All right, that's it!

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Did any of you watch that Science of Star Wars stuff they were playing on "Discovery" Channel? Most of it was ok, showing new technology "inspired by Star Wars". Yeah, well, no they weren't. General science fiction and daydreaming of fantastic technology did. This is not my gripe though. The one on weapons "inspired" by SW had not only stuff about lasers and such but "chi" and Shaolin monks using "chi" force fields to protect them from attack!
The show was stating the existence of "chi" as a fact! I was in disbelief. I probably shouldn't have been though; I mean this is the network that shows almost nothing but biker and building shows. Pandering to the lowest common denominator. SOBs! I hate what they've done to Discovery. I loved, loved it as a child. You ever have the feeling of wanting to twist people's heads off? I have.

[Cleon]

I have to confess...I like the biker & building shows.


*sob* I have sinned against you, my lord....

[Kilik]

http://www.exn.ca/starwars/taoism.cfm
http://www.exn.ca/starwars/parapsychology.cfm

Trailer-
http://unixfu.net/starwars3trailer.mov

[Bronze Dog]

I was really annoyed by that, too. One point in Discovery's favor, though, was that they showed "JFK: Beyond the Magic Bullet" a couple hours ago, where they demonstrated that Oswald could have done it alone, showing that one bullet could account for the "magic" bullet injuries.

Think I'll just do what I've always done with Discovery: Watch the good and write angry emails about the bad.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Originally posted by Cleon
I have to confess...I like the biker & building shows.


*sob* I have sinned against you, my lord....

Those shows do have their place, just not on Discovery. Spike or Speed would be a fitting home. Discovery used to be about actually learning something, not watching people b*tch at each other while building gaudy looking two-wheeled conveyance devices.

And another thing, why the hell was George Lucas on the show Alien Planet? What possible input can a movie director have that has any scientific bearing? Now if he was a scientist of some kind along with being a director I'd have no problem. Might as well have The Pope on the show.....

[TheBoyPaj]

Maybe it would have been better if Lucas had said:
"Hi, I'm not an exobiologist, but I make hyped, insipid toy adverts which feature aliens."

[Azrael 5]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
Maybe it would have been better if Lucas had said:
"Hi, I'm not an exobiologist, but I make hyped, insipid toy adverts which feature aliens."

Ouch! ;)

[Donks]

I startd watching it, skipping the monk parts. Then I started skipping the weapons parts. Then I skipped the whole thing. I watched like 8 minutes in total.

[Dr Adequate]

Originally posted by SkepticJ
The one on weapons "inspired" by SW had not only stuff about lasers and such but "chi" and Shaolin monks using "chi" force fields to protect them from attack! You've got to admit that they're bang on there though. This is thoroughly relevant, because no-one in the East had ever thought of the idea of "chi" until they saw Star Wars. Then they plagarized Lucas's idea of "The Force" and called it "chi". It's not a concept several millenia old and invented in the East, like those evil lying New Agers will tell you. No sirree! George Lucas invented it, and the Shaolin monks were inspired by it.

Excuse me, I seem to be stuck in sarcasm mode this week. Either that, or everyone else in the world has become so stupid that that's all they deserve.

[DangerousBeliefs]

I thought it was funny when they said the monks could focus their chi to do amazing things like stop blows, extra... then almost in the same breath they said that the Chinese wiped out all the monks but a handful.

:dl:

[delphi_ote]

They Discovered how to make money and haven't looked back.

[gtc]

Originally posted by DangerousBeliefs
I thought it was funny when they said the monks could focus their chi to do amazing things like stop blows, extra... then almost in the same breath they said that the Chinese wiped out all the monks but a handful.

:dl:

Why do you laugh? The Chinese used Chi Offense which beats Chi Defense every time.;)

[DavoMan]

I never liked the religion part of Star Wars. Actually I kinda think that Star Wards is pretty weak Sci Fi. I mean its not like it's very intelectual or even interesting. If it wasn't popular, I never would pay much attention to Star Wars.

Also, nowhere in this article did I see the words 'this is fiction':
http://www.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm

Just reading through those articles prevously posted - it refrences to more ******** about mixing quantum mechanics and conciusness. I am getting sick of these two matched up.

[Cleon]

Originally posted by DavoMan
I never liked the religion part of Star Wars. Actually I kinda think that Star Wards is pretty weak Sci Fi.

It's more fantasy than sci-fi, really. Think of the Force™ as magic, and you can easily see the Star Wars saga as something out of Tolkien. (Which is mildly offensive to Tolkien, as he's never been the money slut that Lucas is.)

[Kilik]

Yeah but I was like "whoa ****!" when watching episode 3.

[Ashles]

Originally posted by Kilik
Yeah but I was like "whoa ****!" when watching episode 3.
There's a new Star Wars film out?

Why didn't they publicise that better?

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Was that because it is sh**? I like very very little of that pile. General G. was cool and Kashyyyk was nice to see(too little of it though).

[Kilik]

Yeah, General G was pretty cool, he could move really well, the lightsaber fights were cool, the flying, the whole everything about it was cool. Maybe I like the dark side I guess. I thought it linked the old and new movies together real well, and I was happy to see Qui Gon Jin mentioned and he played an important part in all the movies now.

[DavoMan]

I just find it confusing to see all the maoris in Star Wars and The Matrix. It ruins it for me because I never see maori people on tv except in Australian and New Zealand TV.

Its like "Why did they clone Jake the Muss?" haha. I mean Morrison is a great actor & I think he rules but ....come on - its Jake the muss!

Note: Jake the muss is the father from Once were Warriors. ;)
"Cook me some eggs, bitch"

[Yeah_Right]

The Discovery Channel is just like any other commercial entity on the air and panders to the average un-critical thinker. The bright spot on the channel of course is "MythBusters", that's about the only thing worth watching. I really don't see the point of watching bikes and hotrods being built, but that's just me.

[Ririon]

The popularity of chi is definitely inspired by Star Wars. I was inspired to take up martial arts later in life after seeing Star Wars (IV, V and VI). The Force is very similar to what chi should have been...

Just as I owe my fascination for Formula One racing to the 1975 animated masterpiece "Flåklypa Grand Prix". (Recommended to all fans of racing, humor and/or Wallace/Gromit-style animation.)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0073000/

Ririon

[Hawk one]

Originally posted by Ririon
Just as I owe my fascination for Formula One racing to the 1975 animated masterpiece "Flåklypa Grand Prix". (Recommended to all fans of racing, humor and/or Wallace/Gromit-style animation.)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0073000/

Ririon

Ahh, one of Norway's finer moments in animated movie history. Actually, the finest, now that I think about it. You should all learn Norwegian so that you can watch this movie undubbed, unsubtitled. ;)

Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed real life car racing isn't like that. I mean, the track (you'll never see that kind of track anywhere), the cars, the dirty tricks (And I'm speaking quite literally here. One of the cars has a button named "dirty trick".)

[Ossai]

Kilik
Yeah but I was like "whoa ****!" when watching episode 3.
Why? Honest question here.
The movie was really weak.
The special effects were good and some of the fight scenes were memorable (ok 2) but the rest of the movie was, to put it mildly, lame.

There was no drama. The reason Anakin turns to the dark side is because of a bad dream? What the … That was badly acted teenage angst with no real motivation behind it.

And where did the ‘my empire’ come from? Lucas knew he was doing 3 movies back to back, he could have easily seeded one or both of the previous ones but it just magically pops up in the 3rd movie for some reason.

And how dumb is the Jedi council? For a religious order they’re very lax on higher echelon members. Or is the letter of the their law more important than the spirit? It would have been ok if Anakin and Padme had sex and children as long as they just hadn’t gotten married? Did no one notice they were living together and that she was pregnant?

And another thing. Lucas suddenly tries to make the force sciencey by introducing midiclorians – apparently an inheritable trait – then making the largest concentration of midiclorian gene bearers chaste and unable to marry? No wonder the Jedi’s were a dying breed.

Ossai

[Batman Jr.]

Originally posted by DavoMan
Also, nowhere in this article did I see the words 'this is fiction':
http://www.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm
All of the other pages in the article have disclaimers at the bottom making clear the lightsaber's fictitiousness.
from http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber1.htm
Lightsabers are only a figment of George Lucas' imagination, of course. This is an entirely fictional article, based on information in Star Wars movies and books.
It's still very odd for an article of this sort to appear on Howstuffworks, which normally touts itself as a reliable and eclectic compendium of scientific reference material explained specifically with the novice in mind. This belies their intent to be encyclopedic in format and also is atypically unmindful of the neophyte who in their unlearnedness may actually take what they're reading literally. It's like putting entries from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Britannica.

[jmercer]

Well... howstuffworks may have put the article in because lightsabers are... well... real, to an extent. :)

Look here! (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=lightsaber.htm&url=http://www.parksabers.com)

(It's pretty cool - if I had money to throw away... hmm...)

[Wudang]

Originally posted by DangerousBeliefs
I thought it was funny when they said the monks could focus their chi to do amazing things like stop blows, extra... then almost in the same breath they said that the Chinese wiped out all the monks but a handful.

:dl:

Duh! The guys doing the wiping out were skeptics who like poisoned the psychic atmosphere and stuff!

Quote of the day from chinese martial arts : A good fighter has no chi.
I like asking people to explain that one. (Yes, I do know the explanation thank you)