GEEKNOTE: Back in 1982, Judge Greene presided over the break up of AT&T.   Stephen Colbert did a great job describing what happened next on his show. If you do a search for "colbert AT&T" you can likely find a video clip of the segment, even though it does not appear to be available on the Colbert Nation site itself.

I have a slightly different take on this. Today, we have two major phone companies in America. One of them uses a stylized version of the Death Star as it's logo and the other one has used Darth Vader as it's celebrity spokesperson.  I don't believe for a moment that either choice was accidental.

What brings this to mind is that Disney has purchased the rights to make more Star Wars movies and plans to produce episodes 7, 8 and 9, and maybe more.  Will we see more episodes like the one with Jar Jar Binks or will we get something more suitable for folks who have graduated from kindergarten? I suppose it all depends on who at Disney takes creative control over the project.

Science Fiction tends to reflect the time and culture when it is written. Orwell's Animal Farm, written in 1945, described a Stalinist society where all the animals were equal, but some were more equal than others.  The story continues to resonate because all of us can see similar problems in America today, such as congressmen that exempt themselves from the laws they pass for the rest of us.

Star Trek arrived during the 60's, a period where most of us yearned for a future where we could explore the universe and live at peace with our fellow man.

The six Star Wars movies took a somewhat darker view, pointing out the hazard to our soul of allowing ourselves to be seduced by the dark side. We had just lived through a period where the President of the United States, by all accounts, lost his moral compass and went over to the dark side before he was forced to resign in disgrace.

Where will the next three movies take us?  I suspect a lot will depend on the mood of our country over the next few years. If things continue to improve and the folks in Washington start talking TO each other rather than screaming AT each other, I suspect we will see an upbeat tenor to the new episodes If the folks in Washington fail to figure out how to work together and instead send the economy back into the tank, I'd expect to see a much darker set of movies.

I humbly submit that the temptations of the dark side are very strong in Washington.

What do you think?  Will we see the re-emergence of the Evil Empire or will the New Republic prevail when the next three films come out?

Feel free to drop me a note or leave a comment here if you have any questions about your computer or your office network.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek, Gulfcoast Networking, Inc.

http://www.gulfcoastnetworking.com

(Rob also serves as deputy mayor of the City of New Port Richey. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the position of the city.)