Mari Ness

"Darth Vader" receives suspended sentence for attacking Jedi.

I have one main response to this: Dude. Darth Vader does not wear garbage bags. Did you see Vader down in that trash compactor with everyone else? I didn't think so. If you must do this sort of thing, dress for the occasion.

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In only mildly related news, the Vatican's all about aliens now.

A long time ago, in a store not so far away....



(Don't kill me until you get to the bit with the broccoli. You'll know which bit I mean.)

So while at Disney I caught sight of a product guaranteed to soothe my inner geekdom: a tiny Mickey Mouse dressed as Luke Skywalker, followed by Minnie Mouse as Princess Leia, and – the ultimate: Stitch as Emperor Palpatine.

Naturally this led to a chat the following night with S over dinner, where we tried matching other Disney characters to other Star Wars characters. Goofy, of course, was obvious – Jar-Jar. I announced that I could not, would not, utterly could not tolerate the thought of Donald Duck as Han Solo. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That incompetent, inarticulate, irrational, irritating – I have run out of "I" words – duck as my childhood hero, who shoots first and steers through asteroids later? Intolerable. Plus, Disney has plenty of alternative sidekicks to play Han. (The winner might be Timon of The Lion King, but while writing this, I had a sudden vision of Lilo in a Han Solo costume fighting Stitch as Emperor Constantine, and we may have a winner there.)

But Darth Vader proved trickier, because, as S noted, Darth Vader has a mask: behind that mask, he could be pretty much anybody (except, apparently, James Earl Jones), and how could you identify the Disney villain behind the Darth Vader mask? My immediate thought was Jafar, with the beard, although that doesn't quite work, or Hades (just because I still adore the way James Wood voiced that character), or even Scar, from The Lion King, since James Earl Jones was also in The Lion King and a lion could fit under the mask and….and never mind.

"Captain Hook?" I suggested, more tentatively.

"Maybe," said S thoughtfully. "He'd have the hook….."

And then the conversation turned to the observation that most of the Disney villains are women, and then onto other matters.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how unlikely it was that Disney would not have created Darth Vader and Han Solo along with the other three figurines, so curious, I did a little Google searching, and found, gasp, that some evil denizen at Disney had cast Goofy as Darth Vader (even though, to repeat, Goofy is so obviously Jar Jar) and, worse, made Donald Duck into Han Solo!

Does Disney have no soul?

On second thought, don't answer that.

I know, I know. I told you all that I was not sure that I could endure the physical consequences of enduring both Jar-Jar and kiddy menace Anakin Skywalker again ("Menace," as it turns out, not actually referring to the Sith, but rather to the effect of the film's dialogue track on the internal organs and brain cells), and I meant it, but then perrin_o_ravnos told me about Rifftrax.

Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson of MST3K fame doing a commentary on Phantom Menace.

Let me repeat that: Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson of MST3K fame doing a commentary on Phantom Menace.

Oh, the dilemna. Oh the dilemna. Is it worth the pain of Jar-Jar again? I can't say.

The site also claims to contain a commentary track for Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, but as we all know, that film is beyond snark, and indeed, can only be approached in utter reverence and awe, so I assume that was but a tragic and terrible error made by a sadly misguided webmaster.

Today, I can't help feeling that life would be considerably easier if I were a Force sensitive kitten.

Me: Meow

Person: This is not the tuna you are looking for. This is not the tuna you are looking for.

Me: Meow

Person: I have an extraordinarily weak mind quickly overcome by force sensitive kittens. Here. Have some tuna. And let me scratch your chin.

Me: Purr. Nap.