my favorite thing about anakin as a character is the inherent nuance lucas wrote into his story, like he’s neither an innocent victim nor an inherently evil monster, he’s just some guy put in a series of Situations and ultimately failing the test of his humility and self-control. he was certainly flattered and shaped by the devil, spiraling into something unrecognizable, but he chose to take every step down the pathway to hell. lucas knew he would lose a certain demographic by making him basically a greedy pawn in the larger story, not a righteous betrayed macho badass, but he did it anyway. he made him an awkward romantic and a loyal friend, a generous boy and a brilliant teen. he made sure he had all the positive qualities that meant that he had potential to be so much more than vader, but it was clearly his choice to lie, murder, and fully squander that potential. there are no excuses for what he became, no acceptable reasons to commit mass slaughter. he became an unbelievably selfish and impatient man, reckless and wantonly violent. hayden captured that nuance so well, nobody can match the sweetness of his smile and the absolute horror of his scowl on mustafar. to view him through a single lens as either pure victim of manipulation and (canonically unsupported) emotional neglect, or a creepy evil villain, denies the heart of his story and the weight of his tragedy. he’s neither an angel nor a demon, he’s both and neither, he’s deeply human, a classical tragic hero with a flaw of greed. lucas made a choice with the prequels to tell a story that not everyone wanted to hear, and the result was a character that i think is one of the best of modern pop culture, mostly because he feels to me so very, very ancient and eternal.
So the James Webb telescope took a picture of a infant star!!
The small glowing blob is protostar L1527! Caught in the glow of its sunrise-like creation the baby is only 100,00 years old! It can take up to 50 million years for a star to reach the size of our sun. This infant has a long time to go.
Located 460 light years away this is one hell of a childhood photo!
Raccogliere la pioggia in un pentolino per preparare una minestra al gusto di nuvola. (Fabrizio Caramagna) ********************* Collect the rain in a saucepan to prepare a cloud-flavored soup. (Fabrizio Caramagna)
insane to me that the, like, twenty-person collective running the hollywood studios and streamers are really intent on killing their whole industry and the entire ecosystem that surrounds and supports it, which is only just now stabilizing post-covid, so they don’t have to pay residuals or tell wall street that the streaming gambit failed miserably or just not hold on to an AI version of someone’s likeness in perpetuity. it’s so sick.