pampalipas oras

RANDAL: Which did you like better: Jedi or The Empire Strikes Back?

DANTE (exasperated): Empire.

RANDAL: Blasphemy.

DANTE: Empire had the better ending: Luke gets his hand cut off, and finds out Vader's his father; Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is - a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a bunch of Muppets.

RANDAL: There was something else going on in Jedi. I never noticed it until today.

DANTE: What's that?

RANDAL: All right, Vader's boss...

DANTE: The Emperor.

RANDAL: Right, the Emperor. Now the Emperor is kind of a spiritual figure, yes?

DANTE: How do you mean?

RANDAL: Well, he's like the pope for the dark side of the Force. He's a holy man; a shaman, kind of, albeit an evil one.

DANTE: I guess.

RANDAL: Now, he's in charge of the Empire. The Imperial government is under his control. And the entire galaxy is under Imperial rule.

DANTE: Yeah.

RANDAL: Then wouldn't that logically mean that it's a theocracy? If the head of the Empire is a priest of some sort, then it stands to reason that the government is therefore one based on religion.

DANTE: It would stand to reason, yes.

RANDAL: Hence, the Empire was a fascist theocracy, and the rebel forces were therefore battling religious persecution.

DANTE: More or less.

RANDAL: The only problem is that at no point in the series did I ever hear Leia or any of the rebels declare a particular religious belief.

DANTE: I think they were Catholics.

RANDAL: You know what else I noticed in Jedi?

DANTE: There's more?

RANDAL: So they build another Death Star, right?

DANTE: Yeah.

RANDAL: Now the first one they built was completed and fully operational before the Rebels destroyed it.

DANTE: Luke blew it up. Give credit where it's due.

RANDAL: And the second one was still being built when they blew it up.

DANTE: Compliments of Lando Calrissian.

RANDAL: Something just never sat right with me the second time they destroyed it. I could never put my finger on it, but something just wasn't right.

DANTE: And you figured it out?

RANDAL: Well, the thing is, the first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army - storm troopers, dignitaries - the only people onboard were Imperials.

DANTE: Basically.

RANDAL: So when they blew it up, no prob. Evil is punished.

DANTE: And the second time around...?

RANDAL: The second time around, it wasn't even finished yet. They were still under construction.

DANTE: So?

RANDAL: A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.

DANTE: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at.

RANDAL: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.

DANTE: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you so upset with its destruction?

RANDAL: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed - casualties of a war they had nothing to do with.

(notices Dante's confusion)
All right, look - you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia - this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt, but what were you talking about?

RANDAL: The ending of Return of the Jedi.

DANTE: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.

RANDAL: Like when?

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.

DANTE: Whose house was it?

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: Dominick Bambino's.

RANDAL: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.

DANTE: Based on personal politics.

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished reshingling.

RANDAL: No way!

BLUE-COLLAR MAN: I'm alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. Any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this...

(taps his heart)
not his wallet.


- scene from Clerks (by Kevin Smith)