Dr. Jason W. Ellis' Blog on Science Fiction, Research, Pedagogy, Computers, and LEGO
From Bricks to Bothans posted pictures of the upcoming Super Star Destroyer set from Lego. Darth Vader’s flagship from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi looks most impressive. It includes minifigs of Darth Vader, Admiral Firmus Piett, IG-88, Dengar, and Bossk. Unfortunately, like the awesome Death Star set, it is priced out of my budget at $399, but I am sure some luck Lego builders will enjoy it regardless of its high cost.
George Lucas attempted to show audiences that his character Darth Vader was not as evil as he may have appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy of movies. Instead, Vader was motivated by a tremendous fear of loss. Certainly, Padme Amidala replacing his mother, first by separation and later by her death, created an unhealthy attachment on the part of young Anakin Skywalker towards the child queen. One could assuredly write a psychoanalytic analysis on this trauma. However, the reason that I bring this is up is that Anakin’s/Darth Vader’s fear of loss derives from his love, perhaps obsessively adolescent love, for Padme. I believe that Anakin’s/Darth Vader’s love for Padme demonstrates that even the cyborg Vader maintained enough human affection that he could return as Anakin with the greatest gift: self-sacrifice.
Y and I wish everyone a very happy Christmas!
What was by far the best wedding gift, at least in my opinion and maybe Yufang’s as well, was the Lego Star Wars Darth Vader’s TIE Advance Fighter 8017. Our good friend Kolter, who is now living it up in New York at Columbia University, gave us this Lego kit when he came to our wedding back in October 2009. I cannot really speak to the pleasure of building this particular Lego model, because Yufang beat me to it–she put it together while I was busy reading and providing feedback to my 50 students last semester. I do think that she had fun building this Star Wars Lego set, but I think I will take it apart in the near future so that I can see how it is put together. Again, I really like the updates that Lego made to Vader’s TIE Fighter. I used to own the first version from the beginning of the Star Wars Lego line, but it seems that this version has more detail and more accurate use of colored bricks (something that all of the first kits suffered from–particularly the 7190 Falcon, which is why I am giving it a ‘refit’).
What I’ve realized is that I don’t need the suit to be the evil Sith lord that everyone loves. It is something that I can integrate into my postmodern identity. Yes, a performance theorist would insist I dress and play the part to be the part, but I can satisfy myself and my own Darth Vader-ness without the aid of a suit. However, I believe I will hold on to that most powerful of all phallic symbols–my lightsaber.
So, the bottom line is that you can connect to your own Darth Vader-ness by bidding on my ebay auction for the costume here. Follow a performance praxis and become what you perform yourself to be. Give into your hatred, let it consume you, and look like a badass while you seethe with a burning desire to inflict pain on the galaxy. Yes, you may step-up and become the Sith lord–you can become the master. Use the force, and bid now.
Continuing from my last post, Dr. Takayoshi asked us to practice what she preaches and create a multimodal work to show to our students (e.g., an example of how to do multimodal work, something that ties into a multimodal assignment, or an introduction to our class). Also, it should be 4 minutes in length.
As much as I didn’t want to do something of this magnitude in one day, this assignment did help me crystallize my thoughts regarding the first writing class that I’ll teach in the Fall at KSU. I decided to go with the theme, “Science Fiction and Your World.” I’m going to assign my students a number of SF short stories and secondary readings to begin discussions about contemporary issues, which will lead into their writing assignments. I found a nice anthology edited by Orson Scott Card that I’m going to assign, which is titled, Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century. I wouldn’t say that it’s the best anthology out there, but it has a number of enjoyable and topical stories that I believe my students will enjoy.
After deciding my course’s theme, I storyboarded an introductory video that’s a campy informative mix. It’s just over 4 minutes long, and available on YouTube. However, you can watch it here:
Dynamic Subspace 
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