1. In “Return of the Jedi,” when the Ewok (I believe it’s Paploo, but I can’t check it because I don’t have my “Star Wars” library moved into my new place yet) jumps on the speeder bike, he immediately knows how to drive it. Specifically, he immediately knows where to find the override function that allows it to be driven by someone whose feet can’t reach the pedals. File this under the category of “things that happen in movies that you don’t think about on the first 146 viewings, but on the 147th viewing you realize it’s completely insane.”
2. And sometimes you don’t even need to re-watch a movie. You’ll just be thinking about it, and suddenly you’ll realize something’s not right. In the new “Star Trek” movie, for example, the Enterprise is built in Iowa (at least that’s how I remember it; please correct me if I’m wrong).
The Enterprise is not a landing craft, it is a space vessel (crew members transfer to planets either by transport pods or by beaming to the surface). So there’s no good reason — and plenty of bad ones — for it to be constructed under the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. To get into space the first time, it would have to have thrusters built for that one-time-only purpose, which is silly. Alternately, it could be towed into space, but that requires another vehicle and a lot of fuel.
Granted, the components of the Enterprise — metal, electronics, etc. — all have to be brought to the construction site, so you might argue against blasting all those separate parts to a space-based site. OK, but then why Iowa, a land-locked state in the middle of a continent? A large project like that, if not taking place in space, should be based on one of the coasts.
And if you say, “This is the future; transportation is easy,” then I am back to saying they should build the ship in zero-gravity space, because that’s the environment it will be operating in.
3. I’ve been noticing more cigarette ads lately in magazines such as Entertainment Weekly. It’s crazy that there are still cigarette ads in 2009. But not as crazy as some of the other stuff that’s going on in 2009.
4. It bugs me when people only tell part of the story on Facebook. For example: “I just made a pie. Mmm.” (Well, what kind of pie?) Or: “I’m all moved into my new place!” (Great, but where’d you move to?) When people do this, it’s either laziness, a desire for attention, or a fear that they will sound vain if they type more information. But mostly it’s the second one. They know someone is going to ask the who-what-when-where-why-how follow-up questions. And that person is always me.
5. What’s up with people who sit directly behind me in an otherwise empty theater? The other day I was watching “Bruno,” and already feeling a little weird because I was the only who bought a ticket, so it was as if this movie about a flamboyantly gay European fashion guru was being screened just for me.
Then a couple walked into the theater during a scene where Bruno was encouraging an interview subject to flash his crotch at the camera. It’s like when you’d be watching a movie at home, and then your mom or dad would walk into the room during the movie’s only sex scene and they’d assume that was the type of movie you were watching. But this couple who joined me for “Bruno” had purchased tickets, so I figured they couldn’t judge me.
Then — out of a huge, empty, stadium-style theater; we’re not talking opening night of “Harry Potter” here — they sat in the row behind me and just a little to the left. I admit that I have a five-foot bubble due to my social phobia, but I bet even normal people would think that’s a little odd.
So there I am, with two people sitting behind me as “Bruno” segues into a montage of penis shots. The thing about penis montages is that you lose your place in the movie. Sacha Baron Cohen might’ve been making some philosophical or allegorical point with the penis montage, but if so, I didn’t catch it. I was just thinking, “I’m in a nearly empty theater showing a penis montage and two strangers are sitting directly behind me. And did that penis just say something to the camera?”