Godfather III — The Last Jedi

You Cannot Understand Darth Vader Unless You Understand Godfather III

 

Darth Vader is The Ultimate Father.

Luke Skywalker is not - He is 

The Ultimate Uncle.

"It turns out massacres are  a lot like sitting through Godfather III - once is enough."

Krevlornswoth of the Deathwok Clan

"I'm Your Little Cousin"

Mary Corleone,

Daughter of Commendatori Michael Corleone

Knight-Commander of the Order of St. Sebastian

Hell Hath No Fury Like
Connie Corleone

Mary Corleone walks over to Vincent.

MARY

Hi Vincent. I remember you.

VINCENT

You remember me? From where?

MARY

From the last time we had a party together.

VINCENT

Did you come down to the club?

MARY

No, it was a wedding.

VINCENT

A wedding?

MARY

I was 8; and you were 15

VINCENT

Well I, I had a lot of girlfriends when I was 15.

MARY

8 year olds?

VINCENT

Especially 8 year olds!

CUT TO: Connie.

CONNIE

Where’s Mary? 
Would somebody please hail Mary. 
Excuse me your Excellency.

CUT: Back to Mary and Vincent.

MARY

You know? 
You haven’t kissed me hello yet. 
Relatives always kiss.

VINCENT (Laughs)

Oh, now we’re related?

MARY

I’m your little cousin.

VINCENT (thinking)

Who’s your father?

MARY

I’ll give you a hint: he’s Italian.

******

CUT TO: The cafe. We overhear some of Vincent’s men about a meeting which is supposed to be taking place but isn't due to the absence of a member. 

Vincent and Mary are at a table in the cafe with the old ladies who are just leaving.
OLD LADY #1
I trust you.

VINCENT

Don't worry about it.

OLD LADY #1
Thank you very much.

MARYBye bye.

VINCENT

Enjoy yourself.

The old ladies leave.
MARY

What was that?

VINCENT
The neighborhood's in trouble…

MARY
You keep your eye out for it?

VINCENT
That's right.

MARY

And for me?

VINCENT
From now on.

MARY
I missed you all this time.

VINCENT
I missed you, too, cousin. 

I missed growing up with all my cousins. I didn't even know you and I missed you.

MARY
Do you remember stories about, our fathers, the old days?

VINCENT
Yeah, what do you wanna know?

MARY
What was Sonny like?

VINCENT
He was the Prince of the city. 

Yeah -- he died before I was born but I heard a million stories about him, he was a legend.

MARY
What about my father?

VINCENT
A great man, your father. 

He's a hero, he saved the family.

MARY
Vincent…?

VINCENT
What?

MARY
Did he kill his own brother?

VINCENT (pauses)
No.

MARY
So those’re all lies?

VINCENT
Just stories, sweetheart. Okay?

MARY
Okay. I believe you. I'm glad you're around.

VINCENT
I'm glad you're here, too. 

Vincent and Mary kiss.

*****

CUT TO: The cafe. We overhear some of Vincent’s men about a meeting which is supposed to be taking place but isn't due to the absence of a member. Vincent and Mary are at a table in the cafe with the old ladies who are just leaving.
OLD LADY #1
I trust you.
VINCENT
Don't worry about it.
OLD LADY #1
Thank you very much.
MARY
Bye bye.
VINCENT
Enjoy yourself.




MARY

What was that?

VINCENT

The neighborhood's in trouble…



MARY

You keep your eye out for it?



VINCENT

That's right.



MARY

And for me?



VINCENT

From now on.



MARY

I missed you all this time.



VINCENT

I missed you, too, cousin. I missed growing up with all my cousins. I didn't even know you and I missed you.



MARY

Do you remember stories about, our fathers, the old days?



VINCENT

Yeah, what do you wanna know?



MARY

What was Sonny like?



VINCENT

He was The Prince of The City.

Yeah -- he died before I was born but I heard a million stories about him, he was a legend.



MARY

What about my father?



VINCENT

A great man, your father.

\He's a hero, he saved the family.



MARY

Vincent…?



VINCENT

What?



MARY

Did he kill his own brother?



VINCENT (pauses)

No.



MARY

So those’re all lies?



VINCENT

Just stories, sweetheart. Okay?



MARY
Okay. I believe you. I'm glad you're around.

VINCENT I'm glad you're here, too.

CUT: Back to the drawing room. Vincent and Connie are still talking.

CONNIE
You are the only one left in this family with my father's strength. 
If anything happens to Michael, I want you to strike back.

VINCENT
I'll have everything ready.

CONNIE
You swear?

VINCENT
I swear to you.



CUT TO: A road in Corleone, Sicily. Michael is showing Kay around.


MICHAEL

Here it is. The house where my father was born. This is where they came, to take him when he was a boy. To kill him.

KAY (noticing music playing in the distance)
Wait. Listen to that.


KAY
You know, Mary's in love.

MICHAEL
Yes, I know.

KAY
With a handsome young Italian man. Dark eyes.

MICHAEL
I won't allow it. 
It's wrong. 
It's wrong and it's dangerous.

CUT TO: A square. Michael and Kay are watching a puppet show. A man standing beside the puppet tent provides the dialogue in Italian to accompany the actions of the puppets.

PUPPETEER (as female puppet)

"Oh father, my father! Give me some time to pray to the Lord."

(then, to the audience)

"The Baroness of Carini had betrayed her husband and fallen in love with her cousin."

(then, as male puppet)

"There will be no forgiveness!"

(then, to the audience)

"Her father stabbed her through the heart."

(continues, in Italian…)

KAY
Honor, huh?

*****

MICHAEL

Oh Mary. Mary you're such a warm-hearted girl, you always were.

MARY

I love my family.

MICHAEL

Even your cousin Vincent?

MARY

I really love him.

MICHAEL

He's your first cousin.

MARY

Then I love him first.

MICHAEL

Mary, you can't see him. 
Just don’t see him any more…

ANTHONY

He’s right – it’s too dangerous…

MICHAEL

Mary, listen to me. 
You can't see him anymore. 
Not in that fashion.

MARY

No.

MICHAEL

Please promise me…

MARY

No!

MICHAEL

Obey me on this Mary!

MARY (runs off)

No, dad!

ANTHONY

Mary's smart, dad, she'll understand eventually.

CUT TO: a room in the compound. Mary and Vincent are kissing again to Elvis Costello’s "Miracle Man" blasting in the room. Vincent says something to Mary in Italian.

CUT TO: Michael's Room on the compound. Michael is shaving. Vincent enters.

VINCENT

You wanted to see me?

MICHAEL

Yeah. I want you to do something for me.

VINCENT

Okay.

MICHAEL

It’s dangerous.

VINCENT

Good. I'm in. What do you need?

MICHAEL

I want you to sell your soul to Don Altobello. 
To betray me.

VINCENT

He'll never believe me.

(then, as he offers to shave Michael)

Here…

MICHAEL

That depends.

VINCENT (begins to shave Michael with the razor)

Sit down.

MICHAEL

I have an idea. See if you can learn how high Altobello is connected. 
Arrange a meeting. You say how devoted you are to me. 
Tell him your problems. You ask for his help.

VINCENT

What problems?

MICHAEL

That you want to run away with my daughter. 
Only you know that if you do, I will become your enemy.

VINCENT

You know I'd never do that, Uncle Mike.

CUT TO: Altobello’s residence. Vincent is doing as Michael asked, and talking to Don Altobello. As they talk we can still hear Michael's instructions as a voice over mixed in.

MICHAEL (OS)

I know. You ask Altobello to speak to me. To further the marriage.

DON ALTOBELLO (to Vincent)

You’re cousins … Michael was always a little old fashioned.

MICHAEL (OS)

Explain to him how, you can never be part of my, legitimate world. That you want your own family.

VINCENT (to Altobello)

…straighten out with Joey Zasa… 
If you could use your friendship to persuade him. 
I would be indebted to you forever.

(then, gesturing like Young Vito Corleone from Godfather Part II, with fingers tapping his temple)

A Corleone, knows the value of such a friend.

DON ALTOBELLO

So, then, you would work for me?

VINCENT

Si.

CUT TO: Back to present, with Vincent shaving Michael.

MICHAEL
Remember, if he hints that he wants you to betray me, get insulted. 
Because that's his trap.

CUT TO: Future, Altobello and Vincent talking. Vincent has his back to Altobello.

DON ALTOBELLO
You're not telling me the whole truth, Vincenzo. Isn't it true, with Michael gone, the girl controls everything?

VINCENT (turning to Altobello)
You leave the girl out of this.

DON ALTOBELLO Of course, you love her. 
And she loves you.

CUT TO: Mary's room. Mary is looking at pictures of Apollonia and Michael in a photo album.

CUT: Back to the balcony with Altobello and Vincent.

DON ALTOBELLO
I guessed it Vincenzo, huh?

VINCENT
You're a wise man, Don Altobello. I'm going to be learning a lot from you.

DON ALTOBELLO
The richest man is the one with the most powerful friends.


DON ALTOBELLO
It's my duty to make the introductions.

(then, introducing Don Lucchesi to Vincent)

Don Lucchesi…

DON LUCCHESI (to Vincent)
Don Altobello tells me you have good character, strong, a man of respect.

DON ALTOBELLO (to Lucchesi)
This is the hero who put Joey Zasa in his grave. 
If we'd known of his existence, we would never have backed Joey.

DON LUCCHESI
No one wants another Joe…

(then, to Vincent)

Let me be your friend. Even the strongest man needs friends.

VINCENT
I'm flattered. 
But you're a man of finance and politics, Don Lucchesi, these are things I don't understand.

DON LUCCHESI
You understand guns?

DON LUCCHESI (smiling)
Finance is a gun. 
Politics, is knowing when to pull the trigger.

VINCENT
How can I help?

DON LUCCHESI (in Italian)
"Come…"
vincent and Don lucchesi walk away

DON ALTOBELLO
Blessed is the peacemaker, for he can be can be called a child of God.

Do Kind Things

Asclepius

" Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt because he brought Hippolytus back from The Dead and accepted GOLD for it.

Other stories say that Asclepius was killed because, after bringing people back from The Dead, Hades thought that no more dead spirits would come to the underworld. 

Because of this, he asked his brother Zeus to stop him. 

This angered Apollo who in turn killed the Cyclopes who made the thunderbolts for Zeus.

For this act, Zeus suspended Apollo from the night sky and commanded Apollo to serve 

Admetus, King of Thessaly 

 for a year. 

Once the year had passed, Zeus brought Apollo back to Mount Olympus and revived the Cyclopes that made his thunderbolts.

After Asclepius’s death, Zeus placed his body among the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus (“the Serpent Holder”)."

Some sources also stated that Asclepius was later resurrected as a god by Zeus to prevent any further feuds with Apollo.

[ His Apotheosis is unearned... ]

It was also claimed that Asclepius was instructed by Zeus to never revive The Dead without his approval again.

Virtue Signalling

"But, Credits, •HAND-WAVE• Will Do Fine."

"No, They Won't."

June 21, 1995|JOHN DART | TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Southern Baptist Convention, born of a North-South split over slavery, on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a resolution lamenting its pro-slave-owner roots and repenting for lingering racism.

The resolution was approved by a show of hands at the denomination's annual meeting in Atlanta, a gathering of nearly 15,000 voting clergy and lay people. It is the largest mass expression of regret and repentance so far in a wave of contrition for historical wrongs voiced by church leaders from the Pope to evangelical Christian groups.

The 15.6-million-member denomination--the largest in U.S. Protestantism--has made strides in racial and ethnic diversity in recent years. The 39,000 Southern Baptist churches include about 1,900 black congregations and, in California, many Latino and Asian American churches.

But the resolution "to repudiate historic acts of evil, such as slavery, from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest" was deemed a needed prerequisite to improved relations with African Americans. The Southern Baptist Convention broke with Baptists in the North in 1845, in part, over whether slaveholders could serve as missionaries.

"We apologize to all African Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime, and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously or unconsciously," said the statement, which also asked for forgiveness from African Americans.

Richard Land, director of the denomination's Christian Life Commission, whose biracial task force drafted the statement, said Tuesday that while he cannot repent for his great-great-great-grandfather, who was a slave owner, he is "eager to apologize and express remorse for that."

In November, Pope John Paul II declared that the Roman Catholic Church cannot enter the third Christian millennium without purifying itself through repentance of past errors. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America last year confessed that its founder, Martin Luther, engaged in anti-Jewish diatribes, which in turn were employed by anti-Semites over the centuries.

At the Georgia Dome on Tuesday, the Southern Baptists stood and applauded when the resolution passed after only 12 minutes of discussion and little dissension. The Rev. Gary Frost of Youngstown, Ohio, the denomination's second vice president and the first African American to reach that post, accepted the apology on behalf "of [ALL] my black brothers and sisters."

"But, Credits, •HAND-WAVE• Will Do Fine."

"No, They Won't."

Ooh, I Struck a Nerve

Ooh, I Struck a Nerve.

Meant to.

Maybe that's how you become strong...

King Lear is a Helluva Play.

I'm Spartacus

I'm Spartacus.

People Who Annoy You

Naggers w. Attitude

Technology

Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology

Ain't got time to make no apology

Soul radiation in the dead of night

Love in the middle of a fire fight

Honey, gotta strike me blind

Somebody gotta save my soul

Baby, penetrate my mind

And I'm The World's Forgotten Boy

The one who's searchin', searchin' to destroy

(The Doctor leads the way up a spiral staircase.) 

ACE: 

This is a spaceship? 

Time's Champion :

More than that. 

It's a craft for travelling between dimensions. 

ACE: 

It's more like being in some huge animal. Who built it? 

Time's Champion :

It wasn't built, it was grown. 

ACE: 

Who grows spaceships? 

Time's Champion :

Very advanced bioengineers. 

ACE: 

Ask a stupid question. 

Well, if they're grown, how do they fly? 

Time's Champion :

Magick.

ACE: 

Oh, be feasible, Professor. 

Time's Champion :

What is Clarke's law? 

ACE: 

"Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magick. "

Time's Champion :

Well,

 THE REVERSE IS •ALSO• TRUE

ACE: 

"Any advanced form of magick is indistinguishable...

(They arrive at the chamber with the knight and the sword in the stone.) 

 

...from technology."

British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated three adages that are known as Clarke’s three laws, of which the third law is the best known and most widely cited:

1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

technology (n.)

1610s, "a discourse or treatise on an art or the arts," from Greek tekhnologia "systematic treatment of an art, craft, or technique," originally referring to grammar, from tekhno- (see techno-) + -logy. 

The meaning "study of mechanical and industrial arts" (Century Dictionary, 1902, gives examples of "spinning, metal-working, or brewing") is first recorded 1859. High technology attested from 1964; short form high-tech is from 1972.

evolve (v.)

1640s, "to unfold, open out, expand," from Latin evolvere "to unroll, roll out, roll forth, unfold," especially of books; figuratively "to make clear, disclose; to produce, develop," from assimilated form of ex "out" (see ex-) + volvere "to roll," from PIE root *wel- (3) "to turn, revolve." 

Meaning  "to develop by natural processes to a higher state" is from 1832. 

Related: Evolved; evolving.

Those Who Have Swords, and Know How to Use Them

The Meek shall inherit The Earth - 
Not what you think it means

The Button

Well, now...

Everyone's talking to me. 

No one's talking to each other.

Someone isn't 

here. 

Button, button... who's got the button? 

My money's on : 

The Witch.

Red's a Bad Girl...

The Man Behind The Winkies is a Woman.

It's Her.

She's The Man Behind The Winkies.

She's The One Who's Doing It.

When I started working on this problem - or I guess when when it started working on me - was probably really in the mid 80s.

And I found myself suffering from two things one was a very lengthy sequence  of nightmares about nuclear destruction 

and they're very affecting dreams, I guess you could say.

And associated with that was a sense of  amazement that a dream that was that  awful could reflect a reality that could 

be that awful, and an additional  amazement out the fact that despite the 

production of thousands and tens and  thousands of weapons of unimaginable 

destruction and that qualitative 

qualitative change in human capacity 

that represented that people could go 

about their day-to-day lives without 

acting as if anything fundamental 

whatsoever had changed now I've never 

really been able to figure out why that 

disturbed me so much when it seemed to 

not disturb to any profound degree most 

of the people I knew.

SYCORAX: Who exactly are you? 

Perfect-10: 

Well, that's The Question. 

SYCORAX: 

I demand to know who you are! 

Perfect-10: 

I don't know! 

See, there's the thing. I'm The Doctor, but beyond that, I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. 

Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right old misery? Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob. 

And how am I going to react when I see this, a great big threatening button. 

A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right? 

Let me guess. It's some sort of control matrix, hmm? Hold on, what's feeding it? 

(The Doctor opens the base of the pillar under the button.) 

And what've we got here? Blood? Yeah, definitely blood. Human blood. A Positive, with just a dash of iron. Ah, but that means blood control. Blood control! Oh, I haven't seen blood control for years. You're controlling all the A Positives. Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem. 

Because I really don't know who I am. 

I don't know when to stop. 

So if I see a great big threatening button which should never, ever, ever be pressed, then I just want to do this. 

(He hits the button.) 

ROSE + HARRIET: No!

Fasting Works.

Space Wizards

The Next Lion

HARVEY: 

It's The Law of The Jungle now, mate, innit? 

LEN: 

Hmm. There are these two blokes, right? 

In a tent, in the jungle. 

HARVEY: 

You got another one for me, ain't you? Go on, then, go on. 

LEN: 

It's really dark, and they hear this terrible noise outside the tent. 

This terrible roaring noise. 

And one bloke turns to the other bloke and he says, 

' Do you hear that? '

HARVEY: 

What? 

LEN: 

I said, 'Did you hear that? '

HARVEY: 

Oh, right, yeah. 

LEN: 

' That was a lion. '

(The Doctor starts to pay attention to the anecdote.) 

LEN: 

And the other bloke, he doesn't say anything.

He just starts putting on his running shoes. 

And the other bloke turns to him and says, 

' What are you doing? 

You can't outrun a lion!! '

The bloke turns to him and says, 

' I don't have to outrun the lion. '

HARVEY: (feeble laugh) 

Don't get it. 

Time's Champion : 

He doesn't have to outrun the lion, only his friend. 

Then the lion catches up with his friend and eats him. 

The Strong survive, The Weak are killed. 

The Law of the Jungle. 

HARVEY: 

Oh yeah. Very clever. 

Time's Champion : 

Yes, very clever — if you don't mind losing your friend. 

But what happens when The Next Lion turns up...? 

(The cat is watching The Doctor.) 

LEN: 

What next lion? 

(The black cat burst out from behind the shelf of cat food and runs out of the shop.) 

Time's Champion : 

I think you'd better get your running shoes on, gentlemen.

Peterson: 

So I got a story to tell you that you might like because I’ve thought a lot about that Use of Language. 

Because language can be used as camouflage, 

and so here’s the story :

I think I got this from Robert Sapolsky. 

So he was talking about zebras, 

and zebras of course have stripes. 

And hypothetically that’s associated with camouflage. 

But it’s not a straightforward association because 

zebras are black and white, 

and  they’re on the veldt 

along with The Lions. 

The Lions are camouflaged because they’re grass colored, but the bloody zebras are black and white. 

You can see them like 15 miles away.

So biologists go out to study zebras, 

and they’re making notes on a zebra. 

And they watch it, then they look down 

at their notes, and then they look up. 

But they think, ‘Uh oh, I don’t know 

which zebra I was looking at.’ 

The camouflage is actually against the herd because 

a zebra is a herd animal, not an individual. 

So the black and white stripes break up 

the animal against the herd, 

so you can’t identify it.

So this was a quandary for the biologists, 

so they did one of two things. 

One was drive  a jeep up to the zebra herd, 

and use a dab of red paint 

and dab the haunch of the zebra, 

or tag it with an ear tag 

like you use for cattle. 

The Lions would kill it. 

So as soon as it became identifiable 

the predators could organize their hunt 

around that identifiable animal.

That’s why there’s the old idea that lions and predators take down the weak animals, but they don’t. 

They take down the identifiable animals. 

So that’s the thing: if you stick your damn head up, you get picked off by the predators. 

One of the things that academics seem to do is congregate together in herd-like entities, and then they share a language. And the language unites them.

As long as they share the same set of linguistic tools among themselves, they know that there isn’t anybody in the coterie that’s going to attack them or destabilize the entire herd. 

And that seems to me to account for that impenetrable use of language.

It’s group protection strategy. It has absolutely nothing to do with the search for. . . It’s the search for security within a system and not the desire to expand The System.

Paglia: So true. To me it’s blatantly careerist because it was about advancement, and it was also about the claim that somehow they have like special expertise. 

This is a special technical language. 

"No one else can understand it. Only we can."

A Parent is Not a Sponsor

RIKER: (to the empty chair) 

What would you do..?

(doorbell) 

Cmdr. RIKER: 

Come.

GUINAN: 

May I speak to you, Captain?

Cmdr. RIKER:

Actually, Guinan, I...

GUINAN: 

You know, Picard and I used to talk every now and again, when one of us needed to. 

I guess I'm just used to having the Captain's ear. 

(She sits in Picard's chair) 

Cmdr. RIKER: 

What's on your mind?

GUINAN: 

I've heard a lot of people talking down in Ten Forward. 

They expect to be dead in the next day or so. 

They Trust You.

They Like you.

But they don't believe anyone can save them.

Cmdr. RIKER: 

I'm not sure anyone can.

GUINAN: 

When a man is convinced he's going to die tomorrow, 
he'll probably find a way to make it happen.

The only one who can turn is around is you. 

Cmdr. RIKER: 

I'll do the best I can.

GUINAN: 

You're going have to do something you don't want to —

You have to let go of Picard.

Cmdr. RIKER: 

Maybe you haven't heard. 

I tried to kill him yesterday.

GUINAN: 

You tried to kill whatever that is on the Borg ship. Not Picard. 

Picard is still here with us in this room. 

If he had died, it would be easier. 

But he didn't.

They took him from us a piece at a time. 

Did he ever tell you why we're so close?

Cmdr. RIKER:
No.

GUINAN: 

Well, then let me just say that  

Our relationship is beyond friendship, 

Beyond Family. 

And I will let him go. 

And you must do the same. 

There can only be one Captain.

Capt. RIKER: 

It's not that simple. 

This was his crew. 

He wrote the book on this ship. 

GUINAN: 

And the Borg know everything he knows.  
It's time to throw that book away. 

You must let him go, Riker. 

It's the only way to beat him. 

The only way to save him. 

And that is now your chair. 

Captain. 

(Riker sits) 

WESLEY: 

We're approaching the Wolf system, Captain.

RIKER: 

On my way.