I think the 'scary dark lava fortress' that Lord of the Rings popularised - though Sauron's fortress is (very effectively) far more vaguely described than the iconic movie version and umpteen paintings of it would suggest - is a pervasive enough fantasy convention now that Star Wars can use it without losing points…

The main reason Vader keeps killing officers is so he can use his one good choking pun again and again, refining it over the years.

*Sound effect: the Queen Alien's head folding out of its carapace*

They can lean on the board.

I'm always a bit doubtful of the 'what you had in your head is always better' theory of anticipation. It's taken as conventional wisdom that revealing a monster in a horror story or movie is always a little bit of a let down, because your imagination can always come up with something better; I think it's more a case…

"For example: freezing Han in carbonite wasn't Lucas' brilliant innovation. It was because Harrison Ford wasn't sure he wanted to come back for a third installment, so they had to keep their options open in case he passed."

Lucas wrote the story for Empire and hired Brackett to do a first draft. He didn't like her first draft - it wasn't a bad script, but it was tonally way off - but she died before he could talk her through a second draft. As a consequence, the 2nd draft of Empire, which he wrote himself, was essentially a total…

"Like others have said, movies are always a team effort. But Lucas didn't do himself any favors by not utilizing such a team on the Special Edition re-releases or the prequels."

The reaction to that statement was the worst kind of feigned crap. It's reported in Vanity Fair thusly:

This isn't true though - it's another example of people's knowledge of Star Wars and internet conventional wisdom making them think Lucas lucked his way into it. Lucas changed these ideas as he worked on the drafts because he realised they didn't work or he wouldn't be able to do them. This is how the vast majority of…

Though George Lucas is doomed to have every single article written about him slag the prequels, it's important to remember that, while the J.J. Abramses and Kathleen Kennedys of the world would never allow anything like Jar Jar or Nute Gunray or chat up lines about sand into their films, they would never, in a billion…

Not really - they didn't buy George Lucas, or the power to rewrite history. That power is beyond their grasp… for now.

I am shocked that -

I can't remember where I heard it, but the best description I heard of David Carradine's death was 'an exotic masturbation accident'.

Isn't this sort of thing inevitable now though? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of beloved celebrities 50-90 years old. 2016 isn't an abberation: it's just that a lot of people who became famous in the 60s and 70s are getting old, or at least old enough for health problems to be more serious.

"She's a rebellion hero because she got captured. I like rebels who weren't captured, alright?"

That stuff is like crack cocaine to a certain type of kid. I read every book on aliens and U.F.O.s the local library and the school library had to offer, watched every special aliens or ghosts themed weekend Channel 5 or ITV did, and dragged about a 1970s guide to unsolved mysteries and occult legends - spontaneous…

There *must* be an explicit, clear as day section required during every HBO pitch that explains how they're going to fit in the requisite number of boobs.

I didn't mean to imply disdain for the U.S. - the majority of the U.S. knew better than to vote Trump, while the majority of U.K. voters voted for Brexit. Folk from abroad will comment because, unlike the U.K., which has been riding on the fumes of empire for 80 years and has just chosen to throw away much of the…

Given the context of the rest of the comment, that could be the most redundant spoiler tag of all time - you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to immediately tell it reads 'even though this one quits the Rebellion to become a Broadway star'.