STAR WARS Identified... With Twi'leks!

I went to the STAR WARS: Identities exhibit at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum last week! I heard about the exhibit in March, so the excitement as been building up for a while now and I'm happy to say that I really enjoyed it! If you're in the Ottawa area I highly recommend the trip out to see it (and if you aren't in the Ottawa area, the exhibit should be heading to other cities soon).

Top among my favorites at the exhibit was Anakin's podracer from The Phantom Menace. Big and impressive props are always a winner for me. I think scale is my favorite thing about movie or television related exhibits. I love being able to stand in front of the podracer and appreciate how large it actually is, or discover that Chewbaca is in fact ridiculously tall. How did he even fit into that cockpit. I don't know. In any case, seeing them in person is like creating a new moment or a new experience with something that's been with you for a long time, which, for many of these guys, means as far back as I can remember. Plus podracers are totally awesome.

Of course one of the best experiences was going face to face with the actual Yoda. One of the things I noticed when we got home and (naturally) started to watch all of the movies, was that there weren't any cool things from the gungans, or the new clone troopers (aside from a few neat concept drawings/sculptures), because of course, there are essentially no props. You can't come face to face with  Jar Jar because he never had a face outside of a screen. So I think we can officially list the lack of physical props as another negative of relying too heavily on CGI. I'm not going to attack the prequels, but I do think that puppetry is the way to go for realism, and puppetry with CGI enhancements might be even better.

They have Jaba's eyes. Just his eyes. Apparently that's all that's left of the enormous puppet built for Return of the Jedi. There's just these two big eyes on sticks, staring at you. I found them so incredibly cool, and I think they might have been my favorite thing in the whole exhibition. I don't know why, but my mind just keeps going back to them.

They still have his eyes.

I feel obligated by eight-year-old Ronnie to mention Padme's clothes. They only had three of her outfits, and my pictures didn't really come out (in my defense, lighting was shit and I was, according to my family, "taking way too long") but I still loved loved loved this. I can't be the only one who derived at least part of my love of Star Wars from the pretty outfits. They had so many clothes. It was so pretty. We're talking Leia's slave outfit (which included cute little boots I've never noticed before!), Leia's Hoth outfit, Padme's ceremony gown from Phantom Menace, her Attack of the Clones outfit (with wicked-awesome poncho wrap thing), and a random but gorgeous senator outfit. They didn't have Leia's Bespin outfit, which is, for whatever reason, my favorite. And  they didn't have Padme's classic red gown/headdress or Leia's classic white outfit, which was odd. But still. So pretty. I was so happy. I said earlier that I wasn't going to attack the prequels (even if, perhaps, I should) because one thing that the exhibit did remind me of was that I loved all of the Star Wars movies growing up. Phantom Menace came out when my brother's and I were kids, and we loved them. We didn't care that there was an annoying kid, or that the plot made little to no sense, or that none of the characters had any depth whatsoever. It was still Star Wars and we loved every second of it.

The exhibition does cost a pretty penny to get in, but if you're a fan of the series then I think it'll be worth the money to see some really cool stuff. : )

The 'Identities' part of the exhibit relates to the interactive activity they had were you 'build' your own Star Wars character. I really liked it! It was essentially a real-life self-insert, and I wish they had this for everything. Everything. It also reminded me of why Star Wars: The Old Republic is so much fun - because you're immersing yourself in that wonderful universe. You started off by choosing your species, and they recorded all of your choices in a bracelet you wore throughout so that at the end, you could see your character and their bio which was emailed to you. Naturally, I was a Twi'lek. I think we can officially say that a new life-goal is to write a book centered around the life of a Twi'lek. Anyway, as you went through the exhibit you chose your characters skills, upbringing-style, planet of origin (Bespin, of course), mentor, occupation, friendships, as well as other things, and ultimately you had to choose whether or not you would align yourself with the dark or light side of the force. My family and I mutually agreed that it would have been way cooler if the exhibit took all of your choices and told you what side of the force you came out on, but it was a really neat activity all the same. Check out Onnie-Ka, my Twi'lek senator. Because senators can be cool too.

CARINA Cantina

One of the best ways to find a good book is to ask the people who never read. While avid readers can list off dozens of books that you know you'll never have the time to read, a few of the non-readers will tell you that although they don't have the patience/time/interest to read much of anything, there was this one book that they couldn't put down. There was just one book that caught their eye, and was wonderful. That's why I love people who don't read even more than those who do. For a book to catch their eye, it really has to be something special.

Of course, as an avid reader with no time to read, I'm reading the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, which I of course recommend to anyone interested in one of the best examples of great storytelling in existence.

I got accepted to the University of Western today! Exciting, I know. Although happy as I am to finally be accepted to a school that I can actually afford going to, it's still sort of bittersweet knowing that Guelph, where I really want to go, has yet to let me know the time of day. Still, you never know, I certainly wouldn't mind going to Western, so maybe you'll see me posting about my life in London, Ontario six months from now (so close!), giving you the ups and downs of majoring in Animal Behavior.

While on the subject of schools, my course-load for the last semester of grade 12 has been really quite nice lately. I have only three courses, two of which are Communications Technology and Earth and Space Science, so the only hard subject is Chemistry. Although I do suspect that my lack of work is due to the fact that we're doing Organic Chemistry right now, which is incredibly easy (and therefore I love it). That and Carnival, easily the biggest holiday in Trinidad, starts this Monday. I'm hoping to see it this year before I go. I don't really think that being in anything is something I'd enjoy (not even going 'on the road'), but I do want to see it. The majority of Carnival I'll leave for another post. It's a five day weekend.

More exciting right now is the trip that my Earth science class is going on! I'm going to a star party! My art teacher (I love it when art gets associated with something awesome like space) is involved with an organization called CARINA, the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, which already sounds awesome, and they host these parties on a regular basis from what I understand. Trinidad has got to be one of the best places for seeing stars. You may remember earlier postings of the wonderful mountains that are literally everywhere you look here.

I remember first coming out of the airport and thinking "FUCK it's hot" right before jaw-dropping at the mountains. The site we're going to is atop one of these majestic beauties, at an old tracking station that my Dad tells me was built by the Americans in WWII. The sky should be clear and free of interfering lights from towns and such, and the best part is that Mars and Saturn are supposed to show up. I'd be upset that my favorite planet, Jupiter, is a no-show, but I've seen Jupiter before, and Saturn should be cool (just not as cool as my main man). One of my brothers left an old telescope in his closet, which I stole before finding it broken, but this led me to the discovery of my Dad's binoculars. I adore finding old things from my parents. Like when you're a kid searching through old drawers of stuff that you never knew existed. Finding the binoculars was like finding the slide rule all over again. Only they didn't require hours of Wikipedia to figure out how to use. So, I spent the day watching people at the local grocery store, and investigating the houses on the mountain, waiting for some sort of catastrophic event to take place. No murders occurred, so I didn't get to go all Rear Window, but it was still a lot of fun. I can't wait to use them next Saturday at the star party. We're supposed to show up in time to see sunset. I love sunset because there's that certain time where the sky turns that one colour that tricks you, and for just a moment you're on Tatooine.

And yes; eventually everything ends with Star Wars.