Whiny MRA Jerk Babies Declare Victory Over Star Wars: Your Saturday Nerdout

What you did there, see it I do

Happy first post of 2016 everybody! Here is how everybody at Wonkette looked the morning of January 1 (except not nearly as cute):

 
 Bed head? Sure, let's say it was the bed.

And now we are ready for a whole new year of nerding, so lets get right to it!

He Man Woman Haters Say They Made Star Wars Lose $4.2 Million

 
 I like that there are no versions of this without the kitty face shopped in

You may have thought that Star Wars: The Force Stayed Up All Night Counting The Receipts is making record-setting amounts of money, and that with worldwide receipts of roughly $1.33 billion, it was doing pretty well. Ha! Bantha poodoo! You are wrong, you silly liberal! The nice women-haters over at the "men's rights" blog Return Of Kings were one of several groups pushing the "boycott" ofStar Wars as a tool of "Social Justice Warrior" (SJW) propaganda, because there are too many ladies and nonwhite people having adventures in it. They would have you know that the boycott was a triumph! They're making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. You see, they did a whole bunch of excellent math based on Science to prove that their campaign has convinced lots and lots of neckbeards to stay home. To start with, they did a Twitter poll, easily the most reliable sampling data possible:

And then they explained their math:

Fifty-five percent of respondents to a Return of Kings Twitter poll have said that online reporting of the social justice nature of The Force Awakens influenced their decision whether to see the film. Extended across our readership, with over 900,000 users accessing ROK between November 21 and December 21, this amounts to a potential direct impact of $4,219,456.54 (55% x $8.38 x 915,482) on total revenues. $8.38 is based on the average cinema ticket price in the US,

What's more, they note that this figure doesn't even include people who may have missed out on RoK's important reporting, but who nonetheless "know to stay clear away from Hollywood propaganda films thanks to our previous reporting " (That would be their explanation that Mad Max: Fury Road is full of evil ball-shrinking feminist messages). On top of that, surely none of these Manly Men will be buying Force Awakens Lego playsets, DVDs, or mac-n-cheese. Surely, the overall loss for Disney must be in the tens of millions of dollars!

Oh, sure, they say, the feminist-dominated lamestream media machine may mock the HUGE SUCCESS of the boycott, merely because the movie is making more money than any other in history. But it's still an enormous blow to the Media Empire, because "the manosphere and other voices have nevertheless successfully and markedly chipped away at the revenues of the film." And yes, the article does indeed compare itself to the plucky Rebel Alliance fighting the Galaxy-spanning Empire, and of course, they will be victorious against the oppressive purveyors of "equality," because their cause is pure. Surely dozens more angry white boys will flock to their cause, now.

George Lucas Real Sorry He Called Disney A Bunch Of Star Whores

 
 cosplay will kill us all

 Star Wars creator (and subsequent ruiner) George Lucas is backing away from comments he made last week in an interview on PBS's Charlie Rose Show, possibly because everyone thought he sounded like a whiny little twerp pouting because he couldn't go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters. In the interview, the bajillionaire filmmaker had a huge sad about the direction Disney was taking away from George Lucas's Creative Vision. This wasn't mere seller's remorse; in selling all rights to the Star Wars universe to the Mouse, Lucas feared he'd actually handed his baby over to sex traffickers:

“I sold them to the white slavers that takes these things, and…,” he said in the interview, before deciding not to finish the sentence.

Yes, George, Disney pimped them out, and you are hurt to see your creation used merely to make money. Right. He also revealed that part of the deal was a set of plot outlines for future films, which Disney for some reason elected not to use:

“They looked at the stories, and they said, ‘We want to make something for the fans,’” Lucas said. “They decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing. … They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway — but if I get in there, I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. And I don’t have the control to do that anymore, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so I said, ‘OK, I will go my way, and I’ll let them go their way.’”

Huh. Imagine that! Disney decided to make something fun, instead of the epic story of regulatory reform that Lucas probably wanted to go with? He even had some very detailed storyboards made up for the pivotal Conference Table scene, which, it must be emphasized, stayed true to the story's sci-fi roots by including a floating conference table.

By Thursday, Lucas had apparently been told he sounded like a jerk, so he issued a clarification and apology for the whole "white slavery" thing:

"I want to clarify my interview on the Charlie Rose Show. It was for the Kennedy Center Honors and conducted prior to the premiere of the film. I misspoke and used a very inappropriate analogy and for that I apologize. I have been working with Disney for 40 years and chose them as the custodians of Star Wars because of my great respect for the company and Bob Iger’s leadership. Disney is doing an incredible job of taking care of and expanding the franchise. I rarely go out with statements to clarify my feelings but I feel it is important to make it clear that I am thrilled that Disney has the franchise and is moving it in such exciting directions in film, television and the parks. Most of all I’m blown away with the record breaking blockbuster success of the new movie and am very proud of (J.J. Abrams) and (Kathleen Kennedy)."

He also added that the new Star Wars movie was "Much better than Cats! I'm going to see it again and again."

Giant SquidTerrorizesDelights Japan

How's this for an eldritch wonder? On Christmas Eve, a giant squid was spotted swimming in Toyama Bay in central Japan. It turned out not to have any malevolent superpowers, so there was no need to summon Gamera (the friend of children everywhere) to fight it off. Instead, it swam around the bay for a few hours while people gawked at it delightedly, because hey, giant squid!

It was captured on video by a submersible camera, and even joined by a diver, Akinobu Kimura, owner of Diving Shop Kaiyu, who swam in close proximity to the red-and-white real-life sea monster.

"My curiosity was way bigger than fear, so I jumped into the water and go close to it," he told CNN.

"This squid was not damaged and looked lively, spurting ink and trying to entangle his tentacles around me. I guided the squid toward to the ocean, several hundred meters from the area it was found in, and it disappeared into the deep sea."

CNN informs us that at about 3.7 meters (12.1 feet) long, this was a relatively small giant squid, which in the deep sea "are thought to grow as large as 13 meters (43 feet) long." It's likely the Toyama squid was a juvenile, but it's unclear why it entered the bay in the first place. Possibly reconnaissance for an invasion.

While most on the internet were merely fascinated to get a close-up look at an incredible sea creature, a vocal minority of otaku were disappointed that the squid didn't stay around long enough to be signed to a contract for tentacle porn.

Ewoks Explained? Animator Says He Took LSD While Making Return Of The Jedi 

You probably needed to know this: According to an interview with Vice, Phil Tippett, one of the animators working on Return Of The Jedi, was tripping balls while the film was being made:

“I took LSD when I was working on ‘Return of the Jedi,’ and it’s fine. It was, like, very calming. And so I decided to go back to work. When I walked into the blue-screen stage, it was like, ‘Ahhh.’ I took way too much,” he said.

Tippet [sic] went on to win an Oscar in 1984 as a result of his work on The Return of The Jedi.

The rest of the video interview is worth watching, too; not so much the linked RawStory article, which is mostly a list of famous people who also used LSD. Feh. Tippett also designed masks for the cantina crowd in the original Star Wars and did the stop-motion chess set in that movie; for Empire Strikes Back, he animated the AT-AT walkers and Tauntaun critter, now immortalized as a child's sleeping bag. 

Why Mr. Hankey Didn't Come To Your House This Year

 
 Hidey ho!

The Atlantic devoted a full article to the fascinating topic "Why It's Hard To Poop On Vacation," which appears to have been the original title (as listed on the tab for the article), although it now has the marginally more decorous headline "The Science Behind Vacation Constipation" (Let us also acknowledge another possible rejected title, as reflected in the URL: "all-i-got-for-christmas-was-constipation/"). Darned if we're going to let a good Poop Science article go without notice, so here's the ugly truth, no shit:

By one estimate, as many as 40 percent of people experience constipation while they’re away from home, due partially to their gut bacteria’s reaction to the change of setting.

“Any time you leave your general habitat, it's throwing your gut microflora off balance," says Brooke Alpert, a New York-based registered dietician. Sometimes, that begins before you reach your new destination: In some people, the very act of traveling from point A to point B can cause constipation. Movement stimulates the gut, so sitting on a plane or in a car for long periods of time can cause the intestines to clog; ignoring the urge to go while in the air or on the road can also make it more difficult once you finally sit down on the toilet.

This seems almost like a matter of peristaltic entropy: movement eventually degrades to no movement. There are many other reasons, such as time differences, interruptions of routine, stress, and so on, but we will leave some poop jokes to the readers, because we are generous that way.

Dr. Ruth Wonders About Some Funny Things (Photoshop contest!)

Dr. Ruth's tweet didn't exactly come out of nowhere (we said come, hahaha); it turns out to have been a reply to an article exploring the strange phenomenon of gentlemen whose compulsion to play with their stick shifts seems to be automatic, regardless of what kind of transmission their cars have. We love Dr. Ruth, and think her question deserves an answer. Get those Bad Photoshops going, people. If Westheimer's question doesn't get the web's creative juices flowing, as it were, then the internet is broken. Post your entries in the comments, which we do not allow, or email todoktorzoom at-sign wonkette dot com,and we'll send a nice Wonkette tote bag (suitable for covering your lap, too) to the winner.

[ Return of Kings / USA Today / CNN / RawStory / Atlantic / Ruth Westheimer on Twitter ]