I think George thought it was cute that it was a name and military speak and so added it because his kid thought it was funny. I don’t know that he has the smarts to be sly about anything, sadly.
“Grover!” But there was no elbow because the people around me were also Grovering.
What the fuck is going on around here lately? Did everyone get together and decide to purposely misinterpret each others posts?
Can somebody who has seen “The Phantom Menace” tell us if the droid says, “Roger, Roger,” like it’s confirming to some entity named Roger that it received a transmission? Or does it it say, “Roger roger,” merely repeating the word to emphasize the confirmation? That would clear this whole mess up.
This sort of thing is why I’m behind on sending in a couple of my Staff Reports. A Google search sometimes isn’t enough and you have to find a second, preferably primary, source to back up even the most offhand remark.
ETA: And sometimes that is a major pain and time consumer.
First of all, where I come from, that is a direct insult.
That said, this entire thread seems to be the product of mentally erasing the words “the consensus seems to be”. “Consensus” (presumably of Star Wars fans). “Seems to be”. It is certainly not difficult to find websites in which the theory is accepted.
Where the heck do you come from?
eta: also, consensus has a specific meaning which isn’t “you can find websites that agree”
Can’t be from New Jersey like his location says. Here direct insults usually start with “Your mother”. Or as The Onion said (paraphrasing) New Jersey: Telling people to go fuck themselves for over two hundred years.
Your mother publishes research articles and then asks, “What difference does it make?”.
Hey, I got your research report right here!
Yo! You know me!
Heh. I imagine it would be.
No, I imagine it’s not difficult at all to find such websites, particularly if this is indeed the concensus opinion. Presumably Robin did so when writing the article. In which case it would be easy to support the statement that, "the consensus seems to be that it’s a sly…reference to Airplane (1980). "
All right, I’m going to stop being a wiseass.
I checked through my stuff and I no longer have the report as I originally wrote it. The best I can figure out is that the sentence made sense to me at the time, and I remember having some reference about the consensus. I’m pretty good about keeping up with references and such, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that I had something that talked about a consensus.
However, I did retrace some of my steps and simply Googled “roger roger” and phantom menace (no quotes). I found one blog post (written in November, 2007, so after my report) that made the comment that the “roger roger” reminded the blogger of Airplane!. The post did not reference my report, so I’m going to assume that it was an original thought.
I also found this post which made the same connection between Airplane! and The Phantom Menace.
The fact that there are at least two direct references to TPM reminding them of Airplane! may not be a consensus, and certainly doesn’t constitute proof that Lucas intended to pay homage to Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. I will say that there is some overlap between Star Wars fans and ZAZ fans, and people into both would have picked up on the “roger roger” similarity.
Robin
In Airplane he said ‘Roger, Roger.’
In TPM the droids said ‘Roger roger.’
Problem solved.
Perhaps I can help.
I speak jive.
Does anybody have George’s personal e-mail?
That’s what I thought. It’s all in the inflection. And with a childhood watching the same space shots and crappy TV adventure shows as Lucas, shows in which people said “Roger roger” fairly often, I would say that, had I heard it inflected like that in TPM, I would connect that response to John Glenn or Sky King, if I didn’t just think of it as something a pilot or soldier would say, and would find a suggested connection with Airplane! baffling. I share many, even most, of Lucas’ references and therefore can make valid connections. This is why there are jokes on The Simpsons that make me laugh but not my kids, and the only explanation that takes less than ten minutes is, “You had to be there.” But I don’t get Miley Cyrus, so they have to explain that sort of thing to me.
On the other hand, because people are designed to connect the dots, even if there aren’t enough dots and some aren’t numbered, a person without the same cultural references might make that connection, even if it were baseless. Cecil runs into this phenomenon all the time, especially regarding the origins of “the whole nine yards,” so we must follow his lead and have good enough sources we have someone else to blame if our information is wrong.
Given that Airplane! came out the same year as The Empire Strikes Back, I seriously doubt that Lucas would consider it “old” and am even more skeptical that he would have used a joke from it as inspiration for the battle droid responses.
After all, the “Roger Roger” quote is not used to comedic effect in Episode 1, and the comic figures he has cited as inspirations for the slapstick in the film (Buster Keaton/Harold Lloyd :eek: ) are more in character for him (given his previous allusions to Kurosawa and Republic serials in the SW franchise) than a film that would be contemporaneous to him and his peers. In fact, the only real jokey-jokey in-movie references he tends to resort to our his own: Club Obi-Wan in Temple of Doom, the Lost Ark mural in Last Crusade.
To assert (by completely uncited “consensus”) that it’s from as unlikely a film as Airplane! shows remarkably lazy thinking. I think the more obvious answer is:
(a) normal operators on Earth respond to radio communications with “Roger”
(b) the Star Wars universe should resemble Earth behaviors but have their own twist
(c) let’s have them say “Roger Roger”
If you think (b) is an unlikely bridge, keep in mind that he does the same thing with the midichlorians (mitochondria), “Wizard!” (“Cool!”), the two-headed podrace announcer, Anakin’s virgin birth (biblical/mythical traditions), the “chance cube” (dice), etc.
The only real “evidence” that it might come from Airplane! is that Ep1 also has the rather unfortunate phrase “Exsqueeze Me?”, which is a much more obvious example of him possibly citing a contemporary pop culture joke (though in this case, it’s actually being used for “humor”). But generally speaking, it’s a remarkably unlikely stretch and for Airplane to be mentioned in the report suggests that nobody even bothered to try it other than very likely “George liked the way it sounded”.
Y’all are still trying to persuade the OP?
I just want to say, good luck, we’re all counting on you.
…
The OP has a valid argument.
I just read this thread - why would anyone think that this is a reference to Airplane, much less publish it as an official SD answer? Are you guys kidding? There is zero connection between the two films. The droid is not addressing someone named Roger. There is no vocal inflection to communicate or imply the comma. You hear “Roger Roger” all the time in old war movies that Lucas has repeatedly said were direct inspirations for his films.
This is ridiculous!