When Stats and Star Wars combine...

[lyore]

I was watching some random game show last night, and discovered an interesting thing: On that show, 3 out of 98 people didn't know that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father. If we assume that this was a representative sample of the Australian population (a problematic assumption, I know), then approximately 3% of Aussie adults don't know what has got to be the most well known secret in movie history. Even my mother (she who is adamant that the Stormtroopers are the good guys in the OT because they wear white) knew that one. She did not, however, know that Luke and Leia are siblings. I wonder what the stats would be at that?

On another note - Don't you hate it when isane plot bunnies get caught in your brain? At the moment I have two bouncing round my head, careening into one another and hopefully not breeding generally making a mess.

One is a semi-serious little ficlet in which Darth Vader and Han Solo get stuck in an elevator. I've sorted out the logistics of this one, and I think I could get it to work, in a non-crackfic way, and even have them both emerge alive at the end. Set after ANH and prior to ESB... it would be an interesting conversation, don't you think?

The second, courtesy of bob_ette after I mentioned the first one to her, has Dean, Sam and the Impala getting stuck in an cargolift with Han, Chewie and the Millenium Falcon. It started off as pure crack, but somehow it has morphed into something more serious and character-focused. Set early season one in SPN time, and pre-trilogy in SW, I think this one has the potential to become an very interesting fic.

Of course I get these bunnies when I'm about to be internet- and computer-less for a month. *sigh* One week to go...

Comments

[eve11]

If we assume that this was a representative sample of the Australian population (a problematic assumption, I know), then approximately 3% of Aussie adults don't know what has got to be the most well known secret in movie history.

*loves you*

I love it when stats and geekery come together :) :) :)

[lyore.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I can't help it. Give me numbers, and I'll give you an analysis. Guess that's why I'm an engineer :)

[eve11]

hee! So stranger, you hail from the land of X-bar and sigma-squared? I am not an engineer, but I am a statistician ;)

[lyore.livejournal.com]

I sure do!

I am not an engineer, but I am a statistician

Oh well, nobody's perfect :P

Seriously, it's nice to meet a fellow sciency-maths-type in fandom.

[kasneeze.livejournal.com]

1 Week?!!! Damn... I had better tell the hotel! heh :P Gonna need to get you a spare key or something :)

[lyore.livejournal.com]

I thought you had told the hotel? If not, then yeah, you should probably do that. I will need a spare key, or things could get very awkward...

Hey, can you email me the address/phone number of the hotel and instructions for getting there via metro? And anything else important that I should know - did you end up getting a mobile?

How's the course going? Any idea about Prague yet?

[kasneeze.livejournal.com]

yeah, don't think we're going to Prague. Jan is heading to Germany that weekend, so my reason for going there is pretty much gone :P

I think some of the guys from my class want to go to Normandy that saturday, so we might do that. If we do decide to do that, do you want me to book you a ticket too? We should be back that evening to start St Paddy's Day celebrations :D

[kasneeze.livejournal.com]

have a got a french sim card, but haven't used it yet, so am still using oz number. I'll tell the hotel tonight, and I will email you all the details of how to get there and address :)

[lyore.livejournal.com]

Excellent, thanks

[lyore.livejournal.com]

Normandy was on my list of places to go anyway, so book me up!

[amethyste5.livejournal.com]

Of course I get these bunnies when I'm about to be internet- and computer-less for a month.
Pencil and paper, it's old school, but it works, then you can post when you get back. (Beacause I REALLY want to read those!)

Is the pre-trilogy one before, after, or during Han's time in the Corporate Sector? (Yes, I read the novels, I quit during this New Jedi Order/Young Jedi Order bizarreness they have going on now. It got too far from how I felt the characters would behave.)

[lyore.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you suggested writing by hand! How primitive!

That's my plan. I'm hoping to get some serious writing time on the plane - gotta put that 30something hour flight to good use somehow!

WRT to Han and the SW novels, I have a rather deep and abiding hatred for the EU (with a few exceptions), so it really isn't going to take any of that into account. I'll stick with my movie canon, thanks :)

Unless you feel like giving me a detailed summary/timeline, and then I'll see what I can do :)

[amethyste5.livejournal.com]

Me? Work? :~} Nah. Let me guess though, you like Mara Jade? For some reason she is almost universally loved, even by movie only purists.

(I loved the expanded universe at first, the Heir to the Empire trilogy or some of the pre movie bits for Han and Lando, but as it grew it got weirder and weirder. Now I just re-read my X-Wing novels sigh...)

[lyore.livejournal.com]

Mara is... Meh. She's better than the rest of Luke's EU girlfriends, I give her that. What I dislike most about Mara is her affect on Luke - so many of the authors can only write a 'strong female' by making the guys around her useless.

Actually, the affect of the EU characters on the OT characters is pretty much the reason I don't like the EU. Well, that and insane the plots.

I've only read the first few X-wing books, and hardly remember them. I take it you recommend them?

[amethyste5.livejournal.com]

Once you hit the "Wraith Squadron" books, around number 4 I believe, they get really good!

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Mara Jade? For some reason she is almost universally loved, even by movie only purists.

She is? The areas of fandom I run in tend to think she's a giant Mary Sue.

[lyore.livejournal.com]

I need to hang out in your areas of fandom!

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Hee!

I thought Mara Jade was awesome. When I was 14. Now it annoys the crap out of me that they stuck her (as "Arica" the dancing girl) in the radio play of ROTJ when they finally made it. Grrr. Destroying the purity of my movie-based radio plays!

[lyore.livejournal.com]

Yes. You want to have her in the EU, go right ahead, just stop retconning her into my movies!

[vasher.livejournal.com]

...I, for one, would like to see Darth Vader and Han Solo stuck in an elevator together. Even more would I like to see how both come out alive.

You statistician, you! XD

3 out of every hundred or so, huh? Wow, I would have thought the number to be much lower. Maybe some of them were recent refugees from...somewhere. Like Sub-Saharan Africa.

Your mother sounds awesome. Ah, the wonders of color-coded heroes and villains.

[lyore.livejournal.com]

I think that fic will definitely get written, it's just a matter of me finding the time to get in on paper.

I went to college with a friend from Bangladesh who'd never seen the movies. Needless to say, I immediately made her watch them. The common room got locked at midnight, so we only got through ANH and ESB the first night. At the end of ESB, she turned to me with this dumbstruck look on her face, and begged me to tell her it wasn't true, that Darth Vader really wasn't Luke's father. She was completely blindsided by it.

And that reaction is why I think the movies should ALWAYS be watched first in the order they were released.

[bob-ette.livejournal.com]

MY STORY FIRST!
Then you can write about boring star wars people with no good Supernatural people to alleviate the boredom.

[psuedoskribe.livejournal.com]

Even though Vader isn't aware that Leia is his daughter by this stage I still find the idea of Han Solo stuck in the lift with the angry, autocratic father of the woman he's (sort of) trying to romance very interesting. His future son-in-law. That's weird. But Han and Anakin both went against the grain, so they have that in common, even though Anakin went for Absolute Powah and Han settled for evading said Absolutes.

I have a like/hate relationship with the prequels because of how they affected my impression of Darth Vader. Now that I know there's apparently an emo little rebel underneath that mask, my wholesome respect for Darth MiB is tainted. Anakin's so stupid. Vader is full of win. I cannot consolidate these two without tarnishing Vader's name.

wth are the Winchesters doing in a galaxy far, far away?

[lyore.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really thought about the 'future-son-in-law' angle. Hmm, interesting.

You'll just have to read it and find out :)

[psuedoskribe.livejournal.com]

Force users occasionally have visions of the future, yes? Hmm.... Well, I don't know about Sith, but Jedi do at least -- I'm going to assume it's an ability available to any Force user.

You write it, then I'll read it -- this is your mission during your evenings in France. You can post pieces as they come onto lj and say, "Hey I wrote this on the steps of Versailles!" and we can all be like, not jealous.

[lyore.livejournal.com]

As long as you don't mind all the 'a's and 'q's being swapped: "Oh, I wrote this while sitting on the banks of the Sienne, and I was too distracted by the view of the Eiffel tower to spellcheck" :P

Well, Palpatine was all 'I have foreseen it', but he ended up dead, so what does he know? Mistaking idle daydreams for visions of the force /=Destiny. :)