Christmas: The Album for Holiday Spirit: by Jedi Teen

Francesca Battistelli’s album Christmas was produced by Ian Eskelin, published by Fervent/Curb Records, and consists of eleven tracks. While many are traditional, the album includes four original tracks written by Battistelli and her collaborators. While Francesca is the current leading singer on Christian record labels, I do not enjoy her albums because of her fame, but mainly because of her music. She has a strong voice, good range, and she brings fun to her songs, even when making a point. She is also good at writing slow ballads, as well as those bouncy, get-up-and-dance songs.

Track one on Christmas is “The Christmas Song”, which Francesca has added her own flair to, as well as keeping the traditional lightheartedness of the song. Let the “kids from one to ninety-two” enjoy.

The first original track on the album is “Heaven Everywhere” which incorporates bits of the famous carol “Angles we Have Heard on High”. The point of the song is that during the Christmas season, Heaven seems to be everywhere, and people feel closer to God.

“Christmas Is”, is a collaboration by Francesca Battistelli, Ian Eskelin, and Tony Wood. While there are many humorous lines in the song such as, “Christmas is Snoopy and Charlie Brown”, “It’s praying for some place to park at the mall,” “It’s Mom going crazy ‘cause the turkey got burned,” and “Saying thanks for some gift you’ll return”, the main point is that “Christmas is Jesus!” At this point, you’ll want to say, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Track four is a beautiful arrangement of “The First Noel”, and “What Child is This?”, which are two of my favorite carols.

Once again we move from profound to silly at Christmas with Francesca’s bouncy rendition of “Marshmallow World.” You are sure to get this one stuck in your head!

Perhaps my favorite Christmas carol is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” (You should check out Enya’s Latin version). Christmas is so much more than fluffy marshmallows!

My Mom was commenting that many female singers have trouble with the sentimental song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” She said that they either sing it flat, or get the pacing wrong. I think that Francesca is one singer who gets it right. She takes all of the sadness away from the song and turns it into a bouncy song about future Christmases together, the only lyrical change being that she changes “fates allow,” into “Lord allows”. She also has fun, and does not sound like she is trying to hard to get it right.

“You’re Here”, is a profoundly beautiful original song written from Mary’s perspective (much like Amy Grant’s “Breath of Heaven”).

On track nine, Francesca adds her own style to “Joy to the World”. The  good pacing, not too slow or too fast, and simple guitar work sell this traditional song.

“Christmas Dreams” is another hit from Francesca, Ian, and Tony. This is a song about how we are “never too old for Christmas dreams”, and one that future generations will enjoy.

The final track is “Go, Tell it on the Mountain”. Francesca puts a slow pace on this song, and makes it a great way to end an album.

You can buy this at Christian bookstores or online. Francesca’s other albums are My Paper Heart, Hundred More Years, and If We’re Honest. Enjoy!

Return of the Jedi: Fantastic Farewell for Now (by Jedi Teen)

(Note: Please read my previous reviews of Star Wars episodes 4 ad 5 {New Hope and Empire})

We’re back with the final installment of the Star Wars trilogy. Three years after The Empire Strikes Back and six years after Star Wars: A New Hope the final installment of the trilogy, Return of the Jedi was released.

           

Directed by Richard Marquand with George Lucas as the executive producer, this movie picks up where The Empire Strikes Back left off, with Han Solo (Harrison Ford) still frozen in carbonate. Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) must go to Tatooine and rescue Han from the palace of the evil gangster, Jabba the Hutt, a massive slug, which is really a gigantic puppet. When Leia gets Han out of carbonate, he has hibernation sickness and can’t see. Jabba is still mad at Han because he has never paid off his debts. Han says that he will pay now, but Jabba doesn’t give him the chance. Jabba turns Leia into a slave girl with a metal bathing suit, and Han, Lando, Luke, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Chewbacca fight to get out of Jabba’s palace, while Leia strangles Jabba with her chain. After a long and brilliant sequence, the rebels escape.

Luke keeps his promise to Yoda and returns to Dahgobah to complete his Jedi training, but Yoda has grown old and weak. He says that Luke already has all the training that he requires and that to truly be a Jedi he must face Darth Vader again. After Yoda’s death, Luke goes outside and talks to the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi who tells him that he has a long lost relation (if you want to find out, watch the movie).

The rebels meet and decide to send a strike team to the forest moon of Endor. There is a new incomplete Death Star that they must destroy, and the Emperor is on it, overseeing the construction process. This new space station has a shield on the moon, and Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and the droids go down to the moon to destroy the shield. Lando takes the Millennium Falcon and the fleet plans to attack the Death Star, but the rebels must get the shield down in order for the attack to commence. They meet tribes of Ewoks who think that C-3PO is a god. They are small and furry, much like walking teddy bears. When Imperial troops arrive on the moon, the Ewoks help to bring down the Empire. Luke goes to fight Vader and the Emperor, with very surprising results!

This movie is wonderful from the beginning scroll to the end celebration with the Ewoks. You should definitely see this movie, because I couldn’t give away everything I would have liked to tell. You should watch the whole trilogy in order, 4, 5, and 6. No matter what you think, in order to truly love these movies, think about story, not special effects when compared with the prequels.

I will once again mention the “shiny version”. This version’s changes are mostly musical, with different music and more CGI members in the Jabba’s palace scene. At the very end, instead of the Ewok celebration, you hear different music and you see people celebrating all across the galaxy. I personally prefer the “non-shiny version” because I am a purist.

The music in this movie is written by John Williams, and besides the normal themes, there are two new ones. The first is an Ewok theme; the second is music for an important talk between Luke and Leia. Although there is not as much original music in this score, it is still a very good soundtrack, although not as good as Empire or New Hope. The amazing Han and Leia love theme, and Leia’s theme are hardly used at all, and the Imperial March has a bit of a new twist, but it is far less developed than it is in Empire. The “Battle of Endor” music is good and original, except for the part with the second Death Star run, in which the music mimics that of the first Death Star run.

This whole trilogy is very good, so I suggest that you watch it, if you haven’t seen it already. If you think the special effects are old and clunky, ignore them. Look for character connections, good story, and the best movie soundtracks ever. You cannot escape your destiny; watch these movies, and you will have 6+ hours of fun.

           

The Empire Strikes Back: The Galaxy's Best Star Wars Movie (by Jedi Teen)

(Note: Please read my previous review of Star Wars: A New Hope)

            Three years after the release of Star Wars: Episode 4, A New Hope, the second movie in the trilogy, Episode 5, The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980. It is easily the best movie in the trilogy (although my favorite is episode 4, but Empire runs a close second) with the same awesomely retro but really sort of cool special effects as the first movie, only just a bit better. This was the same year that the popular video game, Pac-man was released, which made for an awesome year, because I love Pac-man. If you liked episode 4 at all, this is definitely worth seeing.

           

The movie was directed by Irvin Kershner, with George Lucas as the executive producer. After the scroll, you see one of the Empire’s remote probes land on the ice planet of Hoth where the rebels have set up a new secret base. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) are all at the rebel base. A snow monster attacks Luke and hangs him by his feet. After he escapes, he sees the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi who tells him that he must go to the Dagobah system and learn from Yoda. At the moment, Luke can barely move, let alone go to some strange place and learn from a Jedi master, but Han once again rescues him in time for Luke to fight in a stunning battle with the Empire’s gigantic four-legged metal walkers. Because of their size, they are very slow and clunky. The rebels can use harpoons to wrap around their legs and bring them down. Just like in the run on the Death Star in the previous movie, we once again see that the small can defeat the large.

           

When the battle is over, Luke goes off to Dagobah to learn from Yoda with R2-D2, while Han, Leia, Chewbacca and C-3P0 get onto the Millennium Falcon and discover that the hyperdrive is broken, and they can no longer go into light speed. They have to fly into an asteroid field and back out, and they decide that they need to find a safe place to land and fix the hyperdrive.

           

Meanwhile, Luke is learning from Yoda, a 900 year old small and strange looking creature with large ears who has been training the Jedi for centuries. Now Yoda is the only Jedi left, except for Luke who is not a fully trained Jedi.

           

Han and Leia go to Cloud City, a mining colony in the clouds where they meet Han’s old friend Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) who has betrayed them to the Empire. In the end, however, Lando ends up helping Leia and Chewbacca when Han is frozen in carbonate and captured by bounty hunter, Boba Fett.

           

When Luke is in training, he sees a vision of Han and Leia in Cloud City and decides to go rescue them even though Yoda tells him to stay and complete the training. After promising Yoda that he will come back, Luke sets out for Cloud City, and gets trapped by Darth Vader, who wants to turn him to the Dark Side of the Force. In a lightsaber duel, Luke loses his hand, and almost falls off Cloud City. Leia and Lando rescue him, and the movie ends with a cliffhanger, because Han is still frozen.

           

Once again, I should mention the “shiny version”. Aside from the digital remasterization, (my own word) there are very few changes made to The Empire Strikes Back. In the snow monster scene, you see the monster eat Luke’s Ton-ton, and at the end, you see Darth Vader’s shuttle to show how he gets from Cloud City to his spaceship.

           

In the John Williams soundtrack, there are several new themes, the Imperial March, Yoda’s theme, and a new love theme for Han and Leia. It is a brilliant soundtrack and a brilliant movie. You must see it. It is your destiny.

Star Wars: Science Fiction's New Hope (a review by Jedi Teen)

Given our names, you probably figured out that I was going to do this sometime. Actually, I wanted to do a Star Wars review since before we started the blog. The very first Star Wars movie (episode 4: A New Hope) was written and directed by George Lucas in 1977. This is definitely my current favorite movie (well, maybe it’s episode 5, which will be discussed in a latter review), and yesterday was probably my tenth time seeing it this year; I’m starting to lose track.

In the 1970s, many science fiction films were low budget. With the arrival of Star Wars and its groundbreaking special effects, no one had ever seen anything like it! Even after saying this, I believe that Star Wars is not technically science fiction. I have even been known to call it a “political fairytale” with its “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, (set in the past) rescuing princesses, romance,(Han and Leia) and Jedi Knights.

At the beginning of the movie, the rebels have stolen secret plans to the evil Galactic Empire’s massive space station, the Death Star. This station has the ability to destroy an entire planet in one blow. After the scroll which appears at the beginning of all the Star Wars movies, the movie starts with a gigantic spaceship (which looks never-ending) pursuing a much smaller ship. Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) hides the plans in the memory of a small droid named R2-D2, who talks in beeps and squeaks. He and C-3PO, a protocol droid, use an escape pod to go to the desolate desert planet of Tatooine, which has two suns, where they meet Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a nineteen-year-old farm boy who desperately wants to leave the farm and go to the academy. Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), a Jedi who teaches Luke about the force.

They meet up with Han Solo (Harrison Ford) who is the pilot of the spaceship the Millennium Falcon. He and his companion Chewbacca, a large hairy wookie, volunteer to take Obi-Wan, Luke, and the droids to the Alderaan system to help Leia and deliver R2’s plans to the rebels. R2-D2 had a message for Obi-Wan, and Leia asked for help. “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope”. Han seems like he only cares about money, because he has debts to pay off, and he asks Luke and Obi-Wan to pay him a lot of money in order for him to take them to Alderaan. However, when the get to Alderaan, Leia’s home planet, it is not there. It has been destroyed by the Death Star, which has a powerful tractor beam which pulls them in. Although they do not know it, Leia is being held hostage on the Death Star. While Obi-Wan is turning off the tractor beam, Luke decides to rescue Leia, and they have quite an adventure getting out of the Death Star-shooting in the halls, almost getting smashed by a garbage masher, and, once they get off the Death Star, there is space fighting. The evil villain, Darth Vader, kills Obi-Wan, before the others can get off the Death Star.

When they get back to the rebel base, they analyze the data in R2-D2 and plan a long attack on the Death Star. Most of the rebel pilots die in the process, but Luke blows up the Death Star with the help of Han, who sends Darth Vader spiraling off into space.

Despite it being 1977, I think the special effects have held up very well. I like the ’77 version far better than the “shiny version” (Lucas’ 1997 special edition) with unnecessary CGI. And of course, this edition spawned the long Han and Greedo controversy (Greedo being a green alien who Han shoots). The question is; who shot first? Well, nobody. Han was supposed to be the only one who shot at all. Well, going back to topic, I think that the special effects and computer graphics were very good for ’77, and any CGI additions are unnecessary

These movies (Episode 4-6) are also much better stories than the prequel trilogy (episodes 1-3). I have only seen the first trilogy (4-6) and episode 1 (The Phantom Menace) but Ep. 1 was boring, and it didn’t make sense. If prequel fans are reading this, think again! The ability to use CGI is insignificant next to the power of good stories. If you haven’t seen Episode 4, watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again. If you don’t like it, you can at least learn to appreciate the John Williams score.

May the force be with you.