You know the episode will be a good one when Jet Black gives a motivational speech for the prologue instead of his usual world building. In fact, it is probably what Gene was listening to alongside Melfina when the healing process began on his wounds. Who knew the gelatinous substance suspending Melfina naked in the bridge also had healing properties as well. Seems a bit farfetched, but this is the Tao Magic, handship, caster gun universe, so I guess anything goes.
Otaku Revolution is run by myself, Falldog, and long term associate PenguinTruth. We've had a few other contributors over the years as well, including Juu-kuchi and singled_out. It's been mainly just a place for our various nerd musings since 2008. At some point I thought it would be nifty to have a full blown anime site, but tallent and ambition aren't always hand in hand.
OtakuRevolution.com was born from another site, OtakuRevolution.net, which was a web forum and sprite comic site dating back to the early 2000s. I was a member at that time, and somehow snagged the .com TLD when it popped up. The Otaku Revolution name lives on in remembrance of that simpler time.
Dora and Boots want to make a wish on Little Star, the first star in the night sky. But suddenly, a speedy comet accidentally drops Little Star and she falls right to the earth! With the viewer's help, Dora and Boots set out to rescue the Little Star and bring her back home to her friend the Moon above the Tall Mountain, so that everyone can make their bedtime wishes!
Tonight, Dora and Boots were outside at night looking at the moon and next to it was Little Star, who happened to be the first star in the sky. The problem is that they can't see Little Star because she's far away, so get a telescope out of Backpack to get a better look. As they look through it to see them, Dora and Boots started make a wish on the star, but before they could finish, a comet comes out of nowhere and knocks Little Star out of the sky. Dora and Boots later find her crying and they sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to cheer her up. As soon as she heard the song, she stopped crying and swayed from side to side. After the song, Dora and Boots introduced themselves to Little Star and told them they were just about to make their wishes. Now, she had to get back into the sky with the moon so that everyone can make their wishes. Dora and Boots decided to help. There was just one problem: they do not where the moon is, so they ask the Map for help. He said that the moon is above a tall mountain. Before they can get there, they had to cross the troll bridge and go past Tico's Treehouse. As Dora, Boots, and Little Star approach the troll bridge, the troll had a riddle. It went like this: "Star light, Star bright, can you see the stars so bright? Star light, star bright, how many stars are here tonight?". So they had to count the stars. At first, they counted ten stars, but later realized that they forgot to count Little Star. So they did a recount. They count all the stars, including Little Star which makes a total of eleven. Soon after, the Grumpy Old Troll lets them cross his bridge. They cross it right away. As Dora, Boots, and Little Star made it to Tico's treehouse, Tico was wondering where Little Star was and Dora says that she is with her and mentions that she and Boots are on their way to bring her home. Suddenly, they hear Swiper, who is planning to swipe Little Star. They did not stop him in time, so he swipes Little Star and tosses her up in the tree. Tico climbs up to rescue Little Star by jumping over branches. After that, he goes back down with Little Star. So far, Dora, Boots, and Little Star went across the Troll Bridge and past Tico's treehouse. Now they have to go to the Tall Mountain. Once they climbed up, the Moon told Little Star to hurry because it was getting late. They need to find a way to get Little Star up to the Moon. Sure enough, Boots had an idea, he thought he and Dora can throw Little Star back up into the night sky with the moon. With help from the viewer, they all cupped their hands and counted to three. "One, two, three!", they counted and up Little Star goes. In no time, she made it all the way back to the moon. The episode ends with Dora, Boots, their friends, and even the viewer making their wishes on the star. After that, Little Star made her own wish: she wishes that everyone's wishes come true.
If it were the first "Star Wars" movie, "The Phantom Menace" would be hailed as a visionary breakthrough. But this is the fourth movie of the famous series, and we think we know the territory; many of the early reviews have been blase, paying lip service to the visuals and wondering why the characters aren't better developed. How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story "Nightfall," about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen.
"Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace," to cite its full title, is an astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking. If some of the characters are less than compelling, perhaps that's inevitable: This is the first story in the chronology and has to set up characters who (we already know) will become more interesting with the passage of time. Here we first see Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda and R2-D2 and C-3PO. Anakin is only a fresh-faced kid in Episode I; in IV, V and VI, he has become Darth Vader.
At the risk of offending devotees of the Force, I will say that the stories of the "Star Wars" movies have always been space operas, and that the importance of the movies comes from their energy, their sense of fun, their colorful inventions and their state-of-the-art special effects. I do not attend with the hope of gaining insights into human behavior. Unlike many movies, these are made to be looked at more than listened to, and George Lucas and his collaborators have filled "The Phantom Menace" with wonderful visuals.
There are new places here--new kinds of places. Consider the underwater cities, floating in their transparent membranes. The Senate chamber, a vast sphere with senators arrayed along the inside walls, and speakers floating on pods in the center. And other places: the cityscape with the waterfall that has a dizzying descent through space. And the other cities: one city Venetian, with canals, another looking like a hothouse version of imperial Rome, and a third that seems to have grown out of desert sands.
Set against awesome backdrops, the characters in "The Phantom Menace" inhabit a plot that is little more complex than the stories I grew up on in science-fiction magazines. The whole series sometimes feel like a cover from Thrilling Wonder Stories, come to life. The dialogue is pretty flat and straightforward, although seasoned with a little quasi-classical formality, as if the characters had read but not retained "Julius Caesar." I wish the "Star Wars" characters spoke with more elegance and wit (as Gore Vidal's Greeks and Romans do), but dialogue isn't the point, anyway: These movies are about new things to look at.
The plot details (of embargoes and blockades) tend to diminish the size of the movie's universe--to shrink it to the scale of a 19th century trade dispute. The stars themselves are little more than pinpoints on a black curtain, and "Star Wars" has not drawn inspiration from the color photographs being captured by the Hubble Telescope. The series is essentially human mythology, set in space, but not occupying it. If Stanley Kubrick gave us man humbled by the universe, Lucas gives us the universe domesticated by man. His aliens are really just humans in odd skins. For "The Phantom Menace," he introduces Jar Jar Binks, a fully realized computer-animated alien character whose physical movements seem based on afterthoughts. And Jabba the Hutt (who presides over the Podrace) has always seemed positively Dickensian to me.
Yet within the rules he has established, Lucas tells a good story. The key development in "Phantom" is the first meeting between the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and the young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd)--who is, the Jedi immediately senses, fated for great things. Qui-Gon meets Anakin in a store where he's seeking replacement parts for his crippled ship. Qui-Gon soon finds himself backing the young slave in a high-speed Podrace--betting his ship itself against the cost of the replacement parts. The race is one of the film's high points, as the entrants zoom between high cliff walls in a refinement of a similar race through metal canyons on a spaceship in "Star Wars." Why is Qui-Gon so confident that Anakin can win? Because he senses an unusual concentration of the Force--and perhaps because, like John the Baptist, he instinctively recognizes the one whose way he is destined to prepare. The film's shakiness on the psychological level is evident, however, in the scene where young Anakin is told he must leave his mother (Pernilla August) and follow this tall Jedi stranger. Their mutual resignation to the parting seems awfully restrained. I expected a tearful scene of parting between mother and child, but the best we get is when Anakin asks if his mother can come along, and she replies, "Son, my place is here." As a slave? The discovery and testing of Anakin supplies the film's most important action, but in a sense all the action is equally important, because it provides platforms for special-effects sequences. Sometimes our common sense undermines a sequence (for instance, when Jar Jar's people and the good guys fight a 'droid army, it becomes obvious that the droids are such bad fighters, they should be returned for a refund). But mostly I was happy to drink in the sights on the screen, in the same spirit that I might enjoy "Metropolis," "Forbidden Planet," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Dark City" or "The Matrix." The difference is that Lucas' visuals are more fanciful and his film's energy level is more cheerful; he doesn't share the prevailing view that the future is a dark and lonely place.
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