Today’s WordPress Discover theme is the idea of “hidden,” organized by Ben Huberman. Last night on Twitter, I saw a tweet that included a landscape by fantasy painter Boris Vallejo. The landscape is Cloud City, the Star Wars locale where the Sith’s Lord Vader captures Han Solo in preparation to return the smuggler and hero to an otherworldly gangster who Solo owes.
The landscape of Cloud City, the carbon freezing chamber which Vader utilizes to hold Solo without fail, is painted hidden by steam, except for the sight of Solo’s friends and the traitor Lando Calrissian. Cloud City is hidden in the painting much as Darth Vader is hidden underneath his Sith mask. The Sith Order is an ancient order of Force-wielders devoted to the dark side of the Force, as starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith explains.
The Force is an energy field that is wielded by Jedi on the side of good and Sith on the side of evil. An enduring saga, the timeline for this hidden landscape of Cloud City refers to the culmination of events in the 1980s The Empire Strikes Back film. Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia swears her love for Han Solo.
Billy Dee Williams, as Lando Calrissian, does his best to rescue the Princess from Darth Vader, but at the cost of surrendering Solo to Vader, and Anthony Daniels as droid character C-3P0 is in pieces, having been shot by a laser blaster when he strayed around the wrong corner a few scenes earlier. Fortunately, C-3P0 is mechanical. C-3P0’s master at the time of events in The Empire Strikes Back is incongruously absent from the painting.
It would be Jedi apprentice Luke Skywalker, who comes to the realization that his friends are in terrible danger from Vader and that he has precious little time to train as a Jedi. The order of Jedi is a counterpart to the evil order of Sith.
Today Disney explained on Twitter that they have an interest in taking advantage of May the 4th tweets with the hashtag #maythefourth. May the 4th is a long running day that commemorates the Star Wars film franchise with the idea that the Star Wars toast “May the Force be with you” translates to “May the Fourth be with you,” as is well known as Star Wars fans. Disney announced today that hashtagging a tweet with #maythefourth, while making it eligible to be celebrated by Disney on Twitter, automatically makes that tweet the property of Disney themselves.
It isn’t a doable contingency. Clownfish TV on YouTube explained today that while Disney does own the trademark “May the Fourth,” the trademark is only guarded where apparel and events are concerned. There is no protection for Disney when Star Wars fans tweet #maythefourth about their love of Star Wars.
However, Disney clearly is trying to get protective of the trademark with the idea of putting their authority to use in the face of anyone who would tweet #maythefourth. Even that idea that Disney would like control of the hashtag #maythefourth could be enough to dispel an interest in tweeting the hashtag. The recognition from Disney would be nice, but implying that Disney has control of the hashtag isn’t right when they really don’t.
I would hope that Disney’s posturing to defeat tweets that don’t meet the bar that Disney would like to hold presents the idea that the sequel trilogy of Star Wars films, while fine movies I think, is somewhat irresponsible when it comes to respecting the film fandom. Clownfish TV didn’t even watch The Rise of Skywalker.
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