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https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2019/04/19/hard-noc-life-the-rise-of-star-wars-celebration/
On a new episode of Hard NOC Life, our intrepid Star Wars correspondent Constance Gibbs reports back on her snowy adventure in Chicago for Star Wars Celebration. http://traffic.libsyn.com/thenerdsofcolor/HNL140.mp3 Constance tells Keith about her first Celebration experience and being surrounded by Star Wars fans that actually weren’t terrible. She also talks about being in the room […]
File this under truly eerie and totally cool. A Tweet has been unearthed from 2012—sent by a seemingly random user—that broadcast information kept under tight secrecy until last week.
I’ve seen a lot of head-scratching things in my life on the Internet, but this one may take the cake. It all started with a text from a friend who’s a big Star Wars fan:
Intrigued, I clicked over to the Tweet:
Star Wars Episode 7 The Rise of Skywalker. The Emperor lives.
— Gabriel Garcia (@GabbyG41) November 22, 2012
What prompted that “EXPLAIN” is the Tweet’s time stamp of November 21, 2012. Twitter user Gabriel Garcia (@Gabby641) seems to have accurately nailed not only the exact Episode IX title announced only last week at Star Wars Celebration, but also mentions one of the biggest plot reveals from the trailer—that Emperor Palpatine is somehow alive.
Now, it doesn’t seem impossible that someone could independently come up with “The Rise of Skywalker” if they were sitting around thinking about potential new Star Wars episode titles. (Notably, the only “mistake” here is that Garcia predicted the title for episode 7 instead of episode 9; The Force Awakens did not come out until 2015.) But to tweet both The Rise of Skywalker and the Emperor lives?
Was Gabriel Garcia some sort of rogue Lucasfilm insider, who somehow got their hands on the studio’s plans for the trilogy? Was it just a really lucky guess? There are so many variables here. The films’ directors appear to have some degree of control over the direction of the story; would the title and plot of The Rise of Skywalker have been on anyone’s map in 2012? At the time that Garcia Tweeted, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher had not signaled that they would return to any Star Wars property.
Garcia even offers further speculation on how the Emperor survived:
And they’ve got the plot details as well! pic.twitter.com/zIvbJOFFDi
— B.NAnakin (@SpaceBALL_X) April 14, 2019
We may never know what happened here: the account has been inactive since 2013, and the rest of their Tweets appear to be irreverent observations on everyday life and news. Perhaps they were only imbued with the spirit of prophecy on that long-ago day. If this is all a coincidence, this person should play the lottery now, because probability has blessed them.
Needless to say, the Tweet’s recent rediscovery and circulation prompted a lot of attention in Star Wars circles, with thousands of likes and retweets. The reactions mirror my own amazed disbelief:
Garcia now: pic.twitter.com/E1eZdniHm0
— Vex (@VexPlays_) April 14, 2019
This aged extremely well..
— Michael (@CountYorga92) April 14, 2019
— Jimmy Jarmy (@JarmyJimmy) April 14, 2019
— #TheMan (formerly known as Józek Guardiola) (@Jozek_Guardiola) April 14, 2019
Yoda: Impossible to see, the future is.
Gabriel Garcia: Hold my Deathsticks
— Stickninja1015 (@stickninja1015) April 14, 2019
Congratulations. You did it.
— Ben Jennings (@benningsjen) April 12, 2019
— T.J. Corcoran (@TJ_Corcoran_) April 14, 2019
What’s your theory on the far-seeing tweet? Tell us in the comments.
(via Twitter, image: Disney/Lucasfilm)
We also saw some more stories as we went time-traveling:
- Letitia Wright and Gal Gadot in the upcoming new Poirot big-budget Death on the Nile remake? Mon Dieu! (via Twitter)
- High schoolers are making videos of themselves getting accepted and rejected from college and uploading said videos to YouTube for consumption. But … why? (via Washington Post)
- In less dystopian news, some Christian students are rejecting Mike Pence and his hateful brand of Christianity. (via Washington Post)
- This alone makes me want to subscribe to HBO:
HBO has released a statement in response to #Trump‘s #GameOfThrones meme: “Though we can understand the enthusiasm for ‘Game of Thrones’ now that the final season has arrived, we still prefer our intellectual property not be used for political purposes” https://t.co/wVeawJEgfp
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) April 18, 2019
- Don’t you fret, Monsieur Marius: Our very own Princes Weekes co-wrote this video on Les Miserables with Lindsay Ellis!
We’re counting down to the weekend, Mary Suevians. What did you see?
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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
Years before integration was legal in the United States, Jackie Robinson, at 28 years old, changed history by stepping onto Ebbets Field in 1947 and breaking Major League Baseball’s more than 50-year color barrier. The baseball legend also used his platform to advocate for the civil rights of African Americans well after his retirement.
In honor of the 100-year anniversary of Robinson’s life, Budweiser partnered with the Jackie Robinson Foundation to create a short film called Impact, produced by Oscar Award-winning director Spike Lee and narrated by Robinson’s daughter, Sharon Robinson. According to Budweiser reps, the film was inspired by Robinson’s quote, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” The beer company has also raised funds in support of the Jackie Robinson Museum, which is scheduled to open in New York City in December. [Watch Budweiser’s Impact film below.]
Black Enterprise spoke with Sharon Robinson about her father’s impact, working with Budweiser, and being the daughter of an American hero.
BE: How was your experience working with Budweiser on this film?
Robinson: It was an incredible experience working with Spike Lee and his team and the Budweiser Group. Everybody was very enthusiastic and creative in finding ways to keep the campaign contemporary while celebrating the accomplishments of Jackie Robinson and the breakthrough from 1947. We are thrilled they partnered with us; they are providing us great support with our museum. Spike was just a dream to work with. I was very honored that he asked me to do the voice for the Impact film.
BE: What was it like growing up in a baseball household?
Robinson: Well, I wouldn’t say I grew up in a baseball household. I was actually 7 when my father retired. My younger brother was about 4-and-a-half, and my older brother was about 9-and-a-half. We grew up more in a civil rights household. We knew our dad had played baseball, we had a trophy room, and people told us stories wherever we went. We really focused, as a family, on social changes during a time when so much was happening and eventually found our role as a family in the civil rights movement.
BE: Aside from being a trailblazer in the world of sports, what were some of Jackie’s contributions off the field?
Robinson: My dad retired in 1957 after 10 years. He was a vice president at Chock Full O’ Nuts but he had a deal with them that he can work in the civil rights movement and he was free to travel, he was able to have the time off to have a dual role. So, initially, he was fundraising for the NAACP and he would travel across the country raising money. He would travel south and we, as a family, intergraded [the] neighborhood we lived in; my brothers and I integrated our schools in Stanford, Connecticut. He would come home and share stories with us at the dining room table, and we would watch the news together as the civil rights movement was unfolding. In 1962, my dad would go on marches, he marched with Dr. King, he marched around jobs, he did a lot of that kind of activism.
Another key role my dad had played was [after] the bombing of the churches. My dad would go down and visit and help raise money to rebuild these churches. In fact, Dr. King had given him the entailment to raise money for the bombings across the country. He visited dad in Albany, Georgia, where there have been a couple of bombings and Dr. King had asked him if he would take that on as one of his fundraisers.
In 1963, things sort of changed in our family. Dad came home and said, ‘We’re going to have a family mission in finding work that you love.’ That’s when we started doing jazz concerts at our home to raise money for the civil right movements. Our very first jazz concert came after the work in Birmingham, Alabama; we raised bail money for the marchers who have been jailed. We had our second jazz concert in September right after the March on Washington. That’s when we, as a family, started doing activism, it became a family mission. That’s why it was so easy after dad died, we moved from our work in the civil rights movement to starting the Jackie Robinson Foundation and gearing our efforts toward education and leadership development.
Jackie Robinson and his daughter Sharon Robinson
BE: What are some of the recent activities going on at the Jackie Robinson Foundation?
Robinson: Currently we have almost 240 scholars who receive financial support for college and have mentorship support throughout their college years. We bring them all to New York for about four days in March; they take mentoring to another level, they attend workshops, go to cultural activities throughout NYC, and it cumulates at our annual Gala, where they dress up and play a role in the program itself and the leadership component. We just completed that networking weekend, it was great. Our alumni also participate in that conference, they also help with mentoring with scholars during that time.
BE: What should we expect to see at the Jackie Robinson Museum once it opens?
Robinson: We will we certainly see his baseball career in the museum; none of this would have happened if he did not have this tremendous career that created change within the sport and within the country. That part of the legacy was definitely not lost as we were children, it was very much there. In the museum, there will be a section on baseball accomplishments and ways kids can interact and learn how to slide, steal a home run, [along with] educational activities around baseball. What we are really hoping is to challenge young people to think about issues of race, diversity, globalization, finding your voice, all of that will be a large part of what we are going to be doing at the museum. So it’s really helping them move from Jackie Robinson in the past to what is happening in their lives, which is exactly what impact does: It doesn’t just stay in 1947, it shows what happened in 1947, continues to impact America today.
BE: What is the impact you want the Jackie Robinson Museum to have on the public?
Robinson: The impact we are hoping is that we will help children lift their voice against discrimination of all kinds and we will support that in that effort and show them our father was an activist as well as a baseball player and how he used his fame to impact others.
Sharon Robinson’s answers were edited for brevity and clarity.
The post Jackie Robinson’s Daughter on Carrying on Her Father’s Legacy and Working With Budweiser appeared first on Black Enterprise.