Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in Pedro The Hutt's LiveJournal:

Monday, May 12th, 2008
10:32 pm	Nothing for 83 weeks? Go me! Well, here I am again for a change, then you all should be good for another year and a half. Or perhaps not, depending on how forgiving mother nature is I might be bringing you regular updates for about a month or two. Why you may ask? Well, near my school (am a journalism student now, hoo yeah!) I looked over the edge of the car park and down into the river one day, and 'lo and behold, what did I see? This here! A genuine Moorhen nest! I noticed it about two weeks ago when mother hen was still sitting on a pile of eggs. Though that's obviously changed , these pictures were taken on tuesday, and I took some more on thursday which I've yet to properly upload. And well, the biologist in me wants to document the growth of these fellows, and since this is infinitely more interesting than my own life, I thought I'd share it with you guys. =D So cross your fingers and hope that no mean cat will snatch them away or somesuch. Take care! Current Mood: Genki~ (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 4th, 2006
3:06 am	No one should ask you for the name of the one who tells the story. AKA: Peddie goes metal concerting: part two! He's also single again but if you know me well you already know the details. So on to the good stuff. Saturday 30th of September: Wee~ Turns out I also was a bringer of good fortune for Marie-Lynne (check my previous metal themed entry) as she unbeknownst to me had been wanting to go to Blind Guardian for the past six months, but alas, her parents wouldn't let her go by herself and none of her friends felt like going. And there I was, day before the concert wondering if she felt like tagging along. XD So anyway~ We arrived there both sporting a red shirt, oh how un-metal-ish. And thus we ended up inspecting the shirts of the people around us. We honestly think every metal band in Europe worth it's salt (and Metallica) was covered there. XD Soon enough we were allowed inside and we were treated to the support act, Astral Doors. Not a bad group if you ask me. They weren't entirely sure wether to be metal or rock. But whatever they were, they weren't bad at it, the vocalist sang properly too, which is a rarity amongst male fronted metal bands, now he just needs to work on his pronounciation so we can know what he's on about. After that there was an intermission, and much beer consumption began (or rather, continued, seeing how the doors to the bar never close during a performance, eesh, our shoes were sticking to the floor by the end of the concert). Moving right along to post-intermission. BLIND GUARDIAN! The group started off with Into the Storm, the chorus all too eagerly roared by the audience. It should be noted that up to this point I had heard all of four or five songs by Blind Guardian, and that I came here to find out more about the group, funny that it started with a song I know. It also has to be noted how nifty their twin projectors were, often mirrored images, sometimes fusing together into one coherent image, I love what they did with those really. Right... (I could make a more coherent report if I knew all these songs by heart) during the course of the concert I was treated to more Tolkien based songs, apparent crowd favourites such as Nightfall and Majesty (which was played sooner than expected thanks to loud request from the audience), Mirror Mirror, Imaginations and more! (Must buy CDs!) A few songs into the show we were kindly asked to prove ourselves as vikings, for when we die we must be worthy to be taken up to... Valhallaaaa!! Which was quite an experience. =D The song was loudly sang along to, crowdsurfing errupted and the everyone seemed to get what they came for, bloody good metal. After the song we, of course, happily continued the chorus for several more minutes. After which Hansi said "I can tell you've done this before! But no matter how much you continue doing that, we will not play it a second time. But you have proven yourself to be the true vikings!" *audience cheers!* "Just don't tell the swedish." Which we of course, won't. Another highlight was the second last song. (The nth encore song in fact) After much clapping, cheering, shouts of "Bard's Song!" and more, the group finally returned with two accoustic guitars, and the explanation. "We can be cruel sometimes, but we honestly couldn't leave you guys without the Bard's Song." And so Hansi could take a break from singing as Antwerp sang it by heart, a heart warming experience really. So yeah, quite worth going there half-ill. =D Heck, we even got told by Hansi that we were a "better than we expected" audience. Which is always nice. Afterwards we were picked up by mum and Mieke, and were taken to the infamous Martinique. (For some of you: this equals that eatery in Antwerp we regularly go to) Turns out we were just on time as it was the last night of the now former owners of the place, as after 7 years of hard labour, they're going to do some travelling, take some time off, and indeed, pass the business on to another couple. And because we've been such friendly and loyal (and well tipping) customers, we got some free drinks, bless. And after that we safely delivered Marie-Lynne back home, aaand we went home too. Yosh~ A succesful day all in all. Sunday 1st of October: After metal, modern folk! Urban Trad, yo. This was a bit of a special, as it turned out that this performance was being recorded for DVD purposes. And for that occasion they also brought along guests who they worked with during the past and present. Such as a group o' four women from Galicia (Spain), who seemed to have ties with one of Urban Trad's two vocallists. Either way, they provided additional vocal violence (yay alliteration). An african harp player also came on stage to show off his collaboration with the group, and well, yeah, a grand performance all in all. And oh teh no, I got filmed from nearby. I hope that footage ends up on the editing room floor of time. People do not need to see my face on their TVs (or PCs, if they use their DVD-rom). Mieke might get some benefit from this though, as she had been wanting to give a portrait of the songwriter and pretty much founder of the group to, well, him. And of course the portrait ended up getting a fair deal of camera time. So if her Deviantart page gets a bunch of pageviews after the release of the DVD, you know why. >.>;; And there you have it, another insight into Peddie's life. Next update, who knows, perhaps in two weeks for my second go at entering a Naruto tournament. >.>;; See if I can extract youthful vengeance on that Zabuza player. Either way, take care people! Current Mood: Nobbad~ (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 20th, 2006
6:58 pm	A heads up, so it is. Shock and horror! Peddie lives! And he has news! Between the 25th of August and the 1st of September you shouldn't expect to see me online as I'll be in Ireland. *cackle* Expect a lengthy report of that trip on here somewhere during September. Now some of you might wonder what has been happening since my last update. Long story short, not much, other than glandular fever keeping me down and out for three or so months, becoming a Doctor Who fan, beginning to read FMA and a number of other geeky things. Oh, and my regular PC breaking down, silly thing. And of course conniving, plotting and scheming my Ireland trip in such cunning ways that it would even make Edmund Blackadder proud... not really, but hey. Oh well, either way, as the title says, 't is only a heads up. =D Goodness knows when a major update will be. Until then, take care, and do NOT be alarmed by suddenly materialising british police boxes. They're mostly harmless. Current Mood: Watashi wa genki desu Current Music: Voice Male - Femme Libérée (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 17th, 2005
10:45 pm	KAGE BUNSHIN NO....ow. As promised, a con report! Let's see, saturday morning we left nice and early so we could arrive there around noon, after browsing around a bit we met up with Mieke's boyfriend before passing by Max, and soon heading off for the Soul Calibur tournament. About 30 people or so showed up so I'd be in for quite a wait since I signed my name close to the bottom of the list. XD A good deal into it my sister was up, her hopes for being Kilik were dashed as her opponent chose the bishounen staffwielder, so she chose another bishounen of hers, Yunsung... it didn't yield the best result as she eventually lost. But she got herself some (male) supporters... besides her boyfriend that is, and managed to win one fight and put up a respectable defense in the other three. A fight or two later I was up, seeing as nobody chose the poor Hanya-mask wearing goofball yet I picked him, while my opponent was a Taki, while I lost the first match thanks to re-adapting to the Dreamcast-esque button set-up I managed to win a fight with some silly moves, swift strikes and careful blocking of Taki's moves. Then I won another, lost again, and had to work a good bit to rake in that final victory. Yosha! I am now one of the 15 best Soul Calibur players that attended to the FACTS convention. XD In the second round I was up against a fellow who named himself Kaka$hi. We both gave our very best and after five close matches he scored himself the winning hit. I gave him a firm handshake and an approving nod. He didn't speak a word of dutch but I think I got the point across that he had earned my respect. =D Now if only I could remember which character he used, I believe it was Kilik. >.>;; Or was it Mitsurugi.. mah well. Either way I will remember that it was fair and square! After that I finally consumed me lunch and we did some more looking around the con, caught a bit of a cosplay fight, neatly done too. Tried our hand at a Star Wars pinball machine, which didn't go too well. XD Hm... after Mieke helped herself to another poster time flew by and we had to get back to the games corner for the Naruto tournament. Which had drawn an even bigger share of players than Soul Calibur did... shows how far the popularity of Naruto has stretched. XD I must've seen at least five people sporting Konoha forehead protectors, with three of which it was part of a cosplay. Anyhow it seems that this time they had taken the names and quickly put them in a random order as my match was up far sooner than it would've been if they followed it from top to bottom again. And as I had promised some people I chose Gai-sensei, the 5th Gai in the tournament. XD (Never thought he'd be so popular around here) My opponent chose Zabuza.... and then I was in for a whole lot of suffering. While all previous matches had been fairly equal affairs, this was pure unadultared ownage. The guy kept timing the same combo so I'd be tackled the moment I got up from being floored by the previous one. And performing the Kawarimi no Jutsu on him only assured me of not giving him a perfect. And thus three rounds long I was pretty much toyed around with, I heard that something was mumbled to my opponent and he casually replied "Oh I don't do this to my mates", oh yes, it's perfectly justified to spam to the point where people who know nothing about Naruto or fighting games start to notice it. XD And to add insult to injury he finished the final fight off with a super to get that final speck of health off my health bar... I didn't even sit down to watch it get finished really. I was rather aghast at how....erm, unfairlike that fight went. Today I heard that that Zubaza made it all the way to the finals with spam, and won there by forcing his opponent into a guard break and then owning him with the same old combo as well. Sheesh. XD I joked that agaisnt all statistic odds I'd go up against the winner of the tournament in the first round but 'lo, it actually happened! XD Anyhow, Mieke's match. She chose good old Iruka-sensei while her opponent chose the just old Hokage. She lost the first match, which induced some snickering with the boys who didn't watch her play in Soul Calibur II... and nothing fires up my sister more than doubting or underestimating her. XD Let alone making fun of her. SO THERE SHE WENT! To whoop that Hokage silly, and then she lost again, then she went on to win her next fight, even succesfully landing a super move, which made me shout "Yoush!" audibly. XD And then she ever so closely lost her third fight. One hit would've decided the fight for both of them, and Hokage-sama got that last hit in. Oh well, she got several congratulations on her way out from the crowd. =D And then a big hug from me. XD Go her! And with little over an hour left in FACTS 2005 we decided to finally get some stuff. XD I helped myself to two OSTs... which turned out to be bootlegs... ehem, a Freeloader for my Gamecube, and a cute Gashapon Mosura figurine which now sits neatly at my desk. Not bad for less than an hour of shopping. XD And after that we went for a bit of a drink in the lovely city of Gent where the con was held, and then off towards home.. although stopping for supper at a highwayside restaurant. Mmmmm And thus I had a pretty good time at that convention, even with the appalling defeat. XD But there is always next year! The Lotus of the geek always blooms twice! I will be hot blooded! Yahoo! Ehem, and with that, over and out. ^^ (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 24th, 2005
7:06 pm	WEEE!!! XD Huzzah! The Ped has finally witnessed his first metal concert! XD And to keep up with the symbolism it was of my first metal group I ever heard, Sonata Arctica. =D After picking up Mieke's pals Marie-Lynne and Alexa we headed off to Antwerp, once there we also managed to intercept good ol' Andreas, even though he rushed off to the front when the first support group, Machine Men, began. They were pretty good in my opinion, even though I barely understood the vocalist. But he managed to provide a good laugh. With his relatively short height and long hair my sister was convinced that he was a girl, and when he began singing Mieke audibly went "Oh my god it's a guy!" XD Good fun. Second support group was Symphorce, also pretty good, and slightly easier to understand. XD The signer of that group also seemed to be better at getting the crowd going. As his stunt on Mieke he managed to fool her into thinking for a moment that he was Sonata's Tony. :o Oh well. And then it was time for a second intermission for more instrument shifting *groan* I've been there for over two hours and still haven't seen the group I came to see. XD Either way it was made enjoyable thanks to my companions and their chattering about the silliest things. Domo arigatou. Also thanks to the old man in the kilt, whoever you may be. :O (Warning, this section contains alot of titles which will probably be lost to you unless you're aware of Sonata Arctica's discography) Anyhow, towards 10pm it was finally time for the main gig. =D Sonata started off with a blast thanks to the energetic..er... energy of Misplaced. After that they cut straight into Full Moon, which I didn't recognise at first until I heard the lyrics, and promptly began shouting/singing it along. XD Rawr that song has become heavy. Two songs into the shows and one of my all-time Sonata faves has already been performed. Yatta! Tony also managed to entertain the crowd and score "kawaii" points by saying things in finnish to both us and the bandmembers... although I would pay some good money to know what he EXACTLY said. =O For all we know he said "Would the people who are idiots please go "heeeeeeyyy" " >.>;; Anyhow, the show in itself was a blast, I can't give you an exact playlist, but a load of my faves were played such as Weballergy, Destruction Preventer, Black Sheep and a whole lot more. Towards the end they even threw in a mighty medley of songs they haven't played, and I quote, a very very very very very very very very very very very long time, even though it included a part of "White Pearl, Black Oceans" which was on last year's album Reckoning Night. Unexpected bit of entertainment also came when a song.. which exactly I've forgotten, I'll have to ask the sis. XD (Expect an edit folks) Anyways the song changed rythm and Tony began to sing like an, erm, skipping raggea CD. O_o But you had to be there to believe it. One of the last songs was "Until the last drop falls", had the audience taking out their lighters (darned smokers) and waving them about, but alas, the four of us didn't have lighters so we used our cellphones to do some synchronised waving with, which seems to have caught Tony's attention. XD Go us. For the last couple of songs Andreas rejoined us from the mass o' crowd for some good fun including the now legendary circle o' headbanging. *rubs neck* Yep, good fun. XD To finish the concert of the group brought us the (in)famous "We need some Vodka". =D Ahhh... my first metal concert was a blast, a noisy blast, with a sore after effect. XD But it was so bloody worth it. Now to start looking to another metal group to go and see. XD Oi Iron Maiden, care for heading back to Belgium? But until then, I can at least look forward to the FACTS convention in Gent next month, which will most likely have me participating in game tournies. XD And I'll probably bring an update about how that went then... and perhaps one before that. Until then, take care you zany readers and rock on! \o/ Current Mood: SUPAA TOTEMO GENKI!!! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 21st, 2005
6:12 pm	A plug without shame On the 4th of April 2004 my friend Tom Saville released his 3D-tastic animation The Knights of Camelot, it was a fun little movie armed to the teeth with amusing characters, witty dialogue, splendid voice acting and cleverly disguised references to his favourite movies. Needless to say, I loved it, and soon found myself listening to the Camelot Chronicles on the webcasts of Forest.fm, and downloading them afterwards for good measure. And so I was all too eager to jump into the fray when Tom informed me that there was going to be a sequel to Knights, which would encompass part of the Chronicles. And thus my sister and myself were given bit parts in a sequence in the second half of the film. Which was unaptly titled "How to save the world". So now for the actual plug, do yourself and Tom a favour, head on over to http://www.eventhorizonmedia.com , download The Knights of Camelot and then How to Save the World. Then head on over to the official Knights site (a button is handily available on the bottom right of Event Horizon) and spam his mailbox with your words of praise. =D And let's see if you can figure out who the characters voiced by my sis and I are before checking the credits. XD Current Mood: Genki desu yo Current Music: Dr. Slump - Onboro no jitensha ni notte (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 23rd, 2005
8:57 pm	What do you write, my lord? Words, words, words.... I read them too. >.>;; Current Mood: WEEEEE!!!! Current Music: Iron Maiden - The Clansman (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 18th, 2005
6:54 pm	As promised Here you have a more detailed version of my opinion on Revenge of the Sith. Pft, where to begin. Even though the beginning of the movie has some Episode I esque slapstick going on, and the Super Battle Droids are downgraded to silly grunts, the rest of the movie more than makes up for it. With the record of lightsaber fights within a single movie smashed, fans of humming and glowing action will be more than pleased. Atmosphere wise, it seems to take you on a spin throughout the entire trilogy, from the lightheartedness of Ep. I it slides through Ep. II , ANH , RotJ and eventually ESB to a place that's even darker, moodier and grittier than Empire, and then you're treated to an ending with a spark of hope. Also parallels to Luke's actions from the originals can be spotted throughout. But yeah, all in all I really enjoyed it, haven't lost so many drops of sweat in a (Star Wars) movie since I first saw the battle of Endor several years ago. On the other hand there were also things that really moved me, wether it is sadness, feeling for the characters or downright disgust. But then again, every Star Wars movie had such moments for me, yes oh PT haters, even The Phantom Menace had some. Ironically enough, the birth of Darth Vader wasn't as much of a good moment for me as I thought it would be. Not quality wise mind, it was an excellent scene. But... by the time that happened I didn't want Anakin to disappear, as odd as that may sound. All praise aside though, there were a few things that irked me, but alas I can't go into those without giving spoilers. And even though some asked for those, I wouldn't want to ruin the experience for a spoiler-hating Star Wars fan. But all in all, a very great movie, story wise it even gets close to the grandure of KotOR. The event itself was cool too. =D Some Stormtroopers, a Tie-pilot, Rebel Pilot, Vader & Amidala cosplayers were to keep camera happy folk pleased while waiting for the moment when you'd be allowed into the theater and engage in mortal combat to get a good seat. You'll get some pictures of that soon enough. =D Also, it seems they were playing the ANH OST throughout while waiting. In any case, in a future update I shall torment you lot with pictures of the Stormtroopers and their buddies. [voice=Viewtiful Joe's narrator]Until then, tata![/voice] (1 Comment |Comment on this)
3:48 am	A short notice Episode III RAWKS! It freaking rawks! It rawks so much that it gave me a hypoglycemia! A more insightful yet spoilerless report will follow once I've calmed down. Thank you. Current Mood: STARGASMIC! Current Music: John Williams - Battle of the Heroes (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 17th, 2005
8:00 pm	Farewell good people Yes readers, farewell, for I am off, off.... to see Star Wars Episode III. XD Abayo! Current Mood: Berserk genki yay! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 7th, 2004
5:24 pm	Game Review: Star Wars Galaxies Seeing as this journal isn't being used much I thought I'd "enlighten the masses" with sharing them the opinion of a game or two. =D So here goes... A few weeks ago I found a 14 day trial of Galaxies on the cover DVD of the PC Gameplay, a splendid chance to both test both our new PC, and to see what all the controversy involving this game is all about. Now, 12 days later I have seen why so many have left that galaxy far far away behind them. But I'll just write down my general opinions of this MMORPG bit by bit. Character creation: Pretty extensive, choose your species, gender, then things such as height, weight, shape of the torso (or general curves for the females), also shapes for the nose, eyes, jaw, chin, and plenty of other facial features do ensure that your character will look unique. On top of that some species have some attributes unique to their species that you can alter such as the lekku for the Twi'leks and the horns and tattoos for the Zabraks. After you're done tinkering with that you get to choose a class, and the base outfit that goes with it. With 6 of them it's not too bad really. And once you're done with that it's just a matter of creating a name and you're off. But oddly enough the naming system only seems to scan to see if your first name if taken, if it is you'll have no choice but to think of another one. Which is quite bizarre as even a name such as "Bail" was used more than once in the Star Wars movies. So in my opinion it could've been made to scan the first and last name combo and check if that's taken. Graphics: For the most part, good. The Star Wars universe has been lovingly recreated, taking you to locations from Tatooine to Endor and back again. Each of them look pretty spot on, although, I must say, Tatooine must be doing well this year as I see bushes and grasses quite often, yes they're practically dried up but I challenge you to see any plantlife in the Tatooine scenes in the movies. On top of that there are a few bugs and flaws in the graphics engine too. Colission detection is... in some case none existant, I can easily walk through tables and players alike. And doors don't seem to bother to open for anyone but me. Everyone else seems to phase through it. But that is probably down to the netcode of the game not letting me know that that door is opening. Which is odd as that even worked in games going back to say, the first Jedi Knight in 1997. In any case, for the majority, Galaxies is a game that is nice to look at. Sound: It's what you can expect of a Star Wars game by now really, sound effects taken from the vast Lucasfilm sound archives. So a DL-44 blaster shall sound like one, an AT-ST will clunk around with that familiar metallic noise and so on. Music.. well, typical John Williams goodness, just not much of it. You get treated to pieces of music from about 30 seconds during loading screens, when day turns to night and vice versa, during combat and during a few other events. Luckily for us though, some of the songs are dependant on what planet you're on. Thus on Tatooine you'll mostly get music from ANH during non-combat events, while on Naboo you'll get pieces from Episodes I & II. But even at that, even after less than 12 days you're left wondering why oh why we only have about 5 minutes of music in total when there's over 10 hours of music from the movies alone. (There's plenty that never got used in the movies on top of that. Listen to the soundtrack of the special editions for more on this. XD) So this makes the first of many missed oppurtunities. Gameplay: Hit and miss really, on one hand there is this vast appeal of exploring this vast universe placed in front of you. And teaming up with people and going adventuring! But alas, especially early on I might as well have been playing a single player RPG as I hardly found any other players, let alone players willing to be social.(Why the hell do you play an MMORPG anyway if you don't feel like interacting with the other players. >.>) Later on I found out that most players seem to huddle up inside one or two buildings (the cantina and the clinic) in equally as many cities. Which is a bit of a bother. How are we supposed to be the impression of being one of many in this galaxy far far away if you only ever find a few people in two buildings and that outside of those all you encounter are NPCs and the odd player who happens to cross paths with you. But once you do find some people it can actually be pretty fun in this... glorified chatroom kind of way. Combat... and thus getting experience and levelling up and all that, is quite well dull. After selecting a target and telling your character to attack it you can pretty much leave your PC, get a coke and see who won upon arrival. Well, yes once you do learn a few scout skills you can craft yourself a trap that affects the stats of your beastly opponent and throw those in the middle of the fight.. but other than that it's simply watching your character miss at point blank range with a blaster or watch him/her perform a high kick to a creature that only comes up to your shins. So all in all, dull and not even animated all that well. So you could go and play the intergalactic tourist instead and visit all your fave hotspots from the movies and books. But that requires money, and to get money... you could either be silly enough to sell the items that you were given at the start of the game on the bazaar terminals scattered around the cities and towns. Or do missions, again the problem is, missions are dull, and early on, destroy missions which pay pretty well are more likely to destroy you instead. Or take you a very long and boring time to compete. Or do blue milk runs for NPCs around town. And the problem with those is, those that pay well force you to go to the other side of the planet and pretty much forces you to waste money on buying a ticket at the local shuttle port to fly you there... well, warp. Or you can run there but that would take you all day. And the missions that let you run around within town (sometimes as pathetic to delivering the item to an NPC that is all of fifty meters removed from the NPC that gave you the item that you had to deliver) pay so badly that you'd need to do 2 to 4 of them to afford yourself a ticket on the aforementioned shuttle. So all in all, earning money early on is a rather dull experience too. Thus all that really remains is trying to find a group of people that are rather social and pretty much just stand there all day and be part of that cluster of players that doesn't go anywhere and be part of this glorified chatroom for which you have to pay 15 euro a month. So with all these factors combined I can conclude that Star Wars Galaxies is sadly enough a game that was bursting with potential due to the power of it's license, but that in the end was very poorly realised due to things such as dull combat, crappy exp payouts, alot of players that only seem to want to interact if it's necassery, strange experience point peaks, and the fact that you need to pay an NPC a thousand credits in order to learn a new skillset, or level up depending on how you look at it and be able to go gain more exp once more. So all these problems combined really make for a rather mediocre experience that could only be made more fun if you had a group of friends who would join the game with you. Or find a group that's willing to take you in. But even at that, I wouldn't say that it's worth the cost of the game plus the fees as there are quite frankly better MMORPGs out there and in the works. So if I had to rate this game I would give it a five or a six out of ten. >.> Current Music: Queen - Who wants to live forever (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, July 26th, 2004
2:16 am	By "popular" request Or well, by A request, here is the rant I posted over a year ago on my old blog, rest it's soul. So.... I hope you like it. Monday March 31, 2003 Lucas-san wa baka. Some people are going to kill me for this but oh well, I'd like to rant about how George Lucas seems to be screwing up his own greatest creation, namely, the Star Wars universe. *dodges attacks from the Star Wars haters* Anyway, let us first of all start off how he has lovingly decided to make the timeline make no sense at all. If we are to believe everything that he says to be true, than Episode I: The Phantom Menace takes place something like rhoughly 31 years before Episode IV: A New Hope, so if we then do some math, Anakin is 9 in Episode I and Obi-Wan Kenobi is 18, and then it has been stated that ten years pass between episodes I & II, which would make them respectively, 19 and 28 Then another 3 years between Epi's II & III, makes the to be Sith-spawn 22 and his poor master 31 and IF Luke and Leia get born during this movie, then 18 years will pass between III & IV making Vader 40 and Obi-Wan 49, which is where it begins to irk me. Now you can't tell me that Alec Guiness, looked like 49 when he played the role of Obi-Wan in the movie. And Vader in his early 40s when he removed his mask for the final time in Return of the Jedi. Couldn't George at least calculate the setting off TPM so that the ages of the characters who appear both in the prequel and the original trilogy would make some bloody sense @_@(for example, 45 years before Episode IV, then Obi-Wan would have been 63 in Episode IV, which was Alec Guinness his age in 1977) But oh well, we'll have to live with some bloody excuse like that Obi-Wan went through so much stress that he looked in his 60s while he was only pushing 50 XD. Anyway, enough about this part. Okay, Tatooine now, it was a fine planet to let our young hero Luke start his path to eventually become a Jedi and become a hero known in the entire galaxy from. It was indeed, remote, out of the way from the large conflict taking place elsewhere in the universe. But somehow, ever since then it seems to turn out that every major hero in the galaxy has to either come from there or to pass by there for some "sub-quest", let's see, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker (turned villain but still), Dash Rendar, the characters from the upcoming game "Knights of the Old Republic" , eeesshh!!! For a small and remote planet it suddenly seems the biggest crossroad in the galaxy. But especially Lucas I need to have a word with, why did he have to make Luke's dad happen to come from the exact same planet as his son. Because it makes Obi-Wan's decision to hide Luke on his very own home planet not have much sense @_@ On the other hand, it does solve the entire line of "He has got too much of your brother in him" But that could have been solved by making Anakin's mum (Shmi) moving planet after Anakin went away, and then meeting and marrying Cliegg Lars , after all, if the only thing that kept you there went away, why stay? But this is just a minor thing really. It could have been much worse XD. Last thing that I'll mention for now (before I lose all visitors) is how some things don't make much sense with either the original trilogy or the Expanded Universe. Prime example, which I have mentioned to a few friends by now, is C-3PO and his head problems, in the Empire Strikes Back it is clearly indicated that when his head becomes disattached from his body that he can't talk no more and just, shuts down, also is often seen that if someone wants to switch him off that they reach for somewhere around his neck. But SUDDENLY in Episode II he gets his head smashed clear off and he just keeps on talking and talking as nothing ever happened. Now I don't mind some comic relief but PLEASE sir Lucas creator of my favorite non-anime fictional universe.... make it all check out with what you have made before. @_@ And on that note, midi-chlorians, eesh, whaddaway to ruin the mystique around the Force XD 'nuff said. Then there's the mild matter of Lucas not taking the EU at all into concideration, like suddenly making the Death Star a Geonosian design rather than something from the mind of Grand Moff Tarkin like it was explained in the EU books. That's a bit like saying "Take THAT Kevin J. Anderson for giving some backstory for my creation", altough, when you look at Tarkin in the movie he does seem to talk and act about the Death Star as if it was truely HIS. But oh well, movie purists will say that the books can't be taken as "true canon" and that only Lucas' word is the real one. (to which I say "BLAH, he could at least take it somewhat into concideration" ) And with this, I end this rant and hope that someone will ever go back to my blog once more, hm, perhaps I should rant about Orlando Bloom next time, should make the OB/Legolas fangirls that I know come back XD. (and no, I don't have much negative to say about him really) (Comment on this)