Singing in the Stars

I thought this mash up of the titles of the two movies that Carrie Fischer and Debbie Reynolds were best known for sounded like a good way to think of where they are now.
 
A lot of good people left this world in 2016.  My condolences to anyone who is grieving somebody who is now singing in the stars. A joyous reunion is coming.
 
I am sorry this post is a little late. When Andrew left to go back to college last night I had some cleaning to do that I had let go too long. When I finished with that I was just thinking about relaxing and not about the fact that it was Tuesday. So here I am on Wednesday morning writing my blog post.
 
I sat down after Christmas and tried to plan what I would be writing about in the coming weeks. I was creating my editorial calendar. Certain posts will fit better on some days and I wanted to be aware of that. My post for this week was supposed to be about goals and New Year’s resolutions. Then Andrew and I watched the original Star Wars trilogy this weekend in honor of Carrie Fischer and I decided I wanted to write something fun.
 
So I’m going to write about some lessons that can be learned from Star Wars (the actual first movie that was released, not the whole series). I won’t go into too much depth with these, I’m just having some fun.
 
Beware of those who see everything in black and white. The evil empire of course is filled with white armored storm-troopers and black Darth Vader. Life not only has various shades of gray, but also different colors.
 
Luke’s development as a leader. Luke changes quite a bit from the beginning of the movie to the end. At the beginning, he’s a whiny kid. By the end of the movie he’s become a leader. Compare how he sounds when his Uncle Ben asks him to do something to the attack on the Death Star, it’s quite a change. He pulls it off because he’s gained confidence in himself and his abilities. Having confidence in yourself allows you to do more.
 
On the future your focus keep – part one. (Sorry I couldn’t resist using a bit of Yoda syntax.) George Lucas is a creative genius. Yet, he kept coming back to Star Wars rereleasing it with tweaks, updated special effects and CGI. What if he had instead worked on something new, what did we miss because of this. Don’t be stuck in the past.
 
On the future your focus keep – part two. And then he issues a new trilogy that tries to explain things that happened in the original trilogy. Not only does it not explain everything. (Why does Beru need a Bocce translator?) But it also raises new questions. (Why does Luke go from a baby to about 20 while Obi-wan appears to age about 40 years?) Don’t focus on explaining where you were, focus on where you are going.
 
Even when you know something well you can still learn new things. I’ve seen the original Star Wars many times as has Andrew. But while we were watching it again this weekend we realized there’s a line that’s got to be the most unintentionally funny line in the series. How many times do the stormtroopers shoot and Luke, Leia and Han? How many times do they hit them? You know their percentage is lower than the Twins batting average from last year. It makes the line by Obi-wan when they find the jawa’s destroyed sandcrawler humorous. “And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.”

Thanks for reading. May God (the original force) be with you.
 
Next week my plan is to write about the safari from my trip to Tanzania.