apr 18, 2005 - 28 comments

The Good News: you're one of the first in line at Mann's Chinese for the last Star Wars movie ever. The bad news: the movie isn't scheduled to screen there. Logical conclusion: stay put. Out of protest.
posted by tsarfan on Apr 5, 2005 - 32 comments

"In the end, it's the audience that counts." Imax theater chains take imaginary sides in the pretend controversy over evolution.
posted by all-seeing eye dog on Mar 25, 2005 - 126 comments

Star Wars Revelations (13 MB QT file) A new, lush looking Star Wars fan movie. The CG looks (I think) close to the real deal. The production Web site is hammered at the moment. But here's an article with background on the production [via slashdot]
posted by Dag Maggot on Mar 14, 2005 - 56 comments

Dorkstorm: The Annihilation The ten geekiest hobbies
posted by ColdChef on Feb 8, 2005 - 53 comments

.... Numbers vary but are only going down. Belgium has none left. Neither does New Zealand . Australia losts its last decorated member, and the remainder are a handful only. Likewise Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom (notably Mr Anderson) and France. Germany has a few, one of which whom share with France. And let us not forget there were women present. As recently as two years ago, some countries could count the numbers in four figures. Today- generally in the low twos. Spare a moment sometime this week to reflect on them now. A lot of them are not going to make it to November 11 2005. (Astonishingly, many countries do not keep tabs on this sort of thing, but anyone who finds this more moving than ghoulish can find updated information here. )
posted by IndigoJones on Jan 19, 2005 - 26 comments

Is the next war unavoidable? China is now building a large amphibious fleet, with the sole purpose of invading Taiwan. This joins its ever-growing and formidable surface and submarine fleets. Thousands of coastal surface-to-surface missiles, with dozens added each month, now face Taiwan. For its part, Taiwan is considering an $18 Billion arms purchase from the US. India is ramping up its military might, and even Japan is changing its neutral defense policies. Is a major Asian conflict coming soon?
posted by kablam on Dec 14, 2004 - 106 comments

Star Wars Chick. Not to be confused with the star wars kid. Besides, Star Wars Chick looks much better in her handmade Slave Leia Cosutme [ via memepool ]
posted by psychotic_venom on Sep 30, 2004 - 47 comments

8% of Iraqi academics have Fled, 1000 Professionals Assassinated in past Year - '' In recent months assassinations have targeted engineers, pharmacologists, officers, and lawyers. More than 1000 leading Iraqi professionals and intellectuals have been assassinated since last April, among them such prominent figures as Dr Muhammad al-Rawi, the president of Baghdad University. The identity of the assailants remains a mystery and none have been caught. But families and colleagues of victims believe that Iraqi parties with foreign affiliations have an interest in wiping out Iraq's intellectual elite...''  From Juan Cole, who notes, in relation to Chalabi's control of de-Baathification, ''It can't be good for the future of Iraq to lose nearly 10% of its academics. Some of those may have been involved in Baath Party dirty tricks, but were all? And, the campaign of assassination makes a mockery of the rhetoric about democratization."
posted by y2karl on Mar 31, 2004 - 24 comments

Britain's Small Wars since 1945. India, Palestine, Malaya, Korea, Suez Canal Zone, Kenya, Cyprus, Suez 1956, Borneo, Vietnam, Aden, Radfan, Oman, Dhofar, etc. Iraq and East Timor not featured, as yet.
posted by plep on Aug 20, 2003 - 4 comments

Step one: record an embarrassing video of yourself (WMV link). Step two: Let the video fall into the hands of the internet masses, and become the hero you've dreamed of(also WMV).
posted by malphigian on May 2, 2003 - 41 comments

The Myth of the "Civilian"? Rationalizing the status quo or hard-headed realism for "interesting times"? Baghdad coming shortly...
posted by dgaicun on Mar 27, 2003 - 18 comments

Take a peek at this military timeline. And let's figure that the time from when Johnny, sergeant, age 25, gets home from fighting the war and tells 5 year old Junior about the experience to when Junior, Major/Lt.Col, grows up and wants to CAUSE a war, averages 30 years.

Now let's do some math...starting with the French and Indian War, 1754-1763. Add 30-ish years (21). American Revolution, 1775-1783. Add 30-ish years (38). War of 1812, 1812-1814. Add 30-ish years, numerous Indian wars. Add 30-ish years. American Civil War, 1861-1865. Add 30-ish years (37). Spanish-American War, 1898. Add 30-ish years (19). America in World War I, 1917-1918. Add 30-ish years (25). America in World War II, 1942-1945. Add 30-ish years (20). Vietnam War, 1964-1973. Add 30-ish years, and it's the turn of the millenium....it's now.

We haven't learned from 250 years of this cycle, and there's no reason to think we've learned anything since. I didn't count the Gulf War cause it wasn't much of anything, and I know the numbers are a bit forced...but I think this trend is worth discussing.
posted by taumeson on Dec 3, 2002 - 44 comments

Nothing Friendly About "Friendly Fire" WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Air National Guard pilots may face criminal charges for their roles in a bombing that killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

A senior defense official said the Air Force is recommending that charges be filed against F-16 pilots Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umbach. Pentagon officials were expected to announce the charges Friday after the U.S. Central Command and the Canadian government released additional details from a joint investigation of the April 17 tragedy.

what do you think? will this help prevent similar tragedies, will pilots think twice before they let fly on unsupecting canadian troops or wedding parties?
posted by henriettachicken on Sep 13, 2002 - 20 comments

Obscure Star Wars Inspirations. Sometimes weak, sometimes spot-on, this site takes a fairly in depth look behind George Lucas' trilogy +1. Everything old is new again.
posted by Neale on Oct 27, 2001 - 7 comments

The only "war" I can think of in U.S. history anything like the present situation is the U.S. Navy's war on Caribbean piracy (1814-1825). Stateless, decentralized foe, no defined fields of battle, no "high-value targets"...Again, 1814-1825: eleven years. Any U.S. history majors out there?
posted by luser on Sep 19, 2001 - 19 comments