Top Ten Landscapes of the Silver Screen | Away.com
Author Laura Kiniry offers her choices for “must-see locations forever linked with their movie roles.” It’s good list with a few obvious choices (Salsburg and The Sound of Music), as well as less obvious ones (Bodega Bay and The Birds). If I were to create my own list I think I’d have a hard time leaving Lawrence of Arabia off of it, being quite possibly the most distinctive visual epic, and I would add the old Vienna of The Third Man.
That obviously begs the question of what I’d remove. I think I’d drop Star Wars and Tunisia from my list because Lawrence of Arabia offers a similar landscape and the Tatooine sequences in Star Wars were clearly inspired by David Lean’s masterwork. I’d probably also remove Petra (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) because it is very much a “set” in the film. It’s not Petra in the movie, so feels more like a movie location than one where the actual place is central to the story (as it Vienna very much is in The Third Man).
Think Tank: The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction | Overthinking It
What’s the economic calculus behind the Empire’s tactic of A) building a Death Star, B) intimidating planets into submission with the threat of destruction, and C) actually carrying through with said destruction if the planet doesn’t comply?
Star Wars. Galactic Politics. The Economics of Intimidation. Prepare to Nerd Out!
Star Wars Will be Released in 3-D
In other news, George Lucas continues his all-out assault on the franchise that made him famous, beloved and ridiculously rich. After needlessly futzing with the original trilogy by inexplicably changing key moments (Han/Greedo) and adding pointless scenes and special effects, and then thrusting upon the world the execrable prequels, word is now that Lucas will be giving the whole franchise the 3-D treatment. Of course, he is. He’ll squeeze whatever he can out of Star Wars, integrity be damned. Fortunately for us all, he’s starting with The Phantom Menace in 2012, and each subsequent film will follow on an annual timetable. So by my math, at least we don’t have to worry about this until 2015 when the original will be given the superficial 3-D facelift.
