40th Anniversary of the Original 'Star Wars' Film Debut

40 years ago in a galaxy called the Milky Way on a planet named Earth, a film debuted on this date that has become a iconic classic, sparked a revival in the science fiction genre and spawned a media empire that is now owned by Disney.

On May 25, 1977, Star Wars debuted to the delight of science fiction nerds like myself.  We flocked to our local multiplex theaters in droves to see the space saga and fictional galaxy in which good as repped by the Rebellion and a Luke Skywalker trained in The Force triumphed in this movie over the evil Galactic Empire run by Emperor Palpatine and his Sith apprentice and enforcer Darth Vader.

It is a saga that has now spawned seven films with the eighth in the series, The Last Jedi to debut in December 2017

As the original film became a trilogy and spawned a 1980 sequel The Empire Strikes Back, it was renamed in 1981 Star Wars Episode IV- A New Hope

>The inaugural Star Wars movie raked in over $450 million in the US alone and another $775 million worldwide and has significantly impacted pop culture and even politics as Reagan's embrace of the term 'evil empire' to describe the then Soviet Union aptly is an example of.

In 1989, Star Wars was selected along with The Empire Strikes Back in 2010 by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the US National Film Registry for culturally dded to its

Star Wars also borrows from politics and history.  The Galactic Empire's stormtroopers share the name from the Nazi stormtroopers.   The Empire's black political officer, commander and guards uniforms are modeled on the Waffen SS, and the Imperial fleet uniforms borrow elements from the World War II era German Wehrmacht.

Palpatine's rise to power is is similar to how Hitler came to power in 1930's Germany.   Palapine was first elected chancellor of the Galactic Republic before seizing power to become dictator and declaring himself emperor. then subsequently having the Jedi Order exterminated. .

May the Force be with you on this 40th anniversary date of the debut of a movie that became part of our lives   May be time for me to check out my DVD copy of it again in honor of today's anniversary

Leonard Nimoy Passes Away

Was saddened to hear that actor -director Leonard Nimoy, who any Trekkie can tell you played the iconic role of Spock on Star Trek died this morning at age 83 from complications resulting from COPD.

In addition to playing the iconic character and a long list of roles over his career, he directed Star Trek III: The Search For Spock , Star Trek IV : The Voyage Home and Three Men and A Baby, and lent his voice  to narrating the Ancient Mysteries TV series for its entire 1994-98 run

One of the sobriquets that was hurled at me that my tormentors quickly dropped was calling me Mr. Spock.  I embraced that like a badge of honor..

And Nimoy's half human-half Vulcan character struck a chord with biracial kids, when in 1968 a young mixed race female fan who identified herself as F.C. penned a letter expressing her frustrations about it.   

Here's the money paragraph in what Nimoy had to say to her in his lengthy response letter in which he explained how Spock dealt with a similar situation in his childhood.

"He said to himself: 'Not everyone will like me. But there will be those who will accept me just for what I am. I will develop myself to such a point of excellence, intelligence and brilliance that I can see through any problem and deal with any crisis. I will become such a master of my own abilities and career that there will be a place for me. People of all races will need me and not be able to do without me.' And that's just what he did. And when I see him standing there on the bridge of the Enterprise, facing danger and life-and-death problems so cooly and with so much intelligence, I'm sure he made the right decision."

I hope F.C took that advice to heart, lived long and prospered

You've lived long and prospered Mr. Nimoy and left a gigantic footprint not only in television history but also our imaginations.   Because of your iconic character, you inspired  kids of all ethnic backgrounds to look toward the heavens and imagine careers in the science and technology fields.

And you will be missed.

Live Long And Prosper, Nichelle Nichols!

Today is the 80th birthday of iconic actress and space enthusiast Nichelle Nichols who was born on this date in Robbins, IL in 1932.

All us Trekkies know of her most famous role as Lt. Nyota Uhura of Star Trek and have heard the story of how she nearly quit the show after the first season but was convinced to stay by a Star Trek fan by the name of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. 

In addition to making American television history with th first interracial kiss, in the later Star Trek movies her character was subsequently promoted to Commander in the movies involving the original cast.

She has been an inspiration for people of my generation and subsequent ones to not only follow their dreams, but reach for the stars.  

She was Dr. Mae Jemison's inspiration to become a NASA astronaut and was recruited by her during the 70's when Nichols worked for NASA as part of a program to not only encourage African-American youth to consider math and science careers but recruit women and minority astronauts.

Two of the people she recruited, Charles Bolden and Lori Garver are the current administrator and Deputy Administrators of NASA.

She also recruited Dr. Sally Ride, Col Guion Bluford, Dr Ronald McNair and Dr Judith Resnik

She has served since the 1980's on the Board of Governors for the National Space Society and is considered part of the NASA family.    She and many of her Star Trek castmates were on hand when the space shuttle Enterprise was christened.

Whoopi Goldberg was inspired to become an actress because of her and there are numerous women born in the late 60's and 70's who are named Nichelle or have it as a middle name.

Live long and prosper Nichelle, and happy milestone birthday!

BSG Blood and Chrome Episodes 7 and 8

With only two more webisodes to go, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome is proving to be very popular with over 6 million views.   Can't wait for the two hour movie in February.   

SyFy seriously needs to consider making this a broadcast series 

Now for Episodes 7 and 8  

BSG Blood And Chrome Episodes 5 And 6

For all you Battlestar Galactica fans.  Sorry I'm just getting around to posting last Friday's webisodes for BSG Blood and Chrome.   Hope SyFy is considering making this a weekly series. . 

Loving this so far..

Can You Guess What's Missing From 'Falling Skies'?

As you TransGriot readers are aware of I'm a huge sci-fi fan.   When I heard about the Steven Spielberg produced TNT series Falling Skies I was eagerly looking forward to watching it.




Since tuning in to the show I like it, we're halfway through the initial ten episode run and Falling Skies has already been renewed by TNT for a second ten episode season.   But I'm one of those people who even if I'm watching a movie or a television show that is supposed to be escapist entertainment, my brain is engaged and asking the who, what, where, why, when and how questions.

And as a fiction writer, I'm on the alert for things that are out of place in a story or don't make sense.  .       

One of the questions I have been pondering besides the thin representations of POC's in this show is that another segment of humanity is missing from the survivors who make up the 2nd Massachusetts resistance fighters and civilians the show focuses on:  the TBLG community.

According to the backstory of Falling Skies 90% of humanity was wiped out in the alien attack and the story is set six months after it happened.

The 2nd Massachusetts is made up of survivors from the city of Boston, of which 12% of the population is made up of TBLG people. 

Boston is also one of the areas where we have a significant cluster of transpeople. Obviously the . Falling Skies aliens want all humans gone from this planet, so I find it highly unlikel;y and improbable that they would harbor the same prejudices against BTLG people to the point that every GLBT person in the Boston area was killed in the initial attack.

I would submit that there's a very real possibility there would be (or should be) TBLG survivors either in the 2nd Massachusetts they're focusing the series on or one of the other resistance groups. It also isn't a stretch to surmise that some of those LGBT people would either be fighters or have specialized skills or knowledge important to the continued survival of humanity.


Well, there are five more episodes left to go in this season's run, so I doubt that I'll see a TBLG minor character pop up in them.   Then again, who knows?  Maybe they'll create an episode in which a TBLG character has some significant info or tactical information on how to take the fight to the aliens critical to the success of the rebellion and peeps have to get over their phobias.

Then again, maybe it's my wishful thinking about that happening.

TransGriot Note:  Seems as though Renee noticed some of the issues I noticed about Falling Skies in her post about it at Women's Eye On Media.  

Battlestar Galactica: Blood And Chrome

Like many Battlestar Galactica fans I was a little pissed about how SyFy handled the BSG prequel Caprica and not pleased that the show was canceled..

I was a huge fan of the show as you probably guessed by my multiple posts about it, and was fascinated by its story arc.     It delved into the how and why the Cylons were created.  It was interesting seeing aspects of Colonial culture, Caprican and Tauron life, and even snapshots of events on Caprica, Gemenon and Tauron.

It gave us BSG fans more insight into the events and backstory that eventually would lead to the start of the First Cylon War and 40 years later the Second Cylon War that covers the events of the BSG series.

It also threw is a few curve balls as well such as the Willie Adama that was in the show wasn't the future Galactica commander. 



While Caprica is gone and the last five episodes of the first season were recently broadcast, the BSG universe lives on.    Production started yesterday in Vancouver on a two hour television pilot movie for SyFy called Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome.

The story takes place during the First Cylon war and will focus on a young cadet fresh out of the Academy by the name of William 'Husker' Adama..   Yep, the future commander of the very battlestar he was ending his career on at the time of the genocidal Cylon sneak attack that jumped off the Second Cylon War.


He will not be played by Nico Cortez, who portrayed him in the webisodes, but by Luke Pasqualino.

So I guess I can put my pissivity about Caprica being canceled on hold long enough to watch this pilot.


In BSG: Blood & Chrome Adama will be a twentysomething Viper pilot assigned to the brand new Galactica during the First Cylon War that is raging across the 12 Colonial worlds
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It will have one other character from the BSG Razor webisode flashbacks and a few new ones.   For you folks who were griping about the lack of space combat in Caprica, hello, it took place during a peacetime era in the colonies.

You space combat junkies will get to OD on it since we are talking about a show that will take place during the First Cylon War.

There's also talk that if it does well, SyFy will pick up BSG: Blood & Chrome as a series.

Let's just hope that if they do, SyFy does a much better job of promoting and broadcasting it than they did with Caprica.